The Deathly Hallows - No Spoilers

So, I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on Sunday and have spent the last two days reflecting on this book in specific and on the Harry Potter narrative as a whole. I have to confess that one or two minor continuity details nag at me and there are, perhaps, a few minor questions that go unanswered, but overall, I feel tremendously satisfied with this conclusion to the story that has so pervaded the international consciousness these last few years.

The plot and themes are thoughtfully resolved and the reader has a chance to bid farewell to most of the well-loved characters. As for the setting - well, I did indicate that this would be a spoiler-free post.

I Grow Impatient. . .

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is due to arrive today.

I want to start reading now.

I could actually just run down to Wal-Mart and pick up another copy and start. . .

No, three copies is too many

I'll wait.


Don't expect updates for a bit, and when I return, watch out for spoilers.

. . .waiting. . . waiting. . . waiting. . .

Food Miscellany

Yesterday, I mentioned Veggie Meal Plans. On the subject of food, I really ought to mention the naturopathic food cravings table upon which I recently stumbled and also the Vegetarian Resource Group, which I've had bookmarked for some time, but which it never occurred to me to blog about.

Veggie Meal Plans

Pasta with Zucchini and Sun-Dried Tomato and Pumpkin Seed Pesto, Green Salad
Often, when people learn that I am a vegetarian, they ask what I eat.

Usually, I tell them that I eat the same thing that the eat, save meat, and will sometimes point out that most people eat far more meat than they ought to or that the AMA once recommended that most Americans eat one serving of fish a week, but otherwise abstain from eating meat.

I don't think that most people find that answer to be satisfactory, but I don't mind. I don't actually try to convert people.

Well, I am now prepared to give a more satisfactory answer. I have posted a link at the right to another blog here at Blogspot: Vegetarian Meal Plans.

Special Delivery

With just one more issue of both Dragon and Dungeon magazines, I eagerly await their arrival as much as I dread the premature end of their publication.

As Saturday draws nearer, I am already anxiously anticipating the delivery of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Today, though, I received in the mail something I've been waiting for for much, much longer. I am both delighted and relieved.

Old Photos

Web-surfing, I just happened across some photos Suzanne took for some plays I participated in when I used to act with The Acting Company.

Screen Cleaner

I've found that Swiffer Dusters are terrific for cleaning off the dust that builds up on the outside surface of both my computer monitor and the television screen. The cathode ray tube on the television is, of course, sealed, so it doesn't normally get dirty. I've only recently found a great way to get the back of the computer's liquid crystal display clean, though, and I couldn't be happier. Check it out here.

Science is Neato

I Stumbled Upon this cool Flash animation illustrating current thought about black holes.

Prurient Clusterfuck Galore

So, if you've never seen a reality television show before, let me be the one to tell you: the lower, the more outrageous, the more ridiculous, the better. The new rage in reality shows is gameshow-esque programs designed to find a significant other for a celebrity, idiot, rockstar, or reality gameshow winner. This is like The Dating Game, except done over the course of a season rather than during an episode. In addition to shows like The Bachelor and Joe Millionaire, examples include Flavor of Love and I Love New York. We have discovered a shamefully delightful trainwreck of a reality show - the newest in this same series, as a matter of fact. I think it might be my new favorite.


The show is called Rock of Love with Bret Michaels. If you're not familiar, let me enlighten you: Bret Michaels is the singer of the '80's hair band Poison. As it turns out, they never broke up; they've just been on tour all this time. He also has another band. He also has two young daughters. He wants to find a girl who can understand him, a woman who's cool with his rock-and-roll lifestyle, somebody he can settle down with.

A Blog Only a Mother Could Love

Mom,
Thanks for reading, and commenting on, my blog - and Happy Birthday!

My Little Hound

She reminds me of the RCA dog.

The World's Cutest Dogs

We were in the kitchen today making fruit smoothies for lunch while our two devoted dogs looked on.

Stank Feet Mistaken for Rotting Corpse

My cool Google homepage features "Oddly Enough" news from Reuters. Today I spotted this.

Mario Party 8

This game is fun. I recommend it. It includes a variety of mini-games accessed through what amounts to a virtual game board. It's geared toward leveling the playing field for everybody, and the mini-games are both engaging and varied enough to keep things uncertain. Like most games for the Wii, it encourages a lot of flailing and shouting and crazy gesticulations - it's pretty cool.

Unfortunately, it does seem to have a serious flaw for which I haven't, as yet, found a work-around. As a result, Shel keeps beating me.

19th Century Literature II

My favorite 19th Century author said:

"Speak what you think today in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today."

"To be great is to be misunderstood."

"A friend is one before whom I may think aloud."

"Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist."

"Colleges hate geniuses, just as convents hate saints."

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

"None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone."

"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."

"This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it."

"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done all you could."

"Give all to love; obey thy heart."

"Nothing can bring you peace but yourself."

"Insist on yourself. Every great man is unique."

"I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new."

. . . and, best of all. . .

"I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."

The interviewer who asked me who my favorite 19th Century author is explained that his favorites are Herman Melville, Edgar Allen Poe, and (Samuel Clemens) Mark Twain. These three together, according to the interviewer, define what it means to be American - the notion of American-ness, as it were. He makes a valid point. Certainly, Moby Dick says a lot about American Quixoticism. Tom Sawyer conveys something about egalitarianism and fantasy in the American mindset. Poe's verse and short stories define our pessimism, self-hatred, fascination with the darkness, and more. The interviewer had put a great deal of thought in to how these authors' works define the American literary identity and if you talk with him, I'm sure you can get a more complete and cogent explanation. Many critics and scholars of American Literature spend a lot of time examining the American identity.

