Sometime between when I first checked my email this morning and when checked it just now this afternoon, I noticed that Gmail looked kinda different. Then I saw the announcement at the top about "New! Colors and themes" in the Settings. After trying a few themes in the top row, I quickly spotted the "Ninja" theme at the end of the themes list. Now I can't help but smile and think "Holy crap! Ninjas invaded my Gmail!!!" every time I check my email...

I especially love the little red Shuriken (ninja stars) that replace the "Starred" icons.

There are many other themes, some based on simple color schemes, some with adorably cute characters (Sam really likes the Zoozimps theme but she is super jealous because she doesn't have the themes yet) and there are several "natural" themes that apparently change according to the time of day and the weather of your location. My inner nerd wanted to go with the "Terminal" theme but the bloodthirsty assassin in me lopped off the geek's head with a swift katana chop and so I'm sticking with the Ninjas:

Read more about the Gmail Themes over at the Official Gmail Blog.

[u]UPDATE: Nov. 20, 2008[/u]

I didn't notice it yesterday but it appears that even the Ninja theme is dynamic, possibly changing throughout the day like the nature-based themes. At the footer of individual email messages there is a ninja and his little geisha lady friend doing various activities.

This morning they were greeting each other like this:

By late afternoon the vs Monsterninja and the geisha had both put on considerable weight and they were dressed up as sumo:

And right around 6:00pm PST the ninja and the geisha sat down for dinner:

There are probably more activities that the ninja and the geisha do throughout the day so I'll just have to keep checking. Hmm, I wonder what they do together around bedtime...

[u]UPDATE #2: Nov. 21, 2008[/u]

Apparently night time is fight time for the ninja and the geisha.

Last night they were fighting each other:

And tonight they were fighting a monster (dragon maybe?):

At first I thought it looked like the ninja was of the monster and that he was hiding behind the geisha but then I remembered that ninjas are badasses and I realized that the ninja was really just working up a sweat as he tried to feed the geisha's fat ass to the monster.

[u]UPDATE #3: Nov. 22, 2008[/u]

I've been keeping an eye out for it after a visitor named Kiran commented yesterday that they'd seen the ninja and the geisha having tea, and even though I thought "tea time" was more like 4pm, right around 2pm today I saw this:

Speaking of tea, Sam FINALLY got Gmail Themes early yesterday and she's using the "Tea House" theme, which also has an Asian-style Gmail logo like the Ninja theme.

[u]UPDATE #4: Nov. 23, 2008[/u]

I pulled an all-nighter last nite working on a project for a friend so I was actually awake at dawn to witness the ninja and the geisha spend their early morning cleaning house:

I guess their place gets pretty messy after a long night of fighting monsters and each other. And then around 8am the ninja tried to make nice with the geisha by offering her some flowers:

I doubt a badass assassin like the ninja would give the geisha flowers "just because" so I wonder if he is apologizing for whatever it is that he does every night that sparks a fight. Or maybe he was practicing his mad katana skillz on some wild flowers and after a few chops he realized that he can use the flowers to lull the geisha into a false sense of security so that he can practice his slicing action on her neck...

And seems like the flowers worked their charm because tonight the ninja and the geisha were rocking out with a little after-dinner jam session of [[en:Shamisen]] Hero: World Tour (for Wii, of course):

Then later, the ninja lit the lantern to set some mood lighting while the geisha got naked in the tub:

Hmm, I wonder what they're gonna do next...

[u]UPDATE #5: Dec. 04, 2008[/u]

I haven't seen anything new that the Ninja and the Geisha do together since my last update, but I finally noticed something that the Ninja does by himself (no, not THAT) that has probably been there since Gmail first launched the Themes. I probably wouldn't have ever noticed if I hadn't read this blog post (Spanish) by Enma Ai, who left me a comment today. Enma had posted an image of the Ninja with a scroll and a brush that I hadn't seen before so when I went to email her to ask where she had seen it, there was the Ninja sitting with a scroll and brush to the right of the "Compose Mail" window:

I probably hadn't noticed it before because it only appears in the "Compose Mail" window, and not when I reply to an email. It's not that I don't ever email people. In fact, I email quite a lot, but apparently I just forward or reply to other people's emails instead of initiating the email conversations myself.