The Apocalypse, The Half-Blood Prince, and Other Thoughts

I’m horrible at writing all of a sudden, but I’ll throw out some random thoughts and might have more stuff later in the week. This is what happens when you work for a living. Damn job.

On Friday, I packed up the Duchess and jetting out of the Boston area as fast as possible to head for the country, in order to avoid the impending Apocalypse. The signs were unmistakable. One, the Disney Channel was crossing over their three most successful shows into a 90 minute tween-a-thon (The Wizards of Waverly Place, The Suite Life on Deck, and Hannah Montana). It must have been like one of those commercials you see on that channel where Disney wrangles all their cattle, er, I mean talent, to tell us that the youth of this country should be egotistical and believe that they can save the planet. Whatever.

I tell this to the Duchess and she laughs at me, thinking I’ve finally snapped and gone crazy (too late). Then the second sign hits and we find out the Jonas Brothers are in concert in Boston that night. She then starts to think I’m on to something and grudgingly agrees to leave town.

So, I’m in the wilds of Vermont when the third sign hit. We’re watching the Conan O’Brien and his “musical” guest is Demi Lovato and she’s debuting her new song. At this point, I’m gathering canned goods and looking to build a bomb shelter. Thankfully, we lived to see another day in which tween stars may finally trigger the mass extinction of the human race.

While in Vermont, the only form of entertainment that wouldn’t lead to Cirrhosis of the liver was the old school Nintendo system. I wake up on Saturday, glad to still be alive, and find the Duchess playing Super Mario Brothers 3. Not only that, but she had cut her hand by playing too aggressively and gripping the controller with too much pressure. It’s times like this that make me realize I’m lucky to have married her.

While driving back to Mass the other day, I needed a little pick-me-up so I went to Dunkin Donuts and got an Iced Tea. I seriously think that they lace their drinks with something. I mean, their Iced Tea isn’t that great, yet I run to D & D whenever I can like a junkie trying to get a fix. The same happened with their lemonade coolata’s a couple of years ago. Anyway, I order and I’m on the highway before I realize that I didn’t get Iced Tea, but some sort of bastardized Ice Tea/Coffee/Lemon mix. Now, I hate coffee and this was pretty much of the more disgusting things I’ve ever tasted. Yet, I kept drinking it. It was like my brain was trying to convince me that the taste wasn’t that bad. See, it was laced with something. Screw the tobacco companies; I want D & D investigated.

Programming note, the Torchwood mini-series "Children of Earth" premieres tonight on BBC America and runs every night until the conclusion on Friday. While I’ve noted that BBC America has been running some absolute filth recently, this will definitely be stand out.

Speaking of stand out, the new Harry Potter movie debuted this weekend, and based on the numbers, I think everyone but me was at a theatre to watch it. Now, I’ve been a little skittish about watching this and not just because a Harry all hopped up on love potions makes out with Ginny (if you really look at it, that is the most plausible explanation). The book was horrible, but as the Duchess pointed out, the make the good books into bad movies (Goblet of Fire) and the bad books into good movies (Order of the Phoenix).

Now, if you think about it, this makes sense. I mean, the worst part of the Order of the Phoenix book was the Harry was a whiny little pussy. They moved away from that aspect and gave us some action (sort of). One of the main things I hated about Half Blood Prince was the characterization issues. I mean, when did Hermione turn into an empty-headed, boy-crazed, self-absorbed brat who turned her back on her best friend when he needed her most? Seriously, she wasn’t Lavender Brown. Also, Harry is coming off a 12 month span where Voldermort is resurrected, Cedric and Sirius die, and he learns of the prophecy and he only seems to be paranoid about Malfoy and thinking about jumping Ginny. Shouldn’t he have taken the bull by the horns here and started some serious training? I mean, how is a school boy going to beat a dark wizard with 50 years of magical experience on him? A disarming jinx? Oh, wait, I’m sorry, forget I said anything.