Rantingness

So i didn't end up going to see weird al...it was just too much money for him, honestly. i like him, but not that much. maybe if he had come a few years ago i would've. but i didn't feel like spending $20

i spent plenty of money at the fair as it was! eep. i always spend way more than i plan on. anyway, from the beginning, i had band camp at 9. we got out early (11:30ish) so i saved a bit by eating lunch at home. i got a ride with bill, monica, leeny and bill's mom (bill's mom didn't actually stay though). leeny and i got wristbands right away (it's $20, but it pays for all rides, and with the number of rides i went on, it was a good deal :D) bill and i got the refillable lemonades (i got about seven or eight refillls...it was SO hot). they're a bit expensive, but you also get to keep the bottle, which is rather nice, and certainly large. so i have another good waterbottle now. we walked around and looked at the animals. the rabbits were all so scared, it was sad. and we went through all the stands and looked at stuff. we didn't actually buy anything though. then danny called to say he, hewitt, and dan had arrived, so we met up with them and went on a bunch of rides. then jacob, courtney, and hunter came. hunter found a girl named trillian (amazing name :D) and hung out with her the whole time. she seemed cool. bad taste in music, but hunter's is horrible. Once jacob got there, dan (who i had been mostly hanging out with, along with bill and leeny) started being an ass, like usual, and courtney, we love her but she does tend to squeak and squeal. so hewitt and danny and i went over to the campgrounds and did the archery and fishing and hung out there a bit. oh and hewitt got us some buckeyes which are surprisingly fun just to throw around. i still have mine :D it rivals a raquetball (not quite as bouncy, but that's probably a good thing in a crowded fair. we also had some samples of fish, which were really good. i had so many free samples...they were selling dipping sauce stuff, and there was one called garlicky garlic that was amazing...i had like five pretzel sticks worth of that. and then people were selling chips and putting out little boxes of samples...i took like four pretzel boxes and a chip box. but anyway, getting back to our vague chronological order.

around dinnertime we went to the meat place...i think it was called taste of ohio or some such, it was a big air-conditioned building right by the giant slide that sold ice cream and meat. bill and monica started midly freaking out because i had their weird al tickets (i had pockets that snapped), so they called and we told them where we were about five times to about five different people, all of whom got the wrong building (the same wrong building). around then hewitt left to meet his dad, who had come for the concert. Finally, we said "we'll just come to you" and so we did and immediately dan starts bitching at US for being stupid, even though they were the ones that screwed up. so i give bill and monica their tickets, and we go off with those who aren't going to the concert (me, leeny, danny, jacob, dan, and courtney) and go on more rides. at 8:30, danny's parents come and leeny and i leave with him...we'd been there (leeny and i) since 12, so we were like "eeh..."

it was really fun, as usual :D i went on the drop for the first time. it wasn't that bad...by the time i realized we were falling we were halfway down. it was freaky, but not as freaky as i thought it would be. and it was a great view (which was how danny had gotten me up there in the first place) so another good time at the fair :P

I'm assuming everybody's read it by now. (It's been three days, people!) If you haven't, well, go away! I'm spoilering!

Well, i liked it. It stretched on a bit in the middle, when they were otu finding Horcruxes. It just seemed to be like "yeah, yeah, haven't i read this part before?" Fortunately she's gotten better at not letting things drag (Unlike the fourth...*shudder*).

So let's take a look first at the death toll, shall we?

Starting off with our dear Hedwig. Seems a good start off death for what started, at least, as a children's book. She didn't want to make it too horribly devastating, but wanted to let us know that people (or owls) were in fact going to die. This is war, rawr. I think Hedwig worked rather well for that, although it is sad. I have to say though, that i laughed when i read that part (Oh! Shocking coarseness! So violent!). It wasn't for Hedwig's death, it was for the Firebolt that just fell to the ground. Imagine some Muggle going out to walk the dog the next morning and seeing this shiny broomstick sitting there innocently...maybe trying to pick it up, although i would imagine there'd be some sort of defense against that...it seems like it would pose a pretty major problem for the wizarding world otherwise. But we've gone far beyond Hedwig's death. Let's get back to the list.

