Oblique Spoiler Alert - nothing specificly revealed

I finished Book 7 yesterday.

Of the 20 predictions listed below, 11 are true (at least 2 were obvious), and 2 are half-true.

And, my personal fave, J.K. Rowling has been lying about one particularly pertinent fact for the last two years. Of course, if she told the truth, it would have been a spoiler in itself.

Correction: Ms. Rowling may not have been lying. I couldn't find the quotation I was looking for. Maybe it wasn't something she denied, but rather something one of her many fans denied. Or maybe I denied it. Whatevs.

Infinite monkeys typing infinite blogs will eventually predict the ending of Harry Potter

I am a sucker for all things Potter. I reserved my copies of The Deathly Hallows last September and I'm-a-counting down the days. Heck! I own the unauthorized Harry Potter Knitting Book, for goodness sakes.

And those who know me know that I will flip to the end to see who dies before I read the book -- I'm THAT kind of person.

So, when I saw on www.comcast.net that supposedly authentic spoilers were floating around the internet from people who hacked into publishers computer systems and/or made elicit digital photographs of the epilogue, well you know what I did. I'm THAT kind of person.

So here are the spoilers I learned today. I hope I don't ruin it for you:

1. Voldemort dies
2. Harry dies
3. Ron dies
4. Hermione dies
5. Snape dies
6. Percy dies
7. Bellatrix Lestrange dies
8. Lupin dies
9. Dumbledore's death is not what it appeared to be
10. Lupin and Tonks get married
11. Harry lives and marries Ginny
12. Ron lives and marries Hermione
13. Snape lives and becomes Headmaster of Hogwarts
14. McGonagle becomes Headmistress of Hogwarts
15. Harry and Ginny name a child "Severus"
16. Harry finds and uses a snappy horcrux divining device
17. Harry finds a more effective manner of disposing of horcruxes than Dumbledore ever knew
18. Draco Malfoy horcruximifies himself
19. Kreacher becomes a good house elf and helps his master find and destroy certain horcruxes
20. oh, and RAB is Regalus A. Black

I would not be surprised if some of these things actually occur in the book. But only because if you list everything that could conceivably happen, then you've got to be right about some of them. Heck! Even some of my predictions will show up in the book. (I'm betting that Stubby Boardman is really the Wand Dude from Ollivanders. . .)

Pope Chat

Another edition of Sheepish Grin's regular feature about goings on at the Vatican. Today's subject: Aunt Marion was right after all, but will that make her a better driver?

I never did get around to posting my diatribe about God's Driving Rules. Suffice it to say that, while I do not condone bad driving and would not ever drive badly myself, I believe it is a person's choice to drive badly and should not be regulated by The Church.

Though shalt not commit a Connecticut Left* because I shalt not stop for your dumbass.

But apparently Aunt Marion and Mel Gibson are right because the Latin mass is de rigeur. I expect to see it in the next Entertainment Weekly. ("In - Latin; Five minutes ago - Children's; Out - Folk")

I'll meet you at the Klingon Mass at the next SciFi Con.
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* A phenomenon first observed by this author upon her relocation to Connecticut 13 years ago. Connecticut is silly with busy 2-lane roads that lack the traffic-lights-ever-6-feet of New York. A Connecticut Left is a moving violation and occurs when the driver who wants to make a left turn, instead of waiting for both lanes to be clear so that a legal left can be made, drives straight into the closest lane -- thereby stopping that traffic flow -- and waits for either the far lane to open up or a "courteous driver" to stop and let him or her in -- thereby stopping the other lane of traffic flow. This moniker has been adopted by the Greenwich Police Department, so now it is official.