of snow and spam and one good movie

December 1st? How did that happen? Didn’t summer end just the other day?

Boise got its first real snowfall yesterday. (The mountains have been white for more than a week.) I was getting a massage when it started to fall. Went into the spa with dry roads and came out to snowy roads with already snarling traffic. It was worse when I got up this morning to go to the chiropractor’s. The snow had turned to ice. Lots of fender benders around town. I am a cautious driver, leaving lots and lots of room between me and the car in front of me. Good thing, because when I gently applied the brakes to prepare to turn into my chiropractor’s parking lot, I wasn’t stopping. Ice had apparently built up on the pads (the temp was about 14 degrees F). I did the tap and release a few times, and then the old brakes started to work. But by that time, I was passed the parking lot. Had to turn into another lot, go back, and try again.

The snow did put me in the mood to get the Christmas decorations down from the shelf in the garage. I don’t go all out the way I used to, but I do like to get some lights in the window and put up my little artificial tree. Most of my decorations are atop my upright piano.

Good thing I’m ready to get into the holiday spirit because it just so happens that the book I’m working on is another Christmas story, this time a romance for Steeple Hill to be published a year from now. To make this blog entry, I left my heroine skiing down a mountain, and I already know it isn’t going to end well for her. She should have stuck to the bunny slopes. (The things we authors do to our poor, unsuspecting protagonists!)

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I bemoaned my email woes earlier this week. It really was a nightmare. The problem started when I canceled a special anti-spam program because it wasn’t making any difference in the amount of spam getting through to me, so I figured why spend the additional money for a service that wasn’t helping. Well, apparently when they turned off that filter they did something wrong because suddenly my email started bouncing back to senders. Despite three calls to Tech Support on Tuesday, it wasn’t until my fourth call (made on Wednesday), that one of the guys figured out the problem. By Wednesday night, emails were starting to get through to me again. Then the server went down early on Thursday (meaning I couldn’t get email and no one could view my web site). It was finally up and running by early afternoon.

Needless to say, I felt like I lost an entire week to technology snafus.

And speaking of spam, it really is awful right now. I must be getting about 100 to 150 of those "Michael wrote:" "Kathy wrote:" "Somebody wrote:" spam messages a day. And so is everybody else. My web hosting company says that they are being swamped by these messages. It is slowing down everything on the ‘Net.

So here is the question (actually several questions): Who are these spammers and what do they think they are gaining? Do people really end up buying that stock they are trying to sell? Or is the stock bogus and they are just doing this to create havoc on the Internet?

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A friend emailed me this afternoon, wanting to know if I knew if the movie The Nativity is biblically accurate because she and her boyfriend didn’t want to take their kids to see a biblical movie that wasn’t … biblical. Just in case any of my Write Thinking readers are wondering the same thing, here’s what I told her:

The movie makes it very clear that Jesus is the Messiah and God made flesh. You can take the girls to this without a worry.

One place you can always check for Christian reviews is the Movie Guide. It gave The Nativity a 4 star (exemplary) rating. Here’s the "in brief" portion of the review:

In Brief:
THE NATIVITY STORY is one of those very rare movies that brings the Gospel alive in a compelling, captivating, entertaining, and inspirational way that shatters expectations. The movie references and quotes Scripture throughout. King Herod sends out the troops to kill all the innocents in Bethlehem and stop the prophecy that there will be born a King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The movie then flashes back to a year earlier in the town of Nazareth, introducing the audience to the life of Joseph and Mary. Soon, an angel of God comes to Mary to tell her that she is with God’s child, born by the Holy Spirit. Joseph and Mary have to journey to Bethlehem to register for the Roman census. In the fullness of time, the prophecies of God are fulfilled.

THE NATIVITY STORY is a nearly perfect movie. It has one of the best scripts ever for a biblical story. A sense of jeopardy is present throughout. The dialogue, the plot development, the turning points are refreshingly dramatic. Best of all, THE NATIVITY STORY testifies in every way to Jesus the Messiah and is clearly evangelistic without being preachy.

My edition of Christianity Today arrived this week, and they raved about the way Joseph is portrayed in the movie.

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Well, I’d best get back to my heroine who is surely just about frozen by now. Hero to the rescue.

-rlh-