Adverb Reform School. STAT!
I’m reading Harry Potter #6. I’m not a diehard HP lover but I’ve enjoyed the books and movies.

So far, this book sucks ass. I read 225 pages and nothing happened. Nothing. It was the equivalent of reading about Harry flossing his teeth for 225 pages. I felt sorry for the kids who stayed up until midnight and paid $30 for a hardcover of this book. I’m now about halfway in (it’s about 800 pages) and a few things that might indicate some sort of plot have happened, so maybe the book will make up for it in the second half.

Along with the crime of writing pages and pages of plotless fiction, J.K. has never met an adverb she didn’t like. Bracingly. Quellingly. Warmingly. Are those even words? Are you allowed to put “ly” at the end of any word that you feel like? Another gem was when someone said something with a “significantly dark tone.” Marc said that he had to negotiate with his editor because he likes to invent verbs. (Just in case it’s not clear here, I know that bracingly isn’t a verb. I’m suggesting that Marc was inventing fun words and had to negotiate with his editor while J.K. makes up adverbs which any basic writing lesson will tell you to use sparingly.)(HA HA, I used an ingly word.) Yeah, yeah, I know if you sell a gabillion copies, you can do whatever you want. And at least people are reading.

And while I’m bitching about popular entertainment, I also watched Flightplan. I’ve been sitting on the DVD for two weeks. Kathy said she was disappointed with it, but I like Jodie Foster and thought it would be an entertaining thriller for a rainy afternoon. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s about a woman who goes on an overseas flight with her daughter and falls asleep. When she wakes up, her daughter is gone. There is no record of the daughter on the passenger list. Sound a bit intriguing? You’d think.

Turns out, it’s pretty stupid. Jodie’s character goes so completely batshit crazy, like climbing around in the ceiling of this plane which is the size of a cruise liner (I kept waiting to see the room with the pool) that it’s hard to sympathize with her. I’m not going to spoil it but the huge money shot at the very end is so completely contrived and ridiculous that I laughed, nay, I cackled while slapping my knee and stomping the floor. I can just see the writer at his writers group and creating this moment, the whole reason to have the movie, and the others chiming in, “Yeah, and she can emerge from the smoke. Yeah, and there can be emergency lights flashing in the background. Yeah, and … .”

Also the movie barely has 90 minutes worth of story so there’s some padding going on.

Final tidbit of the day, I made this epic casserole last night. I had to ask Bob to stop eating so we’d have some leftovers for this week. On Weds I bought a pound of roasted Poblanos at the farmers market. They have a guy there with a rig to roast them while you watch. For the casserole I took half that and diced them and stirred them with sour cream. I used a bunch of cooked rice and layered the rice with the sour cream mix, a diced Mexican style cheese that I can’t remember the name of, and diced cooked chicken. You do that for 2 layers and then top with rice and a sprinkle of cheese. Bake for about 30 minutes. Enjoy.