so on this http://alivans.com/custom/web/list.asp?c=19742&pageid=10276 website. there are Harry Potter sweaters.
Harry Potter sweaters ftw.
Vlog project songs Saturday, November 15, 2008
This is the song list and lyric list that I use in my vlog
Link: http://www.youtube.com/misuseofairqoutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYNgHnB_3ng
The World I know by Collective soul: Hope still lingers on
Jesus and Gravity by Dolly Patron: Taking all these blessings I’ve been given one by one
Always be my baby - David Cook verson: Time can’t erase a feeling this strong
Dream on by Aerosmith: Everybody’s got their dues in life to pay
Get up and go by Hanson: I look at the stars and I remember
Accio Deathly Hallows by Hank Green: Like Pheonix tears on a broken nose
Open Arms by Journey: How can our love be so blind
Mr Tambourine man as sung by the Byrds: I’m not sleepy and there ain’t no place I’m going to
Boy Crazy by New Found Glory: You’ve got to watch out for the Beautiful ones
Innocent by Our Lady Peace: I remember all the feelings and the day they stopped
Johnny and June by Heidi Newfield: Ring of Fire burning in you
L.G. Fuad by Motorcity Soundtrack: Like the last tim e I committed suicide, social suicide
Hungry like the wolf by Duran Duran: I’m on the Hunt I’m after you
Superstar by Sonic Youth, for the Juno Soundtrack: I fell in love with you before the second show
Blackbird by the Beatles: Take these broken wings and learn to fly
Day Tripper as sung by David Cook (there is a verse missing in David’s verson) It took me so long to find out by I found out
Living in Fast Forward by Kenny Chesney: Now i need to rewind real slow
Looking for Alaska as covered by Hank Green: I hope you escape this labyerinth of suffering
You’re so Vain by Carly Simon: You had me serveral ears ago when I was still quite Naive
Weird by Hanson: Isn’t is Strange
Harry Potter Story Saturday, November 15, 2008
WARNING: THERE ARE BOOK 6&7 SPOILERS, however if you have managed not to recieve book 6&7 spoilers by now, you won’t understand the story.
A Childhood Ending
A Childhood Ending
That Saturday in July was typical for most people, but for me, and several thousand others, it was the ending of something we hoped never would. I stood in line at Barnes and Noble for five hours at the midnight release. I wouldn’t start the book until the sun rose, but I needed to have in my hands as soon as possible.
That night as I slept I kept one hand on the cover. I barely slept for more than three hours in anxious excitement. In my hands lay the apex of the last ten years of my life, everything that I had awaited the last two years for. Inside the 759 pages was the end of my childhood, the end of the journey of Harry Potter.
By four o’clock Monday afternoon on my way to work, about 630 pages into the book. I sat alone in the back corner of the K-Mark parking lot in Portsmouth New Hampshire, locked inside my Lancer, Deathly Hallows propped open against my steering wheel.
Alone in my head, deep within the walls of Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, I thought that nothing bad could possibly happen in the last seven pages of the chapter entitled “The Second Battle for Hogwarts.” What could possibly be worst than Snape killing Hedwig, or losing of Mad Eye less than a quarter in the book? I found my answer on page 637.
As I read the words my mind couldn’t wrap around what J.K. Rowling had just done to my life. I re-read the page, hoping my mind had tricked me. It hadn’t. Percy Weasley had killed his brother, Percy Weasley, the most hated of the Weasley brood was the reason Fred lay dead before the entry to the Great Hall. Fred Weasley was dead. And I had to punch into work in less than five minutes.
To fully understand my emotions at this moment in time, I should take you back to age eleven: the first time I read The Sorcerer’s Stone. When Harry Potter first enters Platform 9 ¾, and he meets the younger Weasley children; his soon to be best friend Ron, his little sister Ginny, and the twins, Fred and George. As Harry loads into the Hogwarts Express, Fred and George yell to their mother, that they’ll send her a Hogwarts toilet seat. In that five page exchange I fell in love with a pair of fictional trouble makers. They were everything I wanted to be, the opposite of what I was.
