1. Went to the periodontist.
2. Did my thing on chapter five of Deathly Hallows.
3. Finished the fourth CD of the Deathly Hallows audiobook.
4. Did the Placement backup as the regular person is ill.
5. BigFishGame for the day is mahjong. Nope.
6. Last night, I bought Wedding Dash. May play that a little more.
7. Level 32 Draenei Warrior. Finished Costly Menace.
Tired, but don't want to go to bed yet.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Friday, July 27, 2007
7/26: What I Accomplished Today
1. Graded three classes. This included the last time I had to grade the in-person class. I finished the grades as well. I haven't filled out the gradesheet yet. I would normally have done this tonight and turned it in tomorrow, but since I'm sans car right now, I probably can't turn it in until Monday, so I can fill in the gradesheet later.
2. Worked on some Pogo badges.
3. Watched a number of episodes of Mad About You.
4. Level 31 Draenei Warrior. Played Farren sequence of quests. Dinged 32.
5. Played Miss Management. On second profile, have all three stars on first 23 levels.
6. BigFishGame for today seems to be a slidy-puzzle thing, for heaven's sake; I decided at 12 that those were about the biggest drag on God's green earth, and the computer doesn't make them more exciting.
7. Read some in Arthur.
2. Worked on some Pogo badges.
3. Watched a number of episodes of Mad About You.
4. Level 31 Draenei Warrior. Played Farren sequence of quests. Dinged 32.
5. Played Miss Management. On second profile, have all three stars on first 23 levels.
6. BigFishGame for today seems to be a slidy-puzzle thing, for heaven's sake; I decided at 12 that those were about the biggest drag on God's green earth, and the computer doesn't make them more exciting.
7. Read some in Arthur.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
7/25: What I Accomplished Today
1. Now hear this: just because I am an English professor doesn't mean that I have to sit around reading papers all day, every day. I just read e-mails from two students who seemed to think that I should already have their papers graded and their course grades calculated. I will do that tomorrow afternoon; I like to do it as close to class time as possible (without going over, obviously, like The Price is Right) so I'm as fresh as possible on what the class's current issues are. (I know, this isn't really that big a deal, but students who think I should grade things on their schedules are infuriating.)
2. Some information on the Blizzard website about the swag from Blizzcon. I was planning to go, and then the tickets went on sale, and I was trying to decide whether I could legitimately justify spending that money--and the second day they were on sale, the tickets sold out, so I snoozed, I losed. Now whenever I'm in Booty Bay and I pass the goblin who redeems codes from previous shows, I am a little angry with myself for not acting more quickly: I will not get a code to redeem for a fun, fabulous, silly thing. It's just as well; our cars have both acted up this summer, and it looks like we may need a new computer or two or three, so the money wouldn't have been spent in the spirit of good stewardship. But still.
3. Did my thing on chapter four of Deathly Hallows. Listened to the third CD of the audiobook.
4. Played a few minutes each of the level 31 Draenei warrior and Miss Management. Lack mojo.
5. Read some more in Arthur. Trying to decide whether Dumbledore works as a Lancelot figure.
6. BigFishGames are both three-matchies. Blech.
7. Not particularly tired now, but tomorrow is the last class meeting for the in-person class, so I should impersonate a responsible adult and go to bed.
2. Some information on the Blizzard website about the swag from Blizzcon. I was planning to go, and then the tickets went on sale, and I was trying to decide whether I could legitimately justify spending that money--and the second day they were on sale, the tickets sold out, so I snoozed, I losed. Now whenever I'm in Booty Bay and I pass the goblin who redeems codes from previous shows, I am a little angry with myself for not acting more quickly: I will not get a code to redeem for a fun, fabulous, silly thing. It's just as well; our cars have both acted up this summer, and it looks like we may need a new computer or two or three, so the money wouldn't have been spent in the spirit of good stewardship. But still.
