Welcome to Harry Potter Land!

Universal Studios is planning a new resort in Orlando based on the Harry Potter novels. The following are all possible names for this magical new attraction:

• Pottermania Has Gone Too Far!
• JK Rowling's Final Sellout
• Universal's Harry Potter End Round About Warner Brothers
• Extreme Hogwarts (sponsored by Mountain Dew)

However, I believe the name they'll settle on, being a film company and believing that their customer base has an average two digit IQ, will be Harry Potter Land.

The theme park will boast a number of entertainment possibilities to addle both the simpleminded and clever among us. There will even be a reading room for people who get sick of the whole thing and decide to actually read the books themselves. Rowling is expected to have a private office, just there.

Anyway, according to very unreliable sources, here are the top planned resort attractions in Harry Potter Land!

• Honeydukes Candy Shop - Sample every variety of candy mentioned in the Potter books, from Acid Pops to Cockroach Clusters. New flavours in the Bertie Botts Beans include "mucus," "gangrene," "jock-strap," and "riboflavin."All visitors are required to sign medical waivers before ingesting any of the "candy."
  
• Hermione's Overwhelming Library - Visit a Library based on the imagined reading tastes of Harry's best friend Hermione Granger. There's everything from "Alternate Parallel Dimensional Frameworks" to "Zero-Gravity Elemental Polytropes and Quantum Transfiguration in Hyperspace." Most people will skip the brainy stuff and head right over to the "Restricted Section" to watch the most maliciously active of the books there take the heads right off of animatronic Hogwarts students Malfoy and Goyle every thirty minutes. Best of all, an animatronic Hermione chides every visitor for "not keeping up with their Potions homework, Harry!"
  
• Snape's Chemical Funhouse - Speaking of Potions, here you can thrill to the dark, murky catacomb that is Snape's Potions lab. A semi-lifelike Severus Snape will teach you how to mix a variety of magical and complete inert (for legal purposes) potions. Then, he'll sneer at you and smack you on the head when you get them wrong. Learn to make veritaserum, polyjuice potion, and Singapore Slings.
  
• Don't Get Squished by Hagrid - Ever wanted to tour Hagrid's tiny hut? Ever wonder how Harry and the gang did it without getting squished by the loveable, blundering half-giant? Now you can experience the thrill of trying to manoeuvre in a 15 by 15 foot room full of dangerous, flammable creatures, and one massive and hairy bloke who could split your scapuli with a friendly pat on the shoulder. Knowledgable Potterholics will avoid the food kiosk at this one.
  
• Fred and George's House of Vomit and Nosebleeds - A replica of "Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes" the joke shop started by the affably, malevolent, ginger twins. Visitors will be able to sample a variety of wares, including candies that make your hair fall out, wands that make rude noises when you flick them, and a variety of novetly prophylactics.
  
• Ron Weasley's Adventures in Low Self Esteem - Travel throughout the Wizarding world with Ron Weasley as he struggles with his own limitations and lack of self confidence. Wince as he subconsciously blames his friends and family for his inability to maintain a consistent level of self-respect despite occasional personal victories that would satisfy the Neville Longbottoms of the world. Share with him the tender pains of watching Harry and Hermione carry on deep, meaningful conversations whilst he overeats in the background. Seeth with him as he becomes a victim yet again to his older twin brothers vicious practical jokes (see above). You will believe an animatronic can cry.
  
• Dumbledore's Really Big Office - Developers are predicting this will be a big favourite with Potter fans since Dumbledore snuffed it in Book 6. Visit the barmy, old codger's digs to see exactly how the intellectual cognoscenti of the magical realms live, after they've gone a bit soft in the old bean. Among the looney delights in the office are Fawkes, the phoenix, who explodes into flame and is reborn every half-hour (hourly during the off-season), the Mirror of Erised - in which viewers can see themselves shaking hands with Jo Rowling (isn't that everyone's greatest desire?), the mystical Pensieve where you can view Dumbledore's thoughts - most of which seem to revolve around socks and fruit candies, and the Sword of Griffindor - available in the main shops for $50 American (or about 25 quid for those of you in Edinburgh).
  

Did someone see something?

I could have sworn I saw a post by someone not me. Nah, couldn't have been. Anyway, I thought it was Nuffy who was on about the late, great Mark Northover*?

*We keep this up and this'll get designated a tribute site in the Mark Northover web ring. What am I saying... this is the Mark Northover web ring.

