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We went to see Transformers last night and I had a really good time. I’m sure part of that had to do with the fact that I was a big Transformers fan growing up. It had lots of humor, cool special effects (the transformations were awesome), and fun Michael Bay action scenes. Maybe it was a little too long, but it wasn’t a big deal. It’s one of the few movies I’ve seen recently that I knew I wanted to buy when the movie was over. It’s definitely worth going to see.

Fast Food Nation is the latest book that I’ve read. It’s a book about the impact on the fast food industry on the United States and the rest of the world. It not only discusses the impact that the fast food industry has had on our health, but also the impact it’s had our communities, our culture, and our economy. Reading it made me want to stop eating fast food so much, but I wonder if I will. After I watched Super Size Me, I did cut back on the amount of trips I made to McDonald’s for a while.

The movie Fast Food Nation is in my Netflix queue, but I’m not sure if I’ll watch it. It’s a fictional movie and it’s only loosely based on the book, but it could be worth watching.

I suppose I can hold of on starting a new book until Harry Potter comes out Friday at midnight. I can’t wait.

• Dreamcatchers, Stephen King
• Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
• Summer of the Monkeys, Wilson Rawls
• The Hedge Knight, George R.R. Martin
• The Sworn Sword, George R.R. Martin
• The Taking, Dean Koontz
• Timeline, Michael Crichton
• Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
• Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling
• On Bullshit, Harry G. Frankfurt
• On Truth, Harry G. Frankfurt
• The Long Walk, Richard Bachman (Stephen King)
• His Majesty’s Dragon, Naomi Novik
• Throne of Jade, Naomi Novik
• Black Powder War, Naomi Novik
• Empire of Ivory, Naomi Novik
• What Would Jefferson Do?: A Return to Democracy, Thom Hartmann
• A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle
• Titus Andronicus, William Shakespeare

I won $100 and I almost never win anything. Of course I’m going to blow it on something I don’t need.

Yesterday, we and I decided to order pizza from Papa John’s and dessert from Dominos. I thought it would be funny if both deliveries got there at the same and that’s pretty much what happened. The Papa John’s guy got there first and as he was walking back to his car the Domino’s guy pulled up. Papa John’s guy looked at Domino’s guy and then looked back at me like he couldn’t believe what we had done. I can’t help it if Domino’s has good sides.

It looks like this is ant week at work. That’s what I get for having candy around here. They are getting on my frakkin nerves. So far I’ve been bitten only once.

It’s been fun playing the Xbox lately. I’m being reminded of just how great a machine it was. I just wish it had better controllers and more RPGs.

I may go back to the plan I had a while back of playing the remaining few Xbox games that I want to and then retiring my Xbox for an Xbox 360. If all Xbox games worked on the Xbox 360 and there were more great games already out on the Xbox 360 then I probably wouldn’t wait. I went to Amazon.com to try to estimate how much it would cost.

It seems like there are going to be a lot of interesting games coming out on this system within the next few months, so now seems like a great time to buy one.

Last night we went to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I had been looking forward to the movie for a while because this is my favorite book in the series so far. For me it was the one where things really started to hit the fan.

I hate that they had to leave out so much, but it had to be done. It’s been 4 years since I read the book, so my memory of events isn’t as great as it could be. One scene I was waiting for that they didn’t do was the scene where Dolores Umbrigde is trying to get rid of Hagrid and Professor McGonagall goes to help Hagrid. In the bonus features for the previous movie’s DVD, the 3 main cast members were asked what part of the 5th book they were most looking forward to doing in the movie. Rupert Grint’s (Ron) answer was the Quidditch stuff. I felt bad because he had no way of knowing at that point that the Quidditch had been taken out of the movie.

Overall it was a really good movie and it didn’t seem like it was close to 2.5 hours long. I liked Imelda Staunton as Dolores Umbridge. Helena Bonham Carter was great as Bellatrix Lestrange. I wish we had gotten to see more of her and I wish there was more Tonks. The scene at the end in the Ministry of Magic was my favorite. I can’t wait to read to final book in the series later this month.

On Friday night John and I beat Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria for the PS2. We only had to fight the last boss, but had stopped to work on one of the sidequests. VP2 is an RPG from Square-Enix that came out last year.

The graphics are gorgeous and I was happy to see these graphics on the PS2. Some of the cut scenes were a little too long for me, it was ok. One of the reasons I wanted to try this games was that it has a 2-player co-op mode. You push one of 4 buttons on the controller to make one of the 4 players attack. Once it’s time to attack, you’re really just mashing buttons until your turn ends. Turns are usually over pretty quickly. If more than one person is playing, you can divide the party members up among the players. The first player controls the movement of the party in battle, handles the skills and equipment, performs all the in-battle menu tasks, etc. I was usually player 2 in this game, so I spent most of the game waiting for those brief periods where I got to mash the triangle and circle buttons like crazy so that I could attack the target. I got really impatient at times, but I stayed with it.

