Just finished reading HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS

It took almost exactly 24 hours, from the time that we bought our copy, to finish reading it. As I've said in the last few posts, I wanted to take my time reading it, and let this experience linger and be drawn out and enjoyed as much as it possibly could be, because this really is the very last time that I will get to read a Harry Potter book without having any way of knowing what to expect as the next page is turned.

For the first time in my life, ever, my eyes were full of tears after reading the final words of a book.

That wasn't the only time either that it happened while reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, either.

Best experience I've had reading a book since ... maybe ever. It's going to take quite awhile for this to fully sink in.

There are a lot of things I'm going to be saying about this book in the next few days, especially when I write up my full review. But this needs to be stated loud and clear and right now: As of this moment a lot of people, if they have any shred of conscience, owe J.K. Rowling a huge apology. For trying to claim that this series of books is evil and morally corrupting and the ridiculous charge that it's "promoting satanism". The people who have said these things and have tried to ban the Harry Potter books and who have said a lot of nasty things about Rowling, if they have any sense at all, they will express nothing short of profound regret at what they have done all these years.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows establishes these seven books, now and forever, as Christian allegory that's just as wonderful as The Chronicles of Narnia. And I defy anyone to argue with me otherwise about that.

This book came out just over 24 hours ago. I'm already finished reading it. If you've finished reading it too and have a blog, do yourself a favor and make a note of it with a post, so that you can have something to point toward in years to come so you can tell your kids and grandkids "yes, I read Deathly Hallows when it first came out."

This book makes history. The good kind.

Will write more later. I'm gonna rest awhile now.

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THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: Just finished page 501

Words fail.

The end of this chapter - Chapter 24 - made me have to step away from the book and take a break for about a half-hour. It literally made my brain hurt to read something that horrific.

Something like this is perhaps the last thing that I would have ever expected to read in a children's novel.

That scene was ...

Like I said, words fail.

Still taking it nice and easy so that I can savor every moment of reading this. And so far, I can definitely say that it's been a very long time that a book has affected me like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. And it's still far from over.

Many more thoughts about it later. I just wanted to hit the blog and chronicle my stunned disbelief at what I just read in this book. And even this probably won't be the last unholy act that I read before this night is over ...

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Darth Larry and Jenna have already finished THE DEATHLY HALLOWS

Darth Larry phoned me about 2 this afternoon to tell me that he had finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows already. He was helping with the festivities at Borders last night (report and pics coming soon) and he said that they got everyone in line taken care of within an hour and 15 minutes. Then he went home and started plowing through the book.

Now comes word that Jenna Olwin has finished reading the book, too.

I am just now getting to Chapter 16 on page 311. I started reading the book as soon as I got home early this morning, then got some sleep starting at about 5, slept 'til 10 and then took another nap 'til noon. And I'm going slow with this book: I want to savor every bit of it, as much as I can, because this really is the final one. I want the experience to linger out a bit.

I should finish sometime later this evening. In the meantime, congrats to Darth Larry and Jenna (and probably a few others that I know have finished it by now too no doubt :-)

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Just a few chapters into THE DEATHLY HALLOWS ...

For several years, the movie Red Dawn held the Guinness world record for being the most violent movie ever made. If you ever saw it, just keep in mind how much bad stuff happened from the very beginning of the movie.

If Guinness has a category for "most violent children's book ever written", then Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has already earned the title ... and I'm not even a hundred pages into the thing!

Death toll so far: won't spoil it with numbers but it's far beyond what you would expect from kiddie literature.

And it's threatening to get worse.

Nobody is safe anymore.

"old Charlie stole the handle and
the train won't stop going --
no way to slow down."

-- from "Locomotive Breath" by Jethro Tull

If you're just about to start reading, boyz and goylz: hang on tight. It's going to be a very long night indeed.

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We've got HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS

That's one odd way of celebrating a fifth anniversary ...

