2002-12-01 at 10:50 p.m.

My new flatmate, Ivan, moved in yesterday. So far he seems pretty cool. Sure, he's a bit of a death metal fan and wears T-Shirts with interestingly depressing pictures on them, but he has a Playstation which we wasted much time playing yesterday. He's new to living away from home, and seems to be playing the 'I want to be your best friend' game. If he ever starts asking where I've been, and who with, and 'I was so worried', there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Anyway, I saw 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets' (or 'Harry Potter and the Enclosed Area of Unknowable Knowledge'(American title)) tonight. Whee!

Some comments-

-Dumbledore. Is he on valium or something? Look, I know he's pretty old (exactly how old, the books have never revealed), but I imagined him as being a bit more... well... spry than he is in the movies. He seems to be wandering around half-asleep most of the time.

-Parseltongue is the sexiest thing I have ever heard. Ever. It's like Elvish gone deliciously evil.

-Lucius Malfoy is the coolest man on earth.

-Why does John Cleese get such high billing? His name was about sixth in the credits, and all he did for the entire movie was wander around going "Ah! Hello! How are you? Hello! Hello! Ah! Hello!"

-Oliver Wood didn't get a lot of screen time, thus reducing the amount of time I could spend ogling him shamelessly. Thankfully, Tom Riddle (and, for some odd reason, Justin Finch-Fletchley) was chock full of eye candy goodness.

-The Weasley twins, once again, were sadly neglected. Wargh.

-Look, I'm aware that it's a children's movie, but why does the ending have to be so goddamn cheesy? It was so full of saccharine sweetness that at least three of my teeth spontaneously rotted away and fell out. And why did there have to be a slow clap involved? Why, God? Why!?

-Stay until after the credits. I cannot stress this enough. I'd been tipped off about this previously, and by the time the credits ended, there was just me and one other family left in the theatre. A quick note to theatregoers in general- when you see an obsessive fangirl in a Hogwarts T-Shirt sitting and calmly watching the credits roll, it might be a good time to hang around.

-Parseltongue is The. Fucking. Sexiest. Thing. Ever. Because if it's worth saying once, it's worth saying twice.

It's happening again!

In another ad for pop-up eradicating software, I got another weird message in French, this time from someone called Nellie (hopefully not the drop-kick 'singer' with white-out on his face).

Which translates as-

The world is a strange and wacky place.

Or maybe that's just France.