We're going in a vague sort of chronological order, if you haven't noticed. So next up would be...

Mad-Eye Moody. Well, we don't really know this character too well, do we? I mean, the guy we thought was Mad-Eye turned out to be a psycho freak of a Death Eater (Although i suppose to be fair, they're all freaks really...), and after that he only showed up a few times. I get the idea he was meant as kind of the ideal Order member...tough, paranoid, ex-Auror...anyway. His death surprised me less than Hedwig's, although i can't say i predicted it. His death was really the next step up after Hedwig, still a kind of awakening to the fact that people are actually going to die. (Although what these deaths mean, when there's not really going to be another book to miss them in, is beyond me. Aren't i callous. Oh well)

This is where it gets fuzzy...who came next? I'm not going to bother with the deaths we didn't see, such as Scrimgeour.

Gregorovitch i am going to comment on, however. Not him specifically, but the whole wandmaking idea...i liked how she told us so much more about wands, and what they do, and how they work. We had a vague idea about how you couldn't get as good results with other wizards' wands, but it was nice to know a bit of wandlore. :D

Bathilda Bagshot...another character we didn't know too well. A particularly gruesome death though. Bit of dark magic i didn't really get. Was she an Inferi? I don't think she really was, because she had Nagini inside her, controlling her, and you couldn't do that for every Inferi...so she was a separate case. It would be nice to see how Inferi work (well, more than we saw at the lake in the sixth), but ah well, can't have them all. Bagshot i kind of saw coming, it was a bit obvious that harry wasn't being paranoid enough trusting her like that. I figured something must be coming. I'm honestly not sure why he'd risk going to Godric's Hallow in the first place, but then i never really liked harry.

Skipping over Ted Tonks (love those alliterative names), the goblin and that other one (can't remember their names, let's move on to Wormtail...

another rather gruesome one. Something good ol' dumbledore predicted in a vague, fuzzy sort of inexact way. Doesn't surprise me, given the point she's been trying to make through the series, but i was rather diappointed how much wormtail retreated into obscurity within the Death Eaters. I think it would have been more effective if he had some position of power. But i guess that's kind of against character anyway.

Dobby, all i can say is awwwwwww :'(

And here we come to the battle! w00t! Lots of deaths here. Lupin and Tonks, that was sad. Two of my fav characters and they didn't even tell us how they died. It would have been something particularly interesting, i'm sure, for two such well-beloved characters. Oh well.

Fred, again awwww :'( although i can see how she'd want to kind of separate the twins and give them their own identities. George always seemed to be slightly more serious to me, although that might just be me. Anyway, there goes another favorite.

Snape was one i liked all along as well, mostly just because he was different. More human, in a way. I'm glad he turned out "good" although i can't say it wasn't predictable. I do wish JK would have played up some of the self-interest though, it would have made it much more interesting. He seemed a bit too good to be the character we know and love (or love to hate, at the very least). I liked the Lily/Snape thing too, although again it wasn't exactly a shocker.

Colin Creevey...well i can't pretend i found him an annoying little bugger. He seems a bit of a filler, so we'll go "man, a lot of people are dying" without being too horribly depressed.

I liked how Neville killed Nagini, i think that was important to have him do that. And knowing all that wandlore makes me not surprised that he's a much better wizard than we thought, although like McGonnagall said, i think it was confidence that was his major issue all along.

And having his Gran there was priceless as well

Bella, well she was interesting as a character, but really i was too busy chuckling at the idea of Mrs. Weasley pwning her to care much.

And of course, the man himself, dear old voldy. That was the really obvious bit, but i was surprised at harry's little christ-figure jaunt into death there. But more on the actual plot later...that'll have to do for now.

So yesterday mom got uber-stressed about work and stuff, and she comes home and is like "I'm going to go see grandma, does anybody want to come?" Dad was like "Why?" and she was like "i need a vacation so i'm going to see my mom i'm leaving in five minutes if anybody wants to come!" So i say "hang on, i'll come" and throw some stuff in a bag (clothes for two days, HP5 and 6, a few cd's and a toothbrush). She wanted to leave her phone, but i grabbed it on the way out anyway. (Mine was almost out of battery anyway, so i didn't take it).

