Harry Potter and the Multi-billion Dollar Industry

So yes I am one of the jillion people who purchased the book the weekend that it was released and I finished it this past tuesday. I must say that while they are not the best written books in the world (...and I would be hard pressed to find many well written books these days, but then again I am not the biggest book worm in the world either so I am sure I am missing out on a lot.) but anyone who can get an entire generation of kids interested in reading books than I say more power to you. And what a power Rowling is now. All around the city you can find someone carrying myself included until recently the tell tale purple colored book (sans that pesky book jacket) . While the third book will surely always be my favorite one of the series I think this one comes in second.
When I finished it I felt the need to take a look at the films once again (yeah, I spent our hard earned ducats on those too!) to see how they stood up in terms of time. I am nearly done with the second film and will be starting the third one tonight. The biggest problem with the first two films (aside from the fact that all the young actors grew up incredibly fast and look quite a bit older than 12 years old which I believe is supposed to be Harry's age in the second book) is that everything seems very sterile and a little too disneyfied, while the books managed to maintain a certain amount of gritty reality. This was drastically improved upon by Alfonso Cuarón's interpretation of the third installment adding a depth and darkness to the film series in what is by far one the best fantasy films of the past couple of years (barring of course Jackson's LOTR). Yet again, as with the second, in this third film the actors look much older than the ages that they are supposed to be portraying. Alas, I trust that Mr. Radcliffe, Mr. Grint, and Ms.Watson are making a mint as they will no doubt have a great deal of difficulty finding work once they are done with these films. I must also say that while the movies are enjoyable overall, nothing is better than a book where you use your own imagination to visualize what is happening as you are reading. It is a great, great thing. It even makes it more interesting when the filmmakers happen to have the same image as you. I know that I am not saying anything new here but it never hurts to say it again.
From a lover of films perspective I am looking forward to seeing the incomparable Ralph Fiennes as "You Know Who" in the fourth installment.

Anyway I hope those of you that are reading the book are enjoying it and for those of you who aren't, jump on the bandwagon already cause Rowling could really use the money.

QUOTE OF THE DAY (a double dose)
"Hmmm....let's see here...Brian...see you at Disneyland..BRING MONEY"

"Honey, it's time you started acting like the pieceaschimdt you are"
"that's pewterschmidt Peter"

Ode to Matt Clement

OUCH!

So i am now home on this fine wednesday afternoon, the one day that I do not have to work after school and I thought I would check in with ya'll.

more later...maybe

Dear Readers

It is with great regret that I tell you all that this will be my final post. I cannot hack it anymore. The pressure and strain of writing quick evective bits of comedy about my daily routine of actvities has taken it's toll. I just don't have the time or the energy to devote to this dank dark hole anymore.

HA. got ya.

So yes I know it has been a long long time since I have done anything on here and for that I apologize. My life has been one big ball of busy. Work, school, marriage, all the fun things that you have all come to enjoy reading about here in my little piece of cyberworld.

Desgraciadamente, necesito estudair para un examen de español ahora y no tengo tiempo por eso actividad.

I will say this: I sugget that you all take a look at the article in the New York Times about the record temperatures across the country. Funny that people are still willing to admit that there is no such thing as global warming. I ask you all to also watch the local news (yes I know it sucks, but BBC world news is always hard to catch at 7pm and most of us working folk are too tired to watch the 11pm rerun) and pay attention to when they talk about the weather. More often than not most of you will notice that on average the record highs for past dates tend to be within the last 50 or so years and the record lows are almost entirely 70-80 years old if not older. Doesn't this say somthing about how the climates have been changing? WELL, DOESN'T IT? And now those record highs from the last 50 years are beginning to be beaten by the temperatures that are ocurring around the country today. But no, there is no such thing as global warning.

I have a lot more things to rant about but I don't have the time. I will get back to you all soon. I promise.

Oh and if some of you read my wife's blog I will tell you that, bless her heart, there are about 500 other things that she would be doing if she had money. The list has actually been growing at an exponential rate since the day that we started dating 6 years ago. Ah, my sweet elegy you are too too funny. I must say that I am thankful that she would like to get me a new ipod tho! (coming soon: my ipod rant)

QUOTE OF THE DAY
"Good god your alive"
"Yes, that's right I pulled a Jesus"

I like Fridays

Not much to say today.

