Dawn ,'Selfless'
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
The problem with Amazon delivery, even if it happens on the 21st, is that it happens at 2 p.m. in the afternoon -- and I can go down to Target at 8 a.m., get a copy for the same price and start reading!
Or a bookstore that has an event the evening before, and starts selling the books at midnight.
See, but I can't because then I'd have to camp out at the store until the buses started the next night.
I did the midnight at the bookstore thing for the last book, because I was in Michigan for a wedding and going from there to a very boring conference on planes that would take all day.
It was a lot of fun to see the kids of all shapes, sizes and ages there playing the games and scoring the stickers, but they gave you a wristband as you came in (I think I got there about 11 p.m.) and you had to wait until they called your number (they called in blocks of 50, maybe) to line up so you could claim your copy. I think I got back to my hotel at about 2:30 a.m.
I thought it was fun to do... once.
I gave up pre-ordering after GoF came out when I realized that no bookstore on the planet was ever going to run out of copies of any HP book as long as they were in print.
Yes, this.
We went to a midnight release party for ... Goblet of Fire, I think. It was fun seeing the kidlings in their best wizard robes. And yes, several of them asked me what character I was supposed to be. Pete, because he is evil, told some of them that I was the professor of Arcane Etiquette.
I need to get to work on my Hufflepuff robes....
I thought it was fun to do... once.
Yep, just like NYE in Times Square.
I did the midnight thing at the local Borders for OotP. They gave you a color-coded ticket depending on when you pre-ordered the book (the earlier you ordered it, the sooner you got in line), which wasn't a bad system. The kids were cute in their costumes, and I got a chance to talk with a few of them a bit about what they hoped would happen in the book.
The HBP event in Oak Park was humongous and fun to see so I'm glad I experienced it, but just the one time. I'll just have to avoid reading any spoilers online before I get to read the book this summer.
the professor of Arcane Etiquette.
Bwah!
I always do the midnight thing. It's a sickness. I've done it for books 4, 5, and 6, and I'm sure not stopping now.
Plus, I also finished all of those books by noon on the day of release. Then read them again the next day. ALSO a sickness.
Ben and I did the midnight thing last time and loved it, but by eleven he was really flagging. So we went home, because we'd finished the games and all that, and the next day we went to WalMart and picked up a copy on sale for less than they were selling at B&N.