Pottermore Review ***SPOILERS***

Little "Author's Note" here : if you are awaiting your Pottermore email and don't want the surprise to be ruined don't read this.

On the other hand - if you're unsure as to what Pottermore is and think it's just the books online then read this and see that it is so so much more than that and that it is definitely worth getting.

Pottermore email

So yesterday I got the best email EVER.  Slight exaggeration you say? Not at all. I was one of the lucky 1million to complete the Magical Quill challenge from 31st July-6th August and gain early access to Beta test the Pottermore site before it goes out to everyone in October and I am SO glad I did.

It is just incredible. Basically it takes you step by step through every chapter of every book (although currently only the first book is available). In each chapter there are 2/3 scenes which hold information that you can find, items you can collect and general things that you can zoom in and out of and interact with. It's only early days at the moment so unfortunately there's no sound but basically everyone on there is commenting saying there needs to be sounds effects. However being the cool person that I am I just played the various Harry Potter soundtracks I have on itunes :P

Diagon Alley

So you work your way through - Harry's arrival at Privet Drive, the letters from Hogwarts, Hagrid taking him to Diagon Alley. This has to be one of the best bits. You open up your own Gringotts Bank Account and then you're given the shopping list that all Hogwarts students get so you can go around Diagon Alley and buy all yourself a cauldron, potion ingredients, school books, and a pet. You can choose between an owl, a cat or a toad so I got myself a lovely barn owl. Unfortunately you can't name your pet which is a bit pants but reading through the comments nearly everyone has suggested that you should be able to.

Anyway, last but not least, you get a wand :) Good old Mr Ollivander is there and he explains that you will be asked a few questions about yourself so that you get a wand that suits you. Here's mine:

Love it <3

It's explained that the various woods, lengths and magical core's of a wand are dependent on personality type and actually, having read through the descriptions, my wand is very accurate to the sort of person I am so congrats Pottermore on that :)

Anyway then you continue on to board the Hogwarts Express and go to Hogwarts where you're greeted by Professor McGonnagall and taken through to the Sorting Ceremony - exciiiting! :D

 

Like the wand selection process there are more questions posed to you that help determine which house you will be put it. Look where I ended up:

Yeh I know. I was disappointed to begin with - you don't hear too much about Hufflepuff's in the book and the name sounds a but ... poofy but having read the description of Hufflepuff students I would have to agree that is suits me right and I'm quite enjoying befriending fellow Hufflepuffers (maybe not the best choice of collective term) and hey, Cedric Diggory was a Hufflepuff so we're not all useless :P

Anyway, after this is gets a little less exciting but you still get to interact with the story, take a Potions class, use spells (this took me ages as the instructions are appalling) and eventually you go through the challenges to reach the Philosophers Stone and voila :)

Then that's it for now, until Chamber of Secrets becomes available. But there's plenty to do - practice spells, send gifts to fellow 'students', duel other wizards (this is down for maintenance atm which is upsetting as I'd love to have a go at that) and brew potions for housepoints:

Brewing myself a Cure for Boils potion :)

The graphics for the site are absolutely brilliant - proper book illustration style. What they have so far really is fantastic, especially as it's only really a 'practice run'. There's loads more they can add to improve it and it's great to see that the other 124,577 HP fanatics that have so far been allowed access have plenty of ideas too :D

So hope that helps you lot that are sat on the fence about it. Although if I have tempted you I'm afraid you'll now have to wait until October until you can register. 

For you friends who have registered early and are awaiting your email - hope to see you in Hufflepuff house soon :)

xxx

Colin Firth interview

My Mum saw this on TV the other day and being awesome thought to record it for me. The interviewer guy (James Lipton) is absolutely awful and if he wasn't 84 I would be tempted to punch him ... actually I still am. But Colin Firth, being Colin was hilarious.

