RhondaWeasley.com

Well, I just got back from buying my books for school. And even though I’m enjoying the school experience much more this time around I truly regret I allowed myself to screw up the last time, because now by the time I get finished school my student loan payments will have doubled and now I have to go to school AND work, where as straight out of high school I was told by my mom not to work because she wanted me to completely focus on school and she would do what she needed to to make that possible for me. Unfortunatly I screwed it all up so now I’m knocking on 30, headed back to school, and pursuing a new major after dropping out of college years ago and going through an entire ‘trade school’ program only to discover both that the school was a scam and that I wasn’t really interested in the field anyway (just tempted by the appeal of a ‘practical’ job, which is just a thing I’m not suited for). Ahh well, better to get on the right path later than never. As long as a person lives they have the opportunity to better the life they live and I feel good about the path I’m on. I’ll say it again… better later than never.

so, recently I’ve been listening to Harry Potter audio books while I do stuff. Mostly, I’ve found I prefer reading a book to listening to it, but when you’re busy doing stuff (washing dishes, cleaning a room, washing clothes) I’ve found listening to a story more convient then watching one (when I’m not in the mood for music). Mostly because you can absorb the story while not needing to look at a screen.

But that’s neither here nor there, I recently noticed. HBP is a really ODD book. I mean it’s funny, REALLY funny. There’s all these goofy, fun, light scenes in it. There’s all this, for lack of a better term, Romantic Comedy and at the same time all these dark things going on the attempted murder of Dumbledore (and sucessful completion of such), kids being pulled out of school because parents fear for their safety, random unpleasant deaths, and just all the feeling of being in a war zone… while we laugh over Lavander and her “Won-Won” and Harry’s grows jealouse of Ginny being with Dean. JKR really did something incredible with this book, which makes me respect her so much as a writer. She managed to give us tons to smile about during this book, while still setting up the horrible darkness that was to come in Deathly Hallows. And now I know why I love this particular book so much and why I hail it as a fav. in the series. Good job JKR.

There’s this new sensation sweeping the nation. The automatic bathroom. Sinks turn on just because your hands appear in front of them. Paper Towels appear with a wave. Toilets autoflush when you get up. Sounds like wonderful inovation, only it’s proably the most annoying thing ever. Sensor sinks cut on and off when they feel like it. And if they stop working, your left looking like an idiot as you wave your hands pointlessly in front of them, because how are you suppose to know the stupid sensor stopped working. Same thing with the auto-towel dispenser. You wave & wave & wave in front of it and it half the time does nothing. And the toilets are the worse, even when they work they don’t work. They always ‘light flush’, well sorry sometimes I need to ‘hard’ flush what I’m leaving behind. Not to mention the things tend to be moody about flushing in general. Once I got up and sat down several times hoping to trigger flushing and it wouldn’t do it. (I know there’s a button, that didn’t work either) I gave up and walked out the stall and suddenly heard the thing flush.

I want my handles back! I want to be able to turn a nob to make the sink work. I want to hard or light flush based on need. I don’t want to look like and idiot waving my hand at a broken sensor. When the old technology just works better and is more effective, it’s just silly to keep moving on with the crap technology just because it’s new.

Considering I’ ve been called an Oreo for my likes/dislikes, the way I talk, etc (I’m apparently neither black enough or gay enough apparently, lol). I think some of my friends will find this result amusing.

You Are Vanilla

You are a delightful, friendly person. You are optimistic about life and people. You are enthusiastic and energetic. You enjoy everything you do. You are cooperative and flexible. You get along with people from many walks of life. You’re not a show off. Instead, you’re more likely to help other people shine.

I find this result intresting, but mostly accurate….

You Are Chopsticks

People see you as exotic, unusual, and even a bit intimidating. You are a difficult person to figure out. In truth, you try to live a very simple life. But most people are too frenzied to recognize the beauty of your simplicity.

