Lots of randomness, but Gravity in 3D is a must

Well, there is just a little less than 2 weeks till I head south to see family, friends, and races! It'll be fun and a well deserved break from work. I need the break. I've had 4-days off here-and-there the past year, but I haven't had a VACATION in almost a year! I do still need to figure out jewelry and nails for my outfit...I might just wait till I'm south to figure out jewelry, but I do need to figure out my nails since I'll either need to bring my stuff south or do them before I go down. I also need to buy heal gel inserts for my shoes. I could put my orthotics in, but I'm afraid they'll super stretch the shoe so I'm going to buy cheap heal inserts to help my heal spurs for the day.

In other news, I'm officially finished with my Aquarium contract. I've been paid and everything. It feels kind of nice not having it on my mind. I've been able to read more lately, which has been nice.

I recently got into a few authors on Facebook. I've read their books for a while, but recently thought to check for them on FB. One of the authors suggested a new author and the new author is doing a review blitz where if you review her book on Amazon, she'll send you swag. I'm such a sucker for swag. LoL So I've spent the last week solidly reading her series to get to the book that needs to be reviewed to count. Luckily, she's only got 3 books out! I'll finish the 3rd book and the one that needs to be reviewed by Friday, which means I'll have read 3 books in 8 days. First one took the least and the 2nd the longest. Now, do I pick the autographed book or the cool reusable bag?! I'm thinking bag because I can get a signed book another time and the bags are a "while supplies last" thing.

I do still have my class, but it's pretty easy. I am learning a great deal from class. I've got all sorts of forms and stuff to help with grant writing. I'd like to volunteer with some organization and get some hands on experience in grant writing with someone who's done it before. Be good job training and good experience in general. Haven't really looked into any organizations around here, yet, but I think I'll look after I complete the class. Seriously, though, you have to be ORGANIZED for grant writing. Wow. I do find sometimes the class is a little hard to get into because I don't have an organization to "practice" with for writing out letters of inquiry and letters of request. Also, the more you know of your own organization, I think the easier it'd be to do the grant writing. Finding the appropriate funders and getting the proper materials in at the right time and making contact will be the hardest things once all the program/organization materials are mostly completed. I can imagine it'd take a month to get that all ready before contacting any funders, though. Crazy stuff, but I'm enjoying the learning.

In the political scene, this November's election for Monterey County will have interesting impacts on the former Fort Ord. Do we reject Monterey Downs or accept it? I need to read the working of Measures K and M VERY carefully since one rejects it and the other accepts it (or something like that, it's kind of confusing). I'm sort of torn about it the more I read about it because I absolutely think the Peninsula could benefit from a state-of-the-art equestrian facility, which the Downs would create (think Olympic host standard), but I don't like the rest of it. They'd add in hotels, housing, a sports complex, a RACETRACK (a horse-like one), and some sort of "throwback town". Not to mention a dog barn is even going in so your dog can rest after a long hike while you go eat or watch a movie (what?!). I adore my horses and, honestly, it'd be kind of cool if TB racing came to the Peninsula (though, that'd be absolutely ridiculous given the current racing economy), but this is far too big of a development. It'd butt right up against CSUMB (in its backyard, practically) and FORHA and BLM lands. I know one argument is there is already a great deal of land already preserved and we can't preserve it all, but...why is it so big?! CSUMB would benefit from the center a lot too (it's mentioned "indoor graduations" and the future CSUMB equestrian team). In some ways, they make Monterey Downs sound like it'd be the new Fairgrounds, but in a town-like atmosphere since a movie theater would also go in the Downs. I'd like to see a smaller plan, personally. There is an awful lot of housing in the plan. Sure, if you're making a world class equestrian center, you'll need hotels and offices, but what's with the housing? I don't know. It'll be interesting. There's a lot of heat on the issue. I think it'd be interesting, but I don't really like how BIG it is and will probably vote no on it. If it does pass, it's going to be a LONG time before it's finished. We'll see! Must read more into it all...I've only just started and everyone at work is confused about it. LoL

Movies...Not a whole lot right now, but I'm liking a lot in theater, but I'm adverse to watching dramas in theater because of the expense. We'll see. Long reviews for 2/3 movies because there's a lot to be said. :)

Much Ado About Nothing (Amy Acker, Alexis Denisof) - Whedon had always wanted to do Much Ado About Nothing and he ended up filming it at his house in California. The cast was fun to see because a lot of them had worked with him previously so it was fun picking them out. I thought it was good, but it was kind of weird seeing it in a modern setting and Shakespearean language. Other than abridging it, he's pretty faithful to the play. I liked the acting and the movie (it's in black and white), but it's not something I would normally watch. I mostly watched it because it's Whedon and I liked the cast ensemble. Not bad, but not terrific either. Grade: B

