nette’s weblog

Okay, people should really look at what things are selling for on ebay before they put their things up for sale. The other day, for example, someone listed a Buffy series 1 figure (usually sells for around $20) starting at $750. Apparently it wasn’t a joke, either. They seriously thought someone might buy it for many hundreds of dollars. Then today (the good part) I found an original Spike figure for “buy-it-now” $22, and if you used the buy-it-now the shipping was free! The amazing part is that no one had already bought it by the time I found it. See, normally, someone would be considered very lucky if they managed to get a Spike for $45 plus shipping. So, I could sell this Spike for at least twice as much, maybe more. Although, I don’t think I’m going to do that. Instead, I can use my ikon Spike to make a custom Spike (which also could probably be sold for lots of money, because there really are people loonier than me.)

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We went out to Best Buy and CompUSA today to spend the money that people had given us for anniversery presents. At CompUSA I got a 256M compact flash card for my camera, so now I can take about 300 pictures with my camera before it’s full. The card was on major sale, too. It was $50 after rebate. That’s cheaper than the 128M cards were at Best Buy. I also got a little tiny USB hard drive. It holds 64M, so it’s more than big enough to be a little backup drive for all my stories and things like that. Also, I can carry it around with me and plug it into any computer that has a USB port and it will just work. So I could work on stuff any place that has a computer. Daniel got a regular hard drive. It was supposed to come with a $30 rebate, but actually it came with two $30 rebates, one of which is some kind of gift card or something. Very strange. But anyway, that’s what we bought with our present money. Lots of fun stuff.

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So, I got the new Buffy game for Gameboy Advance. It’s pretty cool. I love the way the vampires dust when you stake them. You have to stake them through the heart, too. If you just hit them any old place with the stake they won’t die. The only problem was that it took me a million years to beat the first level. There was this place where you had to get across a pit by climbing on a rope. To get onto the rope you had to double-jump, and I just couldn’t do it. Double-jumping involves pressing the jump button twice in a row. Eventually, I found out by accident that in order to properly double-jump you had to hit the button slower than I had been doing it. Once I got that worked out I was able to get past that part and finish off the level. I played the second level a couple times, but was (of course) having more jumping issues. Nothing nearly as annoying as in the first level, though. I stopped because my thumbs were getting tired, not because I was too frustrated to keep trying.

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I finally got around to seeing The Pianist. It was amazing. Another one of those incredible depressing-yet-inspiring WWII movies. At various points throughout the movie I was angry, upset, shocked, and so forth. But I never cried until the very end, where the German soldier that had helped him hide had been taken prisoner by the Russians and was begging the just-released Jews to find Szpilman (the pianist) and help him. Then I started bawling. I’m somewhat curious as to why I reacted this way. It’s not like there weren’t other parts of the movie that were just as sad. Hmmm… now I want to go out and get Schindler’s List and Uprising and read my various WWII books. I’m not really sure why I’m so obsessed with the Holocaust, but I always have been. It’s a very depressing subject to be interested in. Anyway, the movie was great. I highly recommend it to anyone who can stomach graphic/depressing things. Hmmm… I wonder if the soundtrack has stuff that the real Szpilman played. That would be cool. I’ll have to look into that.

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Well, I started the story blog. Go ahead and read it.
The Story Blog

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! ! !
&$%$ !@$^ #$^@ @#^%!
DEATH TO DEATH EATERS!

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So, I’ve never really been into comic books before. I was never really particularly interested in all the various superheros out there, so I didn’t bother even really paying attention to the comics. Once I became a Buffy fanatic, I because somewhat interested in the Buffy comics, and I’ve read some of those in trade paperback form (meaning the comics are lumped together in a bigger book that isn’t so likely to fall apart.) Recently, I learned about this comic called “Fray” that Joss Whedon (Buffy creator) wrote. It’s an 8-part series about a future slayer named Melaka Fray. People were saying it was really good, and I love Joss’s stories, so I really wanted to read these comics. Unfortunately, only the first seven comics are out yet, so it will be a really long time before they’re out in trade paperback form. I thought it was going to be hard to track down all 7 of the comics, so I didn’t really expect to be able to read the series. But then, the other day we went to Underworld looking for the Buffy “Tales of the Slayer” book, and they had all 7 Fray issues! So, I bought them all. I felt very geeky buying a bunch of comic books, which was fun. I just read all 7 issues today. Now I can’t wait for part 8 to come out. It’ll be like a month before it’s released, though. Good thing I’m getting Harry Potter 5 tomorrow night. That’ll take my mind off it.

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We get lots of stupid messages on our answering machine, usually from people telling us we’ve “won a trip” or to consolidate student loans. Today I got a message from Borders reminding me that I need to pick up my reserved Harry Potter book this weekend. It was the funniest message, though. This British guy’s voice comes on, introduces himself as the guy who reads Harry Potter audio books, and then in a very dramatic British manner reminds me about my reserved book and tells me that I have to get it this weekend or I don’t get the cheaper reserved price. It was highly amusing. Very unnecessary, of course, as there is pretty much no way that I am going to forget to get my book. Unless I get conked on the head or something.

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Okay, it’s pretty much common knowledge that stress is bad for you, and you should try to avoid getting stressed out as much as possible. I’m not sure that this is possible while driving. I just got home from band practice, and I was in a really good mood. I was happily driving, not even getting annoyed at hitting red lights and stuff, and singing along to the radio (note that I only do this when I’m alone in the car). Then, as I’m about to go through this green light, this jerk turns right on red, right in front of me, going really slow. Now, I didn’t quite have to slam on the brakes, but it was pretty close. I was very, very mad, and the entire rest of the drive home I was angry and stressed out, when only seconds before I had been perfectly happy. These sorts of things happen all the time when I’m driving. I don’t even think these people look before they pull out in front of other cars. Nor do they look when backing out of parking spaces. Plus they never use their turn signals. I wish they would just stay off the road. Sigh. Okay, I’m going to do something else now to make me forget about the bad drivers and make me happy again.

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Apparently I’m stupid. I went ahead and finished rereading the fourth Harry Potter book, and now it’s driving me crazy that I have to wait until Friday (okay, technically Saturday) to get book five. I should have waited to finish it until Friday. But it was so tempting, just sitting there, part-way read, and I had nothing else to do today, so I picked it up thinking, “Good, I’ll have time to finish it today.” Poor Cedric. I’d forgotten how abrupt it is when he dies. It’s just like, boom, Cedric’s dead. What I really want to know, though, is why did Harry’s father come out of the wand before his mother? And they made a big point of it being the spells cast in the reverse order. So shouldn’t he have been second, having been killed first? Was there some strange circumstance that reversed their order? Or was he really not killed first? I find it very difficult to believe that it was just a mistake, because that’s something pretty obvious. Plus, there’s all kinds of random things throughout all the books that are only explained much later (or have yet to be fully explained, but presumably will be eventually.) I’m hoping in book five we’ll get to learn more about some of the random Death Eaters that have been mentioned, like the Lestanges. Right now they’re mostly all just generic bad guys, and it would be nice to see some with more history and/or personality. Presumably we’ll get to meet new good guys like Arabella Figg and Mundagus Fletcher, since they were specifically mentioned at the end of book four. Hmmm… suddenly I’m wondering what Draco would think if Percy did become a Death Eater, since the Malfoys hate the Weasleys. I think everyone just wants Percy to go evil because everyone already hates him. He’s so annoying. Okay, I have to stop thinking about this before I go trying to find book five spoilers, since I don’t actually want to know what happens next. I’d prefer to just guess.

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