Myths of Public Schools

It’s that time of year, the time when parents are happy to get their kids into a place that won’t rot their brains; however, kids don’t feel the same way. Back to school boys and girls, grab your pencils and notebooks and get ready for homework and less free time. But are kids really afraid of tests and textbook readings; is the school lunches that bad; are the bullies going to stop? The hype about problems with the school system has been floating around for quite sometime, but there are some problems that the schools can’t control. Time to dive in to the common thoughts about school and separate the ones that are true, and the ones that are rumors.

For the longest time kids have had a discomfort with eating school made lunches. I myself have found a few hairs in the mac and cheese. At my own school, more teenagers will get just a slice of pizza and flavored water for lunch a day, and then have a sugar crash in their next class. With young elementary kids, there’s always the one kid who comes up with the idea that the chicken nuggets weren’t actually chicken. I myself felt iffy about eating school lunch. As I grew older, these thoughts about school lunch disappeared, and I ate it like I made it myself. Of course not everyone is like me. My friends ate the school without a problem, but everyone else grabbed a cookie and a PowerAde and called it a lunch. When I was in elementary school, there was one kid who wouldn’t eat anything but chicken nuggets. He wouldn’t eat the fries, cookies, veggies; nothing except chicken nuggets. There were quite a large number of people who brought lunch from home as I got older.

Why do kids have such a fear of school lunch? Maybe that isn’t the right question. Maybe the better question is: is there anything to fear in a typical school lunch? The answer is it depends. Remember the hair I found in my lunch, no one else to my knowledge has found one. School lunches are the same as any other mass cooking foods. It’s bought from a vendor, cooked fairly fast, and served to you. Most school food is frozen and reheated. What about the raw fruits and vegetables? Very few kids eat them, so they have them there (and yes they are fresh) and your lunch ladies take the time to cut them up. Mashed potatoes? Instant Jello? Made the day before. Salads? Readily available in iceberg mix bags. School lunches are like Spam, they have an unnecessary hype and disgust. And for those who think spam is a mixture of mystery meats, spam is actually just ground pork shoulder (which is a very rough part of pork) with a little spices. Hence forth SPiced hAM=SPAM. Maybe schools should serve spam. Maybe kids will actually realize they aren’t eating poison.

Next week, we continue the school myth series.

If you have a lie, myth, or falsified fact you’d like to see on my blog, send me an e-mail at nickmantzios@yahoo.com
-Enitocin 

Aida

Confession: I am a Broadway snob. Living in close proximity to New York City has spoiled me. Before last night, I had never seen a touring musical, regional musical, nothing except for musicals on Broadway. (and school plays, but I’m not quite sure that counts for this confession). Oh, and not only am I a Broadway snob, I am a theatre snob. Before last night, I had never seen a show farther away from the stage than the third row. I figure if I’m paying 110 dollars for tickets, I am going to get really good seats… Sure, tours have come to my area, but I always turned up my nose at them, why bother when I can get the real thing? (And also, the theatre district of Manhattan is an hour away from me with no traffic; the closest touring shows come to a theatre an hour and a half away, so again, why bother?)

But last night (okay, afternoon, it was a matinee, another confession, never seen one of those either), I saw Aida at the Surflight Theatre in Beach Haven, NJ. We sat in the second to last row of the theatre, and to be quite honest I wasn’t expecting much. I mean, it was regional theatre. *scoffs and turns up nose in true Broadway-snob fashion* I was wrong, I was oh-so wrong . . . it was amazing, absolutely amazing. The sets were done by the same person who did them for the Broadway production, and although they were obviously not the same quality, they amazed me for what they were. The sound system was really high quality (or so it sounded, I know very little about sound systems), and if I closed my eyes it was exactly like Broadway.

Now on to my favorite part, the actors:

Radames . . . eh. He was the one downer of the show, but then again, I was comparing him to Adam Pascal. And very very few men ever stand a chance of living up to Adam Pascal, and he was not one of those men. He played the cocky, full-of-himself Radames of the beginning of the show amazingly well… but there was no character evolution. He stayed that way the entire time, so when he and Aida were singing ‘Elaborate Lives,’ both in the middle and at the end, it was almost laughable as there was no chemistry between them. This actor (the cast list is no longer online and I don’t have my playbill, so I don’t know anyone’s name . . . I’m sorry, I really should) had a good voice, not Broadway quality, but still quite good, and again, I was comparing him to Adam Pascal. If it had been any other person in the original cast, I would probably be singing praises of this particular Radames. But live up to Adam, he did not.

