“Holy Pressure Vessels Batman!”
Don’t do this at home. Gas pressure is not necessarily your friend. Take this article for example. This guy was killed by the air pressure alone. 140 pounds per square inch across your chest (approximately 12″x12″ on me = 144 square inches) will come out to be 10 tons of force on some important parts of your body.
So, if you’re retreading tires, please be careful.
According to the canonical source, Ms. J. K. Rowling, author of the series, Harry Potter and the *, two characters (at least) will croak in the seventh and final book. From an article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution:
During an interview broadcast Monday on Britain’s Channel Four, Rowling revealed that at least two characters will buy it but was careful not to say who.
The author also noted that the last chapter of the seventh book was written awhile ago.
“The final chapter is hidden away, although it’s now changed very slightly,” she said in the interview. “One character got a reprieve, but I have to say two die that I didn’t intend to die.”
Hmmmm…
<SPECULATION>
Methinks that she has always intended Voldemort to be killed in this last book, so that bumps the minimum number of character deaths to three, given a reading of that last line above. Questions will now abound about who the other two are.
Of course, she has a lot of people to choose from. There’s all the members of the Order of the Phoenix. It could be Lupin or Moody or a dozen other people. If, like some of us believe, the seventh book still revolves around Hogwarts, any of the teachers are fair game, plus all the students, people in Hogsmead, etc. And don’t forget the character cast from the Ministry! Literally, there are dozens of “characters” that might find their way under Ms. Rowlings diabolical pen. When she said “characters” she might have been throwing us ye olde vermillion herring. She didn’t say “main characters” after all.
For my money:
I do not think that J.K.Rowling will kill Harry or Ginny, Ron, or Hermione, although I’m a bit up in the air concerning Ginny. No, now that I think about it, I don’t think Ginny will be killed.
</SPECULATION>
That’s about it for me. Feel free to speculate on your own time.
OH OH OH! I almost forgot…
<SPOILER>
Beware of Spoilers! If you’ve been living under a rock, you probably don’t know of what I am about to speak…
Where are the Horcruxes (Horcrucae? Horcruces?)? It is commonly accepted amongst H.P. fans that R.A.B., who placed the note into the locket retrieved at the end of Half Blood Prince was Regulus Black, who was a death eater and was killed after he tried to back out of his evil commitments.
I recently re-read the series and noticed that the locket we are all assuming is the real horcrux (found in the cabinet in the living room of Black Manor in Order of the Phoenix) was being cleaned up at the time of mention! They were placing all the things found in that cabinet into bags and then…who knows? What did they do with the bags? Where did the locket go? The next scene in that room implies that there wasn’t anything left in the cabinets, if the cabinets themselves were even still there. So, will Harry Potter be going dumpster diving to find the next horcrux? We shall see…
</SPOILER>
And speaking of speculation, I can’t be alone thinking that the final horcrux that Voldemort intended to make with Harry’s death when he was a child is now resident in Harry’s scar. Yes? No? Anyone?
The NY Times had a short blurb this morning concerning Snakes on A Blog, and I am sending you there because it’s highly amusing.
The NY Times article was not about the Snakes on a Blog, per se, but about an experience that the fellow who runs it had with Comcast. Apparently, and this is all lined out on the blog, a Comcast repairman came to work on his internet connection, then fell asleep while trying to get a call through to his own company’s technical service. A video is posted.
Oops.
Stolen from Bad Astronomy, check out this optical illusion.
I recently responded to a post on Live Journal, explaining that I had ceased running for a month because I had tweaked my erector spinae and paraspinal muscles. Then I thought to myself, “Self, is it really those muscles, or some other set and you just made that crap up?”
Off to the web! We need an anatomy resource!
Mulitplayer anatomy games? Sounds like FUN! Let’s click through…
Well, it’s a Jeopardy-ish type game, but I didn’t see the multiplayer aspect. Oh well. I elected to be tested in my cardiovascular knowledge and learned that I don’t know much.
This site is “A collection of study aids for entry-level anatomy and physiology students,” a quote taken directly from the page. Mostly a collection of quizzes. I did not think it was going to help.
I could go on, but none of these links was really satisfactory. Thankfully, I have a copy of The Anatomy Coloring Book and Gray’s Anatomy (not to be confused with the TV show).
The lesson here is, the web can’t do everything, yet. There are still plenty of things where you need to sit down and pore over a reference book.
Back to my coffee now. And I still haven’t answered my own question.
I’m strangely fascinated by the concept of this blog. I think that this is something that would have been a good idea in college, at least to break the ice.
This reminds me of the guy who showered with a hundred women.
Tomorrow is the summer solstice, known as the first day of summer to Americans. Why do we call this the first day of summer? Weather-wise, it’s more like the end of the first third of summer. Oh well…
I trolled for some Solstice Superstitions. Most of them hark to druidish type things, and were too boring for this blog. Here’s one I like: (from http://www.geocities.com/traditions_uk/midsummer.html)
If on Midsummer’s Eve, you approach a fern leaf backwards, without looking, and – without touching the leaf – collect the seed (spores), they have to power to make you invisible.
So, I’ll be gathering myself some fern spores tomorrow. Right after I balance eggs on end.
For note, tomorrow we enter the blissful days of summer at 1223 Universal Time, which is 0723 EST which is 8:23 Eastern Daylight Time for us American east coasters. What will you be doing? I’ll be getting my teeth cleaned.
I run across numerous acronyms and initialisms in my job. It’s not as bad as the military, but there are plenty, let me tell you.
I’m reading a report this morning and happen across the following quote, which lists an interesting initialism:
The High Hazard Location System (HSP) is a flexible…*
HSP? Where did they get that? Freaky…
*NCHRP Synthesis 295: Statistical Methods in Higway Analysis
Regurgitating more stuff from milkandcookies.com, here is a fight between animator and animatee. I heartily approve.
Apparently, God does not exist. Here is the empirical proof.