Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Harry Potter and the Incredible Cakepod

Lately I've been reading a lot to pass the time (and to maintain my sanity while taking a month-long summer course-2 days left!). With the release of the sixth Harry Potter movie (Half-Blood Prince) coming up fast (two weeks from tomorrow, in fact) I decided to re-read the last 3 HP books, since I have read them less times than the first four and am a bit fuzzy on the details. The problem is that when I read the last two for the first time last year (long story why I hadn't read them sooner) I read them in quick succession, so I didn't give myself enough time to absorb the details. This time around, however, I'm determined to pace myself...somewhat. I may even wait until after I see the movie to start the seventh book (I'm 3/4 through the 6th at the moment). I was thinking of reading this book, which basically goes over the different theories of what would happen in Book 7 (obviously written before Deathly Hallows was released). One of my biggest regrets is that I missed out on the last chunk of HP fandom. I stopped reading HP after the 5th book came out for personal reasons, which took me a few years to come to terms with, by which time the hype had passed. Sigh. But I'm trying to make up for missed time now. (: Next year will mark ten years-a whole decade!!!-since I first read Harry Potter. That's a bit mind-boggling.

In other news, I finally succumbed to the pressure, got with the times, jumped on the bandwagon, sold my soul...however you'd like to think of it. I got my first MP3 player. Until recently, I had held steadfast to my cd collection and trusty battery-sucking cd player. Why should I go digital when my cds work perfectly fine? Well, the last straw was a frustrating experience in which I tried unsuccessfully to burn all of my favorite songs on a cd. So for my birthday, my parents told me they'd pay for an mp3 player of my choosing! They gave me a gift certificate to Costco for $94 (which they had received for free), and said they'd pay the rest. As you can see, I ended up choosing an iPod Nano. I wanted to compare different brands, especially the Zune, but Costco only had iPods and a 2GB Sandisk player, so I went with an 8GB Nano. It's quite pretty! With the gift certificate, it was only $50-much preferable to the $130+ it costs elsewhere. It didn't take long to figure out how to use it, and I've since purchased a clear case so it won't get scratched up. Now I can listen to podcasts! So exciting.

And on that note, I must share a sad/disastrous moment of mine:
If you'll pardon the overused reference, my cake was...a lie. I kind of broke it, you see. Let's just say I am investing in a new set of cake pans before I attempt to make cake again. >_< Anyway, it turned out all right; I just frosted the other half and served it with ice cream. My original intention was to make an ice cream cake by spreading ice cream between the layers and then freezing the cake before frosting it, but you see how easily that plan was foiled. Sigh. Another time, perhaps.

Oh yeah, I'm 20 now, by the way...no more teenagedom for me! Sayonara.

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