In preparation for the final Harry Potter book in a few weeks, I’ve started re-reading the series. I ordered the full set from amazon on Wednesday, and then realized I should go check half price books to see if they had them. I picked up the first three books there, and then when I went to cancel my amazon order, they had already changed to “prepared for shipment,” so I couldn’t cancel. So, if you need the first three Harry Potter books, I’ll soon have extra copies.

And, in preparation for the next movie, I already bought my tickets to the midnight showing the night it comes out. The next month will be increasingly Potter-centric as I head towards my trip to the UK on July 30th; it’s an exciting time in the literary and travel world of Nathaniel Jones.

It’s also exciting in the cinematic world, as I’ve been going to the movies quite a bit lately - in theaters I’ve seen Shrek 3, Spiderman 3 (which contains a brief cameo by USC chum Eddie Padilla), 300, 1308, Rocky Horror Picture Show (with a severely disappointing live cast), and a few movies on DVD as well.

On the employment front, I’m still working for JF, although I’m still on notice that this job will be ending shortly, so I’m still looking for my next employer. Ideally, I’ll have something lined up by the time I go to England, which gives me just over a month to get a new job (or less, depending on when JF decides I’m officially unemployed). About a week ago I saw an ad on craigslist writing for Jellyvision’s educational branch (Jellyvision is the company that makes the “You Don’t Know Jack” games), so I need to finish writing a script to sent out to them, as that job sounds like it would be fun, and right up my alley.

Climatically, it’s finally becoming hot. It’s not unbearable yet (still in the 80s, as compared to later on when it should be around in the mid-thousands), but I’m glad that I have my air conditioner and a swimming pool (and Lila picked up a swimming suit a little while back, so now we can go swimming, and we’re planning a trip to Schlitterbahn (a huge water park) some weekend we have work off. The funny thing about air conditioning, though, is that while outside it is very hot and muggy outside (whoever said it was dry heat was wrong), people keep the AC turned way up in many places (*cough cough* Lila’s apartment *cough cough*), so while I am comfortable in my apartment with the AC between 75-80, she and her friends come over and complain about how hot it is, as they like to keep their AC at 68 or lower. I find this funny, because when I’m at their apartment, the Seattle guy who’s used to the cold is shivering, while the Texas people who are used to heat are sweating. Ridiculous.

Last night was Alex’s 21 Run (or 6th Street Crawl, as they call it in Austin), and I was the designated photographer, so here are a few pictures from that:

And here are some pictures I took a while ago but haven’t posted yet:





















And that is enough of a post for today. Goodnight, all.

I am feeling much better than I did at the time of my last real update. Following that post, I spent a few days delving into my own projects and hiding from the outside world (with the exception of Lila and a few of her friends, with whom I went to the gay pride parade and had far more to drink than I ought’ve).

Since then, I’ve been having a pretty awesome time down here; Lila has been showing me around, and introducing me to places and things that I hadn’t experienced before (on Wednesday she took me out to a barbecue place, thanks to a gift certificate from her roomie, and we’ve gone to a few different new restaurants, and I’ve tried eating a few things that I’d never tried, including Queso, which apparently is hugely popular in Austin). I’m liking trying all these new things - it is fun.

I also went out to the movies a few times this week - I saw “Knocked Up,” “Severence,” and “Pirates of the Caribbean.” Knocked Up was just as good as I was thinking it would be, although I didn’t enjoy it as much as I did “40 year old virgin,” mostly I think because I could not relate to it as well. Definately worth seeing, though. “Severence” was a fun slasher-type movie, although I was a bit disappointed by it, as I was expecting it to have a better mix of comedy and horror, ala ’sean of the dead.’ I’d say it’s worth seeing, but you can wait to rent it. “Pirates” is worth seeing on the big screen just because it’s such a big movie. I enjoyed it, but at almost three hours, it was a bit much, and I was exhausted at the end of it. As other reviews have said, the plot was overly complicated, and if they had simplified it a bit and cut a half hour off the run time, I think it could have been much better. But still, go see it in the theater, because you need to see it on a large screen.

Theater prom was this weekend, and unfortunately I had to miss it, as I am in Texas. I looked into how much it would cost to fly up for it, but it was going to be about $400, and since I don’t yet have a new job, I decided that I really shouldn’t be spending so much money just to go to a dance. Oh well. At least I can look at the pictures on facebook.

In other news, I’ve just discovered last.fm, an internet radio dealie that lets you play stations based on similar artists, or similar tags, and eventually it will learn enough about what types of music you like, and it’ll make a personal radio station of songs that you’ll like. So I’ve been enjoying that whenever I’m at my computer.

And now I’m going to stop writing, since I am boring myself.

Too many pictures for one post, so here’s a link to their page:
http://www.nathanieljones.com/pictures/Austin/punsandgpp/