I ordered the Potter book through Amazon, who promised to get it to me at or near the release date. The projected delivery date, however is August 1. The promised date applied only to the book and not to the the book on tape. I stopped at B&N to see if they had it, but they wanted $55 for it. Walmart, on their website, said that they had it for $44, so I stopped at a Walmart (only the second time in my life that I’ve set foot in one of these places), but they did not have it in stock. It reminds me of a Yiddish joke – “I’d charge only $35 for it if I didn’t have it in stock”.

I will have to wait until August first to start listening to it. In the mean time, I will have to try to ignore Ward’s critic emails. His last email was just “Owl Dead”. I don’t want to know, and this is making me afraid that I don’t actually want to listen to it. Ward is downloading the chapters from the internet and using his iPod clone to listen to it. I don’t really like this. Rowling has done something very unique in the Potter books, and Jim Dale is the best narrator one could imagine. They deserve my cash.