Is anyone out there in my circle of readers besides myself not sitting around waiting for their copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to arrive?

Why of course there are, Andrew; those who joined the throngs at the bookstores at midnight. 🙄

Look, I’m happy for all of you, really; the mere fact that this phenomenon has united people from age four to four hundred says something positive about it—so long as mass weddings officiated by J.K. Rowling don’t follow.

But oh Lord, am I tired of hearing about it. I’m sure I would love the series. It is, no doubt, what I have been waiting all my life to read. I imagine my very existence would triple in value if I were only to pick up Harry Potter and the Freemason’s Stone….The Goblet of Hemlock….The Order of Fries….whatever the first book in the series is called.

On the other hand, it is precisely because of just such adjurations from my fellow carbon units that I will most likely never, ever, ever pick up any of these books. Over time they have metamorphosed from books into a character-building exercise, from an entertaining passtime into something akin to mowing the lawn: a chore that really must be done before it gets any worse. I’m an adult, so I don’t have to do things simply because other people tell me that I ought to. At the same time, I’m just immature enough to not want to do something, simply because other people tell me that I ought to.

So, dear readers, enjoy your Potterage. I hope it’s everything you were hoping for. Me, I think I’ll spend the time rereading Shadow of the Giant, or playing Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, or upping my regimen of J-Horror flicks while I wait for this thing to blow over.

At least until Harry Potter and the Prolapsed Colon comes out in 2007.