My Unweekend is underway. Since I have nothing work-related that needs to happen until Thursday night, I find myself with more free time on my hands than I've had in a long time. The past few weeks have been booked nearly solid for me, so I've almost forgotten about this thing called "free time", where nothing specific has been scheduled.

For the past few nights, I've been staying up much later than I should have as I ravenously consumed episode after episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 4. Most entertaining. That was the first season where I watched virtually all the first-run episodes when they first aired. So watching them all again is, to use an overused cliché, a trip down memory lane.

Watching them all back to back is a trip down memory lane in fast forward. Watching the episodes in a compressed timespan, rather than just one per week, plus many gaps for reruns, I realize that the show is really much more fast-paced that I perceived initially. Story lines that took months to unravel the first time around are resolved within a couple of discs now. It's almost daunting to watch it all go by, in hour after riveting hour...

College... Parker... Riley... The Initiative... Professor Walsh's secret... Willow with Oz, then Tara... The return of Faith... Adam.

It's crazy, I tell you! Crazy.

The Harry Potter craze seems to have infected the nation. On Saturday, while I worked King Soopers, passing out newspapers with a Harry Potter party pictured on the front, several table-fulls of books were emptied and restocked at the Harry Potter display adjacent to my newspaper stand. People young and old came rushing in to buy the latest J.K. Rowling installment, drops of drool dangling from the corners their mouths. It was like watching some sort of mass hysteria in real time.

Then today, I go to read Salon, and the cover story is nothing other than a fawning review of the same.

So I wonder. Am I missing out on something really great here? Maybe I should join the teeming masses, and read this series too?

When I first heard about Harry Potter N years ago, the premise sounded slightly cheesy to me. (Although I would have been all over it 15 years ago.) Seeing the first movie sort of confirmed my initial suspicions. Though it was relatively entertaining, I found the plot largely juvenile and unremarkable.

But maybe the books are better? Maybe I would

I mean, when I first heard about a show on the WB called "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", my initial reaction was similar. Cheesy crap for kids. It was only when an individual named drizzt strongly recommended it, and brought in a painstakingly recorded VHS tape (ok, maybe not that painstakingly) to ucollege.edu that I reconsidered my position. (It also didn't hurt that Salon started publishing incessantly about this wonderful series around that time too.)

Anyway, maybe I'll read Harry Potter sometime. But not tonight.

Not long ago, I was informed that there is a book club scheduled to meet in South Denver on Wednesday night. I am given to understand that 2 prominent individuals from the Content Solutions world are planning to attend the next session, less than 48 hours from now. One of them has started reading David Brin's Kiln People in a hurried manner, and has suggested that I do the same before the Wednesday gathering begins.

I think I might just be insane enough to try it. BN closes in less than 30 minutes, so I should get going if I am to acquire it tonight.

The other thought that had occurred to me in the near future was a journey to the Temptation Zone tomorrow. TPTB have decided to allow us the pleasure of purchasing the first series in which Kevin Sorbo played the lead role. And damn, I haven't seen some of those episodes since 1995.

Anyway... If I am to visit BN before the doors lock, I need to be departing.

Feast on that, Content Vultures. Peace out.