If you can suppress the desire to see the books on the screen, the show is probably okay for you; it seriously jigsaw-puzzled the books and only retained a few, mostly superficial parts thereof, but if you can separate it from your knowledge of the books, it's a reasonably enjoyable show - one of the few that Syfylis has done that don't out-and-out suck. But that's only if you're not expecting to "see" the books.

It was good enough that my wife and I were disappointed when it ended; we then found out about the books and never looked back. I'm just glad it happened in that order, because I would've been royally pissed at everyone involved if I had seen the books first and THEN saw the show - would've felt betrayed; as it was, we had fun with the show and then a lot MORE fun with the books.

I watched the first episode before ever reading any of the books. In my experience, the book is almost always better than the TV show or the movie, so the next day I bought Storm Front and read it. Then I bought all of the others out at the time, which was shortly before White Night was published. I read all of the books, including WN, before watching the second episode of the show.

It worked out pretty well for me; the first episode let me know that I should check out the books, while also allowing me some warning about what the show was going to be like by the time I'd finished the books. I knew already that the show wasn't much like the books, and I was a little reluctant to start watching from the second episode onward since I liked the books more than what I'd seen of the show. Eventually, though, I did start watching the show again, and because I already had some idea of what to expect, the differences didn't hit me as a huge disappointment. I actually kinda liked it, and I would've kept watching if it had stayed on the air.

That is simply awesome.

Politics does seem to play some part in who gets elected to the Senior Council, even if age is the primary factor. For instance, the Merlin seemed to know going into the meeting in Summer Knight how the election to the SC seat would go, and he made a play to get one of his favorites into the position. The only serious opposition was Ebenezar, and Eb's greater seniority gave him the edge.

And the selection process ended with a general vote of all wizards in attendance, so presumably it's possible for some kind of majority to vote against a nominee.

What about voters with deleted accounts or some such thing?

Yeah, that's a good idea, I didn't think of that one. A "remove vote" glitch still seems more likely to me, but deleted accounts seems more likely than the invisible Mod theory.

Reasons:

1) The Obvious - Harry had to "exist" for the spell to lock to him.  So at minimum it would have to have occurred within 8 months of his birth.
2) Baby Hair - In PG, Harry fails to find Molly using her baby hair.  Bob states that this is because babies are mailable and Molly is no longer what she was  then.   If you extend that concept to a fetus, well, anyone who has seen a sonogram knows that an early pregnancy fetus does not much resemble a baby.  The changes during this period are radical therefore it would make sense to wait as long as possible for that fetus to be very near it's completed development prior to trying to imprint it. 

So in my book this would place the casting of the spell in the Third Trimester minimum, I think one could safely say October.

Just an idea, here-- things like hair or a picture or whatever are only necessary if you need to create a symbolic link to another person or object. I'm guessing that, if the other person is actually with you constantly, and is in fact inside of your own body, no such symbolic link is necessary. You're already touching them, so you probably have all you need to open a magical channel between you and them. In fact, with pregnancy being such a special case, one might speculate that there could be a constant, inseparable magical link between the mother and the child until the child is born and the umbilical cord is cut.

Would it be possible to allow us to ignore posts and threads by a given user, or, better yet, to group threads by a given user separately from the other threads in the "Show unread posts since last visit" list? Not that I have anyone specific in mind(*glares at samuraimjh*), but it does sometimes seem as if an option like that could come in handy.

I know it's technically possible to do it, of course, but it may require so much time and effort as to make it a practical impossibility. I only suggest it in case it could be worked into the forum code relatively easily.

Would it be possible to allow a user to set preferences for which unread posts they want to have added to the "Unread posts since last visit" list? I ask, because while I've read all of the Dresden books, I'm still working my way through the Codex Alera, and I've noticed several spoilery topic subjects in the Unread Posts list whenever I check it. I do my best to just ignore them, but things like "Isana's Marriage" and such still make an impression.

It might be helpful to posters who haven't read all of both series to be able to check off whether or not they want unread posts from both the Dresden section and the Codex Alera section, or even whether or not they want posts from the Spoilers sections of either forum to be added.

Thanks for your time and effort in running the board, Iago and mods.

By coincidence, I recently bought the first, second, and fourth Fury books at Borders, because I'd been emailed a 40% off coupon for Borders Books. In fact, I could use another such coupon, should the Google Ads deities see fit to bestow one upon me-- to be used to buy the third Fury book, of course.