7 posts tagged “harry potter”
I must confess, fellow Voxies, that I've been a bit preoccupied lately. I'm wading through that nebulous, disoriented state that goes along with stuffing your life into a bunch of Home Depot boxes. Or rather, trying to remove your life from said boxes and put it back into action.
Distractions abound, of course. In the process of trying to find the perfect new home for X, I'll end up cleaning A, reorganizing B (for the umpteenth time), and discovering somewhere along the way that I never finished dealing with C in the first place. Eventually, defeated and exhausted, I end up plunking X back into the box whence it came.Where is X? Where should X live in the new home?
Other major distractions include, but are not limited to:
- The Great Snape Debate, and Harry Potter in general (tomorrow, tomorrow!) -- you don't even want to know how much time and energy has been spent considering Snape lately, or which books I've pulled off the shelves in the course of my considerations
- Knitting, knitting, knitting
- Team PidgenDove Administrivia, like name changes and immigration paperwork
Off I go to turn more thoughts of anti-heros, tragedy, and all the books I've loved before.
7/12 Addendum:
How remiss of me not to post the pattern details. Sorry, knitsters!
The bunster's pattern came from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson. Note that at two weeks to complete there was nothing last-minute about it, but at least I made my deadline. This was in the 6 to 8 hour gift section of the book (divided by time...genius!), but with the Elaina frog factor and it took me more along the order of 14 hours to finish.
I substituted the altogether lovely but ridiculoualy expensive Blue Sky Alpaca sportweight (doubled!) with non-doubled Rowan Calmer that knit up to the same gauge. I used Calm for the main and Sugar for the ears. It wasn't so much the expense that drove me to choose another yarn as the fact that the recipient is an infant. If it turns out that this baby latches onto Bunster (e.g. drools and vomits on, drags around, etc.) I want it to be washable for mom & dad. Also, alpaca can be kinda itchy for some folks.
Other deviations: I knit most of this on a set of double-points rather than on two circulars like it suggests. This was only slightly more confusing during the increase and descrease rounds, but not too terrible. I also discovered that something I heard speculated on KnittingHelp.com is true: if one double-point is one size smaller or larger than the rest, it does not show up in the work. Neato, huh? Lastly, I stuffed the bunny with scrap yarn rather than getting filler. The consistency is great, but you can see the color of the yarn through the work. Keep that in mind if you're thinkng of doing something similar. I used a reddish-maroon yarn, and my husband quickly pointed out that it was "like guts". Which he thought was cool.
... and I want a comfy armchair in which to sit while I finish off the rest of my evening's work. Said chair should have a matching ottoman. Furthermore, I want our boxes to unpack themselves, and the weird mutant stitch in my current knitting project to stop haunting my thoughts. In conclusion, I want to have the whole week off from Wednesday onward, and for the new Harry Potter to magically appear on my doorstep when I wake up on Thursday at a leisurely 10:30am.
Is that so wrong?
... And so on with the joyous news.Greetings from Amazon.com.
As an Amazon Prime customer who has pre-ordered "Harry Potter and the
Deathly Hallows," you are probably itching to get your hands on the
first copy off the press. Great news! We are making sure you receive
your book(s) on the day of release, July 21, 2007, guaranteed!*You don't have to do a thing -- just sit back and wait for the book to
arrive on your doorstep on July 21..."
I love you, Amazon. I will happily continue to give you 10% of my salary for the rest of my life.
Fie!
I went to Amazon.com this morning, fully intending to use the final vestiges of a generous gift certificate to buy The Omnivore's Dilemma.
The very first thing I see once the page loads is this:
One squeal, one click, and one second later, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is mine. Or at least it will be on July 22nd, at which time I will read it good and hard. Not even Daniel Radcliffe's freaky love thang for (wild, wild) horses could drag me away.*
I feel so... played.
* On that topic... I'm all for "one of the most significant
English-language plays of the past 30 years" and edgy art that makes
hefty points, but... eww. Sorry for the terrible yet terribly irresistible pun I employed above.
Harumph.
In a voracious reading frenzy of speeds unseen since The Half Blood Prince, l tore through Orson Scott Card's 1985 novel Ender's Game in about 15 hours.
Yes, yes... I know. Ostensibly, these are books for twelve(ish)-year-olds. This fact became all too apparent to me as I tried to solicit opinions from my friends on Ender and other books in the series.
