Go ahead. Tell me Dumbledore doesn’t look like Gandalf in this poster.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was originally scheduled for November, but Warner Bros. has just decided to push it back to June for scheduling purposes.

Is it annoying? Yeah. Is it a personal affront? Not so much.

Maybe I’m jaded, having been through this with movies like Stardust and Serenity, not to mention Sci-Fi Channel’s insane scheduling system that basically treats each “season” as two 10-episode seasons and splits them across what might as well be two years…or, going further back, PTEN’s insistence on holding back the last 4 or 5 episodes of each Babylon 5 season until the following fall, every single year to the point where TNT, after picking up the final season, did the same thing. Pathology got postponed twice, then pulled off the schedule entirely before it finally hit theaters nearly a year after the original release date.

Or maybe it’s just that I like the Harry Potter books better than the movies.

It’s not like it’s been taken off the schedule indefinitely. It’ll still get a theatrical release. I can’t think of any at the moment, but I’ve had movies I really wanted to see get stuck on a shelf, finished, for years. Some of them eventually surfaced as direct-to-DVD releases.

And they’re not delaying production on Deathly Hallows. The actors will still be well within the standard Hollywood “teenager” age range by the time they finish playing 17-year-olds in the final film.

So I can understand being annoyed, but I don’t understand the letter-writing, the petitions, the plans to boycott the film — yes, there are fans who intend to boycott the film if they have to wait for it.

*sigh* I’d better go over to Newsarama and see how crazy the thread about Final Crisis #4 being delayed 2 weeks has gotten. Actually, no, I shouldn’t. I should get some sleep instead.

P.S. Anyone else think that “HP Rebellion” would be a great name for a computer?

Now the charity is doing a standard hardcover run of the book…and a $100 collector’s edition designed to mimic the original hand-written run. While considerably cheaper than the £1,950,000 Amazon spent to get their copy of the original run, it’s a little more than I’d like to spend. (I mean, I didn’t even spring for the $150 for the special edition of Comic Book Tattoo.) I think I’ll stick with the standard edition.

We got there about 10 past midnight, and they were distributing books, but the line was already all the way down one side of the store. I ended up getting coffee at the in-store Seattle’s Best, talked to the baristas about just what’s open so far, and we both browsed a bit. Finally they called her wristband color, and we had the book in our hands by 12:50.

We went home. I went straight to sleep (despite the coffee!), while Katie stayed up to read the first few chapters.

It was nowhere near the level of the iPhone launch last month, but then there are many more places you can buy Harry Potter, and there’s little risk of the book selling out.

We agreed that the preview of The Dark is Rising looks terrible. It looks like they’re turning it into an action movie. Will Stanton with magic powers?!?!? It’s sad, since Christopher Eccleston seemed like perfect casting for the Dark Rider.

Saw a second preview of The Golden Compass, though, and it looks even better than the first one we saw. They could still screw it up, but I at least have high hopes for this one. The visual look is dead-on (which was my first reaction to the very first Fellowship teaser), and it looks like they’ve stuck with the book’s concepts.

Did a Google search just for the heck of it. I wonder how quickly those numbers will climb…

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Teenager with a destiny? Check. Red-haired girlfriend whom he used to think of as the girl next door? Check. Break-up because the hero is marked for danger? Check. Yes, the thought had crossed my mind.

(via scans_daily)

Is this what he saved those mean girls from?

I’d love to have a discussion on this. Please comment. (Even if you think I’m the one with her head on crooked.)

Slytherin: Scorpius, Chiana, Crais, Rygel, Grayza. Pretty much no-brainers.

Ravenclaw: Jool, Sikozu, Zhaan, Noranti. Crichton starts out here and ends up in Gryffindor.

Gryffindor: D’Argo, Talyn. Joined later by Crichton and Aeryn.

Hufflepuff: Pilot and Moya, Stark (because he doesn’t fit anywhere else), Braca. Aeryn starts here and moves to Gryffindor.

Harry Potter virus: Looks like the last file of a virus you just wiped out, until you try to erase it–then it wipes your drive.

Voldemort virus: You can’t get rid of it, only make it dormant. It can be reactivated by the Wormtail virus up to thirteen years later.

Dumbledore virus: Scares off all the other viruses but never seems to actually *do* anything.

Hermione virus: Fills up all available drive space with files of useless information.

Ron virus: Contains code, some of it buggy, from the author’s five previous viruses.

Draco Malfoy virus: Changes all your screensavers to insults.

Remus Lupin virus: Your computer becomes immune to all other virus and worm attacks, but three days out of the month it becomes a Commodore 64.

Weasley virus: Able to replicate even in limited space conditions.

Ginny virus: Looks like just another copy of the Weasley virus, but wreaks havoc every time you blog.

Tom Riddle virus: Masquerades as the Ginny virus, then retreats into memory.

Luna Lovegood virus: Repeatedly points your web browser to conspiracy-theory sites.

Slytherin virus: Your computer no longer reads hybrid CDs.

Gryffindor virus: All your games are reconfigured so you can no longer “Save As.”

Hufflepuff virus: Increases the efficiency of your computer, but gets no credit for it.