All work and no play

make Kinsi go insane.

I’ve got it – Live blogging HP and the Deathly Hallows

wahhoooooooo! I’ve got it. Let the reading, with diet coke, fat free pringles, and xm radio, commence!

Liveblogging below the fold. Don’t go there unless you want to be spoiled.

Update – Actually, I tried to avoid giving too many spoliers, if any at all.  The book is stunning folks – go read it…any spoliers you might have heard (which are wrong, as far as I can tell) doesn’t take anything away from it.  It’s the best of the series…and a phenomenal book.

Happy Harry Potter Day – part 2

The best laid plans always fail.  I just wasn’t able to fall asleep today – just two separate 1 hour naps.    It’s too late for a nap now…alas…I’m going to leave in about half an hour to get to Borders.  I’ll just keep drinking coffee (Seattle’s Best Cinnabun right now) all night and tomorrow…get back home at 6:00pm and crash…maybe waking up for church Sunday morning.

I’m starting to feel a complusion to dress up – I already checked…but I think I tossed my old Tech graduation robe.  So it looks like it’s a no go…I was going to wear the robe, a greenish button shit, and a nametag that said “Tom Marvolo Riddle.”  Maybe I’ll comb the closet one more time…..

Happy Harry Potter Day – part 1

Probably all day today I’ll be blogging about Harry Potter and the seventh book release.  Well, half of tomorrow too.  For a Harry Potter fanatic such as myself, this day is a joyous day to behold…and one that’s required some planning on my part.

See, I work tomorrow, from 9 to 5:30.  I know once I get my hands on a copy of the book I won’t be able to stop reading.  Therefore I woke up at 5 this morning, with plans on taking an extended nap, waking up sometime before 10:00pm, so I can stay up all night reading and somehow pull off being human at work.  Although the kiddos will be tired as well…and we’ll probably talk about Harry Potter each class.
I just got back from Borders – I reserved my copy online, and I got an email saying I should show up at 9 to get a wristband to hold my place in line.  Hell yah.  So I went, finally getting there at 9:30 (I was finishing up a frenetic rereading of HP and the HBP)  I see there’s a line!  I thought the wristband was supposed to prevent that.  Turns out they open at 10, not 9.  I grumble with other folks, and consider leaving and coming back.  But by then it’s 9:40, so what the hell, and I plopped myself in line and make light chatter, and start texting my best friend down in Savannah to share the experience.

A borders employee stalks out, and says sorry about the email.  To make up for it, they are going to give us free coffee (HELL YAH!).  He then lectures us on not pushing each other, making a fuss, causing a stir, on the way up to get a wristband.  Ok dude, we’re not that insane.  It’s not like you actually have the books.  It’s a wristband.  I think you have a slightly over inflated sense of self worth here.

There’s a wide mix of ages there – some my age or a couple years younger, two kids, one older English teacher, but most were whom I believe to be moms, waiting in line for their kids.

With about 5 to go, an armored truck pulls up.  We’re all betting the books are in there.  The borders employees shuttle the armored car to the back of the store – this causes us all to wake up a little bit in excitement.  People start talking about costumes for tonight (I’ll try to remember to take my camera) and the fever catches as I catch myself wistfully thinking about dressing up as either Harry (I’ve got the hair and glasses for it) or Hagrid (I’ve got the body type for it – 6′6 and gigantic) but set those aside.  One pair promises to come as Wizards dressed up as Muggles….that’s a cute idea.  A Mom and Daughter are going as Mrs. and Ginny Weasley.  That should be cute too.

Finally the guy comes down and lets us in.  We’re told to follow him (see ego problem above) and like the Pied Piper of Potter he leads us to the music section to get our writbands.  We’re told we want to be there by 11, although the party starts at 9, and we line up according to our wristbands, in clumps of 50.  I’m in the first 50, so I’ll be among the first to get Harry Potter in Cobb County, Georgia…legally.

I make a b-line afterwards for the free coffee, and sip it as I buy some books I’ve been wanting (Harry Turtledove’s Alternate History series about what would have happened if the Confederacy won the Civil War…pretty damn interesting…I’ve read them before and am buying them.)  I promise everyone there I’ll see them tonight.  I’ll be there in 12 hours.  Better start napping

And buying coffee.  Thats for later though.

Meanness = Promotion?

So my boss assigned me a task because I can be mean. He saw me being rather harsh to a trainee who was on his last day of training. On the last day I’m a little harsher to fine tune some of the problems I’ve caught during training. Everyone says that training is harder than real life on the job, which makes be rather happy to hear frankly. This guy in question did really well on his first actual day of teaching…despite sucking hard that last day.

Well, my boss calls me up and wants to observe a teacher they’ve had complaints about. And he’s picked me because I “can be mean!” He was proud of how harsh I had been on poor unnamed trainee – I could hear motion in his voice when there rarely is any. He wanted me to be that harsh and particular when observing this teacher on Thursday.

So his comments had the total opposite effect on me than what he was hoping they would (I imagine.) I now feel pretty bad about being so harsh and particular with that trainee (despite its very clear results) and I’m rather dreading Thursday since I need to be harsh. I’m worried about getting typecasted.

