What I Haven't Been Blogging About

It can be tough being Midboss. The daily grind of random guilds attempting to level-grind their way through me has taken its toll this summer. I am running out of magical drops. I currently find myself hurtling towards a climactic raid encounter with tanks and DPS'ers of significantly higher levels than me and my mobs. Posts will be light until PAX.

Here's what I would be blogging about, if I had the mana to post:

Beefy: I know I've brought the name up before, but he has a new song on his MySpace. It's very sweet. If you are a gamer, either lapsed or hardcore, you owe it to yourself to check out "Play With Me" just for the chorus. Bethzilla is teh hawt, as the nerds used to say. (Someone update me on what the nerds say now. Thanks.)

Casino Royale: Ow! My balls! Pretty to look at, but too long. Certain Cold War conceits don't adapt well to more modern political conflicts. An acceptable and grounded franchise reboot/origin story. I hope Hollywood makes further use of Mads Mikkelsen, believable bad guy and "sexiest guy" from Denmark.

The Dark River by John Twelve Hawks: Great listen thanks to the vocal talent of Scott Brick. As in book one, The Traveler, characters may have seemed a bit bland without his inflections. But considering this is the second cliff-hanger in a row, and the final book won't be out for another two years, I don't see the point in recommending it until 2009. It's not a Sopranos ending, but an epilogue would have gone a long way towards making this a more satisfying read/listen.

Gametap: Is the reason I now have an Xbox 360 controller. Now if only Tomb Raider Anniversary (which is awesome) recognized that I had it plugged in and gave me gamepad tips as opposed to keyboard instructions. Things crash, I have to run Overlord in a disappointing resolution, and with I through IV available, I'm not sure I can tell what the best version of Heroes of Might and Magic is. But it's made me feel like a gamer again right when I needed it.

Guitar Hero '80s: I borrowed this from a friend out of sense of obligation to Oingo Boingo. The critical consensus is right on the mark. The '80s didn't rock as much as I thought they did. Medium's a drag. Hard is a bit more tolerable than GH2, but sucks when you get to songs you've never heard before. I'll admit that I'm curious enough to get to other actual fun songs to beat Balls To Teh Wall, but in the age of iTunes, I don't understand why I can't just pick the songs I want to play and rock out.

Harry Potter and the Whatsits by JK Rowling: I will save my final thoughts until Mr. Bile finishes the book. No point speaking into a vacuum on my own blog. When he is done, we will go at it Instant Messenger style. Only one can blog while the other still reads. Ginny is a whorecrux.

Ooky Spooky by Voltaire: It's finally out. I'm sure it's a great album if you haven't seen him perform live since Boo Hoo was released. If you have, the only real improvement with accompaniment is "Dead." "Hell In A Handbasket" is better live, and as Mr. Bile mentioned some time ago, the one song everyone wanted is not included on the latest album. TF?

Porn: The more time passes, the longer my thesis becomes. I will get to this soon, I promise.

Roky Erickson: Apparently, he's more than just a guy who wrote a song I bought on iTunes over a year ago. He is a real person who founded psychedelic rock and was horribly scarred by the time he spent in mental institutions. I suggest you check out his library. I'm partial to "I Have Always Been Here Before" myself. If I had heard it before, I would have requested it at my wedding.

Don't Read This: Halfway Through Harry

I've been taking my time with Harry Potter: The Last. I've gotten so used to listening to the series during long car trips that I almost can't do it any other way. Almost.

Anyway, I'm at the halfway point, and here are some disjointed thoughts on it:

1. The Escape From Harry's House scene sets an good tone for the book. By the end of it, I fully believed that any character could die at any time. This is enhanced by the fact that none of the Deatheaters from book five or earlier do much now but whimper in the shadows. The chase featured a new crew of large bearded men as Voldemort's go-to goons... minions who I don't remember being utterly useless in previous stories.
2. Fleur gets to become an extended member of Harry's crew, but Victor Crumb gets shoved aside the moment he reappeared. My dreams of a Crumb/Luna teamup were so close to being fulfilled...
3. What's an epic fantasy without interminable chapters of characters being crushed under the weight of their own burdens? Disc after disc of Harry, Ron, and Hermione on the run, passing a single likeable personality between them, and making worse and worse decisions. I know it was included deliberately, but that doesn't mean I am not so very glad that part seems to be over.
4. It was worth it all for the Nagini scene.
5. I question both why people would tell Harry that his wand can't do Magic Things, and why anyone would think wearing Voldemort's soul next to their bare flesh would be anything but a terrible idea.
6. Even though every previous book has been about some new event/object never before mentioned, the Deathly Hallows really seem to come out of left field. I think it's because the book had been dealing exclusively with the repercussions of book six until now then.

