Interesting News Stories and Harry Potter 7

Went to the movie store with dandelion’s in my hair. Forgot about it until I was in the car on the way home and caught a flash of yellow in the rear view mirror while navigating their poorly planned out parking lot.

I’ve heard some interesting things on the news lately–and I’m not a news junkie. I pretty much avoid listening to the news when I can, but here are two weird things I’ve come across in the last twenty-four hours:

A Man in the States drove 5000 miles to go burn another guy’s house down after the guy called him ‘stupid’ or some such thing over the Internet. So, anyway…never heard of turn the other cheek…

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) are taking Facebook to task. Evidently some users of Facebook are encouraging/promoting drinking and driving. According to the RCMP, encouraging someone to commit a crime, is well, bad. And you can get in trouble for that. So, sounds like MADD is going to contact Facebook so those users can be warned. It should be interesting to hear what happens…unless of course I don’t bother to follow up on the story…which is likely. It gets into the whole Freedom of Speech and all that…so it sounds tricky and interesting.

On a totally different, yet similar note…

I’ve finished reading ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’. And can I just say this, this is not a kids book. It pains me to say it, but it isn’t. It is a SCARY book. It is FABULOUS too. Made me laugh and cry and all that. I guess what I am saying, is that there is some imagery in the book that is well…disturbing. It is incredibly well-written and everything ties in beautifully. I must say that JK Rowling’s brain must be very good at details. Yet…if they make this book straight into a movie, it would not get a ‘general’ rating, it might get a ‘PG’ rating, but if they took all the spooky stuff and fight scenes and deaths galore, it could come out more like an adventure/horror and therefore be ‘R’? I don’t know…but any kid with a great, visual imagination…well, this book could definitely scare their pants off. At the same time, it is aimed at 10-12 year old boys who LOVE having their pants scared off.

As a parent, would I restrict my daughter from reading this book? Possibly. It depends on how much she takes to heart and imagination from books once she is near an age that she would enjoy this story. This book is definitely worth reading and is valuable in that it draws parallels to things like racism and the holocaust. So, I suppose my answer is, that when my daughter is ‘ready’ maybe I’ll read it with her and we’ll talk through the story. Or maybe she won’t be interested in it.

Now as for elementary school librarians…this is going to be hard for them. It is a kids book. And a very popular author and series. But what do you do? Do you stock it? Do you restrict it to certain grades? Do they need parental permission to sign it out? It’s tough, because you don’t want to restrict the freedoms of others…yet, you also have a job to ‘protect’ kids. As a former librarian, my heart goes out to those librarians wrestling with this decision right now. There are no right answers and definitely no answers that fit like an umbrella over all circumstances.

Keep it Simple!

Feeling a bit grumpy. Haven’t been geocaching in awhile and so put some in the GPS the other day when going into the city. But then I had a call that barely allowed us to get to our appointment on time, so no cache on the way in. And then ran out of time and motivation to find one on the way out of town. So, no geocaching.

So today, went to the fabulous Farmer’s Market. It was great. I got eight games (board games like Trouble!) for five dollars! Plus lots of veggies, of course. Anyway, on the way out we figured, hey let’s get a geocache. There was a puzzle one that I had loaded into the GPS, so I figured hey, it doesn’t make sense on the website, but I’ve done this person’s geocaches before, so I’m sure it will make sense when we get there and get all the clues. Well, we got the clues okay. But some people just don’t make their instructions clear. I suppose it is clear if I am YOU and understand the way YOU think…

So anyway, there were three different ways to interpret the instructions on what to do with the clue. And do you really want me to do algebra, or am I over thinking this? So, figured it out both ways and no, none of the scenarios were helpful. So, no cache. That just made me grumpy!

Bits of Life

How the heck did I get a 14-year-old in the body of a 4-year-old? It is amazing really. I thought it would take years to perfect the tone of frustration and angst that one can inject into the word, ‘fine’. Apparently I have an over-achiever or is she just amazingly gifted? Dunno.

Pretty sure I didn’t win the Forrester.

Got my Harry P. It sure is dark. I’m only 80 pages in so far, but wow. Not really a kid’s book. Brilliant, though.

I missed the Farmer’s Market today. That is disappointing. At 8 I was ready. By 9 (when it started) I had already forgotten about it until 2 (ended an hour previous). DANG! No fresh green beans for me. You know, if I were incredibly rich (I’d have to be to justify the expense), I would have my own cook. I wouldn’t have to cook or grocery shop every again.

And I wouldn’t miss it.

And they could make me a coffee with chocolate and whipped cream–everyday!

And I would have acne for the rest of my wealthy little life.

See, coffee, it seems, gives me acne. Not really, fair, is it? I finally get a hankering for it, and it gives me zits. Okay, okay, not really a hankering for coffee per se, more like all the sugar and fat I put in it. Oh yes, yummy, yummy. Offer me a little coffee wit some chocolate in it and a little shipped cream and I’m like, “Let’s see…wonderful, warm, cozy drink that is sweet and yummy and delectable or…give me that damn drink already!”

I got a ‘gift’ card with my Harry P since I ordered it from Chapters. You can win $5-$1000 if you spend more than 50 bucks in store in August. I am such a sucker for contests lately. I even almost entered a contest for Coke. (That icoke thingy, and then I realized that more than likely, I would have to give out personal info that I am really not that interested in sharing and I wouldn’t win anyway.) But back to Chapters. I am a sucker for books. SUCKER! But, I hate to spend so much on them. But that card is so tantalizing. What if I won $1000! Could you imagine all the books I could buy! Oh my god! It would be heaven! I spent over $800 in Chapters in two hours one day. Okay, it was for work. But it was SO much fun!

Anyway, if I won that, I would buy all of Meg Cabot’s books (or at least the adult ones). I’d even buy hardcover. I love Meg’s blog. I’m not much of a blog reader, but I read hers. I’d love to meet her. She’s got a crazy cat, Gem, that she has dubbed, ‘Slutty McSlut A lot’. That is just too funny. That is something that we would do. I mean, we do have a cat named ‘M’. Not from James Bond, either. As in ‘LMNOP’. Yup, and they let us name a PERSON!

Waiting Game…

I’m waiting to win the new Subaru Forrester from the Sport Check contest I entered. The winner should be announced shortly. I never win anything, yet I have such hope.

My copy of ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows’ has been shipped. YAY! About friggin’ time. I only pre-ordered it MONTHS ago. I know people who have gotten the same discount just walking into the store and have already read their copy. And I’m okay with that. But I want to read it. I don’t want the ending spoiled for me. But I am waiting…

And I’m waiting for a refund to be applied to my online Chapters account so I can reorder a belly dance instruction video. That seems to be taking forever too.

And I’m waiting for my hubby to be done his on campus classes so he can finally hang out with us.

And I’m waiting for us to get enough money to finish our half-finished basement. And build a garage. And I’m waiting for myself to get back off my butt and finish mudding and taping the basement bathroom and to build a wind break for the deck and to plant some Hops to grow up the wind break…and…

I’m probably waiting for other stuff too, I just can’t think of it at the moment. But I feel like there is so much to do, yet so little motivation and so many distractions.

Everybody Knows

You know, everyone has advice about everything. And everyone thinks that their advice is the best and that you should follow theirs because it is the key. It is The Way.

But really, nobody knows anything.

With the Internet, you could spend years and years learning everyone’s idea about well…everything or even one little topic and then never actually get out there and ‘do’ whatever it is that you are learning about.

Trial and error. Trial and error. Research, research, research. Some days it is just too much, isn’t it?