The Squeee

Time to put a new date in the calendar: Saturday, 31 July 2010! Not just the birthday of Harry Potter and his creator, JK Rowling, but also the date of the first International Magic Day! The aim is to dress up as witches and wizards (or witches/wizards trying to blend into muggle society) for the day, and celebrate everything magic! You are hereby cordially invited to participate (and invite other muggles and magic folk alike).

This is a general hommage to my favourite baddies from films and TV! :D The deliciously malicious people who you might love to hate, or hate to love... or just outright fancy. Whatever floats your boat. Most, if not all, of my favourite baddies are either Magnificent Bastards or Smug Snakes according to the TV Tropes Wiki. The two personality types being quite similar. What would Freud say? If I could make out in which order I prefer them, I would list them like that, but since I can't, I'll just go with an A-Z. So to speak. The links are to YouTube clips for the most part. Last revised: 3 June 2011.

We saw season one when it came out. Had to see if it was any good. It wasn't all that great, but at least it's a heck of a lot better than the atrociousness known as Merlin (the BBC series, not the awesome American miniseries with Sam Neill from 1998, which I love dearly). Didn't see much of season two, but saw bits of it. Season three... wouldn't have been very interested in it if it wasn't for the fact that I found out that not only would Prince John make appearances, he would (more importantly) be played by Toby Stephens. Two sides to this coin. Or actually, I list about five, so that's a well freaky coin as it happens, but I've had some Sheridan's liqueur so I'm excused.

Barty Crouch Jr. meets the Death Eaters at the Quidditch World Cup arena (I might have been a little bored when writing this. You might recognise it. ;)) [trumpets] [clap clap clap] ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen. The next contest is between... Serbia, the Balkan baby-crushers, and Mongolia. BARTY CROUCH JR: Want some... VOICE: Thank you, fellows. BARTY: Popcorn. Chocolate buttons. Snickers. Mars bars. Nachos with cheese. Get 'em while they're hot. They're lovely. Potato wedges, only half a sickle. Chilli poppers. ALECTO: I do feel, Lucius, that any anti-establishment group like ours must reflect such a divergence of interests within its power-base. LUCIUS: Agreed. Amycus? AMYCUS: Yeah. I think Alecto's point of view is very valid, Lucius, provided the Movement never forgets that it is the inalienable right of every man-- MCNAIR: Or woman. AMYCUS: Or woman... to rid himself-- MCNAIR: Or herself. AMYCUS: Or herself. LUCIUS: Ag

Finished at around 1:30pm. Now I'm just waiting for others to finish so I have someone to discuss it with. ..., *waiting* I know she said she'd leave some loose ends for fans to speculate about, but... it felt like too many. Like, why not say what people are working with? What happened to some people (are they dead or alive)? And so on. There were also some pacing issues. Super-mega-action-packed start, then it drags on a bit and not a lot happens for like 200 pages before it picks up again. I think I'll have a bit of a ponder about it.

It has arrived. Busy reading. Queued up at ASDA around midnight. Started reading just after 1am, while having a large mug of strong (yucky) coffee to keep me awake. Have read for 4½ hours, just finished chapter 15, on a pee break / making-some-tea break / computer break... but will have to get back to reading now, before my tea-water gets cold.