never judge a book by its cover

Chuck Palahniuk was at my store last week. You could identify him by the gaggle of managers hanging around while he autographed all of his books.
Despite his popularity I haven't read any of his work. Due to the fact that spook keeps saying "You might like it. I don't know. You might hate it, too." I haven't even seen Fight Club. And yet somehow, I was expecting someone different. Someone cooler. Someone not wearing a sweater vest. I did a double take and came in for a closer look, which really didn't improve matters: it was not, in fact, a sweater vest but just a regular vest, the kind you can cinch together in the back to draw it in a little. Oh, and tapered pants. Ladies and Gentlemen, Chuck Palahniuk looks a lot like Wesley Wyndham-Price, only a little less current. Just so there is no mistake, I don't mean cool demon-hunting Wesley, I'm talking about officious and whiny season 3 Wesley.
It was really weird.
The other thing about him that made an impression was that when he saw how many of his books were on the staff picks wall courtesy of my colleague Nestor, he made sure to talk to him. There was some back and forth because Chuck wanted to autograph a copy of the new one for Nestor, and Nestor didn't own it yet--his publicist gave Nestor her copy. It was very sweet.

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As some of you may know, the new Harry Potter book is being released on July 16th. There's a great deal of attendant hype. We have a big mural in the front window of our store, and there's going to be a Harry Potter costume contest. Fortunately for me, this is one day before our BBQ of love, so I get to miss the insanity which begins the minute the clock strikes midnight. What I cannot avoid is the gigantic sign in the middle of the children's department, which today will read:

Only 16 DAYS to Harry Potter!

Yeaahhhh...it's not like I was nervous enough about our committment party. Oh no. Let's have an enormous countdown that I have to walk past every time I have to go to the staff room. Only 16 days to deal with all your last-minute details!

I feel faint.