Prisoner of Azkaban

I just got done reading and watching this title! I am now officially a HP fan! I have immediately started reading Year four: Goblet of Fire. The book was absolutely astonishing but I was a little let down by the movie. The book was full of details and did an excellent job at expanding on the three favourite characters; Hermione, Ron and Harry. The end, like the first two books, were also filled with twists and turns, revealing the good from the dark side. I thought the first two movies followed the book pretty closely but left out a few minor details but for Year three, the movie decided to leave out, sometimes even changing certain plots from the book. The movie was still entertaining but in my opinion absolutely cannot be compared to the book. Like how the movie completely left out why Black, Potter and Pettigrew became learned how to become an Animagus. It was because they were very compassionate of Lupin's condition and wanted to keep him company during his transformation. They were best of friends, just like Hermione, Ron and Harry. The movie also completely left out the second quidditch match, where Harry rode his Firebolt, that won Griffindor the cup. Another character development that was left out was how Snape was almost killed by a prank only to be rescued by Potter but suspected him of causing it all to begin with, therefore the huge hatred Snape has for Harry. Ok enough HP for now.

So the last two weekends, I didn't really do anything or go anywhere. The first of the two, Joe and James + Nick came in to town to visit. It was really good seeing Joe again after about a year. He seems to be doing well and liking his new life in Michigan. We spent quite a lot of quality time together and that was nice. James + Nick drove in to attend a wedding. Last weekend, was beautiful, weather wise. I just hung out downtown with my book and laptop for majority of the day. Tried going out on Fri and Sat nights but just getting tired of the scene here. I spent three whole hours washing and waxing my car on Sunday, so much for lazy Sunday afternoon!

Chicago

I was really excited as I had been looking forward to labor day weekend for quite a while. I headed for St Louis pretty much right after work on Friday and got in at around 7pm, the traffic was bad. Interstate 70 came to a complete stop several times for no apparent reason whatsoever, just stupid drivers I guess. Driving in, I was sure the trip to Chicago would have been cancelled since we had not secured a hotel room but soon after I arrived, Patricio made a reservation at Hotel Cass (Holiday Inn Express) at the heart of Magnificent Mile. That night we (Dave, Patricio, Applebee's Ryan, Dwane and me) had dinner at Maggiano's and then later met Nestle guy at Freddy's and H2+Mas at Novak's. I had so much fun but the weekend had just started. Spent the night at Dwane's that night, Angel's loft is really nice!

The next day, got to Dave's bright and early but we didn't leave for Chicago till about noon because Patricio's tire blew out. On the way up, we had some really strange but serious conversations, topics ranged from religion to phylosophy to sexuality. It was interesting though and made the drive go by very quickly. Before we knew it, we were there. It's been 3 or 4 years since I've last visited Chicago, the tall buildings and large crowds immediately reminded me of my recent trip to NYC. We checked into our Hotel Cass and signed up for valet parking eventhough Dave was against the idea but it just made life easier. We walked around Mich Ave for a awhile and later met up with Elliot and Bill for dinner. After dinner, we took the cab down to boys' town and went to Sidetracks, Roscoes' and then later Hydrate.

The next day, I got up and left the two boys still sleeping and went to have brunch with Elliot and Bill. We all later met up again and walked around visiting tourist sites; Libraries, fountains and of course the bean. That night, we had dinner at the Grand Lux Cafe (apprently operated by the same people as Cheesecake Factory) and then skipped out on Bill's cousin's party. Dave and I took the train down to Boys' town while Patricio stayed back to study for the MCAT. We didn't party too hard, just checked out all of the bars and got home at a decent hour. Monday was check out day. We paid our bill and took the train down to Chinatown where we got to enjoy some Malaysian cuisine and walked around. Dave and Patricio seemed to like the chinese bakeries very much. We left Chicago around 5pm and got back to St Louis at around 11pm, where I immediately got back on the road heading back to Columbia. I finally made it home at around 1am, but on the way, around where HWY 40 meets I-70, I got my first ever speeding ticket in Missouri. Fortunately, I know an attorney so Dave's trying to get it fixed, I'm keeping my fingers crossed....

Books and more

I just finished reading the book AND watching the movie. As always the book is much better but I must say the movie follows the book very closely. Certain scenes that I thought had been cut out were in the deleted scenes section instead. I read somewhere that JK Rowling refused to give up control of the films to some Hollywood executive, so she's still very much in control. I guess I'm still obsessed with Harry Potter :) Moving on to book number three, Prisoner of Azkaban. Derrick from work loaned me this book as it was taking forever to get them from the library.

This past weekend was spent recuperating from a cold. I'm actually still sniffling and coughing as I'm typing. Went to the Roots and Blues festival with Beau on Friday after gym. Saturday I had lunch with Justin and hung out with him and Chadd the majority of the day. Justin cooked dinner and then we watched couple of scary movies. They were dumb. That night I took two Benadryls and slept for almost 12 hours. I could have slept more if I hadn't made plans to meet Chadd and Justin at Ernie's for brunch. Watched Chamber of Secrets with Chadd and then later played some tennis with Justin. That's pretty much all I did for the weekend. Mainly resting from the labor day weekend before where I had gone to Chicago with Dave and Patricio. Anyway I'll have another entry for that soon with pictures :)