Once again, no spoilers in this post. In less than half of the total time it took me to read book 6, I started and completed Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. In about 11 total hours (probably about 9 of which were actually spent reading) I read through all 759 pages of the book. I don’t think I’d claim that it was my favorite (still goes to Goblet of Fire, the book version; of the currently released movies, I’d have to go with Chamber of Secrets), but it’s definitely towards the top of the list. I succeeded in my quest to avoid any spoilers before having finished reading it, and I can now surf the internet free from fear of reading something I’d prefer not to. I’m slightly too lazy now to go back and check to see if I’ve ever given a book a review score, but I’ll do it for this one anyway. My score: 8.5/10
To my knowledge there’s nothing left this year that has an inordinately huge amount of hype built up around it. The iPhone, the 5th HP movie, and now the final HP book have all been released. Ah yes, there would be one last thing that comes to mind; a little game coming out in September called Halo 3. After that though I think the hype machine for 2007 should be just about done. I’m not saying whether that’s a good or bad thing, but just stating the facts as I see them.
Personal - Dallas
Right now Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is releasing on the east coast, and in an hour it will be officially out here also. I’m not going to the launch party, but I will be getting it tomorrow morning. Until I finish reading it, part of my “low profile” plan involves as little public interaction as possible. No (or very minimal) internet tomorrow, so don’t try to contact me and expect a quick response.
The website idea which I discussed with my friends yesterday I’ve been instructed to keep under wraps, but I couldn’t immediately find a way to play devil’s advocate like I often can with website ideas. I will need to brush up on my PHP before I’ll really be able to help with it, but overall I think the idea really has potential. Once the site goes live (probably in a couple months), it’ll get a link over in my sidebar, and I’ll write a post explaining more about it.
Personal - Dallas
I’m meeting my friends at 6:00 to eat and discuss the idea, but what will happen after that I’m not sure. My guess would be that I’d be home 7:30-ish or so (especially since tomorrow isn’t a weekend), but you never know. Therefore, so there is no risk at all of the streak being broken, I’m making this post now.
I went with my mom to go see Harry Potter today, and while it was still enjoyable, seeing it twice in under a week did put it on the edge of being slightly boring (well, “predictable” is the better word). I’m just a chapter away from having finished Half-Blood Prince, and on Saturday I’ll actually be the one getting the new book. This works slightly better in my favor since I planned on keeping a very low profile period until I had finished reading the book as to avoid any accidental (or maybe not so) spoilers about it. I’ll almost definitely have it finished by church on Sunday when I’ll give it to my grandmother for her to read.
Personal - Dallas
Tonight, rather than reading Half-Blood Prince like I should be doing to finish it tomorrow, I think I’m going to watch a movie on one of our HBO channels. We never had any of the subscription movie channels when we lived in HP, and the only reason we have them here is because they were originally free for 3 months. They do provide a nice distraction on occasion, especially with the lack of commercials, but I wish that more of them were in HD (or if they already are, that Time Warner would pick them up).
Tomorrow afternoon I’m meeting with two of my friends to discuss a “website idea” that the two of them have already been thinking about. Beyond that I’m clueless to any specifics, so I guess I’ll just be waiting until tomorrow to find out exactly what this idea is. As if I need something else to work on, but I’d generally rather be busy than have absolutely nothing to do.
Personal - Dallas
The way my mind makes connections is very interesting. I was thinking about my internship, which led to scheduling, which led to Google Calendar, which led to what I do on the web, which led to my blog…my blog? Did I… My blog!!! What time is it?
I actually went to bed about 20 minutes ago, but I turned my computer back on for the sole purpose of making this post. I was not about to let my streak end at 86 posts (I’m at the point now where I have to bring out a calculator if I want a count), so here’s post 87. An almost forgotten post 87, but “almost” forgotten is just as meaningless as “almost” remembered to make a post.
I think the reason I forgot is that nothing exciting happened today. I read another chapter or two in Half-Blood Prince, watched some TV tonight, but aside from that, my day was pretty typical. Typical not in the way that I was bored out of my mind because nothing interesting happened, but just average without any big surprises (good or bad). Actually, those sound really close to one another. Maybe I really was bored all day and just didn’t realize it (time spent at internship aside)?
Personal - Dallas
Basically in three weeks from today, everything must be completed for my internship project. All the code, all the documentation, all the presentation stuff has to be done because the next day we leave for Iowa. Luckily I only have to spend about 48 hours up there, but that’s approximately 47 more than I feel like my life might possibly need of that state. I mean, they’re not exactly a small company. Why not New York, Chicago, LA even? No, it’s Iowa, one of those states that you’re very likely to forget when asked to name all 50 of them. For two days, I’ll be forgotten.