So we started to drive-it was about 5:30 already, so we only went about half an hour before i got hungry. We went through drive-through and got Arby's, but mom wasn't hungry so she didn't get any. We kept driving for a while more, and then around 7 mom got hungry, so she got McDonald's chicken wraps and a diet coke. She only at one though. We drove a bit more and then after a little over 2.5 hours we stopped at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere. (Seriously, the middle of nowhere. Cornfields much?) Mom was like "I'm really tired, let's just stay here for a bit" I didn't care much where we went, I was deeply immersed in harry potter in my rather desperate attempt to finish the books before midnight on the 20th.

(Some background info on how that's been going...I started the first one with nine days to go, and in my panic read it rather faster than usual, in about an hour and fifteen minutes to be somewhat exact. Then i read part of the second, and finished the second sometime that night or the next morning, i don't really remember which. The third i took more time on, partly because it's so much more complex and involved (even though i'd already read it half a million times...), and partly just because it's my favorite. After that, i had 7 days left to read three books, so i thought "What's the hurry?" and spent the that day and part of the next on Shadow of the Hegemon (orson scott card, flamablamablous like all his books are) and An Acceptable Time (l'engle, it's about the murry's granddaughter and she goes back in time with the people across the lake...but i'm not going to describe the entire plot to you here). I made a vague start on the fourth with 5 days to go, and finished it the next day (4 days). Yesterday (3 days) was the memorable road trip that i'm attempting (and failing) to describe without getting horribly sidetracked, and it got me through most of the fifth, which i'll probably finish sometime today, leaving only the sixth which should be easier, being quite a bit shorter and rather more straightforward. But back to the story)

After a while, i asked if it was ok to turn some music on, and mom said sure so i put in some rush (actually we might have been listening to some aerosmith first...i forget...some music, anyway. it ended up with rush). So we just sat there a while and i think she fell asleep, and we began to debate if we even wanted to go to grandma's or if we just wanted to go back home (It was around 8:30, 9ish), and by debate i mean something along these lines...

Mom: Do you really want to go to grandma's?
Me: I don't care
Mom: Maybe we should just go home
Me: We can if you want to
Mom: I kind of wanted to see grandma though
Me: Me too
Mom: You want to go there then?
Me: Sure, i don't care
Mom: I'm really tired...maybe we should just go home
Me: Ok
Mom: You're not being very helpful
Me: I know

Around this time the music shut off, and we realized how incredibly stupid we were to leave the air and stereo on while the car wasn't running. Basically, we were screwed. We got out and started asking people if they had jumper cables, but nobody did. Mom called dad and asked him to call AAA, but they said they couldn't be there for about an hour. So we waited, and after an hour a guy came by and jumped us. He said our battery was really old and messed and we should get a new one, and he told us not to turn the car off again until we got to wherever we were going or we'd be stuck again. Well by that time it was about 10, so we just decided to go home. It was too dark to read and we were scared to turn the radio on or anything, so we just talked about random stuff like how pointless some things are *coughthewarcough* and band and paintball (and band paintball :P squee!)

All that waiting around had made us hungry so we went through the steak+shake drive-through (which i didn't know existed) and got a couple steakburgers and choklit shakes. We got home around midnight.

Anyway, that was my spiffily exciting and incredibly spontaneous road trip.

Movie editon.

So i wasn't all that disappointed. I had rather low expectations of course, but i thought it was a good movie. Of course i made the point of not re-reading the book before i saw the movie, so i wouldn't get caught up in all the little details they left out and inaccuracies and suchlike. That waits for when it comes out on DVD and i can unleash my withering scorn upon it comfortably from my own living room. But if i'm paying, i figure i should enjoy it, yah?

Not that i ended up paying that much. We went to Gahanna for the uber-cheap tickets and we went around lunchtime so we weren't hungry for popcorn (their popcorn is horrible anyway though...it's way too salty) and got the $4 tickets.

$ and 4 are on the same key, did you know that? i didn't. Well, actually i'm sure i did, but it's not something i generally think of or even make a point of remembering.

