TMQ #134 -- Hot Ice

Discussion of The Magic Quill #134 -- Hot Ice (www.mugglenet.com/editorials/themagicquill/tmq134.shtml) by Robbie Fischer.


+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR #136 +++

SURVEY: Which female character of The Magic Quill should feature in the next big plot line?

CONTEST: Come up with a brief joke such as one might find in a wizarding joke book. Anything on the order of "Knock, knock?" or "How many house-elves does it take to change a light bulb?" or even "A hag walks into a bar" is welcome, but PLEASE keep it clean - and PRETTY-PLEASE keep it short. More than one winner may be selected.

Gee, Robby, you cut us off before we could get to Page 5 in the last one.

I vote for Endora. We've heard the least about her. The one adventure where her nose led her astray, perhaps? Though if we were to go down the Undle Radu/Hogwarts Express Murder path, Ilona would be my first choice.

And I request that you keep the last discussion's ideas in reserve for a long time.

I'll think about the jokes.

I was at first thinking Sadie, but am now leaning towrds Ilona. No jokes yet.

I vote Endora. But Sadie, as a conartist/thief could have a more propelling storyline. Think crazy heists and huge scandals. Hey, perhaps Sadie and Endora worked together in the past-and perhaps Sadie or Endora has their own reasons for being at the hogshead that night so very long ago.

Sorry, don't have anything specific yet, but I'll think about it.

Joke? Hmm.

Whats the difference between Percy Weasley and a Lethifold? One is absorbed in their work, the other absorbs in their work.

okay okay. bad joke. whatever. lol

I figured this following joke was a joke you would hear in the Slytherin common room.

What do you call a griffindor student who isnt as brave as he says? A hypogriff.
(get it? Hypocrite? Hippogriff? aw, well. not funny. another bad joke. Slytherins aren't known for humor)

Great chapter, Robbie! Everything turned out well.

I have a special place in my heart for Sadie. When did she get her veil attached?

Here's a joke: How many house elves does it take to replace a light bulb?

4. One to replace the actual bulb, two to hold the elf on their shoulders, and one to whip himself just in case they are doing something wrong.

What do you call a magical bumblebee?
A "spell"ing bee.

What did the wizard say crossing bottomless pits?
Oh no! The deathly hollows.

What do you call the ghost of a chicken?
A "poultry"geist

How many Weasleys does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
--Two: On to screw in the lightbulb and one to be jealous of the Malfoy's flourescent bulb.

How many Malfoys does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
--Two: One to screw in the lightbulb and one to give their son some ridiculous foreign name.

How many Weasley twins does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
--duh, two!

How many Aberforths does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
--five: One two hold up a lightbublb and four to drink until the room spins.

How many Death eaters does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
-- three: one to try and be stopped by an infant, one to try and do it for his master but be stopped by an adolescent, and another one to take matters into his own hands and screw in the lightbulb. Which then falls out and steals his wand.

That "hot ice" tale was genius, Robbie. How did you ever figure how to tie all that up in one bundle!
Survey:
Sadie can never keep out of trouble. I'd go with her.

Joke? Hmm, maybe a little school rivalry. We have some Durmstrang alum in the mix.

Say the D-alum:
Q. How many Beauxbatons grads does it take to duel one Durmstrang grad?

A. We may never know. They're still all too busy drying their nails to use the wand for anything else.
****
Q. How many Hogwarts students does it take to stir a cauldron?

A. At least four. One to stir, and three to tell you why their way of stirring is superior to Continental methods.

****
A Beauxbatons grad needed some extra money, so she went around the neighborhood offering to do odd jobs. At one house, the Wizard who answered the door told her he needed the porch sanded and painted.
When he asked her price, she only requested one sickle. Delighted, he told her which color of paint to conjure and returned into the house to wait.
His wife, who had overheard it all, remarked that a single sickle didn't sound like enough, since even the best wand craft still required that the boards be sanded individually, and the porch wrapped around three walls. Perhaps this witch didn't know what she was doing? But her husband told her she ought to be ashamed for underestimating the girl just because she was young and pretty, so she held her tongue.

About ten minutes later, the B-grad came for her pay. Amazed the wizard asked, "Did you finish the whole porch?"
"All of it. Oh, but there's something you should know. That isn't a Porch, it's a Jag."

(sorry, bad old unoriginal joke. I just couldn't help myself.)
****
And what do the Beauxbatons have to say for themselves?

Q. At an international banquet featuring various foods from each attendant's native cuisine, there was a table each of grads from Durmstrang and Hogwarts and one witch from Beauxbatons. Well into the meal, some ill mannered fellows from D. started a fight, and all joined in, each dueling for his or her school's honor. Who won?

A. The B. witch, of course. The D. grads had their teeth too locked in overcooked meat, and the H. grads had their mouths too stuck up with gooey puddings to utter a single spell properly.

(Well, the witches from B. think it's funny.)

If I make it back in before we end this one, I'll try to do better.

Isn't it the British who overcook the meat? Now if the banquet had the Hogwarts cuisine ...

O.M.G. This chapter was so utterly brilliant, I can't come up with a superlative that's super enough to do it justice. You really outdid yourself with this one, Robbie -- and that's saying something!

