Yesterday, I went to the park and finished reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Although I hate to admit it, this left me feeling in need of a bit of a sulk. ( ? )

So I guess that it was lucky that I happened to notice that Harry and the Potters were playing at the University Bookstore this afternoon. It was a great excuse to go to the U-district; and I'm glad that I took it. The band is so completly great. Kind of like Weezer if all of their songs were about the trials and tribulations of Harry Potter instead of Rivers's latest emotional crisis. Yeah, I know! Wizard rock! awesome.

The bookstore was packed with fans. Including a girl with a furry hat with a lion on top. Kids who knew all of the words and swarmed the brothers at the end to get their signatures on CDs or T-shirts. The merch table was mobbed; even I bought a "Save Ginny!" T-shirt. Because how could I not?

On Monday I spent some time at the office, had a techfee meeting, went for a swim, and made an attempt at the pub quiz. For the first two rounds we were in the lead, but when it got to the part where we had to identify celebrities from distorted pictures we were completely crushed by the opposition.

Since it is now officially summer, I stopped at the Mix for a drippy ice cream cone on my way to the bus stop. It was good, but really really messy.

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Today, after work I met Carolyn at the movie theater and we saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I liked some parts -- everything up to the factory and the squirrels -- but I'm not sure if I liked the whole thing. My biggest immediate complaint is that most of the Oompa Loompa songs were unnecessarily hard to understand. But maybe I'll think about it and conveniently forget about the flat parts in the middle and the indifference to the horrible fates of the children and like the memory of the movie better than the experience of watching it. This happened to Stephanie Zacharek [salon] and she's usually always right.

After the movie, I'd hoped to see Mount Eerie. Unfortunately, they (/he) wasn't the headliner; so I missed the set. But the bouncer let me go inside to buy the new CD (No Flashlight) before I left. The packaging is incredible -- it includes a CD and a record. The liner notes, unfolded, take up about half of the dining room portion of my apartment. I'm listening to the CD now and it's pretty great, too.