HP: "Back in MY day . . ."

As I was searching eBay for some cool Christmas gifts for my mom, I lazily started looking up Harry Potter merchandise. Now for those of you who, like me, were into Harry Potter before the movies, you'll remember the Cartoon Harry days. Now, the Cartoon Harry days are what I like to call them to refer to the days before the movies, when you had those action figures, playsets, and trivia games based solely on the book.

Here are some of the ones that I had a kid.

#1: The Hogwarts Playset I loved this thing to death. I had the castle, Hagrid's hut, and the Burrow (an extension not offered in this package.) Though, I do wish I'd had the Hogwarts Express one... that's pretty hackin' sweet.

#2: Hermione Granger Bookend: This was a very cool thing, and I still have it. I still remember seeing it for the first time in a display at Sears at the mall when I was very little, and I guess I ended up getting it!

#3: Cartoon Harry mug: I don't use this anymore because there was a small crack beginning on the inside of it (you know, one of those weird gray ones that you get underneath the glass, that you can see, but you can't actually feel it?), and I didn't want such a valuable collectible to be ruined forever.

#4: Scabbers, Hedwig, & Snitch Plushies: Okay, these things are the coolest things ever made by man. They're about as tall as a regular coffee mug, but sooo cute!!!

#5: Official Hedwig Plushie w/ Necklace: I say official because anybody on eBay could take a Snowy owl plushie and say that it is a collector's Hedwig plushie, but this was specifically designed for the HP fandom, as indicated by the necklace.

#6: Harry Potter Story Scope Figurines: Now, these are very valuable, because they don't sell them anymore, and were only sold for a limited time. They only made six; Harry, Ron, Hermione, Hhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifedwig, Dumbledore, and Hagrid. I have all of them! Each one you buy has this little plasic stone lookin' thing that if you hold it up to the light, you can see it has a little summary of its character inside. Unfortunately, the only one I still have is Hermione's, as I lost the others, but it is still valuable.

#7: Hermione Wizard's Sweets Doll: Now this thing was really cool. It was a doll of Hermione wearing the outfit she wore in the final scenes of "Sorcerer's Stone", and it came with a little bracelet that you could wear that smelled like strawberries! YUMMM!!!

Well, those are only some, but I love them with all my heart, and if I think of more, I will get back to you!

Harry Potter Shopping! (Black Friday discounts!)

For you Harry Potter fans out there, I think it would be a good time to inform you that for Black Friday, The Official Harry Potter Shop is offering 50-75 percent discounts on all their stuff. (For instance, a Dumbledore's Army shoulder bag that was originally $35.95 is now only $17.95!) Could this possibly be a place for some early Christmas shopping? Who knows . . .? Hope to see you there!

Also, for those of you who have not yet discovered the wonder of this magical company, I'm here to show you once and for all. A couple of years ago I discovered a company called "The Noble Collection." They make realistic, authentic replicas of props used in and merchandise relating to the Harry Potter movies. (They also have vast merchandise selections for The Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Dark Knight, and others!) I myself have so far received Hermione's wand and Time-Turner, Hermione's Yule Ball earrings, Luna Lovegood's jewelery set, and the mini version of Arwen's Evenstar pendant from Lord of the Rings.

The Noble Collection has even started featuring some Half Blood Prince merchandise even before the movie comes out, which NEVER happens, including the Gaunt ring (complete with Deathly Hallows symbol), the Slytherin locket and Ron's sweetheart necklace from Lavender Brown.

(But, just a little hint . . . if you don't want to spend ridiculous amounts of money on Jack Sparrow's rings in the PotC section of the site, I would reccomend just buying them from Disneyland. They are much cheaper, but just as satisfying to have.)

I hope you get a chance to visit the place -- it's fantastic!

The Most Expensive Jeans I've Ever Seen

For those of you who didn't know, Daniel Radcliffe recently had an auction to sell off the costume jeans he wore in the production of Equus. The money spent on these jeans will go to the Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS association.

It turns out that the spiffy jeans went for $950 U.S. dollars. That's right people. Cough up a few Hamiltons and you've got a whole whopping thousand dollars. How awesome is that?

Harry Potter ABC Marathon Updates

Well, as it turns out, the three day Harry Potter marathon that ABC family will be hosting, will in fact be showing sneak peek, never-before-seen footage of Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince, as well as interviews with Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint and Michael Gambon about the new movie.

