Deathly Hallows Ahead

Hello, blogsie. I've been messing with my blog design lately, trying to find something that looks nice, isn't blatantly stock, and is pleasant to read. The design as of now isn't fantastic, but it'll do for the time being.

Any guesses as to what I'll be doing this Friday? Yes, going to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I in all its 2 hours 26 minutes of epic glory is the correct answer! Now that I officially have my ticket, I feel like I can fully allow my enthusiasm to go wild. I have high expectations (as I do with every Potter film). Even if it's on the lousy side, I'll probably be content to moan about it until Part II comes out next year. I sort of have a love-hate relationship with many of the HP films. I still remember being disillusioned when I saw Sorcerer's Stone as a wee munchkin. When Hagrid said, "Harry, you're the boy who lived," I seriously thought the entire movie would pause and announce that chapter title and all the subsequent ones. This was before I came to the realization that movie adaptations of books actually, you know, cut quite a bit most of the time, and were not the meticulous word-for-word renditions I had envisioned them to be. All the same, I was still bummed Peeves never got to make an appearance. I'm excited for Deathly Hallow all the same.

What else (if anything) is going on besides HP, then? I've actually been, and continue to be, exceptionally busy. College applications are due at the end of the month, and I still have to come up with a personal statement. Super fun, right? I'm hoping to get it done this weekend so I don't have to stress about it over Thanksgiving. In addition, the homework monster has been especially beastly lately. Pfft, I actually should be doing homework instead of blogging right now, but oh well.

This afternoon, I was very excited to find the Twitter feeds of both LeVar Burton and Brent Spiner! Now, I have to take a paragraph to describe the impact these two have had on my life. Anyone who knows me knows that reading is possibly my favorite thing to do. When I was a kid, I used to love this fantastic show called The Reading Rainbow. LeVar Burton was the host, and I still remember some of the books and poems on the show. It was truly a magical program and I'm always thankful for its existence. When I got a little older, I met Burton again on Star Trek: TNG as Geordi La Forge. At this time, Brent Spiner also came into my life by means of Data, who remains my favorite android to this day. Geordi and Data were friends, too, and they were always my favorite characters. Seriously, I was the little kid who had an immense crush on Data and spent her school lunchtimes recounting TNG episodes to my friends. Anyway, I now follow both of them on Twitter. It's such a nice feeling when good things from your past pop up to say hello.

Pretty shibby music has come my way lately. I've been listening to some Defiance, Ohio, specifically Share What Ya Got. A number of my friends dig this band, and-- after checking it out-- I now dig it, too. I really need to explore some more folk punk. It's wonderfully refreshing and makes me want to go build a treehouse or hand-make a backpack. Defiance, Ohio also has most, if not all, of their music on their website, which is really awesome. It's good stuff, I tell you. Escúchala. At the more mellow end of the spectrum, I've been swooning to the Zombies' (or as my English teacher would prefer, Zombies's) Odessey and Oracle. If anyone is looking for the definition of euphonic, look no further. This album is absolutely amazing. There is not dull track to be had; from beginning to end, this album is aural excellence. I highly recommend giving it a listen. If you somehow aren't blown away, I think we need to have an intervention. On a different note: every once in a while, I find some sort of musical guilty pleasure, and the band of the season happens to Placebo. Please don't make fun of me; I need me some "Nancy Boy" and "Every You Every Me" once in a while. I was listening to their self-titled album on the ol' Sony Walkman, too, which brought back the '90s in full force. Oh, the nineties... if I were in junior high in the late '90s, I would want Stefan Olsdal and Brian Molko's children. You probably didn't need to know that, but I doubt anyone's still with me at this point and therefore I am shameless. I wonder if there's a word limit on these posts. If there is, it is damn long.

Well, that's about all for now. I actually have more I could blog about, but I'm posting this leviathan as is. Besides, I have a heap of homework still to do. Anyway, I hope you're all well and looking forward to Deathly Hallows. Until next time, then!

Oy!

The blog is all dusty and musty. I don't like it. Consider this post to be like a Swiffer.

Many blog-worthy events have come and gone un-blogged, and I feel sort of guilty. After all, what else is a blog for? So: I'm going to make a list of all the things I wished I blogged about but never got around to, complete with brief descriptions and comments, etc.

In June, I went to a David Sedaris reading/signing in a lovely little book store! It was amazing! I must have been smiling the entire time, I was so excited. He is very friendly and rather short in person. He read us two new (well, new at the time) essays, in addition to parts of his diary and a couple other things. Everybody was laughing and having a marvelous time. The setting was very intimate and was so happy to be able to go. He signed my copies of Me Talk Pretty One Day and Naked, and gave me a condom (he was handing them out to all the teenagers). This book event has got to be one of the highlight of my life so far, and I love him to pieces!

Also in June, I saw Third Eye Blind with a bunch of friends at a free concert in a park. Excellent, much? They were fantastic live and played a lot of my favorite songs. The entire day was an adventure and a smashing good time.

On a more somber note, huge funding cuts have been made to the public libraries in my area. The new hours-- which became effective July 1st-- are truly devastating. I continue to volunteer and drop by often. Hopefully these cuts will be revoked when the state budget gets back on track someday, as I believe libraries to be among the most precious of resources.

Speaking of reading, this summer I've gathered up the courage to finally read Anne Rice. I've always seen her work labeled as horror, which made me steer clear of her for a long time (I'm not really one for horror, you see). However, I was reassured by other readers that her writing is more gothic than horror and my curiosity eventually won out. As of today, I've read Interview with the Vampire and am getting very close to finishing The Vampire Lestat. I find I'm more fond of the latter, but I did like Interview, too. While the book as a whole did have its weak points (i.e. Rice's tendency to write in such a flowery manner it's often distracting), I found it overall a good read. I find I've been much more motivated while reading Lestat, probably because I really like Lestat. It's good stuff, I tell you. (As a side note, I thought I'd tell a little story about my early experiences with Anne Rice. I used to babysit these darling little girls, and prominently displayed in their living room were all of Anne Rice's works. I'd read the ghoulish titles and see the macabre cover art and be very afraid [I was also afraid of the Gollum bookends and oriental masks, but they really are very, very kind people.] Anyways, I think it's a funny way to first become acquainted with an author.)

And what was I most looking forward to in July? The big screen adaption of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, of course! My two friends and one of their moms saw a late show downtown. We dressed up and had a wicked time! I must say I was impressed with this film and thought it far better than the last one. I was satisfied with the portrayal of teenage Tom Riddle, who I feared would be butchered, and I swooned often over Alan Rickman (and Tom Felton, who appeared quite a lot). I thought they did a lousy job of explaining who the real Half-Blood Prince was in the end. In the book, it's so enchanting, because who doesn't believe Snape is made of win? Yeah, nobody. Overall, I liked it very much. Also, did anyone else notice that the wonky, smooth black bricks from the department of mysteries made a comeback? They were in the orphanage. I guess David Yates loves those bricks. I also was impressed with Slughorn's performance and character portrayal. I thought it to be one of the film's strong points. I really must reread the series one of these days!

If anyone read all that (and I realize it's a beast) I really am flattered and applaud your perseverance. Of course, loads of other things happened and are happening or will happen, but I thought it'd be nice to skim over the main points in my life as of late. Now, with the clear conscience of a good blogger, I shall move on to my one of my summer assignments, which is what I really should have been doing for the past hour. Cheers!