Deathly Hallows...

Well, my day started off pretty slowly. I'd looked at all the news about HP7... apparently the NYT got a copy from a store a day early and did a review of it a day before the release and JKR was pretty upset about it. I knew I would spend most of Saturday devouring the final installment of the story of the "boy who lived", but I figured that I'd just get a copy on Saturday. Last year, we pre-ordered and I stood in line diligently with a hundred other fans at Waldenbooks in the mall. It took several hours of standing in line to actually get the book "at midnight" and the next morning, there was a pallet of them at Wal-mart... so I figured I could wait a few hours and avoid the drudgery of standing in line. But all of a sudden, BAM! I get this in my campus email:

Well, what is a guy supposed to do? I didn't want to stand in line at Books-a-million or Hastings, but by golly, I'd stand in line at the campus store. Well, apparently a bunch of other people thought the same thing:

But that is ok... we had a fun time and I only had to stand in line for about 20 minutes. For a last-minute effort, I have to applaud the Campus Store. They tried to give it a little of the Potterverse flavor by including some free treats:

So, I also thought that, being that this was last minute and most of the hard core fans had probably already pre-ordered online or at one of the major chains, I *might* get lucky if I dressed up... so I pulled out an old Jedi Robe (yes, I'm that geeky), shaved off the goatee so as to be a more believable Harry Potter... donned a lightning scar tatoo and printed off a Gryffindor badge I found online and thought that I might just win a prize. $10 bucks... not bad for little effort. Anyhow, I finally got my copy:

And I'm ready for any shocking revelations that JKR is going to throw my way.

After driving home and tossing up this blog post, the time is officially 1:17am and I'm headed downstairs to read in the comfy chair. Happy reading, Potter fans!

My thanks to the planners of the Campus Store HP7 release party:

Shannon, Scott and Anthony

-jeff

edit: I finished the book at 4:55pm on Saturday. All is right with the world, but I need a nap.