Last night my wife and I watched "The Motorcycle Diaries", which was a very good film. I am sure some liberties were taken in terms of dramatic license, but overall a seemingly realistic look at a year in the early life of Che Guevara. What I found most interesting though is that I was listening more to the Spanish then watching the subtitles and I was actually able to understand a lot of what they were saying...wow..learning a language is fun!

That's all I got for ya'll today. Perhaps I will have a fun story or something when I get back from my hospital gig tonight.

no quote today....sorry to disappoint.

Thursday, July 14th 2005

I am at work at the moment and managed to obtain a free minute or so to write a few things down.

I have been free from school for the past couple of days and I really don't know what to do with myself. It is strange to have some time to yourself where you don't have to think or do anything if you don't want to. I should be reading up on organic chemistry since I will be starting that class in the next month and a half, but I haven't done a whole lot of it. Instead I played video games pretty much all day yesterday, mostly NHL 2003 and GTA:Vice City. Both games are a great deal of fun and I enjoy playing them, so much so that the time yesterday pretty much flew by. The wifey and I also went to her father's building on the east side of town that is in the midst of being completed and I was shocked at how incredible this place is. Probably one of the nicest buildings in the city. I want to live there but don't have the 7 figure checkbook. Alas.

I am also anxiously awaiting a call or an email from a particular medical school about a program that I have applied to which would help me gain early acceptance. I am on pins and needles about this and have had trouble sleeping because I keep thinking about it. It has been a little over two weeks since the applications were submitted (I am going up against 14 other people for 2 available slots) and I realize that things like this take time and I should be patient but I am only human. I am not saying that I deserve one of the slots but I would at the very least like to get a phone call for an interview. We shall see what happens. Getting this postion would help out me and my wife because provided I do well for the next two years and do well on the MCAT I should pretty much be able to guarantee that I would be going to med school at this particular institution and would not have to slap down a couple grand in applying to so many other schools and we could start looking for a more permanant residence. I of course would still apply to multiple institutions just not as many as I originally intended.

I also spent part of last night and this morning watching "The Last Temptation of Christ." This film is incredible. I remember all the "controversy" surrounding this film when it came out. How certain people on the religious right were condemning the film without having seen it simply because they heard that there was a scene in which Jesus has sex with Mary Magdalene. All of this commentary of course came in the wake of several religious leader sex scandals which is just funny. The thing so great about the film is it's portrayal of Jesus as a human being with human wants and needs. This humanistic quality to the character makes him all the more real and more believeable than any other portrayal of Jesus that I have ever seen. It makes you want to believe in him and follow his teachings of love, because he was very much like us in having doubts, wanting to do what was right and not fully knowing how to do it. What people who criticized the film, without having seen it, didn't realize is that the scenes in which Jesus lives like a man is merely an attempt by the devil to trick him. It is all just a vision wherein Jesus is being tempted to give in to his human wants instead of dying on the cross. It's the last temptation. Once Jesus realizes that this life was not real and it was the devil's doing we see him back on the cross fulfilling his destiny. So I don't quite see what the problem is. Of course I am not a very religious person so this wasn't very upsetting to me, nor was the idea that Jesus was a human being and not necessarily some all powerful supernatural entity. So it is just a beautiful film about a very interesting person who we really honestly don't know all that much about. And no I have not seen nor do I plan on seeing "TPOTC" by that australian nut job. I will say that seeing JC as a human being makes him that much more fascinating to me. I think that his true message to mankind has been twisted and turned into something that he would be ashamed of today. Love, it is as easy as that. What the heck has happend to us?

Ok so no more about religion. I could go on and on and on, but I won't.

I couldn't imagine what my life would be like without the woman that I married just over a year ago. It has been a wonderful ride and I look foward to the ups and downs that no doubt we will face together in the future. Key word here being together. I wish that you all could meet her someday because she really is something special. She is the cornerstone to my life and I have been thanking my lucky stars that she is with me. She was one of the reasons I went back to school and one of the reasons why I take better care of myself in terms of those nasty habits that people have (granted I still have a few cigarettes now and again, but when I first started dating her, my god it's been over five years since our first date, I was smoking like steel mill.) So that is my declaration of love. I could not finish this thought by also pointing out that she is damn sexy and when people I have met see her picture they always compliment her beauty and tell me how lucky I am. Boy, don't I know it.

