Harry Potter-thon

Let's start with an admission. I'm a big Harry Potter geek. I actually got giddy a few minutes ago when I saw that Daniel Radcliffe has signed on to do the last two movies. But, c'mon, how could he not?! You can watch the trailer for Order of the Phoenix here. I still get chills when I watch it. I know, I'm a nerd.

My son is, of course, also a fan, so a few months ago we decided that it would be cool to spend a whole day watching all four movies in a row. While at the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, we mentioned this to one of my coworkers. Since he's a fan too, we promtly invited him to join us when we got around to it. I wasn't sure when this would be since Holidays were coming up, and we had yet to unpack much. Then a Very Nice Thing happened. A friend of ours called us up to tell us that his dad had gotten a new flatscreen TV for Xmas and was tossing out his 60 inch big screen TV, did we want it? Are you kidding me? Our rescued TV was in place within two days. I always had the impression that big screen TVs had a somewhat fuzzy picture, and this one fulfilled my expectations. Still, it was pretty cool to have such a BIG picture. Then the picture went out. My husband has always seemed to have some kind of luck with fixing mechanical things by simply taking them apart, jiggling the parts, blowing on it, and then putting it back together. It's a gift, really. Since the TV was free, there was no fear of screwing it up by taking it apart. When he did, not only did it start working again, but after he cleaned the projectors with windex, the picture was crystal clear and beautiful. All that was left was to have a Harry Potter marathon!

Well, word got around at work and before I knew it we had plenty of people wanting to share the love. We finally got together a couple of weeks ago with plenty of chips, dip, popcorn, pizza, candy and soda. I have to tell you that if you've never watched them all in a row, book yourself a Saturday (it'll take 12 hours with breaks) and do so. It was so neat to see the characters growing up. Also, I had had kind of a problem with the portayal of Voldemort in Goblet of Fire when I first saw it, but after seeing the others right beforehand, it was actually the most appropriate portrayal they could have done.

So now we are anxiously awaiting the final book, Deathly Hallows, and the fifth movie, Order of the Phoenix. I think we might be doing the marathon again when movie 5 comes out and then go to see it at the midnight showing. In preparation for the book, we're reading all the books out loud together again. We just started last night. Hopefully four and a half months will be long enough!