Fred became my favorite because he was a better trouble maker than George was. While George stood in the background of the books, his twin brother took more a leadership role in the family business they created. In a way I became Fred Weasley as I grew to understand myself. Junior year of high school, my best friend and I, after discovering that we both loved the Weasley twins, assigned each other names of fictional red-headed brothers. She was George. I was Fred. In a twisted way, one that only a true Harry Potter fan could understand. I was the brave one, although in reality I was never the brave one. Being Fred Weasley to my best friend gave me inner power I would not have found otherwise.
By the third book I had fallen completely for a fictional red-headed boy. I knew at the age of thirteen, that I loved, and would always love Fred Weasley. Life was simpler then, J.K. Rowling hadn’t killed anyone we, the Harry Potter fandom, had grown to love. It wasn’t until we all saw Cedric Diggory, laying dead in Little Hangleton graveyard, killed by Voldemort in The Goblet of Fire, when his ghost comes out of The Dark Lord’s wand and says: “Harry… take my body back, will you? Take my body back to my parents…,” that the first thought that something could possibly happen to my Fred. When Sirius, fell behind the veil in Order of the Phoenix, the thought crossed my mind again. Cedric was a fringe character. Sirius was fast becoming a main part of Harry’s life, but Rowling wouldn’t kill a Weasley, not a main character like Weasley.
In The Half Blood Prince, all the thoughts of what J.K. Rowling was capable of changed on page 596, when Snape held the wand that killed our beloved Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore.
Anticipation of the seventh book grew everyday after finishing book six. With each passing day the thoughts of what Rowling would do grew scarier, yet I never thought a Weasley would lay victim to the second battle for Hogwarts, not a beloved Weasley, not Fred.
I sat in my car that Monday, tears running down my face. I had to bring myself back together to work my cash register, but the boy I’d loved since I was eleven was dead. My fictional boyfriend, as sad and ridiculous as it was, lay dead. Fred wasn’t just my fictional boyfriend, but a part of me. I was lying dead on the floor outside the Great Hall of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. My imagination in pieces.
Slowly, I walked across the mostly empty parking lot, the orange book clinched to my chest. I entered the through the automatic doors. I turned to the service desk. Barbara and Jo stood by the time clock.
“Are you alright?” Jo asked.
I replied with something the sounded like: “Harry Potter. My boyfriend. Percy. Killed. Wall. Fred. Dead.” And the tears poured down my face.
Jo, who was also a Potter fan, seemed to understand. Although she hadn’t read the sixth book yet, there was a look on her face of understanding. “Are you going to be alright?”
“No,” I cried, pulling the book closer to my face, smelling the pages. “Fred. Stupid. Percy. Unneeded. Deaths.” I gasped.
“I’ll call in Lisa,” Barbara said, picking up the phone. “I don’t think she reads Harry Potter.”
Jo took me by the arm and led me into the back room. We sat there together until I could breathe again. Then, she sent me home.
Back in my bed room, I locked myself in my room and cried. I cried of two straight days. I did not look at the book again until Thursday, when I became curious of who else’s life J.K. Rowling would destroy for no reason, first Cedric, then Sirius, then Dumbledore, then Hedwig, then Mad-Eye, and Fred. Five more senseless lives, Professor Lupin, his young wife Tonks, Colin, and others would be taken in the Great Hall in the next three chapters. Then Jo Rowling confuses her readers who had for so long hated Professor Snape, by making him a better character than Harry, and throws salt in our wounded hearts and imaginations by giving an epilogue that contains nothing but crap. Then it was over. The last ten years of my life, the Harry Potter years were over.
My world was upside down. My childhood was over. It died on page 637, along with Fred Weasley, with a smirk on his face.
The Plan Friday, November 14, 2008
The Plan
Part I
He crouched next to the dumpster behind the Getty station, a half smoked Camel Light in one hand, and a yellow Bic lighter in the other. Harper took shallow breaths, although he was barely nineteen, he easily had the lungs of a forty-year old. His pack a day habit was slowly eating away at him. He knew he had to get his wind back before the rest of them showed up. He leaned back on the heels of well worn navy blue Chuck Taylor Converse All Stars, peering around the green dumpster to look into the parking lot of the American Legion across the street. Nothing; the only sign of life was a plastic Wal-Mart bag; windblown against the chain link fence.
