The new year wasn't two weeks old and our family faced our first crisis of 2006. The TV was broken. Ok, let me go on record now by saying I wish this wasn't a huge problem. Honestly, it isn't. But c'mon...our TV... was broken. No sports, no Sex & the City reruns, no Sesame Street, no Playstation...

We had to decide how long we could go without a television. One week? A month?

We headed out to Best Buy the next day.

Went and saw Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire on Sunday. Wasn't disappointed, but wasn't thrilled either. I can imagine it's pretty hard to adapt a book into a movie, let alone one of the most popular books in recent memory into a 2 1/2 hour movie. Still, the movie lacked....oomphff. At the end, a character is killed and the main villain is reborn and on the loose. If you were like me - you were shocked, shocked, by the end of the book. Cedric died! Lord Voldemort is alive! Holy crap!

I still can't get used the actor who now plays Dumbledore (I miss Richard Harris). The new guy will always be the slimy executive he played in the movie, The Insider, [in southern drawl] "..now I know you know the contents of your confidentiality agreement Jeff-rey..."

The kids will be what, 25, by the time they start shooting the fifth movie? We voted the actor who plays Ron, Most-Likely-to-Appear-in-The-Next-Guy-Richie-Movie.

Of course, Snape is the best thing about every Harry Potter movie. How could they ever recast that role?

Book 4 (Goblet of Fire) ends on an ominous, serious note and I liked that. I didn't feel like the end of the movie had the same tone- kind of like, oh, everyone's bummed, but hey, the school year's over, aaaaand scene. Here's a question for all the HarryPotter-niacs out there: was Dumbledore's line, "hard times are ahead Harry, soon we'll all have to make a choice between what's right and what's easy," in book 4? I'd go look, but I know we have readers who already know the answer to that question.

And is there anyone out there who still loves going to the movies? For cryin' outloud, $9?? Commercials for TV shows?? 2 dozen pointless movie trailors??

I guess we can always watch the movies on our new TV.