This is where I bitch.

Christmas was nice. We went to the Twin Cities to visit Paul's family. His mom was awesome and made the same dinner my mom makes on Christmas eve, Swedish meatballs and mashed potatoes. Not quiet as good as my mom's, but delicious and very, very nice of her.

We spent most of the time visiting with his family. The dogs stayed with his sister the first night, letting Paul and I have a night off. They did well. Remy dose not do well in hotel's though, barking at every sound in the hall. He kept me up most of the night.

Yesterday at work was busy, but today was nice and calm. I'm hoping that keeps up for the week.

The house is almost clean, just the bathroom to go. Becky and Drew might stay with us after the New Year's party, so I want the house to not be gross.

I think I found this story off of a podcast site. I didn't want to listen to it, but read it instead. Dudley's Memories and it's sequel Snape's Memories is awesome. Totally worth the read.

My art for the hp_tarot has been posted. Not my more detailed or best piece, but I was going for a simpler style anyway.

Harry Potter 7.2 was good. I liked it. My only complaint was that Harry seemed to have a varying amount of stubble from scene to scene, even in the same sequence. But that is a minor point. Dan was great, I love Maggie and Alan. It had a slightly slower/sadder feel than 7.1, which is good for the end of a series like this.

We went to the 3:15am showing at the IMAX to see it in 3D. I napped from 11ish to 1:30, then we went to stand in line for an hour, and we were not early at all. But we got OK seats and the crowd was not annoying. The 3D was well done, used in a good amount. It added to the experience, it was rarely used just 'cause it was cool.

We got home at 6am, I napped again until 9am, and was into work by 10. It was a lot busier than I expected, mostly because one of the projects I had was a lot more complicated than I had expected. Plus both projects I had to do today were due at 3pm, not 5 like I planned (but only because the project managers needed to leave). So I skipped lunch, which is very rare for me. Now I'm at the mall, and will enjoy Covert Affairs soon. Tomorrow is more mall work and mowing if it's not too hot. And Sunday I'm taking off, except for going to volleyball.

Oh yeah, I start full time work on Monday. The temping span is over, and I accepted the job offer they gave me. It's a little lower than what I was making at Laserwords, but more than when I was on furlough days. Two weeks vacation starting out and a week of sick time. And if I don't use the sick time, it gets paid out to me. I'm looking forward to more normal paychecks again.

I finally got around to watching A Very Potter Musical by Darin Criss and StarKid productions. It was great and hilarious. Darin was as good as expected. I really liked Joe Walker though, he played Voldemort. He's was just awesome. I'm planning on watching the squeal soon, though since Volddy died at the end of the first one, but I hear that Joe is playing Dolores, which should be awesome too.

There is interesting / good news at the post office. The current union contract for postal workers is expiring in May. So the union and the post office has been working on a new one for the next four years. I saw an article summing up the features of the new one today. The plan that affects me is they will get rid of the casual positions (which is what I am) and replace them with a new, lower level full time position. I'd start out at a wage lower than a career employee, but higher than what I'm at now. And I'd get benefits as long as I'm working over 30 hours a week. I'd have to join the union and pay dues, but this way people like me would be controlled more by the unions. As it is now, the unions have no say in my work, and the post office can over work and under pay me, basically undercutting the union workers. I'd be for it, more money and government insurance would be awesome. I could stop job hunting and focus on going to school. We'll see what they figure out in a month or so.

This is awesome. Dan actually IS Harry Potter. He says so himself.

I just finished Reparations (HP/DM) by saras_girl.

Really cool story. I listened to the podiobook version. It's like Grey's Anatomy mets Harry Potter! So awesome. Good writing, except when things get... sexy? I guess. Those parts are kinda weak.

I want to play in a game like this now.

Mediwizards + drama = awesome.

I've been listening to the audio book of sam_storyteller's story, Stealing Harry. Still like it, good AU of Harry's pre-Hogwarts life. I'm mega impressed that the whole thing was recorded in one file. It's like 9 hours long. I don't have the link to the audio file, pity, if I find it I'll share it later.

But the story is really good, as all of Sam's writing is. I'm not sure what'll listen to next, as we still won't have internet until Friday and I'm running out of things to listen to. Can't wait for my iphone so I can just down load new podcasts as needed.

Huh.


The Tales of Beedle the Bard
http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=pe_10031940_txt_1/?docId=1000179911


The book that Dumbledore gave to Hermione in DH. It has intros on the stories by Dumbledore too.

I finished Deathly Hallows last night, very nice of Paul to let me.

( HP ramblings )

The house needs cleaning really, really badly. But I have Friday night without plans, Saturday morning and all of Sunday to do that. So I hope that will happen. I migh tput in over time this weekend if needed too.

Work is going well, I'm keeping very busy with exarian's project. And when she goes to GenCon next week I get to be her fill in on the project. Not that I have the depth of knowledge on it that she dose, and I'm sure something will get messed up do to lack of knowledge. But hopefully I can keep the project limping along while she rests.

Tonight Paul and I will sit down and decide if the New York trip for my birthday is doable. I'd really like to go, see the city, see Em, Wendy, Drew and James, and get away.

Volleyball last night was lots of fun. We lost all three, but it was against a really good team and we only had 5 players. We were within 4 points each game, which I consider a good showing. Pick up afterwards was fun, even if we didn't have a full team. There are some conflicts in the team, but hopefully we will work them out. I'm feeling more confident about me playing at that level after the tournament this last weekend.

Some days I'm not sure if I'm cut out for this dating thing. No matter how good I think I'm being, I still piss off Paul. Not gonna air out the details here (dont'worry hun), just need to get it down in bytes and clear my head.

Tonight I hope to finish HP7, finally. We'll see, as the universe seems to conspire against me doing that.

I have all my icons copied to my GJ account. I wish I knew how to set up a custom mood theme there.

EDIT: I almost forgot! Last night after volleyball we went to the Shamrock for a few drinks. I saw almost the entire band Aweseom Car Funmaker there. I'm not sure if one of them is gay, or if they just have a gay friend, or they randomly picked it because it was Kareokee night. They are a bunch of cute little, hoppy early 20 something boys. And of course they rocked at singing kareokee. I'll have to try and remember to tell Kiki, see if she's heard anything.