In compliance with Brandon’s wishes, I now present my seven hypothetical (for now) horcruxes.  I tried to spread these out across the different stages of my life, but the majority of them come from the past decade.  This seems fitting, seeing as how life really doesn’t begin until you’re ten anyway.

First Pair of Shoes
My first pair of shoes were bronzed and made into bookends when I was a child.  For years they were displayed prominently on my bookshelf, until they disappeared in the confusion that was moving to Belgium.  But did they really disappear, or were they hidden with a piece of my soul?
Victim: Jake Dewey, my childhood best friend.  Keep in mind, this (fictional?) Ryan is quite evil and wouldn’t think twice about killing those who were previously close to him.

Beth Action Figure
This was a present from Brandon given to me on my 13th Birthday.  It symbolizes the entity of Beth, a creation infinitely more detailed and fun than our OM presentation that year.  This horcrux will represent my junior high years and the beginnings of the modern-day Perfects.
Victim: Kistenmacher.  There were three people that were really behind the rise and fall of The Wood’s favorite mythical entity, and Ryan seems to be the weakest, magically.  It was either him or Brandon, and, let’s face it, Brandon is practically level 5235 when it comes to sorcery.

Class Ring
You can’t have a list of horcruxes without including at least one ring.  It has my name engraved on the inside, which might make it a bit too obvious for a horcrux, but it doesn’t really matter.  This ring has three landmarks from Brussels, which will represent my entire time abroad.
Victim: Mr. McAdams, my 11th grade physics teacher.  I hated this man more than any teacher I’ve ever had in my entire life.  He completely deserves his fictional death by Avada Kedavra.

Map of the World
This is the map in cork board above my desk that chronicles every place I have been.  It would be vital to anyone who wants to trace my past, but it’s size would prevent it from being easily transported.  I would use magic on the map so that you can only ever see one location in front of where you currently are.  In other words, if you were in Houston, it would only show you the pin for another Texas town (such as Austin).  This would require you to completely trace my steps in order to find all of the horcruxes. Additionally, you would not be able to destroy the map until you discovered the other six items.
Victim: Brandon, because he is the resident geography expert and could probably retrace most of my steps without the help of the map.  Plus, aren’t there enough gays already?

Eagle Scout Medal
Did I mention that I’m an Eagle Scout?  I basically chose this because it looks cool, and is relatively small.  There would be no way to distinguish it from the millions of other medals, however, which would make the quest far too difficult and realistic.  I’d have to find a way to make it unique, so Harry could find it before the end of book 7.
Victim: Wally, the annoying little brat from troop 870 who couldn’t even tie his own shoes!  If, for some reason, I take pity on the kid, his replacement would easily be Mr. Cross.

Personal Embosser
This is an embosser that has my name and a special design on it.  The design is in the front of every book I own, because I’m a huge nerd.  In order to destroy this horcrux you must use it to emboss the most pretentious book ever written (finding that is part of the challenge).
Victim: Katie.  Easy.

Keith Richards
Like in the Harry Potter series, at least one of the horcruxes should be a living thing.  If you’re searching for immortality, there’s no better host than the Rolling Stones’ guitarist.  There is seemingly nothing on earth that can kill this man, so good luck finding a drug that can do the trick.
Who: Mick Jagger?  Worst comes to worst, this one can just be a random muggle.

60 years ago today, St. Pepper taught his band to play:
Last month The Beatles celebrated the 40th anniversary release of St. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The Beatles have been a near-mythical band my entire life, because John Lennon died before we were even born. The forty year milestone is really only significant for people who were around when it was first released. Still, after hearing a selection of the music when I went to Beatles.com, I began thinking about how truly amazing that album is. Chuck Klosterman said it best when he put The Beatles on his list of the most accurately rated rock bands of all time. They are generally thought to be the greatest band of all time, and this is entirely appropriate. Their songs were, and continue to be, some of the greatest pieces of music ever written. There are those who disagree, but they are an overwhelming minority. The most amazing thing about The Beatles is how overwhelmingly popular they truly are. Artists like The Smiths and Lou Reed have always been praised by critics without receiving similar commercial success, while The Beatles are both the most successful and critically acclaimed band of all time. Looking back at their career, I notice how their early success allowed them the absolute freedom to do whatever they wanted with later albums. This seems to be the path to being worshiped; George Lucas and Orson Welles both used their early commercial success to spearhead their creative endeavors for the rest of their lives. So now all I have to do is become disgustingly successful in order to achieve legendary status.

I returned to Austin last Saturday, and have started working 35 hours a week. I’m not doing summer school, so I don’t have any responsibilities other than work. This allows me to go home and watch TV for hours every night, which is fun! I put a spare TV on my desk, so I never even have to leave my room! I also bought a new desktop computer to replace my broken laptop. Desktops have fallen so low in price that I couldn’t pass it up. I’m always on my computer in my room anyway, so there hasn’t been any inconvenience.

The topic that will dominate my conversations for the next month:
Tomorrow night is Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix! Jennifer Dupont is making DA shirts, which should be nerdtastic! Our festivities will begin with some wizard rock at 10:30 before drinking the night away on butterbeer and watching the new film. Then the long wait until July 21 will begin…I can’t believe its already been two years since the Half-Blood Prince was released! I feel bad for future generations that won’t be able to experience these novels when they were first released. The plot details of The Deathly Hallows are sure to become infamous in the same way that “Rosebud” or “Luke I am your father” have for our generation. Hopefully it won’t matter, but I’m definitely excited to have read the whole series without any spoilers. We won’t know for sure until sometime in the next two weeks, but I am convinced that HP will go down as one of the greatest literary achievements of the two centuries in which it was written. It is probably the greatest children’s series ever written, even though I doubt that children are able to truly appreciate its genius.

Update! We saw Harry Potter last night, and I thought it was pretty great overall. The filmmakers did a wonderful job of condensing the book into a very manageable two hours. The political story lines were handled extremely well, and the wizard battles were some of the best moments in the whole franchise. The acting was all very strong, with exceptional turns from nearly every new cast member. I can’t wait to see more of Helena Bonham Carter in the sixth movie! I still can’t understand why the directors don’t release extended editions of the movies, filmed specifically for the fans. Lord of the Rings proved that it could not only be done, but actually turn a profit. Also, the Remus Lupins are playing another show at BookPeople tomorrow evening, which should be great. I really enjoyed their entire set, with the exception of their Snape song. Snape is good. Everyone with half a brain agrees on this point. I’ll forgive them, however, because their songs are catchy and their energy was great.

For those of you who don’t know, I recently bought a new desktop computer to replace my broken laptop. This has been the primary reason for my lack of updates since returning from Europe. My new computer came with Windows Vista, which doesn’t support FrontPage (the program I used to update my site). As a result, I have to learn to use Dreamweaver, an infinitely more complex web design tool. If it takes a little while before things are back to normal, this is most likely the reason.

Pictures to come soon, once I figure out how to do more with Dreamweaver!