Aida was amazing. Her voice was Broadway quality and sounded exactly like Heather Headley. If it wasn’t for the fact that they looked completely different, I would think it was the same person. Her acting was fabulous, really showed the evolution and conflict of the character… unlike some people . . .but I digress

Mereb and all the other bit people amazed me as well. The man playing Radames’s father (Zozer? Zosher? I think the latter one) was a very pleasant surprise, he had a great voice, deep baritone that actually worked for the character. Mereb delighted me, if not reminding me a lot of Dobby the House Elf, but I love Dobby, so that was fine. The actor was great, great comedic timing, dancing, singing; his voice was a pleasant surprise too.

And finally, the highlight of the show: Amneris. This actress was incredible, the best in the whole show. She could sing and belt so well, it was easily Broadway quality, beyond a lot of people I’ve seen on Broadway. The character evolved so well, which I always thought onstage must happen somewhat randomly, as the role is slightly underwritten in my opinion… but she managed to make it seem real. When she walked out from behind a pyramid after ‘Written in the Stars’ it was heartbreaking. The role reminded me a lot of G(a)Linda from Wicked; sort of a bubbly character who you wouldn’t expect to have any depth who them surprises you by actually being really deep. And, the actress who played Amneris would make a perfect G(a)Linda, she had the voice and I can easily see her making it on Broadway

Aida’s closed now, I do hope they do it again some other summer, but it was absolutely amazing and is making me rethink my Broadway snobbery . . . the tickets to this show were about a quarter of the price of Broadway tickets and the show was amazing and would have been worth twice that.
-ponine

The Albums That I’m Listening To

(Disclaimer: You are now entering a “No Rap” zone. Please don’t feed the reviewers; they bite.)

Before I begin my list, I have a confession to make; I am a compulsive spender. No, I don’t blow my money on prostitutes, illegal drugs, or handbags; I spend it all on the endangered species known as “the compactus disktus”.  I cannot walk into a music store without finding at least one album that I absolutely, positively, swear on the Bible, cannot live without. As a result, my bookshelves are over-flowing with CDs, and my wallet is consistently empty. Here is my list of albums that you can’t afford not to own, even if you’re broke like me (in no particular order, since I love all of them equally):

1. Poses; Rufus Wainwright
Rufus Wainwright has not had an easy life; raped at fourteen, growing up in the spotlight while struggling with his sexuality, a crystal meth addiction, and countless other roadblocks that he’s had to deal with. One bonus of these circumstances is that they gave him plenty of material to write about. I am unashamed to admit that I own nearly every album he has produced, and neither do I hesitate to say that all the others lack something that Poses has. Poses just is the best out of a huge selection of very good material.

2. Original London Cast Recording; Les Misérables
Yes, I am a theatre nerd. That being acknowledged, you need to immediately buy this two disk masterpiece. The vocals, are as always phenomenal, and some of the true album standouts are: ”On My Own”, “Castle on a Cloud”, and “I Dreamed a Dream”.  If you need a way to disguise your motives behind your purchase from your “too cool” friends, just say it adds another dimension to the book when you read it

3. Blonde on Blonde; Bob Dylan
I know that loving Bob is the only cool way to be these days, (almost to the point of clichéd) but he was the voice of a generation for a reason. His was the genius that introduced me to ‘poli-rock’, and quickly hooked me on the genre for good. His words and concerns still resonate with me now, an astonishing forty-one years after it was released. That’s what makes a great album, isn’t it?

4. So Much More; Brett Dennen
It seems fitting to me to follow up Bob Dylan with this artist; a man who I consider to be my generation’s equivalent of the legend. (It has to be a sign, isn’t it, that their initials match?) As an indication of my adoration, may I say that “There Is So Much More”, my favorite song on the album, was the first recording to go above five hundred plays on my iPod?

 5. Out Here All Night; Damone
If you are looking for the premier in party rock’n’roll, with good, old fashioned lyrics about sex, drugs, and bad relationships, look no farther than Damone (who couldn’t love a band that shares a name with the immortal “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” character, Vic Damone?). My personal favorites include “Out Here All Night”; a testimony to the true crappiness of life, albeit in a really fun rocker way, and “Outta My Way”; a song that just begs you to roll the windows down, turn up the stereo, and scare all the old wankers in your neighborhood.

