Out of curiousity I downloaded the first Harry Potter audiobook in French. I like it only for the fact that it's in French, but otherwise it is very disappointing. The dude's main reading voice is of course just fine. No problems nothing. The problem is his portrayal of many of the characters.
First of all there's Hagrid. He makes Hagrid sound like a complete and total imbecile. Now I'm not saying that Hagrid is supposed to be smart or anything, but he shouldn't take 20 seconds to spit out a few words. And furthermore he makes Hagrid talk something like, "Hagrid like carrot." (although that exactly is not necessarily possible in spoken french, it's of the same character as the way the reader reads Hagrid.) So in any case it makes it annoying to listen to him read Hagrid's parts.
The next voice is Mr Dursley. This one is not so bad as Hagrid's voice, but it is still less than satisfying. First of all, Mr. Dursley is ALWAYS irate, and always basically yelling. Now I can understand him not being happy when talking to Harry, but it does get kind of annoying. Secondly, he sounds more constipated than angry, so that pretty much makes it worse.
The last one I'm going to mention for now is Ron. It took about 20 pages for me to realize this but...HE GAVE RON A LISP!!! What the heck?!? 'Nuff said.
In any case, I'm a bit over a third the way through and I'll post again if I have something else to say about the audiobook.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
nighttime
So last night I woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. When I went back to bed, I laid on my left side. Turns out there was a pimple on my left hip and it hurt, so I had to roll over to the other side. Stupid pimple, I wanted to sleep on my left side.
In an open set containing that time period as a compact subset I had an interesting dream. Presumably, it was influenced by the fact that I'd listened to the first chapter of Harry Potter in French before going to bed. There was a land where everyone had magical abilities. Everyone had one ability that they could do exceptionally well. I think it was called their character ability or something like that. Everyone had magical abilities, but this "character ability" was a spell or activity that the person in question had an extra special nack at.
So in the course of growing up everyone would eventually figure out their character ability when something drastic would happen that would require them to use it. After having discovered their character ability a tattoo would form on the person's forearm representing their character ability. Typically, it was also representative of the character of the person. Like a very compassionate (and tall and elfish) friend of mine (who is not a real person) had healing as his/her character ability.
There was one person in particular who was special (not sure at this point if I played that character in the dream or not). This person's father had died saving his life (haha, different from HP because only one parent had died and the specialness was gotten from the father instead of a kinda mix of mother and Voldemort). In this process at least the father's ability was somehow transferred to the child. Now, I say "at least" because there was some question as to how many "character abilities" this person was endowed with. The tattoo wasn't stuck to a certain form like those of other people. It was constantly changing and shifting throughout the day. Somehow his mother knew exactly how many character abilities this person had, but wouldn't say. All I know is that it was somewhere between 3 and 22. Also there was some question as the the efficacy of deciding that the ability defined the man. This main character for example was plagued by the fact that "flaming axes" was one of his abilities (sounds stupid I know), which apparently is typically that of someone evil.
I really don't remember much more about it, except that at one point he was trying to catch a plane. He was running out of time so he used his "slow down time" ability. That wasn't working well enough, so he used his "speed me up" ability. And then he had to levitate over an avalanche, inside a mall. (I guess that means he has at least 4 abilities.) I really don't remember if he caught the plane.
In an open set containing that time period as a compact subset I had an interesting dream. Presumably, it was influenced by the fact that I'd listened to the first chapter of Harry Potter in French before going to bed. There was a land where everyone had magical abilities. Everyone had one ability that they could do exceptionally well. I think it was called their character ability or something like that. Everyone had magical abilities, but this "character ability" was a spell or activity that the person in question had an extra special nack at.
So in the course of growing up everyone would eventually figure out their character ability when something drastic would happen that would require them to use it. After having discovered their character ability a tattoo would form on the person's forearm representing their character ability. Typically, it was also representative of the character of the person. Like a very compassionate (and tall and elfish) friend of mine (who is not a real person) had healing as his/her character ability.
There was one person in particular who was special (not sure at this point if I played that character in the dream or not). This person's father had died saving his life (haha, different from HP because only one parent had died and the specialness was gotten from the father instead of a kinda mix of mother and Voldemort). In this process at least the father's ability was somehow transferred to the child. Now, I say "at least" because there was some question as to how many "character abilities" this person was endowed with. The tattoo wasn't stuck to a certain form like those of other people. It was constantly changing and shifting throughout the day. Somehow his mother knew exactly how many character abilities this person had, but wouldn't say. All I know is that it was somewhere between 3 and 22. Also there was some question as the the efficacy of deciding that the ability defined the man. This main character for example was plagued by the fact that "flaming axes" was one of his abilities (sounds stupid I know), which apparently is typically that of someone evil.
