it's saturday morning
1. I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows a couple of days ago. It was incredible!! (except for the epilogue, which was pointless and stupid)
2. I got my most recent order from amazon.com the other day. I had ordered Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon because it is supposedly one of the top 3 books of 2006. I was excited to jump right into it after Harry, but I may take a little break first...when it arrived I discovered it was 1,085 pages long.
3. I found out this morning that Shane Barnard is engaged to Bethany Dillon. I think maybe this is a good thing, but I'm not sure because she's only 18--she hasn't even had the chance to be a real grown-up yet. Regardless, I think we should all observe a moment of silence to mourn the passing of Shane's eligibility.
4. I am REALLY good at context clues. I realized this recently when reading a Christopher HItchens book. I'm not often confronted with so many new words in one particular work, so Hiitchens has given me a great tool to expand my vocab.
5. I was thinking this morning that my old Los Angeles phone number was really great...626-261-3216. A few 6's, a few 2's, couple of 1's. It just rolls off the tongue.
6. I have to do a lot of laundry and housework today. I'm not looking forward to it.
announcement
After a couple months of gallavanting around NYC on my savings, I have finally procured gainful employment!!!!
what i've been watching
* I just finished watching Season 5 of "24." HANDS DOWN, Jack Bauer wins for coolest and most bad-ass male TV character. Sydney Bristow takes the cake for the females.
* The other day I watched an episode of the short-lived 90's sitcom "Significant Others." The main characters are confused 20-somethings a couple of years out of college. The dialogue hit a little too close to home in a scene where one of the characters asks another "when it started to count." I don't remember exactly, but he said something about when you're a little younger nothing seems to count. You take a summer trip to a place you don't totally love, you just go somewhere else next summer. You have a job you don't totally love, you just do something else. You date someone and you don't want to be together anymore so you just break up. It's all chalked up as good experience and doesn't really matter. You're free to try anything and everything without fear of consequences, because nothing really counts anyway. Then eventually, if you bounce from place to place, job to job, boyfriend to boyfriend, etc you just look immature and irresponsible. You wake up one day and suddenly it all counts. That's a scary moment.
* "The Wonder Years" is on as part of the late night line-up of some nominal non cable tv channel right now. I haven't seen this show in a REALLY long time, and I totally forgot how great it is.
harry madness!!
As everyone in the free world undoubtedly knows, the much anticipated 7th Harry Potter book was released with much fanfare at 12:01 am this past Saturday morning. This event presented the welcome dilemma of choosing which Harry Potter party to attend Friday evening. I think this is a nation-wide thing, but each Barnes & Noble in the city was hosting a Midnight Magic party and each Borders was thowing a Grand Hallows Ball. Depending on which party I chose to attend, here's some of the possible festivities (and I'm not exaggerating):
fire eaters
stilt walkers (dressed as dementors)
fireworks
a peformance by Lifehouse at the Borders in Columbus Circle
a reading by Jim Dale at B&N in Union Square (voice of the Harry Potter audiobooks)
I ended up going to the Barnes & Noble in Union Square party, which included the following (in addition to the normal costume contests, trivia games, etc.): wand making at Ollivander's, fortune telling in Divination class, a magic/comedy show at Weasley's Wizards Wheezes, visits to Hagrid's Hut and the Forbidden Forrest, Eeylops Owl Emporium with live owls, and the cafe turned into the Great Hall (featuring butterbeer).
I had friends in town through the weekend, so I wasn't able to read a lot right away. I've got about 200 pages left, and it is definitely living up to the hype so far!! It's kinda funny because it seems that EVERYONE is reading this book. I see fellow Potterheads reading it in every coffeeshop or little lunch place I walk into, and more often than not I look around on the subway to see several other people right around me reading it. It's weird because we all strike up conversations with other, where normally everyone prefers to just ignore everyone else.
And I certainly won't include any spoilers, but so far one of my favorite moments was the laugh-out-loud part when Rowling wrote "...the fact remains he can move faster than Severus Snape confronted with shampoo"...man that's good stuff!! And just for fun, here's some pics from the Midnight Magic party!
people crack me up
Sometimes people are just funny...
This morning I talked with my younger brother. I asked what he was going to do today and he replied, "I don't know. Probably climb a mountain or something." That response just cracked me up...I wonder how much Midwest is left in him. I don't know how often he and his buddies actually hike up one of the surrounding mountains, but it's nice they have the option.
Later on I was at Blockbuster and the cashier was frustrated because someone returned a DVD that was rented from a different location. I heard her tell a co-worker, "Every day customers are getting retardeder and retardeder." I walked out of the store cracking up...with a sentence so politically and grammatically incorrect, that's just a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black.
new sucky song
For the past few weeks I've been netflixing the TV series "Felicity." I started watching season 3 (or Junior Year) and I can't figure out what's up with the new theme song. The old opening sequence was so great. Now there's this nasal sounding guy singing this sucky song and all the great photographs have been replaced by scenes from the show. Sometimes change isn't so good.
maybe...
Maybe I've been living in a major coastal city for too long. Here's 3 things I've realized recently that have contributed to this maybe-conclusion:
1. I attended a 4th of July party where the people I went with were wearing at least something that was red, white, and/or blue. (ex. dark blue jeans, white tank, red cardigan). They had all moved to the city semi-recently. Me? It never crossed my mind...I showed up in all black.
2. Last weekend I was down in Ocean City, MD, and was genuinely surprised and even shocked when this guy walking by said "Good morning" to me. I was looking straight ahead minding my own business...not even making eye contact with the guy. I think I responded with something like, "Huh? What? Oh. Good morning." Then about 5 minutes down the road I was surprised again when an older lady greeted me with the same morning pleasantry. This time I was a little quicker with my response though.
3. I was telling someone the other day how much I enjoy the fact that in the city you don't have to slow down or say sorry when you accidentally bump into someone or step on their foot, etc. You can just go on your way without losing a step and you're not considered rude at all.
I haven't decided yet if these are things I want to change. I don't think they are though. I kinda like it like this.
