The Potter Alliance's Quest for Pottermore Early Access

In case you're not a fan of Harry Potter or have been living under a rock, there's this website J.K. Rowling is rolling out in October called Pottermore. Yeah. It's a big deal in the Harry Potter fandom. It's basically a new way of reading and enjoyed the series. So last night, me and three other friends pulled a Hell of an all-nighter, waiting for the release of the first clue to gain early access to the Pottermore beta. Spoiler alert: we dominated that Magical Quill challenge.

The team at Pottermore and J.K. Rowling announced that there would be a contest for early access to Pottermore (meaning not waiting until October) and 1 million lucky people would get in. After reading up on all the features the website will host, I made it my soul mission in life to get early access to Pottermore.

Another one of my friends, Sarah, was likewise interested in early access to Pottermore. We both decided back when Pottermore was announced to team up so that at least one of us could get early access (we assumed at least one because 1 million people isn't a lot when you look at how many Potter fans are out there). A deal was struck.

After a bit of waiting, Pottermore announced how the 1 million early access challenge would go down. They would release one clue for each book for seven days and once available slots filled up they would close registration for that day. So there would be about 142, 800 available slots for each day.

The race was on and I must commend the Harry Potter fandom. They look out for each other. Instead of everyone racing to get there first, people stepped back and helped out their fellow Potter fan. Message boards and chat rooms all over the web were exploding with hints and possible ideas to the clue. During the most recent LeakyCon, attendees were given a special clue that would help them get registered and it included a time ("...after 12 AM PST...") and told them where to look ("Diagon Alley," which many assumed referred to chapter 5 of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone). These attendees were told not to share this information with anyone else but many chose to divulge their hints and help out.

I was glued to my computer starting at 10 PM CST. There were many rumors about when the clue would go live. Sarah and I started a Skype chat room which Sarah named "Potter Alliance." We were later joined by Maxine and Alex. We spent most of the night coming up with theories and reading message boards and Tumblr. A Ravenclaw subreddit had a system set up where they would send out a mass e-mail when the clue went live.

Now 12 AM PST translates to 2 AM CST. I wanted to die. I was so exhausted because I'd been up since 7:30 AM so I could go to yoga. The clue did not go live at 2 AM. By 2:30 AM, I decided I'd had enough and fell asleep. Luckily, I had the forethought before I went to bed to put my phone on vibrate in case Sarah texted.

At 3:01 AM, my phone vibrates, wakes me up, and I look at it to see, "Wake up the answer is 254!" I immediately went to my computer and registered as quickly as possible. When I finished registering, it was a glorious moment because I realized that I had made it up to eleven year-old me who waited for her Hogwarts acceptance letter so patiently.

Registration ended after one hour and 30 minutes.

For the rest of the night, I couldn't sleep. I talked with the Potter Alliance in our chat room about how excited we were that we all managed to get registered. I effectively pulled an all-nighter that was only interrupted by a 30 minute nap just so I could be one of a million people to be part of a new way of reading the Harry Potter series.

Does this make me a nerd and a little bit crazy? You betcha.

Was it worth it? Definitely.

So good luck to all the people who are trying to get in on the 6 day left! I hope you get as lucky as I was and have friends that care enough about you to text you to let you know that something important has happened. And now I'm going to bed because I've been up since 7:30 AM yesterday and the only rest I've had consisted of the 30 minutes previously mentioned and a one hour nap before dinner.

Terra Toys (AKA. HERE'S where my childhood went!)

Store Front

 I'm still unsure on whether or not I want to make this blog themed around awesome places in Austin or just about my life in general. Today, however, it's going to be about an amazing toy store in Austin.

Austin is very well-known for Toy Joy which is a fantastic toy store but Terra Toys is a lesser known toy store in Austin (at least to me) but it is still just as amazing as Toy Joy. I literally felt like this is where my childhood went to wait for me to find it like we were playing hide and seek or something.

Terra Toys has everything you could possibly want as a child or want to buy for a child. You walk in to this store with a giant sign that reads Terra Toys that is set up in a strip mall a little ways from 183. You are instantly bombarded by toys everywhere. One side of the store has kids clothes and costumes and the other side has more grown up kind of toys like collectible robot figures or the kind of stuff you find on Mod Cloth in the apartment section.

Down the middle is where they keep the dolls, figurines, and in the very back down the middle is a book section that has all kinds of books. There's a whole section on fairy tales from different countries with some beautiful copies of Grimm's Fairy Tales, Hans Christian Anderson's Stories, and many other story collections. There's also a foreign language section, children's books, and a young adult section. They also have a pretty impressive collection of graphic novels based on classic literature and many pop-up books that are high quality.