Lisa and I went to Carrabba's on High Point Road in Greensboro for dinner at about 8, and then after that we went on to Borders further down the road. I got to purchase Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows about 35 minutes after the book went on sale.

We just got home. The first thing I did was make an annoying crank call to certain friends in Bellingham, Washington to let them know that us folks on the East Coast have already got the book, and they still have to wait more than an hour at least!

Full report of what happened tonight (well at Border's anyway) on this blog sometime during the weekend.

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Five years ago today ...

Lisa and I were married.

Seems like just yesterday. Can't believe all of the things that have happened in those five years.

Where does all that time go?

What does God have in store for us the next five years?

I don't know ... but it's a great feeling knowing I've got the best girl in the world to share this life's journey with.

Happy anniversary honey :-)

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On the eve of THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: Final predictions for Harry Potter

A little over 24 hours from now, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be released.

So here are my absolute final predictions for the Harry Potter saga before this concluding chapter of the series is published:

- Harry will live.

- Hagrid will die.

- The fatal shot aimed at Voldemort will come from none other than Draco Malfoy, who reconciles with Harry just before passing away from wounds suffered in battle.

- Rufus Scrimgeour will be sacked ...

- ... and Arthur Weasley will become the new Minister of Magic.

- We will finally get to see Azkaban Prison.

- Norbert will return as a full-grown dragon

- Neville will finally confront Bellatrix Lestrange, upon which he goes into a fit of rage and kills Bellatrix with a savage assault of the Cruciatis curse.

- In a perfect world, Harry would hunt Dolores Umbridge down like a dog, and shove that evil quill pen of hers straight and hard up her (vulgar terminology for human anatomy).

- Ron and Hermione will wind up married, and have twin sons they name Albus and Hagrid.

- Wormtail will rescue Harry from an attack by Fenris Greyback by plunging his silver hand into Greyback's chest and ripping his heart out. With Greyback dead, the curse of lycanthropy will be lifted and Remus Lupin will no longer suffer from being a werewolf ...

- ... and Remus will relent to having a relationship with Tonks.

- The Dursleys will barely escape the total destruction of Number 4 Privet Drive that is scheduled for 12:01 a.m. on July 31st, 1997.

- EVERYTHING that was published in The Quibbler will turn out to be absolutely true, including the story that Sirius Black was once a singing sensation and that Cornelius Fudge is after the Gringotts gold.

- Professor McGonagall will be confirmed by the board of governors as the new Headmistress of Hogwarts.

- Professor Sprout will flee the country and Neville will fill in as substitute Herbology teacher at Hogwarts (by this point he will already be of age by wizarding standards) until a permanent replacement is appointed.

- It will be revealed that Snape was working for Dumbledore against Voldemort all along. How this will be possible is something that I have been trying to figure out for two years now and am no closer at understanding: it's just a gut feeling.

- Filch, for the first time in his life, will perform magic. It comes in a moment of madness after he sees his beloved cat Mrs. Norris killed by the Death Eaters. And the magic that Filch does is nothing less than the Avada Kedavera.

- Bill and Fleur will have their wedding but it will be too much of a target of opportunity for the Death Eaters to pass up and an attack ensues.

- "R.A.B." will be revealed to have been Regulus Black, and the strange locket that won’t open at 12 Grimmauld Place will indeed be the Slytherin locket that is the real Horcrux.

- Harry will, at some point, come to Godric's Hollow and meet his father's parents for the first time.

- Luna and Neville will end up getting married.

- Harry and Ginny will end up getting married also.

- Lucius Malfoy will end up bankrupt and destitute.

- Viktor Krum will replace Karkaroff as the head of the Durmstrang school.

- The last we see of the Weasleys' Ford Anglia, it is flying off into the sunset with Ron and Hermione, with the words "JUST MARRIED" written on the rear window.

- Harry will fulfill his dream of becoming an Auror.

- Harry and Ginny will have a son, who they name Sirius.

