everything will be alright

Today I finally verified that my Xbox 360 is in fact broken. The good news to that though is that just last month Microsoft announced that it's expanding the machine's warranty from a one year to a three year one, at least with respect to the issue I have with mine (a.k.a. the three flashing red lights, which reminds me of the three seashells from Demolition Man but I'm still a reforming Sandra Bullock fan, heh). This means that the shipping to and from wherever it needs to be sent for repairs and the repairs themselves will be free of charge. A courier will be by sometime this week to drop off a pre-paid package to send it off in, and it'll be 3-4 weeks later that I'll get it back, hopefully.

Other than that, nothing too exciting has been going on. Relatives are still around and I've spent time visiting them at various times this week. My reading time has gone significantly downhill; I think reading Harry Potter as fast as I did had something to do with that. I even read through the second and third Harry Dresden books before that, even starting the fourth just before I got Deathly Hallows, but I've made little to no progress on it since finishing the latter. Perhaps that's how I'll spend tomorrow afternoon, catching up on that. Or maybe even get a chapter in now before I sleep. I think I shall go and try that. :D

That's about it, really. Took me forever to pick out a song / lyrics, and I don't even know if this is ok, but oh well. I saved the .psd file so I can change it later if I so desire. Tomorrow is Friday, let's hope this week is over ASAP. >.<

To quote Tycho from Penny Arcade:

I enjoyed the fifth book while I was reading it, at least, I thought I did, but I couldn't tell you a single thing that happened between the hard covers of my collector's edition with wand. The Sixth Book (or tome, or whatever) got me back on board.

That's pretty much how I feel about it, heh. Also, check out their Harry Potter themed comic from the other day. Good times.

Also, for some strange reason, last night as I was walking upstairs I started humming this Sting song, from a cassette tape I used to have, which tells you how long ago that was. Anyway, I managed to find the album and now I can listen to it again. It's actually pretty decent, I'd forgotten about it over the years. The album to which I refer is Ten Summoner's Tales, and the song that came to me was Love Is Stronger Than Justice, if you're wondering.

Anyway, just home for lunch, so back to work I go. Only a few more hours until the weekend! :D!

1. Use fanfiction.net's Search Story By Summary and look up your name in either Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings.
2. If there are any Mary Sues that share your name, pick the worst-sounding one and post the summary.

Harry Potter
Potter in Medieval Times by Spicy Hot
Paris, Harry's girlfriend, is one of the few American's selected to go the Hogwarts. Her uncle Jeff mysteriously show up at Hogwarts and gets hold of a time turner that takes him to midieval times.

The Chosen Ones by carol-and-vegeta-forever
Jeff, Nikki, Kayla, and Carol....normal kids, right? wrong. They're sucked into a hole in Jeff's room and end up in Hogwarts...is there a connection between Carol and Snape???? caution: drugs, suicide attempts, and heavy swearing [drugs and suicide? o.O]

LotR
I didn't think there'd be any LotR fics, since Jeff's not that medieval sounding, but look!

Survivor: The Fangornian Forest by Laughing Light
What do you get when you cross sixteen LotR characters, Jeff Probst, and one very large forest? Why, everyone's favorite TV show, of course!

XDDDDDD

So, I finished Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince today. I can't wait to discuss it with the other coworkers who finished it last week or earlier, and have been waiting to talk about it. I won't say anything about it here, and besides, I think most of you guys and girls have already read it and discussed it on here ages ago. Yes, I'm a slow reader hehe.

The weekend was fun, it's actually funny I read almost 200 pages of the book during it. Drove home on Friday, saw Fantastic Four (as described in my last post), then got up early on Saturday to drive home. I picked up a collector's edition of City of Heroes 'cause it was cheap, and 'cause I know that paleltlspider plays it too. It looks super fun (pun!) and I remember wanting to play it way before it was out. Come to think of it, I'm such an MMORPG whore. I own SWG, WoW, GuildWars and now this. Oh well, I'm only paying for one at the moment, so it's all good.