It contains some of the best interview answers I've ever heard. Par example:

James Lipton: If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?
Colin Firth: "I personally thought you were very good in Mamma Mia"

James Lipton: What turns you on?
Colin: Crème brûlée
James Lipton: What turns you off?
Colin: Tripe

The whole this is on Youtube so if you love this man (who doesn't?) then I would recommend watching it. Click -> Inside the Actors Studio Colin Firth

30% less art

Two quick things I would like to blog about very briefly and then I shall leave you good people to enjoy your evenings.

Thing 1 - 30% Less
Have you noticed that all this low fat food that is on sale and is more expensive than normal food because it's supposedly made out of healthier, higher quality ingredients is actually just smaller versions of the full fat versions. WeightWatchers lasagne's and curries for example, I can either have one and feel hugely disappointed at the end of the meal or have two of them which completely defies the point. I had a sausage roll today from Asda's healthy range which was apparently 30% less fat. It wasn't, it was just 30% less sausage roll.

Thing 2 - Art
I had an urge last night. An art related urge to try and draw Lupin. I always do this. I get the urge and I do the body and shapes and whatever fairly well. Then I get to the face and I remember that I can't draw faces. Then I sit and cry. Observe.

What I am aiming for

What I so far have

If I feel brave and if I ever manage to draw the face I will post the finished version. Don't get your hopes up though.

Nightynight

Cock

xxx

ps. I dids it :D

My finished Lupin :)

Employ me :(

I've applied for 11 jobs since 25th July including WHSmiths, Gala Bingo, Theatre Royal, couple of bars, Pizza Hut, Ride and Shakeaway. Heard back from none. Am I rioting about it? ... No.

Who'd have brothers?

... in particular, autistic ones.

As far as I'm concerned my brother's autism is just an excuse for him to be a lazy, stubborn layabout little git who does his utmost to make life difficult for my Mum.

For the last two years he's been boarding at a house Mon-Fri while he's been at college. The idea was to teach him to look after himself and gain confidence and make friends and everyone has said how brilliantly it had worked - Simon has learned to cook for himself (with supervision otherwise he grates his fingers off apparently and ends up covered in blue plasters). But it got him into a routine - the sort that "normal people" do. Set an alarm early in the morning, showered everyday (haha, you'll be lucky if he showers once a week at home, it's disgusting, he's 18 years old!). In the evenings he'd to go the cinema or to the pub with his friends. And for two weeks he did work experience which meant getting a bus to work and back everyday. So in short he is perfectly capable of doing everything for himself.

However at home he turns into some kinda vegetable - all holiday he has sat in my room or his room and watched TV, literally just that. Whenever my Mum asks him to do something, simple things like get himself breakfast or get dressed, he grunts like it's a massive inconvenience and he has better things to be doing. Heaven forbid that we actually ask him to leave the house. Although once he's out he's fine - he was quite happy at our grandparents Monday and shopping yesterday - it's getting him there that's the issue.

Prime example was today. Mum wanted to get him to do something and yesterday he told us he wanted to go see "Mr Popper's Penguins"  at the cinema. So this was something he'd suggested which was encouraging but when Mum told him this morning that I (reluctantly) was going to take him to see it, he went into silent mode.

Half hour before the film was due to start Mum managed to get him downstairs into the hallway and I attempted to show enthusiasm and grabbed my keys and made Jake do a dance and actually got in the car. Simon didn't get as far as the front door before having a strop. Mum tried to get out of him about why he didn't want to go was "It's too long." The film is too long? What a pile of bullshit. And it upsets my Mum, I mean she has a go at him and tries to get him to explain what the problem is but he won't say a word he just stares at the floor and refuses to make eye contact. Seriously frustrating.

So we gave up, Mum unplugged the TV upstairs so he couldn't go back up there again so he shut himself in his room and "cried" while I took Jake for a walk - I get more conversation out of him anyway and he's a dog ... and deaf. When I came back half hour later I could hear Simon's "wailing" from the driveway.

He's such a little bastard. He's perfectly capable of looking after himself but he reverts to being a right twat when he gets home. I'm not saying a lot of his problems aren't down to his autism and I can understand it when it is but right now it's purely down to his shit attitude.

