Betty Bowers Reviews the movie Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

''What barely literate Church of God mother, wishing to homeschool her children about Jesus on plastic-laminated card tables in her damp unfinished basement, stands a chance against the lush glittering allure of the grandly furnished, gothic Hogwarts Academy? Yes, Hogwarts is similar to Christian academies in that no time is squandered teaching history, literature and science (and there are few unsightly non-Caucasian children) but, sadly, that is where the similarity ends! ''

This is a good one. =)

real sex

...on HBO, that is. Real sex around here is nonexistant. Anyway, on HBO's Real Sex last night, I saw a woman calling herself The Baroness, who is a Sadist and Dominant Mistress. I couldn't sleep for thinking about her. Great personal power and presence. I decided it's not that I want to be her slave, it's that I want to be her. I want to have that much 'oomph' when I walk into a room. I think makeup is required for that, though, and I'm not up for female drag lately. It's all I can do to shave my legs every month or so.

Oddly, Real Sex is not found in a search of the HBO web site.

I ordered HBO On Demand (2 months free) so I could watch The Sopranos. Wound up also watching all the episodes of Six Feet Under, which my Death & Dying prof recommends highly. I got into The Sopranos because my sister brought over the boxed set of the first season when it came out, and I watched it all in a period of a couple of days. I've been waiting for her to buy season two, but I got about half of it by getting HBO On Demand. I really like being able to watch what I want, when I want. Much easier than trying to figure out what's on and when, because I usually have something scheduled when good stuff (like CSI) is on. Got to remember to set my vcr for CSI tomorrow night.

Powers Of 10 Java applet.

View the Milky Way at 10 million light years from the Earth. Then move through space towards the Earth in successive orders of magnitude until you reach a tall oak tree just outside the buildings of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Florida. After that, begin to move from the actual size of a leaf into a microscopic world that reveals leaf cell walls, the cell nucleus, chromatin, DNA and finally, into the subatomic universe of electrons and protons.

Pretty cool, huh?

just another day

Nothing happened today. I got up, watched tv, read--er, studied, went to the drug store & picked up antidepressants. Read some more. Feel like going to bed early, say, 6pm? That seems a little early, even for me. Maybe I'll just go read some more of Gaimon's American Gods. Interesting story about the marketing of this book at CNN.com It's pretty good. I haven't been able to sink into it as deeply as I thought I would, probably because it is 'hard boiled' and not as friendly and funny as the usual fantasy I read (i.e. Terry Pratchett.)

back in the saddle

Ok, ok, ok. Things are getting better. I went to Death & Dying on Thurs. We met at Christopher House, which is a Hospice. Hospices are cool. If you have six months or less to live, they fix you up with enough pain meds to make you comfortable, so you can make peace with yourself and the world. That was pretty soothing. However, the reading for the class was extremely intense. As in, I kept crying and thinking 'I need to be in therapy about this.' It brought to my attention that I'm not over a breakup I had nearly 20 years ago. I always think of it as 'my divorce' from Laura. Really it was her dumping me in the most inhumanly cruel ways possible. I say 'ways' because, well, it's appropriate. The dumping went on over the period of about a month. I don't want to go into it any more.

Anyway, Death & Dying will probably be good for me. Anatomy & Physiology remains boring.

I need to apply for jobs this week. I've heard they have openings at both South Austin and Brackenridge Hospitals. I must act while they have openings, and quit messing around.