concertina226

I really liked the 6th HP book and I think it's one of the best books in the series. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is well-balanced, much more so than the previous 2 books, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (OOTP) and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (GOF), which while well-written too, were bogged down by long periods of misery in Harrys life. The new book is at once entertaining, witty, mysterious, exhilaratingly exciting, as well as solemn and thought provoking. The only flaw I can really find in the book is the death of the well-loved character Dumbledore, but is it a flaw after all, or simply something that had to be? When Sirius Black died in OOTP in 2003, fans were devestated, and now there are fans who are mad at J.K.Rowling too, but to me it really seems that they have missed the entire point. I mean to me, the bottom lines of the Harry Potter series are love and choices. As popular alternative-rock band Coldplay says in the song What If: The characters in the books make choices that affect their lives in different ways. By choosing to go after Harry, Voldemort set the prophecy in motion, thereby guaranteeing that Harry would be marked as his equal. And as Harry is told in Half-Blood Prince, he has the choice to either go down fighting, or allow himself to be dragged into the fight. J.K. Rowling is truly one of the worlds most prolific writers. In her work there are lessons we can learn today through unsettled times, against all evil, we have to be strong, we have to keep on fighting for what is good, for the right to be who we are and live our lives the way we want to, because love makes all the difference, and if there are still people willing to fight, there is still hope, but it is completely up to us... And of course, I must pay tribute to Dumbledore... For all that you have done, for all that you were, we will always remember... *leaves a rose*

LOL you guys are mean I think it looks pretty good Saint... a plain black background might make the ol' bat stand out a bit more, but it looks alright the way it is now...

Oooo great topic! I have sooo many old favourite cartoons from the 80s and early 90s - here's my complete list! dreamstone. gummy bears. david the gnome. pink panther. chip n' dale rescue rangers. alvin and the chipmunks. care bears. talespin. duckula. freddie as F.R.0.7. goof troop. ducktales. dark wing duck. little flying bears. dogtanian. carmen sandiego. transformers. batman. spiderman. animaniacs. bonkers. spongebob squarepants. hey arnold. johnny bravo. filmore. doug. sky dancers.

Krap (and everyone else who thinks there should be a younger pope) - You can't just pick a young pope. To even be considered to become a pope, a priest must have risen to the rank of cardinal in the vatican, and that doesn't come overnight. It takes years of service to ascend to that rank. As for the notion that the New Pope is a Nazi, that's completely unfair. During the Nazi reign, even if you weren't Jewish, that didn't necessarily mean you were off the hook. If you refused to go along with Hitler's regimes, you were just as good as dead. The Nazi Youth program was primarily targeted at boys, in order to train them to one day continue the fight of Nazi soldiers when they grew up. It was a program of mass-propaganda - boys were trained to make war, while girls were taught that their place was in the home and that they were important because they could bear children for Greater Germany - do you get a feel for what it was like now? You couldn't just say, "oh hey they're nazis, right I'm not gonna join them Mum," - you just plain didn't have a choice!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4618465.stm According to the BBC, the Mayor of Jerusalem has just cancelled the Gay Pride Parade... I think this is really bad, considering the fact that if you read the article, it shows that the Jerusalem government allowed the parade to be carried out over the last 3 years without ever having a problem with it! The people who wanted to hold the parade simply registered with the police, made all the right arrangements... I don't see why this year should be any different! Personally in my opinion, in a city where different religions are allowed to live side by side together, why can't homosexuals be free to express themselves too?

!!! Snlildude87 - how can you say that, with laughing smilies some more!!! That's sooo rude and inconsiderate! It's not funny... there's nothing funny about a person dying... the people who knew him would have been very offended if they'd seen what you'd said. Mama_Soap - Thankies for the birthday greeting... LOL yeah Snape does make it hard for people to like him... but he has lots of fans, especially since the delicious Alan Rickman's playing him s_shan55 - Personally I think Wormtail still has an important role to play... he is indebted to Harry and it is possible that he might one day return the favour and do one thing to undo a little of the evil he helped Voldemort spread...