After Earth (Will Smith, Jaden Smith) - Not having read much about the film prior, I was informed right before I watched it that the movie was based in Scientology. Not really knowing so much about Scientology I sort of pushed the information aside in my head and watched the film. After watching it, I really researched Scientology and I can see why people say that; however, it's a sci-fi film and Scientology was created by a sci-fi author. This means that the movie's themes are not, specifically, Scientology brainwashing. I could probably name a few other films where the same themes play out. I will say that if you DO know Scientology and the Smiths one might NOT be able to ignore the themes, but I had no problems. The main themes are about getting past our fears and moving on from our traumatic pasts, which can be found in several movies. On the other hand, in Scientology, that is called "auditing." I will say it's much more prevalent than in most movies about not being fearful, but it's nothing new either. So, to me, it didn't affect my watching the movie at all. With that said, this was a disappointment of a film. There was no way I was seeing it in theater since it's a Shyamalan film and he totally burned me on Last Airbender (I will NEVER forgive him for that!), but I wanted to see it because of the Smiths. So, my main conclusion: Not a terrible Shyamalan film; a terrible Smiths film. I didn't enjoy the acting from Jaden and I know he isn't a terrible actor given I liked him in Pursuit to Happyness and he didn't do too bad in Karate Kid. Will is up for debate. His character is REALLY stiff and hard to get an emotional attachment to so I'm a little ambivalent about him, which you can either say is good acting or not. The story was also highly predictable and very linear. There wasn't any real exploration or "new" aspects to the story at all, which made it kind of boring. At least the time kind of went by quickly...? Grade: C (maybe C-)

Gravity (Sandra Bullock, George Clooney) - By far the ONE movie EVERYONE has to see in 3D in theaters. Avatar was great in 3D in theaters because the movie was made for it and had great special effects so the 3D was useful and beneficial, which, to me, up till this point made it the best 3D feature film. Unfortunately, Gravity takes that spot for me. This movie HAS to be seen in 3D to get the full effect of being in space. Most films you watch in 3D and it's just a depth perception thing, but Cuaron utilized it so it made you feel like you were in space. It's hard to describe, but the special effects were absolutely amazing and it was terrific when things in space would float out further to you than the actor to give you that great zero gravity feeling. I guess the difference with Avatar is you can enjoy the film in 2D and the 3D just made it more fun, but the 3D in Gravity puts you into space and watching it in 2D will loose an entire aspect of the movie like losing one of our senses. Outside of the 3D, the special effects were really good. If it doesn't win best special effects at the Oscars, I'd be really surprised. I think my favorite effect, which wasn't really a special effect, but cinematography was when the camera was outside Bullock's helmet and then zooms in and then you figure out you're inside her helmet and then it zooms back out. It was really subtle and good. The acting was also really good. I enjoyed Bullock and Clooney. There were a few moments I wanted to strangle Bullock, but it wasn't like I wouldn't probably be doing the same thing she'd be doing. With the acting and special effects excellent, I had issues with the story. Actually, I had major issues with the story. First off, the movie is only 1.5 hours long and I felt EVERY minute of it. It's intense. There is one point where things relax and I actually got bored. I was sitting there trying to figure out how much was left in the movie because I was so bored. Then everything that could possibly go wrong goes wrong. There were people sitting behind me commenting at certain points and normally that would bother me, but I agreed with them on everything! If you watch it, you'll understand what I mean -- especially the very, very end. The end practically became laughable because of the rest of the movie. At any rate, I think it's worth the theater cost to see in 3D and I think the acting and special effects carry the entire movie. The movie wins absolutely nothing in writing, in my opinion, but it could win all sorts of awards for directing, cinematography, special effects, and acting. Would I see it again? Probably not, but one of my favorite films of the year. Grade: A

Tales of Beedle the Bard

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am here to inform you that I have purchased the Collector's Edition and Standard Edition of Tales of Beedle the Bard by JK Rowling.

For those that can't recall information I've blogged about over 7 months ago, you will recall that JK Rowling handwrote and illustrated 7 of the leather bound editions of Tales of Beedle the Bard. Six of those editions (every intro was different and every gemstone in each edition were different colors) were given away to people who were closest to the whole process of Harry Potter through the years as "Thank Yous." The 7th (or "moonstone") one was auctioned off in December 2007 through Sotheby's. Amazon.com bought the book at an amazing £1,950,000 (double that number and you get the approx USD value). The proceeds went to her charity, The Children's Voice.

