Shadow is making it difficult to type. I get a half a sentence done and I have to rub her someplace or else she starts noozling all over the keyboard. (She chirped at the screen. I guess she's saying hi.)
First up, 'clever' Christians. Saw this little gem on a marquee (why do I want to type 'marquis'?) whilst on my way to a [rub cat] dentist appointment this morning.
Try Jesus!
If you don't like him,
the Devil will always
take you back.
Oh, there's positive advertising for you. Uplifting and happy and who the FRICK do they pay to come up with that stuff? Might as well just put up a sign that says "Ur stoopid lol; -God" for all the good that one did.
Actually, I know what was going through the person's head. "Man, this line for returning items is long today . . . oh, but I can't return Jesus . . . but I can return to Satan . . . man, that should be a blurb!" And sadly there are people who think this way. (And it's not limited to Christians, either; in the secular world we call them Collegiate English Departments.)
Second one happened on the way back. I was getting back into town, pulling up to the first major intersection, and someone in a dull-tan minivan (Plymouth, looked like) whips out of the long line on the right and cuts in front of me to get in the shorter left lane. Got a look in the car later, and it was a mother driving her seven[ish] year old and his little car-seated brother around--and she literally pulled in front of me with less than a second to spare. Didn't even hit the blinker until she was finished swerving. I swear to you, if I hadn't seen the nose of the van twitch, I would have been in her side-panel, and then her son would have been seeing a doctor. (And once I'd learned there HAD been a kid, I would have popped her one in the back of the head before exchanging numbers.) Stupid reckless people.
In other, less idiotic news, I guess I didn't realise just how tired I was until I got home. Slept from midnight to nine today, and from about one (was playing a game) until ten-thirty yesterday, and I was trying not to doze on the way to the dentist this morning AND in the chair. I tell you what, that is one nice-feeling bed. =(^_^)=
Family news: Shadow's been clingy, George's been happy (and a tad cuddly), and Buster's been . . . old. =P Youngest sister has active mononucleosis, and was given an antibiotic shot for a kidney infection (located when the doctor ran a blood test; forgot to check on the mono, though) which made the little tiny mono sores turn into big nasty pox-like sores, a condition called Erythema Multiforme. Apparently antibiotics do that in these cases.
She's going nuts because she's not only contagious but mottled. So obviously she's not going to school this week, and next week is break week. Only thing that's keeping her from being bored out of her mind is her teachers sending her homework home for her. When I got in Sunday night she was doing a take-home version of a test for Algebra I; she came and asked me how to do one of the problems, and I told her (without knowing it was a test), and then she looked sheepish and sighed and said, "Well, I got that one wrong." The Honor system is strong in this family.
Second sister is fun. We were watching television last night, and some commercial came on for "The Secret Lives of American Teenagers" (the title of which immediately offended me). I remarked that it looked like a good show (very sardonically) and my sister replied (also sardonically),
"Oh, I know! Everyone was all like, 'Is she gonna abort the baby???' and I was like, 'Duh, no, 'cause then the show would be over.'"
I laughed.
Other than that, everyone seems to be playing the Harry Potter movies this week. Sunday night was Goblet of Fire on abcFamily, during which my youngest sister and I sat and made disparaging comments about the gaping plot holes running rampant through the film, while I secretly lauded David Tennant's performance. There was a 'BIG REVEAL' at the end of the movie, where some character Alastair, with a patched-on eyeball, turned out to be Tennant's character; my sister said, "Wow, I didn't see that coming," and I replied, "Really? 'Cause I thought the lip-licking parallel was painfully obvious." She gave me a funny look and remarked that she'd noticed that, but hadn't thought to connect them.
Last night, Disney was playing The Chamber of Secrets. I tried watching it. Got through the mishap with traveling by flue, the scene at the bookstore, the car-flight to Hogwarts, the Whomping Willow, the almost-expulsion, and a bit of the Botany class with mandrake plants, and decided the heck with it. I do know why Stephen King likes J.K. Rowling; he's huge on realism of characters, and J.K. characters are nothing if not real. But that still can't erase the massive, MASSIVE Mary-Sueishness of the series itself. I remember back when I read The Sorcerer's Stone that I felt the same thing. When Harry got that Nimbus broom of amazing, I balked a little and steeled myself to forge ahead with the book. (I did finish it, but, like with Terry Brooks', I dropped the series afterwards.)
Everything feels contrived in Harry Potter, and I'm sorry if you're a fan and think differently. But aside from explaining (tenuously) how Harry's such a celebrity for surviving and inadvertently stripping Voldemort of his powers, and how that tends to garner him a lot of praise-showering and gift-giving for the sake of a good public image (which is legitimate, and I understand this), I cannot reconcile that Harry would spend an entire term at Hogwarts and still remain amazed that Hermione could fix his glasses with a mere incantation just hours after being rescued from his horrible Muggle home in an effing flying car. I mean, I can understand being taken aback by walking through a stinking brick wall the year before, when he'd first had exposure to magic, but after remembering that, I wouldn't have batted an eye myself. I mean, he flew on a freaking broom, even. What's so hard about a car?
Also the friends are terribly cliche. Hermione is the semi-best-friend know it all who also happens to be an empowered woman in the making. Sorry, but best I've seen that stereotype done was in Wishbone (and Sam should feel proud I graced her with that nickname). She knows everything already and is better than everyone at everything already and meh. Ain't no one a total superstudent. Even I struggle through stuff. (Wow, that sounded more arrogant than I meant it to. Eep.)
Ron is the klutz-and-a-half born loser.
....there is an elderly woman hauling hay down the road in a blanket. o_O
Anyway, Ron. Seriously? An entire term at Hogwarts, and that's the best close-friend list you can come up with? You don't hang out with anyone else on the Quidditch team, ever? You don't say hi to the person next to you at lunch?--which reminded me a lot of the orphanage in Oliver, actually. Ron effing Weasley. I don't hate the guy, not at all. Rather, I think he was an honest attempt to showcase the 'everyman' (or 'everymuggle', in this case) that fell too far to complete comedic relief.
Arg-a-muffin. I should read the second one, now, see if I'm right.
Anyway, enough series-hate-ranting. =P I could go all day if I really got going. I . . . I just can't reconcile that much convenience with any story, and I've been fighting to rid my own works of anything that reeks of the same. Sure, there are going to be a few that you leave in; James Bond always gets the girl, for one. Even that lesbian one. But guh. Fourth term at Hogwarts and Harry's only good at flying. Ach du Lieber.
Also, what the heck was with the immediate insertion into Gryffindor? Totally saw that one coming a mile and a half away.
Ravenclaw ftw.
