Insomnia

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Just watched Insomnia. Dark, dark movie set in constantly bright summer Alaska, with Al Pacino powerfully portraying a dubiously principled Los Angeles cop. It amazes me, how Pacino is able to pull off these vicious, gritty roles again and again, without ever seeming cliché; I found his acting thoroughly convincing throughout the movie — and Robin Williams only slightly less so. Insomia is almost completely free of typecasting, triteness, or even good guys — though I felt some heart was missing from the whole masterwork, as I felt no emotional investment in any of the characters at the final, tragic end.

Or maybe it was just that I knew the ending beforehand. In any case, Christopher Nolan did a good job directing this one. Now I want to see Memento. (And that backwards Seinfeld episode, too.)

Where the McDeer Were

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Before heading back to Baltimore, I went to see the Post-Deer McDonald’s. The window had been boarded up, and it was business as usual inside. I had expected to see something; perhaps a news team, or at least a few rubbernecks, but there was no one but me: a smart mob of one.

(I don’t know what kind of marathon runners the RideGuide hires to determine “walking distance,” but the walk from Union Station to First St. NE and New York Ave was significantly more than “four minutes.”)

Photo taken with an Aiptek Mini Pencam 1.3MP.

Crazy McDeer!

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Two deer jump through a McDonald’s window, injuring four. Right here in Washington, DC. Where the heck do deer come from in the middle of the city, anyway?

Well, since the McDonald’s in question is right beside Union Station (from where I’ll be catching my train back to Bawlmer), I know where I’m having dinner tonight. Pencam ready. Oh, the adventure, the excitement! ;)

Maybe they’ll even have McVenison burgers.

Terrorist Railway Threat

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Al Qaeda targeting trains, you say? Well, that can’t be good, considering that I ride the commuter train to and from Washington DC practically every day of the week. Well, in the event of a derailment, collision, explosion, or shootout, you can be sure I’ll have my pencam on me, ready to publish photos of the action. If I come out alive, that is.

Are you in fear of disasters and cataclysm? Don’t be! “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?” Even in the face of terrorism, the believer has a Protector, a mighty fortress for body and soul.

Blogger hacked again

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Update: Okay, Blogger’s back and working again. Ignore the rest of this entry.

You Blogger-users out there, don’t log in; they just got hacked. I tried logging in to change some settings on my mobile blog, and it told me I’d entered an invalid password. When I requested a password reminder, the confirmation said my login info had been sent to “hax0redbyme.” Don’t request a password reminder!

More from Blogroots, Anil, Tom, and of course, Blogger status.

I’ve changed all my passwords already.

Sniper Stump

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The latest on the sniper case: John Allen Muhammad, John Lee Malvo and a tree stump have been arrested. The tree stump is currently being interrogated by federal agents, and has confessed to masterminding the whole affair.

Update: They were arraigned on gun charges in a federal court right here in Baltimore. No wonder I’m hearing all those helicopters.

Oh, wait. There are always helicopters.

More on Rebecca Brown

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I just received a comment to an older entry about “Dr. Rebecca Brown” and the dangers of her books on Satanism and curse theology. After my links to The Bizarre Case of Rebecca Brown, and the clear proof of her dangerous mental instabilities, the commenter says that he prefers to continue believing in her, and admonishes me to trust in Jesus.

I respond with a harrumph. Please let me reiterate that I am an evangelical Christian, saved through faith in Christ alone. However, that does not mean that I am compelled by my faith to subscribe to Rebecca Brown’s hallucinations of demons, Wiccans and Satanists. We are to prove all things and hold fast to that which is good, and in testing Rebecca Brown (by the way, her real name is Ruth Bailey), I have found her falsified paranoid religious frothing to be far from good.

Some content of her books is very much in line with Scripture: that Christians can claim the victory of Jesus over the forces of Satan, that we are to avoid the dangers of occultism and necromancy, and that rock and roll music is a deadly, poisoning evil. (Ha! Just checking to see if you were listening.) However, the more dubious attributes of her theology: admonitions to avoid “demon-god” Hawaiian floral garlands and African wall hangings; the process of “anointing” people, objects, furniture, even pets, with cooking oil to ceremonially cleanse them of demonic influence; her raving stories of demons and angels speaking to her and her patients in person; Satan’s schemes to make vegetarians more susceptible to possession by depriving them of the protein needed to fight demons; or her questionable views of the Trinity (the Father not feeling what the Son has experienced) — these are well beyond anything that the Bible gives to us as believers.

Rebecca Brown’s teachings go well beyond mere fundamentalism. I dare say she even crosses the line into the very cultism which she strains to avoid.

For more information: The Bizarre Case of Dr. Rebecca Brown, The Lies of Dr. Rebecca Brown, and The Curse of Curse Theology.