There’s not a lot in the way of sidequests. Clearing the Seraphic Gate (the reason we stalled) was the one that took the longest. We may be continuing on or going back to one of the previous save games to go through the Gate again. Yes, there are season to complete it more than once. I’m glad we played the game. It was well worth the time.

On a side note, my roommates got me a glow–in-the-dark protective glove for my Wiimote. Now I’ll always be able to find the first-player Wiimote.

The 4th of July was another lazy day this year, but it was still a lot of fun.

I slept late. When I got up I watched some more Jericho and read Fast Food Nation a little.

My roommate John and I finished the story mode of Rayman Raving Rabbids on the Wii. My opinion of it hasn’t changed – it’s fun, especially if you’re playing with others. We also played Super Mario Bros. 2, Justice League Heroes, and Mario Party 8.

I didn’t eat as much as I normally do on the 4th, but that could be a good thing.

Warning: minor spoilers included

I had started reading Dreamcatchers, but I decided to switch to The Long Walk by Stephen King at Rob’s urging. King wrote The Long Walk under the pseudonym Richard Bachman.

The story is about Ray Garraty, who is 1 of 100 teenage boys participating in an annual walking contest. The Walkers receive warnings for offenses such as walking too slowly or leaving the course. If they go an hour without receiving a warning, then one of their warnings gets taken away. If a Walker receives 4 warnings, then he gets his ticket and is taken out of the race. You quickly discover that the way he is taken out is by getting shot by soldiers. I really enjoyed reading the story. It’s a short novel, so it didn’t take a long time to read.

A while back I had heard about a Japanese movie called Battle Royale and it has been in my Netflix queue since then. Reading The Long Walk made me think of it and now I have moved it closer to the top of the queue. I hope I like it as much as I liked The Long Walk.

Lately it seems like every time I mark something off the list, I add more.

• Dreamcatchers, Stephen King
• Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card




• Summer of the Monkeys, Wilson Rawls




• The Hedge Knight, George R.R. Martin




• The Sworn Sword, George R.R. Martin
• The Taking, Dean Koontz
• Timeline, Michael Crichton
• Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
• Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling
• On Bullshit, Harry G. Frankfurt
• On Truth, Harry G. Frankfurt
• The Long Walk, Richard Bachman (Stephen King)
• His Majesty’s Dragon, Naomi Novik
• Throne of Jade, Naomi Novik
• Black Powder War, Naomi Novik
• What Would Jefferson Do?: A Return to Democracy, Thom Hartmann
• A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle
• Titus Andronicus, William Shakespeare

Recently I started watching Jericho. In the first episode the people of Jericho see a mushroom cloud in the distance and chaos follows. I’m about 11 or 12 episodes into the season.

Man I wish I had been watching this from the beginning. It reminds me of the way LOST is at its best with all the mystery that unfolds over the course of the season. I think of the failed new shows that I started watching last fall: Vanished, Studio 60, Kidnapped, and The Nine. For some reason I never gave Jericho a chance. I guess when I hear that a show is on CBS I automatically dismiss it. When I started hearing buzz about it, I figured I would try to catch it when the DVDs came out. Then it was cancelled and I wished that I had been supporting it all along. Then it was un-cancelled and I figured I would start watching it now. There will be 7 episodes next season to wrap up unfinished plotlines. If those episodes do well, I think they may do more after that.

I’ve been watching the episodes for free on CBS.com. I found out quickly that CBS’s online video service (Innertube) is crap. I normally use Windows Media Player as my player. Each episode is divided into 5 parts. With the exception of the first episode, there always comes a point where the video starts buffering every few seconds. Usually this happens when you begin a new part. Sometimes if you start the episode over again and skip through the parts and advertisements to get back to the part you were on, everything will be ok. The good news is that if you click on settings and change your media player to RealPlayer, this problem is non-existent (knocks on wood). The problem is that I’m having issues with installing RealPlayer on my preferred multimedia machine. I have to watch the episodes on my laptop if I want everything to go smoothly and I don’t really like watching stuff on my laptop.

Anyway, I highly suggest watching this show. Here’s how you can do that:

• Buy the DVDs when they come out in September or October
• Watch it now using iTunes
• Watch it now on CBS.com (free if you have a computer and internet connection)
• Watch it on Friday nights when they start re-broadcasting the first season on July 6 at 8PM CST. (free if you get CBS)

I wanted to update an earlier post. I was slipping through the channels Friday night and noticed that we were getting The CW. YAY! I mentioned it to John and he said that he noticed a few days ago that we were getting it. Oh well. Now I can incessantly watch reruns of Girlfriends (just kidding) and Smallville in the fall. Now when is that season premiere?