 6. MTV Live in New York; Nirvana
Many people hail the admittedly fabulous “Nevermind” as Kurt Cobain’s greatest achievement, and I agree with them, up to a point. However, I find this album to be a fantastic compilation of my favorite Nirvana songs, and to hear Cobain’s voice, only a few months prior to his death, makes the album a moving, if not spiritual experience.

7. Our Endless Numbered Days; Iron & Wine
If you’re an indie rocker, chances are you have this CD in your collection. Sam Bean, the songwriter, essentially pioneered the field of poetic, stark rock, and on his second album, he sharpens and refines his already impressive skills down to a cutting edge.

8. Bat Out of Hell; Meatloaf
Say what you will; send me hate mail, spit in my face, but I will not be swayed in my opinion of this. I was raised on “Paradise by the Dashboard Lights”, and while I acknowledge that any and all recordings after this album have been horrific, I will firmly consider this a classic for the rest of my life. C’mon. It’s by a guy who calls himself Meatloaf. How can you resist such gravy goodness?

9. …Is A Real Boy; Say Anything
Now, if you’re at all similar to myself, you probably dislike rock-operas as much as I do (I suffered through The Who’s Tommy as much as the next person. How many times can you listen to Pinball Wizard?). But the catchy, intelligent, genuinely funny writing makes up for any pretentiousness you might find in this amazing double-disk. The songwriter, Max Beamis, suffers from social anxiety much as the fictional hero of the story, and he unleashed his deliciously acidic tongue in stand-out songs such as “Wow, I Can Get Sexual Too”, an amusing story about the embarrassments of phone sex, and “Every Man Has A Molly”, detailing the messy end to a relationship due to the narrator’s revealing honesty in his songs.

10. Born in the U.S.A.; Bruce Springsteen
Admittedly, it’s in my genes to love the Boss. I’m from New Jersey, what can I say? (The same genetic fault does not, however, apply to the recent Bon Jovi releases.) This is the defining Bruce Springsteen album with all of my personally favorite songs. If you even try to tell me that you don’t know all the words to “Dancing in the Dark” or “Glory Days”, I will personally buy and send you a copy myself! (NOTE: the author cannot be held to any unrealistic or potentially expensive promises she makes in the heat of the moment. We apologize for this inconvenience.) Not to mention, can you give me one red-blooded female who can resist the view on the album cover?

 And thus concludes our lovely list. If you love it, let me know. If you hate it, let someone else know!
-Audiophile

Lies of Bush Administration

Today’s news always seems to be about some big disaster, paranoia, politics, and the happy stuff at the end. One big topic on the news is obviously the situation in the Middle East. As you may of heard, over 3,000 of our own troops have been killed in the Middle East and not for a cause that I believe in. When our president first sent us in to war, I was hardly able to think for myself, but now that I can, I see some of the United States’s biggest lies in the Bush administration, but before I forget…

The #1 Common Myth in America (drum roll if you want):
1. The U.S. has more freedoms than any other country. Sure we have freedom of speech and right to bare arms, but those are rights. Other countries have just the same, if not more. There’s actually more laws than rights passed in Congress every year.

Continuing on, This weeks blog is going to focus on the lies of our president, George W. Bush. To start, one of the biggest lies was that Sadam Hussein had WMDs, or Weapons of Mass Destruction if you prefer. Bush told us in a press conference that Britain had received intelligence that Hussein had sought a large quantity of uranium. Perhaps you didn’t know that if Saddam would’ve been violating U.N. prohibitions against having and long range weapons of any kind. Obviously we didn’t find any and America has finally wised up to the fact (yes fact) that Bush had lied about Saddam having WMDs in his possession just to send us to Iraq. Not only that, Bush made the decision to go to war without U.N. approval. Bush also said that Iraq was harboring and training terrorists, some for Al Qaeda.

Nearly 6 years into the Iraq war and little progress has been gained. Billions and billions of money spent on the war, yet there some of our troops still don’t have the necessary equipment. If we can’t even give our own troops medical supplies, how can we supply the Iraqi people? The Bush administration did not have a solid plan before entering Iraq. The U.S. hasn’t gained anything from this war. The threat of terror hasn’t diminished, Osama Bin Laden is still alive, and a civil war has broken out in Iraq.

