While making chocolate sauce to go on some ice cream this evening, I managed to slice my thumb open on the sugar that had crystallized around the lid of our jar of maple syrup. I never knew the stuff could be so sharp.
Harry F***ing Potter
I’m very annoyed with myself because I bought the new Harry Potter book yesterday. The fourth book may have won the Hugo award for best novel, but I found it disappointing. It stomped over the same ground as the first three books, and it didn’t deliver any significant growth in the characters. Magic, Quidditch, Voldemort. Wooo, scary. Like there was ever any whiff of danger involved, or the possibility of Harry not winning through in the end.
Oh, and the book was way too long. You don’t need 600 pages to tell that story. But what can you say to the goose that lays the golden eggs? “Get an editor with some fucking backbone?” I think not.
I’m really not looking forward to The Order of the Phoenix. It’s over 800 pages long. I’m dreading the thought of another year going by at Hogwarts without the characters evolving in some way. Sure, the books are classed as “children’s” fiction, and she may be writing for a young audience, but the fact is that a large proportion of Rowling’s readership are grown-ups, and grown-ups have different expectations of a book than children do. Her publisher recognizes this reality. Does J.K.?
So why did I buy it? A certain completist tendency, I suppose. And the hope that not all of the 800 pages will be wasted by fluff about talking statues and spooky hallways. The book is going to have to work really hard to please me. I’m disappointed in myself because I don’t usually even start a book unless I think I’m going to like it. But there just isn’t much hope there.
Harrison Ford’s greatest finger moments
Cinema?
Hmm. We’ve hit our deadline at work (yay!), and now there’s a lull in the project. I might be able to go home at a normal hour this evening. Also, we currently have Scott & Ange’s car while they’re on holiday. So I’m thinking about going out to see a film after Alex has gone to bed. But what to see?
Should I go down the comedy route, with Anger Management or A Guy Thing, or would it be more enjoyable to take in a thriller like Ripley’s Game or Identity?
(Hmm… Jack Nicholson, Jason Lee, John Malkovich, or John Cusack. Modern popular cinema seems to be entirely populated by lead actors with “J”-names.)
Alternatively, I could take the easy way out and see Reloaded again. Maybe it’ll make more sense the second time round.
95% of Americans of age 65 are broke or deceased
The funniest piece of spam I’ve seen so far this year:
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If that doesn’t trigger your funny bone, you’re not reading enough junk mail.
Multiple blogs on a single index page
For a while back in March I had changed the look of my main blog page so that it showed entries from my Quick Reviews blog interleaved with my main blog entries, in the appropriate chronological order. Frank suggested that I should put together a tutorial on how to do this with Movable Type, so here it is.