Below is the schedule for the films that weekend:
Friday, December 5th:
(7:30 – 11:00 PM ET/PT) “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”

Saturday, December 6th
(1:30 – 5:00 PM ET/PT) “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”
(5:00 – 9:00 PM ET/PT) “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets”
(9:00 PM – 12:00 AM ET/PT) “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”

Sunday, December 7th
(12:30 – 4:30 PM ET/PT) “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets”
(4:30 – 7:30 PM ET/PT) “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”
(7:30 – 11:00 PM ET/PT) “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” (extended edition with deleted scenes)

Color Guard & Clique Girlz

I'm sorry, I just have to add -- there's this one band called something like Lafayette high school from Arkansas. Tell me, how do navy blue band costumes go with gray guard suits and hot pink striped flags? And what kind of work are they doing?!?! What is that, carve exercises and like.... UGGGH!!!!! my school works so much harder.

I'm sorry -- I'm very weird like that.

Okay, and those Clique Girlz on top of that pink Princess castle thing are TOTALLY lip-synching.

Thanksgiving Morning!

Yay! Okay, so it's Thanksgiving morning, and I am rearing and ready to go to eat some delicious turkey. (Actually, my faves include stuffing, cranberry sauce and sweet potatoes). We're about to start having what looks like a very good Thanksgiving breakfast, but I figured I could blog a little bit before I had to retire to the dining room.

My uncle actually has two screens to his computer, so on one screen I'm doing this, and on the other screen I'm watching the Macy's Day Parade, since my uncle is watching the football game on the big screen TV. I really don't care about the floats that much, I've just got my eye on the color guards and marching bands, really.

Anyway, I've just been informed that we're having bacon and pancakes for breakfast (among other things) so I'm gonna take off. See ya!

Twilight: The Movie

Oh my GOD. I haven't posted in sooo long! I'm actually blogging from my uncle's Mac in Reno, Nevada, which is pretty cool. It's actually cold here, and I got to drive on a highway on the way up! It was thoroughly horrifying, but I actually got through it. I almost hit a bunny though, but he jumped back into the bushes before I could. :)

Anyway, I finally got to see Twilight after much hype and tension and what-not . . . I saw it on opening day, November 21. I'm now going to talk about the movie, so if you don't really want to find out exactly what happens in the movie, you should probably just skip this part of the post.

**SPOILERS**
It was SOOO GOOOD!!!!!! One of my favorite parts was the baseball game. They did SUCH a good job with that, and it was a really fun part to watch. The funniest part was when Edward looked like he was going to throw up in Biology with Bella. (Can someone tell me why a junior is taking Bio?) Anyway, I also really liked the part at the end with James fighting Edward and the Cullens having to save Bella.

Also, my friend gave me a copy of the Twilight soundtrack which I listened to during the 9-hour drive up to Reno from my house. My favorite songs are "Supermassive Black Hole", "Spotlight" and "Go All the Way (Into the Twilight)"
**END SPOILERS**

Alright, well that's it. I'll probably blog about Thanksgiving tomorrow or Friday. Ciao!

The iPod Touch (I hate Apple!)

Alright, so here's my tragic story. I got my iPod video as a Christmas gift in 2006. Over the summer, it stopped playing out of one ear phone, so I had to get a new one from Apple. Unfortunately, we had to pay full-price up front because the thing was only a few months out of its warranty. So, we had to crap out 200 bucks on a new iPod.

What I've always wanted was an iPod touch because they are so effing amazing, but after looking on the Apple site, it turns out that the one that I need is the most expensive one. $400. Yeah, I know. Crazy, right? Who has that kind of money?

If Ben gets one, I will cry. I want him to suffer and have the EXACT same iPod as me. The only way he can get a Touch is if we both go to Apple, buy ours at exactly the same time, and receive them at exactly the same time. That's the only way I will allow it. So, HA, Ben. You're never getting one.

EVER.

Movie Update #2

Well, today I went to see "Quantum of Solace", which ended up being really good. Not that violent, and I was able to hang on to the plot line (albeit just barely), which is usually very complicated.