In my opinion the 2 biggest lies of George W. Bush is that the terror threat would’ve been diminished when Saddam was taken out of power and that with help the Iraqi people could reach peace and human liberty. The terror threat has not diminished and we haven’t helped the Iraqi people reach peace and human liberty

If you want to see a lie, myth, or falsified fact de-bugged next week, e-mail me at nickmantzios@yahoo.com

We’re Back!

Sorry for the extended hiatus… I’d give some sort of excuse, but can’t come up with a decent one.

So, we’re back and (hopefully) better than ever. All e-mails will be responded to in the next few days, or hopefully, today.

E-mails must have the subject “Regular Feature” and/or “One-Shot” or they will considered to be spam and ignored.

Also, from here on, Ponine is essentially in charge of approving and editting submissions. TDec may help out sometimes, but primarily, it’s my job now. Yay, power.

-Ponine

TDec and Ponine Away For The Week

Hey guys,

 First of all, thanks for reading and commenting and submitting . We’ve had a better first few days than either of us expected. Keep it up

Second of all, both I and Tdec are going to be away starting tomorrow until July 23rd. TDec returns then and will mod comments/submissions. By all means, please keep submitting, but keep in mind your things probably will not be approved until after than date.

I myself will be back on the 30th and expect to do my first book feature on rereading all of the Harry Potters in order

Have a great week and thanks again for all the activity!

-Ponine

Top Ten Most Common Myths of America

There are all things we are told as a child, and even as an adult, that we sometimes believe. Yet some of the most common conversation subjects are myths. A myth you say? What is that? Why what an excellent question. What we think of a myth can be many things. The first is mythology i.e. Greek Mythology. This kind of myth is something we know is not true and is in the form of a story, fable, paragraph, etc. The second is lies. Lies, lies, lies, the opposite of the truth. This type of myth is often times disputed between two sides, then there’s the one when someone is lied to and the person finally realizes it’s a lie. The final is an unproven or falsified belief. Ok now you’re starting to say that I’m just bashing organized religion, but you’d be believing a myth.

Now that that’s cleared up, the topic for my first week’s blog is the top ten most common myths of America, ten to one.

10. Low fat is better than regular. Surprised? Low fat is basically saying that the product has less fat than the original high fat product. If you actually look at the label, the low fat has more calories than the regular. With regular diets, you’re probably getting just a little less fat from the lower fat food, but not much.

9. Staying out in the cold will give you a cold. Most of you probably know the answer to this, but hey that’s you. What we call a “cold” is actually the acute viral nasopharyngitis. This virus is quite contagious, but being out in the cold just increases mucus production, which mothers confused with the cold virus.

8. The rich don’t pay fewer taxes. The average family with a $300,000 income will actually pay 34% income tax; over one third of their income goes to taxes.

7. Ethanol is better than regular gas. The new green gas ethanol is seen as the future fuel for your cars, since regular gas is not only expensive, but harming the earth. Ethanol would be more expensive than the gas we use today. Ethanol costs a lot more to make than gasoline does. Not only that, ethanol creates smoke like gas. It would still cause the harmful effects like gasoline, but not as fast.

6. Teachers are underpaid. I myself believed this one until watching 20/20. Teachers in the U.S. earn more money than fire fighters and police do. Not only that, teachers have better benefits than people with higher paying jobs.

5. We are running low on trees. The demand for lumber has slightly risen and has led to the belief that the world is running low on trees. We actually have the highest number of trees since the 1800s. We plant more trees than we cut down.

4. Republicans shrink government. We’ve all heard someone or another from the Republican Party say that they will shrink government. This means they will cut down on government spending. Couldn’t be farther from the truth. President Bush has actually spent nearly four times as much as President Clinton.

3. Guns are bad. We are all scared about guns, but believe it or not felons in jail are more afraid of threatening an armed citizen than the police. More and more states are creating laws that let their citizens carry concealed weapons.

2. Teens are sexually active earlier and earlier. You would think this is true with what we see on television now days, but actually fewer teens are even considering sex. More and more teens are standing up on their morals and saying no.

What’s #1? Find out next week.

