[HPFGU-OTChatter] Tink-Tink-Tink!

[Heidi]

* Name(s).
Heidi. Sometimes Heidi8. I am dull, whee. 

* Provide the etymology of your signature/handle/moniker/email
address. In other words, how and why did you choose the name
you use on the HPfGU lists.

Before I joined HPFGU, my online name was Penny, because I'd gone to
Penn undergrad, so when I first got online back in 1992, I had Penny
as part of my username on AOL. But when I joined HPFGU, I realised
that the list-mod was also named Penny, and it was her real name, so
to avoid confusion, I just decided to use my real name. There were
only 700 or so people on the list then, so what could be problematic
about that?

Now, it's just easier, and when I'm presenting at things like The
Witching Hour, it makes me easily identifiable.

* Whose signature/handle/moniker/email address at HPfGU
(a)  do you wish you had come up with first?
Penny. Heh. 

* If you lived in the Potterverse, who would you be, and what
would you do for a living?
I would like to do the same thing I to IRL here - copyright and
trademark protection, but hopefully I'd have been more adept at
potions than I was with mole-gram conversions in chemestry, and thus
would've been able to do wizarding patenting, too.

* What would you see in the Mirror of Erised?
Me with my family and my t-mobile sidekick and all my friends surrounding me. 

* What shape would a boggart take, if you chance upon one?
Right now, living in Miami as I am, I'm not sure if it would be an
actual hurricaine, or another non-event-storm for which they cancel
school and all activities anyway.

* What happy memory will you rely upon, if you are to conjure
up a Patronus?
About 90 minutes after childbirth #3, when the pain had receded, the
headache hadn't set in yet, and my husband and all three of my kids
were there.

* What form might your Patronus take?
Probably a flamingo - they're pink, and I believe that pink is a very
powerful force against evil (somewhat kidding, but I do love pink!)

* What might your animagus form be?
I have a scary feeling that I'd be a penguin. 

* What gifts would you register for in Diagon Alley?  Or would
it be Knockturn Alley?  How about at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes?
Books. Just a lot of books. And some chocolate. Do they sell
everlasting gobstoppers, too? (I merge universes; until HBP, I was
determined to believe that James Potter was really James Trotter from
James & the Giant Peach.)

* Times being what they are...what is your favorite flavor of
jam?  What is your dearest ambition?
My favorite flavour is strawberry, on scones, with Devonshire cream.
My dearest ambition? Ah, just happiness for all, and world peace. Yes,
I know they're diametrically opposed, but it doesn't say it's a
realistic ambition.

* Which of the HP books is your favorite?
PoA. So much love for Sirius and Remus. Together, individually, whatever. 

* Who is your favorite character?
After Harry, who I adored even in his CAPSLOCK!Harry incarnation, I
have always had hopes for *something* non-evil to come of Draco. I
also adore Sirius and Remus, and am beyond intrigued by Regulus.

* What do you hope will happen in Book 7?
Regulus shows up as Stubby Boardman. And Draco won't descend into
evil, as that would truly make Dumbledore's death pointless. I'd love
some scene with Tonks and Draco - they're cousins and could be
identical cousins if they wished, so I hope she does something with
that.

* What do you think will happen in Book 7?
Regulus shows up as RAB, dead or alive. The locket from OotP is *the*
locket. And Voldemort gets destroyed yay.

* Given all the books whose titles are canon (see
http://www.hp-lexicon.org/wizworld/books.html ) which would you
read cover to cover *first*?
Hairy Snout, Human Heart. Or I want JKR to tell us if Remus wrote it
anonymously, as a few wonderful fanfics have posited.

* What's in your Scrapbook for JKRowling.com ?
( http://www.hp-lexicon.org/about/sources/jkr.com/jkr-com-scrapbook.html )
She thanked *me* for a baby gift I sent. I don't need anything more!

* What's your personal best for Expert Level Minesweeper?
Bad. My husband has beaten JKR's current, though. 

* When did you join HPfGU?  How did you find us?
My delurk was at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups-Archives/message/3523 a
few hours before GoF was released. Here's the article that led me
here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59142-2000Jul6.html
- Oh! There were 300 members then! Ha!

* Point us to your favorite posts, your own or otherwise.
For a while, until we sort of stopped updating the FAQs, I was the
keeper of the fanfiction FAQ
(http://www.hpfgu.org.uk/faq/fanfiction.html) which is an interesting
slice of time of the fandom circa late-2002, before LiveJournal
exploded and before the release of CoS, which caused a significant
jump in the number of people writing HP fanfic and participating in
the fandom.

I have a soft spot for what I think was my last long post on Draco in
late 2002, which is crossposted on my LiveJournal at
http://www.livejournal.com/users/heidi8/97830.html Of course, Elkins'
post about Draco, which is crossposted on her site at
http://www.theennead.com/elkins/hp/archives/000178.html is much better
than mine. And despite all the people who posted replies and said that
Draco was irredeemably evil and just as murderous as his father,
wheee, I guess we were right, or Dumbledore was wrong.

* Point us to, in hindsight, what you now wish you'd never said
[ex.: ships sunken by new can(n)on, being flagged by LOONs...]
I think I still stand by all my posts. I think one's take on the
Potterverse is liable to be very different if one read the books one
by one, waiting for each one to be released, as versus reading a chunk
of three or four or five all at once.

* Have you been around since August 2000?  What were the hot
topics for you personally five years ago, post-GoF?
Yep! I was big on trying to suss out the Wand Order issue
(http://archives.cnn.com/2001/books/news/01/12/salon.potter/) which
turned out to be "OOPS a Flint, sorry guys!" and in looking over my
earlier posts, it's no wonder BK deLong asked me to come onto the
leaky cauldron as a reporter - I was posting about news articles, new
merchandise and movie news on the MAIN list all the time. Of course,
it was ok back then.

And ah, how things have changed. I guess it's all about the Chinese
proverb - may you live in interesting times. Or, in this case, may you
live in an interesting fandom.


Heidi