A late Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince movie review...

Quite a long post title, I wanted to write something, but nothing too insightful...
So for those freaks who don't know Harry Potter, well what planet are you on? This leads me to my raw classification of people within the Harry Potter realm.
The freaks who don't even know what it is...
The ones that heard about it, but just disregard it as another strange social following phenomenon...
The ones that heard about it, but like to think they are different so of course they don't give it the time of day...
I could go on, there are several sub types of these people, however I think it is a enough to get the picture.
The ones that watched one or more movies, but don't really see the interest...(at least gave it a chance these... let's say strange minds :P)
The ones who kinda like it and follow the movies, however can't be bother to read the book...
The ones that never care, watched the first movie simply to see what the fuzz was about, thought it was okish, had a lot of free time on their hand after the movie, stop in a book shop, read a bit of the second book, took it home, 2 days latter came for the 3rd, and a couple of days latter for the 4th, and then waited over a year for the 5th, and then 6th, then 7th. Waited in line at midnight at the day of the release....(people like ME :P)
The core fans, started with the books, and loved them....
I could go on but it would be a raw classification :P.

I am a movie person, I normally keep clear of the books, usually the book is better than the movie, although there are some exceptions, or at leas movies that work better than the book. In the case of Harry Potter the 3rd movie is clearly the best one, and is also the best adaptation, meaning follows the book best...
This is the thing, I don't see the movie as a book fan, for example Interview with a Vampire the movie is good, the book is also good, but the story is quite different. This is fine, on Harry however there is a tendency to stick to the book, which is quite impossible, so you don't fully understand the movie without the book. The 3rd is the exception.

In the Half Blood Prince, the movie shouldn't eve have that title considering the pour explanation for why it is so. More than half the book is about this fact, in the movie 3 minutes at most... The movie tells bits and pieces of stuff that you kinda get, but only fully understand with the book. It is also a bit scattered doesn't follow a flow. As a movie it is average, nothing special, and in my opinion gives away too clearly the 7th book. Things are more black and white in the movie, the book is more hazy and dark, as is the 3rd movie....

So all in all, watchable movie, but very pour in content and plot...

The surprise at Christmas... Late post...

So as promised ages ago, here is my Christmas surprise. Some background knowledge for those who aren't Portuguese. It is an old tradition of University students, when they finish, to burn their ribbons, actually, bless then and burn them... But i am getting off track. The ribbons are different colors, namely your university colour, your degree colour, and some special ones, for girlfriend and family, namely red and white. So it is tradition to give these ribbons to friends and family to write their thoughts and wishes for you. Then you would take the ribbons put then into a special folder and take them to the ceremony where they are blessed. Afterwards, there is a party that is to "burn the ribbons", a party for the next stage of your life. You don't really burn the ribbons, at least not the ones that people wrote. Now for my story, for years i got these bloody ribbons where I had to write stuff, and don't get fooled by the blog, I am not a writing person :P. Obviously, I didn't follow this tradition, didn't want to put the people through it, and mostly didn't want to put myself through it. So apparently my complaining about it, when i got a ribbon to write for a friend gave her the idea, since i said maybe one day I'll make you write one so you know how hard it is... Of course this was ironic, people don't get irony nowadays :P...
One last thing before the plot, because I am a control freak it is hard to keep stuff off my radar...

The plot:
So two of my best friend decided to join forces to give me a Christmas present... The folder with all the ribbons. It may seem easy, but my friends don't all know each other, so orchestrating something like this without my knowledge was hard enough. The fact that I am not in Portugal worked to their advantage, however they managed to get people from the UK to write the ribbons. That was something, since they knew nobody in the UK. Let's take a moment to thank the social networks that allow then to contact my girlfriend behind my back. Yes, they didn't know each other at the time. So all plotted and kept their mouth shut... And the result is my surprise in these videos. There are two because both wanted to record the moment to share with some of their fellow conspirators... And now the world can see it, enjoy ;P

Irina's:


Joana's:


Did you notice my surprise to the names...

Back from holiday and got my Prince 2 Foundation certificate...

Hello world, so the plan to write more on the blog fell through, that will teach me on promises :P. The time in Portugal was full of topics but lack of time so.... After that was in Mallorca, no computer so just stories ;P.
Got back last Sunday and been a bit busy with the Prince 2 shit, did the exam yesterday, passed with flying colour so that is done.
Now back to the real PhD life, abstract for another conference, it seems I am being haunted by conferences, hopefully it is the last paper for a big while. On the upside it is just an abstract for now, the paper is due in October and a lot of watter will go under the bridge before that.
Write that is a sum update, I can't really force myself to write anything else, this was already a bit hard to write, my mood for sharing is not at all time high lets say... However not promising but, a bigger post will come soon...