Wooo nice topic! My favourite movie of ALL time is Shawshank Redemption! It's a really great film starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, about an innocent man who goes to prison and helps make life much better for the inmates and struggles to overcome the corruption and abuse going on in the prison... a really meaningful film which shows the triumph of good over evil and the wonders of friendship However, although that's my favourite film, there are lots of other films I really love! Here's a nice list back to the future. lotr. pirates of the carribean. the truman show. ghostbusters. finding neverland. indiana jones and the last crusade. secret to my success. monty python and the holy grail. speed. big. you got mail. the mask. ace ventura: pet detective. man on the moon. house sitter. groundhog day. the little mermaid. beauty & the beast. atlantis: the lost empire. all the harry potter films. the prince and the pauper. mulan. prince of egypt. ever after. 10 things i hate about you. princess bride. man in the iron mask. bicentennial man. the mask of zorro. mrs. doubtfire. patch adams. i,robot. spiderman 2. emperor's new groove. tommy boy. the santa clause. 8 heads in a duffle bag. lost and found. dickie roberts: former child star. blue streak. star wars. miss congeniality. erin brockovich. kingdom of heaven. 10th kingdom. the majestic. pretty woman. cinderella story. independence day. robots.

huwwo Pdrive... I'm not in America but I just graduated from a film and media school... why don't you have a think first about what exactly you'd like to learn in your course and figure out which course is affordable and can also teach you what you need to know Which aspect of film are you most interested in? Sound production? Visual effects? Directing? Production design? Editing? In the end, as long as you have the basics you'll be alright, it's what you do with the knowledge that counts, not so much the flashier the college...

heys, pretty good tutorial, but shouldn't the point be to teach people how to make brushes in photoshop, not just brushes using porcelain? I mean, you could go into the diff effects you could use... if everyone makes Porcelain brushes there wouldn't be much variety would there

Bleh none of those programs are ones I'd consider my favourites... skewered poll!! *raises pointy stick and starts uprising* Nah just kidding... here's a list of my favourite programmes! charmed. gilmore girls. ally mcbeal. rainbow. playdays. art attack. ghostwriter. legends of the hidden temple. allo allo. seinfeld. bewitched. just shoot me. frasier. the nanny. lois & clark: the new adventures of superman. who's line is it anyway?. veronica's closet. zorro. home improvement. the practice. boston public. law & order: criminal intent. law & order: special victims unit. a touch of frost. spooks. family law. philly. desperate housewives. alias. miss match. ed.

LOL ana and serverph... somehow I doubt Harry will get to visit Sirius in the land of the Dead or anything... that just feels too done-before... Jo Rowling's style is the unexpected... I don't think she'd take that plot route *crosses fingers anyway* I do miss Sirius a lot though but still... there has to be bitter-sweet in life I guess

Oooo favourite foods! I like this topic already....My favourite foods are pizza, pasta, roast chicken, cheese burgers, sandwiches (ham, chicken, tuna...) Wow so many of you like pizza too! :PI'd like to share this really good recipe for 1 minute (or 10 minute) pizza that a good friend of mine taught me:1 Minute PizzaIngredients:Parmesan CheeseBreadSalami, PepperoniTomato SauceChopped OnionsMixed Herbs & Spices (e.g. Italian Mixed Herbs)Instructions:1) Toast the bread in a regular toaster. 2) Then, spread a layer of tomato sauce over it.3) Pour the cheese over the tomato sauce.4) put salami or pepperoni over that.5) put chopped onions on the bread in btween the sausage slices.6) Heat in microwave for 1 minute, or in an oven toaster for 4 minutes.Or if you don't happen to have all those ingredients around,10 Minute Pizza (because u need to improvise )Ingredients:Grated Cheddar Cheese BreadTinned SausagesTomato Sauce1 OnionMixed Herbs & Spices (e.g. Italian Mixed Herbs)Instructions:1) Toast the bread in a regular toaster. While you're doing that, chop the tinner sausages and the onion.2) Then, spread a layer of tomato sauce over the toast.3) Grate the cheddar cheese over the tomato sauce.4) Put the chopped sausages over that.5) Put chopped onions on the bread in btween the sausage slices.6) Heat in microwave for 1 minute, or in an oven toaster for 4 minutes.Hope you like it!

