Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows—NO SPOILERS OR YOU DIE!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Apparently one of our radio djs yesterday did a riff on the new Harry Potter in an afternoon talk show and pretended to reveal which of the characters died. I didn't hear the show so I don't know which character it was, and when they were talking about it today they were not permitted to repeat what he had said. But it seems that his riff talked about reading the book, saying it was only 40 pages long, and [character x] does die in a car accident on I-95! And then he went on to describe Hermione's reaction to the death by repeating some well-known scene from the Sopranos or something like this.

It was supposed to be so obviously not true that people would laugh.

The talk show is aimed at adults, by the way; it's not a children's show, judging by the language. But it seems that a lot of kids (teenagers probably) heard this, and thought that the dj had really revealed the ending of the new Harry Potter book, and there was a storm of parents down at the radio station demanding that the dj be fired.

And ... guess what? The management put him on a one-day suspension for spoiling Harry Potter.

Another day in the life of popular culture!

The modern day equivalent of The War of the Worlds! Somehow I don't think that Orson Wells got a one-day suspension for causing mass panic about the invasion of the Martians. This says something about how things have changed in the past 70 years, but I'm not sure I want to speculate about exactly what it says.

[nerdanel]

Oh no, that's the real book. It's 40 pages of text and 740 pages of artwork. In essence, Voldemort takes over a Mercedes-Benz dealership, kills all the Muggles, and turns the car into a Horcrux. He's speeding down I-95 with Wormtail at his side, poking the six-disc CD player with his wand, when Fred and George approach from above in their dad's bewitched flying Muggle car, destroy the Mercedes-Horcrux, and kill Voldemort by repeatedly exposing him to the music of Paris Hilton. When Hermione hears the news, she says, "Way cool, dude. Let's get a butterbeer." And thus the book ends.

*relies on the goodwill and mercy of the Marshals not to get banned*

[Athrabeth]

Oh no, that's the real book. It's 40 pages of text and 740 pages of artwork. In essence, Voldemort takes over a Mercedes-Benz dealership, kills all the Muggles, and turns the car into a Horcrux. He's speeding down I-95 with Wormtail at his side, poking the six-disc CD player with his wand, when Fred and George approach from above in their dad's bewitched flying Muggle car, destroy the Mercedes-Horcrux, and kill Voldemort by repeatedly exposing him to the music of Paris Hilton. When Hermione hears the news, she says, "Way cool, dude. Let's get a butterbeer." And thus the book ends.

Wow. If only Rowling could hone her skills to create that kind of literary masterpiece.

I'm studiously avoiding the spoilers thread because I won't be able to get my hands on the book until tomorrow........'tis hard, don't ya know.

[Crucifer]

I was amazed that the queue last night was so incredibly orderly. My friend and I went in at 7.30, to get good spots in the queue. Her parents, who were giving me a lift home afterwards, didn't get there until 11. I got my book at 00.10. We didn't get out of there until 2.30.

[elfshadow]

Perfection.


I got my book by 12:15, thanks to my shiny wristband with #11 written on it, and was home reading twenty minutes later. Just now finished.

[Primula Baggins]

My 19-year-old son was so agitated just before finishing the book that he had to go out for a walk. Then when he finished he was very odd and elusive. About an hour later he admitted, "I cried. I cried a lot."

My daughter has it now. Then it's my turn!

Here's some of the Weasley family last night. Left to right: Ginny (my daughter); Mr. Weasley (my son); Mrs. Weasley (my son's girlfriend).

[Crucifer]

Hem hem.

How does one post pictures?

[Primula Baggins]

(1) We have a gallery, which <looks shiftily both ways> I've never learned how to use. I really need to do that. The gallery hosts the images here, and we have plenty of bandwidth.

(2) Not knowing how to use the gallery, I use Photobucket. You open a free account and upload the photo you want to post. Photobucket stores them for you neatly, and there's code under each photo that you simply copy and paste into your post (the [ IMG ] codes are what we use here). The photo will appear where the [ IMG ] code is in the post.

