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One of the rewards of raising children is what I call “Parents Privilege”. By this, I mean that over the years, occasionally I’ll get a pix such as the one here. When this happens, I tuck them away in a neat little file on my computer for future use. I can hardly wait for the opportunity to sit down with my future daughter-in-laws and present the “Goods”. (snicker)

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Ours was simply superb. I’d have to rate it as just about the best Thanksgiving we’ve had. Everything worked out perfect. Wendy cooked an awesome turkey and everyone brought all the trimmings. What a feast it was! My mother, in typical fashion, outdid herself and we had to form an assembly line to unload all the dishes of food she prepared. All together, there were fifteen people at my house and we ate obscene amounts of food with no shame!

Afterwards, all the guys went out into the front yard for a game of football while everyone else watched a movie. Then we drank coffee & tea and watched football with the wood stove radiating heat making everyone comfy, cozy & sleepy. There was good conversation & a content atmosphere, just the way Thanksgiving should be!

A couple of days ago, we got the first snow so far this year. It amounted to just a “Dusting” but it was impressive while it lasted and certainly got the boys excited! Since then, it has been bitter cold in the evenings with the temp dropping into the teens. My wood stove is “earning its keep”, still haven’t turned the heat on and don’t plan on it!

Check out the pix.

After awaking yesterday to find my computer smoking like a chimney, a hasty inspection revealed a “Fried” power supply. So off to Best Buy we went! What a perfect excuse to finally get to see the long awaited Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Thirty bucks in tickets and twenty in snacks later; there we sit in front of the “Big-Screen” enduring forty minutes worth of previews.

The movie was well over two hours long and I found myself with mixed feelings. A decent flick no doubt with lots of humor, action and adventure… If only I hadn’t read the book! The director just butchered the cast of characters and re-wrote entire swaths of the plot. I suppose this was done to condense a huge book into a movie format but I found myself longing for the “Extended Version” which apparently doesn’t exist.

The long drive home was spent in conversation between my boys and I enumerating all the characters and storylines that were missing. Here are a few that we came up with… I’m sure there are Harry Potter Fans out there that can add to this list.

- What happened to Winky the House-Elf?
- I didn’t see a trace of Ludo Bagman!
- All the play-time Sirius Black got was a brief “Face in the Fire”?
- I saw nothing of Bertha Jorkins.
- Neville gave Harry Gillyweed? I thought it was Doby!
- Rita Skeeter an Animagus… left that out completely!
- Wasn’t Mr. Crouch Sr. supposed to be under the imperious curse?
- Wasn’t Crouch Jr. supposed to die by dementor kiss?
- The first task… total Hollywood, book version much better.
- The third task… No Skrewts, no Sphinx, no Acromantula, no “Point Me”. What was with all the attacking hedges and vines anyways?
- No story line about Hagrid being Half-Giant.
- Hagrid “Groping” Madame Maxine? – improper, could have done without that!
- No Dursley’s this movie? I can’t believe they left out the “Ton-Tounge Toffee”.
- No Mrs. Weasley?
- I think Fluer and Viktor might have said 10 words between them the entire movie.
- What happened to Harry giving his Tri-Wizard earnings to Fred and George? That event plays an important role in later books!
- Percy Weasley and that story line mysteriously gone in this movie.
- Did Snape or Karkorav say more than 10 words between them?
- The “Young Love” tension between Ron and Hermione isn’t conveyed properly. Hermoine seems more interested in Harry in this movie’s portrayal.
- lots of pensieve trips missing with lots of characters. Example… Bellatrix Lestrange, Antonin Dolohov.
- Dumbledore’s argument with Fudge should have been included at the end.

Please feel free to comment on anything we missed!

I did enjoy lots of the movie though. Some of my favorite parts were….

- The second task.
- Malfoy the incredible bouncing Ferret.
- The Yule Ball and Ron’s Dress-Robe embarrassment.
- The Weasley twins bearded after crossing the age line.
- Harry slopping pumpkin juice on himself when Cho Chang says hi.
- Harry’s Duel with Voldemort.
- Harry’s bath with Moaning Myrtle.

I dunno, maybe it will grow on me more once I watch it again. We are supposed to be taking our neighbor to see it next week. Our Birthday present to her while her hubby watches the kids!

