Monthly Archives: July 2007

The Deathly Hallows

I finished the book early this afternoon. Last night I read up to the final chapter and decided to go to sleep and finish it today. Woke up, did the get ready for the day rituals and then before I ate some food took my final new trip into the world of Harry Potter.

The book was fantastic. That’s really the easiest way to sum it up. I’m still digesting things, waiting for some friends to finish reading it (I thought I did it fast, I basically read all of sunday since I had work and company over on Saturday. The speed readers finished it on Saturday). It’s neigh impossible to finish any type of story that so many people read and make it something everyone is satisfied with. I thnk Rowling did it though. 7 books, hours of reading, thousands of pages, probably close to a million words and she pulled off a series that is going to be read for generations.

But I am dissapointed. First that it is the last book, the story is over. I’ve been with the series since 1999 and knowing that there aren’t any more books coming is a sad thought. Sure she may do some encylopedia type stuff like she’s done before, but the adventure, the journey, the tale, is over.

She killed a whole mess of people. Like…a lot. It was really a war book, the darkest, most adult and suprisingly complex book. But the story ends, one I’m basically happy with and then she has a “19 years later” Epilogue that’s 6 pages long. The space between the end of the book and the epilogue is basically a black hole. I’m dying to know of the aftermath of the war, the rebuilding of the Wizarding world. There were some funerals I wanted to go to, to see what many of the kids went on to do and it’s simply not there. I thought the epilogue was going to be about 30 pages long but only got 6. A mere morsel of what I’d consider the whole story. It’s pretty fucking annoying knowing that’s all there is. You get a certain attachment to this world and I’m not just yearning for more, but to fill in that black hole that’s there. It feels like it isn’t finished to me.

That’s life though…it’ll be interesting to see what Rowling does next. Lord knows she’ll have millions of people ready to follow her.

New pictures up

New pics are up at my Flickr account. Check ’em out, we took a quick trip around the area. Lot of fun, the car is amazing.

Also: Hit page 500 of Deathly Hollows. I can’t stop reading. The end is getting near.

A post before the last journey with Harry Potter.

Book Seven comes out in a matter of minutes, it’s hard to believe the time has come for the end. I’m about to go to Bennet Books with mom to get it, I should be back with it in less than a half an hour.

I have the last section of Book Six to finish before I continue on…I think I’ll finish off Half-Blood Prince tonight an leave the last book for tomorrow. I’m going to take it to work and read at every chance I can steal away. I won’t watch tv or surf the net until I finish the book. I’m going to charge through it, I can’t risk hearing any spoilers about it. I’ve managed to go in pretty much blind and I actually feel anxious about finish the tale that I’ve spent the last 7 years reading. I don’t think Rowling is going to disappoint me…the next 48 should be something.

Dad picked up his Audi A3 today. The TSX has found a new home with a guy in Wyckoff…the Audi crushes it. It’s an amazing car. An awesome blue metallic paint with grey leather interior. Fast as hell, handles like a dream.

Alright, time to start the journey.

Jim Norton signing!

It rocked! Got my book signed, got a pic with him which can be found here and met Club Soda Kenny, Pat from Moonakie and No Filter Paul.

Big turnout for Jim, they sold out of books. John was smart enough to get it yesterday so we were ight. There was at least 200 people, took an hour and a half to get all the way through.

I got my passport today too. It was a damn good day.

Summer movies

Ratatouille- Completely awesome. Might be the best animated movie I have ever seen. Leagues better than Pixars last movie, Cars. Everything about it was great. Fantastic story, great characters, fantastic animation with a soundtrack to match.

Transformers- It ruled. It’s a Michael Bay summer movie so you can pretty much guess what it was like. A somewhat sensible story, some goofy characters, dialog that ranges from good to corn ball, a stupid soundtrack and explosions that only American filmmakers can do. It sure had it’s problems, but the awesome far outweighed the bad. The cast was actually pretty damn good, Shia was terrific and Megan Fox is drop dead gorgeous. It’s all about the Transformers though. The CG work is second to none, ILM did some insane work. The animation from robot to car and back was just unbelievable, it really looked like 40 foot robots were really walking around and shit. It was long but whatever, I really liked it.

Next up: Potter up on the IMAX screen.

The big update

Since it’s been so long I’m just going to make a big list of shit. We’ll see how it turns out together.

Lots of great shit going down in entertainment. Summer is here with some force, I’m going to see Ratatouille and Transformers next week. Potter 4 drops that week and I plan on seeing that in IMAX before Book 7 (!!!) drops the following week. I need to also squeeze in Die Hard 4 somewhere in there. Also, Jimmy Nortons’ book hits next week and he’s doing a signing right by me in Ridgewood so I’m going to go to that for sure.

Korn’s 8th studio album (Untitled) hits at the very end of the month and I’m looking forward to that. Can’t make it to Family Values tour this year though. I’ll try to catch them the next time they come to town.

Verizon Vios sometime? Jonathan is getting it next week, depend on how that goes means we may or may not get it. Could be dope.

E3 is next week. It’s going to be smaller, but the news and media is going to be just as heavy for us gamers, xbox live is going to rule next week. Speaking of xbox 360, MS just expanded the warranty to 3 years from date of purchase and will be refunding those who have paid for service. The red ring of death failure rate is too high to ignore and they have to get back into good graces with customers. They want people talking about their games, not how the console is built like a box of matches. Sony may be dropping the PS3 price by 100 bucks in 2 weeks so expect MS to follow suit. Dope games worth checking out: Forza 2, The Darkness and DiRT. I’m currently making my way through Lost Planet which is both good and frustrating.

Since leaving XM after the Opie and Anthony suspension, I bought a 30 gig Creative Zen Vision (Black) and it’s dope. Easily stands up to what the ipod has to offer and it even has more features for the same price. I got an FM transmitter for my car since my Pioneer head unit doesn’t have an aux jack (damn my non-foresight in 2004). It works alright, but on the Turnpike forget it. It’s like listening to a radio that’s getting a signal from the moon. The audio quality at it’s best is passable, but I’m not all that satisfied with it. So my goal is to change up my car system when I get a new job, get a new Pioneer head unit with an aux jack, take out the busted CD changer, keep the XM tuner (put it under the floor in the back) and rock it like that. I’ll sell the current head unit and the FM tuner for the Zen (may keep it though, it’s good as a car charger too).

So yeah, I’m looking for a new job. My job is totally lame, I’m just not happy. Pay blows, benefits suck and the head management is incompetent and clueless. I know I can do better, I just have to do something about it.