I went to an eye doctor yesterday and found that I need a slightly higher prescription for my contacts. Thanks mom and dad for these wonderful eye problems that you have given me. Is it me or have the state of people's vision become worse and worse because we are all staring at computer screens all day? All signs point to yes on this one. It is bad enough that I have lenses that are shaped not unlike footballs (damn astigmatism), but now because I have spent the last six years in front of a computer screen (not exactly what you think you would be doing in the theatical entertainment indusrtry) my eyes are getting "tired" faster.

One last note on "The Last Tempting of Jeebus" Peter Gabriel's soundtrack is one of the finest pieces of music EVER!

QUOTE OF THE DAY
Ha! I got your hat! Take that, hatless! Now go back to the quad and resume your hackey sac tourney! I'm not gonna lay down for some frat boy bastard with his damn teether sandals and his Skoal Bandits and his Abercrombie and Fitch long sleeved, open stitched, crew neck Henley smoking his sticky buds out of a soda can while watching his favorite downloaded Simpsons episodes every night! Yes, we all love "Mr. Plow"! Oh, you've got the song memorized, do you? SO DOES EVERYONE ELSE! That is exactly the kind of idiot you see at Taco Bell at 1 in the morning! The guy who just whiffed his way down the bar skank ladder!
-Stewie Griffin

Coffeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

So yeah I am here and I am ready for the day to be over and yet I cannot help but feel that there are a number of things that I still have to do, but you know what I am not going to do them because I need to leave stuff for me to do the next couple of days that I am at work. HA! So there.

KARL ROVE SHOULD BE FIRED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So yeah I have had a little too much java today. What can I tell ya I just love the stuff and shortly I will be heading over to O'L's pub to have a couple of drinks with some old friends that I have not seen in awhile.

That's all I got for ya today. All-Star game tonight....looking forward to seeing the outstanding camraderie that will no doubt occur between A-Rod and Varitek.

QUOTE OF THE DAY
"What...you got a dead body in there?"
-A Hampton Jitney Bus Driver talking to a woman who was loading her bags on to the bus
(I actually did hear this today)

I firmly believe that we are on a road straight to hell...dag nabit...saun sarnett

It was an anniversary kind of weekend. Mi esposa y yo fuimos a Newport, Rhode Island por el fin de semana. Era muy bonita allí, pero mientras manejaba a Newport, estaba lloviendo muy malo. En el sábado hacía calor y mi esposa y yo caminamos a el Cliff Walk (Está muy famoso). Entonces fuimos a la playa por dos horas. Tuvemos quemado por el sol. Tratamos nadar pero el agua hacía mucho frío. Nos levantamos temprano para desayunar. El viaje era muy rápido, pero nos divertimos. También, había un interpretacíon histórico a llegó de Rouchambeau en La Estados Unidos.

Yo me quería mucha mi esposa.

So I made the mistake of watching a little bit of this "reality" show about a couple of over-privledged step kids of a song writer/producer. I am not easily offended by such nonsense but talk about a f'd up view of the world. I hope to god that they are just playing up to the camera and they aren't really the most idiotic people I have ever seen on television (current white house administration excluded). Talk about a waste of 10 minutes of my life that I will never get back. Serves me right though for even bothering to watch some of it in the first place. Watch as wacky brats who haved lived the "good" life continue to live the "good" life and piss off their step-dad. If you want to retain any brain cells do not watch this program. Me lost a few the other night and me not so good now.

EXCHANGE OF THE DAY
Brian: Hola, me llamo es Brian ... Nosotros queremos ir con ustedes.. uhhhh ...
Bellboy (Spanish): Hey, that was pretty good, except when you said "me llamo es Brian," you don't need the "es," just me llamo Brian.
Brian: Oh, oh you speak english!
Bellboy (sigh): No, just that first speech and this one explaining it.
Brian: You .... you're kidding me, right?
Bellboy (Spanish): Que?

Thought the above was appropriate seeing as how I have a spanish final tomorrow.

