Okay, now that's just funny

I've had a Gmail account for quite some time now, but I've never really used it until recently.

I'm using it now for three reasons: one, my ISP's webmail is excruciatingly slow; two, I don't take my personal laptop to work anymore, and typing on my work computer is faster than on my iPhone; and three, because I can access Gmail over imap from my iPhone.

Anyway, Gmail's one-line text ad on the spam folder is a series of Spam (the foodstuff) recipes complete with navigation arrows. The first one was for Spam fajitas: "Serves 8, add extra salsa if desired". Yuck. I'll take beef or chicken instead, thank you very much.

Recent and upcoming movies, and reading notes

My brother Ryan and I have seen two movies together recently. A while back we saw Enchanted, with Amy Adams. I highly recommend it; she's amazing. Sure, it's a Disney Princess/children's movie, but it's also a really good movie. And like I said, Amy is an amazing actress and terrific fun to watch.

This past Friday, we saw Beowulf. While I did enjoy it, I really have mixed feelings about it. I am really disappointed they rewrote the story. If I hadn't seen a previous, more faithful Beowulf movie rendition, and if I hadn't read the poem at least once, the story probably would not have annoyed me. But it did.

And I don't understand the necessity of animating it. They have perfectly beautiful, real, actors there in front of the camera. And special effects/CGI are so advanced now, they could have kept the characters real and accomplished everything necessary. But they did not. That was really annoying to me.

I was so annoyed by the story rewrite I went out and bought Seamus Haney's translation. It'll be a nice break from Dresden.

Oh, yeah, about Dresden. I'm in book 7. The first six are all wonderful. I'm looking forward to the last three. But I need a break, so I'm reading/studying (I believe all the classics should be studied in addition to just being read) Beowulf, and I may indulge in a further diversion and read Pullman's His Dark Materials, starting with The Golden Compass, since I've been curious to read it for some time, and all the controversy has just made me more interested in reading it.

Oh yeah, about the Golden Compass controversy. I wish my fellow Christians would calm down a bit. Yeah, Pullman's an atheist, and the series is a serious dig at the Catholic church. But for goodness' sake, it's a fantasy trilogy.

Teach your children correctly, and it won't affect them, other than making them think, which is a good thing.

Use the controversy as an opportunity to dialogue with those not of the faith. Consider Pullman's criticisms. I will; the universal church (i.e. the worldwide body of believers, my denomination included) certainly isn't perfect, since it's made up of us imperfect humans. We need to take certain criticism to heart, and learn how to be more effective, sensitive witnesses of the good news to those of other faiths, atheist and agnostic included.