Harper patted the pockets of his dirty jean jacket, checking for the small pocket knife he kept in his coat at all times. He placed his lighter in the opposite pocket; just to make sure he didn’t grab the wrong one in the middle of things. He knew it was supposed to be a fair skin only fight, but Jack and Patrick always fought dirty. Harper wasn’t going to let those boys take advantage of him and his older brother again. One glass cut across Kennedy’s face was more than enough when Jack Callahan didn’t have one that matched.
Harper dropped the butt of his Camel Light to the ground, crushed it with the white plastic of the toe of his shoe, the picked it up off the ground and flicked it into the dumpster, as crude as Harper could be, he knew leaving cigarettes on the ground was gross, and never did it. With his other hand, he felt the small smooth covering of his pocket knife. He pulled it out, rubbing his thumb over the ivory colored cover. He flicked it open, trying to find his reflection in the blade. He couldn’t.
From somewhere behind him the sound of crushing leaves broke his attention from the knife. As he turned he shoved the knife back into his pocket; no use giving secrets to the enemy. Harper caught a glimpse of the boy walking toward him, a fairly tall twenty year old, a good twenty pounds heavier than he was, who had the same midnight black hair and crystal like blue eyes as he did, though his hair wasn’t shaggy like Harpers, but in a tight buzz cut. Harper nodded upward toward his older brother, who nodded downward back. Kennedy wore his pants cuffed to the top of his white Converse high tops, very 1950’s, oh so very Kennedy.
The brothers stood side by side, leaning against the rusting dumpster. Kennedy looked down at his watch. “Five minutes,” He whispered. Harper leaned around the side of the green rectangle smelling of rot, to the empty parking lot. The only change in the scene across the street was a second bag; this one from Subway joined the Wal-Mart one against the chain link. It was unlike Jack and Patrick to be late to a brawl. Maybe Kennedy was lying to him, maybe this was all some kind of set up.
Part II
Kennedy closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Five minutes until he told his little brother the real reason they were meeting next to that dumpster; the reason he made sure Harper had his knife. Kennedy shoved his hands into his pockets, and pulled out a tiny piece of paper, small enough for Harper not to want to read it himself, big enough to hold the information Kennedy claimed it did.
“Harp,” he whispered. Harper leaned back against the dumpster. “I got the wrong station; it’s supposed to be in the field by the Shell, not the Getty.” Living in a town with eight gas stations in less than a half mile made this lie easily believable.
“I’ve been waiting out here for a freaking hour,” Harper spat back. “The A-frame’s way different than the Shell. We’ve only lived in Kurtwood our whole lives, how could you mess important info like that up?”
“It’s a small piece of paper,” Kennedy answered, struggling to find something that made sense. “I saw station, figured the Getty, that’s where all the fights go down. I just figured.”
“If we get there and they claim we’re late, we’re fucked. You realize this right?” Harper slammed his hands into his coat pockets, as they walked down the highway to the next gas station. Kennedy tried to suppress a smile, his plan was working perfectly.
Part III
Harper walked three feet ahead of Kennedy, not wanting to hear even his breath or foot steps. His brother may have cost them another fight. Kennedy was always doing stupid things like this. That’s why he had the half moon scar under his eye, that’s why Harper had broken is arm three times in the last eight years. Harper needed to start a mutiny over his big brother, become the brains of the operation. He’d always been the smarter brother; Kennedy was all brawn.
Harper reached the traffic light across from the Shell a good three minutes before his brother. Harper may have the lungs of a forty year old, but besides that he was completely healthy, Kennedy ate at fast food joints on the strip everyday. From across the street Harper could tell there was no one in the field by the Shell either. Jack Callahan’s Chevy Blazer and Patrick’s Ford Focus weren’t in the parking lot. Something was up.
