Saturday, July 25, 2009

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Harry Potter (character)Image via Wikipedia
I'd been a very reluctant Harry Potter spectator when I first happened to be taken to the first movie or the second one or whichever. I found it a tad unfulfilling and juvenile, pre-prepubescent if you will. However, I'm more than glad that I went and saw the latest offering. It was thoroughly gripping, entertaining and offered a relief from the recent spate of poorly executed cine. Unusually long as well, nearly three hours. And not in a dragging, "can't wait to get out of this" way, on the contrary I kept hoping it hadn't quite reached the end. I haven't seen the previous releases of this name so not really sure what to contrast it with. What I do know, however, is that the cast have matured, and the storyline and atmosphere darker in tone. There were some stark similarities that I oddly perceptive mind happened to notice whilst the movie. *******SPOILER ALERT********* for those who have not read the book or seen the move yet skip to after the stars please :) The scene where Ian McKellen's character Dumbledore falls to his demise seems reminiscent of Gandalf's fall in the Lord of the Rings. And when Dumbledore visits the young Voldemort, aka Tom Riddle, in his "quarters" seems very Xmen-like visitation before being accepted into the academy. ************************ Maybe that's where the appeal in it lies for me, it's grown closer to the kind of movies I'm keen. This is however a franchise onto itself and adds a somewhat distinct and subtler form. It is a wholesome movie, very engaging, or disengaging, however you like to see entertainment, wholly entertaining, providing the right amount of action, mysticism, romance, budding young pubscent attraction and well worth the money paid to watch it.
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Monday, July 20, 2009

Finally got an Ipod

After several bouts with logic, practicality and reasonability, I finally bit the bullet and bought an Ipod. It's an used one so all the more justifiable in these times when it's so hard to feed and water my seed, plus see dishonor. The body is a bit dinged and chipped and the scroll wheel seems to be a bit unresponsive. Oh well.

Now certain inhibitions that I've had with Ipods and Apple's proprietary software weren't completely alleviated after having gone through over 5 days or so of trying to tag and organize music. Any changes made in Winamp and in Windows Explorer were disregarded. I have gone through several revisions of tagging and dropping in album covers, most have taken, some are still frustratingly ignored. That's about all I can stand; the final run through of most songs in iTunes happened last night, as soon as I've backed up my music I will start to go back to Winamp, my music player since yore. This neat little video should see me along swimmingly.

In the meanwhile, I've ordered the music as much as I can and created play lists, now all that remains is a long bus ride or trek and to vibe to the grooves.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Game ON!

Another thing that I'd acquired off of my to do list for the summer of '09 is this PS2. Now the graphics on this aren't exactly as I recalled it. I assumed that the PS2 would outclass the Nintendo Wii. But in some cases the graphics are atrocius and pale in comparison. Played a few games such as Soul Calibur II, Tekken Tag Tournament and Tekken 4. I just couldn't bare playing those. The graphics or gameplay or both just put me off that I couldn't keep playing.
Luckily a few other titles are ok, mostly the newer releases. It's not a totally woops. For the moment A few good games such as Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi keep me going, and recently acquired Fifa Street 2, Star Wars revenge of the Sith seem to be okish in terms of graphics and gameplay. Grand Theft Auto III is another one I seem to be getting into. Ah muses.



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Frankie!

As part of my summer agenda, I acquired 'Frankie', with utmost gratitude to DLS for lending it to me. I know you said it's for keeps, but can anyone really own Frankie? He lives with me for the moment. Apparently Frankie has issues, so that's one thing both of us have in common.
Learning to play guitar has been slow and I realised there is more than one way of writing guitar chords and frets which is scary as the system I've was introduced is relatively simple.
There's plenty of practicing for yours truly but atleast i'm not a complete beginner. At the moment I have a few intro riffs but nothing solid or complete. Ideally i'd like to learn Incubus - Pardon Me and be able to sing along to it as my first guitar song. Whoo! let the good times roll.


ps anything apart from what I know right now about playing is a complete bitch; I'm learning with a mix of internet vids and chords downloaded in text form...

Back to Basics

Well the last entry has come to pass...pretty fitting. Anyway, I'm almost all over that now. What did it take? A month or two or six of self-loathing and agony. Who amongst us wouldn't love being cut down by a member of the opposite sex, except this one would have lead you to believe there's way more. I'll just chalk it down to my naivete and hopeless romanticism. Just when you think someone is different from all the rest...oh well. Lessons learned or have they? Now is the summer of my discontent. I have set out certain goals. Will they too come to pass or fall short on the wayside? More to come.