Not A Keeper

I saw My Sister’s Keeper last night.  I was quite excited about this movie for a variety of reasons.  First, I absolutely love Jodi Picoult’s novels and My Sister’s Keeper is my favorite of hers.  It’s actually one of my favorite books in general, right up there with Harry Potter and that’s saying something.  Second, it inspired me to write In Moonlight’s Shadow.  If you read both My Sister’s Keeper and In Moonlight’s Shadow, you’ll probably be able to see the similarities.

However, I was incredibly disappointed in the movie.  They absolutely killed it.  I wasn’t expecting it to live up to the book, but I also was not expecting them to completley change the plot and message.  *CAUTION SPOILERS BELOW*

The first thing I noticed was that they pretty much cut the Jesse plot line.  In the book, Jesse (the older brother) starts setting fires as he’s dealing with Kate’s cancer.  That was cut.  Honestly, I can understand why they cut that part.  Movies do have to cut stuff.  But then they haphazardly threw in this made-up plot about Jesse having dyslexia.  Then at the end of the movie, they mentioned how he went back to school.  Kind of confusing since it was never mentioned that he dropped out.  I think they shouldn’t have bothered with the dyslexia plot line.

Second, the movie focused mostly on Kate’s cancer.  Now, at first glance that would make sense because the book is about a girl with cancer.  But it’s really so much more.  The book focused so much on the family dynamics and Anna’s relationship with her mother and how she was suing her parents.  It really showed how Kate’s cancer was tearing her family apart.  Most of that was cut.

I could have dealt with all that.  I really could have.  But then they had to go and change the entire ending!!!!  In the book, Anna dies and Kate gets her kidney and lives.  In the movie, Kate dies.  Completely different.  They took a book that has one of the best twist endings I have ever read in my life and turned it into a tear-jerker Hallmark movie.  I cried more at the book, actually, because of that twist ending.  I did cry at the movie, but I didn’t cry much at the end because I was too preoccupied with the change of ending.

I don’t recommend it.  I highly recommend reading the book.  Don’t see the movie and then read the book.  Read the book and then see the movie if you really want to.  It’s not one I’d see again and certainly not one I would buy.

End Of An Era

A little over a year ago I started writing a fan fiction, In Moonlight’s Shadow, that was about one of the characters in my Albus Severus Potter series.  It soon became the longest and best (in my opinion) story I’ve ever written, including original fiction.  I just kept thinking up more and more plot points and it kept getting longer and longer.

Today, June 29, 2009, at approximately 4:35PM, EST I finished it.  I was listening to the song ‘Black Santas’ by Lauren Fairweather (which is a song you really wouldn’t understand unless you’ve read Paper Towns by John Green).  It topped out at 259,871 words in 62 chapters.

I’m very glad that I finished it, but it is going to be strange not working on it nearly everyday.  I have a sequel planned out that I can’t wait to start.

8 Minus Jon Or Kate

I have been an avid watcher of Jon & Kate Plus 8 for about nine months.  I watched nearly every episode since going to school and actually having cable.  After just the first episode, I was hooked.  I was very impressed with Jon & Kate and the kids are adorable.  Jon & Kate show so much love for them and tried hard to keep their lives normal despite their fame.

However, my opinion has drastically changed since the semester ended.  The allegations against both of them for cheating was just the beginning.  Now, at least one of them is on the front cover of every tabloid every week.  I have no idea what is true and what isn’t, but there is obviously something going on.

Now, Jon & Kate are getting a divorce.  That in itself is not what bothers me.  Nearly half of all marriages end in divorce in this country and although that is incredibly sad, it remains a fact.  The Gosselins are choosing to get a divorce.  Not that big of a deal.  It is incredibly sad for their children, but it is what’s going to happen.

One of my favorite episodes of this past season was the one where Jon & Kate renewed their vows in Hawaii.  It was such a beautiful ceremony.  But what sticks out most in my mind was something Kate said.  She said something about how the children know that a lot of parents get divorced, but she wanted to reassure them that that will never happen in their family.  And now, only months later, they are getting divorced.

What bothers me is how they are handling the situation.  Namely the fact that they are continuing with the show.  Kate specifically said, ‘The show must go on.’  That, in my opinion, is kind of ridiculous.  Is it really in the children’s best interests to continue the show after they’ve been in tabloids for the past two months?  Probably not.  They’re never going to get to live a normal life now.