“Hey, moron, they’re not here!” Harper yelled up the street as Kennedy grew closer, breathing heavily. “Check that stupid napkin again! Which station is it?”
Part IV
“This one,” Kennedy said, grabbing Harper’s shoulder. “Mandi Lascars is working to counter; the stupid chick that’s always high as fuck.” Harper looked as his brother confused. “She’s the easiest of the cashiers to over take.”
Kennedy reached into the inside pocket of his coat, pulling out two black ski masks, he tossed on to Harper who caught in with the air. “We’re going to take it. Jack and Patrick would never think to do something like this.”
“Because it’s stupid,” Harper answered, following Kennedy as he dashed across the street. “You’re an idiot.”
“And you’re clearly my accomplice,” Kennedy reached back inside his pocket and pulled out the butt of a hand gun.”
“You’re gonna get us fucking killed,” Harper answered.
“See that minivan, Harp,” Kennedy pointed to a green Ford Windstar pulling up to gas pump number five. “Seeing as we don’t have vehicle, we’re going to need that one.”
“Fucking moron,” Harper whispered, as Kennedy ran into the store.
Part V
Mandi Lascars was sitting on the counter as a masked chubby, dark haired boy, she knew, even though he had a ski mask over his face, as Kennedy Davenport entered. They went to high school together, she’d dated Harper. A boy she could clearly see standing in front of the building smoking a cigarette. The Davenport boys were never far part.
Mandi was filing her nails and chewing gum loudly, “Hey Kenny,” she said twisting her dirty blond pony tail around her index finger.
“Not now Mandi, I’m robbing you.” Kennedy Davenport had clearly never done this before. Normally the robber didn’t tell the rob-ee who they were. “Give me everything in the cash register.”
“Kenny, you’re joking right?” Mandi asked, hopping down from the counter and sticking her emery board behind her ear.
Kennedy pulled out his gun. “No, empty it.” He pointed it toward Mandi, then to the register, then back at Mandi. The scared girl pulled a key out from underneath her shirt, tied to a chain around her neck. She unlocked the register and handed the insides to Kennedy. “Wait til we clear the lot before calling the cops. I know you have to, and I know you know who we are, but seriously Mandi, let us get away.”
Mandi nodded as Kennedy exited the store.
Part VI
As Kennedy exited, Harper ran toward the green minivan. A young pregnant lady stood by the passenger’s side door pumping gas. As she put the nozzle back into the pump Harper struck. “Ma’am, I’m going to need you car.” He said.
Harper pulled open the drivers side door and placed the woman’s purse on the ground, the keys were still in the ignition. “Worst plan ever.”
Harper pulled the car to the front of the building, Kennedy jumped into the passenger’s side, and then Harper sped away. In the rear view, Harper watched the pregnant woman dial her phone. He knew her, one of the down falls of living in a town with a population of under 5000, there was a fairly good chance that the dark green Ford Minivan they stole belonged to the town librarian, who’s youngest daughter was pregnant, and looked fairly similar to the women now holding a cell phone to her face.
“We’re completely fucked,” Harper said, pulling the mask off his face. “Completely and utterly fucked; because you’re a moron.”
Harper turned on to the highway, heading East, as the flashing lights started to catch up with them.
TWLOHA Thursday, November 13, 2008
Today is To Write Love on Her Arms day, or twloha.
Twloha is an organization that brings awareness to depression, self injury, and suicide. Today, anyone can take a sharpie, or a pen, or a regular marker and write LOVE in big letters across their arms. It takes 30 seconds, and washes off. Even Sharpie washes off, it just takes alittle extra soap. Isn’t having to scrub your arm a little bit harder worth saving someones life.
It only takes one person to say “Hey I understand,” to save a life. Let the world know you willing to make a difference. Write love on your arms.
Ah, sorry guys Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Sorry I almost forgot about you with my video project and nanowrio….
heres a poem until i come up with a story… 
I watched the birds chip away-
The last of his bones
Was death always this cruel?
Slowly I lean back-
Into my own awaiting doom
The door closes—darkness settles
It’s not at all as I pictured
The dark is almost comforting
But then again, I always liked to be alone