That's just the stuff that readily comes to mind. This probably isn't even half the predictions that I could come up with: it's still leaving out Grawp and Professor Trelawney and the motorcycle and dozens of other things.

I'll probably be finishing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows about 48 hours from now. And then we'll see how this all goes down in the end.

EDIT 10:37 p.m. EST: Jenna Olwin has published her own list of predictions for Deathly Hallows. Amazing how some of ours are close similar, and we didn't even compare notes or anything before we did our own lists!

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Sony Music: "No immediate plans" to release Jablonsky TRANSFORMERS score

A few days go I started an online petition to show support for an album release of Steve Jablonsky's amazing orchestral score from Transformers. At the time I intended for the petition to reach whoever was responsible for Transformers's marketing, and I thought that this should include Warner Records, since that's the label that produced the Transformers "soundtrack" with music "inspired by" the movie. I was acting under the impression that Warner Records would be the outfit that would release the CD(s) of the actual score.

(By the way, I've watched the Transformers "soundtrack" sales rank on Amazon go from #22 this past Saturday to #282 today, just 5 days later. A lot of people are buying this CD thinking it's the Jablonsky score, and some are returning it once they realize this isn't the score at all. And word about that is getting around fast.)

Well, apparently it's not Warner Records at all, but that it's Sony Music that will be responsible for what happens with a commercial release of the Jablonsky Transformers score. And the word from them is ... it might not be "in the works" right now after all.

Here's what user "Zophael" on the Superhero Hype! Boards got as a reply from Sony Music when he asked about the album ...

At this time, there are no immediate plans regarding the release of the Transformers soundtrack score.

SonyMusicStore Customer Service

I'm going to keep the petition going (click here if you haven't signed it already and would like to). Whenever's a good time to do so, I'm going to forward these names and comments to Sony Music. But I'm thinking that maybe it would be good to go for a direct appeal at this point also.

Here's the Sony Music website's feedback form where you can write to them from your desk.

There is also this mailing address that I found. It's for Sony Music Online Services, but I imagine any mail about a Transformers score would probably get forwarded to the appropriate department ...

Sony Music Online Services
550 Madison Ave, 24th Fl
New York, NY 10022-3211

There is also this phone number for Sony BMG Music Entertainment. I'm going to try to give them a call tomorrow and see what's the status on the Jablonsky Transformers score ...

Sony BMG Music Entertainment
212.833.8000

If you write or call, remember: be nice! We very much want to have Steve Jablonsky's awe-inspiring score from Transformers in our music collections. So we need to impress upon Sony Music that they stand to make serious money by releasing this as a top-quality album, crafted with as much care and attention as any other epic movie's soundtrack.

Let's show 'em how much we want 'em to "transform and roll out" them CDs! :-)

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ETS Recognition of Excellence for Praxis II test

Yesterday a big envelope arrived from ETS, the firm that conducts testing on educators. It was last week that I got the results of my Praxis II tests back and I did well on both of them. Well, inside the envelope that came yesterday was this certificate ...

It's an ETS Recognition of Excellence for scoring exceptionally well on the Social Studies Content exam. According to ETS I scored within the top 15% of those who take this test.

Pretty cool :-)

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Encouragement and prayers

Recently, a very good friend confided in me about some really troubling things that have happened in this person's life.

And then today, another very good friend shared a devastating bit of news.

To the people I'm talking about: you are two of the most amazing people that I have ever known. And you have not only been a rich blessing in my own life, but to many others: no doubt many more than you'll ever know.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

-- Jeremiah 29:11

God will see you through this. You will overcome these tribulations. In the meantime, know that you are lifted up in our prayers and that we are here for you.

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NOW she FINALLY thinks it's pretty neat!

In the lead-up to the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows this Friday at midnight, Lisa and I started last night watching all of the Harry Potter movies, beginning with Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone. Tonight we spent over two hours watching Chamber of Secrets. And now, only now, is Lisa appreciating something really cool that I did for her five years ago!!

