Not that I've been very good about updating my journal lately, but I am at present trying to upgrade to the 2.0 track of blosxom. I'm running a fairly old version of blosxom, because I had grafted my own plug-in architecture onto it, and I didn't want to take the time to adapt to the (vastly different) approach that that blosxom author and community have followed. But there are a lot of very nice features in 2.0, so I'm taking the plunge. Getting my test-bed journal to look like my publically-viewable one is taking a while, though.

After considerable time spent resisting the Harry Potter craze, I finally decided a while back to give in and read the books. At first, I was intent on only reading each volume after seeing the corresponding movie; I read Philosopher's Stone after seeing the movie (the copies I have are British editions, so it's called that rather than "Sorcerer's Stone"), and likewise with Chamber of Secrets.

But I decided not to wait for the next movie before reading the third book, and I'm very glad for that. The books do in fact get progressively better (as well as progressively longer), and I found myself struggling to put the book down at nights to sleep. I'm into the fourth book now, and at about the 1/3 mark, it's even better than the third was.

So, if you're like I was about this, and have resisted either because you think they are strictly children's books, or you're adverse to fads (which was my reason— I still have avoided seeing Titanic, and waited nearly 10 years before being talked into seeing E.T.), go ahead and pick them up. Read the set in order, just so that you are familiar with the backwards-references. There are some small details not included in the movies, so there will be bits that are new in both of the first two books. Move on to the third book, and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at how engaging it is.

For today's installment, the Ultimate Purity Test.

Today is officially Loyalty Day. The irony of it being on a day that many Pagans are already celebrating is not lost on me. Many places have May Day off anyway... maybe this means a new federal holiday in the making?

The State Department report on global terrorism for 2002 suggests that while Canada has been helpful in the fight against terrorism, it doesn't spend enough on policing and places too much emphasis on civil liberties.

From a friend's LiveJournal:

Patriot Raid

The writer works with Doctors Without Borders, so I'm inclined to give him the benefit of doubt. If anything new comes of this that either supports or debunks the story, I'll update this to reflect it. For now, I'm just pissed.