Monday, July 30, 2007

Painting the flagpole and HP:tDH

This is the first time that I've actually seen this happening. Yes, every once in a while, the university must repaint the flagpole to a pristine white. (Why the U didn't do this before the Fart Fair is a mystery to me.)

Today is looking to be a "nice" day, although 85 F is not my personal idea of "nice." (Let the kvetching start up again!) Of course, some people might say that I should be happy that it isn't in the 90s F. To that I retort that the temperature in town even by tomorrow will be in the 90s F. (What do you think of that?) Of course, I could wait and see if I am vindicated or not. Or (as I choose to do at this time) I can kvetch.

On a completely different note: I finished the last Harry Potter book in the original English. Now, for all of you who still haven't read it, I'm not going to give away any spoilers as to plot. However, I will say that - like the other volumes before this one - the UK version differed from the US version in several ways:
  1. The pages aren't synchronous.
  2. The UK version physically smaller than the US version (much easier to carry around without looking like you are lugging around a copy of the King James).
  3. In the US version, each chapter has a little picture showing a highlight of the upcoming pages.
  4. The UK version has (IMHO) much better cover art than the US versions (and one can choose to purchase either the "Children's" cover version or an "Adult's" cover - there are no content differences between versions).
In looking around online during the last week, I have come across a very funny (yet somewhat long) summary of The Deathly Hallows. If you don't want to know what happens in the book, don't read the summary, dummy.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Genius. A wonderful summary full of all the details, plenty of great cultural references, and a shared hatred of the primary protagonist, for nearly all the same reasons.

And oh, I agree. Hermione clearly got a full-load scholarship to go to Hogwarts purely to ensure that Harry didn't flunk out his first semester. Makes her initial meeting on the train with him make 122% total sense.