I am currently sitting in front of my computer (obviously 
) hoping that the clouds above my house will actually result in rain so that I don’t have to water my plants. Supposedly, it’s going to rain a bit this morning and then clear off for the rest of the weekend. But what do weathermen know, really…
Yesterday, I worked on my house some more. I cleaned and organized my two remaining upstairs rooms, vacuumed them and generally made sure they were ready for guests tonight. I also cleaned up the kitchen, watered the plants (they are so cute!), and other such minor chores. Today, I will re-tidy things so that we’ll be ready when my friends come this afternoon. I also have to run some errands this morning and then get the food ready this afternoon. It shouldn’t be a lot of prep work, but I should stay busy. And of course, I’ll take time to goof off as well!
Last night, Eric watered the lawn and we watched some television. Thursdays are bad TV nights, though, so he ended up watching the movie Eragon which I had seen most of on Wednesday night. I only watched the last 10 minutes with him since that’s how much I didn’t see the night before; I read a book for the rest of it. Frankly, I have a hard time with movies made from books because they are so rarely even close to as good as the book that it’s pathetic. Some movies are okay because they just claim to be “based on” the book which then makes it easier for me to accept them because they aren’t trying to actually re-do the book’s story. But others, like Eragon, make huge changes that make it fundamentally different…just not a good thing, in my opinion. The books were TONS better.
^Re: Catcher in the Rye.
Everyone at college was saying how that book changed their life. It blew the doors off their world. It made them love reading. And on and on and on. So I read the dumb thing. It is NOT that good. I’d give it a B- at best. Whatever you had to read instead was probably more edifying. IMHO….
The national and international associations of wiccans and wizards have gotten millions of calls from tweens and teens wanting to join their organizations since the publication of the books — even though the w & w say the books are in no way similar to what they practice. Luckily, both have strict policies about not giving out information to anyone under the age of 18.
The only one of Wyrick’s that really got me was when he showed up in the audience after one of his tricks. We knew it wasn’t him onstage anymore – we saw that switch (I think it was when he was doing the welding/sculpting thing), but I couldn’t figure out how he got into the audience without anyone noticing.
Do people really go out and start practicing witchcraft after reading these books? I remember when they first came out, people compared them with the Wizard of Oz and how that caused a really big stir when it came out, that people thought it was evil. I guess if parents don’t teach their children the difference between real and pretend, these books might cause a problem, but come on!
I remember that we couldn’t read Catcher in the Rye because one person’s parent wouldn’t sign the permission slip. I hear a lot of people say now that it’s a really good book, but I didn’t get to read it.
(Of course, I’m not running to the library to check it out now, am I? 
)
I don’t like any action movies.
So there, Shannah.
Okay, I understand them throwing out the idea for Jr. High/High School…those kids would be old enough to read the HP books.
One of my major soapboxes is people making decision/forming opinions about books or movies or whatever that they’ve never actually read or seen. At least read a movie spoiler or book review (with a plot summary) before you go shooting your mouth off! Sheesh!
^ wait, wait, wait…. you want the parents to be involved in their children’s lives??? I’m confused.
It would never happen but sometimes I think parents should be required to read the books first – then they would have an idea of what their kids are actually reading and maybe base their feelings about their children reading certain books on their personal opinion and not just accepting what someone else has said about the book.
I usually don’t see movies based on books. Otherwise, I just point out everything they’re doing wrong or left out.
I think the permission slips are a good idea.
Pack up some of the tidiness and ship it here, please!
What’s funny about the HP case was that only 1 of the school board members who had approved the rule had actually read the books. Oh, and I think it was for Jr High and High School in this case.
I felt the same way about Steve Wyrick! During the first half of the show, I kept thinking, “He must be new. He just needs a little time to perfect some of these things…” Then he said he’d been headlining for 11 years now. And that’s headlining! So he’s been doing it even longer. You shouldn’t be able to tell how he does so many of his “illusions” by now! But there were still some I couldn’t figure out, so it was fun! And it was still fun to tell each other when we’d see him do something obvious! And I thought the dancers were a little over the top some of the time, especially when you look around and see little kids in the audience!
Oddly, perhaps, I think the school district had a good idea on that one…
You’ll be proud of me. I have to do 2 briefs on education court cases, and one of the cases I’m doing is a district court case where the school district tried to make parents sign a permission slip in order for kids to check out the Harry Potter books. They were of course forced to change their policy.