Secondly, I got to see trailers for two new movies which look very good. The first one was one that I had already seen a promo for on TV, but this time got to see a full-fledged, very exciting trailer, called "Valkyrie." It's starring Tom Cruise and Kenneth Brannah, re-telling the story of the elite group of Nazis who tried to assassinate Hitler. WWII films always interest me, and this looks really intense, because I had already heard the vague story of people trying to assassinate Hitler, but I never knew the whole story, so I'm pretty psyched.

Another movie we got to see the preview for was the new Star Trek movie, which my parents were really excited about. Awesomely enough, Spock is played by Zachary Quinto, the actor who plays Sylar on one of my favorite shows, Heroes.

Anyway, thought I'd let all of you know what's happenin' in my life. Nighty night!

ABC December Potter Marathon

As part of their 25 Days of Christmas event from December 5th-7th this year, ABC Family will be showing most of the Harry Potter movies. In case any of you haven't ever watched these types of movies on this channel, I think it should be noted that ABC Family tends to include deleted scenes in movies that they show (at least, the ones that don't interfere with the storyline of the finished film), which is always really entertaining. And they usually do marathons like this to promote a new movie . . . Half-Blood Prince footage? Hmm . . . maybe . . . you'll have to wait, watch and see!

Here is the schedule so far:

Friday, December 5: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Saturday, December 6: Sorcerer's Stone, Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban (back to back)
Sunday, December 7: Chamber of Secrets, Prisoner of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire.

To view the rest of the 25 Days of Christmas schedule, click here.

Chocolate Eggs Galore!

I have no idea why I started looking these up, but I just felt like it. It's also kinda fun to say. Of course, there's always the people who try and go BIG, and make the chocolate eggs that are as big as a house . . . but me, I'm more for the delicate designs -- right before I delve into it.

Here were some of my personal faves:


The basic, the beautiful. The kind you can end up eating 50 of before you realize you've even started.



Quaint and pretty -- I'd definitely buy it.



This is intense. It sort of looks like some sort of Easter special being something you get as one of those extra gifts you get if you buy like $500 worth of some French perfume.




Lacking color, but the design makes up for it. I love it!!!


(the picture of this egg is too big for a blog, so click here to view it...)
This is SOOO cool, but if you are too excited, you might bite through the shell and into the flowers before you can even look at them . . . it'd be a neat trick if you were gonna like, hide an engagement ring in it or something. If a guy worked THAT hard to get a ring into an egg, I'd say yes.

The One Thing Bush Regrets

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's true. Bush -- the God, the Saint, Mr. Wonderful Himself -- has finally admitted his ONE regret. What is it, you may ask? Is it going into Iraq for under lame/supposedly false pretenses? No, no, no, of course not! It was the sign he posted on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln saying, "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" (in reference to the Iraqi war.)

Okay, well in Bush's defense (not that he deserves any), it's not his only regret. He goes on in the article to talk about some of the things he said that he shouldn't have, but hey, he's President. He kind of . . . sucks. Oh well.

Check out the article yourself.

No Need to Go to College . . .

. . . as I already, apparently, write at that level. But, I doubt I'd be able to perform a colonoscopy on a human being, so that would be one reason to go onto to college . . .

Movie Reviews

The James Bond Experience

Okay, well it's not freakishly interesting, but I was bored and couldn't think of anything else to blog about.

So, as some of you may know, the new James Bond flick, "Quantum of Solace" is coming out this Friday, the 14th, and my dad is VERY excited. He really loves the James Bond movies.

So, it got me thinking. I think the first Bond movie I ever saw was "Tomorrow Never Dies", featuring Pierce Brosnan and Michelle Yeoh. Then I think I saw "The World is Not Enough"(which has Hagrid in it!!! and if he hadn't been there, James Bond would have died, so YEAH), "GoldenEye" and then "Die Another Day", in that order. I don't remember anything about them except for maybe a few lines of dialog, but I still liked Pierce Brosnan's Bond films more than Casino Royale -- I think the new Bond is too emo, and that's just depressing. Plus, "Casino Royale" is the only Bond movie to have a story that carried into another -- somehow, in THAT movie he's actually bummed that his girlfriend died, which has NEVER happened.

Oh well. I'm done.

Circuit City Goes Bankrupt

Yeah, it's true. It kinda sucks though, even though they say they're going to stay in business for the holidays, because, you know, with this failing economy, people are just DYING to go out and crap money on a big screen TV and blu-ray discs.

