Author: Heather Meadows

Christopher Bahn over at MSNBC has written an article full of questions. He’s connected a few dots and come up with several things he hopes are covered in the next book.

He seems to favor a Harry-Ginny pairing, though for some reason I don’t. I don’t know, he has a point about how Ginny is able to deal with Harry, but somehow I either don’t think he’s met the right person yet, or that he’d be best off with…Luna Lovegood ;P I don’t know, I just have a weird feeling about that.

Will Ron and Hermione get together in this book? I don’t know, if I was the author I’d probably force everyone to wait until the last book to resolve that plot point…although it’s getting less and less realistic to keep them apart, they’re openly jealous now.

Anyway, lots of fun speculation to be had.

From Amazon’s Help section:

We will deliver Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on its Saturday, July 16 release date to eligible customers who pre-ordered from Amazon.com before midnight on Monday, July 11 and chose standard, Two-Day, or One-Day shipping when placing their order. (Amazon Prime customers who ordered the book by July 11 will receive it on the day of release at no additional charge.) If you qualified for guaranteed release-date delivery, in the unlikely event that you don’t receive it on Saturday, July 16, we’ll refund the cost of the book.

So yeah, they get me with the shipping. I ordered it well in advance, but I was ordering it with other stuff and I used the Free Super Saver Shipping option as usual. I wouldn’t have, if I’d gotten some kind of warning about it, but I didn’t.

Oh well, guess I’m just screwed then.

I got the email saying that my order shipped today, and if it shipped from Lexington there’s a chance it might arrive tomorrow, so I guess I will just stick with my plan of not buying it unless it doesn’t come on that day…

Hmm, I’m looking at my package tracking, and it seems to indicate that the order actually went out on the 13th, arriving in Campbellsville, KY at 9:30 pm. The next checkpoint is Atlanta, with a departure scan on the 14th…that is really odd. It couldn’t possibly take them two days to get it to me from Atlanta. Maybe they do something special where they hold the order and bring it on Saturday.

I won’t give up hope! :P

According to this, Amazon didn’t mean to send me an email saying that my copy of Half-Blood Prince might not arrive on the 16th.

Amazon.com e-mailed customers to say its notice that books might be delayed “was sent to you in error.”

“We sincerely apologize for the concern we caused with this incorrect message, and hope you will be thrilled to know that we’ve begun preparing your order for shipment and we are confident that it will be delivered on Saturday, July 16,” the e-mail to customers reads.

Amazon.com spokeswoman Patricia Smith said a few thousand customers mistakenly received the notices.

“It was a complete goof on our end,” Smith said. “I don’t know if it was human error or computer error, but the bottom line is, it was an error.”

I didn’t receive the apology email. My Amazon account still says July 19 for the delivery date. I’m not really sure what to think at this point.

I can hazard a guess that the email was actually intended for people who preordered within the last few days, but who knows for sure?

I guess I won’t try to buy one on Saturday, though…it’s not like I have money to burn. If the book doesn’t show up all day Saturday, maybe I’ll go out and try to find one on Sunday.

This is irritating, and kind of depressing, since I’m really looking forward to the book.

I didn’t read my news subscriptions much while I was immersed in the wizarding world, and as such I had something like 500 items to read. Here is a sampling.

These first few came from BoingBoing.

Crazy-ass clouds

Mulvaney on Bomb Disposal, Supplement to Intelligence Bulletin No. 85, 15 September 1945

A novel without a word telling a love story?

Competition: The death of Dumbledore

The rest are from CNN and/or Drudge.

Coroner: Toddler killed by LAPD bullet

Waterfalls dazzle in Michigan’s far north

Companies confused over gay rights

Suspected leaders of al Qaeda in Iraq captured

“We now believe [Hasib Hussain] was responsible for this attack [on the number 30 bus in London] which claimed the lives of 13 people.”

Five hurt in New York building collapse

Claim: New Potter sold in Indianapolis

Scientists find planet with 3 suns

Who’s the next great film superhero?

“The whole trick is taking a story that has a fantasy angle of some sort, but doing it as realistically as possible,” says the 82-year-old Lee. “Saying, what if a fellow really could shoot a web and crawl on the walls? What would his day-to-day existence be?”

Damn straight.

New “SiteKey” system for banker security launched (I wrote that “headline”, CNN’s sucks)

Tokyo fault could produce ‘intense shaking’

The fault that has twice caused major earthquakes in the Tokyo area may be shallower and more hazardous than previously thought.

Prisoners escape US Afghan base

BBC edits out the word terrorist

CIA-backed tech can instantly spot terrorists in a crowd

A Los Altos, Calif. company, Pixlogic, has been developing technology meant to search for fugitives and insurgency suspects in a crowd.

Pixlogic has employed new software based on visual pattern recognition and search technologies to match archived still or video images with those gathered from security cameras or other sources, Middle East Newsline reported.

[…]

Executives said the company’s software could also detect and alert investigators to anomalies in video footage provided by closed-circuit television systems. Such anomalies could include an individual carrying a large box, or a truck that returns to the same spot. They said such technology has not yet been employed in either Britain or the United States.

Laura [Bush]: Name woman to high court

A Muslim man has been beaten to death outside a corner shop by a gang of youths who shouted anti-Islamic abuse at him, the Guardian has learned.

[London] Terrorist gang ‘used military explosives’

Unborn babies carry pollutants, study finds

Unborn U.S. babies are soaking in a stew of chemicals, including mercury, gasoline byproducts and pesticides, according to a report released on Thursday.