On the left of the store is where they've devoted a huge section to Lego's and it is glorious! I loved Lego's as a kid so wandering around this section was taking me back to playing Lego's with my friends.

On the right side they have a large collection of Madame Alexander dolls and doll houses. Next to the doll section is a glass case holding an enormous collection of Matryoshka nesting dolls. I stared at this case for quite a while. It was extensive and all the dolls are beautifully painted and detailed. Right before the nesting dolls and the Madame Alexander dolls is a craft section that has coloring books (I bought a Fairy Fashion coloring book), origami, costumes, face paint, and markers, paint, and how to draw books.

Some of the Matryoshka Dolls

 I went back today and discovered their dinosaur section. I ended up buying a dinosaur comb because I looooove dinosaurs. I actually saw this comb on the Fred website and wanted it real bad so when I saw it at Terra Toys I grabbed the last one.

NYAH NYAH!

Antique Shopping—nerve-wracking but also enjoyable.

I love antique shopping. Love. It. It is seriously one of my favorite things to do. I will spend hours rifling through old pictures, old clothes, and wander through hundreds of displays looking for something I'll consider a treasure.

Recently I went to Austin Antique Mall because our house was being shown to prospective buyers so I had to get out of the house for an hour. Austin Antique Mall is one of those places that is hard to get to but so worth it in the end. I had good directions so I found it pretty easily but it is set back from 183 and the only indication it's there is a small sign.

As soon as I walked in to this place, my jaw dropped. It is humongous! There's over a hundred venders selling their vintage goods and this place covers all aspects of antiques. There were vintage clothes, cutlery, toys, hats, furniture, etc. I had died and gone to antique heaven.

You may be wondering why I put "nerve-wracking" in the title of this post when I enjoy antique shopping so much. Let me tell you about a girl who was deathly afraid of making her parents angry. These parents would take their daughter to Kirkland's and if you have never been to a Kirkland's, it is like an antique store but everything is new and crammed together making it hard to move around especially if the store is busy. So this girl would literally move as though her hands were tied to her sides because she was terrified of breaking something and having her parents pay for it.

This fear has followed me into adulthood so I tend to walk around antique stores like this:

Have a lovely drawing I did in 10 minutes that I took a picture of with my camera phone. FANCY.

I clutch my bag to me like it's a potential traitor that if I let it go it will abandon me and knock something over and that something will most likely be the most expensive thing in the store and then I'd have to call Mom and explain what happened and, even though I'm 20 and about to move out, I would probably be grounded or something or have to pay it off for the rest of my life. This is my fear when I go into stores with pricey, easily breakable items.

But if I follow my "clutch that bag to you like it's going to explode and break everything unless you hug the evil out of it" plan, I usually have a wonderful time in antique stores. I went to Austin Antique Mall with the express purpose of finding a bust to put on my vanity when I move to the Townhouse but I didn't find anything I absolutely loved or the busts I saw were huge and would probably break said vanity.

I did, however, settle on a tiny picture of a bird made out of feathers that was $18 and a tiny blue-green Nemadji vase that was $12. I ended up just buying the vase because I thought it would look awesome in my blue-white room plus it was cheaper. I'll probably go back and get that picture when I have more money.

The vase in question:

Life After Potter (Or, Life With Potter)

I knew I wanted to write a blog post about how Harry Potter has affected my life since I started reading it at the tender age of ten years old. It is 3:16 AM and I have watched the last film and can officially say that, technically, Harry Potter has ended. Emotionally, however, the series lives on.

At ten years old, after a move that was a bit of a blow to me, I was introduced to Harry. A couple of girls at a daycare I went to were reading the books and lent me the first one (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone). I began reading it and was suddenly ravenous for the series. I believe I made Mom buy me the first three books almost immediately. Mom could not refuse. It was getting her child to read–what could be so bad about it?

My memory fails me but I believe I read the first three books in about a month which I feel is pretty impressive for a ten year old that until that moment had little interest in books. I was enchanted and captivated and refused to put them down. It was a world I had never experienced before and drew me in like nothing else ever had.

As I started 4th grade, I picked Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. This book weighs in at 734 pages (US edition) and many of the kids in my class refused to believe I could finish it. (It also was a pain to carry around because we did not have lockers to store any of our things in.) I think it took me two months but I finished that book. Of course, that book got me into a lot of trouble as well. I would refuse to pay attention or do my work instead focusing all of my mind on Harry's adventures and the excitement he was having instead of the dull lessons I was being taught in school.

When the 1st movie came out, I made Mom take me and a few friends to see it for my 11th birthday. It was fantastic and, being around the same age as the actors, amazed me and most definitely fueled my passion for these books. It also helped that the theater had set up a bouncy slide which, in the brain of a wee babe, felt like it was meant for my birthday instead of any other reason.

