July 17, 2007 by zeeliciouszee.

Arghhh. I’ve been meaning to write this up before Book 7 came out, but I’ve recently discovered that Deathly Hollows has been leaked, so please excuse the rush job. I’ve been informed that some douche got his hands on a copy of it and videotaped the entire book. Don’t ask me how he managed that, but it’s somewhere floating around on the internet now. Don’t ask me where to get it, I saw a snapshot of the first page and stopped there.

So, until July 21st, I highly recommend unplugging your internet, locking yourself in your home, and avoiding all forms of contact with the outside world. Do NOT order delivery. Do NOT pick up your phone. It takes a second for someone to shout out “Snape kills Dumbledore!” [Sorry to everyone that hasn’t read Half Blood Prince yet. If it’s any consolation, I haven’t read it yet either.] You’ve been warned. And that’s my CYA.

Now, the reason I wanted to have this written up earlier… Dumbledore kills Snape. That’s the facts. I’ll go into a bit more detail later. Before that, I’m going to proceed to give my predictions for Deathly Hollows. And again, I haven’t seen anything past the first page, so I make no claim about the truth of these statements, but I’ve been known to be right about a lot of things.

To start: Snape’s good. Harry thinks he’s bad. Again. He’s going to be chilling with Voldemort’s crew up until the very end. Then he kills Lucius. By the end of the book, Snape either dies, or becomes the boss of some significant wizardry organization. And maybe he gets to teach defense of the dark arts.

As you may or may not have heard, someone close to Harry Potter will be dying in this book. Name? Sirius Black. Rowling will absolutely not kill off one of Harry Potter’s “close friends.” Reason: Kids will cry. Many will be traumatized. Parents will send Rowling their therapy bills. So Ron and Hermione are safe. The older Weasley brothers are done with school, theoretically they shouldn’t even be in this book [but we all know they will be]. Ginny can’t be killed for reasons I’ll get into later. And Neville’s been getting scrubbed for way too long [4 books] to bite the dust. I might give her Cho Chang, but that one’s kind of a stretch. I don’t think Harry has any other friends [I really don’t give this kid enough credit].

So here’s the logic behind Sirius Black dying. Again. He never exactly dies. He kind of just gets sent into another dimension and no one knows where he ends up. But he’s Sirius Black - that’s synonymous with bad ass. He was one of those prodigy wizards, he’s going to find a way to come back. People love him, so it’s going to get the effect rumors are claiming. At the same time, he’s been taken out of the picture before, so people won’t be totally flipping out when they read it. Again.

How will Sirius die? Killing curse. Same thing as Harry Potter’s parents. Rowling’s a fan of subtlety. More often than not, she likes to throw in a little bit of irony too. Supposedly Voldemort learned not to underestimate the “power of love.” Yeah, I think not. I’m sure you can see the brilliance of this “plot twist.” I feel pretty convinced that, despite all rumors, Harry Potter does NOT die. Rowling’s trying to pull a fast one by making us believe that the possibility is up there, but she’s not going to pull a double. Please.

The Harry Potter series continues after Deathly Hollows. Maybe not Harry Potter, but some spin-off will spawn. I have bets on Ginny getting her own series. She’s a solid character that we don’t quite know enough about. In her first year [Harry’s third?] she goes on her own crazy adventure that we don’t really hear about. One of her close [and whacky] friends is already established [Luna Lovegood]. Plus, she’s 2 years younger than Harry Potter’s crew, so in her 6th and 7th year, we’ll get to see what the aftermath of Deathly Hollows is like in Hogwarts. Not to mention, you get the story from a female perspective and we get to see how crappy Ron’s summers are. To recap: Ginny won’t die in Book 7.  She’s going to be big in future Rowling books.
Neville saves Harry’s life. Again, this kid has been getting scrubbed far too long to not do something important.

Dumbledore kills Snape! This is a bit more of a joke than anything else, but I’m certain Dumbledore comes back. And Rowling makes a nod to Lord of the Rings, as he comes back as “Dumbledore the White.” Now, that one sounds like a joke, but it was serious. Dumbledore’s first name, Albus, means “white” in Latin. Do your homework kids. Dumbledore is absolutely, positively a tribute to Tolkien’s Gandalf. In a poem titled “Errantry” by Tolkien, a dumbledore is a beetle known to visit the shire every year. Check The Tolkien Reader for a reference. I didn’t, but I’m well informed.

