The U-Bend #31: Year Two Starts…Now-ish

by Andrew Lee and Robert Lanto

Ok, our unofficial vacation is over… starting now… no wait, now. Well, after taking the entire month of August off, Robert had written an article about Pure-Blood Super Wizards Are Our Superiors and it didn’t go over very well in the test readings. But, we’re back now and ready to get back to addressing the lighter side of Potter. Half-Blood Prince has come and gone, the Goblet of Fire movie is still a few months away, but that doesn’t mean we have nothing to talk about. We’re getting back into the groove of things, so this one is a little shorter than usual. But enough of this, let’s get cracking! First let’s have our take on what’s been happening in Potter related news:

Delusions of the Delusional

The shippers were up in arms over Emerson’s comments in the Delusion-gate Scandal. Poor shippers, being called delusional for harboring an insane fantasy in their heads which could never come true… Thanks a lot Emerson, Robert cried in bed for weeks. But, Emerson apologized for his outburst and everything is fine now. That is until book 7 comes out and we have Delusion-gate 2: What Happened To The Snake From Book 1?

Final Score: J.K. 11, U-Bend 1/2

Well we read the Half-Blood Prince and looked over our predictions. We were wrong. Not a little wrong, very wrong. So wrong that you must wonder how we got this job in the first place. Well, we admit it, J.K. is taking the story her way and not our way; so we’re not disappointed. After all, if the story went our way, ohhh there’d be so much evil Harry… Although, Robert claims a half-point for his ‘speed dating’ comment… if you consider that Luna and Ginny has a lot of dates. Then again, Robert claims that Harry chose Ginny because he was getting desperate… All comments and complaints should be directed to Robert (see bottom of this article for e-mail).

MuggleNet Launches Podcast, Takes Over Internet

Congrats to our fellow MuggleNet employees who have launched an extremely successful podcast. Podcasts are for the millions of people who hate the radio, but love radio like banter. The popularity of the MuggleNet podcast was so powerful that it destroyed the server it was on, was removed, brought back and 3 days later had its image appear in a burrito in Mexico. Maybe one day we’ll appear in the podcast… but we’d rather not waste everyone’s time with 5 minutes of dead air, broken up by the occasional uh… and so…

50 Points Claimed

The 50 Points offered for Half-Blood Pie have been claimed. Congratulations to the songwriter for a job very well done. More details to follow…. Uhh, soon-ish.

Trailer 2 Arrives With A Vengenance!

On Thursday, September 15th, two very important things were released. First, The Sims 2: Nightlife arrived in stores (Andrew: Stop staring at me!) and the new Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire trailer arrived. This new, longer (and much improved) trailer finally gives us a full view of what we have in store for us this November. But rather than bore our readers with another trailer analysis article… we’ll just post our thoughts here.

Andrew: I found this to be a large improvement over the first trailer. The special effects are more or less incorporated into the film. Mike Newell is adding his own style while keeping the familiar settings established by the previous directors, and everyone else seem comfortable in their roles. If there is one thing I don’t like, it is the change in colorization from the more browns and lighter colors to the less interesting grays and use of shadows everywhere. That, and I always assumed that Beauxbatons and Durmstrang were coed schools… but hey, whatever floats their boat. Come back Mr. Cannon, we miss you!

Robert: Overall I liked the trailer. On a scale of 1-10 I’d give it an 8.5. I wasn’t so impressed with the music. It didn’t sound Pottery or very scary which the 4th movie is supposed to be and the rest of the music was simply alright for the blippits I’ve seen. Ron really needs a hair cut badly… I thought it was Harry that was supposed to have the weird hair; well has anyone looked at Ron? The ladies of Beauxbatons all look like Mary Poppins. And when Dumbledore is calling out the names of the tournament, does he call out Victor KROCK and not Krum? Oh yeah, and the rain wasn’t rainy enough for me!

Upcoming articles

What do we have coming up? Well we have a few articles in queue. The winner of the 50 points and a serious philosophical look at Transfiguration are two that are coming up. The often put off, but not forgotten, ‘Messing with Muggles’ article is probably going to appear before the end of the year too. In the near future, you can look forward to Albus Dumbldore: Nazi Smasher! That article is going to be a blast. Now that Andrew’s back, Robert can stop worrying that the articles will not get out there for the public to enjoy.

P.S.
We’ll be addressing Robbie’s challenge too (See U-Bend #29). Bring it on!