Harry Potter Mania

OK, from a self-professed Harry-Hater: yeah, I got caught up by the whole hype and insanity of it all, and yeah, I liked the books even though I really really disliked the main character, and yeah, I got tired of getting the ending ruined before I got a chance to see for myself. So I bought the book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, first thing on Saturday morning. I'm not proud of it, and it cost me 25 bucks, but I'm pretty sure it was worth it, unless of course, Rowling decides that it would be a good idea to write a 7 book prequel to the series.

Honestly speaking, it was pretty short. I mean, it was still around 600 pages, but after Order of the Phoenix and Half Blood Prince, I was expecting an 800 page knockout, or something like that. Since by now, there are probably a trillion spoiler's out on the internet, I won't hesitate to tell you some myself. So first things first: was the ending what you would expect? Yes and no, I mean, there's really no big shocker here, but it's not that obvious either. I couldn't guess the ending until it was told, but, still, it was nothing like the whole "Snape kills Dumbledore" thing in Half Blood Prince. I don't really know what the biggest surprise was. If you were like me, and went in with the mentality that every single character could die with the exceptions of Ron and Hermione, the biggest surprise would be: if Luna Lovegood gets caught doing illegal stuff, why is she sent to Malfoy's dungeon, and not Azkaban? By this time in the story, pretty much everything that needs to be told is already told, except for two chapters at the very end of the book, giving away some Dumbledore and Snape's secrets. Honestly, I thought it was too convenient, how everything unfolds exactly at the end. And how Harry got to look at Snape's memories and talk to Dumbledore, and don't worry, Dumbledore is really dead, to tie up loose ends. It just felt unnatural how everything went. A lot of people probably thought that the fact that Snape is good after all, is a huge surprise, hate to break it to you, but it's not. Think about it, the old man isn't exactly an idiot, and he was pretty calm about dieing when he drank the potion at the end of Half Blood Prince, why would he suddenly be begging for his life? Some of the background characters died, probably the most important would be Lupin and Dobby,a bunch of others died too, but there wasn't any overly dramatic "avenge me!!!" scene. At the end of the day, the book is everything Rowling promised: some characters died, someone became a teacher at Hogwarts, and the final piece of the puzzle was put into place. I would still hesitate to call the last book a masterpiece, or even the best in the series. It seems that it was a lot less believable than some of the other books in the series. Maybe it was just the fact that it wasn't set in Hogwarts, but it lacked the order that the other books had. Most importantly, was it a satisfying ending the to series? Yeah, you have to admit that, there wasn't any glaring holes that you could point to and there was even an epilogue set 17 years into the future. Unless of course, you're like me, in which case, you were pissed off by the reason that Harry Potter managed to get out alive, again. All I could say was damn, the luck of this guy! I'll be totally honest: I wanted Harry Potter to die, that would make sense, right? He gets to be the tragic hero, and I get the satisfaction of knowing the idiot's luck had finally run out. But no, he gets to live forever, damn it all. Well, if you read this, I gave some important stuff away already, but not that much, so yeah, I would recommend you read this book. Whether from the library or the bookstore, it's your own choice, but I would still say the book and the series are one of the better ones available.

That's all for now, folks...

University *Sigh*

Anyways, I'm posting this partly as a response to n0n4m3's new post and partly because I just finished my future decisions unit for my online career/life manage course. I'm not worried about anything else yet, but university is really worrying me. For one, which one am I going to go to? That depends on my grades, but the thought of being stuff in Alberta for any longer than I have to really sucks. Then there is the problem of how I'm going to pay for it. If I stay in Calgary, I can probably get out of university debt free, a HUGE luxury. But if I go anywhere else, it'll probably take around $50,000 over 4 years. That is a LOT of money. Where in hell am I going to come up with that much money? I figured if I keep going at this job and do the RESP thing. I can have around $8,000 by the start of university. But seriously, where am I going to come with $40,000?! This is really a huge problem. In my education plan that I had to do for the course, I said that I wanted to go to university of Calgary so I can be debt free, and that's probably what will really happen. Cause I really don't have enough money to do anything else. Of course, I could just borrow money from the bank and then eventually declare bankruptcy, but needless to say, that's horrible. So anyways, anyone got a get rich quick and easy idea, tell me quick!!!

Oh, and another thing, BQ, we should get pic or banner or something, for the blog. Any ideas??? Oh, and it seems that our title is too long, since we only refer to it as OBESE, how bout we just go the KFC route???

That's it for now folks, sorry there's no videos. But you know, you could just youtube it up yourself, it's really easy...ya lazy bums...

Hurray It's Summer! [/sarcasm]

Woohoo it's Friday the 13th...
Anyways, yesterday I watched Portugal vs. Chile, it was hilarious. First, Chile scores a fluke. I mean the goalie was trying to get something called, he didn't even move. But no one cares about the scoring, it was one of the most bizzare endings I've seen in my life in football.