As soon as I came across Bobs description of himself, I emailed Harvey's question and that paragraph to 5 of my closest friends (with proper attribution and a link, of course).

This was absolutely the scariest chapter of The Magic Quill I've ever read. Not intentionally, I realized on finishing, but scary nevertheless. As I read closer and closer to the end, dread and terror began to creep up on me. I saw how you were so neatly and thoroughly tying up the whole story, and ...and I began to spiral into a dizzying worry that when I came to the end *gasp*, I was going to find an announcement that this was to be the last chapter. You have no idea how relieved I was to see the usual survey and contest there instead. Whew!

Maybe the last couple of days in the RW set me up for such an over-reaction. I had things to do, so I had unplugged for 3 or 4 days. Then when I got back on the net yesterday, I found out that, in the mean time, the world had suddenly taken a turn for the worse - food riots all over the globe, the IMF apologizing for being asleep at the wheel, and warning of a higher risk of global economic meltdown, millions of families losing their pets along with their homes, and many of them now living in "tent cities" on the outskirts of urban areas across the nation. (Do a search for "tent cities" at YouTube, and you'll see what I mean.) My guess is that, with so much bad news in the RW, I was unconsciously expecting something bad to happen here as well.

Hopefully, such awesome fiction will continue to remain a comforting refuge for those of us who occasionally feel overwhelmed due to living in such 'interesting times'.

Show me a Hogwarts dropout and I'll show you a bad speller.

(Yes, lame. Have to start somewhere.)

And what do the Beauxbatons have to say for themselves?

Q. At an international banquet featuring various foods from each attendant's native cuisine, there was a table each of grads from Durmstrang and Hogwarts and one witch from Beauxbatons. Well into the meal, some ill mannered fellows from D. started a fight, and all joined in, each dueling for his or her school's honor. Who won?

A. The B. witch, of course. The D. grads had their teeth too locked in overcooked meat, and the H. grads had their mouths too stuck up with gooey puddings to utter a single spell properly.

(Well, the witches from B. think it's funny.)



:lol:



How many Aberforths does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
--five: One two hold up a lightbublb and four to drink until the room spins.


I love it!


Hopefully, such awesome fiction will continue to remain a comforting refuge for those of us who occasionally feel overwhelmed due to living in such 'interesting times'.

I still haven´t read this chapter, but to you, I´ll tell you that this is something I've felt too with what I read, and specially whith my writing (though in a different way this last one).

Not a joke, exactly:
He loved his firewhiskey so much you never knew whether there was more fog around his head or in it.

My vote is for Endora, but I would like to read about Ilona too... so my answer for the survey is kinda splited.

For the contest I still don't have an actual joke, but I´ll put a funny thing I heard on a radio show, of course I don´t remember the whole thing and I'm gonna put it on my own words...

(Use the name of your preference) is like a turtle on a post: you don't know how it got there, it doesn't go anywhere, it's not doing anything... the best thing you can do is to help it to go down.

(Use the name of your preference) is like a turtle on a post: you don't know how it got there, it doesn't go anywhere, it's not doing anything... the best thing you can do is to help it to go down. How about "A muggle in Diagon alley is like ..."? Or "A muggle with a wand is like ..."?

How about "A muggle in Diagon alley is like ..."? Or "A muggle with a wand is like ..."?

The fencepost bit reminded me of a line that once made me laugh very hard. Maybe it was Mark Twain who defined a "mugwhump" as "a bird that sits on a fence with its mug on one side and its whump on the other."

How about "A muggle in Diagon alley is like ..."? Or "A muggle with a wand is like ..."?

:)
The first one is veeeery good!

Q: How many Ravenclaws does it take to stir a cauldron?
A: Three: one to create the stirring spoon out of thin air, one to Charm it to stir, and one to discourse on the effects of the shadows cast by the spoon on the cauldron contents.

Q: How many Gryffindors does it take to stir a cauldron?
A: Twelve: three to break into the room where the cauldron is kept, two to steal the stirrer, four to keep watch, one to research the proper way to stir, one to stir it and one to mop up the spills.

Q: How many Hufflepuffs does it take to stir a cauldron?
A: One--to stir the cauldron.

Q: How many Slytherins does it take to stir a cauldron?
A: Five: One to read the instructions, one to find a clock so they can tell clockwise from counterclockwise, one to stir and two to steal the cauldron from the Gryffindors.

Why do Death Eaters go around in threes? They have one who can read, one who can write, and one to keep an eye on those two dangerous intellectuals. (Ok, recycled KGB agent joke ...)

(If you have to take just one for a laughodil leaf, use the Hufflepuff one.)

All right, I submitted TMQ #136 today. Please be patient and give the editor at least as much time (a week or so) to post it as I took to write it. The theory of TMQ is that it is a weekly column, and of course that only works if I write it weekly, so that the editor is always posting the one I wrote a week ago while I'm writing next week's, etc. That even worked for quite a while! And I think there is hope of getting back into that rhythm now. So, blame me if it takes another week for the next update to go through...but be patient, because you know it's on its way!