Ashleigh and I went to one of those midnight Harry Potter release parties down in SoHo on Friday night. We wanted to avoid the huge crowds at Barnes and Noble and Borders, so we chose an independent bookstore called McNally-Robinson instead. They had fortune tellers, and a costume contest (no, we were not in costume), and “magic punch for grownups.” Ashleigh got her book just ten minutes after midnight, and then we headed home.

The eerie part of the evening was the visual on the subway platform. It’s very strange to see hundreds of people waiting for an N train after midnight (it also happened to be the subway station closest to the Scholastic store and Harry Potter Place), all of them very quiet, and all clutching the exact same book in their hands, as though they were all part of a creepy cult of children’s-book-worshipers. Oh wait…

I noticed a smart, although slightly annoying, change from Friendster this morning. They used to send emails that said, “Your friend David’s birthday is coming up on July 31!” But this morning’s email said, “Your friend David’s birthday is coming up! Click here to find out when.” That’s a smart change because it drives traffic to the site. When I used to receive the fully-informative emails, I was already done interacting with Friendster after glancing at the email. Now it’s just the start of my interaction with them instead; I have to pay a visit to their site, where the interaction continues. That little change was a smart way to bring a lot of extra traffic to Friendster.

Ilse went to the vet today, and she’s already 4.7 pounds. That’s huge! She’s more than twice the size that she was two months ago. None of her clothing fits her anymore. I swear she’s like the size of a German Shepherd. So I’m going to start calling her Shep.