The moment I have been eagerly awaiting since I pre-ordered in July (OK, maybe not eagerly awaiting as I have been obsessed with all things vampire recently forgot I pre-ordered until about two weeks ago), I received my copy of “The Tales of Beedle the Bard.” (Yeah I got the standard edition and not the $100 Collector's Edition.)

It only took about an hour to read considering it's only a little more than 100 pages, but it re-whet my appetite for all things Harry Potter. (Damn you J.K. Rowling and your addictive story.) And now I am even sadder that the “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” movie was delayed until July 2009. But they did release a kick-ass trailer recently …

SPOLIERISH things ahead, so don't click if you don't want to know anything about Harry Potter 7 or Beedle.

Well folks, it looks like my fall/winter just got a little less happy. Because of the writers' strike last year (and because studios like to make a ton of money), the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has been delayed until next summer.

I don't know about any of you guys, but book 6 is my favorite and was really looking forward to the movie. And if they knew they were going to do this to us, I wish they hadn't released the trailer.

But as much as this sucks (and it so does), there is a silver lining. According to the story on E! Online, "Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group president Jeff Robinov also made a fine point: There will now be less of a wait between the sixth and seventh (and eighth) Potter films. The studio is eyeing respective summer releases in 2010 and 2011 for the two-part Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows."

So looks like the list of things (entertainment-wise) that I have to look forward to this winter has been whittled down to two: The release of J.K. Rowling's "Tales of the Beedle Bard"
and the "Twilight" movie.

UPDATE
Looks like since Harry Potter was bumped, the Twilight got moved up to a Nov. 21 release. This really does makes the sting of the HP bump a little less painful.