The Question of the Day

It seems that the question of the day is, “What page are you on?”

No spoilers.

I’d pretty much figured on not picking up Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows until after Comic-Con. I had some things I wanted to make sure I got finished first, in particular some website updates. But then alenxa finished the book on Saturday, and I decided that the updates I had left weren’t quite so important as the ones I’d done Saturday afternoon. So I picked up the book Sunday afternoon, and put it down around 11:00 at night, a little over halfway through.

This morning I took the car in for some fairly major maintenance. They’d offered a complementary rental, which I happily accepted, and arranged for Enterprise to send someone over. (I would have been quite willing to walk, since it was hardly even sprinkling, but figured if they’d made the arrangements, I might as well. As it is, I think it would have been faster to walk.)

Naturally I pulled the book out in the waiting room. After a few minutes, the 50-ish man a few chairs over asked,

“What page are you on?”

“428.”

“432.”

I found it funny that we were not only both reading it, but within a few pages of each other.

After picking up the rental, I drove over to my allergist. Afterward, as I was making my next appointment with the new receptionist, I noticed the book on her desk (open and upside-down, but it was recognizable by size, color, and a name which jumped out at me before I looked away). Before I had a chance to mention it, the doctor walked up, noticed my copy sitting on the counter, and said, “Oh, you’re reading it too?” She then explained that her son and daughter (the latter turned out to be the unfamiliar receptionist) had each gotten their own copy so they could both read it immediately. At this point the daughter asked me,

“What page are you on?”

I opened the book. “448.”

“Oh, I’m on page 530” (or something around there). “I’ll close it so you don’t see anything.”

Geometric reading

I was fixing tags on recent LJ entries (every other web app I’ve used tags with makes them space-separated, not comma-separated) and noticed that I’d mentioned where I was in HBP several times. It got me thinking:

Tuesday I read to page 50.
Wednesday I read to page 200.
Thursday I finished the book, which is about 650 pages.

That’s roughly 50 pages on day one, 150 on day two, and 450 on day three. Fortunately that was enough to finish the book, since I don’t think I would’ve had time to read 1350 pages on Friday!

No Looking Back

I got in the car to go to lunch today, and noticed something sitting on the cup holder in front of the dashboard: the rear-view mirror.

I tried to stick it back to the window, but wasn’t confident that it would stay. Rather than risk it falling off in the middle of driving, I pulled it off again (too easily) and set it on the chair.

On another note, I was standing in line at Robeks when someone behind me asked, “What part are you at?” I said something eloquent like, “Huh?” and he repeated the question, at which point I realized he was referring to HBP, which I was holding in my left hand… without the dust jacket, and with the spine facing downward. He had to have recognized it solely by its size and the color of the cover.

Thought for the evening

No, not about the debates. I figure there’s enough talk about those going around.

No, this thought is about a piece of mail, and a brief conversation about it:

kelson: I think we can skip the Phi Beta Kappa scholarship dinner. Not only is it $100 a plate, but it’s the night of Farscape [The Peacekeeper Wars]. Yeah, I know, priorities.

alenxa: “… or worse: expelled!