As mentioned yesterday, I’ve been reading the latest Harry Potter instalment over the past week or so. Actually, I’d say I read it for a total of 2 hours by Tuesday, and between Tuesday and Thursday finished the remainder.

My first experience with the Harry Potter series of books was in, I think, late 2000 when I was working at the-place-that-shall-not-be-named. At that time, I was reading through the Lord of the Rings books prior to the release of Fellowship of the Ring. Almost everyone on the train for around six to nine months was reading either a Harry Potter or Rings book — strange in itself, since there were usually few people reading.

I’d finished the Rings books, and felt a little bit lonely after seeing Frodo and eventually Sam depart to Valinor. Out of curiousity, I downloaded the first and second books from alt.binaries.ebooks or something similar, as OCRed text files. I then proceeded to print — double-sided — the first book out using work’s printer; not the easiest task when you’re printing out over a hundred pages, and you usually never have to print anything.

After a few hours of printing, I collated the pages into a protective plastic pocket. I tried to read some of the book at work, and failed dismally after reading about Uncle Vernon and his work in the factory. I decided to wait until I was on the train; after a few stops, I took the massive wad of paper from my bag, took the first page from the pocket and began reading.

I don’t remember much more specifically about my feelings towards the book, though I do remember seeing people cast curious sideways glances as to why I was reading from such a massive wad of paper. Perhaps they thought I was reading business proposals, as opposed to a stolen novel.

What I do remember, though, is that I finished the first book rather quickly — possibly in the space of a few train trips. Before the end of that same work week, I was back at the printer, dutifully waiting and collating the second stolen Harry Potter novel.

It didn’t take long for me to finish the second one, either. Justine had also told me that she was interested in the Harry Potter books, but didn’t want to buy one in case she didn’t like it. Shortly after stuffing the first massive wad into Justine’s hands, she began reading. By the time she was a few chapters in, Justine realised that she was going to finish reading, so bought the first book.

We now have all six, with the two most recent as the “children’s edition” hardcovers, since they match the other four paperbacks. Justine’s bought them all, but still hasn’t finished Order of the Phoenix despite having it arrive prior to it’s Australian release (we bought it from Amazon UK). I must admit, Order of the Phoenix wasn’t as engrossing to me as the others, so I can understand it a little.

After reminiscing about stolen books, and how annoying it was to actually read a book like that (perhaps on a PDA would be better; though I don’t think looking at the screen for hours on end would be comfortable), I think I shall relay my thoughts on the latest book (finally)!

I feel that the Half-Blood Prince started off a little poorly, what with it moving all over the place. Additionally, I felt as though I was missing out a little as I couldn’t remember each and every thing that had happened in Order of the Phoenix. Perhaps people who re-read immediately before Order of the Phoenix before Half-Blood Prince will have an easier time of it.

The usual pacing for Harry Potter books is for a huge build up, and decent pay off at the end. This one, to me, didn’t have the same sort of payoff. Quite a few things were revealed and we have a number of doom-laden portents, but I think the last 50 or so pages fell quite flat. It seems to me that Rowling didn’t quite know where to go after what I suppose I should call the revelation sequence.

The seventh book will probably require me to immediately re-read Half-Blood Prince prior to reading the new one. The first four books didn’t require this, though there were a lot of little nuances you would get had you read them.

All-in-all I’d have to say I definitely enjoyed this one, though I’m not really sure which I’ve enjoyed most. My thoughts right now are that Goblet of Fire and Half-Blood Prince are probably the two better ones, but I’m not really into ordering things in that way… except for Star Wars films.

Yesterday, Chris, Tim, my Dad and myself holed ourselves up at Chris’ place, and watched all three Lord of the Rings Extended Edition DVDs back-to-back. ‘Twas a shame that Richard was unable to attend.

Things started normally enough; I’m sure we’d all seen the first film a number of times now, since it’s been out for a while. Wisecracks and smart-arse comments were commonplace for the first disc of six. Suddenly, time started moving very quickly, and we’d already seen the first half of the second film. Mel was kind enough to make some great hot dogs which were quickly devoured and we continued on our way.

The downhill run was a blur with a lot fewer wisecracks and to be honest I don’t remember too much of the second and third films. I think I must have gone into some sort of movie-watching coma part way through The Two Towers; I popped back into “action” near the middle of the third film though, as the final stretch came into view.

A good day was had by all and I’m glad to have been (finally) able to watch all three films back-to-back in what must be the longest three-movie marathon in existence (sure there are longer films, but they don’t count). The next major marathon will have to be the six Star Wars films (in chronological order, or release order?) back-to-back, late next year.

Note: This post was back-dated.

As of Sunday, all my Christmas shopping has been completed. In fact, I have only had one person to buy for over the last few weeks. This has meant an extremely relaxed Christmas season, since I’m not running around like a madman trying to find a parking spot, line up at shops to find what I want missing, and so on. Most of the credit, though, has to go to Justine since I’m not normally that organised.

