Cleolinda everywhere

Harry Potter is the Biggest Worldwide Debut Ever with $476M. That is to say, nearly half a billion dollars, blowing through the Eclipse midnight record, the New Moon opening day record, and the Dark Knight weekend record. From what I've seen of Comments on the Interwebs, Twilight fans and Batman fans are united in shouting YEAH WELL WAIT TILL OUR LAST MOVIE COMES OUT, and then they realize they're on the same side and run away to wash that icky fanboy/girl off. Whatever helps you sleep at night, kids.

Guillermo Del Toro and Emma Watson for Beauty and the Beast?; David Yates reveals his next project PP (post-Potter) (whoa, The Stand?); How Harry Potter Changed Publishing (three words: midnight release parties); 10 great, and 10 no-so-great, things about Harry Potter. And here's our discussion post, with a--well, not a defense, but an alternate take on the epilogue. Also:

@bestforfilm: We're opening a bar called Harry Shotters. Drinks include Margaritaskeeters, Cedric Daquiris, Mojicho Changs... #harrypotterdrinks

Concoctions include Pinot Gringotts, Episkey Sours, Mudbloody Marys, Blast Ended Skrewtdriver, Hex on the Beach, Ginny and Tonic, Ron and Coke, Creme De Menter, and my favorite, Madame Hooch.

Since y'all have waited ever so patiently, let's skip straight to TheOneRing.net Exclusive: Behold! Thorin Oakenshield and Orcrist! ( BEHOLD! )

<---- New Secret Life of Dolls thataway.

(Okay, twelve hours later, and I am still GLEEFULLY proud that I scored something rare-ish on eBay for half the usual price. Number of dolls I am keeping secret from you guys: back up to 2.)

( Linkspam! )

A few things up front:

The new Made of Fail podcast is up!

Re: "Christmas in April": After some discussion on the last SLOD entry, I think we've decided that the green pegasus is named Medley, not Melody. Also: damn, y'all like you some My Little Ponies. I had no idea people still loved them so much, and I expected to be roundly mocked for still having mine.

(OMG THE BLUE PONY WITH THE FISH IS SO PRETTY! and also does not have dead, black eyes)

(OMG PWNIES.)

A couple of icons I loved but forgot to mention a while back: In case of explushination, break glass; a fever of 100 and werewolf.

( More linkspam! )

Eventually I'm going to have to get back to work and get something done, aren't I?

(By the way, make sure you go back and look over the flickr mosaic meme; it's fun to do.)

( First pic of Gambit )

So Pete, Sister Girl's dog, is at the vet overnight on an IV because he can't stop throwing up for some reason (God, I hope he's going to be okay). So when she called to make sure he hadn't thrown up yesterday while I was dogsitting him, she started talking about trying to watch the final Twilight trailer, and I got to play Horrify the Twilight Noob (one of my favoritest games) with her as well. Except that she didn't get to see the whole thing, because Pete started throwing up shortly after she got to the "Kryptonite" line.

"Well, dude! That explains everything. Your dog is allergic to Twilight."

"That line was awful, by the way. Was it supposed to be stupid? Can Kristen Stewart not act?"

"No, trust me. I've read the books. She is doing the best she can with what they're giving her."

And then I read her that bit from the "I'm gay"/"He's impotent" interview and regaled her with excerpts of Growing Up Cullen. ("Oh, he would totally scrapbook." "You haven't even read the books!" "No, but he totally would.") I am slowly converting the people around me to The Dark Side, The Way of Lulz, so that someone will take me to see this movie next month.

Oh, and since we've been having Sherlock Holmes set pics: a flashback to the Case Book of Sherlock Holmes entry, in which I express some frustration with "The Adventure of the Lion's Mane." Also notable for "the zenith of Holmes/Watson slashiness."

Linkspam! ( Slutty baby pirates, zombie pinups, omgwtfpolarbear! *splash* )

You know how bad I didn't want to work today? I went and scrubbed the toilet instead. And then I went and worked on footnotes for The Prestige anyway.

