We Are the Host With the Most at Fuel the Rebellion!

Welcome to the August 17, 2007 edition of the My Favorite Things Carnival! This is our special "Back to School" edition.

Thanks to Fuel the Rebellion for agreeing to host the Carnival for us!

First, Sam presents MMORPG Addicting Online Games, posted at Surfer Sam and Friends. This post should be of special interest to those faithful Fuel the Rebellion regulars!


Mr. Sat follows, with a masterpiece of TV geekery, The Free TV List: 100 Places to Watch Television Online posted at TV Geekery.

For those of you playing the Harry Potter games, and the few who actually finished all 7 books (we know how it ends, bitches!), Scott H presents Harry Potter's Guide to the People You Meet in College posted at College and Finance, saying, "Going back to school with a Harry Potter book in hand is always fantastic. Observing how people in college resemble Harry Potter characters is even better!"

In a similar vein, Cheryl Snyder Taragin presents Adam Sandler Pounds Potter at the Weekend Box Office posted at her deliciously oddly named blog, The Spewker.

And, for all of you readers that are sick of hearing about Harry Potter, Leticia Velasquez offers alternative reading with Nothing makes a homeschool mom happier than a box of books! over at cause of our joy.


Michelle Mitchell prefers reading Letters from My Son , which you can find at her great blog all about Motherhood in Alaska, scribbit.

Aspeth, however, is looking forward to more hedonistic pleasures. With tongue firmly in cheek, she calls her vintage post, Getting Past the Color Barrier . It's posted at Twelve Years Of Being Annoyed By Chloe Sevigny. Aspeth explains, "When the mercury starts to soar, my favorite shift occurs in my palate as the season ushers in the bacchanalian goodness of white wines!"

Finally, Rickey Henderson rocks the carnival with a rousing finale, Introducing our Newest Feature: Musical Accompaniment! posted over at his kick-ass site, Riding with Rickey.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of the My Favorite Things Carnival! using our carnival submission form.

Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

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Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix--What Does the latest book do for this movie's success?

The fifth Harry Potter movie has been out for a while, but what happens in the seventh book will seriously impact the success of this movie, not to mention the entire Harry Potter franchise.

Now, if you've read the seventh book, you are sitting back smugly in your comfy chair (we can see you!), and you know whether this whole Harry Potter merchandising bonanza will continue. Really, there's only one question to be answered which decides the whole thing: does Harry die in the seventh book?

If Harry dies, it could be argued that any future movies are not only iffy to begin with, but in serious danger of "coming straight to DVD" fare. Fans interest in the franchise will die out just as surely as their hero did.

If Harry survives, the movies can only continue to enjoy their success at the box office, fueled by the books' current fans and future readers.

It doesn't take a marketing genius to know that it's best for Harry to survive in that last book, does it?

So, what's happened to the movie now that the seventh book is out? It came out strong, with over 32.2 million dollars, a real blockbuster in the box office. So, with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on the shelves, Is Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix holding its own?

Surprisingly, it's now losing ground to "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry."

I say surprisingly because anyone who has watched any review of the movie on any morning or late-night interview show already knows "Chuck and Larry" SUCKS. It's a shame, because Adam Sandler and Kevin James are likable, but even they couldn't save this homophobic train wreck from crashing and burning.

And yet, it beat out Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, a movie with a great storyline, fantastic special effects and the adoration of millions of fans around the world. Granted, the movie has been out for a few weeks now, and the popularity was bound to wane.

And it could be that the Harry Potter fans are so busy reading out there that they simply don't have time for the movie. Or maybe J.K. Rowlings decided to buck the whole marketing industry and kill Harry Potter off after all.

Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

We've read the book. We KNOW what happens. Do you?

Oh, yeah, and the games are out for the fifth movie, too.

Guest Post: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Review

This post contains no spoilers

I want to reassure you all here that I am not the type to just up and post all the best and worst specifics in the books and spoil it for the rest of you. I know you all want to read what happens to Harry, Ron, Hermione and the rest of the cast of characters for yourselves. I also know that posting spoilers, true or not, changes everything for the reader. You can't go into a book objectively once you've read the rumors, not knowing whether they are true or not. You look at each character in a different way--is he or she going to make it through this book? Will this character be in the last novel? What happens between this couple, or this group? Where does the action take place, and does it matter, and what mysteries evolve, only to be solved or left as cliffhangers as the book nears completion?



So I won't spoil the adventure for you. Instead, let me just say that in this last installment of the Harry Potter septology (thanks to Jon Stewart for the term), J. K. Rowlings delivers to her fans in a big way.

Naturally, it isn't a short book, but there's good reason for it. Rowlings has dealt with all the important, unanswered questions her fans have. She's plotted adventures and twists you can't imagine, magical duels and harrowing adventures, terrific new characters and creatures and the very best from those old characters she chooses to re-visit. (Vague enough for you?)

In this book, much of the plotting that has gone into the first six is revealed as part of a much vaster chain of events, which just goes to show, as her devoted fans have known all along, that Rowlings' phenomenal success is not the result of simple luck or formulaic writing. Hopefully, critics will back off a little and accept that her work is here with us to stay. Rowlings' series is not popular because it is the latest "in" thing among tweens but because it is a classic in its own right, a magical world that comes to life between the covers of each of the seven books, finally culminating in a resounding finale worthy of the author at her best.

Now, go out, get the book, sit down and read it.

Guest Poster: Thanks to Viv from Cool Moms Rule! allowing us to use her review

Smart Choice

So, went to see the latest Harry Potter movie (SPOILERZ: Harry kisses a real live girl!), and I was blown away. No, not by the movie, by the previews.

They're making Get Smart into a movie, and for once the Hollywood casting geniuses have it right. For all of you too young to remember, comic genius Don Adams, also known as the voice of Tennessee Tuxedo, starred in the original Get Smart series, in the title role of lovably inept Maxwell Smart. Smart, a covert agent for Control (think CIA without the humongous budget), battled evil in the form of the obviously intellectually superior, but sadly unlucky evil agents of KAOS, led by Smart's nemesis, the sinister Siegfried. Unfortunately, though cutting a snappy figure in a tux, Maxwell Smart was neither suave nor smooth, but painfully klutzy and not very bright. Smart's ultimate success was largely attributable to his beautiful partner, Agent 99, played by Barbara Feldman.

Without Don Adams, making a movie out of this classically campy series would seem disastrous, were it not for some inspired casting: Steve Carrell as Maxwell Smart. At least, that's what all of us sitting in the audience thought, as we watched the preview. Lots of excited murmurs, and "I used to love that show!" peppered with, "perfect choice, really," which is good news for all Carrell fans after the (less than stellar) Evan Almighty performance this summer. In addition, lovely Anne Hathaway (The Devil Wears Prada) plays Agent 99.

Special treat for fans of the original series: look for Bill Murray as the perpetually unlucky Agent 13.

Get Smart, the movie, is due out next year. You can catch the original 1965 series with Don Adams on DVD over at Amazon.

(Oh, and if you're wondering, more movie reviews are on the way, including the latest Harry Potter.)