The End of HP

Hewlett Packard? No, Harry Potter. We've finished the Deathly Hallows, and sadly that's the end of it all (apparently, at least). I've got all sorts of thought and opinions to express, but I'm not even going to start here, except for this one (highlight to read):

Albus Severus Potter is a really awful name.

We'll probably never see a book series with that kind of popularity again. Now that the Star Wars movies and the Harry Potter books are over with, I can't think of any upcoming movie or book release that I would attend at midnight, especially while there are young children to take care of.

Anyway, now that all seven books are out, here how I rank them, as my favorites:

1. Prisoner of Azkaban
2. Half-Blood Prince
3. Sorceror's Stone
4. Deathly Hallows
5. Order of the Phoenix
6. Goblet of Fire
7. Chamber of Secrets

And . . . . . . discuss.

Pixar and Potter

I'm a sucker for Top Ten or Top 40 lists. I'm not addicted, but I'm definitely interested. I've watched parts of stupid things like "Top 40 Heavy Metal Moments" on VH1. Not because I sought out to do so, but because I was flipping channels and found it.

Anyhow, after seeing Ratatouille on the 4th of July, I've now seen all eight Pixar films. What follows is how I rank them, from most to least favorite, based on only one viewing of Ratatouille. Note that I'm not saying which movie is best - there's a big difference a "Top Ten Movies of All Time" list and a "My Favorite Movies List." Here goes:

1. The Incredibles
2. Cars
3. Toy Story 2
4. Finding Nemo
5. Ratatouille
6. Toy Story
7. Monsters, Inc.
8. A Bug's Life
   

Discuss.

And have you ever considered the sheer number of celebrities that have contributed their voices to these movies? I almost started making a list and then realized how long it would be.

Finally: in less than 90 minutes it will be July 21st, and I will be heading to the store that is a center of all-things literary: Meijer. I'll return some pop cans, get some groceries, and pick up a copy of Harry Potter 7, and try to resist reading any before I go to bed. I'll probably fail.

Firefox is Fabulous

Lately, our computer was running sloooowww........aaaaas......mooolassssssessss. We weren't very diligent about virus protection and such things, so I fixed that and cleared out some spyware that was haunting our machine. That didn't make much difference. I contemplated getting more memory. Then, I also installed the Mozilla Firefox web browser, as I've been encouraged to do from various sources in the past. Today was the first day where we've run Firefox exclusively (no Internet Explorer at all), and it's like the problem had never even existed. I'm so happy with it, and it's been a little boost to the mundanity (?) of life, especially since I'm "teaching" an online course right now and it's been driving me bonkers to count the seconds of my life wasting away as I watch the computer sit in a stupor after every mouse click, even to load up stupid things like pages of text. Anyhow, I hope this improved performance continues.

Of course, I remember, my freshman year at Calvin, in 1998, on the dorm computers in the basement, following a discombobulated series of links to grainy images of various things from Star Wars. It took 5 minutes to go through the whole thing and load the pictures, but we thought it was awesome.

And the One shall become Two

I'll apologize now: I'm Sorry.

Since no anti-blog proliferation treaty has been signed yet, I'm taking this opportunity to create another blog. The one you're reading now, which is mikedekker.blogspot.com, will be my own personal blog, where I can rant and rave about sports, movies, beer, math, or whatever.

Meanwhile, all the happenings of Mike, Lisa, Annika, Abby and Jake will be moving to a different blog, which is located here:

handfulofdekkers.blogspot.com

So, if you just want to hear about what's going on in our family, you can stick with that one. The two blogs will always be linked to each other, so they'll be easy to find, but you'll have to adjust bookmarks and such a little bit, if that's something you do. Sorry.

Anyhow, you can venture over there now if you like, as the first family update will be appearing shortly. Cheers!