Book Log #95: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, by J.K. Rowling

After reading the very beginning of the second Harry Potter over the weekend, I blazed through the rest of it on the bus to and from work today. Like the first book, it was a quick read for me; unlike the first book, I think I actually liked the prose better in it. Rowling was a bit more sparing with the ellipses and all-caps; in fact, I can't remember a single place anywhere in the prose where either of those quibbles leapt out at me. For that matter, I like this plot better than Philosopher's Stone as well. Harry's introductory backstory is out of the way, the major characters are all established, and we're free to expand our knowledge of the universe and what's going on in it just a bit.

Plus, this book has Gilderoy Lockhart, and I can't read that character without thinking of Kenneth Brannagh's delightful performance in the movie. Nor, I must admit, can I read Snape without thinking of Alan Rickman--and I really do like that entire dueling scene where Snape's withering contempt of Lockhart is a palpable weight in the air. Draco Malfoy is still an obnoxious little git, and his father's an obnoxious big one; I'm hoping we'll get some character development here to round the Malfoys out some, because they're annoyingly single-noted against the better-rounded other characters. (And no, all you HP fans on my Friends list, I don't want to know what's coming re: the Malfoys in the later books; I'm aware of one or two spoilers, and I want to stay otherwise surprised. ;) ) Harry's still likeable, Ron and Hermione are cool, and I'm looking forward to burning through Prisoner of Azkaban tomorrow. For this one, four stars.

The weekend and today in review

And since it was a four-day weekend, there's quite a bit of weekend to review!

Thursday: Day of Turkey, and as with previous years, we had the Murkworks Homeless Waifs Thanksgiving Day Turkeyfest. flashfire came up from California to join us, which was neat; he brought his XBox 360 with him and there was much gaming mileage. More locally, we had mamishka and marzipan_pig and sksouth and darthhellokitty and king_chiron and dpatows and epatows and ypatows. Much tasty food was consumed. Jenga was played, as was Wii Bowling and other assorted Wii games. Kittens were mightily admired. As was their rightful due!

Friday: Day of going to speak with my radiation oncologist, as previously posted. Aside from that, there was a lot of lying around going "zzzzzz".

Saturday: Day of going out to see American Gangster finally, along with the aforementioned darthhellokitty and king_chiron. mamishka had hoped to join us, but sadly was feeling poorly. The movie, however, kicked ass. It was on the long side, but I honestly can't think of a single bit that could be easily deleted since it's all vital data in there. The plot thread with Denzel Washington's character and the one with Russell Crowe's character are rather like two charging bulls closing in inevitably on one another until they collide with thunderous impact towards the end. Denzel put in a hell of a performance, flipping between dutiful son and loving husband to gangster with a frightening temper, and Russell was fabulous as always.

Saturday night, after I got back from the movie, we watched the BSG movie Razor on the Tivo. More on this in another post. ^_^

Sunday: Balancing the checkbook, oh joy oh glee, but there was also Jam! More on this, too, in another post. The Jam, that is, not the checkbook balancing.

Other general points of interest: I worked out with my boss this morning how to rearrange my schedule during my forthcoming radiation treatments. We agreed that I'd come in earlier than normal, which translates to "get to work by 8am". As I usually get in around 8:45, this means I'll have to get up 45 minutes earlier, too. Which means I have to get up at 6. Ugh. Here's hoping that it won't kick my ass too terribly much, both the earlier time for getting up and the radiation treatment in general.

The good news is, though, that I did work out how to get to Kirkland from downtown and then home again from Kirkland by bus. So I won't have to drive for any of it, yay. And I got updated FMLA paperwork into our HR department today, to cover all my bases in case the radiation fatigue I've heard about does actually kick my ass.

Meanwhile, the weather tonight has been atrocious, and I've been sneezing off and on all night. I had damn well better not be coming down with a cold, as right now is a perfectly godawful time for me to get sick. I'll be sucking on as many zinc lozenges as I can stand.

Miles since the 6th: 39.9
Miles out of Hobbiton: 2484.7
Miles out of Isengard: 691.7
Miles to Minas Tirith: 94.3

BSG no-idea-what-episode-number: "Razor"

As previously promised, here's my detailed reaction to Razor now that the thing's actually aired on the Sci-Fi channel! It held up well for solarbird and me on a second viewing, too.

( Flashback-flippy spoilers back here... )