I don't agree snlildude87 - there are a wide range of different people on Neopets... there are girls of all ages, since technically there are more females on earth than males, but there are still plenty of guys of all ages on Neopets...

W00t!!! Yayy my Yahoo! toolbar worked just great in IE.. blocked everything and FireFox (which I use for Xisto.com) blocked everything too! Yayy fun stuff... everyone using IE got get Yahoo!

I'm personally glad that Michael Jackson was found not guilty on all charges. Although there were lots of charges brought against him and lots of nasty rumours and nasty, dubious press, the fact is, we'll never know for sure.As a fan, I hoped he wasn't guilty, but I wasn't sure that he would be innocent since the charges were very serious, so I decided to just let time tell, which it has :PIt's not good to condemn someone before you hear all the facts... the truth of it all is, so many of the witnesses and their testimonys were really dubious! So many of them had hidden agendas - they were HARDLY model citizens themselves.My personal feeling is that MJ is a confused, emotionally-scarred man who isn't the wisest person you could find, nor the best at judging the characters of those around him. He did a lot of things that weren't wise, but although we'll never know for sure, it's totally possible that he really is innocent...

Do you play Neopets?It's a brilliant website where users can interact and have fun for free. You own a virtual pet and have to pay for its upkeep by buying it toys, food and other items to improve it. To do this, you play games to earn neopoints, the Neopets currency. All the games are versions of popular games (only featuring Neopets characters) and once you have items, you can then trade them in your own shop with other users.You can create your own guild (online communities with private forums), battle in the Battledome (which is basically an RPG game) with computer-generated opponents or other users, visit different places on neopets, gamble your neopoints, invest your neopoints in the NeoDaq Stock Market.... the possibilities are endless. But best of all, it's all free. There's no annoying pop-up adware or spyware, Neopets is completely free, supported by sponsored games, google ads and the sales from the Neopets line of merchandise and TCG.You might think it's silly or childish, but Neopets actually requires a lot of strategy - it was originally targetted at people aged between 17-25 and it shows, because although it's suitable for kids to play, the games and activities actually take a lot more effort and thought processes above the levels of kids.So to me, a great place to hang out, make friends, amuse yourself with engaging online games - Neopets has it all... check it out now! http://www.neopets.com/

Maybe he just wants to know what the best sites are? The problem with these IQ Tests sites are they're not standardised - every single test has a different gauging system so you can end up with a set of very different scores which can be very confusing. According to my friend, whose mum's in Mensa, genius is over 140, and a test once told me I'm 143 and my friend, 158. However, the Tickle test (link below) said my score is only 113, and my friend, only 130+... so it's difficult to tell what is and what isn't... I guess you could take the MENSA test if you really cared, but then you'd have to pay... I rather like the Tickle Test though - it tells you where you're strengths lie Tickle Test: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

LOL Reject that's hilarous! Pity you got caught though... yeah maybe you should have switched computer or gone somewhere else for a couple hours so they wouldn't find out :Ptsk tsk omg you guys are soo bad *shakes head* But apart from messing around with the school systems, have you guys ever seriously hacked into any system or website database online?

Hi there, here's my opinion:Fact - it is known that people will die in HP as each successive book comes to pass.Not True - only the good guys will die. Jo Rowling never ever said that - she just hinted that there will still be deaths.As to which character will die, I personally think that each and every character in HP has is place and purpose, even someone like Mundungus Fletcher , so I'd rather not bet. My personal favourite characters are Harry, Dumbledore, Hagrid, Lupin, Sirius, Ron, Hermione, Neville, the Weasley Clan, McGonagal, Snape, Lucius Malfoy and Cornelius Fudge.You need a great character to tell a great story - it's unlikely that Jo Rowling will easily kill off the best characters, unless there is a specific point and purpose. With Sirius, the point was to bring home the point that not only can people die suddenly at the drop of the hat for seemingly no reason, but that people make choices and those choices result in consequences.If Harry had used the mirror Sirius had given him, he would have known that no one was in danger. If Sirius had gotten rid of Kreacher, Kreacher would not have been informing Voldemort of their every move. If Sirius had not been so eager to fight, having been cooped up for months, he might have been more cautious and still be alive. Everything comes down to choices... it's difficult to predict who will die or why, but one thing's for sure, there's always a symbolic reason why...

