RIP

Mr. Rogers dies of cancer. I remember watching the show growing up, although I think I was a bigger fan of Mr. Dressup (pic). Rogers was responsible for bringing Mr. Dressup to the air in Canada. The era of children’s television I grew up with is drawing to a close.


Makes sense

Daytona 500 by Ghostface Killah is hands down one of the best driving songs out there. However, I’ve really never been able to make sense of it. There are parts that are understandable, it’s fast and it sounds cool. I guess it’s just rhyming. It’s not like people actually have to understand what you’re saying.



More bookz

The search for more bookz has brought me to Project Gutenberg, one of those things I had come across awhile ago, but failed to remember. It’s pretty much exactly what it says it is, a project to bring printed works to the masses (for free). The only real problem I’m having with these books on computer is the lack of good reading utilities. I may have to pick up a palm of some sort or write the type of text-reader I’m looking for.


The Pianist

Back in Brockville for a few days over this reading week break, nothing too exciting going on. Before I left the other night, I watched The Pianist, one of the films up for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. I thought it was a really good movie, a little bit long but it’s to be expected from the type of movie. There are similarities and comparison that can be made to Schindler’s List, I think I liked this one better (although I guess it could also be compared to Life is Beautiful, another good one). Black and white is nice and artistic but I find that the visual part of my brain likes looking at colour. The Pianist has that. It also comes from the perspective of one man, rather than a more sweeping look at was going on. And the dark comedy elements, the things you think probably shouldn’t be laughed at, but do anyway because that’s what it was intended for. Adrien Brody did an excellent job as the lead character and is deserved of his Oscar nom.



Book Record

Some German authors are trying to set a record to create the fastest book to go from concept to shelves. Forty authors will each write two pages and a foreward, beginning at 7:45am and they will have copies of the book on store shelves in Germany within 12 hours.


Movies

I watched About A Boy and One Hour Photo last night. About A Boy was pretty good, a romantic comedy with a happy ending. But a weird romantic comedy and a weird happy ending. I’m tempted to read the book, it’s by Nick Hornby, who wrote High Fidelity (the book and film are gold). The soundtrack for the movie was written by Badly Drawn Boy. One Hour Photo was Robing Williams galloping along the Death to Smoochy/Insomnia trail of creepy bad guys. So it wasn’t all that shocking for me, there are good parts and there are bad parts and Robin Williams plays a good bad guy. Overall, it seemed a bit rushed.


Sunday Night

No paper to help put together tonight, that means The Simpsons. And lots of it. There’s three episodes on tonight, the first one of the season (which I think that I missed) and two new ones.