(The bitchful part of it is having to go back through my books on stage magic--which, being print copies, don't have helpful search functions--to back up my vague claims that, uh, stage patter was... important, and... stuff. People died doing the bullet catch... somewhere. I mean, definitely. I'm pretty sure. The real attraction of a footnoted "Prestige in Fifteen Minutes," though, is that I've gone through it and theorized (spoiler) ( Read more... ) and I think I can make a pretty compelling case. I'm working on a discussion of the differences between the POTO musical/movie and the book, with key excerpts from the latter--it's public domain, after all--and I already have huge amounts of My Thoughts on Dracula, Let Me Show You Them for that 15M. With any luck, this will be something people would actually be willing to pay for.)

So hopefully I'll have my little e-book (zip folder, really) done soon and can try to raise some money to pay off the air conditioner we had to replace, since I've been working on the footnotes for months and the no-interest period ends as of this month, and if we can't pay the rest off, we start having to pay 23% interest as well. And also, I want to move on with my life and get back to working on Black Ribbon. Particularly since October is such a great gothy little month.

(Hey, randomness! You know that's a really fun snack? A slice of bread with peanut butter spread over it and then covered in mini-marshmallows. Kind of an open-faced fluffernutter sandwich. The sad thing is that I don't even have the excuse that I liked to eat this as a child or anything. I just went downstairs to make myself a sandwich and went, "Huh, you know what might be fun...?" I think the bleach fumes from the toilet are starting to get to me.)

Linkspam! ( This guy better hope he is dead or else he'll be going to jail for a long long time )

As promised, the linkspam. And now, to find a heating pad or something.

( Something of Boris is all Daniel Craig's fault; Russell Crowe assaults a chicken )

Ahoy! Once again it be that time o' year when the Dread Cleolinda an' her crew o' salty dogs steer Good Ship Split Infinitive into port. And with us, we bring a fine haul o' linkspam from the four corners of the seven seas.

(Though with that mad wench Anna Dollerious bemoanin', "I can't believe she's doing this again. She never does Talk Like a Gypsy Princess Who Somehow Lives in a Manor Day" all the way.)

("Are we getting Captain Swann-Turner now?" BLAST YE, WOMAN, I'LL HEAR NO MORE OF THIS!)

Talk like a pirate! In German, Swedish, Chinese and French, to boot (arrrrr, le butin!).

Talk like a pirate some more!

What kind o' pirate be ye?

4. The single word that bests describes me is: Ruthless. I am without ruth in my pursuit of booty

Free Pirate Fic!; Shiver Me Whiskers!; Arrrr, avast all ye Facebook Pirates!; 5 Little-Known Pirate Stories (and a Quiz).

ETA: (From odontomachus: Be a Pirate Troper! WARNING: 'Tis a site harder to escape from than Davy Jones' locker. HERE THERE BE TIMESUCK.)

Linkspam proper! ( Yer deadlights be more important than yer famewhorin', says I )

And now that we stand safely ashore, it be time to seek out some grub. And also, me crew needs to go for walkies. Fair winds, me hearties!

Nothing much going on; nothing much planned for the long weekend, either, except going to see Indiana Jones tomorrow, I think, and taking Mom to see Prince Caspian on Monday if we can swing it.

( Linkspam )

Did a lot of Black Ribbon research this weekend, and got really excited about a couple of things I found, and then... the taxes. Woe. That kind of harshed my buzz.

(Do you ever have something really dumb and inconsequential happen, but when it comes on top of something else epically crappy, it's like it's just the cherry on top? Yeah. As I've mentioned before, I'm addicted to Webkinz. Shut up. You play World of Warcraft, I play with animated plushies. Anyhoo, the pink poodle's the pet of the month. I got one. And then it turned out that I'd gotten the little pink poodle and so it didn't count, and therefore I didn't get the special in-game POTM items. Oh, and we've got to come up with $12,000 over the next six months. * Yeah. Completely inconsequential cherry on top.)

* Note: As mentioned in the previous entry, only $6200 of that is taxes. The rest comes from various household things we're paying off.

However, we are now going to drown our sorrows in homemade brownies. Also, I had gotten the 2-disc Sweeney Todd before I realized that we're screwed financially, so I'm clinging to that at the moment.

( Massive linkspam )