It was about two months before the wedding. She was doing her final exams and I was at Star Wars Celebration II in Indianapolis. I wanted to get her something really special from the trip and also something of a gift for her getting her master's degree.

Well, Lisa and I sort of discovered the Harry Potter books at about the same time and Sorceror's Stone was the last movie we saw in theaters before we got engaged. And one of the guests at Celebration II was Warwick Davis: the fella who played Wicket in Return of the Jedi and who also played Professor Flitwick in the Harry Potter movies. So I had an idea ...

I left the convention center, ran down the street to a B. Dalton's bookstore and bought a hardcover copy of Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone. I then went back to the convention, waited in the autographs line and asked Mr. Davis if he could sign this book for my fiancee. He was delighted to do it, and in gold ink this is what he wrote on the blank page inside the cover:

Lisa
Practice your charms!

Warwick Davis
'Flitwick'

I got back home a few days later, gift-wrapped it and a few days later after she graduated at Georgia I gave it to her.

And Lisa was ... surprisingly unimpressed.

And she's been that way about it until tonight. After the movie she's telling me about how she really likes Dumbledore's line in Sorceror's Stone regarding how we should not "dwell on dreams and forget to live", so she gets the book out of the shelf, she opens it up. And it's like she's seeing Flitwick's signature for the very first time and now she admits that it's a rather neat thing to have and appreciates me for getting it for her. Only five years later.

She'll appreciate it even more in years to come, when we can show it to our kids and tell them that this book was once held by the same Professor Flitwick that they watch in the movies :-)

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300 a'la The Simpsons

Audio from the 300 trailer mashed-up with footage from The Simpsons TV show and movie trailers ...

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"Read a Harry Potter book for Jesus!"

This is either a very clever statement, or I have crossed a terrible, terrible line ...

The "Read a Harry Potter book for Jesus!" t-shirt. So what's the story behind the inspiration for this latest bit of mischief? I'll admit that part of it is because as a Christian, I don't have a problem with the Harry Potter books. But also because it really hit me earlier today, while going through a certain portion of the book Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, that there is an amazing use of scripture toward the end of the book. It's not directly quoting from the Bible, but it's a wonderful depiction of the nature of God.

It's toward the end of the next-to-last chapter of the book, "The Lost Prophecy". I was finding so many Bible verses that reflect what Dumbledore is saying there, that I literally lost count of them all.

There's no telling how many people have possibly received a knowledge of the gospel through these books and others, like the Chronicles of Narnia. It doesn't matter how the truth is presented or what the exact words are - this isn't Gnosticism we're dealing with after all - just so long as the truth is presented.

So ... should I wear this thing on Friday night? :-P

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Nintendo moving to retire Game Boy

GameDaily is reporting that Nintendo is apparently set to retire the Game Boy brand name ... at least for now. The Nintendo DS has become such a strong component of Nintendo's gaming strategy that it's almost completely overshadowing the original Game Boy line: something that wasn't predicted when the DS hit the market a few years ago.

Since the first Game Boy model went on sale in 1989, the line has sold a staggering 200 million units, from the original "spinach-green screen" Game Boy to the Game Boy Advance SP Mark II.

I bought my first Game Boy - the original - in 1993 to play on the plane during my trip to Belgium. I played the heck out of that lil' unit (still have it in great condition too) and accumulated quite a library of games for it. Then the Game Boy Color came out in 1998: the moment I heard that Game Boy was finally going color, I knew that I had to upgrade. The day after that Christmas, I went all over town trying to find a Game Boy Color and ended up buying one (it was the purple translucent model) at the Target off Wendover Avenue in Greensboro. That one went everywhere with me and was quite a faithful companion when I moved to Asheville a little over a year later.

