While several of my friends are braving the heavy thunderstorms in the area as they make their way to local bookstores at midnight, I just got the following email:

Greetings from Amazon.com.

We thought you’d like to know that we shipped your items today, and that
this completes your order.

Thanks for shopping at Amazon.com, and we hope to see you again soon.

The following items were included in this shipment:

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6) (Harry Potter)

When I ordered the book last month, Amazon guaranteed delivery by 7:00 tomorrow evening, the day of release, or they’ll refund the purchase price. And, in fact, checking the tracking number indicates that the book already was shipped a couple of days ago, and has been in Alexandria, just a few miles away, since early this morning.

Since I’m going to be working a good deal of the weekend, I won’t really have time to start reading the new book yet anyway, so midnight or 7pm tomorrow doesn’t make that much of a difference to me. Meanwhile, it’s air-conditioned and comfy here in the condo, with chances of heavy thunderstorms close to nil in the bedroom.