Harry Potter and the Back-Breaking, Gigantic Encyclopedia

It’s again raining and thundering outside the office windows. The clouds are dragging the mountain tops. I woke up at 5 a.m. but couldn't drag myself out of the bed. I stayed up 'til midnight reading.

The next book in the franchise for me to read (Goblet of Fire) is a monster at 734 pages. The previous book (Prisoner of Azkaban) clocked in at 448. But again these are quick reads. I picked up the book last night and within two reading sessions had finished off 180 pages. The kids just got to the wizard school, something that usually happens inside of 50 pages. It’s already much darker as four people have seemingly died before we even see Harry. The book also already surpasses the film as it greatly expands the Weasley family presence.

Your Sister made a curry dish last night with steak fillet. It was a tad underdone for her, but I liked it a lot. I don’t know when I became a grisly carnivore but there you have it. What we ate last night was virtually steak tartar. And it was tasty.

I made some significant progress on the Star Wars art last night, altering the shirt to look more like a jedi tunic, and starting the shirt creases for the Solo drawing. It’s looking good so far.

Picture of the Day
New WWE champ Rey Mysterio wearing Justin Bradshaw-Layfield’s hat while on tour in Italy.

In the news
Fox News commentator Tony Snow is now the White House press secretary. He was a speechwriter in the first Bush administration and served as guest host for Limbaugh. This will be interesting. Snow should be able to handle the press corps on a regular basis but when a big story comes up, he might buckle. He’s used to working behind a mic in a studio with a friendly audience. This will be more combative. I don’t think the administration’s choice of a FOX News guy should be surprising or that unsettling. After all, the job is hardly objective. You have to be a fan of the boss to work that gig day after day. And this surely gives FOX an inroad to White House access, at least until the first hard-hitting story they have to pursue against administration policies. I wanted a guy with more polish than McClellan, and Snow is that. It could have been much worse, after all. Could have been Ann Coulter.

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Evidence suggests our solar system rests within a binary star system. The newly discovered Sedna object outside Pluto’s orbit might be a small second star. How far away is it? It needs 12,000 years to make a full orbit, compared to our 365 days.