Something that I would probably never buy if I didn’t have this massive influx of money since February or so has made its way onto my purchase list along with the Nokia N800. That I’ll be getting probably right around the time school starts, but in October or so I’ll be dropping $450 on the Neo1973. For $50 more I could get an iPhone, but this is pretty much everything the iPhone isn’t: open, extendable, and the absolute opposite of being locked to a carrier. It’s that last reason why I’ll probably be buying one; if this was a phone AT&T offered, I’d probably ignore it. One of the things I’d love to see happen is the decoupling of the physical phones from the cell companies. I don’t care if they cost more since no subsidies will be in place; I want the type of innovation happening with phones in Europe and Japan to make their way over here and be compatible with the networks in America (specifically, the GSM 850 band whatever the UMTS band AT&T is using). I will wait for a review to two just to make sure the phone isn’t a bomb, but looking at the specs for it, it is pretty much my ideal phone (minus the camera). If they can hit their target of new model(s) every year, I’ll happily play the eBay cycle to upgrade that often (this would be selling an old device in order to cover part of the cost for a newer model).
Personal - Dallas
July has 31 days so technically it’s noon tomorrow that’s the halfway point for my experiment, but I think tonight will suffice for a non-journal midpoint post. My overall feeling at this point is that, yes, Linux is an option for average users to have on their desktop. The couple of programs I’ve wanted to get working under Linux I’ve done do successfully after a little work, and I will admit that after really using the package manager to find new software, not having that in XP will be missed. That said, however, in another 17 days, I’ll almost definite be back on XP. Why? Comfort, familiarity, and the stuff I know doesn’t work in Linux but isn’t something that I need all the time.
I’m almost 300 pages into Half-Blood Prince, and taking into account my shortened reading schedules during the week, I think I’ll probably be done Wednesday or Thursday. One thing I’ve found myself doing a lot is mentally deciding what will and won’t be cut out of the movie version. If I was the director I’d probably aim for an epic movie that deals with the majority of events in every single chapter, but looking at the trend the movies have been taking, it’s sometimes easy to spot where parts will be left out in the translation.
Personal - Dallas
Taking an approximately 900 page book and condensing it down into just over a two hour movie means that quite a bit is going have to be cut, and while I can’t name specifically more than about three things there were cut out, Order of the Phoenix very obviously follows a very streamlined version of the book with virtually nothing being included in the movie that isn’t directly related to the plot progression. It was very good, and I liked it better than the movie version of Goblet of Fire in some ways, but big character development this movie had not. My score: 9/10.
I intended on starting to read Half-Blood Prince again today, but I always got distracted with other things. I’ll probably start it tomorrow afternoon and then finish it up around the middle of the week. After all, I need to finish it by Sunday which is when I’ll be getting the 7th book to read.
Personal - Dallas
After reading the E3 coverage from this past week, I got the urge to pull out one of my played games out of the closet and start replaying it. As my ever so clever title hints, this game is Super Mario Sunshine. Super Mario 64 was an absolutely awesome game that I worked at getting all 120 stars on; Sunshine I beat with 62 and moved onto other games. I don’t plan on getting all of the “shines” this time through, but I at least want to play through it without a guide/walkthrough next to me. This is all, of course, in mental preparation for Galaxy coming out in November.
In order to play Galaxy when it comes out I need a Wii, however, so I’ve enlisted my grandparents in Arkansas to keep an eye out for one up there. Demand for it probably won’t do anything but increase between now and my birthday/Christmas, so finding one soon would be the smartest possible move. The best time for me to start seriously looking for a Wii will ironically be once I start back to school since 4 of my days don’t begin until after noon, so I’ll have the free time to go store searching as they open. A Wii may have eluded me thus far, but I will get my hands on one before too much longer.
Personal - Dallas
The last batch of parts for our HTPC arrived today, so I screwed the top on and hopefully won’t have to open up the case again for a while. Everything else that needs to be done is software configuration and plugging cables into the back. Part of the hardware today was a wireless keyboard/mouse joystick which I’m already in love with since it allows me to sit on the couch rather than on the floor staring up at the screen. The current status is that it has two analog cable tuners, but by the end of the weekend that will hopefully be up to two analog cable, one analog OTA, one digital OTA (ATSC), and then also a connection to control our cable box. Yep, 5 tuners in that case. I dare the networks to schedule programming so that I can’t watch or record something.
The internship trip to Iowa isn’t an optional thing, so all of our travel arrangements got made this week. Luckily it’s just a two night thing; we go up August 7th, have all the banquet and presentation stuff on the 8th, then come back to Dallas on the 9th. After that, as I hope everyone knows by now, there is a grand total of one day remaining of my internship. It will be interesting to see if in the remaining three weeks the project comes together of if we’ll be scrambling to “fake” stuff in that last week before the trip.
Personal - Dallas