Hypocrites are Awesome

Let me just get this out in the open right now: yes I am aware that I have my moments of hypocrisy.  Everyone does.  I try to keep it in check as much as possible, but it happens.  Anyone who says that they are never a hypocrite is completely full of shit.  In fact, people who think they are never hypocrites are probably the worst.  Crap, I think I just made myself the worst there.  Okay I suck.

But here's the worst kind of hypocrisy - the kind against me!

Wait, umm, no.

Maybe.

I don't know.

Designated Hitter's sister is an interesting character.  Thankfully she likes me.  However, she's one of those people where you always wonder if she really likes you, and even if she does like you is she talking crap about you behind your back.  You should hear the way she talks about her own kids and her husband.

Anyway, I have never ever heard her say anything good ever about her father-in-law.  Ever.  Even in front of her husband, she's badmouthing him.  Well he passed away recently, and now Sis is just going on and on and on about how awful it is and thanks for all the support and love and prayers during this very awful time and how sad it is that he's gone and yadda yadda.  I know there's the whole "don't speak ill of the dead" thing, and it probably is really sad for her husband and kids, but seriously.  You made it pretty blatantly obvious that you didn't like the guy.  Don't pretend now that he was your best buddy.

There's a lot more in that family that makes me twitch.  Tons of stuff that makes me wonder what they say about me behind my back.  Kind of long stories that are difficult to explain (and even just this little story was starting to drive me nuts with pronouns) but I just had to vent about that.  Thank you, that'll be all.

It's a Dog's Life

The Prom Queen has issues.  Mostly she has "I don't need to learn anything because I already know everything" issues.  I once got in an argument with her because she was convinced that she had a lobotomy.

this seems unnecessary for a pregnancy... 

on second thought.....

After a lengthy discussion, we finally figured out she was trying to say "phlebotomy" but even when a dozen people were confirming my definition of the two words, she still wouldn't believe me.  So yanno, maybe she did have a lobotomy.  Or maybe she needs one.   

So the latest issue... she's a veterinary assistant.  She went to school to learn things about working with animals in a vet clinic.  And she is working in a vet clinic.  Somehow she has never heard that onions are bad for dogs.  My vet says so, my friend's vet says so, and Muppy projectile-vomits for three days if he gets ahold of food with onions in it.  He turns into the Puke-Me-Poop-You from "Attack of the Killer App" (pretty awful Futurama episode, but that line made me laugh)  But when I said that I can't let Muppy eat anything with onions, Prom Queen goes "oh don't believe all that shit".  Okay, I won't listen to my vet.  Or other vets.  (sidebar - the vet she works for is a pretty nice guy, and he's the only vet in our little podunk town, but he's kind of an idiot.  he has no common sense when it comes to animals.  even with Prom Queen working at the vet clinic, Buffalo Bill calls the vet in the next town over whenever he needs anything done with our livestock.  go figure) 

She drives me nuts.  I mean she's only 25 and yet she's convinced she knows everything.  She seriously still acts like a high schooler. 

Inboxers and Briefs

Hotmail hates me.  Last night I spent about a half an hour writing an email to Buffalo Bill.  Long story, but the short version is I had an Excel file full of information he needed and he doesn't have Excel and he didn't need everything in the file anyway so I just wrote up what he needed.  I wanted to go to bed but I'd promised him I'd have it to him yesterday.  Designated Hitter was being his eternally helpful self [/sarcasm] and kept going on about how "well you should be able to imbed the Excel sheet into an email, I mean you can in Outlook" and I had to repeatedly remind him that I'm still using Hotmail (don't judge me.  well, I mean people who aren't Best Friend shouldn't judge me.  people who use grown-up email systems, and who aren't reading my blog.  wait, umm, moving on)  Then this morning I wake up, log into my email, and Hotmail went and added the ability to imbed Excel into emails!  8 fucking hours after I needed it!

 
But that isn't really why I'm making this post.

Here's a little background - I hate clutter.  Hate it.  Designated Hitter is a packrat, and this issue has been a big problem for us for a long time.

However, I have one place where I am apparently also a clutterhound.  My email inbox.  I currently have over 5000 emails in my inbox.  I think I need an intervention. 

I'm sorting and deleting.  Mostly deleting, but there are some things I wanted to save (hence the reason I'd kept EVERYTHING.  cuz I'm smart like that)  I am making new inbox folders.

 These make so much more sense to me than the "normal" approach I'd taken 10 years ago... and never used.  However this emergency sort-and-file could take months.  I need beer.

The Muggle Speaks

As Best Friend (and currently still my only reader) is fully aware, I have, at long last, joined the ranks of those who love the Harry Potter books.  It's not that I didn't love them before, I just hadn't read them.  At first I didn't think I would like them, and then I was kind of turned off by all the hoopla (I have this attitude where I tend to hate anything that everyone else loves.  Also known as my rebellious behavior disorder) but I finally let curiosity take over.