If you have a lie, myth, or falsified fact you want to see de-bugged e-mail me at nickmantzios@yahoo.com

-Enitocin

Rice says Bush’s plan needs more time

 

Rice is once again being vocal about George Bush’s policy in Iraq. She obviously supports the president, and he is using her to be more vocal about the war and how its going well. Although I do not support the war by any means, I will respect the President’s decision to wait until September before any other direction is considered only because I don’t think it is moral to start pulling out so abruptly. Some progress was made thus far, and I think we should wait it out to see what happens. Based on the reports yesterday, the surge is working in some areas (mainly the military areas), but the root of the the problem is not being addressed sufficiently, which is my major problem with the surge strategy. What the Bush Administration is doing is trying to stop the repercussions of the problem rather then tackle the root of the issue – which is a diplomatic and political problem. Many religious groups reside within the country (Sunnis, Shia, Kurds, etc.) and they continue to kill each other, and countries in the region are not helping (Iran, Pakistan, etc.), which may in part be because of the United States’ tarnished relations because of our invasion in the first place.

Yesterday the House passed an amendment that would begin the withdrawal of troops, I strongly disagree with that as I think Congress should actually get stuff done as opposed to arguing over something that wont happen in the immediate future (troop withdrawal). Until Congress gets a 2/3 majority in both houses, nothing will happen.

Come September, when the troop surge doesn’t show solid results, the withdrawal will be appropriate to lobby for.

Tdec

www.smashedpolitics.com

Progress in Iraq?

 

A new report was out today, showing that Iraq has “satisfactorily met” 8 of the benchmarks put forth by the United States. It also showed that Iraq did not “satisfactorily meet” 8 of the benchmarks put forth, and 2 of the bench marks had mixed progress. So what does this mean? It means that we are not begin as successful as we should be, and it also shows that the troop surge isn’t the right answer to a diplomatic problem.

So what do we do from here? In my opinion, I think we should wait. Wait until September when the top General in Iraq reports on the surge to Congress, and then at that point, when the troop surge is failed, Congress pressures (or legislates) the gradual removal of U.S. combat troops along with a new plan for diplomacy. I disapprove of what Congress is currently doing – attempting to inject amendments into spending bills so that troops could be removed. The president will veto them, and apart from that, it is a waste of time and I think it would be semi-premature to do so. I am with the other 70% of the population in opposing the war, but I think we should wait until September to decide what the next step is. And ultimately, it is the president who has the power to direct wars, not the American people, and not congress, so in reality this post is irrelevant, but it is my opinion nonetheless.

Tdec

www.smashedpolitics.com

Harry Potter #5: An Exploration of Why Me and Those Movies Just Do Not Get Along

So, this is our first post. I wrote this right after I got back from the midnight screening (Three in the morning), so it is a mite rambley, but no matter. Enjoy There are spoilers afoot, obviously, so proceed with caution. It is three in the morning. Why am I up until three in the morning? I’d really like to know myself . . . I went to the HP 5 midnight screening. Thought it was pretty cool, kids dressed up, fun waiting in line with the friends. .. then I watched the movie, and wondered who would want to stay up until 3am to watch this terrible thing. And why did I?

Now, first of all, I’m generally not a movie person. I just don’t like ‘em and I had already watched 3 movies in the previous 24 hours (Breakfast Club, Rent, Legally Blonde). So that might have something to do with it.

My problem with the last two HP movies is they have been basically a hodgepodge of the book. Order’s all messed up, characters do things other characters were supposed to do . . .and that just annoys me so much. Because it’s all hodgepodgy and they cut out conversations between characters that explain things (i.e. Harry’s and Dumbledore’s chat in his office at the very end has been cut to within an inch of its life) no one who hasn’t read the book has a prayer of following anyway, and anyone who has read the book is going to notice these discrepancies. So what exactly is the point of having them? It may be more confusing, but I would much prefer it if they kept things as close to the story as possible, plot twists and all. Simply isn’t as fun without ‘em.

Now, the 5th book is my favorite of all the Harry Potters (more on this below). So I know the dialogue very, very well. So I’d hear some lines that I know they said in the book and then I knew there would be a funny line in the book afterwards. . but it wasn’t in the movie.
i.e.:
Luna: We’ll fly, of course!
Ron: Now, maybe you can sprout wings whenever you want to, but the rest of us …
They only had the first line, how long would it have taken Ron to say that? 10 seconds? How funny would it have been? Very.

The 5th book is my favorite because Tonks is my favorite character of the series and Bellatrix is my second character (inching up to first now that Tonks and Lupin have gotten cuddly in book 6, which I don’t like/get. . . I think JKR did this just to dispel the Lupin/Sirius rumors). They had 4 lines. Total. 2 each. I counted.

