Earlier in the week I finished reading A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. It’s about two children that everybody considers to be strange. With the help of three beings disguised as old women and a new friend, they go on an interplanetary journey to find their long missing father and fight the forces of evil. It’s aimed at a younger audience, but I enjoyed reading it. Apparently it’s the first of a series of books about these characters. Maybe I’ll check out some of the others.
I’m steadily making progress on my book list.
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
I signed up for Last.fm in December, but it wasn’t until a few weeks ago that I downloaded their software and actually starting using the service. I think it’s pretty cool. If anybody uses it, feel free to add me.
I played Excite Truck on the Wii for a little while last week. I don’t like racing games that much because I’m not very good at them. The thing I liked the most about this game is the ability to use a custom soundtrack. Actually that may be the only thing I liked. I loaded up a bunch of songs on my SanDisk card in anticipation of playing this game. Racing to The Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day, Pearl Jam, and even Mariah Carey made me keep playing after I probably would have normally stopped. I hope there are more games with the custom soundtrack option on the way.
I had planned all along to go out at midnight on Friday night to get my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Unfortunately, I discovered earlier in the day that the place where I reserved my copy (Sam Goody) wasn’t going to open at midnight like they did when the last book came out. They weren’t going to open until 8AM Saturday. There explanation was that they weren’t a bookstore and Wal-Mart and Barnes and Noble were both selling it at midnight, so there wasn’t really a point for them to do so since they didn’t have many copies. I guess I shouldn’t have tried to be a loyal customer. I decided that waiting until Saturday morning would be okay. Sometime later Friday I decided since I had only put down $1 at Sam Goody, I would check out Wal-Mart sometime after midnight and get a copy there. Why wait? I went around 3AM Saturday morning to buy a copy and read a little before I went to bed.
I just finished reading it a little while ago. It was soooooo gooooood. I didn’t want to blow through it too quickly, but there were times when I couldn’t put it down. I won’t spoil anything, but I thought it was a great ending to the series. I liked the definitive conclusion that it gave. I’m sad that the series is over, but I hope that J.K. Rowling doesn’t write more Harry Potter stories.
Now I need to sleep. I’ll think more about this tomorrow.
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
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
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.
Xbox 360
$396.99
2nd wireless controller
$37.99
a game
$59.99
Total
$494.97
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.
Earlier in the week I finished reading A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. It’s about two children that everybody considers to be strange. With the help of three beings disguised as old women and a new friend, they go on an interplanetary journey to find their long missing father and fight the forces of evil. It’s aimed at a younger audience, but I enjoyed reading it. Apparently it’s the first of a series of books about these characters. Maybe I’ll check out some of the others.
in anticipation of playing this game. Racing to The Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day, Pearl Jam, and even Mariah Carey made me keep playing after I probably would have normally stopped. I hope there are more games with the custom soundtrack option on the way.
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