So, what did i think of the movie? Well, i think it was basically an extension of the book, just something to enhance the story with a few visual reference points. But that's what most of the movies are. I did think this was one that wouldn't do badly standing on its own. I was also rather disappointed that we didn't get to see a hawtzorz young sirius in the memory, and the lack of SPEW was rather a loss, but i thought fred and george's escape was incredible, one of the few things in the harry potter movies that i think was done exactly right.

I rank this movie just half a hair after three and a smidgen before four. (Yes, i did like three, even though they screwed up as much as they possibly could. It's hard to ruin that story. PoA is the only book i think was actually worth all the hype (even though it didn't have much, being only the third book)

Aah, those good ol' days. I remember when a load of people were incredibly impressed because i remembered Mrs. Weasley's first name (Molly), back when i was a bit smaller. (Actually, i think it was at the party before the third book...not the midnight one, just some random party. I was just at the library getting some books and they were about to do a trivia game so i was like "ok, cool") Now people are condemned because they don't remember which floor the gryffindor common room is on (i believe it's seven, but i'm probably wrong, because i usually say seven when the question involves a number. Then again, the answer usually is seven...)

Oh well, at least now i get to say with pride "I liked harry potter BEFORE it was cool!" To which people usually reply "Shut up, i bet you don't own a twenty-dollar collector's edition magic wand!" To which i usually reply "You are a sad little person" and mosey off to read something less popular. It's the eternal cry of the true nerd, isn't it..."I liked it before it was cool!" And since when, do i ask, did geekiness become cool? What was that magic moment where knowing about computers no longer made you a loser but transformed you into somebody to be admired? When was the moment in time where owning all the lotr books (including sil) stopped being unusually odd and started being an accepted-and indeed, expected-thing? It's a mystery.

Anyway, the movie wasn't as terrible as reviewers claim (movies never are. Reviewers are probably all on drugs. Drugs that make them supremely unimpressed with everything they see. If such drugs exist. If not, let's just say they're on pot or something because it's the first drug i can think of). So if you haven't seen it yet, do. It's worth all four of those dollars. (But going to the Imax is mildly ridiculous. I mean it's cool and all, but seriously, it's freaking expensive and NOT WORTH IT PEOPLE. although sometimes it is cool just to see even BIGGER explosions. Is transformers in imax? THAT would be cool.)

So it's time for a humungo update on what i've been doing! *groans from the audience* Hey, shut up mental audience! Or i'll kill you with a tray! Right. Well, let's start with my rather short but amazingly fun vacation some shortish time ago (Time is an illusion. Summertime doubly so. Minor kudos for those who correctly identify the slightly twisted quote (Minor because it's kind of obvious))

So, we went skipping off to good old Michigan to pick my brother up from Blue Lake. Drivitydrivedrive, readityreadread (Hunchback of Notre Dame, which, amazingly, i've never read before...at least not unabridged...and something else i've forgotten...a re-read. might've been one of the hornblowers, or maybe a pratchett. dunno. i've read far too many books recently in far too short a time, and they're all running together in my head.) We stopped in Cleveland for a bit to wander through the rock and roll hall of fame, which was absolutely spiffy, although most of the exhibits were like "blahblah, clothes they wore to this concert, guitar they used for this, really don't care..." But the music was good and the little movie type things were cool. we saw the best John Lennon quote ever..."What do you call this hairstyle you're wearing?" "Arthur" :D And good music, did i mention that? Yep. That was about it.

So we stayed a night in Cleveland and went skippityskip off again towards good ol' MI. It was more like drivity...

Ok this is bugging me. I've got two songs that are the same with different titles and i've never noticed. Which one's right? Must check.

Ha! Another Brick In The Wall is right. Stupid limewire people.

Right then, where were we? Cleveland. So. Drivitydrive, readityread...OMGZECCE! Trees! Yep, we're in good ol' MI. Stop for food in a little resort town off Lake Michigan. Looks exactly the same as the little resort town we stopped at in Lake Erie...like it's trying to be a little resort town in Jamaica somewhere. Bright colors, Beach Boys music, blahdeblah...