3. Did my thing on chapter four of Deathly Hallows. Listened to the third CD of the audiobook.
4. Played a few minutes each of the level 31 Draenei warrior and Miss Management. Lack mojo.
5. Read some more in Arthur. Trying to decide whether Dumbledore works as a Lancelot figure.
6. BigFishGames are both three-matchies. Blech.
7. Not particularly tired now, but tomorrow is the last class meeting for the in-person class, so I should impersonate a responsible adult and go to bed.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
7/24: What I Accomplished Today
1. Prepped a class, graded three classes, taught a class.
2. Finished the June EPT stats. (Yes, it's shamefully late, but I still hadn't had all my questions answered.)
3. Finished teaching notes from DVD.
4. Read more in Arthur.
5. Level 30 Draenei Warrior. Yeti Fur Coat. Turtle Bisque. Dinged 31.
6. Started a new profile in Miss Management and got all three stars on the first 23 episodes.
7. Today's BigFishGame is a find-the-stuff, and tomorrow's is a platform. I'm excused.
2. Finished the June EPT stats. (Yes, it's shamefully late, but I still hadn't had all my questions answered.)
3. Finished teaching notes from DVD.
4. Read more in Arthur.
5. Level 30 Draenei Warrior. Yeti Fur Coat. Turtle Bisque. Dinged 31.
6. Started a new profile in Miss Management and got all three stars on the first 23 episodes.
7. Today's BigFishGame is a find-the-stuff, and tomorrow's is a platform. I'm excused.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
7/23: What I Accomplished Today
1. Finished third chapter of Deathly Hallows with research. Listened to the second CD, which brought me a page or so into Chapter Six.
2. We had a variety of pain-in-the-neck problems today (my car, a water line), which my Co-Vivant all dealt with in addition to having work to do, so I did some miscellaneous doo-dads like trash and kitchen junk. I also cleaned some of the mess the backed-up water line caused.
3. Finished some Pogo badges.
4. Watched Bridge on the River Kwai. This was very interesting. Nice and murky; as soon as you've decided whom you're supposed to root for, that decision is complicated. (There were a very few moments when I thought maybe I was supposed to root for the Japanese.)
5. Teaching notes from DVD.
6. Level 30 Draenei Warrior. Missing Crystals. Worked a bit on several Hillsbrad quests; didn't finish any others, but should ding tomorrow if I get to play a reasonable amount of time.
2. We had a variety of pain-in-the-neck problems today (my car, a water line), which my Co-Vivant all dealt with in addition to having work to do, so I did some miscellaneous doo-dads like trash and kitchen junk. I also cleaned some of the mess the backed-up water line caused.
3. Finished some Pogo badges.
4. Watched Bridge on the River Kwai. This was very interesting. Nice and murky; as soon as you've decided whom you're supposed to root for, that decision is complicated. (There were a very few moments when I thought maybe I was supposed to root for the Japanese.)
5. Teaching notes from DVD.
6. Level 30 Draenei Warrior. Missing Crystals. Worked a bit on several Hillsbrad quests; didn't finish any others, but should ding tomorrow if I get to play a reasonable amount of time.
Monday, July 23, 2007
7/22: What I Accomplished Today
1. Puzzle Day. Forgot to audit, so we came in (guess!) second.
2. Took a nap. Was awakened because mother-in-law had come over to do more tests for her CE credits and had chosen grammar courses, but the grammar was arcane rules specific to her profession that I'd never heard and were opposed to every handbook I've ever used, so I wasn't much help. (And never, ever awaken someone from a nap necessary because of little sleep the night before so that napper can distinguish objects of a preposition from predicate nominatives. I'm certain the Geneva Convention has provisions against this.)
3. Did my thing on chapter two of Deathly Hallows. Listened to chapters two and three in the audiobook.
4. Worked a little on teaching notes from Great Courses, Volume 3. Should have read more in Arthur; didn't.
5. Finished three Pogo badges.
6. Watched Big Love and several episodes of Mad About You.
7. Today's BigFishGame is Beauty Factory. Looks like a deep, rich simulator, but it quickly degenerates to "Click on the 'Next Week' button until trends change, and then play a not-particularly-fun guessing game with the numbers." I played 48 minutes of it, I think, but I don't need this one.
2. Took a nap. Was awakened because mother-in-law had come over to do more tests for her CE credits and had chosen grammar courses, but the grammar was arcane rules specific to her profession that I'd never heard and were opposed to every handbook I've ever used, so I wasn't much help. (And never, ever awaken someone from a nap necessary because of little sleep the night before so that napper can distinguish objects of a preposition from predicate nominatives. I'm certain the Geneva Convention has provisions against this.)
