I finished "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" last night - one down, six to go! It was a fun read, although it doesn't quite fill the void left after finishing the Twilight Saga. I admit it, I'm a Twi-hard fan of Stephenie Meyer's fictional world of vampires and werewolves. Maybe future Potter books will change my loyalties, but I doubt I'll ever get to the level of the fans in this recent story in the Wall Street Journal:
"Voldemort Hath No Fury Like Angry Harry Potter Fans" - Wall Street Journal, Sept. 8, 2008
Speaking of Ms. Meyer, I was disappointed to read of her reaction to copies of her unfinished draft of her next Twilight book, Midnight Sun, being circulated on the Internet without her permission. "Vampire Novel Is Put on Hold" - Wall Street Journal, Sept. 3, 2008 While I certainly respect her decision to stop working on the book and will support her whichever way she goes in making the point for artists' rights, I guess I think it's a little naive to expect in today's world that leaks aren't going to happen when you create an electronic version of your work and give it to someone. As one fan said, musicians have tracks leaked all the time, but that doesn't stop them from finishing an album. I hope that she pays heed all the fans who are begging for more Twilight stories and changes her mind about not finishing the book someday. The upside is that she posted the partial draft on her Web site so fans could read it without having to find it on a file sharing site.
Tara and I had a quiet date night last night, which was good. We are making some strides in communicating our differing philosophies and lifestyles, and hopefully paving the way for better acceptance and harmony in the future. We watched Madagascar, which made us laugh a little, and want to go see the Central Park Zoo. I got a chuckle out of the fact that the zoo gang visited the subway station at Lexington and 59th Street, a station I had just been in earlier in the day when I came back to the office from the Federal court building downtown. I also pointed out the exact location in Grand Central Station where Tara and I had stood once before, the last time we visited there. Living in New York makes a lot of movies more interesting, I find.
Today I bought the complete box set of the old TV show Get Smart, starring Don Adams and Barbara Feldon, available from Time-Life for a discounted price of $149 until the end of this month. I don't know why, but I'm feeling very nostalgic for some of these shows from my childhood, and I've always had a secret agent vibe anyway (as some of you know, I've seen every single James Bond movie, and own most of them). Besides, the whole 25-disc set comes in a phone booth collector's box - who can resist that?