Look at the ref's face!
Edit: Forgot to mention
Vidal, the goalscorer, gets a second yellow in stoppage time for time wasting meaning a one game suspension

And then a few weeks back, I saw "So You Think You Can Dance"...
There was this guy on called Jesus (Pronounced "Hey-Zeus")


Something that may be very disturbing:
I don't know if he got through into the Top 20 but he made it into the Top 35.
How is this a talent?!

Look at David Hasselhoff.. lolz If he wins..

How is this less talented than Boy Shakira?:


So sport thoughts:
Baseball: R. Sox are doing great, NYY won't catch up.. I hate baseball
Football: No freakin' way Chile or US will win.. my $ on spain
Hockey:Without Priessing, Sens will do a lot crappier
I wanna see Hamilton get a team
Crappy trades going on
Basketball: Too Lazy
F1: L. Hamilton is overrated.. Massa/Kubiken = Raw Talent

And now...

It's the summer...

Summer is finally here, and what a busy summer it is. I have a lot of stuff going on right now, which is really usual for me. So far, I haven't had a chance to do what I usually do in the summer to relax after 10 months worth of school work: sleep in until 10 and watch 8 hours of tv a day.

The first thing I did when I finished my exams was to go out and find a job. This being Calgary, it wasn't too difficult and I had my pick of jobs. After 2 days of job searches, there were two jobs that really intrigued me, one was working at Wendy's downtown, and the other was working at an Inkjet cartridge refill booth at a mall near my house. The Wendy's job was great because all the shifts were during the day, and it paid pretty well, $9.5/hour, high even by Calgary standards. But, there were downsides, for one, I would have to work in the kitchens occasionally, which I wasn't too keen on. Also, the job was only a summer one because the downtown Wendy's was only open Mon-Fri, 7:00-5:00. And I didn't really want to have to take a train to go to a summer job. So in the end I decided to take the Inkjet job. It paid $8/hour, which is pretty low by Calgary standards. It's pretty boring because you sit there for hours on end with only a few customers, and when they come, they tend to come in droves. But still, it was close to my house, and really liked the fact that I could go hours without any real work, even if I have to deal with annoying customers often.

Over the Canada Day long weekend, my parents took me to Edmonton. We didn't really do much, considering how gigantic the West Edmonton mall was. I have to say, I was pretty impressed. There were 3 parks inside the mall, and a skating rink. There were also 2 different food courts and plenty of attractions. It was pretty cool. It was a shame that the two roller coasters in the galaxy amusement were shut down for repairs though. But I did see a cool seal show, albeit without any traditional ball tricks. Then other major place I went to was Fort Edmonton Historic Park. The fares were pretty cheap considering how much activities they offered inside. And I loved the buildings they reconstructed, they looked really authentic, many of which actually had working water pumps and real wood burning stoves and stuff. There was also a historic Free Mason lodge that is still being used. We wanted to go to some activities downtown, but it was rained out, but it was still a pretty good weekend all around.On a related note, I was really impressed by the gas mileage on our Toyota, after driving to Edmonton from Calgary, the gas tank was still at least 60% full.

Started my online career/life management course today. Already fininished have of unit 1. Considering there are only 4 units I should be done pretty quickly. I kinda think it's a big waste of time because there are a lot of apparently useless stuff there, but I think I'll just be glad to finish the course when it's all said and done.

Started my driving lessons. First I wanted to take a few test drives with my dad in some empty parking lots before signing up for driving school so I don't look like a total idiot. Still got a lot to work on though, but my parking is coming along, even if I can't do anything else. One thing that was annoying me was the mirrors, I didn't really know where they were suppose to point to, so my blind spot was huge, but I'm sure they'll help me with that in driving school. And another thing that amazed me was how hard it was to line a car up exactly where you want it too. Hopefully, I'll be able to get my full license before next year.

Just a few more sports thoughts, the last until October:

-What's up with the New York Rangers? A lot of spending this offseason, kinda reminds you of a certain other New York team, doesn't it?
-A lot of draft day sliding for the NHL...
-There's a conspiracy going on to get Crosby the greatest team in the history of sports...
-I didn't like the fact that Phoenix got rid of both James Jones and their first pick for cash, come on, I'm sure you don't need money THAT bad.
-Zach Randolph to New York, Ray Allen to Boston, and Rashard Lewis to Orlando, looks like the North West are Oden-Durant territory now.
-Ray Allen and Allan Ray on the same team, cool!!!
-What's with the Houston Rockets getting so many guards when Yao Ming obviously needs help up front?
-Yi Jianlian will not be as good as Yao, mark it down. He's a good player, but no where near deserves the hype he's been getting.
-Kobe needs to stop complaining and remember who wanted Shaq out of town the most
-Shaq's show is awesome!!!
-Raptors are too good, even if MoPete leaves

That's it for now folks, enjoy your summer...