Harry Potter

 "People who boast about their IQs are losers." - Stephen Hawking


Not the sort of quote you'd expect from someone like him.


Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

— Arthur Schopenhauer

"Genius is the ability to independently arrive at and understand concepts that would normally have to be taught by another person." - the philosophy of Immanuel Kant

Yes, I Wikipedia-d "genuis."

I was going to end the post here, but I looked at by Google Reader (always a sign of trouble) and found this. So now I think I'll talk about it.

I am one of those people who say Harry Potter changed my life. But not in the "My parent/best friend/boyfriend/other family member's death changed my life" sort of way, and not in the "OMFG THESE BOOKS ARE THE BEST THINGS EVER I LOVE THEM SO MUCH" sort of way, although that last one isn't too much of an exaggeration of some points during elementary school.

Harry Potter changed my life in the "My life would honestly be radically different if not for Harry Potter" kind of way.

I will make a chart for you.

Harry Potter -> Pottercast -> Nerdfighteria -> Almost all of the music (other than wrock) I listen to right now -> almost all of the people I'm subscribed to on YouTube.

                       Pottercast -> wizard rock -> lots of evenings happily spent (as well as money happily spent)

                                          Nerdfighteria -> General Wisdom and Knowledge and Other Good Stuff Like That That I Would Not Otherwise Have -> The inspiration and motivation to write what and as much as I do.

                                         Nerdfighteria-> really good books

These things listed above, regardless of how sad it may be, make up almost all of my online life/IRL things caused by online life. And while I have quite a bit of non-online life, that stuff is still really important to me.

And now it occurs to me that Harry is probably the most influential male in my life other than my dad. I mean, look at the chart. That's pretty sad.

On a semi-related note, sometimes it scares me that I might grow out of this stuff. Some people do. I might. But I don't want to. I like it too much to not like it anymore, if that makes any sense.

Oh, and I got another rejection letter today. This one went something like "I'm sorry, but I feel that I am probably not the right agent for this book." My initial reaction was this: "PROBABLY? That's a MAYBE YOU ARE." Lesson: Sometimes being nice conveys the wrong message.