Okay, so I’m posting an unprecedented two days in a row. On one hand, I know I need to be more spontaneous with my posts, because that’s the only way I’ll ever post anything. On the other, spontaneity interferes with any kind of organization to the posts. I don’t really want this blog to be about me. I do want it to be about my thoughts and opinions. In any case, this current post is about me, regardless.

I would say that I’m a socially inept loser, but that would sound like every other blog on the net, so I’ll try to  avoid whining ad nauseum about my a various problems and failings, both real and imagined. That said, I’m in the apartment alone again tonight, and once again I’m struggling to find anything on the tube (see my previous post). Tonight I was lucky enough to stumble across “A Time to Kill”, which I’ve never seen all of. It took about 5 minutes for me notice that this movie has an unbelievable number of well-known actors. Matthew McConaughey, Sandra Bullock, Kevin Spacey, Samuel L. Jackson, Donald Sutherland, Keifer Sutherland, Ashley Judd, and Chris Cooper (who played the father in “October Sky”, among other things). I’m also pretty sure I spotted the annoying police officer from “Flightplan” and the woman who tried to get off the bus and got herself blown-up in “Speed”. (Incidently, John Grisham is a large part of why I decided not to try to become a lawyer. The other factors were the massive surplus of lawyers in this country and the fact that all lawyers are scumbags. They may not mean to be, or even be conscious of it. It’s just something about the whole process of law school and the Bar exam and the rest of it that reduces them to worms. But I digress…) I haven’t read A Time to Kill but I know Hollywood has a nasty habit of twisting Grisham’s books – Runaway Jury for example – so I’ll take the movie with a grain of salt.

Here I am, stuck eating hot dogs without buns and ramen. This is kinda sad. I need to study for the Chinese and CS tests I have Monday, but I guess I should be thankful I don’t have a Chinese CS test.

I guess I’m gonna sign off now. Nothing great to say.

Oh, just noticed that major jerk who plays Eddie Murphy’s annoying medical colleague from “Doctor Dolittle”. And wow, just realized that Ashley Judd uses this awesome, cold monotone for almost everything she says. It may not be good for acting purposes, but it’s very distinctive.

Tonight was the first time I saw John Carpenter’s “Halloween”, yet another example of my haphazard efforts to watch horror movies just to prove to myself that I can. There was nothing else on the Tube, so I started watching the movie with my laptop on hand to provide a distraction if need be (I was also finishing Macroeconomics hw).

I’ll say right away that if I had anyone with me, that movie wouldn’t have been scary in the least, but I was in the apartment by myself and given my overactive imagination, I was a little creeped out. Emphasis on little

“Halloween” may have been terrifying back in the late 70’s, but given the special effects available today, there wasn’t much to it. It’s hard to be afraid when a first person camera view requires the cameraman to do the stabbing. The most effective element was undoubtedly the music, but as it was essentially the same theme throughout the film, it began to lose its ability to create suspense and uneasiness after awhile.

It was interesting to see a young Jamie Lee Curtis, who I think did a great job with the character she was given. (Incidentally, I barely recognised her at first, not because of how she looked compared to what I’m used to, but because the first 30 minutes of the movie used all these incredibly distant shots that made it difficult to see anything.) It’s easy to hold a poorly written character against the actor, rather than against the writer or director. Jamie’s Laurie Strode, while supposedly intelligent, was essentially an idiot. How many times can you turn your back on a monster/villain you think is dead, only to find out it’s not. OK, so that only happened twice, but that’s 2 times too many. Do you really need someone to tell you not to take your eyes of your attacker, especially when you know he’s a murderer?

I did like the movie’s fairly obvious moral stance, which Carpenter denies exists, according to Wikipedia.

In the end, the movie scared me enough that I waited until my roommate got in before going to bed, but I’ve been known to do that without having watched a horror picture.

Worth watching once, but hardly a favorite. I won’t be making a point to watch any of the sequels either, but if the opportunity arises out of convenience, I may sit one out. I’ll go middle of the road and give “Halloween” 5 out of 9 tails.

I haven’t posted in over a month, and after I purposely said that I was going to try to post more. I meant too, but Tech’s essentially free high-speed internet is somewhat intoxicating. Not really, but it is distracting.

