Book 7 & a little bit of chess...

Well, even though it's not Monday, the blog is due for an Update.

I just finished Harry Potter: Deathly Hallows, Book 7, this past Tuesday morning, even allowing myself to be late to work in the process. And while they owed me some time anyway, I am one of those people who occasionally takes a "sick day" just to stay home an read an adventure.

So now I have actually joined the ranks of the multitudes who have read and are fans of the sometimes infamous Harry Potter. In the end, I thought the series as a whole was quite good, and that many people defame the books very unecessarily, going over the top with their criticisms in effort to prove their convictions.

That said, from a literary and my personal point of view, the last two books--Book 6 in particular--were somewhat out of the mold set up by the first five and did not deliver the goods in some ways as amazingly as I had yearned. While the final scenes of the series were crazy awesome, some of the setup was a bit over-the-top and over-complicated.

I'd take more time to go into detail if I were not at work and actually had moments to spare besides. Suffice to say the planned euthanasia revealed in the end was not inspiring, and neither were the seemingly endless scenes of snogging in Book 6, and celebrated at the end of Book 7. For all the literary and imaginative greatness revealed by Rowling in Books 1-5, and her seeming initial unwillingness to sink to the level of carnal tastes, the aforementioned features unecessarily marred an otherwise great story.

Oh well. I actually didn't expect complete perfection. But again, it was, overall, pretty damn good.

When I wasn't immersed in the last few books, for the past 2 or 3 weeks I have found myself back online playing chess. I often go through spurts of playing and not-playing, and I was reminded to start playing again when I found a white queen chess piece outside at work, which now adorns my desk here at work.

I am not entirely sure why, exactly, but I am excited to say that my game is now the best it's ever been, at least in the 10-minute segment. I find myself sacking Class A players (the rank below master level), and say to myself, "What the hell? I mean, Yah! What the hell!" This totally pumps me up and makes the game that much more exciting.

I hope this isn't just a streak of good luck, because if it is I've been lucky for a while. I still need to study the game and improve for sure; it's just awesome when you finally find yourself seriously dominating and making 1900 level players crumble.

So that's it for now. I've tooted my own horn enough. Let fly the cannons and all that good stuff. I'll see you later.

--Nick-Dog