I am still waiting on two gifts (one for me, one for Justine) to be delivered. My gift to me was a Christmas DVD I was getting delivered to work. Today is the last day work is open, so I suspect I will not be getting my Christmas DVD before Christmas. Bit of a shame really, it was coming from overseas so I suppose a delay is acceptable (though my Return of the King DVD only took a few days thanks to DHL). The other gift is being delivered to our house and I really hope it arrives today or tomorrow.

Having to rely on the post office(s) at Christmas doesn’t seem like a good way to get people gifts. I think next year, gifts ordered via the Internet (for convenience of all things) should be done at the end of November or start of December; otherwise the convenience turns into anxiety wondering if the fabled gifts will ever arrive.

Interesting “Counterstrike-with-15-year-olds” take on the Fellowship of the Ring. I haven’t seen this one before, and from what I’ve found this appears to be the source of it (though I’m sure it’s probably not):

http://www.hohto.to/forums/index.php?board=5;action=display;threadid=17720

It’s (quite) a few days after Christmas now. I meant to do a write-up of my Christmas but have been too lazy to do it until now.

So, without further ado, here’s the lowdown on my Christmas Day and Boxing Day hijinks…

Christmas Day, I was woken up by Justine at 08:15. Not too bad, I’d expected to be woken at 07:00 so I did manage a little sleep in. First things first though, presents!! Unfortunately, none of the DVDs I’d ordered as Christmas presents had arrived, so there will be a mini-Christmas in the early New Year (hopefully!). I nabbed some clothes, an eyebrow ring (mmm… anodised), SSX3 for Gamecube, the DVD which hasn’t arrived and a gigantic Simpsons mug from Justine. Sweet. I got her a DVD which hasn’t arrived, two sets of pyjamas (as if she doesn’t already have enough!), a picture frame, two little wooden cat… things, and some clothes.

Right, now that’s out of the way, time to get this show on the road. 09:30 and we take the chooks out of the fridge… they’re still frozen. Oh great. We panic for a little bit (this is the first time we’ve held a Christmas) and then chuck the chooks in the microwave. Phew, they aren’t stuck together any more. We were only going to cook three of them (cause, you know, three chickens is nothing) but as we had put them in the microwave, we decided to cook all four. Four chickens should be enough for eight people, right?

So it’s 11:00 and the chooks have been in the oven for half an hour. Justine calls; “There are another seven people coming.” Seven? Oh, great, we’ll just set another place at the table. Seven?! Luckily, a few people pitched in and grabbed random food from their cupboards, as well as some chairs.

People start arriving, and we’re on track. By 13:30, there are seventeen people in our house. Of those, i had never even met four of five of them before. Two I had met once. Who the hell were all these freeloaders at our place? Were people just walking in off the street? It’s not like my cooking is even particularly good.

Justine and I have had nothing to eat so far today. I’ve been madly cooking and Justine’s been preparing a big salad. Justine has also had three UDL Fusion thinagmies and is looking rather red in the face.

Well, the vegies aren’t all done and the chickens aren’t brown, so why not give out presents? I get a few bits of assorted crap (one doesn’t seem to like me, but more on that later) which get shoved aside but nothing of any interest. Strangely enough, all these people I’ve met zero to one times gave me nothing, but are all going to eat my food. How generous of them.

Well, the chickens spent five hours in the oven. Much too long but Justine didn’t start the vegies until 12:50; and with all the stuff in the oven (four chickens and two huge trays of vegies), everything cooked slower. They were a bit overdone but the freeloaders didn’t seem to mind a free feed a bit.

Time passes…

It’s 17:00 and the freeloaders are long gone (they left just after dessert) and there’s a mountain of cleaning up to do. Somehow, I manage to evade that task completely (though I must thank Justine’s family, and especially her nana for doing this all for me ;).

Day’s over, right? Wrong. I’ve already written a crapload, and if you’re still here, you’re probably tired, so I’ll speed things up a little.

We get to Dad’s place, and force-feed more food into our swollen stomachs. Play a little Pictionary (we had a massive lead, but Justine got tired; and subsequently got pissed off whenever I didn’t guess her crappy drawings. We got a gigantic Ferrero Rocher thing (there was 30 in there, I’ve had one; I think about 10 are missing), a calender for me, candle thing for Justine and I also go the Alien Quadrilogy. Sweet.

12:45 - Bedtime.

Boxing Day started without much sleep. We got up at… I forget actually, but it was probably too early for me. We meet up with Justine’s Dad and her half-brother and sister (and their mum) and head off to Justine’s (other) nana’s house. We eat lunch, I let James (Justine’s half-brother) beat me at chess and we come back home. We have dinner at home again. While preparing a salad, I manage to slice the top off my middle finger with a vegie slicer. It didn’t look bad at first, but the top is definitely straight or bevelled, where my other fingers are rounded… Oops.

Two long days. But they aren’t over.

23:00 - we arrive at Southland for the first time in four months. I’m sitting three rows from the front, four seats from the side, and grinning like an idiot. Yes, I’m watching Return of the King. This film is awesome. Twenty minutes in, I didn’t care that I had a crappy seat; hell, I didn’t even care about my popcorn for about the first hour. This film caps off the trilogy perfectly. Here is an accurate review of the film.

03:45 - In bed, finally. Two long days over. Thank God there’s only another 365 days left (it’s a leap-year next year!).