Whyyyyyy??!!!!

I found out yesterday that they're putting off the release date for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. You have no idea how much I was looking forward to this and for how long! And did the push it back a week or a month? NO!! It's not coming out until July 17, 2009 now! I was so pissed when I found out! All for the sake of making more money! Let me tell you, the time you release the movie really won't have an impact because us HP fans are hardcore!

OK, I'm done now. Just thought I'd share the news with y'all in case you didn't hear it yet. On a brighter note, Twilight now has been pushed up to HP's original release date of November 21, so I'll at least have that. The guy who plays Edward looks exactly as I pictured him while I was reading the books!

Oh yeah....hooray for Shawn Johnson for winning the gold for balance beam! She's so cute I just want to pinch her cheeks and squeeze her!

♫♫Summer, Summer, Summertime♫♫

As triple digits become more the norm than a rarity here in Arizona and the Snowbirds scramble back up north to their summer habitats, I find myself longing for a small jaunt back up to the PNW. Although this "oven" climate doesn't bother me (puhleeze, I don't pull the shorts out here until it's at least 100 degrees!), I can't help but long for my darling Emerald City. Seattle just sparkles in the summertime! I, along with all the other Seattlites would count down the days to the solstice (although, regrettably, I never made it to the Fremont Solstice Parade). With it, summertime brought warm 80+ degree days, the sailboat gatherings on Lake Union on Tuesday nights that I so loved to watch, the early morning rowers I'd observe while stretching on a break during my weekday morning runs to Gasworks Park, the abundance of fresh local produce presented in the various farmers markets around town, and the significantly longer days. (See the photograph for an example of what I'm talking about. This was taken from the Seattle Times livecam. At about 8:30 the sun was still very much out while here it was already pitch black. Comes with the territory of not observing daylight savings time and being further south!) 

I've seriously been considering jumping on a plane in July to make the trip, but tickets are running about $500! (I'm soooo frustrated with the constant increase in gas prices and our stupid dependence on it!) Problem is, I have about 2 days of vacation left with a very slow accumulation of these precious hours and I am not taking any more when I have to work up to those crucial 18 days I will need come November. That leaves me with the necessity of flying over on a three day weekend, which is super expensive compared to flying out on a weekday. Oh well, it will just have to wait, along with my hankering for a Tini Bigs Sweet Dream Tini (my favorite alcoholic dessert and my favorite watering hole--my friend, Marianna and I were well-known here!)

On another note, I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I got the book on Monday and finished it last night--I could not put it down! I ate the story up, but I'm regretting getting through it so fast because I'm hungry for more! I can't believe it's over!!!! I was so bored today when I got home, with no book to occupy my loneliness....and the library closed at 5 (poo!!!) I resorted to searching quite frantically for a trailer to the next HP movie. So pathetic......

OK I admit it....I'm a Harry Potter fan

I finished Harry Potter book 6 (Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince) on Friday. One of my co-workers has been gracious enough to lend me the whole series and I've been going through the books pretty fast. I think I started the series last summer or a little bit before. Now I have one book left! Book 6 was my favorite one by far! I can't wait for the movie to come out--I just found out to my horror that it's due out in November when I was expecting it for the summer. The beginning of the book was really slow and hard for me to get into. I think I stayed on the same page for over a month! But once my knitting started to bore me I dove in. Once I passed the halfway point in the plot, everything started to happen and I finished the book in a snap!

I got through the book by reading during my lunch hour and on Friday I was two chapters short of finishing the book, but a very upsetting thing happened in the story (if you want a spoiler, read Wikipedia's entry about the book). When I wandered back in the lab, one of my co-workers (the one who lent me the book) noticed that I was very upset about something. It's funny now that I think back on it. When I returned to my workspace, I was silent with the events of the book still turning over in my head ("It didn't happen. Rowling got me good that time--maybe in the next two chapters she'll fix what she's done!"). I barely responded to him when he talked to me and no smile escaped me. So he asks me what's up...what's wrong. Imagine his amusement when I wailed out "I'm upset at how the book is turning out right now!" Seriously, watching me over the course of those few minutes and you would think something horrible happened! But after a while, the events of the book faded into the background as I reluctantly focused on Western blots ....again (I'm admittedly extremely sick of these!). I hope I get book 7 soon so I can be done with this misery!