Feel Like Betty Crocker

I made cupcakes yesterday. It was one of those cupcake recipes where you start with a box of cake mix but you add other things so it's not just prepared cake mix (not like adding chocolate chips but like adding some flour and cocoa powder and buttermilk ect.)

I then made frosting from scratch. And burned myself (minorly) on the saucepan. But then I drowned my pain in cupcakes so it all worked out.

The Downside

So as awesome as my job is (I listed one of the many reasons yesterday), there is one big downside. The Parking lot I have to park in is evil. There are only about 4-5 spots that I can use and they are hard to get to. They are marked on the picture with orange dots. Today I was parked one space away from the end. During my time at work some evil jerk came and parked blocking me in. This was not nice.

Luckily my boss moved his car and then helped me to get my car out. He then left a note on the evil car warning them that they'd be towed if they did it again. So, that just shows, another reason my job is better than yours, an amazing boss. But if you have easy parking, you have one over on me.  Let me know good things/bad things about your summer job (or normal job) in the comments.

My Job is Awesome

This going to be a short post. It basically serves to let you all know that, today at least, my summer job is better than your summer job. Today at the day camp where I work I was essentially paid to watch Toy Story 3. You may all return to wishing you're jobs were as great as mine.

Harry Potter Time!

Welcome to the first day of BEDA! Which I will begin by describing how I spent the last day in July.

I went with a friend into NYC to see Harry Potter: The Exhibition. We both had HP related items with us (me, a Harry Potter related T-shirt, pin and my Ravenclaw tie, worn as a headband and my friend had her Harry Potter book bag with her). There were a lot of kids dressed up in uniforms and things which was adorable.

The exhibit itself was really good. We weren't allowed to take pictures unfortunately, but I can describe what we saw. There were a lot of the costumes that the characters have worn over the years as well as textbooks, wands and other staples of Harry's world. The level of detail was amazing. It's interesting, because they put in all that effort we don't really notice it in the movies, but if they had skimped out and not put the work in we would have really noticed how lame it would have looked.

Highlights of the exhibit for me was pretty much anything we were allowed to touch. Most of the items weren't under glass but still had signs saying not to touch. (This led to my friend and I repeatedly reenacting this scene from Spongebob [without actually touching of course]). I loved getting to pull mandrakes (though no earmuffs were provided), sit in Hagrid's chair and throw Quaffles through the Quidditch hoops. The other highlight for me was when we saw and and Harry's bedroom sets, Ron's bed had a hand knit quilt on it that I'd never noticed before. As a knitter I felt ashamed. I also really wanted to touch it (but didn't).

There was one funny moment when we were looking at the fake animals. I commented that the Hungarian Horntail looked more real than the centaur. Then I realized the silliness of what I'd said.

The gift shop had a lot of cool things. My friend and I looked through one of the display books about "film wizardry", and promptly had our childhood's ruined by seeing a lot of truth behind how things were filmed.

Over all it was a really fun day. I recommend the exhibit, which is open through early September.

I have this crazy idea

I think I'm going to try BEDA (blog everyday in april or august depending on which month is about to occur). I don't know how successful I'll be, but I'd like to try. That being said, there is a week where I know I'll be out of state and I don't know what my internet connecting ability will be. What I'll probably do is either prewrite some blog entries and pick a friend who I trust to submit them for me or I will make them up when I get back. While I will pick some form of blog penance for missed posts (any ideas? post in comments) I will let you know when this week is and I think so long as I make up the entries from that time promptly I will be excused from penalty since it's really not my fault.

I can't promise every BEDA post will be long, if anything I can promise the opposite, but there will be something there!

So let's have some fun in August.

Deathly Hallows Part 2 Review

I saw Deathly Hallows Part 2 a week ago. As much as I enjoyed it, there were also some things about it that drove me crazy.  So I've complied a list of the different things I thought about it.WARNING SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!