Mourning

Mock me if you must, but i have been in the how you say mourning period now for many a month and year. I am doing the how you going to say much crying and sad sob sorrows with the wipe of the cheeks and the mucus drip out from the nostrils of the nose. I will ever forever and more miss my dearest favorite person in all the world, Mr. Mark Northover. I will never recover, get over it, or be happy again. I must only cry forever. Yes. Remember him. Earl Fando, you have done a tragic little amount of mourning over this person! For many months now, you post the sarcasm and Paris Hilton joke, but you do not do the crying of water from the eyes of you as you remember our superstar of stage, screen, novel and hallway. I put this graphics on the blog to remind you forever. You must not forget him! If anyone forget him, I will put the sharp stick in the tail pipe of the person who did not remember him. I am saddest of all Jorge Carlito Viejos. Nothing can comfort me now, least of all a sandwich full of lard, butter, frijoles and carne de mono, which is usually my favorite sandwich.

Coup d'état!

I, Earl Fando, am writing to declare that I have, as of this moment, commenced a Coup d'état of The Dictionary of Unfortunate Ideas. Due to the inactivity of my comrades in silly blogging, I feel that there is only one road to hoe, as it were, and that is with me in complete and total control.

Therefore, as my first act as newly installed Oligarch of this blog (Dictator sounds so passe'), I hereby institute the following decrees:

• All guest posters (previously identified as co-posters) must refer to me in writing at all times as Generalissimo Fando.
• All posts involving Warwick Davis and Danny DeVito are hereby banned from the blog until further notice. The only exception to this rule is when I'm really hard up for something funny to write, as Davis and DeVito are a constant laugh riot.
• The DOUI annual golf scramble is postponed. (That should get Stew's attention.)
• Any references to Cameron Diaz, for the purposes of cheap hits for the blog, shall hereby be credited to Earl Fando for the purposes of invitations to Hollywood premieres and bit parts in films, should Ms. Diaz or her representatives appreciate that sort of thing. The beloved Mrs. Fando shall be invited to any and all such functions as well, just in case anyone things the Generalissimo is behaving in a duplicitious fashion.
• Lukas P. Short is hereby officially appointed chiefprovider of home-brewed alcoholic beverages for DOUI functions. Previously, he only held this position unofficially.
• Stew Miller, Nuffy Noe, Zimpter Fiforg, and Linus Coconut are hereby demoted to Cabin Boy, Second Class, the duties whereof to be determined by The International Criminal Court, The Hague.
• All Cabin Boys, Second Class, are required to report directly to Cabin Boy, First Class, Mr. Tom L. Ron Cruise.

That is all (for now).

Odds and Ends

Just a few bits and pieces that I've missed over the past week or so.

• A Danish football fan attacked the referee of the Denmark-Sweden European Cup Qualifier Saturday, after the official awarded a penalty and red carded a Danish player for striking one of the Swedish players in the stomach with his fist.
  
  The red-carded Danish player, Christian Poulsen, must be among the more thankful people on the planet this evening. Instead of the media sitting around dissecting his moment of complete stupidity, especially as the Danes had come back from 3-nil to tie the match, they've be able to totally concentrate on the fan who went mental. Poulsen helped his near instant rehabilitation along by attempting to shield the referee from the lunatic fan. From goat to hero in 10 seconds flat must be some sort of record.
  
  Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten editorialised that it was "A day where Denmark's self-image as a restrained and decent football crowd was jeopardised by a fool without self control." Predictably, several radical Islamic organizations immediately condemned the paper for insults to Islam, even though the fan in question was in all likelihood a Lutheran, like 83% of his countrymen.
  
• Charles Nelson Reilly passed away last week. Anyone who's lived in the United States for longer than 10 years or who watches the Game Show Network regularly will remember the always entertaining Reilly. Here's one last "LLLL! LLLL!!" in memory of this campy game show savant.
  
• Jack "The Dripper" Kevorkian was recently released from prison. Kevorkian says the best thing about his incarceration was that he learnt out to build a euthanasia drip machine from licence (number) plates, prison bedding and a shiv. Kevorkian says that he will no longer deliberately end lives, as a condition of his parole. For old times sake though, he says that he plans to hang out a lot in morgues.
  
• Californian Joey Chestnut set a new world record for eating hot dogs Saturday, devouring 59 and 1/2 of them in 12 minutes. Previous world record holder, Takeru Kobayashi, has vowed to reclaim the record when they next meet, by devouring 60 hot dogs and Joey Chestnut in one sitting. Chestnut responded, "I'd like to see him try. He'd never get past my shorts."