This really awesome blog idea came from Mo Chirdhe, you should check out her blog.  It’s quite awesome.

Favorite Movie:  Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.  This movie was amazing on so many levels and each time I saw it was memorable and awesome.  The first was the midnight showing the day it came out, in which I participated in the Harry Potter Alliance’s What Would Dumbledore Do? campaign.  The second was in IMAX, and I got to see it with one of my LeakyCon friends, as well as my family and some other friends.

Favorite Song:  Tough one!  I’ve had a bunch.  Currently it’s Play On by Carrie Underwood, so we’ll go with that. Favorite Wizard Rock song is Gryffindor Rally Cry by the Ministry of Magic.

Favorite Lyric:  “Play on when you’re losing the game” from Play On.  It’s just such a good motto.

Favorite Line:  “What the hell is a Hufflepuff?” from A Very Potter Musical.

Favorite Trip: LeakyCon, without a doubt.  I can’t summarize that amazing experience in a short paragraph, but I have multiple blog posts on it.  It was just one of the most awesome experiences of my life.

Favorite Moment:  The ball at LeakyCon, when I met most of my LeakyCon friends.

Favorite Holiday:  My birthday.  I turned 21 and my friends made it awesome.

Something Bad:  Probably should have worked on my thesis more than I did this past semester.
Something Good:  Meeting the most amazing people at LeakyCon.
Something you regret:  Nothing, really.
Something you learned:  Who my true friends are.

Someone that changed your life:   All of my awesome LeakyCon friends.  They made me realize that my family and I aren’t the only Harry Potter crazed people out there!

When I read the first three Twilight books I thought they were decent enough and I enjoyed the time I spent reading them.  I was excited about the fourth one and went to the midnight release party.  However, I was sorely dissipointed in it.  There were many aspects of Breaking Dawn that I disliked, but I am not going to discuss them right now.  I saw the Twilight movie when it came out and was unimpressed with both Kristen Stewart’s acting and Catherine Hardwicke’s directing.  I enjoyed the movie overall because I had enjoyed the book.  I realize that the movie can never even come close to the book.

There has been this on-going argument between Harry Potter fans and Twilight fans that occasionally makes me mad but most of the time I just find it hilarious.  If I had to pick I would without a doubt pick Harry Potter, but I prefer to say that people can easily be fans of both.

I saw New Moon a few days ago with a few of my friends.  Being the die-hard Harry Potter fan I am, I decided to wear my Team Lupin shirt, which was clearly designed after the Team Jacob shirts.  I felt somewhat rebelious as I sat in a theater full of teenage girls wearing Team Edward and Team Jacob shirts.  However, no one besides my friends noticed it.

The movie itself was far better than Twilight.  The scenes were less choppy, everything flowed together, and the fact that Taylor Lautner was shirtless throughout most of the movie just made it all the better.  There were also quite a few funny and witty lines, something that Twilight was severely lacking.

Today was an epic day in the world of Tweeting.  J.K. Rowling now has a Twitter.  It’s real, too, not a joke.  The Leaky Cauldron confirmed it.  I am proud to say that I was one of her first 1,000 followers!  As of right now, 6pm on September 25th, she has over 15,000.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was the funniest Harry Potter movie yet.  I have never laughed so hard at a Harry Potter movie, yet I have also never cried so much during one.  If you have not seen the movie, don’t read on.  There will be spoilers a-plenty in this post. Even if you’ve read the book, don’t continue reading this post until you’ve seen the movie.  They are that different.

All in all, I loved it.  It isn’t my favorite, that title belongs to Prisoner of Azkaban. However, it is possibly my second favorite.  It’s definitely better than Order of the Phoenix.

My reasons?  Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes was spectacular, except for that weird clown like object that was above the door.  Other than that, it looked just like I would have expected Fred & George’s shop to look like.  Next reason would be the witty lines.  I was laughing every ten minutes or so.  Slughorn’s line in the Three Broomsticks, ‘I remember when it was one broomstick!’ had me laughing hysterically for a while.  It helped that he was partially drunk and had just sloshed his drink all over Hermione.   Speaking of Slughorn, I think they made an excellent choice in an actor.

The scene at the Burrow, while I still do not understand why they added it in, was done really well.  I loved how it was sort of focused on Remus and Tonks.  It was just the right combination of darkness and sadness.  I do not really see why WB felt the need to burn the Burrow to the ground, but I think it was a good scene.  What really made me happy is that they finally got Remus looking like I imagined him.  After three tries, they finally got it right.

Young Tom Riddle was absolutely brilliant.  They couldn’t have picked a better actor for that role.  As was the girl they cast for Lavender Brown.  I absolutely loved all the issues with Ron’s love life, including the part where he accidentally takes the love potion.  That was hilarious.  As was the part when Harry took Felix Felicis.

Dumbledore’s death scene was also really well done.  I cried.  It was so sad.  Then when all the students and teachers were holding their wands up in the air around Dumbledore’s body was another tearjerking moment.  Although I wish they had put his funeral in, that part was really good.

However, there were parts in it I didn’t like.  The first scene, where Harry’s flirting with the waitress, that did not fit at all.  Quidditch was kind of just thrown in there and there was only one match.  There needed to be more Quidditch.  The students only had one lesson throughout the entire film.  Nobody seemed shocked or worried that Snape was given the Defense Against the Dark Arts positon, a plot point that was quite important in the books.  Nor did they actually have any classes with Snape in the movie.  Snape did not give Harry detention after he used Sectumsempra on Malfoy.  They cut most of the memories that Harry was supposed to see.  They also cut out Ron’s line about Essence Of Insanity.  That was a bit disappointing, but oh well.