Eventually we reach GR, where we drop off Harriet, who had come to stay with us for a couple weeks. We have dinner there and eat andrew's blood muffins, which are nothing to the blood muffins we made with bill and leeny, but are still good. (Actually they were only less blood-muffiny because they were pink, not red. but whatevs)

Then off we go again, to BL. There we see aunt, uncle, and cousins. Michael had been staying at BL with lb, and catherine had been at Interlochen, so lots of campish stories were passed around. We watched the concerts (James was in THREE! since he was in symphony orchestra. I only watched two of them though...i skipped out in favor of dinner during the second one)

By the way, i'm sure the chronology here is totally messed up. Obviously, in order to eat dinner at the Groenleers' AND at blue lake, we must have stayed in a hotel somewhere in GR. If you get confused at all by any inconsistencies anywhere else, just assume it was something like that that slipped my poor, befuddled mind.

Anyway. Then we swam a bit in the pool...and oh god, i've messed up again. We went to eat dinner at a restaurant off by Lake Michigan. It must have been lunch i ate at blue lake. but i still think we stayed in GR. Meh, i need sleep.

So. We ate dinner at some restaurant off by Lake Michigan. After dinner we went down to the beach and dad and i started wading around in the water. There were some seriously intense waves, so after a while i was splashed so much that i was just like "screw it, i'm going in, clothes and all" So i left my hat, glasses, and phone on the beach and went swimming. (well, bodysurfing/wave jumping, there really wasn't much swimming to be done with those waves) Everybody else stayed pretty much dry. Michael and Catherine jumped in once right at the end, but that was it. Ah well, their loss, it was a lot of fun. We went back to the hotel, showered, got in pj's, and watched one of the harry potter movies that was on tv. Must've been the third or fourth one because i remember i didn't have an intense desire to vomit at the sheer cheesiness of it all (sorry cheese :D).

Next day we left, deciding to amble vaguely down the lakeshore (as much as you can amble vaguely in a car) We stopped a lot, swam once..we had to leave though because a storm came. Actually it was really cool because you could see it raining on the other end of the bay but it was perfectly dry on our end :D We stopped in a couple different bookstores. I'm copying the stories of those off the MB because i'm lazy...

so i tried to get on the blog once over vacation…we were in this little coffee shop somewhere and they sold books too but just a few of the really popular ones like harry potter and stuff, and they had free wireless internet. well there was this computer sitting there, so i thought "hey, cool, i'll check on the blog" It asked me for a password, and thinking about the FREE wireless internet i figured it was just so the lady could know who was on. i looked around but of course i didn't see her (my parentals had been waiting about ten minutes already to be served and she was completely ignoring them) so i look at the hint and it's "coffee" so i try that and it doesn't work. Then i try "java" and it works. how obvious a password is that? So then as soon as i get on, the lady jumps out of nowhere and starts asking how i knew the password and shooting accusatory daggers with her eyes. i was like "i just figured it out" and she didn't believe me (because of course nobody could guess such a fiendishly difficult password) Then she was like "it's $10 an hour" and i was like "ok, never mind" and logged out. There was no sign anywhere in the shop saying "computer $10 an hour" or anything like that, not even on the computer desk. After i logged off, she went back to whatever terribly important thing she was doing, even though my dad tried to get her attention. so we left and went to a sweet little coffee shop with ice cream and a piano player and a hat shop right next door.

I did find bookstores though…my favorite was one in…saugatuck i think, where it was on the second floor of an art shop and it was just this one old lady and a load of books, some used, some new. it was like three rooms of stuff. she was on the phone most of the time and she kept saying things like "oh and somebody bought my copy of this book that i was halfway through but it was really good and i'd like to finish it so could you send me another one of those? and send me another one of these because i'm selling it right now and i really like it" etc, etc. she just had one copy of all the books, and i think she had read all of them, or at least most of them. it seemed like she just collected books and occasionally sold a few. not a bad job, hey?

That's pretty much all i did. Oh, and mom dragged us around oberlin a bit, but nobody was there it being summer break and all. i don't think i want to go to oberlin anyway.

Since i got back, i'm sure i've done SOMETHING interesting...just can't think of anything.