I'm more interested in the transcendence of Americanism - even the transcendence of human norms.

I think that Emerson is on the right track like few others ever have been, and that's more important to me than what is or isn't "American."

My First YouTube Video

Check it out! Alani playing in the sprinkler with Azi. In context, it's not the most exciting video every posted on YouTube, but it is my first one.

Your Daily Meditation

Our theories of the eternal are as valuable as are those which a chick which has not broken its way through its shell might form of the outside world. - Buddha

Hot Weather

So, listening to the radio this morning, I overheard a report that Death Valley has had high temperatures the last few days. "The problem is," says one resident "when it gets up to 126 or 127 degrees,"

I'm already thinking of the Mythbusters: "Well, there's your problem!"

"When it gets hot like that" our Death Valley denizen continues, the air you breath in feels like it's burnin' the insides of your lungs."

Did you ever think maybe it is?

Did ya ever think maybe there's a reason it called "DEATH Valley?"

Did ya ever stop to consider the possibility that not all parts of our planet are suitable for human habitation?

Death Valley!

I mean, come on! 126 degrees!? Do you hear yourself? When it's so hot that people hundreds of miles away can feel parched just thinking about how hot it is, that too damned hot.

Just give in and admit that that's too damn hot.

It's 97 degrees here and I'm not going back outside today if I can help it. At least not until the sun goes down.

Gee, you know the problem with the weather here on Io is that when the temperature drops at night and your blood crystallizes and the air in the colony becomes semi-solid, I just feel uncomfortable, you know? It's not as bad once your fingers and toes freeze off, but it's chilly.

Sand Castles

This video from Reuters reports on Sandsation, a sand sculpting festival in Germany. I've always loved sand castles and sand sculpture, and these are really impressive.The first one above is Hades and Cerberus. The second is of Ludwig Van Beethoven, Marlene Dietrich, and Elvis Presley. These two caught my eye, but all of the ones pictured were amazing.

Favorite Author?

Regular readers know that I've been job hunting. I sort of shoehorned my way into an informal interview last week, and the interviewer asked me, rather out-of-the-blue, "Who's your favorite 19th Century author? American - Who's your favorite 19th Century, American author?"

I answered, and soon I'll tell you how I answered and even how the interviewer would have answered. First, though, I want to know how you would have answered.

Who's your favorite 19th Century, American author, and why?

Independence Day

For some, it's a chance to take a well-deserved break from work, drink beer, and watch pretty sparklies. For some, it's a chance to gather together with friends and watch them endanger themselves and one another with improvised explosive devices. For still others, it's a commemoration of the Founding-Fathers' formal declaration that we would no longer be subject to a tyrannical government apathetic to our needs.

We spent the fourth of July at a friend's house. This afternoon (or, technically, yesterday afternoon), I drank more than I usually do and ate way too much. Then, I watched fireworks (a bunch of them), and I thought about the symbolism. I thought about "The bombs bursting in air." I thought of cold, hungry soldiers in trenches tensing themselves for battle that will come after an eternity to dread its coming or when least expected. I thought of the horror of warfare and how remote political ideals must feel when one fears for their life.

I thought "The price we pay for freedom - the price we pay to worship and to speak and assemble and self-govern is a high one. It's a terrible price.

"And I believe that our freedoms are worth that price."

I put great stock in this quote from Benjamin Franklin:

Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.

I hope that your Independence Day was joyous and festive.

Icky Ikea II

You may remember our previous efforts to buy Ikea merchandise and endure the 'help' of the virtual online employee, Anna.
So, having finally gotten the shelves for DVDs and books situated, we were roped into going to that store again. We got to spend some time with my sister Suzanne and she got to get some time with adults. My mother got to spend some time with Suzanne's little one.

We decided that while we were there, we would buy two new office chairs. We found just what we wanted: the Karsten swivel office chair with a blue seat and black backrest.

We went downstairs to the stack area and found that these are stocked in the mysterious "full service aisle." After being all but scolded by an Ikea employee for being in the wrong aisle and for not having picked up the chair ourself from the stock area before queuing up in the incredibly long check out line, this paragon of customer service called to find out whether the item was, in fact, in stock.

Nope.

"We have it in yellow/black and red/black" he announces, "but not in blue/black. Sorry." I would have been fine with uniform black, another color in the display area. He didn't even mention it. Shel's pissed. I'm pissed.

So I ask myself: "Self," (I call myself "Self.") "Self, why did we even bother to come back here, knowing in our hearts-of-hearts that we would be disappointed? Why?"

Self said nothing.

We had our hearts set on these chairs - maybe that was the problem. I figured that perseverance was how we got our bookshelves; maybe it would pay off with chairs, too.

Since I didn't think to take down the stock number before Shel crumpled up our notes in disgust, I looked at the website today. The black/black is out of stock. So are the red/black and the yellow/black (both really ugly, by the way).

The blue/black that we wanted? No mention. Apparently Ikea doesn't even carry such a thing. Why would anybody want blue/black? It looks good! eww!

Pathetic.

I guess I should be glad that they have updated their website to allow one to check stock from the product's description page instead of having to navigate their labyrinthine phone system to be told that they don't have what is sought after and endure constantly-changing, uninformed answers about when the item might become available.

I still have fantasies about murdering Anna in a gruesome, digital way, dismembering her file extensions, pulling out her code, line by gory line, and hacking off her animation in one fell swing, leaving her face frozen in a vaguely bemused expression. Then I'd truly be pleased as Punch.