Then there was Remus and Tonks’s relationship.  They cut one of the ending scenes where Tonks was supposed to pronounce her love for Remus.  I get the feeling WB wanted to cut that entire plot point from the movies, but then they read Deathly Hallows and realized that it actually was a big plot point and had to stick it back in somehow.  I suppose that’s where the Burrow scene came in.  There were a few lines between Remus and Tonks that let the audience know that they were together, but none of them gave the sense that their relationship was hard, like it was in the books.

Overall, WB completely mutilated the storyline from the book.  Sure, they used it as an outline, but they changed a lot.  However, I think they did a better job of it than they did in Order of the Phoenix. Both movies were completely different than the books, but Half-Blood Prince was so much better.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is premiering tomorrow.  In honor of this movie, and Professor Albus Dumbledore, the Harry Potter Alliance has decided to take over Twitter.  How will we do this?  Starting at 9:45am (9 3/4) EST tomorrow, we want everyone to Tweet with #Dumbledore in all of your Tweets.

Before the movie, Tweet this- “About to see Harry Potter – in honor of #dumbledore we’re taking over Twitter http://whatwoulddumbledoredo.org”

After the movie, Tweet this- “Just saw Harry Potter – in honor of #dumbledore we’re taking over Twitter http:// whatwoulddumbledoredo.org”

In between, Tweet whatever you want, but put #Dumbledore in all of your Tweets.  I realize that not everyone who reads this is into Harry Potter, but this goes beyond the Harry Potter books.  The lessons taught in the Harry Potter books go beyond the magical world and into the Muggle one.

The Harry Potter Alliance is a non-profit organization that works to bring the lessons of Harry Potter to the real world.  The lessons of love in Harry Potter are ones we can all relate to.  So whether you’re a fan or not, Tweet #Dumbledore tomorrow.

After two years of waiting and eight months after it was supposed to be released, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, is finally being released.  It will come out at midnight in between July 14th and July 15th and I am going to be right there when it premiers.  I am going to the midnight showing at one of my local theaters.  I bought my tickets last week and they only cost $6.50, which is not bad for a midnight release.  Gottta love the student discount!

I am planning on dressing up, but I am not sure if I’m going to go as a character or just wear my Half-Blood Prince t-shirt that I painted for LeakyCon.  I’ll probably make a last minute decision as usual.

This particular Harry Potter book is where the title for this blog came from.  Towards the end of the book, Ron Weasley asks Harry if he has taken a potion called ‘Essence of insanity’.  I am sure that the general scene will be in the movie as it is quite essential to the plot (of course, when has this stopped Warner Brothers before?), but I have no idea if that particular line will be used.  I really hope it is.

The Harry Potter fandom has something new to squee about.  It comes in the form of a musical.  A Harry Potter musical.  It was created by a bunch of college students from Michigan and has been on Youtube for a few days.  It is absolutely amazing and incredibly hilarious.  It encompasses much of the series and adds in things from the Muggle world such as double stuffed Oreos, Fruit by the Foot, and Gushers.  Plus, there is a bit of crude humor and jokes as well.  All in all, it is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a long time.

I highly recommend that everyone watch it, even if you haven’t read the Harry Potter books.  Although if you haven’t read the books, you should do that as well.  After you watch the musical, you’ll understand the title of this blog post.

I’m editing in the part of the musical that has the Hufflepuff part in it.

A little over a year ago I started writing a fan fiction, In Moonlight’s Shadow, that was about one of the characters in my Albus Severus Potter series.  It soon became the longest and best (in my opinion) story I’ve ever written, including original fiction.  I just kept thinking up more and more plot points and it kept getting longer and longer.

Today, June 29, 2009, at approximately 4:35PM, EST I finished it.  I was listening to the song ‘Black Santas’ by Lauren Fairweather (which is a song you really wouldn’t understand unless you’ve read Paper Towns by John Green).  It topped out at 259,871 words in 62 chapters.

I’m very glad that I finished it, but it is going to be strange not working on it nearly everyday.  I have a sequel planned out that I can’t wait to start.

Why does it not surprise me that Warner Brothers has changed the release date of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince again? Oh, wait, I know why!  Because they did it not only once, but twice.  This makes it the third time.  Three times.  I cannot think of another movie that has had its release date moved three times.

Granted, this date change only applies to IMAX, but it is still rather unfair.  The Leaky Cauldron has provided us with the reasoning behind this extra delay.  The premiere of Half-Blood Prince in IMAX on the July 15th release date would create scheduling issues with the new Transformers movie.  So, apparently, Transformers gets first dibs and Half-Blood Prince has to be delayed again.  Somehow it does not seem right that the movie that has already been delayed eight months has to be dealyed again.

As someone who drives three hours to see Harry Potter movies in IMAX, I am not very impressed with this.  That’s two weekends that I can no longer have the possibility of making the drive to the nearest IMAX 3-D theater.  My weekends to make such journeys are limited during the summer and now I only have two available weekends to do this before classes begin at the end of August.  I will now have to hope that one of those weekends will fit into my parents’ schedules and the schedules of our friends who we usually see Harry Potter movies with.

Of course, I shouldn’t even bother figuring out the logistics.  If history has taught me anything, it’s to wait for Warner Brothers to announce the next date change.

LeakyCon, the first ever Harry Potter convention run by the Leaky Cauldron, is finally here!  In less than 24 hours I will be on my way to Boston to meet other people who are as obsessed with Harry Potter as I am!

I am so excited!  This is the first Harry Potter convention that is relatively close to where I live.  There have been numerous conventions in California, Florida, and Illinois.  I have jealously read articles about how awesome they are and now I finally get to go!

There’s going to be Wizard Rock, feasts, discussions, a scavenger hunt, and the Potter Puppet Pals!

Here’s to four days of Potter-induced euphoria!  I’ll be back with stories, pictures, and videos!