Harry Potter and Skype and Everything In Between

After how many months, I’ve finally gotten around to installing Skype on my laptop. I really didn’t see the point of downloading it, that is, until two days ago. My co-workers and I are forever calling our provincial office and Skype proved to be a more cost-effective way to do so.

I officially joined the bandwagon around 4 pm. It took me a long time to finish doing the set-up because I installed the program in Deutsch. I did this because I wanted to have an environment that would force me to use the language in one way or the other. I was happy at first because I could understand about 50% of what was written in it. The trouble started when I saw the Skype window because almost everything that was in there were compound words that I couldn’t understand even with the help of the dictionary. I really thought that I bit off more than I could chew but thankfully, I was able to find the language and changed everything back to English.

Lesson learned: start with something simple like the web page of the restaurant Martin told me about ;p

Tueday morning as I was working on my e-mail to Martin, I got a chat invitation from this individual on Skype. He was very polite – introducing himself, where he comes from and even added a compliment that made me feel good. He says that he’s read my blog and found my style of writing interesting. Okay, so my ego got a little bit of some umph :D I’m telling you; flattery works wonders when you first meet or start a conversation with someone. I eventually warmed up to the guy as he proved to be an interesting person to talk to – witty, intelligent and very opinionated.

Normally, I’m a little bit worried about the millions (or even billions) of perverts that are lurking on every part of the world and is currently online at that very moment. Not with Ian (that's his name), I sensed something different about him. Always trust your intuition – specially a woman’s intuition – it never fails!

I felt as if I was talking to myself – we share the same beliefs on a lot of things especially when it comes to spirituality. I don’t know if I have a karmic tie or even a karmic debt to Ian from my previous life/lives but there’s just too many similarities about our personal backgrounds to be considered as a mere coincidence. For example, I was born a Pisces and my dad’s an Aries. Ian’s Aries and his dad and his sister’s Pisces. If this is not the universe telling me something, then I don’t know what is.

I’m quite impressed with this Ian because it’s a very rare occurrence to find someone to have an intelligent conversation with. I became even more impressed when I found out how old he is towards the end of our conversation – he’s only 20! Could you believe it? All along, I though he was in his late 20’s or early 30’s with his level of maturity. Most 20-year-olds I know have nothing but sex and video games in their heads!

Don’t get me wrong though, we’re just friends. Absolutely no hanky-panky business involved!

Anyways, enough about me and my New Age babble. I’m still psyched about seeing Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire at Rockwell last night. The movie was just awesome! Hmm, I wonder if Harry Potter readers are as psyched about it as I am. I’ve never read a single Harry Potter book. I don’t know why but I guess there’s a reason.

Now that I think about it, I think I know what the answer is...

I’ve always been a big fan of Tom Clancy’s work. Every book that he’s written on the Jack Ryan line, I have a copy of it and I’ve read it in a week or less. My record time is 2 days for Without Remorse, which also happens to be my favorite book from the series.

As a kid, I was bored out of my mind when my dad insisted that we watch The Hunt for Red October. When I was a little bit older, I was able to watch the film again and thought that it was okay. After I got acquainted with Tom Clancy’s novels, I seriously thought that the films sucked (except for Clear and Present Danger because they had John Clark’s character in it – it’s pretty obvious that John Clark’s my favorite character, right?).

I hated what they did with Sum of All Fears! Jack’s not supposed to be William Cabot’s protégée because he abhorred Cabot! The film lost the intricacies of the subplots due to the budgetary and time restraints that the director probably faced. I left the theater seriously disappointed. The only consolation that I had was a hunkier John Clark (played by Liev Schreiber) ;p