absence makes the heart grow fonder…

Where, oh where does the time go???

I guess it’s been a while since I’ve last blogged – we’re in a new month (my birthday month!), the summer’s almost over, and … well, that’s about it. Nah, surely things have happened since my fateful last post on July 23rd when I made the trip that would become the highlight of my summer (thus far, anyways)…

The Simpsons Movie
We saw it the weekend it came out and it was every bit as awesome as I’d hoped it would be! Not at all like the Family Guy movie that FOX attempted a couple of years back that was little more than three episodes stringed back to back, this one felt just like a real movie with all of the gasps and nearly tear-jerking moments, and of course, “Spider-Pig, Spider-Pig…” I’ve been waiting for this movie for a long time and it by far exceeded my expectations – just as a feature length story from The Simpsons should.

Mind you, it doesn’t hurt that the flick already made $128 million after only two weeks in theaters, holding its own with the top blockbusters of the summer and proving that the longest running cartoon of all-time still has its place twenty years after it first debuted. They’ve effectively doubled their budget after just two weeks – Transformers and Shrek the Third are the only other two blockbusters that can even come close to that kind of boast, but it still took Transformers over a month and Shrek the Third close to three. Doh!

Harry Potter and the Last Freakin’ Book
So I finally finished it Sunday afternoon, and I’ve got to admit, I was a little sad to see the story finally end, too. To think that I first got started on the series when I was working at the warehouse up north – maybe 2002 or early 2003. I burned through the first four volumes one after another, yet didn’t even crack the 5th one until after I moved down here. Since then I’ve seen three of the five films in IMAX and really gotten somewhat attached to all of the quirky students from Hogwarts, and their teachers and even He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named! It was sad to see the tale end, but also I think she did a good job of wrapping everything up – I had a few qualms about things at the end, which I still won’t get into here because I don’t want to be a douche like The Associated Press and every subsequent paper who ran their “story” about JK Rowling that just happened to explain what the title was all about before their disclaimed of SPOILERS AHEAD! Hint: just because you’re not into the books doesn’t mean that you should go out of your way to ruin it for anyone else who might be. There were plenty of other mentions that could’ve filled that column – as far as I’m concerned, it was no better than the Washington Post, whose article ran three days before the official launch date, even though the defended it by saying that they got it “through legal sources.” Anyways…

Wedding Planning 90210
Not much news since we picked the date a couple of weeks ago, but things are overall still going well with all of the wedding-related stuffs. We went to a bridal show one weekend, which was an experience, to say the least, and I’m sure it would’ve been even more fun if I hadn’t been a man, but I won’t get into that now because I’m kind of over it at this point. I’m told that there are more coming up in September anyways, so I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time to revisit the topic then! Regardless, last night we met with a videographer and were pretty impressed with what he brought to the table, so even though we haven’t officially put down money for either him or the DJ yet, we’ve pretty much made our selections for those. The officiant himself is still up in the air after an unfortunate turn with the catholic religion in general … again, I’m just in too good of a mood to get into this now, but I did write a rather energetic column about it for my writing website, whenever that finally gets up and going! But nonetheless, I think we’re both feeling optimistic about how things have gone thus far and we’re still well on track to having the bulk of the pre-planning done before Sara starts school in January and all hell breaks loose…

The Search for a Better Domicile
I swear, this is going to drive me nuts before all is said and done. Our original plan was going to be to find a rental house sometime in the month of August because our lease is up on Nov. 7th and we need to give 60-days notice, which pushes us back to Sept. 7th to decide whether or not we’re leaving, however unfortunately it seems that most people aren’t really interested in waiting two and a half months for our current contract to run its course before we start paying them, so we’re kind of just stuck waiting right now. Instead I guess we’ll be going crazy in September (and hopefully not October) trying to find something, seeing as we’ll have had to put in our notice by then and officially we won’t have anyplace to stay in November unless we find a new house! Here, crazy and logical me thought that landlords would respect that we’re finishing our current lease the right way, but I guess I can understand their perspective, too – until then, they’re having to pay the mortgages themselves while the places are empty. For what it’s worth, though, we have been finding some pretty decent places online that are within our price range and with any luck, more of the same will be available when we check back for real in about a month or so…

Summer Madness
But I guess ultimately the summer of 2007 hasn’t really been all that lazy. In fact, we’ve probably gone out and done something just about every single weekend just because I feel like we should be out doing something fun when we’re actually both off for an entire weekend together! We’ve been cruising around in the new car a lot, even though we’ve had to do the ever-embarassing pull-over-on-the-freeway-to-put-the-top-up-when-it-starts-pouring-rain move on more than one occasion since we’ve had it! We’ve played a few rounds of mini-golf, the latest of which was nearly cut short by one of those very same downpours that left us completely drenched for the hour-long trip home! We’ve had a few walks on the beach at night, albeit to get our exercise before going to the movies because we felt guilty, and of course, lots and lots of trips to the movies. And that same evening that we saw The Simpsons MOVIE, we also spent part of the evening at a comedy club over in Clearwater, which was a lot of fun, despite the fact that Sara insisted we sit at a table in the very front row!

And there’s still more to come, as my little sister is talking about coming down for a much-needed break here in the next few days, and on top of that, we mustn’t forget my birthday which will be here before we know it and of course only great things will come from that weekend! Time, it certainly does fly by fast, and on that note, I’ve got a rousing game of Bubble Bobble to return to – tonight my record so far is level 32, but I’m determined to set a new record. Man, do I miss those days with the old school NES and not having to start from scratch after I die…

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