Movie Update

Last night I went to see the movie Madagascar 2, which was just as, if not more funny, than the first one. The penguins, unsurprisingly, were my favorite characters. If any of you have seen it already, my favorite part was when the penguin pulled out the switchblade knife. I laughed for like three minutes in the theatre, but pretty much everyone else did the same thing too, so . . . I got away with it.

Also, before the movie, I saw a trailer for the movie The Tale of Despereaux, which looks okay, but I don't remember the book being anything similar to what the trailer depicted it as. But whatever. I also realized halfway through the trailer that the princess was voiced by Emma Watson, who plays Hermione in the Harry Potter films. Other celebrities in the movie include Matthew Broderick, Dustin Hoffman, and Robbie Coltrane, which I thought was pretty sweet.

Just for Megs

Hey, Anastasia. Thought you'd enjoy this. I still don't know how he does it. You can spot me trying to do it in the middle of Oceanography . . . I'll probably try it again tomorrow.

Back to Picket Fences

Well, now that Obama has been elected President of the United States, I figured that I should just start getting on with life as usual. I am so sick of Bush I want to shoot my head into the ground, BUT I figured that would be rather stupid considering we just elected a new president. But ugh -- four MONTHS till he gets into office? I tell you what, I may not have voted for him, but I still can't wait to see how we start changing things around.

Anyway, after my political rant, I figured I'd put something happier onto my blog -- tomorrow after school I am taking my learner's permit test at the DMV. It's all very complicated, but they're all assuring me that it's not . . . I kind of don't believe them.


Also, yesterday I bought a book called "Harry, A History" by Melissa Anelli, who (for those of you sadly Harry Potter deprived fans who don't know) is the webmistress for the Leaky Cauldron, the most successful Harry Potter website in the world wide web. (Well, one of two, the other being Mugglenet.com. I'm actually not sure which is more popular.) I only got it yesterday, but I'm already careening through it like it's made of banana peels. (I mean that in a good way.) It is a FANTASTIC book -- not only is it interesting to read her interviews with people who've had a hand in publishing the books and people that oppose the books, but it's also like reliving the entire experience. (The memoir starts with her friend Sue Upton [another Leaky staff member] waking her up shrieking in excitement about the release of the Deathly Hallows publication date, and takes you through many flashbacks of Melissa's entrance into the Harry Potter fandom and the people she meets along the way.)

Also, Melissa got on the front cover of USA Today, along with Obama and McCain. Reading her blog for the book, she says that she laughed so hard that she almost fell off the bed when her sister told her.

Election Results: The Good & The Bad

Well, the election didn't turn out as hoped -- I was 100% rooting for McCain. People need to get over the fact that he's old. Somehow, people have become so obsessed with the children leading the way of the country that it won't matter when they actually get there, because people think old people are useless. To be more specific, they think Old White Christian Republican men are useless, which I find total bullcrap. However much I don't really like Obama, that doesn't change the fact that this is/was a historic election, but which does NOT change the fact that I don't like him. Obama is still a man -- he could be green, purple, yellow, whatever. He's still a man, and I don't really like his ideas. I think he just needs to chillax a little bit. I can only pray that he does a good job. I'd rather have a well-run country with a president that changed than have an even more screwed up country and be able to tell everybody, "I told you so." (Which would feel pretty good, but, that's not in keeping with the bigger picture . . .)

But, at least Prop 8 passed. Phew! I'm sorry people, but gays need to stop acting so fricking oppressed. NEWS FLASH, people. They are NOT African-American, and they are no where NEAR being as oppressed as the blacks.

Did you know that "civil unions" were actually CREATED for the sole purpose of GIVING gays hospital visitation rights? Governments have just been adding on rights to it since then, and now civil unions are exactly the same thing as marriages, except for the fact that they aren't called marriages.

The fact is, gays aren't asking for rights, okay? Proposition 8 was not a question of quote RIGHTS quote, un-quote (to quote Steve Carrel.) It's about gays breaking down barriers so that they can be considered traditional, which they are NOT. No offense. No, requiring schools to teach gay marriage is NOT in prop 8, but it will be a direct result of it if it had passed.

I'm sorry, I'm ranting . . . and who cares anyway? It passed! Woo-hoo!

(Oh, as for Prop 2, if we had money to crap out of every orifice, then I'd be all for it. Unfortunately, we don't.)

