Personal Dork Assistant

What I Did on My Winter Vacation: Part 2

Finally got around to reading the Harry Potter books (well, the paperback ones, anyway). Finished Sorcerer's Stone while waiting in the airport on the Vegas trip. Did I mention that the people in the next seat on both the flight to Vegas and back had the Star and the Enquirer with them? Cruched through the other two books in one night. It's light, entertaining reading. Although now that I've read the books, the thought of Harry Potter slash stories does make me slightly nauseated. Or maybe it was just the tacos from last night.

Talk about slight nausea, Scholastic Inc. needs to keep their dumbed-down American editors away from these books. Not that Harry Potter is some impeccable literary masterpiece or anything, but what the hell is wrong with calling it a Philosopher's Stone? The rest of the world doesn't have any trouble with name, and the pursuit of the Philosopher's Stone is only one of the primary impetus of modern Western science. Heck, Issac Newton cared more about the Philosopher's Stone than gravity or any of that physics stuff. I don't usually buy the spiel about dumbing down America, but this annoys me, probably more than it should.

I think I'll skip the HP movie, though. Maybe I'll wait for the DVD. It just seems like one of those books where the imagination would fill in the images better than film and CGI. I was impressed by the LotR movie, although it did drag a bit in places. Couldn't make it all the way through the rolling credits, even with a brand new Enya track playing over it. Apparently I wasn't the only one since it seemed like half the guys in the theater were waiting in line at the restrooms when I scooted there. I was glad to have read the book a while ago, so I could fill in the little details like the leaf clasps of their elvish cloaks, but not remember so much detail as to be annoyed by the changes, like Arwen as super-elvish-babe. I understand that they had a dialog coach work with everyone, nevertheless all the elves sounded like actors trying to speak a totally foreign language. I wonder if I still have those LotR CCG cards sitting somewhere.