I’m back at Tech now, and I should probably be studying. I may try to get my CS major roommate to help me with some of the blog stuff here, since I’m sure he knows something about cascading spreadsheets. Even though I wanted to keep my blog secret from my friends and anonymous from my readers (all 2 of them) he knows about it, mainly cause I had to ask for his help when I set it up. I’m not very computer savvy. 

It’s almost pointless to blog, since I’ve had a hundred hits over the course of like ten posts in 4 or 5 months, and one comment, which I appreciated, but did not respond to. (I felt that I had answered that person’s question in the post he was talking about, but oh well). I’m gonna try a few things to get more people reading. I entered kitsune23@wordpress.com in the Slivers section of “The Technique”, the GT newspaper. (For anyone who doesn’t know, the Sliver section is essentially a column where anyone can log on to the ‘Nique’s website and enter a line of text to appear in the paper. It’s extremely random.) I did notice a few hits on the blog after I posted that sliver. I’ll try that again pretty soon, but doing it every week would probably be counter-productive, especially if I’m not doing a good job of updating.

As far as my life goes, nothing too amazing is happening. I’m trying to take part in more activities this semester. What else? I did get into a Chinese class, even though they had been full. That didn’t last long though, once people got a feel for the class. Anyway, that means that I’m now taking Japanese and Chinese. I’m either stupid or crazy. Probably both.

Watched the Avatar: The Last Airbender season premiere on Friday, that was pretty cool. Nothing mind-blowing, but it was a good start, and greatness in A:tLA is never really found in one episode. It’s the scope of the series all together that makes it truly excellent. I intend to write more on that in a soon-to-come entry, but I won’t make promises I might not keep. Also saw the Heroes premiere tonight, but I was distracted (looking for food) and will have to watch it again online tomorrow to catch it clearly. Disappointed cause Ali Larter wasn’t in this episode.

I should probably try to avoid using emoticons in my posts.

I was also reading Snafu Comics at http://www.snafu-comics.com/ Sorta funny, but the cussing was a damper on the humor. If I sound like a prude, $&#% you. And you can quote me on that. (In fact, I may Sliver that right now).

Muffin-tops

kitsune23

It’s been a long time since I posted anything here, but I hope for that to change very soon. I’ve been at home and all we have there is dial-up, so I usually don’t put for the effort to post. I’m about to return to Georgia Tech, however, where they tell us the connection speed rivals that of the CIA. In any case, I hope to be posting a lot very soon.

For now, I’ll leave you with one random question that I had the other day:

If gay siblings have sex, is it still considered incest?

I recently celebrated my 19^th birthday, and as usual, it was somewhat depressing. If you think that’s weird, then I have to say I agree with you. No one my age has any right to be depressed about getting older. They have to wait until they turn 30 or so. (At least, that’s about how it sounds if you listen to people 30 and older).

            Here’s a question for you: when you were a little kid, say, 4 to 9 years old, could you not wait to grow up, or were you happy with things staying as they were? Did time seem to pass quickly for you, or did weeks, weekends, summers, last forever?. (Yes, I know that’s two questions).

            I’ll answer my own questions. Life has always seemed to go by fast to me, and I never really wanted to grow up. I get a little depressed on my birthdays because it feels like I just had one recently.

            And I have a theory about why I feel this way.

            I read. A lot. Both books and comic books. Many of the books are long, drawn out fantasy series. (Yes, I’m well aware that I am a total nerd). In many of these series, such as Harry Potter, A Song of Ice and Fire, A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Inheritance Trilogy, and The Wheel of Time, consecutive books often come out years apart, and yet, for the characters, sometimes only a few weeks, days or minutes have passed. They’re exactly as I left them when I finished the last book. In one way this is very reassuring because it makes it feel to me as though no time has passed. After going through a year’s worth of stuff, I come back to the series and there’s Rand al’Thor or Arya Stark, or Violet, Klaus, and Sunny, right where I left them. (Incidentally, I’m currently awaiting The Elves of Cintra, the second book in Terry Brooks’ “Genesis of Shannara” trilogy, due out August 28, according to Wikipedia.) I had a similar experience with “The Lord of the Rings” films. I walk in to see “The Return of the King” and Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli are just now partying about winning the battle of Helms Deep, which I saw a year ago. And of course, with comics, the characters practically never age.

