Harry Potter!

Yesterday was awesome. Tiring but awesome.

After work and a nap, W and I rushed around to get to the Hollywood Bowl to see the LA Phil's Tchaikovsky fireworks show. I'm so proud of us because were were Urban Green Couple and took the subway from K-town to the Bowl! high five. OK honestly... it was a lot of waiting since the subway becomes pretty infrequent at night... But it was okay, and the show was great! Got to catch up with my old roommate too :)

(video here later)

THEN, I rushed to Universal Citywalk to catch the IMAX premiere of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix!!! I really enjoyed it, although I think my friends had higher expectations so they were disappointed that MANY things were left out. But this was my least favorite book and thus my expectations were low, so I thought it was well done ahah. I love watching the books come to life.



I have think the most crucial scene they left out was after Sirius' death. They really downplayed how devastated Harry was and did not explain what that "curtain" was. The book has a scene where he talks to Luna about the death and including it would have helped a lot for people who haven't read the book.

The end was in 3D which would have been awesome except they didn't do it very well. 60% of the time it was blurry, but they did get the one part with glass and sand flying everywhere down. THAT was cool. Anyway I'm so excited to get the new book now!

so little! Hermione is so pretty now.

music on the street

Occasionally, this old man will sit on the corner of Wilshire and Vermont and play a horn/trumpet. He is homeless or crazy, maybe/probably both. He plays a variation of the same tune over and over again. If this were in person I would sing it to you, but it's that classic do-dededede-do-dededede-do-dedededeDEde sound... I think they play it before races start? Maybe in the morning to jolt you awake? Anyway when I first heard it I found it pretty annoying. But it's growing on me. I mean this guy just sits out there randomly and starts tooting at his horn in his crazy manner. Yes a little sad but also a little endearing.

A little related but mostly unrelated: I read an interesting story about how famous violinist Joshua Bell was performing one of Bach's most complicated pieces on a Stradivarius (violin worth millions).... in a DC subway station one busy weekday morning. He pretended he was just one of those street performers playing for a little money. Hardly anyone paid any attention to him. No crowds gathered. A few people stopped for a minute or two. That's crazy, considering people have paid, would pay hundreds of dollars to see such a performance in a concert hall. But to be honest, I can't say that I would have necessarily stopped to listen to the music either. I'd hope so though.

Found the article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html?hpid=artslot

I <3 Ratatouille!

It's so cute and funny and has many great messages ;) The marketing doesn't do it justice... Disney/Pixar needs to hire a new marketing director. ANYWAY I loved it! It was so cute when Remy cooked the omelet and the mini omelet (whoa is it really OMELET singular and not OMELETTE?? I'm so lame ahah thank goodness for this new Firefox spell check...) and hilarious when Chef Skinner was going nuts about the rat.

I could never pick a favorite Pixar movie... although I could pick a least favorite-- Cars! That's because I never saw it. The tops would have to be... The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and Finding Nemo. Although Monster's Inc was great too... okay I don't even know why I started.

BTW, doesn't that picture of Remy in the upper right corner look SUPER CREEPY?!?!

The Road-- A/A-

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Highly Recommended—a quick yet very worthwhile read

The Road is a beautifully written, haunting tale about a father and son's journey through post-apocalyptic America. McCarthy has an amazing gift for describing the unimaginable devastation of a gray and ashen world. His writing is unorthodox in its punctuation and simple in its style; it may be uncomfortable to some but I found it to be very powerful. The story and general themes were very depressing yet ultimately uplifting. I've read a few reviews that found the book too dark to enjoy. If you can't stomach rather vivid descriptions of cannibalism, etc, then I would suggest that you stay away from this book. However, this novel is not truly about gore and suffering and death. It is ultimately about the bond between a father and his son, a tale of survival and the struggle for morality in the face of desperation. It will lead you to question a lot of things about yourself and life. Some advice: don't read this book anticipating a climactic ending (reason for potential A- for some-- storyline). As the title suggests, absorb and appreciate the road, the journey, the experience that McCarthy creates.

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One of my favorite scenes: after all their possessions are stolen from them at the beach, the father and son catch up to the thief. The following exchange between the thief, father, and son were very thought-provoking to me. Hard to say what is right/wrong. Actually, just considering the role the boy plays in general is interesting.

Couple of the best passages:

“He walked out into the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless circling of the intestate earth. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. The crushing black vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted animals trembling like ground foxes in their cover. Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.”

“Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.”

(this passage is made more interesting because of it's placement in the novel...)

Last note: It will be interesting to see what they do with the book when they turn it into a movie. I thought much of what made the book so powerful was the writing style, which would be hard to translate onto film.

btw, even if you are anti-Oprah's Book Club (I'm not), it also won the Pulitzer... :)

kwik-e-mart fun

We went to the Kwik-E-Mart!! There actually isn't THAT much changed but it was still very cool. I guess only eleven 7-11s were changed in the whole country, so it's pretty cool that we have one so close. This one is at Venice and Sepulveda near Culver City :)

up to 7% goes to actual children!

Hehe I love the one with Jasper "in the freezer" :)

I love Bear!

One day W and I were settling in to watch some Planet Earth. I forgot why, but we turned to the Discovery Channel where an interesting show was on. We watched as a ex British Special Forces guy braved the wilderness of the Sierra Nevada mountains, the African desert, the Amazon Jungle, and... well basically we never watched Planet Earth and we watched four episodes of Man v. Wild straight.

Today W's friend linked him to this clip of Bear (the guy's name) that I have never seen:


AHAHAHHAHA GROSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love Bear. I don't know how real the show is, but it is entertaining.

Catch Bear on the Discovery Channel, Fridays at 8 and 9 pm! I sound like a commercial haha.

pretty ties

I really like looking at pretty ties. I'll always pick one out, show it to W or my brother or whoever, and usually they'll be like, "oh yeah that's nice..." and then keep looking ahaha.

Here is one I LOVED and W actually did too. When he will wear it I don't know but I did have a good time having a photo session with it. :)

the last one could totally be a useful graphic. pretty!