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I heart Gleebooks.
How cute are they? The bookstore just sent out our final instructions for this Saturday:

Dear travellers on the Gleewarts Express, It is only three sleeps to go. We have some last minute instructions and
reminders. Please – please – set two alarms! If you are late, we cannot wait. We advise you to arrive somewhere between 5.20am and 5.30am at the latest. Eat a sensible breakfast before you embark on the train. Yes, we will have
plenty to eat – but you may need food you are more – ahem – familiar with.
For older witches and wizards, Thermoses of sustaining drink are advisable. Don’t forget to wear your ticket around your neck. You need your ticket to
board the train and you also need your ticket to get your very own copy of
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Please be in character. Costumes can be simple or sophisticated – but please wear one. Money: definitely not Muggle currency (but it doesn’t have to be fancy either) for making purchases from the trolley witches. The Gleebooks branch of Flourish and Blotts, however, will only accept Muggle currency for previous Harry Potter books, tapes and DVDs on the return journey from Hogsmeade. Wet weather gear is essential. Raincloaks, batbrellas and owloshes may be necessary. Dress warmly. Please bring your sunny moods on the day. When you have an entire village of magical folk, not everyone can be first. Grumpiness attracts Dementors.

Warmest regards, a slightly nervous Minerva McGonagall

“Grumpiness attracts Dementors.” I love that! It’s so fun how they’ve kept every little bit of communication in character. I can’t wait for Saturday!

I’ve read a lot of arguments for and against abortion, but never have I read that there is a statistical link between Roe vs. Wade and a twenty-year drop in crime rates. Pretty mind-blowing, if you ask me…

I absolutely love these T-shirt designs that are being sold to support the British Red Cross. What a great idea. I’m also contemplating donating some money to buy a pint for the folks in emergency services.

The BBC is taking a poll of who everything thinks the “half-blood prince” will be. I’m still guessing Hagrid at this point. (Whoever wrote the poll is stupid though. Tonks is a girl!)

What makes dogpeople and catpeople? I weigh in over at AskMetaFilter…

Score one for the matriarchy! We just got a wedding invitation addressed to “Rodd and Kris Howard.” Hee! (Thanks, Steve.)

Happy birthday to my sister Amy, who turns 25 today! It’s all downhill from here, Sis… 🙂

Cool! The New York Times ran a Harry Potter crossword today! The Snook and I are working on it right now… (Link courtesy of Manda.)

On Friday Amy and I got together to make some galleons, sickles, and knuts for our Harry Potter train trip next weekend. We’d originally had plans to do them in Fimo clay, but the guy I spoke to at Barnes Casting Supplies in Newtown thought they might be too brittle. He suggested something a little more fun and a lot more dangerous: resin casting. So armed with a buttload of supplies, we set to work.

Looks fun, doesn’t it? We were like two kids having play-dough craft time! First we made the Fimo coins, which turned out much better than expected. We flattened the Fimo with the rolling pin, cut out circles with cookie cutters, and then stamped the coins with letters and shapes. While they were in the oven we got started with the resin. The first step was to make some molds. We were using “dental putty,” which is evidently the stuff they jam in your mouth when you get braces. You knead two different colors of Silly-Putty-like goo together and then you have, like, five minutes before it turns into complete rubber. We attached the charms to the bottom of various sized glasses and then smooshed putty all over them. Picture 2 shows the completed molds. Picture 3 shows the baked Fimo coins. Back to the resin. In Picture 4 Amy is measuring out equal parts of Scary Resin Stuff “A” and Scary Resin Stuff “B”. Note that we’re wearing dust masks and we had the door open with the fan blowing. (It actually didn’t smell bad at all though. I don’t think we had the super toxic version.) Picture 5 shows me and my small hands pouring the combined mixture into the molds. Within a few minutes they were starting to turn from clear into white and give off some serious heat. (That’s Picture 6.) In Picture 7 you see them nearly finished. Then we just popped them out of the molds as seen in Picture 8. The Snook is now going to help me spray paint them and add some further writing and detail.

So to summarize, we just spent $50 and countless hours of time to make fake wizard coins to pay for chocolate frogs on a steam train to a fictional village. Really, we just want to show up the other kids. Hooray for being grown-ups with discretionary income!

We just finally saw Batman Begins and, much like Ebert, I thought it totally kicked ass. The only negative was the pair of FLAMING IDIOTS who brought toddlers to the show. Toddlers! I wish I were joking. The kids cried through the whole damn thing. As the Snook put it, “The whole plot was about a guy tramatized as a child, and now those dumbass parents just did the same thing to their kids.” Finally one of the other moviegoers yelled out to get the damn kids out of there, and the father actually had the nerve to look annoyed. That’s the kind of crap that makes me laugh whenever people mention my “biological clock.” I DON’T THINK SO.