The weapon we have is love!

I don't think I've ever been to a concert quite like the one I attended on Friday night.

Yes, yes - part of that is that I've never been to a concert where all the bands played Harry Potter songs, but really, what I mean is that I've never been to a show with so much energy. It was pretty amazing, and I'm definitely going again if Harry and the Potters' tour comes anywhere close.

Pictures coming soon!

Spoiler-free Harry Potter observation

Scholastic does seem to have trouble with the British-isms, doesn't it?

My books can't seem to decide whether the expression ought to be "well shot of" or "well shut of" (I think it's the former), and one of the Weasley twins just referred to Harry as "specky" when I'm sure he meant "speccy."

In search of Book 7

I didn't reserve Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows anywhere because I wasn't sure whether Gerry and Sarah's rehearsal dinner would go on past midnight. It ended at 11, so I had an hour to figure out what to do.

I stopped by Joseph-Beth without any real intention of picking up the book there - as you can see, it was a madhouse:



Just packed!



There was some fun stuff happening, though; I filled out a trivia quiz and a "Snape: Good or Evil?" poll, both of which offered chances to win gift certificates. The woman next to the Snape poll was pretty irritating, though; she kept shrilly insisting that Snape was evil:



(She's the one in the glasses with the owl perched on her shoulder.)

There were tons of fun costumes, too - my favorite was a perfect Luna with a cork necklace and a lion hat, but I didn't get a picture.



Oh, yeah, and Warm 98 was there for some reason. Soft rock was blaring across the parking lot - one more reason not to get into the line that, by the time I left, had wound in front of the store three times.

With less than a half hour to go, I headed to Meijer to see what their "party" was all about.



That's a long line! I bought a few groceries but decided against waiting for the book. Instead, I headed over to Kroger:



They had a good system at Kroger: instead of having everyone who wanted a book stand in one line, they just gave each cashier a stack of books to sell. If you wanted one along with your Five Alive, you said so.

So there was no big wait at Kroger, but the store was definitely livelier than it normally is at midnight. Maybe that's why I heard a college kid say to his friends, as I twirled out of the store with my book, "Aw, damn - I hate Harry Potter."

Matchstick bunnies!

There are also bees, pandas, and grumpy-looking men!

Buy them here if you can read Japanese.

(Roadside Scholar via electro^plankton)

Take that!

Gotta love Diesel Sweeties.

It's here! It's here!

Pick up this week's issue of CiN Weekly, please, because I wrote the cover story on Harry Potter!

In it, you will find:
- A story about my friends and their Harry Potter parties
- An interview with wizard rocker Matt Maggiacomo, aka The Whomping Willows
- A teensy recap of the first six books
- Readers' predictions about what will happen in Deathly Hallows
- What's happening for the release at bookstores around town (our intern, Amy, wrote this one)

OK, you can also find those stories by going to the links above. But seriously, pick it up. Kevin did an awesome job designing it.

Why the Internet is awesome

So I was on the Wikipedia page for Chi-Chi's because Kari mentioned in a story that the chain had closed and I wanted to make sure that was true. (It is - thanks a LOT, hepatitis A!)

At the bottom of the Wikipedia page was a link to the Creepy, Abandoned Chi-Chi's Blog, which is a great idea but kind of sad and light on posts right now.

But they did have a link to the Belt Buckle Knife site, which I still think might be a parody, because it includes this line straight out of Real Ultimate Power:

Ok so you may have some really great knives with fancy handcrafted blades that will cut through any known material on earth, but no matter how great it is, it still has the same inherent problem that all knives except ours have. You have to get it out.

Also, its tagline is "How fast can you whip yours out?" I guess I'll find out if it's a joke when I try to order Mr. W one for his birthday, because I am SOLD on the usefulness of having a knife on your belt buckle..

Harry Potter, in outline form (Part 1)

PRE-PARTY: Dewey's in Newport.



PIZZA: Billy Goat, shared with Cati (pink shirt at lower left).

IN THE THEATER: Nervous at first because the 10 or so of us who were there at 10 p.m. were trying to reserve an entire row of seats. But our various friends arrived soon enough.



BARNES AND NOBLE: The only coffee option at the Levee, and therefore crowded as all get-out. The store officially closed before I was even able to make my order (but they served everyone who was already in line).



NUMBER OF FOOD SERVICE WORKERS I SAID "BLESS YOU FOR BEING HERE" TO: 2

WORRIES THAT AFOREMENTIONED WORKERS WOULD THINK I WAS A FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIAN: Fleeting

USHER JOHN: Awesome. In the pic below, he's asking if anyone has a wand with which he can perform the Sonorus Charm to amplify his voice. Love! (Also, note costumed wizard exiting stage right.)



THEATER: Crowded and raucous.



SCREENS AMC SOLD OUT, ACCORDING TO USHER JOHN: 14

AMC'S POLICY ON THEATER SPECIFIED ON YOUR TICKET VS. THEATER YOU WERE SITTING IN: Enlightened. If you want to sit with your friends in theater 11 even though your ticket says theater 9, go right ahead.

COSTUMED CHARACTERS WHO WALKED THROUGH THEATER JUST FOR KICKS: Tonks and Filch. I yelled "Wotcher!" at Tonks, but was not quick enough on the draw to get pictures.

FASTEST BATHROOM BREAK EVER: Me, four minutes to midnight.

Coming up: the actual movie.

Monday linkage

Podophile waxes philosophical on the iPhone.

Voldemort can't stop the party

So my friends and I do these Harry Potter parties every month or so. The one we had Wednesday was a particularly important one - not only because the movie and the book are coming out in a matter of weeks, but also because I was to interview people (and David was to take pictures) for a cover story in CiN Weekly!

It's my first cover story, and I'm excited to write it, but I 'm even more excited that we're doing a cover story on Harry Potter. I want everything to go perfectly.

So when I hit the traffic on Kellogg Road from people packing into Riverbend to see Def Leppard, Foreigner and Styx, I got a little nervous. But I got through it.

When David called to tell me about the pileup that shut down the highway and left him stranded, I got a little more nervous. But I figured we'd work it out somehow. And eventually he made an illegal U-turn and was on his way again.

Driving down an unknown road in New Richmond, I got a bit concerned that I might be lost. But I soon saw the turn I needed to take, and I found Carrie's house without incident.

At the party, as the calls poured in from guests who were caught in either the concert traffic or the accident traffic, I got worried - not that people would give up on coming to the party, but that David would arrive to take pictures of only three people. But before too long, people started to show up, and it was party time!

David arrived, took some excellent photos, left. I started the interviews, pulling people away from Harry Potter Scene It one by one to tell me when they started reading the books and what they like about the parties. After talking to three of the nine guests, I checked my voice recorder and became positively fretful. The recorder was set to "high quality" instead of "long play," and I had three minutes of recording time left. Amazingly, Carrie had a spare recorder I can use.

And then the power went out. Which didn't affect me so much, but it did put a sudden end to the Scene It game.

At this point, I was quite certain I knew what was going on. Clearly, Lord Voldemort was doing his utmost to squash our spirits, ruin our fun, and make me print a sucky article so people won't like Harry Potter.

Well, it wasn't going to work. Voldemort can't stop the rock, and he couldn't stop our party either. Carrie lit some candles, the gang switched to playing solely with the Scene It trivia cards, and I continued my interviews with the borrowed recorder. The party raged on until 1 a.m.

Also, the candles made everything look pretty cool.


Suck on that, Riddle!