Today is the North American release of the new Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I’m not afraid to admit that I’m a fan of the series. It’s well-written and moves at a good pace (making for an easy read).

We’ve got tickets for the 10:15pm showing at our local AMC Theatre, and we’re getting together [with my cousin, who’s going to the movie with us] and watching the first movie beforehand. I suspect the later showing will have less kids and more adults like us there, but I’ll probably be wrong. Some parents took their young children to see the 12:01AM showing this morning (the early news showed a child who couldn’t have been more than four waiting in line with his mother). I guess it shouldn’t surprise me. We saw at least one infant in the audience when we saw the 12:01 AM showing of Fellowship of the Rings last year. I’ll never understand it, though.

This site has gone through many revisions and like the clichéd phoenix, it continues to rise from the ashes of its previous incarnation.

Popularity struck big in March 2002 with “What’s wrong with this picture?”. My cousin sent me this “picture”, and I wanted to share it with some friends and family. I abhor sending unsolicited file attachments, so I put it on my website and emailed the link, with a carefully crafted blurb to entice them to click, to a select few. Within days my server overloaded from the traffic it was receiving. I worked fast and adjusted a few things performance-wise, and watched the hits come in.

Stats for March 2002:
811,449 unique visitors
1,144,262 visits
2,694,724 pages served
8,489,856 hits
122.60 GB bandwidth used

While doing some random googling I stumbled across an interesting article:

“What’s wrong with this pic? – The product of a daggy programmer from Illinois, this simple email based gag has all the key ingredients of a classic viral email – surprise, simplicity and originality.” — icon.inc

Of course, they don’t have their facts quite right. First, I didn’t create the gag (although I am a programmer). Second, while the number of unique viewers was impressive, it was no where near 3.6 million. Lastly, I discovered that ‘daggy’ is Australian slang for stupid or unpleasant. I definitely disagree with that assessment.

If you want to see What’s wrong with this picture, you can find it here on the author’s website.

The Leonid meteor showers are expected to peak next week, and North America should be a prime viewing location. The peak should come overnight between November 18th and 19th. Two swarms, one around 10pm CST and the second around 4:30AM are expected.

We’ve gone out to the country to watch the Leonids twice now. The first time was breathtaking. We found a quiet little spot to park and laid in the back of the truck, wrapped in blankets and sleeping bags, and watched the sky. It was the first time I’d watched a shower (as opposed to seeing the occasional shooting star).

The second time a friend took the train out from Chicago to see the showers. We were sorely disappointed, though, as a blanket of thick, cotton-like fog settled over most of northern Illinois. We drove for a few hours trying to find a clear patch to no avail.

With the Leonid supposed to be making a stronger than ever (in recent history) showing, I’m trying to decide the best way to view it. Our new house is set back far enough away from the city that we might be able to have a strong show from the back yard. Worst case, we might hop into the truck and drive out a bit further into the country. This year I’ll be sure to bring the camera and laptop with me. I finally figured out how to take a continuous set of still photographs with it. I don’t know what the quality will be like, but I’ll give it a shot.

Lately I’ve been watching the tv show Firefly on Fox friday nights. It’s a quirky and fun sci-fi series, penned by Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and co-creator of Angel. There is a movement ongoing to petition Fox and its sponsers in an effort to encourage Fox to continue running Firefly. Frankly, there is not enough new science fiction on television these days, and its refreshing to see something as original as Firefly.