In my defense, I didn't even know it existed until about a month ago. Moreover, I majored in English Literature and suffered through enough of the boring bits of the canon that I feel I've earned the right to read whatever drivel strikes my fancy.
And besides... it was fantastic.
Know that only a very fine thread of restraint is preventing me from emboldening, capitalizing, underlining, italicizing, and otherwise drawing attention to the word "fantastic". This was one of the better books I've read in a great long while, and I was unable to stop thinking about it and its implications (intended or inadvertent) for days after finishing.
The details of how and why it appealed to me aren't really all that important. Suffice it to say that I was hungry for more. I am still hungry for more.
Luckily, there are 4 books in what is considered the "Ender Series" (the first of which is Ender's Game) and then 4 more in a second series commonly referred to as "The Shadow Series". It's all very "let's play D&D and then make out and see if our braces spark", no?
After way too much deliberation, here it is (or was) in a nutshell:
- After a generous donation from Tobin, who taught me that all self-respecting nerd households somehow end up with at least two copies of Ender's Game, I now own a beautifully hideous paperback version of the novel. Of course Richard already has one, but through some confusion or other we thought his was in another country. Now we have two, which allows us to barely meet the minimum geek requirements. *phew*
- I want Ender's Shadow, The Shadow of the Hegemon, and Shadow Puppets.
- I am undecided about Shadow of the Giant.
- I'm not sure I want, but am afraid not to get Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide.
- I want nothing to do with Children of the Mind. Go away.
- I'm going to pretend that First Meetings, a weird spin-off book about the parents, doesn't exist.
Simple enough, right? Enter Amazon, with its sly devices like Amazon Prime and its coy charms like "Better Together". It proceeds thusly:
- "The Shadow Series" is not available as a boxed set (except for one collector's edition $220 one... f' that).
- I can get the first two in "The Shadow Series" cheaper if I buy them in a boxed set with the original Ender's Game than if I bought them each individually.
- If I buy Shadow Puppets and Shadow of the Giant together, I can the latter in hardback for the bargain price of $7.99.
- I can get Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide cheaper if I buy them in a boxed set with Children of the Mind than than if I bought them each individually. And, after all, people who liked the things I just bought also liked this thing!
Tricksy devil, Amazon. This leaves me:
- $47.90 in the hole
- With three copies of Ender's Game
- With three books about which I'm undecided, and with one I flat-out don't want
- With eight new books on the way
Someone in the Amazon marketing and/or business strategy department deserves a huge raise. I was worked over like a lump of dough. At least I get free shipping.
1. hibernation
My devoted fan-base *chokes light-heartedly on hubris* has undoubtedly noticed a decline in my output lately. This is because I've been wrapped up in my favorite autumn pastime -- sitting around sulking, watching lots of bad movies, and occasionally eating too much. I also like to tearily reminisce about my charmed childhood, miss my family from a safe distance, and say things like, "The world is finally starting to look how I feel." I'm almost ready to emerge from my cave and get on with things.
2. humility
Various things for various reasons have taken me down a peg or two these past few weeks. I'm thankful for that, because I hate being cocky or deluded. In no particular order and divorced momentarily from their messengers, they were: skill, gratitude, kindness, rationale, bravery, discipline, devotion, patience, and love. *Please, no one put that on a card or anything... blech.* It alarms me how easy it is to be lazy and complacent.
3. hair
I dyed mine really red on top and dark brown underneath, which pleases me immensely because I am vain and shallow. I would post a photo of it here, but sadly camera phone technology is not adequately up to snuff to do proper saturation on reds... or most colors, for that matter.
In a surprise move, The Pigeon chopped off his gorgeous rock-star hair (or his girl hair, as our male friends would put it). I quite like the new look, along with his charming proclamations like, "My head's cold," and, "I can't believe how much shade my hair was providing!"
Basically we've gone from Harry Potter in The Goblet of Fire to something slightly shorter than Harry Potter in The Prisoner of Azkaban. (I'm going to get in so much trouble for that comparison, true and accurate though it may be.) *Note that while my version is similar in many respects -- Britishness, wizardry, dragon-slaying, possession of an impressive wand -- Richard is entirely legal and wouldn't do nearly half the stupid things that Harry does.*
Given that Daniel Radcliffe always seems to steal Richard's haircuts, I predict he'll be going short for the screening of Part V.
