VANILLI vidi vidi!!!!
Hope you're enjoying your Thanksgiving break. I've been having a pretty good time, but am about ready to get back to Duke, since in celebration of the holiday I skipped town three weeks early. Also in celebration of the holiday I haven't gone to my Monday/Wednesday 10:20 since October. Or read anything all semester. I give Thanks for large lecture classes.
So I took my ex-girlfriend to see the new Harry Potter movie yesterday-because, really, why do we come home if not for the possibility of rekindling old flames? I was fully expecting to reap the benefits of an almost-legal Harry (Daniel Radcliffe is to college girls as The Olson Twins were to college guys: tempting but sentence-able for 10 to 20 years) and had bought an extra large tub of popcorn for this very purpose. Yeah, I said extra large. Things didn't work out how I planned, though, because she started crying when that Diggory character bit it and somehow I doubt anyone could be turned on looking at Ralph Fiennes' vaguely-phallic noseless Voldemort anyway.
So, I've been thinking a lot recently about why these books are so popular. Some people say it's because the characters speak to something inside all of us, but damned if I'll ever relate to that pansy Ron. (I bet the author is planning on having Ron or Harry come out in the final book, thus making even literate rednecks sympathize with at least one gay guy). I've also heard that it has to do with the intersection of these books with the Internet and that they can be ordered in bulk across the globe like never before. But if this is the case, why didn't the same thing happen with my seminal work of children's fiction: Why I am Awesome, by MILLI?
Of course, this Crusade guy I know says everyone reads them because the devil is convincing us all to be witches, but I have a feeling that's just Christianity's way of scaring people into worshipping J.C. instead of J.K. Besides, Jesus did some pretty sweet magic, but he lacked any cool catchphrases. "Do unto others" simply isn't nearly as satisfying to say as "EXPACTO PATRONUUUUUUUM!!!".
I gotta say though, the place looks like Duke, and I think it would be kind of awesome if they filmed it here next time. We already have the shields hung in the Great Hall, and I'm pretty sure the stairs in Perkins rearrange themselves when I'm not looking. Plus I really just want to hear a British announcer yell "Kilgo has defeated Crowell to win the Quidditch Tournament!" because anything said in a British accent is either hot (Elizabeth Hurley) or funny (Monty Python). Besides all of which, I bet I can help that Hermione chick "mature".
Mad Eye MILLI
VANILLI,
Hey MILLI!
Welcome back! My head is still pounding from the pure hellaciousness that is flying on Thanksgiving weekend. I especially appreciated the local news reporters filming me waiting for my 5 a.m. flight, and the cameraman getting right up in my grill while I was trying to enjoy my For Him Magazine. I got a little high on the lady reporter's residual cloud of hairspray and ended up missing the flight, but it was all right because they'd overbooked it anyway and gave me $200 for missing it. This came in handy when I finally got on the airplane, where naturally the ONLY baby on the entire flight was directly behind me crying bloody murder. For future reference, $200 credit with American Airlines will buy you a whole lot of in-flight $3 white wine.
Either way, you gotta love a holiday centered around the traditional American values of excess and flatulence, but forcing relatives around a table for hours can reveal some pretty horrible childhood memories and unresolved family issues. Like my mom kept mentioning my Rhodes scholar friend at dinner, saying that I should apply for that, largely because it would look really good in our annual Christmas letter. (You know, the one where we're all wearing khakis and matching green shirts embroidered with reindeer.) And there's nothing like the passive-aggressive style of dad who still wants to have control over as much of my life as he does over my tuition. There's got to be a flaw in that age-old "I pay, I decide" argument, but so far the best response I've come up with is "Yeah, well, eat me!"
I got dragged out to shop on the day after Thanksgiving, or, as I like to call it, Day Where All Americans Become Rabid and Fight for Blood and Cashmere. We lost my little sister in a stampede of prepubescent women at the Gap, but I comfort myself that I managed to hang on to my Star Wars 17th Commemoration Edition Set With New Ending and SuperDigitized Effects. Besides, I'm pretty sure there's a direct inverse correlation between the quality of my life and the amount of whining I hear about how Nick and Jessica are officially over.
My quality of life is also correlated to Duke men's basketball, so of course I'm pretty pumped that they're doing so well. I gotta say, though, I can't stand Dick Vitale. I'm 87 percent sure I heard him propose to J.J. during Friday's telecast. "YEAH BABY!!!!!! MARRY ME!!! WE'LL BE DY!!!NO!!MITE!!!!!!"
Trying to get that image out of my head,
VANILLI
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.