I hope Mum starves him tonight. He never tells her what he wants anyway, he just expects to be brought food in the evening at some point and when he doesn't get it drags himself downstairs and asks why he hasn't had dinner. 

Rant over. Going now.

Cock

xxx

... expecting to pull?

My mum bought me my outfit for my 21st birthday today. In previous years it has been nice dresses but this year it's something a little different.

A MONKEY ONESIE FROM PRIMARK! It has a tail and ears and everything and was only £12. (I'm having a Twenty-Onesie birthday party if you were wondering and am hugely hoping not to be the only one in a onesie.)

So being the child that I am I tried it on the moment I got home and monkey-ed into the living room ...

... and that was when my mother said the best thing she has possibly ever said to me:

"I hope you're not expecting to pull on your birthday."

:O Insulted. I really don't see what she's on about, I think I look pretty fetching:

*ahem*

Ima go now

xxx

A year from now

My Mum has collected up all of the school photos of brother and I from the past 18 and 20 years respectively.

Mine stop once secondary school finishes but I realised though that next year there will be another photo added.

Graduation

How can I be at this stage in my life already? Two months today I will turn 21 (this is my 21st blog, how appropriate) - bizarre how the days seem to drag and yet the years seem to whizz by?

Never mind, to quote some wise fellow:

'Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.'

That's what I'm going to live by :)

And on an equally happy note, he's a picture of my dog eating a teddy:

 

Nightnight

xxx

What you're fighting for

All this crap that's going on in London at the moment is just disgusting. Sky News were showing one building burning down all of last night and for the first few hours at least there was no-one there to stop it, not one solitary policeman. They were too busy being outnumbered 10 to 1 by the thugs on the street, completely helpless because all the have to defend themselves are a shield and a baton. And yet the sort of things that they are being attacked with are bricks, roads signs, fire bombs whatever. 

They need more power. People say that if the police fight back, violence with violence,  they are just as bad. But they're not, surely the BIG difference if they are fighting to defend the livelihoods and protect the people. The thugs aren't, they just show mindless violence, no purpose to it, purely because they can; they've realised how powerless the police are to do anything and they are flaunting it.

Look back over history - what good would it have been if pre-World War II the army just surrounded Britain with some plastic shields and weren't allowed to use gun fire or attack - the Nazis would have won.

When do you ever see superheroes in comics sit back and defend? They don't, they get out there and do something. You don't see Superman standing by the bad guys telling them "I'm very shocked, you will suffer consequences of your actions" and then expecting them to stop. And what would have happened in Batman if he'd stopped for a minute to worry about the Joker's human rights?

The Doctor doesn't go barging in killing every alien that wrongs him, he gives them a chance, he tries to talk to them and if they don't listen - no second chances. 

Slightly different but the principles are the same. People don't rob and lot shops because they're ignorant of the law, they know full well its wrong and they carry on doing it. Asking them to stop won't change their minds, "Oh sorry, I didn't realise burning buildings is bad, my mistake."

As soon as you ignore another persons human rights you forfeit yours - simple as that, and you deserve whatever comes your way.

Obviously fire plus fire is going to equal a much bigger fire, but fighting fire with nothing and waiting won't stop it. And there's no good pouring water on a pile of ashes.

Caution: Angry. Explicit language.

Fucking diets (I did warn you)

It's all complete bullshit.

At uni I eat nothing healthy, I probably have fast food about 3/4 times a week, including a 3000 calorie large Meateor pizza from Dominos. Obviously, I get fat. So when I come home and have a healthy breakfast, sandwich and Skips/pitta bread and dip for lunch, then a dinner of jacket potato or pasta or a salad and a takeaway once a fortnight if I'm lucky you'd expect the weight to fall off me. Or certainly I expected to lose some.

WRONG!