I started reading over the 4th of July weekend.  Picked up the first book at approximately 8:00 pm Saturday night... and refused to quit reading until I finished it.

yes 1:00 a.m. is a big deal to me, I'm a morning person

Had the second book done before lunch on Sunday.  Tried to finish the third one yet Sunday night but

that's a flashlight up by my head, get your mind out of the gutter

I had finished the fifth book four days after I picked up the first one.  And then I was stuck.  My boyfriend had lent me books 1-5 but told me I had to come back for the last two.  Why he felt compelled to trick me into coming back, I'll never know.  Of course I'll gladly see him again, even without bribes.  Well, we did go for quite a while without seeing each other over the last couple years... but... okay yeah maybe he did have a good idea.  Whatever.  Not the point of this post.

I still don't have books 6 & 7 yet, but over the weekend ABC Family channel showed the first 5 movies.  I missed most of the first one... just caught the last half hour or so.  And Order of the Phoenix is recording right now as I type.  But I saw all of 2, 3 and 4.  I had told Best Friend last week I wanted to watch at least one of the movies, mostly because I wanted to see what Quidditch looks like (I had a pretty good idea in my head from the descriptions in the books but wanted to see how they did it in the movies) and I really wanted to get the pronunciation of Hermione firmly cemented in my head!  Anyway, Best Friend wanted to know what I thought of the movies, and rather than cluttering up her inbox and having an un-updated blog, I figured I'd do it this way.

Wow...

I hope I never do that again.

Now... on to the review!

Quidditch was pretty much what I was figuring.  Although as an avid sports lover, I was kind of disappointed they didn't show more of the game itself.  Maybe I missed that by missing the first movie... it's first in line in my Netflix Queue, hopefully by Friday.

And I knew how to pronounce Hermione, my brain just didn't like to play along.  But now I think it's pretty well implanted in the gray matter.

As for everything else... I am SO glad that the movies pretty much stuck to the plots of the books.  I woulda been so pissed if they'd gone on some great adventure that was not only not in the books but didn't even fit with the storyline.  Thank goodness for that!  They obviously did have to skip a lot of stuff because seriously how can you cram a 900 page book into a 2 hour movie?  Yeah.  Also, I'm pretty sure this is a big reason for not showing like an entire Quidditch match.  Not to mention I think flying broomsticks are not real so that would have been a challenge too.  Maybe they are real and I'm just a stupid Muggle.  Wait, I'm getting off topic.  Anyway, while I totally understand that they had to cut some stuff, there were a few places where I was left feeling that they had glossed over or completely ignored something I felt was pretty important.  And worse yet, there was at least one time where I felt like they left a pretty stinkin big plot hole.  Don't ask, I don't remember what it was now.  If I think of it, I'll post an update.

Update - I know somewhere that I feel like they completely skipped over some important plot points.  See film: The Order of the Phoenix.  See part: all.  No, really.  There were so many places that I was just like "wait a minute, how the hell did we get here?" and if I hadn't read the book I wouldn't have understood why the characters were behaving as they were.  This movie was probably the most disappointing of them all so far. 

Okay, here's the thing that drove me the most nuts out of it all though.  They did point out that the young wizards weren't supposed to do magic outside of Hogwarts.  Uncle Vernon was fully aware of it, Harry got in trouble for it, etc.  And yet when Harry was doing his middle-of-the-night homework at the Muggle house, he was reading by wand light and they even made a big deal out of it with him having to re-light it every 3 seconds.  There are other times when wands illuminate and they stay lit, so what was with the constant repeating of the Lumos?  Another example was after Harry's first Floo ride and his glasses broke, Hermione was the one to fix them.  WTF?  Seriously.  So what, you can't do magic when it lends itself to a storyline but it's okay when it serves to remind stupid moron moviegoers that this is a movie about magic?  I mean in the books, Harry was doing his homework by flashlight and one of the Weasley parents fixed his glasses.

Although there is even a little confusion on that topic in the books, in my opinion.  Hermione said she'd done some charms at home before the start of their first year.  Of course she probably didn't know the rules yet then... but still.  And I'm pretty certain the Weasley twins were doing all sorts of shit, with their joke stuff.

But I'm getting nit-picky.

For the most part I liked the movies.  Like I said, thankfully they stuck to the storylines.  And I think they did a good job of casting the actors.  There weren't really any times where I was seriously all "WTF, that person looks/acts NOTHING like they should" and going back and rereading now after the movies is actually a little easier because I have a picture of the characters in my head.  (from my somewhat disjointed and incomplete viewings I don't really feel qualified to comment on old Dumbledore vs new Dumbledore)  And the special effects were good too, not nearly as hokey as they could have been! 

All in all I like books better than movies though.  Not just here, but always.  And here.

Exit Stage Left

Oy.  I went out with a friend today for lunch/FAC.  I told her that I went to see Wicked recently.  She goes "oh really, who is in it?"

................

What?  No, really, yanno the musical?  Live theater?  Ever heard of it?  Nobody "famous" is in it.  I didn't react like this, I just said "I dunno... it was a musical" and then she starts talking about that new Karate Kid movie and what a great actor Will and Jada Smith's kid is. 

I try to not be a snob, but seriously.