I'd definitely prefer Adobe Photoshop over JASC Paint Shop Pro hands down. Here are my reasons why: 1) Adobe Photoshop is the original product!! Adobe Photoshop was created by the people at animation company Pixar (I found this out while researching Maya for a Computer Animation project thing). PS was first used as their in-house image editing software (most computer animation companies make their own software and keep it secret), then they decided to market it - and thank god they did! JASC merely copied the entire Adobe Photoshop interface and moved buttons and options around, adding a couple of not-that-useful features like ghastly-looking picture frames. 2) Adobe Photoshop is the Industry-Standard If you want to make graphics professionally anywhere in the world, you NEED to at least know how to use Adobe Photoshop. 3) Adobe Photoshop is comprehensive (easy to use) Having used both PS and PSP, I'd have to say that Photoshop is much easier to use. If you're just switching over from PSP you probably won't think so, but give it a few weeks - you soon realise there's just soo much more you can do with PS than with PSP. Functions and options are logically located and easy to find in PS - there's even a comprehensive tutorial/guide that comes with the program. So go Adobe. Don't Compromise!

Yup I've read His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman... have you read the rest of the series? It's a really great series, often touted as the modern Lord of the Rings. For anyone who's reading, who wants to know what it's about: The His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman consists of 3 books: - The Golden Compass - The Subtle Knife - The Amber Spyglass The series is centrally about 2 main characters, Lyra, a young girl from Victorian England and Will, a young English boy from the world of today. The series revolves around the characters' journey through the worlds of the past, the present and a world completely unlike our own, armed with only these 3 special tools to help them. You can take a look at the series here: http://www.amazon.com/181-4845448-9314404?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0 Enjoy! I highly recommend this series

Lord of the Rings! I adore those books, as well as The Hobbit The Lord of the Rings is a truly beautiful series - they read like the history of earth before the Age of Men, our age. Poignant, exciting, full of adventure, romance and friendship, the whole series is a wonder that everyone should be exposed to.Granted, in some bits it can be a wee bit draggy (i.e. the long Elves' songs), but overall all SIX books (that's right, not 3, they were originally 6 books) are a joy to read :PThe Hobbit is also a really great book - it tells the story of Frodo's uncle, Bilbo Baggins, and his adventure as a Hobbit Burglar with the Dwarves at Lonely Mountain to retrieve their treasure. If you've never read the books, read The Hobbit, so that you get used to the style (it's also a lot shorter), then progress on to LOTR.I first read The Hobbit in 2001 after it was recommended to me. Then, knowing that The Fellowship of the Ring was coming out that December, I read LOTR. It took me 1 month to finish, amid final year prelim exams before my O Levels (big national exam taken at the age of 16).Regarding the movies, they are masterpieces too. Although there are some bits I wish were in the movies, I believe that Peter Jackson did the best job he could and the movies he made are true classics

My favourite Anti-Virus programs... I have 3 programmes I use regularly to keep the nasty bugs out: 1) Norton Anti-Virus (which came with the computer) Not bad, when I first got broadband, it was flashing on and off as sooo many viruses seemed to come in (we had hardly any on 56K dial-up, but suddenly - wow!) 2) Zone Alarm firewall Absolute MUST have if you decide to venture onto the internet... it's really cool, asks you about all your programmes and you can configure it to always allow or disallow something (as opposed to other programs which secretly block things that haven't got viruses grrr). 3) Yahoo! Toolbar Anti-Virus This is a brilliant program that comes with the Yahoo! toolbar companion (it's the little yellow icon with the crosshair). It's even better than Spybot Search and Destroy! The scan doesn't freeze your computer and takes only seconds - it even catergorises the adware and spyware it finds into "dangeous" and "be aware of" categories! The Yaho! Toolbar Ad-blocker is also very useful... I like!

Hallo... I like the first siggy banner with the spacey feel and the giant wheels, but yeah, that second banner is very annoying Do you use Flash, Focus? (I know these banners aren't made with that, but since you said ur an animation person I thought I'd ask )

No problem - my pleasure to share