Pinch Hitter 2 is my latest addiction, thanks to my pal Jesse from the VA Board. It plays almost exactly the same as the original Pinch Hitter but now there are multiple levels and achievements to unlock. I'm stuck on achievement 9, the first of the Major League achievements.

Woo hoo! As of tomorrow, I'll be a temporary employee for Yamaha, working on their new e-commerce site. It's only 6 weeks, but the pay is awesome and it will be great experience. Thanks again to everyone for your support these last couple months. It's been rough going, but thanks to you guys and a lot of perseverance, things are on the up and up.

Like I said, I have a lot of vacation time with not a lot of stuff to go out and do, so I took off work to catch the first morning showing of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. 8am morning shows are an awesome option, by the way! It's too early for the kids to be there, and I didn't have to line up around a block and be sleepy for a midnight showing. I stood in line for a short while because the theater itself wasn't open yet, but that line wasn't very big. The theater was full, but not completely packed. In other words, I'd like to practice some divination of my own and say that I foresee myself taking more time off work to see opening-day movies in the future.

This movie follows along with Harry after (in the Goblet of Fire) Lord Voldemort has returned and killed from oblivion and one of the contestants in the Triwizard Tournament and failed to kill Harry in the process. The Ministry of Magic does not want the wizarding world to believe that Voldemort is back, so they use influence with the newspapers to skew the story so that Harry and Dumbledore are looking a bit crazy. The Ministry also inserts Dolores Umbridge as High Inquisitor at Hogwarts, where she quickly finds ways to prevent students from using defensive spells. As a result, Harry and his friends decide to form a group that will practice defensive magic in secret, in preparation for battle with Voldemort and his Death Eaters. s wa

I thought the adaptation was really good. There are a few changes in the plot, which for the most part I approved of, because they didn't affect the spirit of the story or its characters. The only thing it lacked was a more satisfying final battle sequence; Potter fans were looking forward to seeing the various rooms and challenges Harry and his friends faced at the Ministry of Magic, but instead got a quick glimpse of the Order fighting the Death Eaters and a fight between Dumbledore and Voldemort. While it was exciting, it was certainly short and felt a bit rushed, and I was disappointed that we didn't get to see more from that sequence (and while we're at it, a little more from the Weasly Brothers, whose antics I really wanted to see more of!). One last thing regarding the ending would be that I'm not sure the point was made clearly about the significance of the prophecy (or who made it).

The music, acting, directing, and general flow of story were all much improved. I thought there was a great balance between showing us how much darker things are getting with the story while still lightening the mood with jokes, visual humor, and the cool things that magic can do. Casting, as always, was spectacular. The addition of Imelda Staunton as Dolores Umbridge and Evanna Lynch as Luna Lovegood to the cast were both strokes of genius. I wasn't even sure what I thought of Luna when I read the book, but Lynch made me like her a lot. Oh my goodness, Umbridge's office was awesome!

Although one could argue that this could have been called Harry Potter and Dumbledore's Army, since the Order of the Phoenix were given very little screen time (besides Sirius), I didn't mind. Even though I've listed a few things here that I was disappointed to miss out on, this is probably the Harry Potter movie I have the least complaints about (although I admit that this time around, I didn't read the book for review, which could make a difference - but I did go online to fact check and found that I still thought the choices made were good ones).

I'm very pleased with this installment in the series and look forward to David Yates resuming the helm as director for the Half Blood Prince movie. Great job!

"another heart-retching event"

Hmm. That's kind of a gross image, isn't it?