Now, Amazon.com was fair and reviewed each of the stories and set-up a contest where the winner and another person were flown to the UK and the winner got to actually sit in a room and HOLD the book and READ the stories. No one, other than the 6 people and whomever they shared it with, had read the stories. So, you can imagine how the entire fandom was dying to know what the stories were. There were photos taken of the moonstone edition (click here and scroll down past the reviews and there are the photos) and whatnot, but I had no hopes in ever reading the stories. I was bummed, but I wasn't overly bummed because the story that was important we read about in Deathly Hallows and the rest were just for fun.

Anyway, today (or I guess yesterday - Thursday) it was announced that the book was going to be published and all net proceeds would go to The Children's Voice (Amazon.com and the people who own the other 6 books gave it an okay to do). I was SO excited! Then I found out they have a Collector's Edition and, well, I couldn't pass it up. Rumor has it there will only be 100,000 editions made and they're exclusive to Amazon.com (makes sense). If you look at the pictures, it's going to be REALLY cool. It's as close to a replica as you can get. The standard edition is for my reading pleasure. LoL

Check-up at Doc's

All is good with my tonsils! I'm healing as I'm supposed to. Always good to hear. I'm taking this Sat off from work, though, as I can only speak at about 50% still. I still have pain in my left side (about 70% better?) and it still hurts and bothers my ears when I swallow hot or cold things. Popsicles don't seem to be a problem though. I'm finding drinking to be a bit harder than chewing, funny enough. I think it has some to do with tilting your head back to swallow. I seem to do okay with straws. *shrugs* I still tire after being out for a while, but I'm getting there. I don't find the need to nap as much as I did before.

I ordered a Stephenie Meyer Breaking Dawn Concert t-shirt on-line today. Hopefully it'll be here before next Friday so I can wear it to the Breaking Dawn book release! I'm going to the concert in Chicago, so I'll just have my shirt early! :) Now let's hope it fits...LoL

I found out the other day that Level Two (a Harry Potter conference) that was going to be in San Jose in July 2009 is now going to be in San Francisco and it's called Azkatraz! Azkatraz being a combo of Azkaban (the wizard prison in Harry Potter) and Alcatraz. I think the name and the location is MUCH better. The name fits the theme better too. We'll see if I'll be able to go or not. It depends on grad schools and also whether I go to LeakyCon or not. LeakyCon is The Leaky Cauldron's conference they're doing in Boston in May 2009. As a staff member, it'd totally rock to go to LeakyCon, but Azkatraz would be a lot cheaper since I won't have to do a plane ticket. So...we'll see. If I end up going to Columbia I won't be able to go to Azkatraz anyway as I'll be in school by then. LeakyCon is during Memorial weekend, so probably the weekend before I start at Columbia. I probably won't go to LeakyCon even then. We'll see, though!

I finished Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. I devoured the books is the better term. I absolutely loved the books in the series so far. I can't wait till the last one comes out next year! I simply loved the ingenuity of mixing the Greek Mythology into the series. It was fresh and clever. It also gave a nice fresh spin to those old Greek Myths we all know. My next series I'm reading is James Patterson's Maximum Ride series. It's a step-up from Riordan's series (that's how Chris terms it), which is independent reader (IR). Maximum Ride is in the young adult (YA) section and it's fiction, but has a slight sci-fi feeling to it. Riordan's was definitely fantasy. I'm not too far into the series, but I'm liking it so far. There's 6 kids who have been subjected to scientific experiments where they have avian genes grafted onto their human genes and they have wings. So it's the story about how they escape from the "Erasers" (half man, half wolf) and try and figure out why they were made and everything. The only thing I'm not liking about the series is the fact the chapters are like 5 pages long! There's 133 chapters in this book! We'll see how it goes as I get more into the book, though.

Anyway, with that, I'm off to finish my Contest work and sleep!

Two more weeks till I leave for Terminus!

Two weeks from today I will be in CHICAGO!! I can't believe Terminus is already here. It's gone by SO fast. I was counting how many weeks until Terminus today and realized it was in two weeks! Where did the time go?!