3. Did my thing on chapter two of Deathly Hallows. Listened to chapters two and three in the audiobook.
4. Worked a little on teaching notes from Great Courses, Volume 3. Should have read more in Arthur; didn't.
5. Finished three Pogo badges.
6. Watched Big Love and several episodes of Mad About You.
7. Today's BigFishGame is Beauty Factory. Looks like a deep, rich simulator, but it quickly degenerates to "Click on the 'Next Week' button until trends change, and then play a not-particularly-fun guessing game with the numbers." I played 48 minutes of it, I think, but I don't need this one.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
7/21: What I Accomplished Today
1. Last night after I blogged, I played the demo hour on the BigFishGame, which appeared to be a sequel to Believe in Santa, a game that came out just before Christmas. It wasn't quite the same game, but it wasn't entirely a different one, either; it changed the graphics slightly, added several different bonus opportunities that changed aesthetics but not gameplay, and gave the game the ability to replay levels, which it should have had in the first place. It wasn't a new storyline, though; it was the same storyline. It's a fun game, but I've already played it. In fact, I've already finished it several times. I'm not buying this again, especially since the only really useful addition, the ability to replay levels, should have been in the original. (One of the additions, a toy you customize and then sell in the next round, could have affected gameplay, but in the first nine or ten levels that I played, I always had the highest level by far more than the price of this expensive toy, so it wasn't relevant at that point.)
2. Got up today at about 12:20. Put on outfit and performed basic grooming needs. Asked Co-Vivant if she was going to Costco at 12:35; she laughed at how quickly I was ready. We went to Costco and bought the Harry Potter book and audiobook (and diet soda and candy bars). Our Costco receipt says 1:02. We ate there. We came home, and I folded and put away a load of laundry; figure it's 1:30 or 1:45 by then.
I finished the book at 7:10.
I won't talk about specifics yet because most people haven't had the opportunity to finish it yet, but I will discuss a few generalities.
a. I do not know what idiots are still laboring under the mistaken notion that the series is for children. The first two are for children; the rest are not. (Tolkien works the same way; The Hobbit is for children, but The Lord of the Rings, not so much.) My older niece is 14, and a mature 14; I'm okay with her reading these books. My younger niece is 11 and can't be bothered with these books--and that's just as well, because they are not suitable for her. Anyone who calls these children's books has either never read them or has really odd ideas about what children might be.
b. I could have told people about the necklace and the 7th horcrux after the last book, but nobody called and asked me.
c. These books contain a man named Arthur with a son named Percival, a daughter named Ginevra, and a son named Ron. (In the original Celtic version, Arthur had his sword, Caliburn [later Latinized to Excalibur], and his spear, Ron.) The denouement perfectly fits what needed to happen from a myth and ritual perspective. Nope, no education at play here.
d. When I started to read, I took off my glasses, as I always do. Then I spent the afternoon sitting or lying in various positions on the bed. I do not know what happened to them, but my glasses are now bent, and I won't be able to get them straightened until Costco Optical opens again on Monday.
e. Very clean; she didn't spend 72 chapters at the end cleaning up McGuffins, like I was afraid she was going to. (I'll probably talk about this more later.) (If you're not familiar with the term, it's from Hitchcock; it's also the name of the weatherman in the very first chapter of the first book, so she planted the seed very early.)
f. Voldemort has taken Lucius' wand by page 10. Could we possibly cut to the emasculation chase any sooner.
g. A few years ago, I was curious about what the Christian opposition to the series was actually focusing on, so I read one of the leading books of the genre. My instinct was again correct; the witchcraft issue is a McGuffin. True, they're not happy about the magic in the books, but that's not the real problem. The real problem is that sometimes Harry and his friends don't play by the rules; sometimes, if circumstance seems to require it, they bend, even break, the rules, and they aren't always punished for this.
In short, the morality in the book is relativistic, and the characters exercise critical thinking to evaluate situations. No wonder they hate it.
h. Much less death than I thought there was going to be. (Yes, I did spend the afternoon crying and laughing, sometimes at the same time, so much so that I unnerved my Co-Vivant, but all in all, many fewer casualties than anticipated.)
i. I know it seems odd not to spoil things for readers when I don't have any readers except kamikazes who drop in randomly to plug their own blogs, but it still doesn't seem right to discuss particulars of the plot when most people have neither the ability nor the leisure time to read it so soon. Today and tomorrow, I am special. About Monday, the rest of the world catches up to me.
j. Co-Vivant (who watches the movies but does not read the books) has a job that requires her to wear a tool belt. She is not 5' tall, which is much, much smaller than the manufacturers of tool belts envision, and she has been losing weight, so we keep having to cinch in the tool belt. She asked me to do this again yesterday, and I fiddled with it some, but I don't think it can go in any more; it has so many little pockets and loops hanging from it that we can't make it any smaller. When I informed her of this, she pouted a little and said, "You are a Muggle." And unfortunately, she is right.