Then for our first Christmas since getting married, Lisa gave me a Game Boy Advance. I think I played it for about 5 minutes on Christmas Day 'cuz Lisa couldn't let go of it! The next day we went and got her one too and used to play against each other with that link-up cable. Then for Christmas 2005 when the Game Boy Advance SP with the brighter light-up screen came out, I got that for her as a Christmas present and she gave me a Nintendo DS. So in one form or another, portable Nintendo gaming has been a part of our lives for most of the past decade and a half. So many fond memories ...

I might do a feature at some point about all-time best (and worst) Game Boy games. In the meantime, it's sad to see Nintendo retiring a long-respected brand. But by any standard, it has had quite an enviable run for a video game system!

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Online petition for CD of Jablonsky's TRANSFORMERS score

I just set up the Transformers score by Steve Jablonsky CD online petition.

Why?

Here are some of the comments that people have made on this post and on its followup in recent days ...

"I love original score to movies and Transformers caught my ear as soon as the movie got 20 minutes in. Im hoping they release an original score soundtrack, if they don't, it would be a crime."

"Yup, I absolutely LOVED the score and I'm dying for it to come out! I've seen the movie twice, and I would absolutely go again just to listen to the score!"

"i saw it 3 times and the last two where just to listen to the score. i am a very big movie score kind of guy and i have to say it was the best on e out of any that i have heard in any movie. It set the mood and struck the emotional attachment to what was going on during the movie better than any score iv heard. i would put it up there with brave heart and Gettysburg. i definitely will be buying it when it come out"

"I hope the reason they are taking so long releasing it, is that they are perfecting it. Although, it was soooo wicked in the movie, its good enough!!!The autobots arrival scene gave me chills..."

"I'll put my vote in for the score as well, and my money. If it comes out I'll buy it."

"I got here doing the same thing, Looking for the score. The movie was awesome, seen it twice and the Score is EPIC."

"I know! I from sweden im also looking for the Score to transformers 2007."

"I agree with all of you 100% The score was fanominal. Particualy the Autobots arrival and Bumblebee's capture. I've seen the movie about five times now, and everytime i hear that music i get a lump in my throat. Truely amazeing, I can't wait."

"I've seen the movie 4 times myself and I absolutely love it. I too wish to have the true score of the movie. The soundtrack they released is okay, but the score would be awesome. I love the parts when the Autobots arrive and when the military men are fighting Scorponuk. Here's hoping."

"i agree the score in this movie is off the chain
i really hope they come out with the score soundtrack"

At least three people have told me personally that part of the reason they have gone back to watch Transformers again, is to hear the orchestral soundtrack by Steve Jablonsky.

This blog continues to get slammed with hits that, when I check the logs, are from folks who are doing Google searches for variations of "transformers", "score", "jablonsky", "cd" and the like. In fact, I would say that right now, out of the several hundred visits this blog currently gets per day, maybe 60-80 percent are from people looking for information - any at all - on a Transformers score album.

I can't say enough how much it looks like from this end that there is a demand for this CD.

Now, we know from SoundtrackNet that a score album is "in the works", and no doubt that I'm joining a lot of people who are thankful to hear that. So yeah I know: what's the point of petitioning for something that's supposed to be coming out anyway?

The purpose of this petition is to underline how much we really do want this outstanding orchestral score. As much as we enjoy having the soundtracks of the Star Wars movies and The Lord of the Rings in our collections, we would love to have Steve Jablonsky's score for Transformers among them. And we not only want this album, but we believe that this is a score that deserves a lot of care and attention be lavished on its production.

Here's the link to the petition again. Feel free to sign and pass it around, if you feel so led :-)

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Catholic sex abuse case demands that priests be allowed to marry

This post may get a whole lotta folks mad at me, but I don't care. It needs to be said...

You've probably heard by now that the Los Angeles diocese of the Roman Catholic Church is paying $660 million to keep from going to court over long-standing allegations of sexual abuse of children by its priests.

This could have been avoided if the Catholic Church had long ago put an end to its insane policy that forbids its clergy to marry.

