Another article on Harry Potter

I liked this article on Harry Potter. It's rare, at this point, to find an article discussing themes I'd never thought of before (articles I don't think are wrong, that is), and I like his points. Harry Potter does find his identity in loyalty and choices, not in a commencement-speech-style following his dreams at others' expense. The author doesn't mention it, but that's what Voldemort did; and Dumbledore did that, before Ariana's death, back when he and Grindelwald wanted to rule the wizarding world. Dumbledore grieved over that his whole life.

"Be careful what you wish for, because your passion might be to become the Dark Lord of humanity. And your vocation might be to avoid becoming that!" Jonathan

Also, I like this quote from the article: "...as with Tolkien's stubbornly not allegorical Middle Earth."

Happy birthday, Mom!

We celebrated last night with a gorgeous cake and presents.

Nefret celebrated this morning by bringing Mom a mostly-dead bird, and was astonished to be imprisoned inside. It was a good bird.

Deathly Hallows part 2

On a subject of possibly more general interest than Eureka (can it be so???), we went to see the last Harry Potter movie yesterday. It was good.

Seven part one was just a hard half a book, a hard movie. Harry and Ron and Hermione were flailing around, trying to finish the task from Dumbledore, but not really getting anywhere. Harry's wand breaks. They're always cold and hungry, and Voldemort controls England. The plot advances painfully.

Seven part two is when things start happening. It's what the entire series has been working up to. It's still dark, but there are redemptive things, sacrificial things, good solid rousing battles after Pansy Parkinson wants to just hand Harry over to the dark lord and and three Houses' worth of students close in around Harry to protect him. I almost don't even know what to say. It's not as detailed as the books, of course, and entire subplots are elided, but the changes were good and the movie was good. I did cry in parts. I also clapped when Molly Weasley took out Bella, and the theater clapped with me. Ha!

Only in Los Alamos

This sign is one of the reasons I love Los Alamos. We stopped at a (closed) trailhead off State Road 4 to take pictures. Unexploded ordnance in area- if you find anything like these [see picture], do not touch.

And as long as we're talking about Los Alamos... EUREKA HAS RETURNED! It's been a year. Since we were traveling and whatnot, I didn't get to watch the newest episode until last night, but it was pretty entertaining.

I will say, seasons 4 and now 4.5 aren't really equal to the first three seasons, but I was able to squelch my urge for greatness and be happy with it.

These next two paragraph are one big spoiler, so watch out. For those of you who haven't been keeping up, Carter and the gang are still in that alternate timeline, for reasons I can't remember. This week in "Liftoff", Fargo and Zane managed to accidentally launch themselves into outer space in an antique equipped with an untested speed-of-light drive and no sublight engines. Sheesh. Fargo kept his head and did not crash into the International Space Station by means of some clever leaking of oxygen. But he didn't get away scot-free, either. "Now that I've scraped the ISS, they'll never let me be an astronaut." The DC funding committee also hauled him up for questioning afterward. Oops. Alternate Zane is really kind of worthless. He not only stole a major component to their earthside landing gear, which Henry had to patch back together, but spent the first half of his unintended space trip throwing up. However, he pulled himself together and helped get them down fine. Of course.

We also learn that Allison wanted to go to space camp as a girl. Jo solved the power outage by acquiring horses for everyone to ride and then hooking up the landing gear to Deputy Andy. Carter had a clever moment by calling Fargo's cell phone in outer space via a rotary phone and NASA satellite. Meanwhile, SARAH the house jilted Deputy Andy at the... threshold?, but they had a DTR and decided to be friends anyway. Carter and Allison need to get married like yesterday. Henry and Grace are getting to be a pretty good team. And Zane has just about figured out that he used to love Jo, though he's wondering whether it was an erased memory rather than in an alternate timeline. He may turn into a decent human yet. Jo was trying to pump Fargo about what he and Zane talked about up there in space (meaning, did they talk about Jo?) when Fargo got arrested, so I think next week Jo may have to actually talk to Zane. That would be progress indeed.

Observation from the TV plots I review

Observation: the Sarah Palin-haters obviously don't think she's really violent, or they wouldn't bait her like they do. (A conservative politician who hunts bears and then murders her son's rape victim? Real subtle, guys.)

Seeing as George W. Bush has been out of the public eye for nearly a full presidential term, I suppose they feel the need for a new whipping, er, person. ::rolls eyes:: Gotta love modern tolerance.

Nutella!

Today I introduced Margaret to the joys of Nutella.

It was a beautiful thing. :-)

Night at the movies

Friday night we celebrated our anniversary by watching Cars 2 at the drive-in theater! So fun. They did a super-cute job putting it together, with lots of little touches and even vintage movie trailers, and we are definitely going again. The place is out in the woods and I could see stars.

Cars 2 was also all right. Not one of Pixar's best efforts, but it was worth watching once. I liked the spy half of the movie, but the friendship-with-Mater plot kind of clunked. Anyway, we always have a steak and go watch the new Pixar movie for our anniversary; we saw Wall-E the day after the wedding, followed by Up and Toy Story 3, so we couldn't say no.

Sigh

June (and July 1-2) was a really tiring month. Nothing really bad happened, and in fact a lot of it was good/worthwhile/necessary. I'm feeling a little defensive about it, but whether or not we "had a lot going on" compared to other people, it's just about done me in. Therefore, since it's my life, I'm discouraged. I don't actually think God is going to desert us, after bringing us this far. But I'm done with this life stage and would like to get on with something more fun.