... and now Lucius talks Italian

In my head, that is.
But no more mishaps yesterday, probably the double salt dose in the mayonnaise ws enough to placate the Powers That Be.
And we had a wonderful evening, catching up on almost one year's worth of news.

madamsprout's successful attempt at de-cluttering her house must have been an inspiration: I have to do something about my friends list. I was, and still am, convinced that friending people back is a matter of common courtesy. Anyway, the list has grown way too big. The problem being that, even though I'm now on holiday and have time enough to read everybody's entries, the holidays won't last forever, and once I return to work, there's going to be *work*. Lots of it. No more writing or LJ-ing or betaing at the office. If I leave my friends list as it is, I'll probably be unable to read through the whole friends page and miss out on things I deem important. Besides, I'm the kind of person who, once confronted with a certain amount of 'To Do's, doesn't attack it systematically but goes into catatonia. I.e. there's the risk of my giving up completely on LJ, and I don't want that to happen.
Therefore, dear friends, I simply have to reduce the list to 30, maximum 40. This is NOT meant personal, or as an insult or anything, it's merely a measure to prevent LJ from becoming something like an everyday chore I have to go through in order to keep up with everybody. I don't want that. I want my LJ activities to clearly belong to the fun side of my life, as there are enough less pleasant aspects I have to face out of sheer necessity.
Of course I'll be delighted if those I've had to cancel will still read and comment on my entries. I'm also aware that some of you might take offence, but I prefer that to superficially going over everybody's entries without having the time to thoroughly read and comment.

OK, that's it. The big announcement is made.

ETA: Must have been joking when I said 30, maximum 40. But 51 isn't bad, either.

Knight2King--My brain is seizing up

Whoever read the K2K essay (and if you haven't, go read it, it's brilliant), please help me uncramp my brain. Because the theory seems to have a big hole, caused by an unexplainable paradox, and I just don't know if my logic is correct or faulty.

So, the hypothesis is the following: Ron Weasley, born in 1980, remains in his time until Harry has finished school, then sends himself back to the 19th century via time turner, becomes Dumbledore and calmly waits for history to repeat itself, until he can step in and make a few corrections. The problem that makes my brain shrink is the following: we aren't talking about some endless time loop here. There is a first time for Ron to be born, and before he goes back and becomes Dumbledore, THERE IS NO DUMBLEDORE. Without Dumbledore, though, it's extremely unlikely that the war against Voldemort will take the same course as with Dumbledore. Without a strong leader, it's even very doubtful the Good Guys would have won the war.
BUT: most of the essay's authors' arguments are based on the fact that Dumbledore knows so many things (e.g. the exact night when Harry will find the Mirror of Erised) because he has already lived through them as *Ron*. Only that's illogical, because they can't have happened in exactly the same manner. (An even bigger hole in the theory is the Crouch/Moody question: if he already knew Moody was an impostor, why didn't he choose another DADA teacher?)

The argument "He knew, but he didn't want to change the future too much" isn't stringent, because he changed the future very drastically, and in many ways, the very moment he brought down Grindelwald, and that's only one of many examples. One of the positive examples, too--but what could possibly justify his allowing the basilisk to take Ginny down to the CoS? Or the murder of Cedric Diggory? And if people counter "Because he already knew it was going to end well," all I can say is that 1) it would make him even more of a manipulative bastard, and 2) that it's simply not true, because things can't have happened the same way when there was only Ron but no Dumbledore. Not when we're talking about Albus Dumbledore, the most powerful of wizards--hell, if he hadn't been there the first time round, the Weasleys might even have decided not to have any more children, as the situation was looking so dire.

Another question (please don't hate me, this is just so damned PUZZLING!): when Harry and Hermione use the time turner to rescue Sirius in PoA, and also when Hermione uses the time turner to keep up with her classes, it seems as clear as daylight that, if you use the damn thing, you have a certain amount of time at your disposal, but space is important as well: after using up your extra time, you MUST be at exactly the same place you departed from. (Remember Ron and Harry looking for Hermione on the staircase, not seeing her, and a split second later she's right behind them?) CONCLUSION: If somebody uses a time turner, they have extra time, but for all the others it has to look as if nothing happened. And they must try to affect the future as little as possible.
*takes deep breath* Now, Dumbledore does the exact contrary. As soon as he's back in the 1800's, he starts changing the future like mad. So what about the others, those who remain in their own time? Will they continue to live their lives in a different time-space continuum, dwindling away until they go out like candles, because another past has been created that is no longer theirs? Ron is gone, and they drift off into some parallel universe, or what?

Bloody hell, I just don't get it.

Unless you've read the essay you're going to think me raving mad. If you *have* read it, my ramblings might even make sense. Explanations, anybody?