This brings up a while new realm of questions as well – do I have to be mean to get ahead? I’m not a corporate cutthroat by nature. Is it time to start setting aside these feelings of uneasiness about being an ass to get ahead? AHH! I hate this inner turmoil going through my new quasi-corporate life.

I have a penis, therefore I cause war.

Ok.  So I hit my fill.  I’m pretty much as pro-feminist as a guy can get, but this Sunday left a bad taste in my mouth.  The service was put on by the Women’s Writing Group, and after dancing flowers the service consisted of some of them reading some of their work.  Now, don’t get me wrong, there were several of the selections that I liked.  I didn’t quite get a holy experience from them – I thought that would be more appropriate for an event like I put on last year, the Night of Storytelling – but they were enjoyable.

However.

However however however.

There was one poem that really ticked me off.  It was about how men are responsible for the evils in life, especially this current war.

Sure, I see her point, women power and all and I totally recognize that discrimination exists and should be stopped (I got this drilled into me in college in the Women in Public Policy course I took where I was the only male in the class)  But the way to change that isn’t to lash out and alienate male supporters, who eventually get tired of being blamed for everything.  I don’t go to church to hear how I’m to blame for everything wrong in life because my organs are different than theirs.

Surprise!  I had nothing to do with the war, indeed, protested it when it started, and ran a political campaign in 04 for a guy who was promising to get us out of there, which is more than most can say they’ve done about the war.

Surprise!  I bet Condelezza Rice had something to do with war planning, and she, as far as I know, doesn’t have an attached penis.

So let’s stop blaming men for everything wrong in life, especially at our Unitarian church.  Men have done quite a few good things in life as well.  MLK, Gandhi, Jesus, etc.  Women have done a few evil things in the history of their gender.

And vice versa – far it be for me to claim that men haven’t done terrible things to women.  Men have done terrible things, actively and passively engage in sex discrimination, etc.  But aren’t we as UUs supposed to stay away from lumping everyone together and focus on the individual worth and dignity of every person, despite their gender?

Instead of playing the blame game on who’s to fault for societal ills, shouldn’t we focus that energy outward, and not inward?

America’s Got Talent – Wednesday, 7/11 – Uh, what?!?

Boy shakira got through?!?!?  Are they INSANE?  Jesus christ.  I’m in shock.

So my favorites (of right now and in no particular order) -

The big family band from Branson,

Butterscotch the Beatboxer…with a really great voice,

The magic act that got through,

The guys on stilts (only because they’re cute and are coming off kinda gay),

The Bollywood Dancer is kinda intriguing – It’s just…offbeat.  I can’t see him headlining anywhere and I’m getting the feeling he’s there partly on token status, but it’s different and interesting.  It all depends on what the definition of entertainment is.

America’s Got Talent

I love America’s Got Talent.  Love it love it love it.  Maybe even more than American Idol.

So I can’t belive Boy Shakira got through!  This little man needs to go!  He’s AGT’s Sanjaya…without the hair (good wig), but with a lot more personality.  The Action Hero man was pretty scary…when he took a head dive and in the replay you saw how he had to have been unconscious before he flipped over on his head.  That was kinda scary.

My early favorites are Butterscotch the beatboxing gal – I loved when she used the piano tonight!  I really liked the two magic acts as well.  Any favorite acts out there?

Self-Starvation in the name of beauty

Ok, this is just a weight watchers update.  I wanted to title this “Self-Starvation in the name of Christ” but figured that should be left to lent.

SO my first week back on program I lost 5.5….which I know is great but I was hoping for more.  I know…thats ridiculous, but the last times I joined/rejoined WW I lost like, 8, in the first week.  So I was kinda down leaving my WW meeting…until that night when I realized I wrote pants and a belt instead of the shorts I wore to last week’s weigh in (fellow WW’ers share my pain there!  What was I thinking?!?)   so that made me feel better.  This week I’ve already been working out…back DDRing.  Well, let me tell you, I hurt.  Not from the actual working out of muscles, per se, but see, there’s a lot of bouncing involved in DDR and jumping, and I swear to you, two fat rolls were bouncing too hard and got the whole area sore.  *rolls eyes*

So I’m looking forward to this week’s WI…although tomorrow morning I’ve got a surprise breakfast with my sister at IHOP.  eek.  But I’m going to eat beforehand and probably just drink coffee or diet coke or maybe have some fruit.

Now, about the title.  I remember once at WW we were talking about our motivation.  Most of the people there were all about health, their doctors recommended it, etc.  I was the only one who stood up and said “I’m doing this so I can look hot.” I’m *not* really doing it for health…I’m doing it so the image in the mirror matches the one I’d like to see.   Now I realize that comment sends off alarm bells to professionals – future eating disorder talk there.  I know I’ve got uber-major self-body issues, and as I talked about at my small group I realize that dropping the weight won’t correct the internal stuff…but thats why I’m doing WW.  In the words of Kevin Spacey in American Beauty, “I want to look good naked!”

Annoyed at Small Group

So I’m not gonna lie – I’m pretty pissed off at a couple of members in my small group.  This is going to be the last time in a while that I organize a small group – I came to that conclusion a week or two ago, and it’s certainly been confirmed after today.  I’m getting tired of people who say one thing and then do the opposite.  I’m not going to let this get me pissed off for the rest of the evening..but I’m certainly disappointed in a fair amount of people right now.