3. Don't really remember what we watched on television tonight. I got some Pogo badges to 80%.
4. I have several sorts of research I perform on Harry Potter. I haven't for months, obviously, because I finished the sixth book over Christmas break. This evening, I did most of my thing on the first chapter of the book. I also listened to the first chapter of the audiobook.
2. Got up today at about 12:20. Put on outfit and performed basic grooming needs. Asked Co-Vivant if she was going to Costco at 12:35; she laughed at how quickly I was ready. We went to Costco and bought the Harry Potter book and audiobook (and diet soda and candy bars). Our Costco receipt says 1:02. We ate there. We came home, and I folded and put away a load of laundry; figure it's 1:30 or 1:45 by then.
I finished the book at 7:10.
I won't talk about specifics yet because most people haven't had the opportunity to finish it yet, but I will discuss a few generalities.
a. I do not know what idiots are still laboring under the mistaken notion that the series is for children. The first two are for children; the rest are not. (Tolkien works the same way; The Hobbit is for children, but The Lord of the Rings, not so much.) My older niece is 14, and a mature 14; I'm okay with her reading these books. My younger niece is 11 and can't be bothered with these books--and that's just as well, because they are not suitable for her. Anyone who calls these children's books has either never read them or has really odd ideas about what children might be.
b. I could have told people about the necklace and the 7th horcrux after the last book, but nobody called and asked me.
c. These books contain a man named Arthur with a son named Percival, a daughter named Ginevra, and a son named Ron. (In the original Celtic version, Arthur had his sword, Caliburn [later Latinized to Excalibur], and his spear, Ron.) The denouement perfectly fits what needed to happen from a myth and ritual perspective. Nope, no education at play here.
d. When I started to read, I took off my glasses, as I always do. Then I spent the afternoon sitting or lying in various positions on the bed. I do not know what happened to them, but my glasses are now bent, and I won't be able to get them straightened until Costco Optical opens again on Monday.
e. Very clean; she didn't spend 72 chapters at the end cleaning up McGuffins, like I was afraid she was going to. (I'll probably talk about this more later.) (If you're not familiar with the term, it's from Hitchcock; it's also the name of the weatherman in the very first chapter of the first book, so she planted the seed very early.)
f. Voldemort has taken Lucius' wand by page 10. Could we possibly cut to the emasculation chase any sooner.
g. A few years ago, I was curious about what the Christian opposition to the series was actually focusing on, so I read one of the leading books of the genre. My instinct was again correct; the witchcraft issue is a McGuffin. True, they're not happy about the magic in the books, but that's not the real problem. The real problem is that sometimes Harry and his friends don't play by the rules; sometimes, if circumstance seems to require it, they bend, even break, the rules, and they aren't always punished for this.
In short, the morality in the book is relativistic, and the characters exercise critical thinking to evaluate situations. No wonder they hate it.
h. Much less death than I thought there was going to be. (Yes, I did spend the afternoon crying and laughing, sometimes at the same time, so much so that I unnerved my Co-Vivant, but all in all, many fewer casualties than anticipated.)
i. I know it seems odd not to spoil things for readers when I don't have any readers except kamikazes who drop in randomly to plug their own blogs, but it still doesn't seem right to discuss particulars of the plot when most people have neither the ability nor the leisure time to read it so soon. Today and tomorrow, I am special. About Monday, the rest of the world catches up to me.
j. Co-Vivant (who watches the movies but does not read the books) has a job that requires her to wear a tool belt. She is not 5' tall, which is much, much smaller than the manufacturers of tool belts envision, and she has been losing weight, so we keep having to cinch in the tool belt. She asked me to do this again yesterday, and I fiddled with it some, but I don't think it can go in any more; it has so many little pockets and loops hanging from it that we can't make it any smaller. When I informed her of this, she pouted a little and said, "You are a Muggle." And unfortunately, she is right.
3. Don't really remember what we watched on television tonight. I got some Pogo badges to 80%.
4. I have several sorts of research I perform on Harry Potter. I haven't for months, obviously, because I finished the sixth book over Christmas break. This evening, I did most of my thing on the first chapter of the book. I also listened to the first chapter of the audiobook.
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