Apols for the whole "I-have-a-life-and-i'm-rambling-on-about-it" thing going on here. Next time i get around to doing this i promise to remember that i do not, in fact, own one of those rather popular and occasionally cherished things known as lives (they can be quite expensive you know) and will rant about something random. Probably harry potter.

Livejournalicious! So what to rant on today, kiddies? Well while the good ol' grey blob is going at the question, let's have a bit of boring blabbering about my life. Yes, yes, i hear the collective groan. Are you going to make me menace you with my machine gun? No? Spiffy.

Well, i seem to be in a rather alliterative mood lately. Interesting.

So the computer status is at last somewhat stabilized. We got an absolutely fantabalous G4 and hooked up all the random extra stuff to it. It's got a really crappy dell monitor, but we plugged in the speakers and an extra cd slot thingy (yes, you can just see my amazing computer knowledge at work...) along with the hard drive off the old powerbook and the external hard drive. So we're absolutely rolling in space. Dad split the ethernet between this and the G3 that nobody uses except him, and then we've got the airport express up on the ebay comp (wasn't that smart, buying a comp off ebay... :rolleyes: ). It works occasionally. And then mom's got her little card thing for her WORK LAPTOP OF DOOOOOOM!!!!!

So. Good times.

Ooh, and limewire works now. Although for some reason they are remarkably reluctant (omg, there i go again...) to give up any voltaire. It's always "awaiting sources" Sometimes it will cruelly excite me and start "Connecting...". But then of course it will disappoint me and go back to it's little "Awaiting Sources" game.

Well. So. What innocent inanimate object to be excessively paranoid about today? AHA! I've got it. Paperclips.

I'm sure you can all relate to this one. Look around your desk. How many paperclips do you see? Count them up. Perhaps you've just bought a new box. Half gone already? Where did they go? Perhaps you bought a new box last week. Do you see that empty, disconsolate cardboard box sitting there, so mournfully alone? No paperclips. What happened to them?

The Borrowers series has a delightful, wonderful, imaginative, charming, quirky, and adorable way to explain it. But I fear the world is not always as delightful, wonderful, imaginative, charming, quirky, and adorable as it may seem. No, in fact the world is often quite distasteful, horrible, dull, rude, unbearable, and intolerable. And so we can write off the Borrowers as a hopeful myth, however much of a delightful, wonderful, imaginative, charming, quirky, and adorable myth.

So, we're past the Borrowers. What are my theories to explain the phenomenon? Well, i'm glad you asked. I have several, and all very creditable, as long as those who credit it are as paranoid as i am.

The first is the simple explanation, and the one that you've probably seen many times from me in the past - they're simply involved in a revolution against the human race. The poor, downtrodden masses of paperclips are about to rise up in a long and bloody mutiny which will not end until control of the world has been firmly established in the hands of the paperclips, or until we ensure the demises of every single one, depriving us of much-needed resources so we don't lose things. (one irony is that since the paperclips prevent us from losing things, losing paperclips should be impossible. Alas, that the paperclips also have Xtreme magical powers to make it not so)

So the paperclips disappearing from your desk are simply off to join the rebel forces and train for the day when they will sneak in and murder you in your bed to prevent you ever using another paperclip in such a manner again.

Now that i've reassured you so wonderfully and removed any doubts you might have about your personal safety, let's move on to a more feasable (but no less paranoid) idea.

This one is rather obvious, and in my view, highly unlikely, but i felt it incumbent on me as a seeker of conspiracies to mention it. It's the people at the stores, wanting you to buy their products, who send in little paperclip fairies to steal back your paperclips so you will be forced to go buy more. This routine has an added advantage other than increasing business, it also allows them to reuse their paperclips so they never have to manufacture any more. Brilliant, isn't it? Yeah, i thought so too.

Well, apparently i have to get off, so i guess i'll be sparing you the ninja monkey babies or the giant mutant garlic cloves theories. Toodles!

Woah hey, i didn't have to pull out my machine gun at all! Pretty spiffy. :D

So. This is my LJ. Spiffily exciting. I will be ranting long later, but it's 11:30 and i think i'll go to bed. Sorry, this is a horrible First Update. I'll rant tomorrow though. :D