I am still borderline overweight. Admittedly at the moment I seem to be able to maintain my weight at the top of my ideal BMI but then I'm not snacking, I'm eating much slower because I will admit I'm guilty of eating too fast and I'm cycling over 50km a week.

It's driving me completely mad! People will argue that because I'm in my ideal weight range that it's Ok because I'm "healthy" - yeh, great so I won't have a heart attack but I still look repulsive in a bikini.

I hate it :( Even when I was at my lightest after Christmas I wasn't happy with how I (my stomach) looked. I want to be consistently under 10stone, is that really too much to ask?! I mean seriously tell me what to do and I will do it because I am so fed up with trying to do it myself and getting fucking nowhere.

You get told, exercise and eat healthy. Oh but then wait a minute, if you exercise and don't consume enough calories then nothing happens because you don't have enough to burn. And if you do the same exercise routines, it doesn't make a difference because your body gets used to it so adapts. 

It's complete crap. If you wanna gain weight you just go to McDonalds. If you wanna lose it you have to watch every single thing you put in you mouth and have something ridiculous like exactly 1346.4 calories and do 5.6miles cycling but then the next day if you do that same bike ride it all goes to shit and you start gaining again. Fecking spectacular.

Right. I'm off to have some rice (exciting) before I smash something.

ANGRY PUPPY FACE

Dreams

This is going to be really difficult to word without sounding mental - dreams are weird though aren't they? And they're also completely unfair.

So I dream about Molly .. a LOT. Dreaming about people/pets that are dead apparently means you haven't accepted they're gone, which could well be true because I was at uni when she died and I just got a phone call. Whatever the reason, whenever I dream about her the me in my dream knows she's dead and that either she shouldn't be there and I have to hide her so no-one else notices or we've just got her back for a bit, like she's visiting. It's bizarre but I don't think I've ever had a dream with Jake in where Molly wasn't there too. My subconscious can't seem to let there be one without the other.

I dreamt about her last night, then at some point my dream obviously went off on a fairly extreme tangent and I was suddenly on some kinda transport ... possibly a submarine (I have no idea) and it was kinda split into 3 sections length ways and there were 4 guys in the middle section. They had all been drugged in someway ... probably not as weird as that but it's not really clear in my head but anyway they were acting weird, one of them kept wanting to kiss everyone and when he came near me I noticed it was Professor Lupin (or the actor who played him, not sure which) ... obviously I got very excited in dreamworld about this. And obviously when he came near me I let him kiss me but I think I pushed him off fairly quickly because I knew he was a bit druggy but it was long enough for my subconscious to think "Ooo stubble!" 

Sorry, probably too much info there. Don't worry, it won't get any worse than that, promise.

Anyway, whenever we reached wherever we were going, Lupin/David Thewlis snapped out of his weird trance thing and jumped onto a ferry so I followed him and sat next to him. He was like really pale, which apparently was some sorta drug aftermath. So he decides that what he needs to make him better is one of those tiny kids Wildlife yoghurts (the shit my subconscious comes up with) because obviously that always helps. He shared it with me - how romantic. Eventually, nub and gist of this rambling blog, Lupin/David started trying to ask me something all sort of "I was kinda wondering, I mean obviously if it's the wrong thing to say ... but I was hoping ..." and he kept going on like that really dragging it out and his voice kinda got fainter and I felt like someone was slowly pulling me away ... actually the phrase "slipping away" is ideal to explain how this felt. I was kinda straining to stay there but then I woke up with that feeling where you sorta feel like you've just landed on your bed. 

I was so annoyed and was kinda screaming in my head "NOOOO TAKE ME BACK! I WANNA KNOW WHAT HE WAS GOING TO ASK!" but no matter how tightly a closed my eyes it didn't work. Not fair :(

I dunno why I felt the need to record this - but it was so bizarre how one moment I was in a pretty vivid dream and oblivious to the world around me next thing I'm back in bed, with the fan blowing and nothing to look at but the inside of my eyelids. How disappointing *sighs*

Ah well. There's always tonight :)

Bye

Cock

xxx