Which family member are you?

I'll file this under "I wish I didn't think this is really funny, but I do."

Midnight Release Party!

Yes, more Harry Potter. I now have pictures from the release party at Barnes and Noble... they took Polaroids, and I scanned it.
If you were curious, Joe and I stayed up until 3am Saturday morning (after returning home with our copy), got some sleep, woke up and went to a garage sale and bought a microwave for $10 (ours died last weekend), went to my sister's where Joe took my brother-in-law to pick up their copy of the book, which we then borrowed. We returned home and read the book. Joe had made plans to meet with a friend, so he was gone a couple of hours in the evening. I finished the book not long before midnight, and Joe finished around 2am (Sunday morning).

We dressed up for the Barnes and Noble Release Party. I was Hermione (again), and Joe was Mad-Eye Moody. You can't see it in the picture, but we used sticky drawer liner that looks like fake wood to cover Joe's foot (the closest we could get to giving him a real wooden foot). Joe got a LOT of attention, and several people asked to take a picture with him. You should ask him what one junior high boy said to him - it's pretty funny. The party was not very exciting, but they did have a 10 or 11 foot long snake that we touched took pictures with. And, more importantly, we got a copy of the book!

I posted something after I had finished reading it, and it was way past my bedtime, so it probably doesn't make any sense. I'll rewrite it as soon as I build up enough courage to read it. :)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

(no spoilers here!)

I finished the final book in the Harry Potter series 7 minutes before midnight on the day is was released (we got it at 12:14am on Saturday, and I finished it at 11:53pm)! I did manage to get around 7 hours of sleep and 3 meals in there at some point. :)

It was harder for me to read, and I think I realized part of the reason why. By "harder to read" I mean that my eyes actually glassed over, threatening to flood, several - several - times. The weird part is that is wasn't about a sad plot turn or things of that sort (at least, not usually). So, here's my theory on why the final Harry Potter book was emotionally difficult for me to read.

Characters in books are not exactly the same as people in real life. I know, we learned in elementary school what "fiction" means - not real, made up. The thing that's stuck me today (over and over), is that characters are created by an author to fulfill a purpose within a story. With characters you've grown especially attached to, you get to watch them come closer and then (finally!) fulfill the roles they were created for. You may be thinking that this is also true of real people. Since books (usually) provide their reader with greater insight into many characters (I guess I'm getting at an omniscient viewpoint? I'm bad with vocabulary), and also because they (again, usually) have a defined beginning and end, you get to witness and experience these fulfillments much more often than in real life. And in real life it's harder to see or know when these experiences occur. Not impossible, just harder.

I'm feeling rather sleep-deprived and probably ceased to make sense within the first paragraph. Hopefully it won't be much longer before Joe finishes the book and I can get to bed!

Vocal Union

Here's a video for a song I like by Vocal Union. Cory (Joe's friend from college) is on the far left.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

No spoilers here....

We saw the 5th Harry Potter movie today! I liked it, though Joe was disappointed. It did seem to jump around a lot and not fully explain things at all. You should rewatch at least the fourth movie if you're a casual fan of the movies. If you've read the 5th book recently (or more times than you'd like to admit, ahem), then you won't have trouble following it. I have a feeling there are a ton of deleted scenes that would really help things flow together.

We're less than a week out from the release of the 7th (and final) Harry Potter book, so this movie was more just a step on the way to that for me.

A few things I did like about the movie... The music was well done - just enough to provide a great tone for the scenes, but not too much to take your attention away from the scenes. There are a lot of romantic hints between the students that were a nice addition. They also had many lines that were direct quotes from the book.

Well, what you've all been waiting for! We dressed up and I have pictures! I was Hermione Granger (as I have been for the other movies), and Joe was Alabastor "Mad-Eye" Moody. Check out our costumes from past years if you'd like.

Joe as Mad-eye Moody

the movie Mad-Eye

Kat as Hermionethe movie Hermione

New Disc Golf Course

No, I'm not referring to the homemade disc golf basket in our backyard (which Joe was excited to get but has yet to use).

Well, the First Baptist church behind Wal-Mart in Bryan now has a disc golf course! It has nine holes, though it looks like they plan to arrange the tee boxes so that you play 18 holes. I saw it while driving by on the feeder, so Joe had to try it out. One note: Some holes are marked, but Joe says the par seems to be for a Youth Disc Golf Course (so the pars are higher than they should be). Also, the baskets are lower than normal. But if you like disc golf, enjoy!

Was I Flirting?

This is a video from Kindergarten - a performance our grade was doing (outside) for our parents. So do you think, at age 5, I was flirting or just having fun. He started it, by the way. Decide for yourself:

Update on FIZZIX car

I told you a while back (katmosphere: Ways to Spend Money) about a car I saw driving to work. I saw it again today. Around the now famous license plate was a plate cover that said, "Who is...?" and I could not remember the name it said on the bottom. Today I saw the name, and remembered it! It read, "Who is John Galt?" I had never heard of the person (hence my difficulty remembering it), so I looked it up online today. Apparently, John Galt is a character in Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.

According to Wikipedia, "John Galt's name is enshrined in the question 'Who is John Galt?' The phrase is used popularly as an expression of helplessness and despair at the sorry state of the world."

So there we have it! Had I known what he was trying to express, I guess I wouldn't have laughed at the license plate as much.

I went through a phase in high school when I read a bunch a dystopian novels, and Ayn Rand's Anthem was one of them. At some point later in school, I had the option to read Fountainhead or something else, and I chose the something else. I remember that I was unimpressed with Anthem, and did not have the desire to read more Ayn Rand, but I don't remember why. Since I remember very strong feelings against some other books, I'm guessing it wasn't too bad. Reading some summaries online, it seems like a lot of what she wrote was because of the time period and things going on in the world. It also has surprised me how much of an impact people say her books have made on America. If that were the case, wouldn't I have heard more about her, and been told I had to read one of her books? Also, I don't see her way of thinking fitting into the increasingly postmodern society we live in. Here's a quote from Ayn Rand:

"My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."

Especially the last half (ideals of productive achievement and reason) don't seem to have much of a place in postmodernity. Having fewer absolutes gets closer, though. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. Sorry - this post got serious! Anyway, my opinion of the guy with the custom plate and depressing plate cover has now diminished.

Confucius say...

Joe got a bad fortune cookie yesterday. I was going to bring it home and scan it post along with this blog, but when Joe showed it to an employee at the restaurant where we got it, she read it and said "Oh no! Not true! You share her (pointing to me) fortune!" and proceeded to tear it into tiny pieces (the fortune cookie paper is already small - I was actually surprised how many times she could tear it). So here's how it read:

"Your problem just got bigger. What did you do?"