Anyone who has seen it, tell me what you think?

Ahhh… the new movie was out as of Friday and I have yet to see it. I’m hoping we will get the opportunity Monday or Tuesday. It’s funny, ever since I’ve made public my enjoyment of the Harry Potter series, occasionally I’ll get an email with dire warnings. Here’s one that just came today…

On 2005-11-19 at 09:49:46,
The following information was submitted:
From Host: xxx.xxx.xxx.xx
name = Xxxx Xxxx
submit_by = xxxxxxxxxx@aol.com
how_found = Through your wife’s site
message = Hi, I read your bio and found it to be interesting. Please don’t take offense to this, as it sounds like you have a lot of great values and character. However, upon reading you are a “Harry Potter Fan”, it is somewhat disturbing to me. Harry Potter novels blatantly teach children and others how to be a witch and perform witchcraft while pretending to be just another exciting adventure series. You can take this for what you will, but if you love your children and family like you say, I hope you will rethink allowing this type of media and what it represents to be in your home. You can call me crazy or a fanatic if you like, but I hope you will take this as a warning from someone who also home-schools her children and is not only concerned about the quality of their education, but the value of their souls as well.

Blessings to you and yours,
Xxxx Xxxx in Ohio

Now I actually respect this woman’s point of view and her letter was very polite and well written. I just don’t understand or agree with it.

For the record everyone… I don’t believe in Witches and Wizards. Nor do I believe in Warlocks, Goblins, Ghosts, Zombies, Ghouls, Vampires, Werewolves, Hags, Banshees, Trolls, Giants, Leprechauns, Fairies, Mermaids, Sasquash or the Loch ness Monster. I don’t believe in Hobbits, Elves, Nymphs, Gnomes, Spiderman, Batman, Superman or Santa Clause.

My life experience has taught me to classify the above as fictional fantasy characters. If someone were to attempt to profess themselves as any of the above, I’d have to certainly regard them as “Mental”. That being said… Mixing eye of toad and tail of newt in a cauldron will net about the same result as stirring oatmeal together with cream of corn. I think my children are aware of this! I can read the works of J.K. Rowling and correctly compartmentalize the “Witchcraft & Wizardry” content for what it is… Fantasy. I also give my older children enough credit unto their “Moral Foundation” to be able to do the same with some good old fashioned parental guidance. What about Tolken? Gene Rodenbury? George Lucas? William Shakespeare? Edgar Allen Poe? or Mark Twain for that matter? Am I as a parent obligated to forbid my boys from playing “Cowboys & Indians” because of the atrocities that were inflicted upon Native Americans?

Even Christianity has a brutal & dark history involving countless people being put to death in very horrendous ways in the name of God. This is not from a book or someone’s imagination, this is fact, it actually happened. Still my children read the bible almost every day, they say the Lord’s Prayer at every meal and they hold their belief in Jesus near and dear. Why? because I as a parent am able to understand that regardless of what has happened in the past, the Bible is the correct foundation for their moral upbringing. I’ve compartmentalized the Inquisition, the Crusades, Burning people at the stake, etc… etc… as a bunch of overzealous religious “Nutters” who really had not a clue as to what Jesus was trying to teach them.

So Harry Potter is just like any other fantasy read out there. The religious far right is so caught up in the premise of “Witchcraft”, nothing else matters. Underneath is quite a wonderful read about the bonds of Friendship, Family, Love & the struggle of good overcoming evil. I don’t think anyone who has actually read the series can honestly say the books are blatantly attempting to convert our children to be Witches and Wizards. That is absurd to my mind.

Oh my… it’s certainly been a while since I’ve posted. Some of you know of Wendy’s computer problems that I spent a week sorting out. We’ve got a very busy month as well with “company” visiting & we just started another major “project” I will not blog about until we get further into it!

Stephanie… if you are out there, every mail I’ve attempted to reply to or send to your addy has bounced back as undeliverable so I don’t know what’s up with that! Hopefully, we’ll be able to get back in touch!

In other news, I think i finally got my “Forum” up and running on ClubNightOwl. I’m still trying to figure it out myself but it’s definitely a place where everyone can go to and post their own topics, pix and files. So check it out!