I tested out the Pentax Optio 330 RS at a Ritz Camera store yesterday (I took an MTA bus to the Beverly Center), but was unimpressed. It has all the features I read about, but it also sucks in low light. In fact, it sucks in medium light. So now I’m looking seriously at the Fuji FinePix 3800, which has a 6x optical zoom and appears to be much better in low light (but has no manual focus). It’s $399 at Circuit City, but I’m hoping to find an open-box version — discounted to perhaps $349 or $359 — somewhere in the L.A. area.

Also yesterday, I bought the Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition DVD. Becky and I watched it through the arrival at Lothlorien, but then Becky got sleepy. :) (Must have been the mysterious power of Galadriel.) I’m comment on it once we finish it. (So far, though, very cool!)

In other news, Osama bin Laden is definitely alive, Saddam Hussein is pretending to comply, and some female members of the marching band at New Britain High School — one of Newington High’s big rivals — are in a heap of trouble for an annual tradition that involved stealing stuff.

[Welcome, new visitors! For my posts about “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” please visit my homepage or take a look at this category. This post is about the death of actor Richard Harris nearly three years ago. -ed., 7/15/05]

Actor Richard Harris, who played Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore in the first two “Harry Potter” movies — and was scheduled to reprise the role in the next five sequels — has died, according to a CNN Breaking News bulletin I just received. I don’t know what he died of, but I remember being afraid that this would happen when I saw a TV biography that discussed Harris’s crazy lifestyle. What will Warner Brothers do???

UPDATE, 3:09 PM: Apparently Harris died of Hodgkin’s Disease. Maybe that was what I heard that made me worry he would die, rather than a crazy lifestyle. Or maybe it was both. Either way, I distinctly remember thinking to myself, “He might die in the next few years, and what will Harry Potter do then?” It would almost be easier to replace Harry Potter himself than Harris’s wonderful portrayal of Dumbledore.

As of Tuesday, October 22, there’s:
• 1 day left until National Mole Day
• 2 days left until the 4th anniversary of my crowning as Newington High School Homecoming King :)
• 4 days left until I find out my LSAT score
• 8 days left until I turn 21!!!
• 9 days left until I have enough money to buy a new digital camera
• 10 days left until I register for classes for the last time at USC
• 17 days left until Becky and I (probably) go to Las Vegas for the weekend (no, the Rev. Elvis will not be involved)
• 21 days left until the The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring special extended-edition DVD comes out
• 24 days left until the new Harry Potter movie comes out
• 28 days left until the Leonid Meteor Storm
• 32 days left until the UCLA football game
• 33 days left until the likely date of my annual Christmas ceremony
• 37 days left until Thanksgiving
• 52 days left until the new Star Trek movie comes out
• 57 days left until The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers comes out
• 58 days left until I fly to Hawaii with Becky and her family!!!
• 64 days left until Christmas
• 71 days left until 2003!

Harry Potter, you cannot pass!

…but I must have missed it. Why was Mulder seeing ghosts again? Why could Scully see Cigarette Smoking Man, but not the other dead people? And why didn’t the psychic kid just tell each of the judges what they had for lunch earlier that day? Wouldn’t that have settled the whole thing in about 45 minutes?

Oh, and most importantly, after the cameras stopped rolling in that motel room, did Mulder get laid, arrested, or both? (Or both at the same time? Kinky.)

Anyway, if anyone can explain the X-Files finale to me in 500 words or less, feel free to e-mail me with the truth. Otherwise, I’ll happily stick to my knowledge of obscure Tolkien trivia. Did you know the Balrogs were originally servants of Melkor, a.k.a. Morgoth, in his First Age fortress Utumno, a.k.a. Udun? (Hence Gandalf’s “flame of Udun” speech.)

Meanwhile, in the dramatic Survivor finale… does anyone really care about Survivor anymore? Didn’t think so. But I’m watching CBS right now, and it sorta looks like Rosie O’Donnell won. Not sure about that, though.