800 Words of Awesomeness! June 11, 2008

JK Rowling has written an 800 word prequel to the Harry Potter series!  It was written for charity and auctioned off.  A bunch of authors wrote stories and they were compiled together into this book that was auctioned off.  You can also buy a copy of it online.

However, the stories are also online!  I just read Jo’s story and it was great!  Funny, detailed, and just plain awesome.  If anyone wants to read it, here’s the link.

http://www.mugglenet.com/app/news/full_story/1684

BaO, BaO, Wherefore Art Thou BaO? June 11, 2008

Broomsticks And Owls, the first Harry Potter forum I ever joined is not working.  It’s driving me crazy.  I’m thoroughly addicted to that forum and rarely go a day without visiting it.  It stopped working last week and was down for a few days before the administrator fixed it.  But it was only fixed for a couple days and now it’s broken again!  Come back to me, BaO, come back!

What a Harry Potter Dork I am… April 30, 2008

Today, after I dropped my sister and her friend off at dance class, I went to the library.  My main reason for going was to try sending emails with their wireless network.  I recently set up Thunderbird email on my laptop, and for some strange reason I have not been able to send emails using this on my school’s wireless network.  It works perfectly fine at home, but not at school.  So my dad told me test it at the library and see if it would work there.  It did.  I’ve got no idea why it won’t work at school.

Anyway, while I was there I decided to see if they had the 4th Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants book.  They did and I got it.  I also decided to check and see if they had Deathly Hallows on CD, since I never finished listening to it when I last checked it out.  Sadly, they did not.  However, they did replenish their supply of Harry Potter bookmarks!

A couple of months ago, they had a pile of HP bookmarks in the children’s section.  There were 7 different kinds and I took 2 of them, one of each kind they had.  Today, I noticed that they had three of the ones I did not have.  I was so excited!  I now have numbers 1, 2, 3, 6, and 7.  I only need 2 more and I’ll have the whole set.  But I’m not sure if I’ll ever find them since these are leftover from the book release last summer.  But anyway, this made my day.  They’re cool bookmarks.  They each have a different question on them, such as ‘Who will live?  Who will die?’ and ‘Will Voldemort be defeated?’  I now have 3 new bookmarks to add to my extensive collection of Harry Potter stuff, yay!

Is That Fan Fic? April 24, 2008

Last week J.K. Rowling was in NYC for a trial with Steve Vander Ark, who wants to publish a Harry Potter encyclopedia.  The trial lasted 3 days and it wasn’t resolved.  I personally think that Jo should win because I don’t think anyone else has the right to publish and make money off her work.  I fully support her and think Steve Vander Ark shouldn’t be able to publish his encyclopedia.  Especially since Jo has announced that she is going to write her own encyclopedia with new information along with old.

So a couple days ago I was on MuggleNet and saw that they had transcripts from the trial up.  I clicked on one and scrolled through it for a little while.  I didn’t read the whole thing because it was incredibly long.  I was talking about it with my sister who was in the office with me.  I was reading various excerpts from the transcript when my bro walked in the room.

He walks in, takes a quick look at my computer screen and asks, “Is that fan fic?”  My sister and I start laughing hysterically.  My bro just asks, “What?”.  And I tell him that I was reading the trial transcript.

Way to Rip Off the College Students April 22, 2008

As if text books weren’t enough.  You now have to drop an entire paycheck just to participate in the graduation ceremony.  The other day I went to the book store to buy my cap and gown.  Cap/gown/tassel cost me $38.  Your standard black gown, black cap, and gold tassel.  I get a gold tassel because I’m graduating with honors (as long as calculus doesn’t bring my GPA down that much).  Otherwise, you get a black tassel.  Then, since I’m in Phi Theta Kappa, I get to wear a little gold piece of fabric around my neck.  That cost $25.99.  Tell me how a three foot by 3 inch piece of fabric could possibly cost $25.99.  Yeah, somebody’s making a fortune off this.

In high school, if we were in National Honors Society, we got to wear a white piece of fabric around our necks that cost $25, but if we brought it back to the school after graduation, we got our money back.  They don’t let you do that in college.

Of course, my parents agreed to pay for all of this anyway.  But it’s still a ridiculous amount of money for something you’re only going to wear once.  I wish my college colors were the same as high school, but they’re not.  For high school, I had a blue gown, now I’ve got a black one, and for my next college graduation I’ll have to buy a green one.  I’ll have a nice rainbow by the time I’m done.

Also, only slightly off-topic, I look like Professor Snape in my gown.  Due to this, I’m calling it a robe from now on.  Yesterday, I put it on and went up to my little sister saying, ‘I am Snape, the Potions Master.’  Yes, I am a dork and proud of it.

Peeps March 25, 2008

Every year the local newspaper has this contest where you make a diorama out of Peeps. I’ve never entered before, but this year my siblings and I decided to do it. We made Professor Snape’s Potions class. It was fun to make. We made it entirely out of food. The cauldrons are these little brownies they sell where I work. We gouged out the insides of them and put melted marshmallow with food coloring in them to be potion.

But we didn’t win. Oh, well. Here are some pics.

We also dyed some Easter eggs. I made a Gryffindor one, a Slytherin one, and a duck one using this plastic thing that you put around the egg.

And at work last night, I bought some cheap Easter candy. I love when all the candy goes on sale. All the bulk Easter candy was 99 cents a pound, so I got a pound of that. Plus a couple truffle filled chocolate eggs that were only 89 cents down from $7. Good deal.

Deathly Hallows will be 2 movies March 13, 2008

Yes!  It’s true.  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be done in 2 films.  Released in November 2010 and May 2011.  I’m so happy!  There’s no way they could have done the book justice in one movie.  They would have cut out way too much.  As is, I think they cut out too much of Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix.  And David Yates will be directing it.  He directed OotP and is directing Half Blood Prince, too.  Although I do wish Alfonso Cauron was going to direct DH.  He directed Prisoner of Azkaban and I think he did the best job of all the directors.