In one episode, Kate mentioned something about how they always ask the children if they want to continue the show before each renewal time.  The kids apparently always say yes.  However, I have a feeling they feel pressure by Jon & Kate to say that.  Children like to please their parents.  There’s a reason guardian ad litems are appointed for children involved in court cases.  I read in one tabloid that the children have told their aunt and uncle that they don’t want to continue the show.  I have no idea how accurate that tabloid is, but I tend to believe it.

The show is going to now feature Jon doing stuff with the kids and Kate doing stuff with the kids.  They should change the name to ‘Sometimes Jon Plus 8 and Sometimes Kate Plus 8′.  Honestly, I think the best thing for these kids would be to stop the show and let them try to live a normal life.  Jon & Kate once said they started the show in order to earn money to pay for things the kids need.  That’s believable.  Raising eight kids takes a lot of money.  But at what cost?  Buy the kids less clothing and go on fewer vacations and take the cameras out of the house.  I think they’ve earned enough money now anyway, judging by the size of their new house.

I have to mention the one thing that impresses me about this situation, though.  And that is the fact that the children will not be shuttled back and forth between parents.  Jon & Kate will be taking turns at the house with the kids.  I have to give them credit for that.

Why Did It Have To End?

Four weeks ago, I was at the first Wrock concert during LeakyCon.  I only knew my family and one girl I had talked to online for a year and a half prior to the Con.  It is hard to believe that it has been four weeks since LeakyCon started.

Now, four weeks later, I am making my last LeakyCon 2009 post.  The last day of LeakyCon involved breakfast and then check-out from the hotel.  We met our friends for breakfast and exchanged addresses.  We promised to keep in touch through all ways of communication and four weeks later, we have.  We talk on our webcams, keep each other updated about our lives on Facebook, and email each other.

It was sad to leave, but the breakfast was upbeat and chaotic like everything else about LeakyCon.  Melissa raffled off a container of bacon grease from the bacon Paul DeGeorge had cooked.  I have no idea what the girl who won it did with it. My dad said if one of us won it, he would’ve made us get rid of it.

There were multiple duels during breakfast, some of which may be on Youtube.  My sister started a huge hug that surrounded Hank Green of the Vlogbrothers, which was quite awesome to participate in.  I wish that I had gotten to meet Hank’s brother, John, who has written three awesome books.  But, he had to leave partway through the Con and I never met him.

We collected all of our Harry Potter stuff, loaded up the van, and checked out of the hotel shortly after check-out time was.  A few more goodbyes and we were on the road, back to Muggle life.  I was very sad for LeakyCon to end, but I’m sure the hotel people were happy when all the wizards checked out.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.  LeakyCon was one of the best weekends of my life.  I met people there who actually understand my Harry Potter obsession and even though I only spent a few days with them, they are some of my best friends.  There really isn’t anything I can compare LeakyCon to.  One last thanks to the wonderful people who organized it- Melissa Anelli, MJ Harper, the wizard rockers, and the rest of the Leaky Staff.  You truly made it an unforgetable weekend.  I can’t wait utnil LeakyCon 2011, in Orlando, Florida.

Stranded At The Store

Last night my dad came home and told us someone had baked him muffins, but he left them at work.  My sister was quite disappointed because she loves muffins.  My dad said he’d go back and get them because he had to go to the store I work at anyway to buy soda.

My sister, brother, and I decided to go with him just for the heck of it.  It was 10:30 at night.  We get to the store and I carry in a box of cans and bottles to redeem, only to discover that every single one of the bottle/can return machines is broken.  I’ve never seen that happen before.  Since it was 10:30, the service desk was closed so we couldn’t return them there either.  So I just carried them around the store.

After we finish getting all the stuff we need, we’re standing in line at the registers and my dad’s cell phone rings.  He answers it and then tells us that it was a call from work and he had to leave quickly so he could go to work and call whomever it was back.  I’m really not sure why he couldn’t have just talked to the person while in the store.

We paid for the soda and then I go to check my hours for next week really quick.  I finish that and went to meet everyone at the front of the store.  As it turned out, my brother had gone to the bathroom.  My dad was in a real rush to get to work, so he told us he was going to have to leave us at the store and pick us up because he couldn’t wait for my brother.