We camped out last night for a friend's bachelor party. Nothing wild, but it was fun. Three of us had guitars too, so we played and sang, had a few drinks, the usual. Good times. Next week is the actual wedding, so I'll be home again for that. Quite a lot of driving around, especially with gas prices being as they are, but at least I have something to do now.

It's getting late, so I think I'll catch up on some much-needed sleep. Hopefully work goes well tomorrow, I know I've got a few appointments and they usually make time go faster. We'll see anyway! :)

Before I forget to mention it again, I'm apparently a golfer now. Or at least a beginner... a week ago today was my first time on the driving range, out in Gander. I went back on Sunday, bought a set of (cheap) clubs on Monday night, and have been to the range out here twice since then, including tonight. It's so much fun, though I've obviously got a lot to learn. Hopefully sometime soon I'll try the actual course, it's only 9 holes down here so that'd be a good place to start.

Going down there today, I saw about a half dozen squirrels running across the road in all, and an actual bunny on the golf course. It made me think of bunnytough, hehe. :D When I got to the turn off for the club, it looked like it might rain too, with a few specks landing on the windshield. Luckily it didn't though, that would've sucked.

Work's been good, I don't really wanna think about it while I'm enjoying my weekend, so I'll just leave it at that for now. Enjoying the HP book too, only about 1/4 of the way through it. I think I've conditioned myself to just read before bed time, I can't seem to read at any other time than that for some reason. Oh well! It is good, just taking my time to digest it.

Also saw a play last night, another local one. The Housewife was really good, though I kinda prefer comedies. It was well done though, especially considering the cast was just two people. I've seen two of the four plays they offer this year, I want to see the other two now. I'm slowly but surely taking part in more things here, with this and the golf now. Yay for getting out of the house!

Maybe it was the inspiration from the play, but I rented The Merchant of Venice last night, with Al Pacino. It was pretty good, I'd heard so much about that play but never read it in school or anything. Especially interesting with the whole legal point of view and such. I also got Miss Congeniality 2 because it was two new releases for $4 and, well, Sandra. :D That was quite funny, more so than I expected actually.

Tonight there's nothing on the go, I'm going to attempt more iconing. I made one last night, my first ever using Photoshop and all its fancy options. I was strictly a Paint Shop Pro user 'til now, so if anyone knows for any good tutorials or anything, feel free to send them my way! :D

Well, the weekend went well. Got to my friend's place on Friday after 3.5 hours of driving and we hung out, then Saturday we went to the local driving range there and I got my first golfing experience. It's very fun, and today before I left we went out again. I'm going to try to get a loan of some clubs from the boss, or maybe see if he's looking to sell any of his old sets, try to get into it more. It's very fun, and I'm inclined to try the driving range out this way now too.

After all that, we headed to the concert yesterday afternoon around suppertime. It was raining sporadically so we stopped to buy a raincoat for my friend, who didn't bring one. There I saw the new PSPs, and I'd been thinking about getting one for awhile now, so I did. Even though I totally can't afford it or anything, I bought it and put it in the car before we went to the concert.

The concert was great too, we really only saw the last band, which was the only good one there. The only other band whose set we mostly saw was Finger Eleven, and they were ok but, well, eh. The Hip were good though, but they didn't play much old stuff at all. Up to the 2nd encore (yes, there were two), they're only played a grand total of one song from their first two LPs. One. I wasn't too impressed, since those are perhaps my two favourite albums by them. But in the second encore of just 3 songs, 2 of them were from their first full length album, and I was happy.

I played with the PSP a bit today, but on the drive back my senses finally kicked in and I brought it back to another Wal-Mart on the way back. It's a neat device but I just got back from spending a lot of money on my vacation, and recently got my iPod, so it'd be total overkill to get something I don't even need. Maybe someday later when they go down in price / I have more money. My friends totally tried to talk me out of it, but that only made me want it more. Stupid reverse psychology.

Anyway, it was a good weekend. This week should be ok too, with work looking alright (though who knows what awaits me in the office tomorrow morning -.-;) and the new Harry Potter book arriving in the mail soon. Next time I won't preorder it, I have no idea why I keep doing that when the stores around me constantly surprise me by having it in stock. Oh well, no big hurry to read it, 'cause it'll be another few years before the next one I imagine.