There was a gap in which the 2nd film came out but the 5th book did not come out until 2003. I had to focus my passion for reading elsewhere and read The Lord of the Rings series while I awaited a return from Harry.

When the 5th book came out, I asked Mom if she would take me and a friend to the midnight release of the book. She agreed and we went. It was wonderful. People were in all kinds of costumes, there were games, and then the clock struck midnight and the books were handed out. I read half of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in about an eight hour time span. This was also the book that revealed who my favorite character was (that of Severus Snape).

Once more there was a wait, a 2 year one, where the 3rd movie came out, and in 2005 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was released. I was rather disappointed with this one unfortunately. The death of Dumbledore at the hand of Severus Snape was shocking (especially a year after Sirius' death) but I believed him to be innocent. It was not a popular opinion but it was one I held. Of course, it would be difficult following Order of the Phoenix and this book felt more like the calm before the storm. I sped through it like I had all the books previously.

Then finally, in 2007, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released. I went to the midnight release dressed as Snape, worried that I was going to get rocks thrown at me or something. It was kind of a show of faith that I had in the character and I was hoping J.K. Rowling wouldn't let me down. She did not. This book blew me away. It was a great, explosive ending to a series I have been following since I was very young and I was the exact same age as Harry when the series ended.

I grew up with this series and it shaped me in a way. It not only made me an avid reader, I made friends through this series and was part of a generation of kids who grew up with their noses stuck in these books, eyes glued to the pages as Harry and his friends saved their world. I also felt that the books grew up with me. As I got older, the story became darker and grittier and sometimes made me cringe and wonder how I would handle these almost impossible situations Harry, Ron, and Hermione were in.

When the series ended, I kept the last movie as my way of saying, "Look, it's not over yet. You still have Harry Potter material being released." Now that the the last movie has been released and I have seen it, I don't feel empty, per se, I feel the series is like my parents. I eventually have to grow up and leave them but they'll always be in my heart and I can always revisit them when I'm feeling particularly lonely or homesick.

This series is remarkable, in the fact, that it managed to captivate and brighten the lives of so many people, young and old. Some grew up with it; some just read it for fun; some refused to put it down; some waited expectantly for Hogwarts' admission letters (I'm guilty of this); some named their pets or cars after characters (my black Toyota's name is Snape). But we all followed Harry's journey from him being a little boy living in a cupboard under some stairs to a young man facing death to save everyone he loves.

Charles Goes on a Rampage

I recently adopted a cat named Charlie from a local no-kill shelter. I chose this cat on the soul basis that he seemed like the chillest cat ever. I ignored the fact that he's 8 and thus labeled a senior; the fact that the reason he was sent to the pound was because he bit the neighbor; and the fact that he tested positive for FIV. All things considered, not exactly a top of the list cat.

But I picked him because he's chill, he likes to play, and he's an affectionate bugger. In other words, completely awesome.

However, Charlie likes to do this thing where, with little precaution or warning, he will shoot off around the house like he's suddenly become a rocket or the ensuing fountain when you put Mentos in a bottle of Coke. The only warning you get is a short chirp that happens about ten seconds before it begins. If I wasn't so freaked out by his sudden crazy, I would be impressed. Unfortunately, I'm too freaked out and worried that this bout of insanity will accidentally run him straight into our other cat, Karma.

Karma is the exact opposite of Charlie. Where Charlie is loving and playful, Karma hides in a closet and only comes out when there's the possibility of food. We got Charlie about three weeks ago and Karma is still leery of him. Instead of lashing out, she just hisses and hisses until Charlie slinks away, winning the "Better Man" part of whatever cat disagreement they're having. Because he could destroy her. I feel it in my bones.

This is how I imagine their conversations go:

Charlie: WE FRIENDZ NAO YES??? :D :) :] :}

Karma: HIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

Charlie: ...Ok. :[ :( :< :{

During one of his rampages.

It's kind of pathetic since it's obvious all Charlie wants is to be friends. Karma, however, will have none of it. So Charlie usually gets revenge by eating all her food when she's hiding in her closet and rubbing his cat stink all over her stuff.

Of course, then he pulls out these rampages (which we have lovingly dubbed, "Kitty Freak Out Time") and proceeds to rip through the house like it's the most important thing in the world. Many times he will hide under a pillow or his fancy cat bed that he never sleeps on to recoup and regain energy for another bolt through the house.

In retrospect, it's incredibly adorable but when it happens it's simply frightening and nothing you can do will delay to inevitable or bring it to an early conclusion. Charlie has to simply run himself out.