So, Book 1 is done.
I finally read "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone". It had been on my to-do list for years, but I never felt it was yet time to go ahead and read it. Laura had gotten so desperate for me to read the books she began speaking of some ratio system by which she would watch horrible movies with me that she otherwise would shun. Then that fell apart and I told myself I would read it over my holiday break. That didn't happen so I started it at work and had it finished in a few days.
It was a decent book, though I am no uber-fan now having read it. It does not quite stack up to some of the novels I have enjoyed over the years but it was fun. I enjoyed it and I have no complaints or wishes as to how it could have been different. I understand the movies a lot more now, especially given the whole "we're in hiding from the Muggle world" theme I never quite got. I missed the fact from the movies as to the purpose of the Ministry of Magic, as an agency to hide magic from the world not acting as an in-between agent. I think I appreciate the novel more having seen the way the movie played out though, as it's like getting a director's cut of the movie in my head without the button mashing to find deleted scenes.
I have not read a book meant for all audiences since diving into the first two "Abarat" books by Clive Barker. I am glad I waited until seeing the movies though, as I have the actors' faces in my head as I read despite the contradictions in the way they looked in the movies. I am not rabid to read the next book, so will probably pick up my "Nine Princes in Amber" collection by Roger Zelazny that Laura bought me a couple holidays ago. Once that is finished I will return to Book 2, probably having watched the movie of Book 1 again before then. I shall also continue to grow my wizard beard, started before I acted on reading the book, and dreamed about long before Harry Potter was even an idea in JKR's head. As a child I was stung by Pendragon and Merlin and all those sorts of things, always wanting to be a wizard one day. :D
I have a long way to go (if I manage not to get weak and shave again) but here is 3 or 4 months' growth a.k.a. yAr's Wizard Beard but without my spectacles on. Yellowed teeth and all. It's not Hollywood wizardry. ;)
I brought two of the blood pops from home into work, sucking on one now. Amazing stuff really. Thinking of all things, Sasquatch. Let me explain. I was watching MonsterQuest last night before I went to bed, first an episode on the Sasquatch in Canada and then began one on the Skunk Ape of the Florida Everglades. I love these sorts of shows, but the first one was different. Not just first hand accounts or sounds in the dark, but supposed DNA evidence collected. That particular report focuses on this summer-use cabin in a remote area near Ontario, Canada where things have been reported since before the early 1800s and further back by indigenous peoples. The owner had left a board of nails out in front of the door to dissuade whatever had wrecked the cabin on previous instances, which collected blood, tissue, and hair samples.
Here comes the problem. The galvanized nails (in one researcher's view) added a primer to the DNA material that made normal testing impossible. If you've seen the show before, a mohawk-clad lab scientist with some university in NY did the initial testing and found no DNA present. The other researcher had isolated the primer and been able to test the DNA, showing it was nearly identical to human DNA except with one abnormality on one gene that chimpanzees have that we do not. Supposedly he will be mapping this genome over the next several months, replicating the DNA, and obtaining DNA from the hair sample if possible to match it to the blood and tissue as from the same animal. Another doctor from MI who looked at the hair under a microscope said it was human-like but without a squishy membrane human hairs have and tapered off dully at the point's edge rather than the way I guess our hairs would pull out were a human foot to have stepped on the board of nails and grabbed a hair.
So, sitting at work during my lunch break I am thinking about Sasquatch, Bigfoot and so forth. I have always believed something could be alive out there we have yet to kill off, but the closer we get to having hard scientific evidence, the more I ponder the issue. So many things in this world we know so little about. :) You let this thought out and then all the other unexplained mysteries pour out, like where do my lost socks go while they are missing? Also, why can I not read a book merely by sleeping on it? :( That is the only thing I'd really like to be able to do, besides use my body fat as fuel to teleport. Those two things and I would conquer the world. :D Out of fuel, hit the buffet!
I just discovered the answer to one mystery. Why is my massive new desk so amazing? I pulled out a drawer looking for something and saw a tag that said it all. A smile crossed my lips. Made. in. Canada.
It was a decent book, though I am no uber-fan now having read it. It does not quite stack up to some of the novels I have enjoyed over the years but it was fun. I enjoyed it and I have no complaints or wishes as to how it could have been different. I understand the movies a lot more now, especially given the whole "we're in hiding from the Muggle world" theme I never quite got. I missed the fact from the movies as to the purpose of the Ministry of Magic, as an agency to hide magic from the world not acting as an in-between agent. I think I appreciate the novel more having seen the way the movie played out though, as it's like getting a director's cut of the movie in my head without the button mashing to find deleted scenes.
I have not read a book meant for all audiences since diving into the first two "Abarat" books by Clive Barker. I am glad I waited until seeing the movies though, as I have the actors' faces in my head as I read despite the contradictions in the way they looked in the movies. I am not rabid to read the next book, so will probably pick up my "Nine Princes in Amber" collection by Roger Zelazny that Laura bought me a couple holidays ago. Once that is finished I will return to Book 2, probably having watched the movie of Book 1 again before then. I shall also continue to grow my wizard beard, started before I acted on reading the book, and dreamed about long before Harry Potter was even an idea in JKR's head. As a child I was stung by Pendragon and Merlin and all those sorts of things, always wanting to be a wizard one day. :D
I have a long way to go (if I manage not to get weak and shave again) but here is 3 or 4 months' growth a.k.a. yAr's Wizard Beard but without my spectacles on. Yellowed teeth and all. It's not Hollywood wizardry. ;)
I brought two of the blood pops from home into work, sucking on one now. Amazing stuff really. Thinking of all things, Sasquatch. Let me explain. I was watching MonsterQuest last night before I went to bed, first an episode on the Sasquatch in Canada and then began one on the Skunk Ape of the Florida Everglades. I love these sorts of shows, but the first one was different. Not just first hand accounts or sounds in the dark, but supposed DNA evidence collected. That particular report focuses on this summer-use cabin in a remote area near Ontario, Canada where things have been reported since before the early 1800s and further back by indigenous peoples. The owner had left a board of nails out in front of the door to dissuade whatever had wrecked the cabin on previous instances, which collected blood, tissue, and hair samples.
Here comes the problem. The galvanized nails (in one researcher's view) added a primer to the DNA material that made normal testing impossible. If you've seen the show before, a mohawk-clad lab scientist with some university in NY did the initial testing and found no DNA present. The other researcher had isolated the primer and been able to test the DNA, showing it was nearly identical to human DNA except with one abnormality on one gene that chimpanzees have that we do not. Supposedly he will be mapping this genome over the next several months, replicating the DNA, and obtaining DNA from the hair sample if possible to match it to the blood and tissue as from the same animal. Another doctor from MI who looked at the hair under a microscope said it was human-like but without a squishy membrane human hairs have and tapered off dully at the point's edge rather than the way I guess our hairs would pull out were a human foot to have stepped on the board of nails and grabbed a hair.
So, sitting at work during my lunch break I am thinking about Sasquatch, Bigfoot and so forth. I have always believed something could be alive out there we have yet to kill off, but the closer we get to having hard scientific evidence, the more I ponder the issue. So many things in this world we know so little about. :) You let this thought out and then all the other unexplained mysteries pour out, like where do my lost socks go while they are missing? Also, why can I not read a book merely by sleeping on it? :( That is the only thing I'd really like to be able to do, besides use my body fat as fuel to teleport. Those two things and I would conquer the world. :D Out of fuel, hit the buffet!
I just discovered the answer to one mystery. Why is my massive new desk so amazing? I pulled out a drawer looking for something and saw a tag that said it all. A smile crossed my lips. Made. in. Canada.