Do you seriously want me to believe that Hogwarts is going to be running without Dumbledore. The Ministry despises Hogwarts. The only reason it’s, for the most part, the way it is is because Dumbledore is at its head. If you take Dumbledore out, the Ministry can do whatever they want with the school, and then it’s all over. There wouldn’t even be any magic in the school. It’d just be like a boarding school… where giant spiders eat kids.

Trust me, I’m certain on this one. Dumbledore’s coming back.

And he might kill Snape.

Posted in Looong, Fun and Games | 3 Comments »

March 6, 2007 by zeeliciouszee.

Early 2006, my guy Dave and I come up with this theory. I’m all about theories. Absolutely love them. So here’s the set up:

We’re all hanging out in my boys Phil and Dave’s room. And we’re watching television or checking stuff out online or whatever it was that we did back then when my boy Phil goes “Hey Zac. Have you seen my powerball?” Pause. Raise an eyebrow. “What the crap’s a powerball?” Phil rolls open the drawer of his desk and takes out this plastic ball thing, gives it a flick with his thumb, starts spinning it, and the thing lights up. “Holy crap! That’s awesome!”

Now a technical description, because I have people here wondering what the hell I’m talking about. As I’m sure you’ve figured out, this powerball is a little different from the powerball where you pick 6 numbers and hope to win millions of dollars, but it’s almost as good. Maybe even better. The powerball is a gyroscope powered device commonly used by athletes to exercise one’s forearm, wrist, and/or grip. Spinning the device causes the gyroscope inside the ball to spin and create force. I’m a little fuzzy on how gyroscopes work exactly, but I know spinning them is awesome. In any case, you can get these with counters that measure how fast the gyroscope is spinning and such or with LEDs. Phil had red LEDs.

Within hours, Dave and I are online trying to buy our own. Prices are something like 25 bucks for a normal one, 35 for either LEDs or the odometer dealy, or 45 for the combo. So what’s the decision here? Well, LEDs are just fancy lights, there’s no real practical use for it other than to know that the powerball is spinning (I neglected to mention that there are no batteries - the LEDs are powered by the gyroscope and no, I don’t understand how) which is pretty obvious if you’re using it. The odometer’s kinda cool. We can “race” with it and actually get a figure on if we’re improving. But… 10 bucks for some gimmicky add-ons… Hmmm… What to do… whattodo…

I think it’s pretty obvious: Buy the ones with the lights!! So what’s the theory behind this?

EVERYTHING is better with lights.

Let’s face it, things that light up unnecessarily are just straight up cool. Pens with lights rock my world. No USB device is complete if it doesn’t light up. Laser pointers blow the minds out of any household pet. Street cars with neon lights are kicking [and illegal for bonus points]. Anything and everthing can be improved with lights. Maybe not necessarily lights, but anything that creates a glow effect. I say that because glow-in-the-dark things don’t technically have lights, but they’re kickass nonetheless. Why else would Asian glow be so trendy now?

If you still don’t believe the theory, I think you need to check this site out:

dealxtreme

I don’t usually trust people that think the letter “x” is cool unless it’s in “X-Men,” but this site amazes me. Light up shot glasses. You want a set. 2 bucks a pop shipped. Yeah, buy them now. How’s all this stuff so outrageously cheap [mini 200x zoom microscope WITH light for under 30 bucks shipped]? Well, it’s based in Hong Kong, so expect poor craftsmanship [read: bootlegging]. Whatever though, if your light up pen breaks down you’re only out a dollar, boohoo. Also, be sure to check out the LED powerball for under 9 bucks shipped.

Quick story before closing this up. Shipping is apparently about 2 weeks via Hong Kong Post. I’m not 100 percent on this, but a while ago I imported something from China on eBay and it may have been shipped HKP. I actually had it delivered to my apartment within the week. Here’s the kicker: The delivery man was totally an illegal immigrant that couldn’t speak English. I swear, that guy just got off the boat to hand deliver my package. Keep in mind, I’m in the mid-west, boats don’t get here that easily. So if that’s standard service from HKP, try not to think of it as shipping and handling, think of it more as a fee for a good laugh.

Posted in Fun and Games, Randomness | 4 Comments »