I really don't remember much more about it, except that at one point he was trying to catch a plane. He was running out of time so he used his "slow down time" ability. That wasn't working well enough, so he used his "speed me up" ability. And then he had to levitate over an avalanche, inside a mall. (I guess that means he has at least 4 abilities.) I really don't remember if he caught the plane.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Happy Flipping Holidays
I should start by saying that I really don't care how you wish happiness upon me between Thanksgiving and January 10. Hanukkah, Quanza, Kwanzaa, Halloween (ok, so that one would get you a funny look at the least) or Christmas; it doesn't affect the quality of my holiday whether you choose something I "celebrate" or not.
In the last few years there's been extensive talk of a "war on Christmas". Specifically, the idea is that the use of the phrase "Happy Holidays" means that you hate xmas (and xmas is NOT x'ing Christ out of Christmas either; x = χριστος = greek for christ). Of course, talking heads like Bill O'Reilly have been blabbing about it, for a while now. Recently I've noticed friends on AIM with status messages deriding the phrase "Happy Holidays". I think I also recently heard the head elder at my home church talking about the "war on Christmas." This idea is weird to me. I, of course, grew up in the backwoods of TN. Of course, there was only Christianity back there as far as I knew and December only contained Christmas (none of those holidays from other religions). Nonetheless I wasn't taught to hate "Happy Holidays". I always grew up believing that Happy Holidays means "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year; I'm just too lazy to say both of them." I actually do remember asking my mom what "Happy Holidays" means and her telling me that precisely (well the idea was the same). I've asked several of my friends (we'll say they represent millions of people) and they ALL said that until recently they just thought of "Happy Holidays" as "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year". It wasn't until the last couple years that I (we) found that it suddenly means all that stuff plus, "ohh and I hate Christmas".
It seems those near to me have started to be swayed to the dark side as well. Over Christmas break when I was in FL, I found that even my dad and step-mom had gotten on the anti-Happy Holidays bandwagon. Now they're typically dyed in the wool liberals, but somehow they didn't get the memo that liberals are fine with the phrase "Happy Holidays". Well, that or they are free thinkers :), which is cool. In any case my dad suddenly got angry at the idea that we should say "Happy Holidays". Out of nowhere he said that people should just get over it if someone says "Merry Christmas" to them. I personally think it's just a stupid issue all together, even though I most likely wouldn't wish a Jew/Muslim/other a Merry Christmas (although I did recently ask a non-Christmas celebrating Christian how her Christmas was and she said she doesn't celebrate Christmas, although she went to Kentucky with a bunch of other people to NOT celebrate Christmas...whatever that means.) So I told him it really didn't bother me. Then he moved on to the other/related hot button issue. "And I think that people should be ok with the 10 commandments. I mean anyway, they are laws in America nonetheless."
This was interesting, because Aneta, Stefan and I were all there and we all see this issue pretty much eye to eye. So we basically all said, that there are really only two commandments that I would say are American laws: Don't kill, Don't steal. There's an argument that: don't commit adultery and don't lie are laws. The former really isn't enforced and the latter is only a law in very special cases. So I'd give it 20% are laws and at most 30%, which really isn't a good average to say that our laws are based on them.
It seems that this "Happy Holidays" has been given a different meaning over time, maybe by the pro-"Merry Christmas" crowd, maybe by the pro-"Include Everybody" crowd. In any case, it just seems silly to me to care. On the other hand, it really seems that people are stretching reality when it comes to the ten commandments. Don't get me wrong; I like to think that I'm a commandment keeping Christian and all. Just don't quite see why I should try to change history to support my views. Anyway, I'm done writing and I hope your holidays were unhappy.