            The point is that when I focus on the books or characters, time seems to move slowly, and that’s what I did for years. But on my birthday, I focus on me, and the feelings that no time has passed – which I believe are compounded by the books, movies, etc. – backfire on me. These feelings are made worse by the fact that, while the books may alter my perception of time, they also consume real time.

            I love reading. It’s probably my favorite activity. But I also know that when I’m 50, I won’t look back on all my reading and think, “Gosh, those were the days. Good times.” Of course, the same applies to video games, television, commuting, jail, and drug-induced stupors. But you get the point. Although reading is enjoyable and self-improving, it is not fulfilling.

            Which just makes it even more obvious how much I need a Time-Turner. Although I’m not sure that would solve the aging problem.

 Spoiler Warning: Don’t say I didn’t warn you, because you just read it.

I finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on Monday night, just under 36 hours after I obtained my copy.

I originally intended this final post in my little series to be kind of look back encompassing all seven volumes in the series. But around the time Harry was plunging into the Pensieve to observe Snape’s memories it became obvious that much consideration would be required on my part before I could do the series justice. That said, I’ve decided to make this post something more along the lines of a simple review, Hopefully at some point in the future I’ll have time to write the paper Harry so richly deserves.

Deathly Hallows was, of course, far off the beaten path of the preceding HP books, with Harry not returning to Hogwarts until the book’s ­­– and series’ – climax was beginning. By sequestering Harry, Ron, and Hermione away by themselves, Rowling gave us several hundred pages of intense friendship study. That makes sense, because that’s really the last of it that we’re going to get.

Personally, I was disappointed with the first hundred pages or so. Everything up until the Bill and Fleur’s wedding just didn’t seem to fit. The best part of this section, obviously, was Harry’s escape from Number 4 Privet Drive, which amounted to the first magical high-speed chase that I’ve encountered.

            Hallows may honestly be my favorite HP book, most likely because it is the most adult, which is really Rowling’s genius. In my opinion, these books should never be read, at least for the first time, all at once. Each book escalates in seriousness and maturity. Properly read, a teenager can follow along as Harry ages, so that he is sharing similar experiences at the same time. Obviously, because these are children’s books, Rowling came nowhere close to depicting the relationship situations accurately, because many 17 year olds do a heck of a lot more than kiss. She captures the tone and attitudes extremely well though, in my opinion.

            The epilogue was melancholy, which is to be expected, but Rowling did something there that seemed very unusual. Epilogues are usually either important situations, or all-revealing. Rowling chose a suitably mundane situation for her epilogue that reveals everything we expected about the characters without telling us too much.  

Finis

As I mentioned at the end of Part 2, this will most likely be a short post. However, I happy to inform that there will still be some vaguely interesting info here (in my opinion).

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is a scant five hours and twenty minutes away (this due to the fact that I am currently with my family in a rural town in western Wyoming. If I had stayed at home in the ATL I would have the book two hours sooner.) In any case, since Part 2 I have reserved my copy at the local bookstore, which apparently earned me a 20%. This is the most frustrating thing, because Barnes & Noble (which, this being a rural town in western Wyoming, is not present. Forgive the fragment. Likewise, Borders and other notable bookstores are conspicuously absent) is giving members a generous 40% that gets the book down to a mere $18 and something. I’ll be paying nearly $30. Still, it’s either that or wait, and, shallow, spoiled, impatient, and extravagant as it may seem, I am going to get that book tonight. The local store is, however, a convenient walk from our hotel and will be having a party. I have mixed emotions about this. I really have no interest in go to said party, especially when I have no one to go with and will be surrounded by children who will be up well past their bedtimes at that point. In the other corner (I am trying to find different ways of saying “On the other hand”) is the fact that I have yet to obtain my copy of a Harry Potter book at midnight when it is being released and this is my last chance. The party starts at 10, but I’ll probably show up at 11:15 or so. Whatever.

Anyway, on to the real subject of this post. For the longest time, I was sure that when the series ended, Harry would become the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts. It made sense. Hogwarts could never keep a DADA teacher and Harry was great at it. But now I’m not so sure. Ever since the fifth book, it became too obvious that Harry could become a teacher. It’s still a possibility, but I hate to think that Rowling would be so obvious. Other than that, I’m sure that Harry will survive, as will Ron and Hermione. The biggest question for me is how Harry can hunt down approximately 5 Horcruxes when he has essentially no idea where any of them are. J.K. practically dropped an entire new plotline on us at the very end of the series! I read one interesting theory online, however, that posited that we have already encountered I Hocrux in each book of the series. Another suggested that Harry himself might somehow, through his connection to Voldemort, be one of the Horcruxes himself. Of course, that would mean that Harry would have to die just to kill Voldemort, which I still don’t think will happen. This is a children’s series after all. I’m not sure the main protagonist is allowed to die in a children’s series.