Caveats: JPGs, please, and as small a file as gives a reasonable image. You can keep the size and reduce the quality to save file space, and it won't be visible over the Web. People with dial-up connections and/or old computers need the consideration.

Also, please don't make the images more than 600 pixels wide (the width of my image above). This is plenty big but doesn't stretch most people's screens.

PM me if you have any questions.

[Crucifer]

So it's like [img]photobucket%20code[/img]

And it comes up? Photobucket.com?

One member of the Weasley family (Percy) was in Cork you see.

[elfshadow]

So it's like [img]photobucket%20code[/img]

And it comes up? Photobucket.com?

Yep. It's even easier than that, actually. Once you upload an image to photobucket it should have lines of code below it or beside it. All you have to do is click inside the box that says "IMG Code" and your browser will automatically copy it, then just paste it into the reply box.

[Crucifer]

Right. Let's get this thread back where it should be so. Thanks for the help.

So here's me, as Percy Weasley, being all stern and imposing and stuff. I'm in black because I'm in mourning, because it's all over, and also because Dumbledore's dead.


Here's my friend Muireann, as a Witch dressed as a muggle, 'tho you can't see the whole outfit.


[Edited by friendly shirriff to fix photos - VtF]

[Primula Baggins]

Crucifer, great photos, but they're way too big.

You can cut them down right in Photobucket—I think you select the photo, then click Edit. They may also let you rotate the first one so it's upright.

[Athrabeth]

<remembers discovering Photobucket>

<remembers first disasterous attempts to post pics on a messageboard>

Crucifer, Prim's right.......the editing options are really easy to follow.

And thanks for the posting the pics. You know, you DO rather look like how I imagine ol' prissy Percy in that photograph (I've totally forgotten what Percy looks like in the films.....I guess it's been a while since we've seen his character!)

[Teremia]

Boy, are we seeing some Very Convincing Weasleys in this thread!

[Crucifer]

Ta, VTF, for cutting them down to size.

I'm not very good at that sort of thing.

[WampusCat]

Magic missing for some 'Harry Potter' readers
By Craig Harris
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
At least 200 people across the country who bought "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" this past weekend could use a little wizardry to help them get through the book.

And it's not because the final installment of the series about a boy wizard, Muggles and Hogwarts is too long.

The books, first made available Saturday, have printing errors that include missing pages. At least three QFC stores in the Renton/Maple Valley area had problems, with one book missing at least 30 pages.

Kristin Maas, a QFC spokeswoman, said the grocery chain has made calls to Scholastic Inc., the U.S. publishing giant that sold 8.3 million "Deathly Hallows" books in the first 24 hours, and will replace any books with errors. Maas did not know how many books had problems.

"Printing and distributing 12 million copies of a book is a Herculean task, and it is not surprising at all that some would have printing errors," Scholastic said in a statement Monday morning.

Scholastic initially said it had just 21 books with errors, but that number had increased to 200 by early afternoon.

Sara Sinek, a Scholastic spokeswoman, said the errors were reported in different parts of the U.S., and the company expected to have a handful of problems because the seventh Harry Potter book, at 759 pages, had such a massive run.

Sinek said it took 288 million blocks of text or sections to create 12 million books.

"That puts into perspective the huge quantity we are talking about," Sinek said.

The problems, however, could be growing.

A handful of readers on message boards at Amazon.com and eBay voiced complaints Monday over missing pages, and the BBC reported that a batch of books in Australia and New Zealand had two chapters gone.

Scholastic said it will replace any book that has an error; customers may call 800-724-6527 for a replacement. Sinek said customers also could return a problem book to where it was sold.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

My pleasure, Crucifer. It's great to see what you look like. I'll bet the young women swoon (despite the stern and imposing expression).

[Crucifer]

the seventh Harry Potter book, at 759 pages, had such a massive run.

But there are 607 pages...

[WampusCat]

I think I remember reading somewhere that the U.S. version is longer. No extra words, just differences in appearance.

Unless pages are missing, of course.

[Primula Baggins]

Bigger type, more white space, I believe.