In the last few years there's been extensive talk of a "war on Christmas". Specifically, the idea is that the use of the phrase "Happy Holidays" means that you hate xmas (and xmas is NOT x'ing Christ out of Christmas either; x = χριστος = greek for christ). Of course, talking heads like Bill O'Reilly have been blabbing about it, for a while now. Recently I've noticed friends on AIM with status messages deriding the phrase "Happy Holidays". I think I also recently heard the head elder at my home church talking about the "war on Christmas." This idea is weird to me. I, of course, grew up in the backwoods of TN. Of course, there was only Christianity back there as far as I knew and December only contained Christmas (none of those holidays from other religions). Nonetheless I wasn't taught to hate "Happy Holidays". I always grew up believing that Happy Holidays means "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year; I'm just too lazy to say both of them." I actually do remember asking my mom what "Happy Holidays" means and her telling me that precisely (well the idea was the same). I've asked several of my friends (we'll say they represent millions of people) and they ALL said that until recently they just thought of "Happy Holidays" as "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year". It wasn't until the last couple years that I (we) found that it suddenly means all that stuff plus, "ohh and I hate Christmas".
It seems those near to me have started to be swayed to the dark side as well. Over Christmas break when I was in FL, I found that even my dad and step-mom had gotten on the anti-Happy Holidays bandwagon. Now they're typically dyed in the wool liberals, but somehow they didn't get the memo that liberals are fine with the phrase "Happy Holidays". Well, that or they are free thinkers :), which is cool. In any case my dad suddenly got angry at the idea that we should say "Happy Holidays". Out of nowhere he said that people should just get over it if someone says "Merry Christmas" to them. I personally think it's just a stupid issue all together, even though I most likely wouldn't wish a Jew/Muslim/other a Merry Christmas (although I did recently ask a non-Christmas celebrating Christian how her Christmas was and she said she doesn't celebrate Christmas, although she went to Kentucky with a bunch of other people to NOT celebrate Christmas...whatever that means.) So I told him it really didn't bother me. Then he moved on to the other/related hot button issue. "And I think that people should be ok with the 10 commandments. I mean anyway, they are laws in America nonetheless."
This was interesting, because Aneta, Stefan and I were all there and we all see this issue pretty much eye to eye. So we basically all said, that there are really only two commandments that I would say are American laws: Don't kill, Don't steal. There's an argument that: don't commit adultery and don't lie are laws. The former really isn't enforced and the latter is only a law in very special cases. So I'd give it 20% are laws and at most 30%, which really isn't a good average to say that our laws are based on them.
It seems that this "Happy Holidays" has been given a different meaning over time, maybe by the pro-"Merry Christmas" crowd, maybe by the pro-"Include Everybody" crowd. In any case, it just seems silly to me to care. On the other hand, it really seems that people are stretching reality when it comes to the ten commandments. Don't get me wrong; I like to think that I'm a commandment keeping Christian and all. Just don't quite see why I should try to change history to support my views. Anyway, I'm done writing and I hope your holidays were unhappy.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
swimming with (the?) manatees
For xmas my dad and step-mom took Stefan, Aneta, and me swimming with manatees. (I always want to say "the" manatees, but I can't figure out why it should be "the" except that it sounds better and for some reason that's not good enough. I'll say "the" from now on because it feels right.) The manatee place was a few hours from their house so we got up between 3 and 3:30, and headed out in the dark.
It was slow going at first, cuz my step-mom can't see well in the dark and so she insists on driving when it's dark (that sentence was written correctly). During a large part of the drive we played this game called "Inky Pinky". You think of two rhyming words and a descriptive phrase to go with them and the other people try to guess the words. An apropos example would be, "sea cow cleanliness" whose answer would be "manatee sanity".
Eventually we got the the proper city, had breakfast and embarked on "Captain Mike's Ultimate Manatee Tour." There were about 20-30 people there. They gave everyone wet suits, masks, and snorkels. My dad brought his own wet suit because "only my piss has been in it". Considering his remarks I figured it was best to not go commando and so I wore a pair of boxers under the wet suit (I'm sure I would have done this anyway, but the comment was fresh in my mind nonetheless). When everyone was wet suited up we watched a video about proper manatee etiquette. The basic idea is "don't under any circumstances harass the manatees. They can harass you, but you'll get fined or thrown in jail if you screw with them. But have fun with the manatees :)."
The manatee swimmers were split between two different boats. Our boat had our family and a group of people who apparently lived at Stonehenge. Well, when we asked where they were from their response was, "You know where Stonehenge is?" Seems an odd place to live, but to each his own.