The Catholic Church believes that priests and nuns should be "married" to the church. That if the hearts and minds of its clergy are fully devoted to serving the Church, that this will provide an adequate substitute for the natural sex drive that almost all of us have. The implication is that if its priests and nuns are "tempted by the flesh" enough to desire sexual stimulation, then they "obviously" are not seeking purity and holiness enough.

The result is Lord only knows how many generations of men who are emotionally arrested as adolescents and remain that way for the rest of their lives, with no understanding of how to manage their natural instincts. So it is that many of them are compelled by their vows - from consequence if not from policy - to satisfy their sexual drive however they can.

That's not an excuse for these priests' behavior. But something sure as the world precipitated it.

All of this from the horrible and very mistaken belief that sex - and everything associated with it - is sinful by nature.

There is nothing sinful about sex, when it is expressed as God intended it. Within the confines of marriage between husband and wife, sex is not just a means of pleasure and relieving of natural drives: sex becomes an act of worship. Between husband and wife who are united in the eyes of God, sex is a holy and beautiful means of expressing not only love for each other, but love for the One who created them.

The apostle Paul spoke quite a bit about this in 1st Corinthians. To those who feel this need, then "they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion", Paul wrote. Ideally, marriage is supposed to be about much more than "the sex". In marriage as God designed it, sex is just one way of expressing love, rather than what defines love. But in the circles of this world, sex is what physically unites man and woman into something greater than the sum of the parts. So it is that marriage of man and woman is an illustration on this earth of the union, the "marriage", between Chris and His bride, the church (the church as in all who belong to Him).

The Catholic policy of forbidding priests and nuns the right to marry not only denies them the satisfying of physical nature, but of the spiritual nature also. The Catholic Church is forcing them to cut themselves off from what is, in the proper context, a magnificent intimate knowledge of God through the beautiful mystery of marriage.

It's like this: just about all of us, at some point in our lives, want to get laid. It's a design feature of God's engineering to keep the human race going. Being compelled to ignore it, for whatever reason, just doesn't work. It leads to very bad things happening, like priests molesting little kids.

On this point it would be a better thing to concede to human nature per God's instructions, and not the screwy thinking of mere men. Let the priests and nuns marry so that they can enjoy all the deep, passionate, hot-blooded sex that they want, just as God meant it to be part of marriage.

And for whatever it's worth, the priests who squirmed their way out of meeting real justice in this case should be strung up from the nearest telephone pole by their circular reproductive units. With piano wire.

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Really wacky prediction for HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS

I don't know if anyone has suggested this yet, but here goes...

We know that the body count is going to peg the needle in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, due out this coming Saturday. J.K. Rowling showed that she was playing for keeps in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire but the past two books especially have made it clear: nobody is safe.

The biggest question of all: Will Harry Potter be one of those who perish?

Theories abound. I've thought for awhile now about what might happen: Harry discovers that he himself is one of the Horcruxes, during the final battle he turns his own wand toward his chest and does the Avada Kedavera spell, killing himself and destroying the Horcrux... and then Ron and Hermione and everyone else attacks the now-mortal Voldemort. Now, for some reason, I'm not so sure if that's what will happen. I'll be surprised if it does.

No, I think Rowling has something even crazier in mind for how to wrap up this story.

What if... in the final showdown between Harry and Voldemort, Voldemort commits suicide?

I'm thinking it could go like this: Voldemort is made to confront not only all of the evil that he has done with his life, but also how tortured and diminished his own soul has become. It overwhelms him so much, that it makes him forget his lust for immortality. He realizes that for all the power that he has gained, in the end it is totally meaningless. In despair, Voldemort performs the Avada Kedavera spell on himself. It might be the only noble thing that he will have ever done with his life.

I know: that sounds completely bonkers. But hey, I made an off-the-cuff prediction two years ago for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and I hit the bullseye on that one. So who knows, maybe I'll have extrapolated well again :-)

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