Thus, we were stranded in the store for about a half an hour.  It was pretty funny.  We just wandered around and looked at stuff.  My bro found a whole bunch of stuff in the organic section that isn’t really good for the environment.  Then we found the Jewish food section and there is a very large variety of matzoh.  Next to the matzoh was the stuff called ‘Bible Bread’.  I have no idea what it was or what made it ‘Bible Bread’, but my brother took a picture of it and it’s now the background on his phone.

Eventually my dad came back and told us that he couldn’t even get into his office because the doors were locked due to construction or something.  So he sat in his car in the parking lot of his office and made the call there.  He could have done that at the store.

After we got out to the car, we decided to go buy donuts.  So we walked back into the store and bought donuts.  We went through the same guy’s line, too.  I’m pretty sure he thought we were a little crazy.

LeakyCon: Elevator Norms Do Not Apply

How many Harry Potter fans can you fit in an elevator?  A lot.  We discovered that at LeakyCon.  At least once a day I found myself crammed into an elevator with at least ten other people.

One of the times that we did this, the elevator made a very strange noise and lurched.  Everyone ran off of it when the doors opened and used the stairs.  That elevator was avoided the rest of the weekend.

You never knew who you were going to wind up with on the elevator either.  I rode with a few members of the Ministry of Magic, John Noe (but he was on his phone), and a few others.  My brother rode with Alex Carpenter at one point.  My dad rode with the girl who won the Harry Potter books, while she was taking them back to her room.  That was pretty cool.

The best elevator trips were the ones where there were some LeakyCon people and some other people.  You see, the norms of facing forward and not talking in an elevator did not apply at LeakyCon.  We talked, squeed, and met people in the elevators.

On one particular trip I was with my brother, my sister,  and a few other fans.  There was also a lady who clearly was not part of the Con.  The elevator lurched (most likely because it was close to the weight limit) and my brother says, “It must be all the magic in the air.”  We all started laughing hysterically while the lady was looking around confusedly.  Right before the elevator stopped on our floor she said, “What magic?”

My brother and sister and I ran out of the elevator while stifling our laughter.  We burst out laughing as soon as the doors closed and laughed all the way back to our room.

LeakyCon: Stolen Hats and the CoW

On the last night of LeakyCon, there was a ball.  People wore a variety of clothing, from Prom dresses to Harry Potter costumes to Muggle wear.  My family was a good representation of the whole spectrum.  I wore my Professor Trelawney costume but didn’t frizz my hair out, so I was just a random witch and not Professor Trelawney.  My sister wore the dress she wore to my cousin’s wedding.  My brother wore a dress shirt, not tucked into his pants, and a too small tie tied losely around his neck.  The light saber just completed the outfit.  He then told my dad that that was what he wanted to wear to his graduation party.  That idea was shot down.  My dad wore what he had worn that day, regular Muggle clothes.

The Ball was DJ’d by a few of the Wizard Rockers including the DeGeorge brothers, Matt Maggiacomo (of the Whomping Willows), and Alex Carpenter.  I had only heard of a few of the songs due to the fact that I mostly listen to country music.  There was also a distinct lack of Wizard Rock, which I thought was odd.

My friends and I were the first on the dance floor.  We formed a huge circle and just started randomly dancing.  Soon others joined us, but we had started it.  One of my friends then dubbed us the Circle of Win, which was shortened to CoW and now we are the CoW.

The biggest excitement of the evening was when Melissa Anelli picked the winner of the complete set of autographed Harry Potter books.  A girl named Annette, who was dressed up as Bellatrix Lestrange, won.  Everyone started screaming and congratulating her, which really showed how awesome the Harry Potter fandom really is.  Instead of grumbling about how jealous we were (which we were), we were excited for her.  Melissa jokingly said she was a bit reluctant to hand the books over to Bellatrix, which was funny.

Throughout the evening, a good portion of the Wizard Rockers got drunk and started partying even harder.  Although I am happy to report that my friends and I partied just as hard without getting drunk.  I was able to dance with a lot of people including Paul DeGeorge, Alex Carpenter, Melissa Anelli, and Sue Upton.