We stopped early because the driver found cuddles and another manatee that was apparently very friendly. My dad was somehow the first in the water and cuddles immediately came up to him. It made me laugh because this manatee was apparently too friendly. My dad couldn't get the manatee far enough away from him to take a picture of the manatee with his underwater camera. He had choice words for the manatee and his friendliness, but I'll refrain from using them.
Eventually the rest of us got in and my family got to play with cuddles while the other people played with the other manatee. Cuddles was so cool. He loved being petted and he'd roll over in the water so that you could rub his belly.
Eventually I got really cold and was shaking somewhat violently in the water so I figured it was time to get out. My dad was already out and so he came over to help me with my wet suit. He unzipped the back and started pulling on my wet suit. I was thinking maybe he'd do like all the cool kids do and pull the wet suit down to my waist. Nope, he just keep going on past my waist. As I mentioned earlier though, I wasn't wearing shorts I was at least wearing something, which was a plus. So there I was in the middle of 15-20 people in only my underwear. This could make for an embarrassing situation. It really just made me laugh (inside), but surprisingly it really didn't bother me. A) I didn't know these people except my family and I don't care if they see me in my boxers. B) I really don't care who sees me in my boxers; I stand in front of our balcony window in TX almost every morning in my boxers while I brush my teeth (I know I'm weird). Nonetheless I did accept the towel that was handed to me and wrapped it around my waist. Eventually I was dry enough to put on my pants and the event passed without notice.
Afterwards we went to a thai restaurant and other things happened like having to go back to Mike's after it closed and breaking into our boat so that we could get the waterproof camera that someone in the family accidentally left on the boat. But I'm tired of typing so I'll leave that to your imagination.
It was slow going at first, cuz my step-mom can't see well in the dark and so she insists on driving when it's dark (that sentence was written correctly). During a large part of the drive we played this game called "Inky Pinky". You think of two rhyming words and a descriptive phrase to go with them and the other people try to guess the words. An apropos example would be, "sea cow cleanliness" whose answer would be "manatee sanity".
Eventually we got the the proper city, had breakfast and embarked on "Captain Mike's Ultimate Manatee Tour." There were about 20-30 people there. They gave everyone wet suits, masks, and snorkels. My dad brought his own wet suit because "only my piss has been in it". Considering his remarks I figured it was best to not go commando and so I wore a pair of boxers under the wet suit (I'm sure I would have done this anyway, but the comment was fresh in my mind nonetheless). When everyone was wet suited up we watched a video about proper manatee etiquette. The basic idea is "don't under any circumstances harass the manatees. They can harass you, but you'll get fined or thrown in jail if you screw with them. But have fun with the manatees :)."
The manatee swimmers were split between two different boats. Our boat had our family and a group of people who apparently lived at Stonehenge. Well, when we asked where they were from their response was, "You know where Stonehenge is?" Seems an odd place to live, but to each his own.
We stopped early because the driver found cuddles and another manatee that was apparently very friendly. My dad was somehow the first in the water and cuddles immediately came up to him. It made me laugh because this manatee was apparently too friendly. My dad couldn't get the manatee far enough away from him to take a picture of the manatee with his underwater camera. He had choice words for the manatee and his friendliness, but I'll refrain from using them.
Eventually the rest of us got in and my family got to play with cuddles while the other people played with the other manatee. Cuddles was so cool. He loved being petted and he'd roll over in the water so that you could rub his belly.
Eventually I got really cold and was shaking somewhat violently in the water so I figured it was time to get out. My dad was already out and so he came over to help me with my wet suit. He unzipped the back and started pulling on my wet suit. I was thinking maybe he'd do like all the cool kids do and pull the wet suit down to my waist. Nope, he just keep going on past my waist. As I mentioned earlier though, I wasn't wearing shorts I was at least wearing something, which was a plus. So there I was in the middle of 15-20 people in only my underwear. This could make for an embarrassing situation. It really just made me laugh (inside), but surprisingly it really didn't bother me. A) I didn't know these people except my family and I don't care if they see me in my boxers. B) I really don't care who sees me in my boxers; I stand in front of our balcony window in TX almost every morning in my boxers while I brush my teeth (I know I'm weird). Nonetheless I did accept the towel that was handed to me and wrapped it around my waist. Eventually I was dry enough to put on my pants and the event passed without notice.
Afterwards we went to a thai restaurant and other things happened like having to go back to Mike's after it closed and breaking into our boat so that we could get the waterproof camera that someone in the family accidentally left on the boat. But I'm tired of typing so I'll leave that to your imagination.
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