That’s all I can think of to say. I don’t have much in the way of predictions. Lots of thoughts on the series on the whole but those will have to wait until Part 4, after I’ve read the last book. I have a busy and slightly dirty weekend ahead, and since I don’t want to nasty up my copy of the book, I may have to put off reading it until the ride home, which will begin on Sunday night.

Oh look, only 5 hours and 9 minutes to go…

                                                            To Be Continued

            I’m all but too late in posting this, because Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows comes at midnight tonight. I wanted to have a trio or perhaps a full quartet of posts on this topic, but events have conspired against me and I just haven’t had any time until now.

            The subject of Part 1 was essentially a timeline of my reading of the books, which I admit is hardly an engaging read. Part 2, however, is about the Harry Potter movies and I hope that I can make it a little more interesting.

            I actually didn’t see “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” when it was released in theaters, and was forced to rent it at a later date. I’ve seen all of the subsequent films on the big screen, however, and have been pleased, if not bowled over, each time. At the time of my last post I actually had not yet been able to see the fifth film, but that problem has now been happily remedied.

            Most people who have read the books will tell you that they also love the movies. The thing they usually dislike is that the movies stray so far from the book. I can understand this, but I also have to tell these people: get over it. Film is a different artistic medium than the novel. Each has its strengths over the other. Books are excellent for explaining systems, such as the rules of how magic works in a particular fictional world. Explaining this is a film would be both tedious and confusing. Books are also better, most of the time, if the author wants to tell what a character is thinking. Movies, on the other hand, are excellent for depicting action sequences. They can show a complicated maneuver that would be boring when read. For example, a gymnastics routine or a sword fight is much more fun to watch than to read.

            In short, movies are objective for the audience, while books are subjective. These simple facts effectively control the media and dictate what can be accomplished through them from an artistic viewpoint. There are, of course, other parameters. Readers are willing to invest hours upon hours in a book, something an audience will never do in the case of a movie. Movies also require massive amounts of money and coordination among individuals working on the whole. Money is usually not paid for a book until it is finished. If it doesn’t work out up to that point, only the author is affected. That’s really all there is to it.

            What makes the Harry Potter films interesting, artistically, is that we actually see a group of child stars growing up from one film to the next. That has never happened before, at least as far as I know, on this scale. What’s sad about that is that the previous films look progressively more outdated. Not only are the kids older, but the special effects are better too. Why should we watch “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” with its scratchy CGI and poorly acting 11 year olds when “Order of the Phoenix” is new and improved with smooth graphics and fewer cracking voices? Another drawback with the films is that the various directors seem almost to operate on the assumption that their audience has already read the books, which is usually, but not universally, the case. This leads them to poorly explain things. Readers of the books may not even notice these skips because they were expecting the unexplained thing to happen anyway.

            Spoiler Warning: Don’t say I didn’t tell you because you just read it.

That said, I’ll admit that “Order” didn’t quite agree with me. I thought too many liberties were taken with the story and too many events left unexplained. It was clunky for Cho to have betrayed to D.A under the influence of veritaserum and then Harry not forgive her for it. Also, Ron and Hermione didn’t become prefects, Ron wasn’t attacked by a brain, a Death Eater didn’t have his head turned to a baby’s, we never saw St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, and Helena Bonham Carter, who could have been an excellent, sinister Bellatrix Lestrange, just acted like a female Jack Sparrow, with her hair in a big wad on top of her head. Additionally, we saw extensive use of montages, which, while sometimes useful, is something I hate.

On the other hand (which is a phrase I use far too much) I particularly enjoyed the Patronus scene in the Room of Requirement and Evanna Lynch was a great choice for Luna Lovegood. She was amusing and sympathetic at the same time, which is difficult to pull off.

