I Was On Potter Crescent Today...

...but I didn't see Harry.

As I predicted driving was fun today.  Trying to drive down 8th Street with no traction is not recommended.

Child Of Twilight?

Walking into a store this morning I passed a little girl, 3 years old at the most, and her mom.  The girl was named Bella.  I found myself wondering if the tyke was named after the "heroine" of Stephane Meyer's Twilight books.  Sure, it's possible the kid is named after someone like the late American feminist Bella Abzug, but given her age it's rather more likely she's named after Bella Swan.  I would imagine there will be a lot of kids shaking their heads in a couple of decades when they get around to reading about the doormat character they're named after.

But hey, it could be worse.  At least is supposed to be the heroine of Twilight.  Imagine the kids who might be named Draco, after Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter books.  The actor who played him in the movies, Tom Felton, appealed to a lot of the female fans, and the result was what is actually a rather nasty character being quite popular.  You can be sure that someone will name their kid after him.

Harry Potter And The Animator's Storyboard?

This week sees the debute of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2, the final big screen adaptation of JK Rowling's ultra popular book series.  Hearing a news report this morning on the film made me wonder if there was ever any attempt to make a Potter cartoon series.  It seems highly likely that it was done.  Many franchises have hit the TV screen in cartoon form.  Some were successful, such as the 1980s cartoon version of Ghostbuters and the current Star Wars:  The Clone Wars series.  Others never made it to air, such as the proposed cartoon version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, despite a short pilot animation that included voice work from much of the cast of the TV series.  Then there are such bizarre examples as Rambo and the Forces of Freedom, based on the Stallone movies.  Perhaps Rowling didn't like the idea of material being produced that wasn't directly based on the books, as the movies were.

For that matter I wonder if there was ever a pitch for a Harry Potter ongoing comic book.  Again this would obviously have revolved around stories not created by Rowling, which is perhaps why it didn't happen.

I Hope They're Not Your Neighbours.

We've all heard of people who take their fandoms too far. But there's obsessive, and then there's out and out nutbar. And unfortunately the Internet allows such people to get together, such as the people described in this Fandom Wank entry. These very delusional women think they're "astrally married" to Severus Snape, a character from the Harry Potter series. You know, someone who never actually existed. And now they've had a falling out. How they've avoided a visit from the local boys in the nice white outfits is beyond me, especially since at least one of them apparently is married and her spouse knows about her Snape obsession. Hopefully when these ladies have a complete mental collapse they won't harm themselves and/or others in the process.

Shameless Hit Count Whoring.

Tonight's the night. The final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is being released. Therefore I shamelessly present to you this post, which has no other purpose than being a blatant attempt to boost my traffic. So c'mon Potterfans! Visit here now. After all you owe me for all the wanking that will result online from whatever JK Rowling has in store for poor Harry(although rumour has it the kid lives), wanking that could be expended on more valuable topics, like Doctor Who.

Harry's No Help.

One of the things I do when I check my Statcounter stats is see what brought people here, as I find it amusing to see some of the search engine queries that people use. But thinking about this today I realised one thing that has not helped bring hits here is Harry Potter. I can't remember any hits that had something to with Harry Potter, so if there have been such hits they can't have been more than one or two. Prior to this four posts mentioned Harry Potter, as even though I have never read any of the Potter books or seen the movies it's such a pop culture phenomina that discussing it on a blog like this is inevitable. Given that you'd think I'd get regular Potter related hits, but that's not the case. It will be interesting to see if this post changes that in any way.

How's this for silly? A Norwegian film director believes that JK Rowling may not actually exist, and that the Harry Potter books are written by ghost writers. The woman we know as JK Rowling? She's just an actress, speculates Nina Grunfeld. Oh well, at least she's not claiming the Potter books are a plot by evildoers to convert children to Satanism.

The Harry Potter series is one I haven't gotten into, and have no intention of getting into. I'm just not interested in it. But I'm still being entertained by it second hand, namely through some of the totally wacked out behaviour of some of its fans. If you ever needed to be reminded that fan is derived from fanatic just check out this petition, started by folks who are all upset that JK Rowling isn't going to write their prefered romantic pairing, or ship, to use fanspeak, in the series. Its possible this is intended as a joke, but even if it is it certainly mirrors a lot of the craziness currently running around in the Potter fandom. If there's something that could piss off a Potter fan you can be sure someone is ranting online about it, like those who are upset that Rowling hasn't put any same sex relationships in the books. Some of this stuff is almost as bad as the anti Potter kooks who think the series is a gateway to children becoming witches, or Satanists, or some other boogieman.

I was just reading some stuff about a Harry Potter fanfic writer who had her apartment broken into and her and roomies computers stolen. Now folks, including many she doesn't actually know, are actually making donations to replace their stuff.

Someohw I doubt complete strangers will be donating me any money anytime soon.