Books, backstories, bowling

I decided to get a 2-month free trial membership to Barnes & Noble. Not sure if I'll end up keeping it, but it's not that much--just $25 a year, and I do tend to buy a lot of books as gifts (and a few for myself). My first purchase was A Game of Thrones, the first book of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. I ordered it online and just got it today... and it was damaged. If it was something small, I wouldn't care, but the spine of the cover has a slice through it and the first few pages are badly torn. I called the nearest store and had them put one on reserve (they're sold out right now) so I can exchange it there. I'd rather not mail it back 'cause I wouldn't be able read it for at least another week. This way, I can go ahead and start reading it till the store calls me to say they have the book in.

I went and saw Kung Fu Panda 2 at the dollar theater last week. It was good--not as good as the first one, but still a great sequel. It goes into the interesting backstory of the main character, Po, but I wish they had done the same for some of the other characters, as well. For example, I'd really like to know the tale behind Tigress--she's the most "hardcore" of the group, and yet she seems to sympathise with Po when he's frustrated about his past. If they make a third movie (which I think is pretty likely), I really hope they spend time developing the other characters. The animation is basically flawless, though. They used 2-D animation for all the flashback sequences, a nice change of pace, and the prologue and credits are made to resemble Chinese shadow puppetry, which I thought was a nice touch.

For Dad's birthday dinner, we ate at Humble Pie. The Chicago style pizza was amazing, as expected, but the New York style wasn't great. I guess from now on I'll only get the Chicago style there. Besides, if I really want good New York style pizza, I can always go to Little Caesar's, right?   ...just kidding. I'd go to Falcone's.

I'm really excited about Colin coming to visit next week. I got to see him for a few hours on Sunday on his way home from QuakeCon in Dallas. He, Mike, and I ate at Ted's (MMMMMM) and then went bowling. I'm really starting to get sick of not being able to see him, but I just have the rest of this week and then he's back in Oklahoma for the rest of the semester.

I'm really glad summer's almost over. I've been working almost every day for the last three months and haven't had much of a social life. My work schedule will change soon, though, giving me at least one day off each week, which should allow me time to visit Tulsa regularly. Aleithia is leaving :( , but Graham will be here for OU Med school, and Heather will be back from London, so hopefully I'll still have people to hang out with. I have gotten to know my coworkers better over the summer, too, so maybe I'll chill with them outside of work more often. Who knows?