Tomorrow night, legions of Harry Potter fans will be gathering at bookstores all across the world to pick up the final installment of the series. If you haven't already preordered it on Amazon, or hunted down the digitally photographed pages of the leaked copy--tsk, tsk--your best bet is to exercise patience, or give in and pick it up with the throngs of other fans at one of the midnight release parties.
But where do you find ones worth going to? Short of browsing your local paper's A&E section, there are some handy tools online for either securing a copy in style, or finding something to do in the painful hours of waiting that lay ahead. Either way, you'd better batten down the hatches and read it in time to avoid the inevitable plot spoilers you'll hear at work or around the Web come Monday morning.
Potterparties.com offers a simple search by zip code to track down book release parties, complete with maps. I found the results to be a bit off, listing mostly Borders Book locations over local establishments. The site also features party descriptions, although those, too, were incomplete. The site's real draw is its recipes and games section, which gives you instructions on making such delicacies as jelly slugs, squid shooters, and troll toes. Delicious.
Scholastic, the publishers of the Potter series have their own party finder for retail locations hosting midnight soirees. The results don't show what's going on at each location, but they do list the start time so you don't show up too early. Like Potterparties, Scholastic has a smattering of Potter-themed activities, such as user forums, desktop wallpapers, a handful of games, and a countdown clock you can stare at.
Upcoming.org is one of the best resources for finding out the specifics of each Potter party. I found several different stores listed around my neighborhood, including times to get there, an attendee list, and store-specific information such as preorder discounts and parking tips.
Eventful.com has a surprisingly large number of listings for Harry Potter parties. Like Upcoming, it lists good things to know, like presale discounts, costumes, and activities to keep children busy and/or awake.
Related: The Harry Potter virtual spells app for Facebook, listed in our 5 Absurd Apps for Facebook post last week.
- Vibrating Hamster. The vibrating hamster is a simple picture of a lovable rodent you can put on your profile. As the name suggests, every time you click the picture, the hamster vibrates violently while playing the Web meme-famous hamster dance song. To keep anonymous hamster vibrations at bay, the application will track who was the latest to click and display it prominently on your wall.
- God Save the Queen. Here's another picture viewer of sorts, although this one is slightly less humorous. For U.K. citizens, or those who feel the inclination to put Queen Elizabeth II on their profile, adding the God Save the Queen application will display a random picture of Queen Elizabeth along with a quote. At the moment there are only two pictures, although the application was added to the Facebook directory just a few days ago, so expect more in the near future. See also: the Facebook lolcats app.
- My Aquarium. This application is a fish tank simulator gone social. You start out with 250 coins to buy new fish, and earn an extra 100 every day. Each fish has a specific price and lifespan, with the more expensive and exotic creatures lasting longer than the cheapies. You can share fish with others, by sending them to your friend's tanks, and display them lovingly on your profile. The application will also publicly display a history of the fish you've sent and received. Unfortunately there's no animation or movement; the fish just sit there.
- Harry Potter virtual spells. Nerd cred aside, this is by far one of the most complex applications on this list. Virtual spells sets you up with a small credit account of Galleons, the wizard currency from the Harry Potter books, to spend on spells you can use on your Facebook buddies. Each spell has a price, and has positive or negative effect on your spell recipient's virtual bank account. Your Galleons are reset to 150 each day, so you can begin purchasing any of the 160 available spells all over again.
No, this is not a cigar.
(Credit: CNET Networks) - Ploppy. Now when people see you're profile they'll know you're full of it. This application lets you announce to the world the wonderful specifics of your latest bowel movement. There are seven different types to choose from, and if you've got the guts, you can post it straight to your profile--complete with a painstakingly designed bit of clip art.
Have any others you've come across? Feel free to post in the comments.
Just two months after the launch of Facebook's f8 developer platform, there are nearly 2,000 applications. While a good portion of them are useful and work well as social tools, there are also a handful that are simply absurd. In no apparent order, I've rounded up five of my favorites below.
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