Although the effects on the babies are not clear, the survey prompted several members of Congress to press for legislation that would strengthen controls on chemicals in the environment.

Corpse Falls Into Traffic in Texas

Bill Clinton contends Democrats are held to a double standard (I made that title up too, I mean, that’s what the article’s about…yeesh, AP)

Mystery ‘sex change’ has curious flocking to Myanmar monk-to-be

Support for bin Laden falls in Muslim countries

…WHEW.

Okay, that’s most of the news I actually clicked on and read :>

I want to take a screenshot of how many IE windows I have open right now (hint: it’s a lot), but I don’t have enough RAM available to paste the contents of the clipboard into a program.

:>

There’s a magic 8-ball in the art department. Today I asked it, “Will these people ever hire me?”

The magic 8-ball said, “Signs Point to Yes”

Then I asked, “Will that [other place I keep getting the runaround from] ever hire me?”

The magic 8-ball said, “Most Likely”

Finally I asked, “Will that [other place I keep getting the runaround from] hire me next week?”

The magic 8-ball said, “Cannot Answer Now”

So, of course, I asked it again, and it said, “Signs Point to Yes”

I mentioned in the comments this morning how boring my old job was; it consisted of nothing but tracing photographs.

Well, guess what my task has been today?

Tracing images.

Brains…pouring…out…ears…

Amazon.com’s homepage is estimating JuneJuly [bah!] 19 delivery. At this point, I can’t cancel my order, either…

I guess if I get to this weekend and really want something to read, I can just go buy it at the store (I know a seeeeecret about how to find a copy), and then return the Amazon order when it arrives :P

I bet they’re spooked by those Canadian lawsuits. You watch, they won’t even SHIP until Saturday.

:P

We’re working hard to make sure you get your order as quickly as possible. However, please note that we can’t guarantee that your book(s) will be delivered on July 16.

Gee. Thanks, Amazon.com.

Guess there really is no truth in advertising. You know, the only reason I pre-ordered was because it stated plainly on their site that they guaranteed July 16 delivery. What, exactly, changed?

Maybe if you use Super Saver Shipping, they don’t make the guarantee anymore, but if that’s the case, they should have stated it plainly somewhere.

In any case, it’s not like I can’t stand to wait. It’s more like I have a whole weekend to myself because Sean’s going to a LAN party, and I was looking forward to having something to do.

Bah.

I love this title.

Study Shows One Third of All Studies Are Nonsense

The Harry Potter books are really easy to read. I can read them quickly. I don’t need time to get used to the style, except when I first come back to them after reading something else–in that situation, I have to adjust my thinking down so that I’m not offended by the simplicity of the prose. Once I’ve done that, though, I can just fly right through, and pick up where I’ve left off with no problems.

They’re children’s books, so this should not be all that striking. I just wanted to mention that this is quite a contrast to the Thomas Covenant books, which I have to kind of crawl into before I can read at a good clip. The Covenant books aren’t as bad as the Aubrey-Maturin books, either. There are whole levels of complexity out there.

One thing I did notice myself doing as I read the Potter books this time was mental revision. Whenever I came across a section that I felt could have been done better, I’d write it over in my head. Mind you, the only reason this happened is that it is much easier to spot errors in simple prose. I can skim along pleasantly and edit on the fly without breaking up my flow.

Mostly my “edits” involved punctuation usage, though there were several sentences I would have removed entirely (they took away from the effect of preceding sentences by overexplaining the situation), and there were a few actual grammatical errors. Yes, I did notice the ellipses…but they didn’t bother me as much this time. Maybe I had decided to not let them affect my enjoyment, or maybe I had built them up in my head so much that when I actually came across them, they didn’t seem as bad. Either way, I’m glad.

My euphoria at finishing the books is slowly fading. I don’t have anything to fill the place Harry Potter is leaving in me–I don’t feel like jumping back into Covenant, because that would be too much of a contrast–so I hope I don’t go nuts before Saturday.

WAGT reports that Augusta is planning a huge open air shopping center at I-20 and Riverwatch. I think this is an absolutely horrible place to put a shopping center, but I could be wrong. Theoretically it’s good to have a location near two major roads, but the flaw here is that one side of Riverwatch is pretty much unavailable for turns due to the train tracks. All traffic will have to be directed the same way as the on-ramps for I-20, and it’s already enough of a mess as it is. I’m not entirely sure how they intend to make it work.

The center itself doesn’t sound like anything particularly fascinating, except for the following:

It will also house a 24,000 sq.ft. state-of-the-art Movie Tavern, a restaurant theatre concept with six screens and 1000 stadium seating, featuring tables adjacent to the auditorium seating where movie goers will be able to order and be served a full dinner, snacks or desserts. This will be the first restaurant theatre concept in the Augusta area.

Looks like someone had the same idea I did! I will be really interested to see if this will help movie ticket sales. (And of course, I want to check it out myself!)

Wow, that really wasn’t difficult after all. I suppose it’s not such a feat to read five ginormous books when you haven’t got anything else to do, though.

I get a nice little break before Saturday, too, which is cool. I can do my internship tomorrow without worry (or longing to be reading), and I can go to that party on Friday.

I wonder when my copy of Half-Blood Prince will arrive…

That job interview was totally pointless. I thought it was for a receptionist, but it turned out to be for sales.

:>