Month: April 2007

 

Speaking of Harry Potter…

Has anyone else noticed how similar the Daily Kos logo and the cover to the upcoming “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows” look?
Kos:

Potter:

I noticed it just this weekend and now I can’t un-notice it.

EDIT: Edited the Kos picture so the BANNER was the focus, not the sponsor.

Stand alone Pottermania

Ever since Chris Columbus left the Harry Potter movie franchise I’ve found the films to be both entertaining and thrilling. I had read the first book (Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone) and was totally aghast when I saw how incredibly lame it came off.

It compelled me not to read another Potter book to avoid similar disappointments… at least until after I had my curiosity piqued by way of the film adaptations of Prisoner of Azkaban and the Goblet of Fire.

The latter film had enough of a hook to make me want to know what was going to happen next… It nagged at me. I didn’t care for the film as much as Prisoner of Azkaban when I first saw it because it ran so long and had so much going on… But it grew on me. Repeated viewings made me appreciate it more and the ending compelled me to return to Potter literature.

Cal it a Wrath of Khan/Empire Strikes Back negative closing and how it makes you ponder where the story goes from there. Goblet of Fire pulled it off (even if the film lacked the multiple side stories that J.K. Rowling worked into the book).

So I picked up Order of the Phoenix and read it through – finding Rowling’s narration exquisite and the story compelling just as I found the first book to be. While I’ve read about the new movie (due out this summer) through Entertainment Weekly and about which side stories are shelved (Ron playing quidditch, Dobby the house-elf making a return, etc) there is enough going on to keep you interested.

And after seeing the International trailer for the film — I’m dying to see this adaption:

Stumbleupon Stonegauge…

Seeing I’ve been running Stonegauge in various forms for almost a decade and have blog posts from the last five years to go through… You may or may not want to simply check out the random Stonegauge page tool. That link (and the URL http://www.stonegauge.com/?random will wisk you away to a random post on the blog.

Tragedy, leadership and eloquence

With the massacre at Virginia Tech, the United States enters an unfamiliar and yet unforgotten territory of national mourning due to a domestic tragedy. The senselessness of what happened, the blame game of what went wrong, response times, woulda’-coulda’-shoulda’ and the like.

And of course there are clowns, such as myself, who think past the immediate tragedy and how things are and will be framed by powers-that-be in the country.

Case in point, there was a compelling diary on Daily Kos that compares elected official responses at Columbine High Shcool and Virginia Tech. Of course you know the players just as well as I do: former Vice President Al Gore and president George W. Bush.

While there is some nitpicking (the President doesn’t name names of victims… not that they were open knowledge until the day unfolded), the one thing that stands out is the difference in eloquence and leadership in the speeches given. Two similar tragedies and two varying responses to the mourners and grieving communities.

Hooked up on Crackberry!

It’s back home! My baby!

…but I was stupid enough to send it with it’s battery. It (the battery) was DOA when I tried to turn the device on. Overnight charging, anyone?

Crackberry indeed

I miss my baby and I am so worried about her.

At the end of February, I accidentally broke the lens cover on my Blackberry 8700g and it was rendered an annoying shade of useless. I found I could get it repaired for about 75 bucks from BBRepairshop if I shipped the unit off to them.

And that’s what I have done — the package with my addiction unit is in transit to Houston, Texas… Where BBRepairshop.com resides.

The question is just how my unit returns to me — in working order I hope — and if I will continue wasting money on my 2 year contract with T-Mobile if it does return to me in worse condition than it left.