To say that Dumbledore's death was shocking would be a massive understatement.

Granted, I am a little slow. It didn't occur to me, until I happened to read this item in SciFi Wire News about Jacqueline Carey's latest release, Godslayer, that the Harry Potter books followed the "...good-versus-evil epic fantasy in the classic mold, complete with a Dark Lord, an all-knowing wizardly mentor and a struggling, unlikely hero..."

Okay, did I read "the Hobbit," twice? Yes.

Did I see all of the "Lord of the Rings" movies? Yes.

Did I see the structural parallels to Tolkien's classics, which as noted in WSJ.com's Opinion Journal commentary "The Battle of the Books" "[follows] a literary one reaching back even further--of heroic sagas and mythic battles between the forces of light and of darkness. That tradition receiving [sic] its greatest 20th-century expression in the work of her compatriot, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, [in] whose three-volume masterwork, "The Lord of the Rings...?" No.

As an aside, while I agree that Tokien's works delive more deeply into questions of morality, I regard its dismissive judgement of Rowling's works as snobbish at best. Tolkien sought to create an examination of morality and good vs. evil at a philosophical level for adults, using an interesting and often entertaining story as a vehicle. Rowling seeks to create an entertaining environment to capture the imaginations of children, that along the way shows children (and adults) the joy of reading, and offers simple lessons in right vs. wrong. Neither is better than the other, no more than an apple is "better" than a peach.

But, once it was pointed out to me... of course, Harry Potter obviously fit the mold.

How then, could Rowling kill the wise mentor, much less not even only at the end of the last book?

And that wasn't the only shocker. I was sure that the potions book was Voldemort's. Finding out it was Snape's was totally believable, but also unexpected.

I tend to consume these books at a very shallow level. I'm in it just for the story, and I tend to just go along for the ride. I find it fascinatng that there is a huge subculture of Potter fans that dissect every word trying to find answers to puzzles before they are answered and seeking to find meaning buried in the narrative. I'm not passing judgement - I really do just find it interesting that different people can approach things so differently.

Needless to say, I eagerly await J.K. dolling out the answers for me whenver she gets around to writing the seventh and final book of the series.

It makes a wonderful addition to my Kyocera 7135's Palm applications. And you can't beat the price - FREE.

I especially like the following channels:

AccuWeather.com - current weather for up to two predefined locations

American Airlines - flight schedules at your fingertips

Bbspot - irreverent satire to fill those countless hours sitting and waiting wherever

CNET - news at your fingertips

Computerworld - computer industry related news bites

CoolQuiz.com - a new helping of trivia each day

Delta Air Lines - flight schedules at your fingertips

Hollywood.com - local movie information

PalmJokes.com - a new joke each day, many of which make me laugh out loud

SCI FI Channel - providing the latest news for Sci-Fi and Fantasy buffs

USATODAY.com - headlines from USA today

Wired News - nerd news when you need it

There was one other channel which seemed really useful: the Yahoo! channel. Problem was, it never seemed to work correctly. After doing some web research, I found out that there appears to be some problem which has been around for a while, but remains unresolved. I was really bummed, because I grown spoiled when I lived in the Raleigh NC area to having a really good movie reviews and showtimes feed (MovieMinder). Unfortunately, Hollywood.com doesn't quite measure up - actually, it doesn't even come close. On the other hand, Yahoo!'s movie section on their portal is really good. But, that was one of the features that didn't work on the AvantoGo channel.

I had just about given up, when I was inspired to do a search on Yahoo! (as opposed to my normal Google search). After wandering around a little, I discovered that Yahoo! has a WAP service. While I gave up trying to use the palm on-line a long time ago, it turns out that the WAP pages work great as Personal Channels on AvantGo!

The URL for the main Yahoo! WAP page is: http://wap.oa.yahoo.com/

Unfortunately, in order to get customized information for some of the sub-pages, your interface must support cookies, which AvantGo channels do not. Fortunately, there is a work-around. Rather than configuring the main page as a channel, you can configure each of the sub-pages as a channel. Using this method, you can use a URL which includes the identifying information needed to generate the desired results. The easiest way to do this is to open the Yahoo! WAP page in your PC's browser, then navigate to each of the sub-pages, filling in the required identifier (usually your zip code), then copying the address of the resulting page into the Personal Channel configuration screen in AvantoGo.

TIP: after you set up each page, make sure to click on the Personal Channels link to open a new default Personal Channel page. If you just go edit the name and URL after clicking the "save channel" button, only your last entry will actually be saved.

For example, for the Yahoo! Movies page for theaters in my area, the URL is: http://acid1.oa.yahoo.com/mbl/mov/home?&addr=&ct=YOURCITY&st=YOURSTATE&zip=YOURZIP&air=

Weather is http://wap.oa.yahoo.com/raw?dp=weather&&addr=&ct=YOURCITY&st=YOURSTATE&zip=YOURZIP&air=

(where YOURCITY, YOURSTATE, YOURZIP would be replaced with values for your desired location)

News is http://wap.oa.yahoo.com/raw?dp=news

Now that I have movie information handy once again, maybe I'll even take Jeanie to a movie some time...

It is billed as a comedy, but I think that is misleading. I have also seen it labeled as a romantic comedy or love story, but that doesn't quite hit the mark either. The blurb on the DVD jacket doesn't even get it right... the relationship between boy/daughter not really the key focus. The movie is more about middle age, corporate America, and the relationship between Topher Grace and Dennis Quaid's characters.

Regardless of how you categorize it, the movie hit close to home for me, with its themes of middle age, mergers, and layoffs. The insight into corporate America, and its exploration of right / wrong was fascinating.

I guess it is fair to call the movie a comedy, in the same way that one would categorize some of the Cohen Brothers movies as comedies. Maybe calling it a "deep comedy" would be appropriate or a "dramedy". And, by the way, my quibbling with the label does not imply that there weren't some very funny scenes. There were a number of times that Jeanie and I thought we'd bust a stitch.

The movie received a very strong rating from Rotten Tomatoes, and the reviews are generally consistent with Jeanie's and my sentiments.

Jeanie and I both found it to be a reasonably enjoyable, run-of-the-mill girl loves dog story.

I found the Rotten Tomatoes reviews to be reasonably consistent with my sentiments.

Jeanie and I both enjoyed it. It was the sort of light hearted romantic comedy that we tend to enjoy. While not a movie that we'll add to our video library, I think it was better than the overly harsh reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.