Deepa Mehta is one of my favorite directors. The first film I saw of hers was (shocking I know) Fire, the lesbian love story and the first of what she calls her elemental trilogy. I accidentally found Water in the video store about a year ago and loved that. Having seen two of the three, I went in search of the last and middle movie Earth. The trilogy is completely unrelated in it’s characters, time, place and story. The uniting element seems to be social commentary. But for me, I often times find it astounding what she does with characters. Except in one case….
 

read more

If you’ve never read a Sarah Walter’s novel, I recommend reading it. “Fingersmith” was one of the most moving novels I’ve ever read. And “Tipping the Velvet” touched on coming-out better than any modern day novel has ever done. I’m speaking of them together because they are Sarah Walter’s best known works and one can very rarely hear about one without the other coming up.

So…
 

read more

So, despite reading bad reviews about this film I wanted to see it. I am a connoisseur of Gay and Lesbian films after all. I have seen both good and terribly bad independent low-budget Lesbian films.

Unfortunately, Claire is a bad one.

read more

Recently, I headed back into the journey of Xena and Hercules. The good thing about watching one of your favorite dearly departed shows after a long time is that you’ve forgotten most of it. The funniest thing about the Xena, Herc years of my life is the fact that I pretty much didn’t watch a lot of it "in sequence" as they were part of the era of "syndicated TV" series and, because they belonged to themselves and not networks, they tended to jump channels or time slots and sometimes disappear for months at a time before I found them again.

I honestly remember being into Xena first. I remeber very clearly loving Gabrielle from the start and wanting to know what would happen as she joined onto the journey of this really cool warrior woman. It’s kind of funny, despite being pretty much a big ol’ Lesbo I never quite got into any Gabby/Xena are “Hot” type of thing. I was completely convinced they were in love with each other (despite the fact the series spent the first season trying to convince us they were in love with this or that man-of-the-week). In fact, Season 1 suffers what I like to call “man of the week” symdrom. I don’t think a single Season 1 episode passed without having a man in Gabrielle or Xena’s life. I understand the reason behind it. Apparently before the show even hit the ground good there was an issue with the opening credits. Namely, the scene where Xena seductively approaches Draco (a man) and the “voice” of the opening credits says “the passion”. Because Draco has long hair and it’s an over the shoulder shot there was this whole issue of Xena looking like she’s approaching a woman passionately. The higher ups feared her being thought of as a lesbian (especially since she was going to be traveling with another woman every week in the series). Producer Liz Friedman (a lesbian herself) thought this ridiculous and said “No one’s going to think they’re lesbians”. Of course she turned out to be wrong as most of Xena’s fans (lesbian and non-lesbian alike) did think Gabrielle and Xena had something going on, but (unlike the higher ups thought) it wasn’t a bad thing. Obsession over the sub-text romance sold the majority of the fan base on the show. Thinking the girls were lesbians was probably the best thing to happen to the show. I think after year one (though they tried the man-of-the-week formula a few times after) they bought a clue and realized “men-of-the-week” were (more often than not) an annoyance, not an asset. Eventually the show just figured out the gold they had with Xena and Gabrielle. It is often talked about that there relationship remained vague, but so did Mulder and Scully’s up until “I Want to Believe” (the recently released movie). Chris Carter cleverly skirted the issue. So I’m not even offended that (at the end of the day) the series was a little afraid to directly confirm the relationship of the women one way or another. Besides, after “The Quest” (season 2) and the “kiss” (in a man’s body or not) I didn’t need ANYONE to more clearly define anything. Besides, I loved it as much for the adventure and growth of Gabby as I did everything else.

Which is why I knew *something* was missing in my Xena re-watching and it was Hercules. I mean I liked Hercules afterall. So I not only sought out Hercules, I sought out Young Hercules and got my hands on a fan-made copy of the series. Young Hercules was fun, even if half of it contradicts “Big” Hercules. I actually discovered in re-watching Herc that I had seen one of it’s pilot movies before (Amazon Women) but hadn’t made the connection in all these years as it was just something I caught on TV. But I’m so glad I decided to rewind my watching and watch both Xena and Hercules, because Xena is a great show and so is Hercules, but as a pair they’re just … well … amazing. And much like Buffy/Angel, a little empty without the other.

Harry Potter and the book 7 title, hmm?