I don't see why everyone's saying "IT WOULD BE STUPID TO DO AN EARLY RELEASE". Didn't valve already do this type of thing with TF2 for pre-orderers of the orange box? I don't see why it's so incredibly impossible. And if nothing big is happening friday, why is there a big arg going on now that has mentioned the date and a specific hour multiple times? Not to mention it had mentioned the EVENT once.
TF2 was part of The Orange Box, then had a separate release, I think. Either way, that's not the same.
The real problem isn't that we think it's something else, it's that you're so loving sure it means one specific thing. What if they were planning to go to a strip club to celebrate launch, and decided to hold it on the 15th instead so they'd have time to sober up for a real launch party?