Still, I'm enjoying the book. Though for a series that's drawn its best moments from character interaction, I question Rowling's decision to lock the main three characters away from everyone else for long stretches of time. I also wonder if the last sentence will be, "And then, Harry sat down to finally read Hogworts: A History."

Don't Read This Either! More Potter Ramblings

I am more than halfway through the final book of the Harry Potter saga. I can't deny that listening to it on CD, every day I wish my commute was a little bit longer. But inside my forehead there's a bored whisper. It sounds like Simon Pegg, and it says, "Skip to the end..."

I've always had issues with Rowling's sentences, plotting, and plot-creep cheats. "[blank] swelled up in Harry's chest like a balloon." All those important conversations interrupted by "then they heard voices," and not resumed for weeks. The "You didn't know about these before because [they didn't exist until this book]" excuse. Plus there's that ever-present "It must be Snape!" thing, when it's so obviously not. Rowling has no poker face, as Deathly Hallows often demonstrates.

But I was sucked in anyway, because of the characters and the characterizations of Jim Dale, who reads the audiobooks. Without them, the series would be a chore.

Case in point, The Deathy Hallows. The setup at the end of The Half-Blood Prince was intriguing. Harry planned to skip his last semester at Hogwarts to hunt down Voldemort. I didn't think Rowling would actually go through with it. But she did, and it's shocking how badly the plot stumbles without the school framework. How's a woman supposed to know when to advance the plot if there's no summer vacation, Halloween, Valentine's Day, or trips to Hogsmead?

Worse, taking the heroes out of Hogwarts means no character interaction. So far, Harry, Ron, and Hermione have spent most of their time sitting around, sophomorically speculating in circles, waiting for things to happen to them. When it does, one or two characters from Rowling's sprawling cast might make a cameo appearance. "Look, there in that paragraph! It's Luna Lovegood! And her father's in this book, too! Wow, that was fast. Oh, right, Draco! Forgot about him. I wonder if anything's going on with Neville. Kind of odd we haven't seen him yet, don't you think?"

I might as well be watching one of the movies, hoping for a brief scene where Alan Rickman is given a chance to speak.

Don't Read This! Random Late Night Ramblings On Harry Potter

Give me a break:

• Voldemort's newfound efficiency makes no sense. The narrative continues to prove that Deatheaters in a mob are even less competent than before they had ever appeared. The idea that You Know Who could suddenly take over the government and the media in a society powered by magic is preposterous. There is no precedent in the previous books for the good guys to be this incompetent, or for the bad guys to actually succeed at anything.

• Harry Potter is a coming of age series that refuses to come of age. After skipping over a description of Harry's first kiss in the Order of the Phoenix, now we've got Ron and Hermione tentatively patting each other on the arm or holding hands when they should be sneaking off and, at the very least, snogging. Excluding all the horrible possibilities that teenage boys with magic wands conjures to the mind, this book still reads as if written by a mom who refuses to acknowledge that young men have biological, reproductive imperatives that would if nothing else encourage them to spend less time sharing a bedroom. For a series that is always questioning the morals of adults, it's annoying that characters who have suffered torture, death, and societal ridicule still act like awkward 13-year-olds when it comes to relationships. I get that they're all essentially home-schooled, but both Harry and Hermione grew up with cable TV. People are dying, the tide has turned, why is everyone still such a prat?
  

• I'm only six discs in, which means there's still ten chapters before the plot starts, but it's maddening how previously well-realized students now appear as stereotypical cut-outs. Sure, it's meant to be that Ron and Hermione get together, but wasn't Crumb the first guy to realize that smart was hot? Shouldn't we feel bad about that? As for Ginny, the argument that she's the Mary Sue of Harry Potter is looking less and less like fangirl outrage. Once a shy girl of no consequence who liked an older boy, then the hard-ass non-Asian true love of the Chosen One, now she's gone all sacrificial Mary Jane on him. It's "Now Cho Chang's a bitch" all over again. Um, consistency, please?
  

This wouldn't be the first time that I've hated a Harry Potter book off the bat. I never expected to like the series in the first place. But I'm starting to get worried. There's going to be some unexpected payoff in the end, right?