Church Yesterday

Church last night was particularly great.

Gordo spoke in Isaiah 1 after doing a overview of the whole book last week. I was challenged to 1. cease evil, care for the weak, seek justice from 1:16-17 and 2. remember that we have the smae offer of fogiveness and cleansing through Jesus from 1:19.

We stayed late afterwards talking. A few of topics I covered were: HP & TDH, Facebook, Mobiles, Bible Study and Edward Norton movies (some of my fav movies incl. Fight Club and 25th Hour & The Score).

The music was awesome. Some great songs and funky band.

Reading Yesterday

Kate it still going on The Deathly Hallows and enjoying it. I finished re-reading The Philosophers Stone yesterday after deciding to start at the very beginning (as it's a very good place to start) to remind and relive the adventures. Whilst reading I was struck by JKR's forethought into this series. There are a number of facts and happenings that are not explained/mentioned/used until the last book. Things like: the information on the back of Dumbledore's Chocolate Frog Card (12 uses of Dragon's blood and the mention of his battle with Grindelward), the significance of the invisibility cloak, the intricacies of Gringotts and Snape's reaons for protecting Harry. Impressive. Most impressive. I was speaking to Adrian R. last night at church (he's another HP nut) and he heard that JKR wrote the last chapter of Deathly Hallows before she'd found a publisher for Philosophers Stone!

Finished

Pretty tired right now. Kate had to drive me home when I picked her up this arvo. Finished it last night at 11.57pm. Great book. I think I might have even shed a tear or two, but it could have been from weary eyes ;) One of my bros finished it on Saturday (or it might have been the very early hours of Sunday). Kate has started this arvo. To those of you who are still going - Enjoy!!!

Starting Now!

Slept in to recover from night shift and a late dinner with friends. I've returned relatively unscathed from braving the vicious waters of Westfield Parramatta. After parking at the opposite end of the centre I made it to Borders where Kate had a voucher (thanks Mum!) and secured the target. Mission accomplished!

Starting now...

Reading Magic

"You're inviting Satan into your home and opening yourself up to him". That's what one of the ladies (a Christian) at work said when we started talking about the Harry Potter series. I disagreed and said I thought there was more of a problem with the romance novels (soft porn for girls) she enjoys. We agreed to disagree.

Kate and I put down our current novels last week to re-read The Half Blood Prince in prep for tomorrow's release of The Deathly Hallows (AWESOME!). I noticed something interesting about the books we replaced - Kate: 'The Hobbit' and Me: 'Kiss Kiss' by Roald Dahl (a collection of short stories) both are from authors in who's writing magic features heavily. I distinctly remember, as kids, Dad refusing to let us read 'The Witches' by Dahl (along with banning cartoons featuring bad guys with red eyes - evil?).

I was wondering if there was such a problem with these two well loved and widely read authors back in their day? Why does Harry pose such a problem? Is it the setting of a magical realm within our reality as opposed to Tolkein's other worlds or Dahl's wildly imaginative parallel?