Election Day!

Well, today is Election Day in sunny San Diego -- well, it's Election Day everywhere in the USA today, and it actually wasn't sunny at ALL today. It was cold and rainy and I was sick all day.

As I am only 15, I can't legally vote, but here is what I would vote if I could.
President: McCain/Palin
Props: Yes on 1, 4, 8 and 11. No on 2.

Currently, McCain has won Kentucky, and Obama won Vermont, still leaving McCain in the lead by 5 votes. (The vote was 8 to 3). http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/election_rdp

Yesterday, I opened up iTunes to see that Pink had come out with a NEW album! I quickly hurried over to Target and bought it.

My favorite songs are "So What", "Sober" and "It's All Your Fault" (which, by the way, is a TOTAL Edward/Bella song for you Twilighters out there.)

Speaking of Twilight, I have recently gotten into Twilight again. I figured that the only reason I had such a problem with it was because the fans were so annoying, and because Bella was so whiny. Well, I can get over Bella's problem, and I can just distance myself from them. Plus, Twilight will never be the empire of Harry Potter, so there's no need to worry. So, I've decided to stop skipping and skimming over Breaking Dawn and actually read it from beginning to end. Plus, my OCD is begging me to not waste the beautiful-ness of it's Excitingly, the Twilight soundtrack comes out on Tuesday, which I'll probably get. I don't know if I'll get it at Target or if I'll just download it from iTunes. iTunes is probably cheaper, but I usually like to buy hard copies of soundtracks for movies, because they usually have very pretty covers. Plus, if I ever get really obsessed with Twilight, I will have wanted a hard copy, so I figured I might as well. I'm seriously going to start running out of money th0ugh. With all the money I'm crapping away for secret buddies for guard tournaments, and that Pink CD, and there was this new book I wanted to buy . . . it's all just VERY expensive.

For those of you who are interested, a girl on YouTube managed to get her copy of the CD early, and she posted "Bella's Lullaby". If you want her full story, see the summary of the vid, but you can view it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW8xUKvbD3g

Halloween in it's Gory -- I mean, Glory

I have had a very full weekend (weekend meaning starting from about 2:20 on Friday to now).

First, on Friday, I witnessed my first violent political act. I didn't think it made much of a difference if I kept my "Yes on Prop 8" sticker in the front of my binder instead of in the back -- apparently, there is a BIG difference. After a girl in my 6th period Oceanography class stared at me in disgust for about 10 seconds, she took it back to her desk on the other side of the room, cut it up with scissors and burned in on a bunson burner. For the record, we had a substitute, and we had all finished the assigned work in about the first 5 minutes of class, so it was one of those "be-loud-and-sleep" days.

As for Halloween night, my Halloween was pretty wonderful, actually. It started out with me reporting to my school's color guard room at 5:30 pm to practice for the football game performance. It was not fun in the least -- no one ever watches us during football games, they only ever get up to buy food, talk loudly to their neighbors, or (when they are bothered enough to spare a passing glance at us) laugh when we drop a sabre. Oh, how we love them so.

Afterwards, I took a quick shower, and headed over to Ben's house for Halloween. His mother pretty much made every Halloween-themed candy/food ever created by man or beast, filling about three tables worth of candy. But, as I was starving, I didn't have reason to complain. I didn't have a costume, but my friend Megan dressed up as Captain Hammer from Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog, and Ben dressed up as a Dr. Horrible fan with a shirt made by Alex.

Here's a photo of Megan and Ben playing "Paper Mario" on Ben's Wii. (Well, I played too, but I had taken a break to eat some dinner.)

Here's a photo OF Paper Mario. Me, going for the laughs as always, had an enjoyable time coming up with voices for all the characters, which lasted about 10 minutes before I got REALLY hungry.


Alex the Antisocial (a term so lovingly bestowed unto him) managed to carve this GORGOUS Sweeney Todd pumpkin, which I find wonderful but sort of weird, as Mr. Martin told me it had all been done in one night.

Here's Ben looking WAY too happy.

And here is a rather magnificent photo of Ben's hair.



Later that night we watched "The Curse of the Were-Rabbit" while I curled up on the Martins' VERY squishy couch in a very soft blanket. But, after I started twiddling my glowstick and drifting off in the couch, we figured it was time to leave.