1.11 - 6 down, and a midnight party...

Bring out the NERDS!

Last night Petra and I went to the midnight release party for Harry Potter, book 7. I wasn't real stoked about standing in line for hours and hours in the middle of the night, but Petra convinced me to give it a whirl. Our timing couldn't have been more perfect.

We opened the doors and, I kid you not, the lady over the loud-speaker said "Okay! 10-9-8-7..." It was like they were waiting for us.

There were gobs of people. (The cars filled four parking lots! That little square of light is the store in the distance.) We walked into Barnes and Noble to find it packed with capes and pointy hats. I almost said "Let's just come tomorrow, we'll be here forever," but instead went over the to desk to sign in. There were two types of wristbands, yellow and blue, which were labeled A-Z. They were starting with yellow A's. I gave my name to the lady, she found me on the list and went to grab a section of blue S bands, when (magically??) some papers shifted and there were about 4 or 5 yellow I's, just sitting there. "Huh! Lucky you!," she said.

We were in like Flinn. By 12:30 I had my book and we were on our way home, with literally hundreds of people (who had been there for hours, by the looks of it) still in line behind us.

Don't feel too bad for them though. Everyone seemed like they had been having a blast hanging out, getting all hopped up on Starbucks!
On the way home, we almost got into an accident, and I swear to you it was because no these two cars both had drivers trying to seek a read at the books in there laps... I wonder how many wrecks there were last night because people were trying to read Harry Potter on the way home!

So I woke up this morning and polished off the last few pages of Book 6! On to the end!

Thing #3: Kevin Bacon

I don't remember the first time I heard of the movie nerd game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. (If you've never heard of it, check out the above-linked Wikipedia article for a nice overview.) It didn't take long, however, for my sister Lindsey and I to change the game to something simpler and more stream-lined that we simply called Six Degrees.

It works like this:

Two players each silently choose an actor or an actress. Then they say them out loud. The goal is to connect Actor A to Actor B, through their costars, in six degrees or less.
In other words: A was in movie 1 with C, who was in 2 with D, who was in 3 with E, who starred in 4 with F, who was terrible in 5 with G, who made me cry in 6 with B.

Make sense? The rules are very flexible. The point is just to have fun, and if you are a big movie nerd, it's hard to have more fun than this. My wife Petra loves the game, and frequently kicks my ass.

So...

Thing #3: Design a card game based on the Six Degrees concept.

Here are a couple of links you might enjoy if you get a kick out of the whole Six Degrees thing.

The IMDB - The ultimate movie nerd resource.
The Oracle of Bacon - This site is awesome, but kind of ruins Six Degrees

World Domination

I have a very exciting announcement to make, regarding my desire to conquer the entire world.

My wife, Petra, has started her own 5things blog.

Stop by and check her out.

Err. Stop by and check her blog out...

I've added a bar on the left where you can find a link to Petra's Five. Also, if you get inspired and start a 5things blog, drop me a note so I can link to it.

Thing #1: One Down

I finished Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone last night while waiting for Petra at our acupuncturist.

I immediately carved a lightning bolt shaped scar into my forehead.

Then we went to Auntie's Bookstore and grabbed books two and three.