While I was dancing with Melissa and Sue, my sister fulfilled a dare that one of her friends had given her before she left for LeakyCon.  This girl unfortunately could not come, but she dared my sister that she would not be able to steal Alex Carpenter’s hat.  Alex was wearing a white tux complete with top hat at the ball.  My sister told him about the dare and then she chased him around the room.  He took my brother’s lightsaber to defend himself, but it didn’t work.  When I went over to find them, my sister was wearing the hat and Alex was flipping her off.  It was epic.

We also got a picture of all three of us with the PotterCast quartet, along with two of our friends, which was really nice.

Other highlights of the evening included when Paul DeGeorge danced to the Combination Pizza Hut Taco Bell song in the middle of the CoW and I got the entire thing on video.

Then Melissa and Alex danced to Total Eclipse of the Heart, which I believe I got on video, but haven’t uploaded it to Youtube yet.  I’ll do that soon.

After that, Paul DeGeorge and Hank Green (brother of author John Green, vlogbrothers, and Nerdfighters) started wrestling and my sister got some pictures of them and it looked quite wrong.  Hank asked us the next day not to post them online.

This was also the evening when I dropped my camera and lost one of the rechargeable batteries.  I have not acquired any batteries since.  Rechargeables are expensive and there aren’t any AAs in my house.

Well, That Figures

My sister has a Garage Band addiction and often asked me if she could use my laptop to play around with it.  Since I now have a new MacBook, she asked if she could use my old iBook.  I let her.

As she was using it, the screen inevitably turned white.  It did this a few times and I told her to try lifting it up and tapping the bottom and moving the screen around.  She did and tapping the bottom fixed it.  Every single time it went white, tapping the bottom made it go back to normal.  I told my brother and he knew what was wrong with it.  A chip is out of place and he knows how to fix it.  Granted, the way to ‘fix’ it is to open it up, light a match near the logic board, and melt something.   Personally, I think setting one’s laptop on fire is a surefire (haha, I made a pun) way to break one’s laptop even more, but he says it should work.

It’s kind of ironic that I figured out what was wrong with my laptop after getting a new MacBook.  Not that I’m complaining about the new MacBook.  It’s quite awesome.

I even made a graph about my laptop saga and put it on the Graph Jam Website.

I Guess It Would Go Along With My Suddenly Working Car Alarm

Remember the survey I took about the smoke detectors in my house? The man who had called me told me I would be entered into a contest to win a $1200 home security system for participating in his survey.

The other day the phone rang and my sister answered it.  She handed me the phone and I figured it was work because they’re the only ones who ever call me on the home phone.  I say ‘hello?’ and a lady tells me I won a $1200 security system for participating in a smoke alarm survey.  It was either due to the luck I occasionally possess (where was it two weeks ago when I was at LeakyCon and entered a drawing to win a whole set of autographed J.K. Rowling books?) or perhaps I was the only one who actually took that survey.

I told the lady to hold on a second and I asked my mom if she wanted the security system.  She laughed and said no.  I told the lady to draw someone else’s name as I am a college student who does not own a house.

Why Does This Not Surprise Me?

Why does it not surprise me that Warner Brothers has changed the release date of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince again? Oh, wait, I know why!  Because they did it not only once, but twice.  This makes it the third time.  Three times.  I cannot think of another movie that has had its release date moved three times.

Granted, this date change only applies to IMAX, but it is still rather unfair.  The Leaky Cauldron has provided us with the reasoning behind this extra delay.  The premiere of Half-Blood Prince in IMAX on the July 15th release date would create scheduling issues with the new Transformers movie.  So, apparently, Transformers gets first dibs and Half-Blood Prince has to be delayed again.  Somehow it does not seem right that the movie that has already been delayed eight months has to be dealyed again.

As someone who drives three hours to see Harry Potter movies in IMAX, I am not very impressed with this.  That’s two weekends that I can no longer have the possibility of making the drive to the nearest IMAX 3-D theater.  My weekends to make such journeys are limited during the summer and now I only have two available weekends to do this before classes begin at the end of August.  I will now have to hope that one of those weekends will fit into my parents’ schedules and the schedules of our friends who we usually see Harry Potter movies with.

Of course, I shouldn’t even bother figuring out the logistics.  If history has taught me anything, it’s to wait for Warner Brothers to announce the next date change.