I got a laptop for Christmas! And I get to start using it now so that I don't waste any of the ninety-day warranty!

(It's a used Toshiba Tecra 8100 almost exactly like the one of dreamsquirrel's I broke a few months ago. We'll see if this one lasts better. I told Mom that would more than fulfill my needs, and it does so far. At least hardware-wise. (It has a DVD drive! And infrared communications!) However, the OS seems to be a very *minimal* install of win98 for some reason - it wants the CD for all the windows network stuff, and Dvorak keyboard support, and Solitaire, to name the most important so far. And of course they didn't give me the CD, and if I put on a new OS I lose the warranty. Eh. It was pretty cheap as such things go.)

I told Mom she's getting an LJ account for Christmas whether she wants one or not, so she can read stellar_dust's work posts. What account name should I give her? She's being no help. I'm leaning toward crochety. (Because she really likes to crochet. Of course. :-p)

Let's see. We had snow yesterday and I went for a walk in the woods, recklessly attempted to cross the creek on a snow-covered log, and fell in up to my waist, and dragged home wearing about fifty pounds of icy wet wool and fleece. I think I'm coming down with the early stages of Victorian Novel Disease, alas.

One of the Potterfandom newsletters linked to this entry, about class and place in the Potterverse vs. in America, and what it means that Snape is from Spinner's End. Most of the discussion there is so far off the way I think about class that I'm not even going to try diving in, but one of the discussion threads played with trying to figure out where in America the Potterverse characters would be from, if the Pottervers characters were from America. And I couldn't resist making my own list. And I was amazed at how easy it was - clearly I'd been mentally slotting the characters into regional stereotypes for *years*. Anyone else want to make their own list so we can compare our preconceptions? (or just talk about mine...)

( I'm ashamed to admit that I consulted a red-state/blue-state map in making this, if you want to talk about modern conceptions of class in the US... )
I seem to be associating Scotland with the Upper Midwest, which means that Hogwarts is somewhere in the wilds of the Minnesota Lake Country.