No, I’d say it’s just as it’s always been, but more so.

Anyway, it’s been another few weeks, so time for another update I suppose. Watched Die Hard. It was pretty good, even if it hardly made any sense (see here). Watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It was decent but not spectacular, just like all the previous Harry Potter movies. Watched Transformers (again, at Luke’s insistence). It was still good, and Megan Fox managed to look sexier this time around (she looks better in the movie than in most press photographs, actually). :-D

Bought Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Also ended up buying a Wii (finally), Twilight Princess, Wii Play and a set of component cables… yay for unexpected expenditures.

Anyway, the book, like the movie, pretty much follows in the vein of all the previous installments – those who enjoyed the last 6 books (of whom there are millions) will enjoy this one. I will say, though, that I’m a bit unsure as to the ending. As the end to both a book and a series (presumably), it’s not much of a surprise – after all, 6 books over 10 years has created too much attachment to, and fondness of, the main characters by the readers for J.K. Rowling to do anything drastic with them – though there are some interesting small surprises here and there. The story takes its sweet time to reach the interesting revelations that all have been waiting for, but it’s hard to fault the pacing too much – it is, after all, much the same as it always has been, and I wonder if it’s the fact that this is the one that must provide for all the answers which makes one look at it in a different manner. All in all, a good read and a mostly satisfying end to an interesting saga. Now to wait until Sept., when my box set of all 7 books arrive, to re-read the entire story again.

And finally… Zelda. I can’t believe that I’ve actually been able to wait over 8 (!) months after release to play what many are calling the best Zelda game ever, but I did (one major reason I suppose was the lack of available Wii systems and my not-completely-sure-why refusal to play it on Gamecube). But finally that’s over, and time to start digging in!

Might take me a while though, what with work, raiding, and the desire to still have a sliver of a social life on weekends. We’ll see. The fact that Wii Sports is also pretty damned fun probably won’t help.

Oh, and managed to find and get 老爸向前冲, a Chinese TV series that I had seen a few episodes of when I was last in China. It’s… corny. But somewhat amusing. I’ll see if I get around to finishing.

What tradition is that? Going to watch movies in the theatres, of course. I’ve actually watched quite a few since I last mentioned needing to go watch Spider-Man 3 (which was pretty good), but haven’t mentioned any of them. Well, after watching The Transformers last night, I figured I probably should.

Spider-Man 3: It’s still Spidey, and still enjoyable. But this movie really tries to cover too many things and ends up feeling incredibly busy. And I’m not sure how much more they can do to adapt the comic storylines to movies before it feels completely ridiculous – I don’t know if I even want there to be a Spider-Man 4.

Pirates of the Caribbean 3: So good that I watched it on two consecutive weekends. The action scenes are cool, the dialogue is witty, and Keira Knightley always looks damned good – what’s not to like? This one really brings the series around full-circle, and I thought it was a very good way to end a very enjoyable trilogy.

Ocean’s Thirteen: More of the same. The two previous installments were all about watching the characters being, for the lack of a better term, “cool”, and this one is no different. Smooth dialogue and witty humor is the order of the day here, and this one delivers for those who enjoyed the last two.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer: Watched this one mostly because Luke really wanted to… it was pretty “meh” for me. Was never a big Fantastic Four fan, never saw the first live-action movie, and none of the characters as they appear in this one really impressed me much (especially disappointing was Doctor Doom, who comes off seeming more like a shifty common criminal than the genius ruler of his own country).

The Transformers: Wow. I mean, everyone who grew up having watched the old-school Transformers series probably had huge doubts when first hearing of the making of a live action movie (and a Michael Bay one at that), and I was no different. But with each new trailer being released, it felt more like the movie was going to live up to its storied name. And so it has. Yeah, so the plot isn’t going to win the writers any Oscars, but who’s really watching this for the plot? The battles between the Autobots and Decepticons are what we came to see, and they’re damned good. Optimus Prime is as badass as ever, and though Megatron no longer turning into a gun is kind of lame, the CG for the Transformers are very well done, and the action scenes really deliver. A movie that I just might watch again, and will probably get on DVD when it’s released.

And everyone seems to be saying good things about Die Hard… so I think I’ll have to go watch that sometime.

Ubuntu 7.04 was released. Their naming scheme is fairly interesting – the version number is in the format of Y.MM (so 7.04 means released on April 2007), while the nickname follows the form of “Adjective Animal” – we’ve had “Warty Warthog”, “Hoary Hedgehog”, “Breezy Badger”, “Dapper Drake”, “Edgy Eft”, and now “Feisty Fawn”.

Anyway, I waited for it be out for a couple of weeks before deciding to update, but the progress went as clean as can be. Started up the system updater, clicked yes to a couple of dialogs, went to sleep, and by the next morning (or maybe it was afternoon X-D) I had a fully functional Feisty Fawn setup, and everything I had previously configured on 6.10 (namely the webserver bits) were still working perfectly. I’m very impressed. Oh, and 7.04 comes with a Sudoku game. Doesn’t help me try to forget… /sigh.

On to other things. What will probably be the biggest WoW content patch ever, 2.1.0, is near, and the it’s shaping up to be almost everything I’d want it to be (fix the invisible fel cannons that keep killing me too, thanks). So looking forward to that and some dead SSC bosses.

Spider-Man 3 comes out this weekend. Will have to see it. Early returns on impressions aren’t favorable, but this is now one of those movie franchises where you’d see it just to see how it turns out, regardless of what people say about it (much like the Star Wars prequel trilogy.

Read The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy for the… I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read this. But damn it, I still enjoy it as much as ever, and I’m saddened whenever I remember that Douglas Adam’s genius sense of quirky humor will never grace us again.

And finally… what a choke job by both the Mavs and Heat. Not gonna get into it much more, but damn.

Watched Fate/stay night. Not going to deny that I didn’t go into it with the expectation of liking it (based on how much I loved Tsukihime), but nonetheless I liked it a lot. The story is interesting, the character designs are very much to my liking (Type-Moon is batting 1.000 when it comes to creating “main” heroines I like – first Arcueid, now Saber), the visuals are nice, the music is pretty good (as mentioned earlier, especially love the OP “disillusion”, and the first ED is good too), and did I mention how cool Saber is? Though I guess that she’s a bit similar to Arcueid helps… anyway, 8/10.

Before Fate/stay night, I watched, or tried to watch, Kokoro Library. And… I couldn’t finish it. Everytime I try watching it, I end up falling asleep, so in the end I only made it through like 7 episodes in a week and a half. It’s like Haibane Renmei, but with a more pointless story and more generic characters (Hi there, Belldan.. er, Iina!). I mean, OK, yeah, it’s a “slice-of-life” show, but a teenage girl taking test for librarian license? WTF do you need a license to be a librarian anyway? The show is just boring… 5/10.

And finally, saw 300 last night – had to buy tickets about 2 hours in advance, go eat, and then wait in line for half an hour before being able to go inside, and then suffer through some of the worst previews ever, but in the end, it was worth it. A lot of people/critics apparently thought that it was too much like a videogame, but I neither see that being overtly the case, nor what would make that such a bad thing if it were true. Yeah, it’s bloody, yeah, it isn’t exactly politically-correct (though I have to say calling the Athenians “boy-lovers” was kinda funny), and yeah, some of the story elements are just plain-out weird (having never read the comic, only have info on the actual battle to compare it to), but it was still a highly entertaining action movie. 8/10.

Coming up… currently watching the Ah! My Goddess TV series, and probably gonna watch Initial D Fourth Stage (don’t ask me why, I’m not completely sure).