I read somewhere that they took the stereotypes and turned them up to 11. And wimpified Harry.
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Not to mention the spirit was suddenly the virtuous, helpful adviser. Nothing there about lurid romance novels.
The thing Mr. TM hated the most was apparently they took his staff and turned it into a hockey stick. I mean, I know it was filmed in Canada (not that we have a hockey team in Toronto, where it was filmed 
) but really???
From IMDB
The episodes were aired out of their original filmed order, and the two-hour pilot was never aired in its entirety during the shows run. An edited version of the pilot, titled āStorm Front,ā aired in the middle of the first season.
Gosh, I wonder why these shows get cancelled?
I think the bald faced way Harry is just a wizard without trying to hide it freaks people out.
I donāt know, I think by the end of the sixth book I was tired of the āwe won, but Iām screwed even worse than beforeā endings.
Not me, but dakson:
For 3rd grade, heās required to read 15 minutes every night & write 2-3 sentences about what heās read. Heās been reading Big Nate all summer but those arenāt going to qualify.
So, today we were at Barnes & Noble picking up 3 more Big Nates and on a whim I decided to see if they had My Side of the Mountain in stock. They had it! We picked it up and he had major reservations. āI donāt know if Iāll like this, it doesnāt look like other books Iāve read.ā I told him to give it a try.
So tonight at bedtime, he cracked it open and within 5 pages, turned to me and said āwow, I love this book!ā
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I love that book! I read it when I was a kid, and about ten years ago I found it in a bookstore and bought it and read it again. I still loved it. 
Right now Iām reading Shepherdās Crown by Terry Pratchett. Itās his last book. 
I remember reading that when I was a kid as well and I loved it although I have not read it since then.
I read Anthony Bourdainās Kitchen Confidental while on vacation.
Which is probably a bad idea while spending a week eating at restaurants. Itās a pretty honest discussion of his early career with drinking and drugs while occasionally getting some cooking in. Also discusses things like how common it is for unused bread on the table to be reused.
On a whim, I picked up the The Last Survivors series (T.W. Piperbrook & Bobby Adair) in early August, got hooked, and ripped through the first 3 books in about 5 weeks (#4 isnāt out yet).
Moved from there on to T.W. Piperbrookās Contamination series and Iām currently in book 3 of 4.
Never been into zombie/post-apoc type stuff before (in any medium) but Iām enjoying reading them.
Iāve found that I have a severe weakness for āconstruction porn.ā The book where either society has collapsed, and everything must be rebuilt and they spend two pages talking about how to render old pigs into fat and grease for oiling machinery and running the old diesel tractor hooked up to the bank of car alternators and boat batteries to power the townās lights and provide some cooling for the storage of food, or where there is nothing there to begin with and they have to carve out a civilization in the howling wilderness; so instead of the above they have to take the nuke powered saw and use it to produce enough logs to build the town with before it dies, hook up the old spaceship powerwheel to the local waterfall, and make enough other tools to continue a 18th century lifestyle with 21st century knowledge base. A lifestyle that is oddly satisfying in theory. 18th, early 19th with modern medicine, farming, and metal working theory doesnāt look too bad from here. Especially not when you add in some modern macguffins like memory chips and tablet PC analogues.
Eric Flintās stuff is almost the sweet spot on that, Ringo writes it well, and Iām finding some indy stuff that is really fun. A long Time Until Now is pretty damn fun, but very heavily anti progressive.
Itās not survivalist, or prepper, so much as building things and figuring out issues, even if they are set pieces where one flows from the last. Itās not the zombies and the fighting that I like, itās the built a shelter out of a Walmart and stayed there with some other survivors, turned the garden center into real garden, reinfoced the roof and built water holding tanks with pool supplies, along with starting compost heaps to get rooftop fruit trees planted.
The stuff Iāve been reading is pretty much in the āeverythingās come apartā phase. The Last Humanity is a world cast back into the middle ages after enjoying the fruits of our current time. Contamination is current times and the wheels coming off.
Recent books this summer:
The Martian (Andy Weir) - excellent book. Canāt wait for the movie.
Grave Peril (Jim Butcher) - Supposedly when the series gets good. Weāll see how it goes in the next one.
Raising Steam ( Terry Pratchett) - Not my favorite Pratchett book. I liked Moist in Going Postal, but having him in Making Money and now this one seems a bit much. And it was an odd book with no real antagonist. There was, but it wasnāt really central.
Seveneves (Neal Stephenson) - Current read. Opening is depressing as hell frankly. And it seems like itāsā¦ āstutteringā. There are some good moments started and then a switch in gears to something else. It may not help that Iām reading this as an audio book and the narratorās voices for the characters are a little grating. If itās a let down after this, I may re-read The Martian to put myself back in a good mood.
Next books:
I plan on flip-flopping through the Dresden Files and the Old Manās War series. Iāll throw in some other stuff too here and there as it catches my interest.
I feel like this is (unfortunately) one of Pratchettās mis-steps like Jingo in which he tried to comment on real-world politics and was perhaps a bit heavier-handed. Several scenes in both seem like theyāre meant to be commentaries on the issues of countries invading other countries and dealing with other cultures, but they donāt work as well as (for example) the commentary on religion in Feet of Clay or similar.
I loved Jingo.
Old Manās War was ok, but the sequel was meh. And I dislike Scalzi enough now Iām not willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and try other books of his.
I agree. I liked some of the imagery of the dwarfs trying to move with the times, but the book overall felt flat. Jingo wasnāt quite as bad IMO. Nation was I think one of his few books where he got that right. I read the first Long Earth book but I just canāt seem to get myself to finish that series too.
Old Manās War was good and the rest will probably be crap, but I think it might scratch an itch. Iāve been wanting a good universe with multiple writers like the old Saberhagen Berserker series. This might satisfy it. Weāll see.
Both Monster Hunter International and Black Tide Rising are opening up for anthologies. I like the idea of a fleshed out world, with short zombie stories in it. It makes room for stories where the good guys lose, but I didnāt just invest 5 hours reading about them.
I miss Sanctuary before it got all totally messy.
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Recently Finished:
The Shepherdās Crown by Sir Terry Pratchett ( The final Discworld Novel)
The Annihilation Score by Charles Stross (Laundry Files 06)
Ready Player One by Earnest Cline
Currently Reading (or Listening) to:
Armada by Earnest Cline
Good Omens by Sir Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Forces from Beyond by Simon R. Green
Delta Green: Failed Renditions
Delta Green is an RPG setting from the mid-90s that was absically the X-Files before the X-Files existed. The RPG rules were one of the first big efforts to give the old Call of Cthulhu stuff a framework. Itās similar to a more dire version of Charles Strossā Laundry stuff, but without the IT humor. This book is a new-ish fiction collection that apparently updates the setting to the more modern post-9/11 era.
James Marsters reads the Dresden Files audio books, and has said in interviews how much he enjoys doing it.
If you still need ebook copies let me know.