All that said about the most recent film, my favorite so far would probably be “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” which also diverted from the book, but in all the right ways. This would probably be followed a near three-way tie between “Chamber”, “Goblet”, and “Order”, with the first film being a definite last. I also don’t care for Gary Oldman as Sirius. When I read the books now, I still don’t see him as Sirius. He just doesn’t fit the illustrations or the descriptions. He’s too old. However, Maggie Smith is good as McGonagall and Fiennes is decent as Voldemort. Another plus for the first three films was John Williams’ music. It’s unfortunate that he couldn’t or wouldn’t continue for the entire series.

Alright, that is pretty much it for Part 2. Part 3 will hopefully appear later today and will cover my thoughts and predictions for Book 7, which will be here in a matter of hours.

                                                            To Be Continued…

Just about everyone, me included, is eagerly awaiting the release of the seventh and final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  With just under a week to go, I decided to post my thoughts on the series.

            I love the Harry Potter books, which is the case with about 98% of the people who read them. Either that, or about two-thirds like them and the other 33.33% who don’t like them or don’t care have the sense to shut up. The problem with place Harry Potter at the top of the list of your favorite books is that it almost looks like you’re just jumping on the bandwagon, which may be exactly right.  I finally discovered Facebook a few months ago, and I’m actually finding the statistics pages to be fairly interesting and useful. True, it’s hardly official, but it’s there for everyone to check. The point is, everyone puts Harry Potter on their favorite books list. It’s the most popular series on Facebook. This is like saying the “The Lord of the Rings” is your favorite series of movies or that vanilla is your favorite flavor of ice-cream or that…oh, I don’t know…“American Idol” is your favorite television show. Practically everyone likes all of these things. It doesn’t say anything about you when you say you like the Harry Potter books. People have never read a book, including the Harry Potter books, like the Harry Potter books. (For the record, “The Lord of the Rings” is my favorite series of movies, vanilla is my favorite ice-cream, and I have never once watched a single episode of “American Idol”.)

            I know that there are mixe. d emotions about the final book coming out. I was in the sixth grade when I first read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and I was kind of behind the times at that; Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban had been out for some time and Goblet of Fire was just around the corner. I read the first two books and then got scared off on account of one of my teacher’s reading us an article about how the books were evil and full of witchcraft. Before you call names or get angry or guffaw, I’ll say this: I went to a Christian school for five years, fourth through eighth grades. I didn’t agree with everything they told us, but I understand where they were coming from and, for  98% of what they were saying, I agreed, which is quite a bit more than I agreed with what I learned in the eight years I attended public school (kindergarten through third grade and all four years of high school). I’m glad I attended a private Christian school.

            But I digress. I got scared off of Harry Potter for about a year, until I reached the conclusion that it was okay to read them, provided I kept in mind that I was reading a fantasy book. I still believe that it is very dangerous to get involved in witchcraft of any kind. However, the Harry Potter series is hardly realistic in terms of witchcraft. (For goodness sake, I’m pretty sure real witches don’t cast “cheering charms” on people. Incidently, someone used a new Facebook application for casting spells form the books on people to cast exactly that spell on me. I don’t need artificial cheering up! Besides, a “cheering charm” just sounds druggy.)

            Anyway, in a move that is unprecedented (for me) I actually read a series of books out of order. I bought Goblet of Fire the day it came out, not having read Prisoner of Azkaban. Consequentially, I had no idea who Sirius was, but I remedied that quickly enough.

                                                                          to be continued…

I was in a Quiktrip gas station yesterday, and saw something that cheered me to no end. Livewire has returned. Now, it may have returned months ago, or it may be that it never went away, and it’s simply that none of the gas stations in the South (I’m traveling through Missouri at the moment) have it, but, either way, I’m happy.

Livewire is far and away my favorite of all the Mountain Dew subsidiary brands. I’ve honestly never tried Code Red, but I understand that it’s cherry flavored, so I don’t see a point in bothering to try it, because I hate cherry. I’m sorry, but I do. Everything that’s cherry-flavored just taste like medicine to me. The other flavor was either “Black” or “Black-light”, I’m not sure which, but it was grape-flavored.  It was so-so, but nothing to rave about.

Orange-flavored Livewire, on the other hand, is excellent. I prefer it over the original Mountain Dew. Unfortunately, Livewire only seems to spark during the summer, and not even every year at that. I honestly thought it was gone for good, so I am happily proved wrong in this case. Maybe if I’m lucky, the shock won’t wear off.