Changes I liked:
-Neville + Luna <3 (I wanted this to happen in the books)
-Voldemort speaking directly into people's mind's instead of loudspeaker style. Since they say he's great at legilimency it fits in that he would be able to do that and I think it makes his announcements more powerful.

-Blowing up the bridge thing. Especially since I recently watched Sorcerer's Stone with much discussion of how in that movie at least Seamus did a lot of fire starting, I liked McGonagall's reference when Neville was unsure of what to do that he ask Mr Finnigan since he has a touch for pyromania. Also I loved Neville getting all cocky when the shields held, with the little beat when Fenrir stuck a toe over and they chased him. Plus the "is Neville dead" moment was very funny especially when he just pops up
-Voldemort's hugging Draco. I have other issues with that scene but that moment was so funny.
-Harry breaking the wand instead of putting it with Dumbledore's body so that when he died a natural death there would be no new master. Does anyone really think Harry, head of the aurors will die a natural death? Really? Although I wish they'd shown him repairing his old wand first.

Changes I disliked:
-No mention of Teddy Lupin except for one thrown in reference, I cried in that movie for a lot of reasons and thinking they'd cut out that character was one. Honestly I was then so mad that they just threw in Harry saying that Lupin had a son. If you're going to get rid of a character do it. Don't do this.
-Harry and Voldmort moving their fight away from everyone else. This is mostly because the only way they could then bring the fight back to everyone else was with...
-The whole Harry/Voldemort smoke travel around Hogwarts thing. Just no, just really no
-Hermione and Ron's first kiss. In the books she kisses him after he says they should get the house elves out because they shouldn't have to die like Dobby. Since he was always making fun of Hermione for the SPEW thing him saying that showed growth and that he was taking Hermione seriously. As opposed to the movie where they get covered in sewer water and just start making out. This kiss is one of my favorite parts in the book and they ruined it
-This is half change half continuity error. In the books Neville contacts Luna after Harry gets to the Room of Requirement (ROR) and she comes through the corrider. In the movie she's already in the ROR when Harry arrives. When did she leave Shell Cottage and how did she get back into Hogwarts, the place she was kidnapped from by Death Eaters? Why was she just let back in and not tortured or anything? It just confused me. They could have just said, "Luna came in through the passage and has been staying in here since about a week ago".

The Prince's Tale

So I got a copy of The Prince's Tale, Lauren Fairweather's newest CD at the huge Hamden Wrock show on Saturday and I've listened to it many many times in the past few days. I love this CD. I think I like the Lily songs a little better than the Snape songs, Lose You and Mudblood are my favorites so far. I love the sultriness (this might not be the word I'm thinking of but it's the best I can do) of  these songs.This being said the first three songs (two of which are from Snape's POV) and This is it (another Snape song!) are also very high on my list.

My least favorite songs are Worst Memory, Keep Her Safe, and Harry. It's not because they aren't good songs, because they are, I've been singing them all to myself several times this week, but because they are much more "this is what happens in the story" than the others. What I mean by that is this; Lauren has said many times that she was struck by this chapter in particular because she could relate to it so well. In all the other songs on the album there has been some universality to them, that if you changed the Harry Potter specific references would still be a great song. Maybe does a great job of conveying the feeling of being lonely and wanting a friend, Freak does a great job of expressing what it feels like when someone you love shuts you out and doesn't approve and Lose You describes very well the feeling of having a friend who is going down a dark path, a friend who you want to change for the better before you cut them out because it's too painful.

The three songs I mentioned before don't have the same universality to them. Worst Memory pretty much just describes what happened to Snape, there's some ability to relate to the feeling of being bullied but it's very specific to the story. Similarly, Keep Her Safe and Harry tell us what ultimately happened. Each song has parts that are relatable, but overall they are difficult to connect to. As I said, I still love the songs, and most Wrock is very story specific, so it's not like this is a bad thing. I just think the other songs are stronger as songs and Wrock songs, as opposed to these which are really just strong as Wrock songs.

What did you think? Let me know in comments!