I think I'm more excited about all the people I'll be meeting than the
actual symposium. LoL It should be fun, though. The actual symposium
doesn't start till Thursday, August 7th so we have a few days to hang
out in the city and do stuff. We also need to go grocery shopping
sometime to get stuff we can stash in our hotel room to help cut down
on food expenses. The sales tax in Chicago is 10%! That makes me super
sad. Apparently the city's sales tax went up so they can make a bid for
the Olympics and they need the money for it. LoL

The weekend before is going to be nuts too. Friday, August 1st is the book release of Breaking Dawn (the last book in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series). So I'm working that till who knows when (2 or 3 am?) and Saturday morning is Shae and Adam's wedding. So I'll be going to that. Sunday I have the Aquarium and Monday I leave for Chicago!

Now to my tonsils...I'm doing a load better. Still don't always feel like eating or drinking, but I'm doing a lot better. I'd say I'm like 70% better. I still have troubles talking, especially loudly, but I'm getting better at it. The back/base of my tongue is still sore so I still can't stick my tongue out very far, rub my tongue along my back teeth, etc. When I eat I sometimes feel like I get food stuck in the back of my throat too. The pain on my left side when I swallow comes and goes. I still feel the worst when I wake up, but through the day it sort of dulls out. I also still get some pain in my left ear. They must have done more work on the left side or something because my right side feels 95% fine. My left side is like 60-70%. I still get some pain in the back middle of my throat too. I think that's where my adenoids were, which were removed also. Other than I'm still eating slowly on harder/crunchier foods (I can eat soft foods before they get cold now!), I'm doing pretty good. Energy level I'd say is around 70% also. I still get tired and feel a need to take a nap in the daytime, but I'm doing way better!

I'm supposed to work Saturday at Borders from 2-10pm. I had to take the aquarium off yesterday because I still can't talk, but hopefully I'll be okay by Saturday. Thursday I have a follow-up appointment with my doctor so I'll check with him on whether I should/could work on Saturday.

Lastly...During this past week I've gotten into a new book series called Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan. It's a sci-fi/fan independent reader (IR) series (ages 8-11), but I'm really enjoying it. It's set in modern times in New York, but Greek Mythology plays a HUGE role in the series. Essentially, the Greek gods/goddesses live in our time with us (Olympus is on the 600th floor of the Empire State Building). It's pretty fun because I like to guess who the new person is or try and recall the story of them. Their different stories play parts in how Percy (the main character) solves and handles different issues too. It's a lot of fun and it's a nice refresher of Greek Mythology. It makes me want to go back and reread some of the stories. There will be 5 books in the series and the 4th one just came out recently. So I read the first three in 3 days (1 book a day) and I got the 4th one today.

With that...I'm off to start reading the 4th book!

Books and deaths

As just about everyone in the world knows, Tim Russert passed away the other day from a heart attack.

Now, working at Borders, deaths are only important to us if they've published a book or they have a book about them. Tim Russert has published two books: Wisdom of Our Fathers (a book Borders was pushing as a Father's Day gift last year) and Big Russ and Me. We had Big Russ and Me on our Bargain tables for a LONG time and they sold okay. Not fantastic, but they did okay. His other ones you'd get asked about every once in a while too, but nothing spectacular. With his death, though, his books have suddenly become THE in thing to read and buy! Our store is all sold out. The bookstores around us are sold out. We can't order them. The publisher is out! So the publisher is reprinting his books and customers are practically banging down the doors wanting a copy of his books! I had to have told, at least, 5 people that we didn't have the books and the situation with the books yesterday. On top of that, I know a number of my co-workers told many more people the situation.

Having worked at Borders for 4 years this July, when someone dies...they suddenly become the most popular person. Does that just seem wrong to anyone else? Why is it when someone dies, there's such a fascination with them? It's like until they die, the populace just doesn't care about their life or their work. As soon as you die, though, you seem to be worth more. Ironic since they can't create, contribute, etc anymore to society. Take Princess Diana as an example. Do we seriously need to write a new book on her almost every year? Are
we really going to gain THAT much more knowledge of her life or death? Let the poor lady die in peace, people! Presidents and political figures, to me, are a bit different since their "contribution" or "legacy" can't be felt until some years later and most times people won't even regard them in any fashion until they're dead (that's politics for you). That makes a bit more sense, but, at the same time, it'd be nice to be recognized for your work BEFORE your death.

I guess there's something in society that can't heap praises upon you until you die JUST IN CASE you do something completely stupid and ruin everything you've worked for. Course, in that regard, you'd have books written about you in a jiffy because it'd be a scandal of sorts. I dunno, though. I really have no opinion either way of why society does what it does, but I think it's funny and, sometimes, sad that Tim Russert is all of a sudden so popular (book wise) when he's dead than when he was alive. Does his work mean that much more now that he's dead compared to when he was alive?

With that thought, I'm off to eat.