Addendum to yesterday's post

Why didn't anybody see this coming? Don't we have spies everywhere that are on alert to be on the look out for activity like this. Why wasn't "homeland security" notified about this earlier and why weren't we put on a higher "threat level" earlier. And what is going on with security in the UK, aren't they just as active in "hunting down terrorist threats" in their own country? Something here just doesn't add up. I want the truth about this stuff and I am sick and tired of being lied to about anything and everything.

From Michael Moore's "Dude, Where's My Country" (I put this in here not because I am a huge fan of Mr. Moore and frankly I think he might have jumped the shark, but, it is difficult to ignore the things that he points out):
"They call it a war on "terror." How exactly do you conduct a war on a noun? Wars are fought against countries, religions, and peoples. They are not fought against nouns or problems, and anytime it has been attempted- the "war on drugs," the "war on poverty"-it fails."

Just some food for thought here.

QUOTE OF THE DAY
So a Red Sox fan and a Cubs fan are sitting in a church praying. Suddenly, Jesus Christ appears to them. They look up and are shocked. The Sox fan says "Hey, thanks for everything you did last year for the Sox." and Jesus says "You are very welcome. I must tell you though that a lot of people up in heaven were a little upset with me after they found out what my plans were, so I had to make it look really good." The cubs fan after listening to this exchange says "So...uh..do you think you could see your way to maybe, you know, letting the cubbies take one soon?" Jesus looks at the cubs fan and then back at the sox fan and starts chuckling..."who do you think I am, my dad?"

My thoughts go out to the families of the wounded and the dead.

Without sounding like a total jerk I cannot believe that we raised the "threat level" here. Doesn't this seem just a little weird? The violence that occured today was an interesting coincidence in that it occured on the same day as the start of the G8 conference, or perhaps people from Paris did it after they found out that London would be hosting the 2012 Olympics. But anyway back to our "threat" level.

From the New York Times:
Mr. Chertoff, who has said he hopes to calm public fears rather than stoke them with alarming but vague pronouncements, said the London bombings called for "some reasonable adjustment" in the threat level in the United States.

So disregarding the fact that the G8 was starting today north of London (albeit, a bit farther than a hop skip and a jump from London) and that the 8 major leaders of the world happen to be there at this moment it makes perfect sense that there would be some type of attack in the UK, but we had to jump on the fears of millions of commuters across this country because we had to be important too. It had nothing to do with Bush's quaqmire? It had nothing to do with the fact that his approval rating is in the toilet and nothing like a little fear in the hearts of americans to remind us of how good a job he and his administration are doing? I don't think there is much of a threat against us right now within the United States, but hey, I've been wrong before.

So we again need to be on the look out for suspicious looking people. I often ride the subways of New York City and I can tell you, as I am sure many other commuters can attest to, that every other frickin person on the damn subway looks suspicious. From the homeless man with a few dozen bulging bags of who knows what to the woman singing to herself at a volume of about 11 to those damn scientologists giving free stress tests to the guys thumping on bibles saying we are all going to die if we don't redeem our souls and worship the lord jesus christ. It is all damn suspicious.

Again, I must say that my thoughts are out there for all the families who are suffering through this tragedy across the pond.

Good Night All

QUOTE OF THE DAY
Peter: Alright here's a riddle, a mother has two children, and an axe murderer says she can keep one. Which one does she let die?
Lois: Peter, that's not a joke, that's just horrible!
Peter: Wrong the ugly one!

¿Te gusta la hamburguesa?

Estoy muy cañsado hoy. Necesito dormir, pero tengo estudiar para una examen última de español. Quiero ver a "X-Files" y "El Hombre de Familia" pero debo estudiar.
Voy a mi casa para comer la cena en veinte y dos minutos. Vimos una película con Ethan Hawke y Julie Delpy se llama "Antes de Amanecer" anoche. Era una buena película, pero a veces muy aburribo. Ahora, nos esperando por la continuación se llama "Antes de Atardecer". Mi esposa y yo pensabamos sobre tenía un hijo pero decidimos esperar por una vez cuando tenemos más dinero.


Yeah so there.

QUOTE OF THE DAY
Peter: I'll handle it, Lois. I read a book about this sort of thing once.
Brian: Are you sure it was a book? Are you sure it wasn't nothing?
Peter: Oh yeah.