7/16/2005 08:37:00 PM|||James O'Malley|||A fair bit has happend since I last updated. None of it is that exciting though- although this ISN'T an invitation to close the browser and not lavish praise on me via the comments system.
On Friday evening, Heggs held a party at his house. I'm afraid it's yet another "party blog". As always, a lovely time was had by all- the added erm... "bonus" this time was at around midnight, everyone walked down to Ottakars for the launch of the new Harry Potter book.
Now, I'm not a fan of Harry Potter. In fact, I'm making a point of disliking it, as I want that to be the quirk in my character that gets me recognised. I want to be the one person who doesn't like Harry Potter, so I can be highlighted, and become the centre of attention in conversations. A bit like the person who doesn't like The Matrix or James O'Malley.
The second film was the worst three hours of my life. If I could be bothered to use a printer, get an envelope and so on, I'd write to Warner Brothers and demand those three hours of my life back, and a Harry Potter goodie bag. Sending an e-mail would be silly, as navigating the presumably flash website would lead me to the privacy policy, which would have an obscure 10px e-mail link that would go to the "nobody cares" department.
The new book is apparently the penultimate. It say "apparently", because I will put money on "Harry Potter: the College Years" as soon as JK needs to pay for a new boat. Even if Harry is killed off, she'll find a way to bring him back. Even if she has to used a concept as foreign to the Potter series as magic.
Now, I'm not going to RONing the ending by telling who DIES. But I might post a fake spoiler or two.
The walk down to the town was unusual for me. Unlike the millions of people my age who regularly go out on a Friday night to a pub, and proceed to get drunk, I rarely leave my house after dark. It's a push to get me to leave during daylight hours too. I don't drink, either- not because I'm "straight edge", I'm just damn cool. I was quite nervous, to tell the truth- I hadn't been in town at this hour before, I didn't know whether to expect gang warfare or gang rape. Thankfully, both happend in the very most minimal quantities. Heggs helpfully profiled each group of people, or person we passed in a military fashion, so we knew what threats there were. "White male aged 16-23. Alone. Walking with arrogance, but has nothing to prove".
Tonight was different- I was a part of a drunken rabble. I was walking through town with some drunks, in fact. I was expecting it to be only slightly rawkus, when in fact it turned into quite a fracas. In fact, Tilley (no picture link, I'm afraid) put Scot's shoe on top of a road sign (a really awful picture link, I'm afraid). This happend minutes after they abandoned an attempt to steal a traffic cone. No, really.
It's a shame that my drunken "crew" wasn't more drunken. I'd love to see the Harborough Mail have the headline "DRUNKEN YOBS SPOIL POTTER BOOK LAUNCH". It wouldn't even had been too difficult for the drunken yobs to spoil- all they'd have to do is upset the children... perhaps steal the horse that someone had dressed as what I assume was a Harry Potter characters (seriously).
I was tempted to go in there, fully sober, as I was, and buy a different book. An old book. A really old book. Perhaps the Bible. "Cor! I've finally got it after all of this waiting!".
Why was there a horse there? You're probably still asking yourself this. The queue was ridiculous. Midnight on a Friday, there was a queue coming out of a book shop (NOT a brothel) stretching about 50m back to opposite the Carphone Warehouse- if you live in Harborough, you'll know that's quite a long way. The stoned drug users I was expecting to encounter in town had been replaced with eight year olds running about on the World War monument. The only thing they were high on was Harry Potter, and presumably the free samples of ecstacy the dealers give out to gain new customers ("grow the market", as such).
When I went home at 0030, as I had work today, the queue hadn't shortened much. I sort of feel sorry for the tillmonkeys who were earning triple time, as it must be especially dull selling the same thing over and over.
RON DIES.|||112154748294950115|||Lots to report