Holy freakin cow, I suck at NaBloPoMo. It's been a week since I posted! Oh well, it's still more than I usually post, right?

Now...what was it I came here to write about?

Um...

Hey, do you get a lot of catalogs in the mail this time of year? I swear, from October to March we must get like 20 a day. First it's "Buy me for Christmas!" Then it's "Buy me while I'm sale! Get your Christmas shopping done early!!" And rather than giving me good ideas on what to buy other people, they only seem to make my own wishlist bigger. ;)

Eeesh.

I'm thinking of drawing our Christmas cards this year. Just a thought, not sure exactly whether or how I'd do it. We usually do picture cards, but I figure we could just get pictures printed and stick them in the cards. The only thing is it is so EASY to get the picture cards--you just tell them what picture, what design, and what you want printed on the cards so you don't even have to sign them! Which is good, y'know, when you have like 200 cards to send. How the heck do we even know this many people?!

Our wedding anniversary was this week. Sadly, I had to work that night, but we're having a little mini-date here at home tomorrow night after my Zumba class to toast our eight happy years together. Awww. :)

Then there were those 12 miserable years together.... kidding, kidding.

Hey, so, I've pretty much given up on my NaNoWriMo novel for now, unless by some miracle I get an uninterrupted week straight in which to write. And let's face it, that's not happening. I do have several good ideas, though, so I might have my own little novel writing month in, like, February or something, when it's too cold and cloudy and depressing outside to do anything else. That was my friend Lynda's idea, so when I'm a famous novelist one day, I can dedicate it all to her. ;)

Speaking of novels, and catalogs that give me more ideas for my own wishlist, I'm staring at one catalog listing for a shirt that says, "Careful, or you'll end up in my novel." Hehe, I like that.

Oh, I know what I wanted to show you. If you're a fan of Harry Potter, and we all know I am, you'll love this:



I laughed so hard I thought I'd pee. Even the second time.

OK, I'm off now.

i'm done!

Finally done with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and it was SO SO good. It ended just exactly the way I wanted it to.

I don't know anyone else who has finished it yet so I'm dying for someone to talk about it with. If you read the book and want to discuss, email me at kimberlypaine at comcast dot net and we'll chat. :) I'm reading it again, slower this time. That's how good it is--as soon as you finish you want to go back and do it all again. ;)

Well the downside of all this (besides no new HP books) is that I seriously have to go clean my house. Three days of reading nonstop except to pee and possibly eat means that my house is a total disaster. Fun fun!

get mad

I am so mad about this. The New York Times somehow got its grubby paws on a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and has published a review, complete with too much information for anyone who wants to, oh I dunno, wait until they can read the book for themselves.

Who'd'a thought the NYT would stoop to scooping a story like HP#7 and spoiling it?! I'm in disbelief. That's something I'd expect from some trashy tabloid. Not that I read those. Well, OK, I might. I might even use them as my main news source. But anyway...back to the NYT.

The Leaky Cauldron has posted a letter you can send to the paper at letters@nytimes.com. You can use theirs, which I am reposting here, or you can write your own. Theirs is pretty good though. Here it is:

To whom it may concern:

I am writing to express my disappointment that your publication printed an early review and details of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. This goes against the express wishes of the author and anyone that calls themselves a true Harry Potter fan.

It is hard enough for a Harry Potter fan to avoid spoilers on the Internet and news stations now that the book appears to have leaked; now we have to avoid trusted outlets as well. You’ve not only disappointed millions of children around the world with your actions, you have disappointed the millions of adults who look to the New York Times to be a bastion of good taste and standards. When the New York Times succumbs to such tabloid tactics, who won’t?

Many ask why we care - why fans aren’t all so rabid to get the book that we’ll sop up any illegal download or purchase. There’s one simple answer: We respect the author. We thought that a newspaper like yours, where so many of your reporters become authors themselves, would understand and respect that. We’re so saddened that we were wrong. We feel let down by you and your editorial board.

Sincerely,

Your name here
Harry Potter Fan, and member of Jo’s Army

So, go now, send the letter. It's your duty as a fan!

book 7 is coming. be ready.

If you've been living under a rock for some time, I'm going to tell you: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the 7th and last book of the ten-years-in-the-making Harry Potter series, comes out at 12:01 on Saturday.

I'm very excited.

I get like this with any series of books in which I'm all invested in the characters. To me, any writer who can make me feel like I know his or her characters personally is a good writer--even when it makes me look superdorky, talking about (and caring about! and crying over!) the characters like they really exist. Like, they're real live people whose lives will continue on even if we don't get to read about it.

But this one gets me even more excited because there are movies! And merchandise! And book release parties! And billions of other fans who want to do nothing else but theorize on what's going to happen in the very last book!!! So, it's all pretty intense. Which cracks me up because if you're not a fan, you probably haven't even noticed.

"Hm? Harry Potter? Are those books still around?" :)

So yeah, the hubby and I went to see Order of the Phoenix the other night, which just served to feed my pottermania, and as I watched the movie that tried to cram the longest book of the series into the shortest movie of the series I couldn't help but glance over at hasn't-read-the-books hubby and wonder if he had any idea what was going on. Cuz, you know, there is just so much to everything. He said he liked it OK, but of course that's only because he has no idea of the vast array of information he is missing.

Like, OK. Where to start.

[Oh, and Spoiler Alert in case you haven't seen OotP yet, or read the book. In which case, get a move on already.]

[Ready??]

[I warned you.]

[OK.]

• We never see Sirius's dear old mum. We just hear her mumbling behind her curtain. Frankly, I think this is a good thing. But still.
• There's no sense of how they spend the entire summer cleaning the house, and how Kreacher sneaks stuff off.
• The whole bit with Molly and the boggart? Not there.
• No indication of the new Divination teacher or how he got booted from the forest.
• No Quidditch. I know!!
• Cho is substituted as the squealer, revealing the DA, courtesy of Veritaserum.
• The fight at the Ministry is cut super-short. There's no brains trying to eat Ron (poor kid gets no scenes nowadays), no spinning hall of doors, hardly any evidence of all the kids' hard work in the DA paying off.
• The whole bit with Rita Skeeter and the way Hermione blackmails her? Gone.

[/spoiler alert]

Basically, everything is on fast-forward. I know that they didn't cut out anything superimportant, but jeez, I could have standed it being like twice as long, at least. All the fun stuff was gone, like Ron taking the lucky potion (that was OotP, right? crap, I'm all confused. better read them all again.) All my favorite actors (Emma Thompson! Helena Bonham Carter!) and characters (Mad Eye! Tonks!!) were on screen for like, two seconds.

The wierdest thing about the movie, though? Everyone looks so old! I mean, of course the kids do. But in one scene there was a close shot of McGonagall and I wanted to cry, she looked so old! And Hagrid, and Snape...(My apologies to the actors--I should say you look older, not just old. It's just weird. It's like seeing your aunt when she's 38 and not seeing her again til she's 58.)

Ugh, I have to go. It's 1am and I have lots of ebay posting to do and I just don't make any sense at this time of night. But anyway, if anyone in my area is going to a release party on Friday night, take me with you!! Just give me notice so I can grab a Mischief Managed tee shirt beforehand. :)