I basically saw the movie because I saw pictures of Tonks and Bellatrix in advance. Wasn’t too fond of Bella’s hair, but the actresses look exactly like I pictured the characters, especially Tonks. I loved her clothes; I’m seriously considering writing to the costuming department asking where they bought them. Cute, funky, so Tonksy. (Yes, that is a word, least it is now) An issue I had was they never even explained her metamorphmagus (not quite sure if that’s spelled right, obviously spell check doesn’t know the word . . . and could it be metamorphmagusing? I think metamormagus is only the noun… ah well, you get the point). So she’s sitting at the table, transforming her nose, and her hair changes in an early scene (when she gets angry, not because she wants it to, which is wrong) and people who’ve never read the book are going to be like, WTF? Also, I don’t think they ever introduced her as Tonks, the name Tonks is mentioned, however, never in the context of the character. Moody refers to her directly as Nymphadora at one point . .. so those who haven’t read the book are going to think she’s Nymphadora and another character named Tonks is floating about. Hah.

Bellatrix was perfect. She looked the role, she acted the role . . . it was absolutely amazing. At least, her two lines were. My main complaint was the hair (in some behind-the-scenes pictures she looked like she had never met a hairbrush), but that couldn’t really be seen in the dark, so I have no complaints. Or I would have not had any if she had had more of a role . . . *rolls eyes at movie people*

Aside from their minimal roles (after the first scene I was like, okay, Christmas, then we’ll see more Tonks . . .okay, end? Dammit.) Both of them were really good and I might just get the DVD and watch the first and last scenes. Not worth it staying up until 3am though . . .

Moving on to the other characters and my other complaints:

Why must they make Neville so weak and vulnerable? In the book he really improves once Bella (I call Bellatrix Bella, I’m not quite sure why . . . shorter to type maybe) breaks out and here in the movie he was still weak and that just annoyed me. Neville might have memory issues, but in the book he’s a strong character. .. not a weak not-quite-sidekick

I also disliked the Harry/Ginny hints as they were totally slipping 6th book stuff in the there. See, normally, I wouldn’t mind (I’m not the biggest Harry/Ginny shipper, but I can deal with them getting cuddly. Not Lupin and Tonks though…), but they could slip that stuff in and not the funny lines? Why? It would take the same amount of time for Ron to say the flying line as it would for Ginny to hang back and look at Harry as he tries to talk to Cho.

Sirius dying was the lamest HP screen death (if not the lamest movie death) I have ever seen. AND they had Bella jump out of no where and do the avada-kedavra thing. Wrong. In the book, they duel for a while, and she casts a spell that gives off an unknown color of light and pushes him into the archway. That’s why Harry’s not sure if he’s dead or not… seriously movie people, would it have been so hard? They also cut out Bella explaining to Harry why his cruciatus cruse (are spelled supposed to be capitalized? One of these days, I’m going to write a Harry Potter Grammar/Spelling Guide) worked, which I loved. And it would have meant more Bella screen time if they had kept that in there…

One more last complaint: They said Lestange Le-STRANGE. As in, “That’s a mighty strange hat you’re wearing”. It’s Le-sta-on-ge. I think it’s French, not quite sure, but on the audiotapes (where the pronounce it le-stra-on-ge), Jim Dale gives her (Bella) a French accent) I really prefer that pronunciation, so every time they said le-STRAGE, I was wincing… luckily they only said it three times, so I supposed underwriting Bella was good for something.

Oh, and there were good bits. Luna Lovegood was absolutely amazing, exactly the way I pictured the character and she had a decent amount of screen time, so that was cool. Snape as always kicked ass, so excited for the 6^th movie just to I can see him kill Dumbledore (I dislike the way the actor who plays Dumbledore portrays him, but I’m sure you’re getting tired of reading my complaints).

So, why you ask, did you waste a good . . . thirty-seven minutes writing this when you could be sleeping (it is now almost four am, oh boy). Well, after I watch a movie, I’m always like, “Okay . . . did I like that or not?” It’s really nice to finally have a firm opinion of a movie, because god knows I have them about everything else. Also, if any of you work for the Harry Potter movie people, considering this a list of grievances. Please fix them. I’ll send cookies

By all means, go and see it if you wish. A. . . . I really can’t stop you, and B. the Potter-Purest and movie-hater in me is writing this…

And a note to all commenters: I am aware how hard it must be to write a movie of the Harry Potter books. I know why they do it (some people like it and it’s a pretty good moneymaker). I am also aware the solution to my problem is to just not watch the movies…

-ponine