If you’ve got an HD-DVD player from Toshiba, I’d sell it to your gulible neighbor: now! And stop buying HD-DVD discs, for that matter. The high definition format war is fast approaching its conclusion, with Warner Bros. today announcing that it will stop supporting both formats and will throw its weight exclusively to Blu-Ray (leaving Paramount, Universal & Dreamworks as the lone exclusive HD-DVD supporters*), that format becomes all but the winner.

*And with the market making its decision clear, all likely to announce Blu-Ray adaptation by mid-year to avoid being left out in the cold.

A little over a year ago, Hogwarts broke: I was moving it, the tall tower got caught on some Christmas bulbs I’d hung from the ceiling, and collapsed, taking the Owlery with it. I’ve been meaning to fix it for quite some time, but it was only recently that I got around to actually doing it. I’m glad it is fixed, I hope it is a very long time before I have to do anything more to it.

Building a giant castle out of Lego is something I’m very glad I did, but it’s also something I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do again. Or, at the very least, not if it’s going to be seven feet tall.

Utilizing a Borders Gift Card, given to me as a Christmas gift, I decided to add a series of books to my ever expanding library that I have loved since childhood: Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain, a five-book series (six if you count the stand-alone “The Foundling & Other Tales of Prydain“) focused on the life of Taran, resident at Caer Dalben, assistant pig keeper of the oracle pig Hen-Wen, enemy of the Death Lord Arawn, and friend to his companions: the enchantress Princess Eilonwy, the exagerating Fflewddur Fflam, the creature-thing Gurgi, and the warrior-prince Gwydion.

When I was a kid, my dad used to read me books before I went to bed (and I somehow hope to do the same to my own*). He’d tuck me in and read me a chapter a night. I don’t remember all the books I discovered this way — really, the only ones I do remember are C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia and Alexander’s Prydain books. Of the two, I suppose I would have to rank Prydain over Narnia: with Alexander’s series, one has a consistent set of characters, as opposed to Narnia, where, although the setting remains relatively consistent, the characters do not. Really, once you’ve read The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, you’ve read that series’ best (although I would like to give props to the BBC’s live-action series of movies: not a tenth the budget I’d wager of the Walden Media series, but I did so love your version of those two books aforementioned).

Conversely, only one movie has been made based on The Chronicles of Prydain, and that was the awful 1985 animated Disney film The Black Cauldron (which, if I remember correctly, was based more on the first book of the series, The Book of Three).

But this isn’t about Narnia. This is about Prydain, and Alexander’s excellent books, based loosely on Welsh mythology. I remember fragments of them: the Cauldron Born, Gurgi’s “Crunchings & Munchings”, the Fair Folk, the Sons of Don. Dyrnwyn: the sword which can be drawn from its sheath only by a person of noble worth. I’m excited to delve into them and relive part of my childhood, even if for only a few hours (none of these books are near as long as even the shortest Harry Potter).

Perusing Wikipedia, I find that Lloyd Alexander died last May, right around the time I was busting my ass studying for finals. I really wish I’d taken the time to write him a letter. Nothing complicated. “Dear Mr. Alexander, Thank you.” I guess this post’ll have to do.

*Now, if I can only find a wife …