Category: TV

ScaryStupidScary

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I think that when my guy at Harry Rosen teases me for spending way less than usual, I have a bit of a clothes spending problem. And here I was proud of myself for walking out with only a pair of shoes (these ones, in fact).

.:.

I watched a pile of movies this weekend, most of which we’ve had stored on the PVR for a while and I just hadn’t gotten to (along with the fifteen or so still on there):

  • Warrendale (Allan King Films) was a CBC documentary made in the late 60s that the CBC refused to air. It was about emotionally troubled kids living together in a house with some (remarkably patient, by the look of it) caretakers, and seemed shocking in a few ways: the language the kids used (you’re used to any TV made during the 60s being scrubbed so clean that to hear a little boy screaming “fuck you!” over and over is startling), and the methods they used to control the kids (calming them during tantrums by wrapping up their arms and legs). It was also a little weird to see a teenage girl being bottle fed by the same woman whose face she was screaming in earlier that day. Interesting, certainly, but hard to watch.
  • The Rules Of Attraction (imdb | rotten tomatoes) wasn’t so serious, but it was depressing in its own way. I’ve come to learn that I don’t really like movies based on Bret Easton Ellis novels, and I’m also more certain than ever now that I despise the 80s; Ellis, if his books even remotely resemble an accurate picture of what things were like for rich college kids, has just given me more reason to despise them. I’ll say this for the movie: it managed to keep me from thinking about Dawson’s Creek every time James Van Der Beek was on the screen, which is no small feat.
  • I got back to the serious stuff with Ghosts Of Attica (imdb). I knew little about the Attica riots, since they happened four years before I was born, but if you’ve seen Dog Day Afternoon and you watch enough Oz you pick up a few things. It ended up being a similar story to a topic I’d discussed recently with friends: the Kent State massacre, which happened just 16 months before the Attica riots. The problem — social unrest and mass uprising — and the response — a violent overreaction by police — were eerily similar in both cases. Whatever horrible things the Attica prisoners did to get themselves thrown in prison (ignoring any bearing racism or poverty might have had on their incarceration), they didn’t deserve to be shot in the back, and the guards surely didn’t deserve to be shot in the same cowardly way by their would-be rescuers.

.:.

We also downloaded the first season of Deadwood this weekend; I watched the first couple of episodes, but I’m just not as into it as Nellie is. She’s always had a bit more of a western fascination than I.

.:.

Now that basketball’s over with (for me, not the Raptors…although I think even I played later into the year than they did…) I’ve gone back to running. I only did two miles tonight, just enough to get back into it. My legs felt a bit tight, probably since I haven’t run on a treadmill in a while. It should be warm (and dry, more to the point) enough soon to run outside, but that doesn’t last long; by June Toronto’s too choked with smog and humidity to run outside. For me, anyway.

Accelerated fossilisation

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Time to catch up on the news:

  • London (Ontario, not England) seems like a delightful tourist destination, what with the biker gang violence and all. I am now more convinced than ever to never, ever go there.
  • ABC is starting to get it: they’re going to offer next-day streaming of their most popular shows, which is really just migrating the same content to a new medium, but at least they’re adding some flexibility to their viewing options.
  • Christopher Hume of The Star has new hope for Toronto, and the cultural renaissance he sees on the horizon.
  • This guy can kiss my pale maritimer ass. He acts recklessly, blows up some innocent and unsuspecting allies, gets off practically without consequence and then has the nerve to bitch about the way in which his country lightly slaps his wrist? Fuck him.
  • BlogTO reaffirms their membership in the ‘tear down the Gardiner Expressway‘ club.
  • Finally, and most tragically, Bow Wow and Ciara have split up. I mean, if a kid named after a dog noise and a woman dubbed “the First Lady of Crunk & B” by an overrated shitbag can’t make it in this crazy world, then who can? [tear]

.:.

I read Confused Of Calcutta primarily for my job, as it focuses on technology, but this post went beyond work topics. It’s about change, and the rate at which it happens nowadays; people have been fearfully lamenting change ever since the loom or the printing press, but CoC’s not complaining. He’s pointing out that the era when you could take your time adjusting to market demand is gone. I like the term he uses: fossilisation. “Accelerated fossilisation”…I may have a t-shirt made. I’ll be the guy jumping up and down when I can consume media on my own schedule, in a format of my choosing. I’ll be the guy throwing a party when everyone has free internet access. I’ll be the guy doing a jig when politicians actually make decisions based on socioeconomics and not politics. I’ll toast the new world when my own company talks to me like I’m an intelligent adult (which, I’d have to think, is at least part of the reason why they hired me) and not an agitated child who needs to be soothed.

Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.   .:Arundhati Roy

Let’s get on with it.

In which I contemplate my own navel

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I saw a preview of Brick (imdb | rotten tomatoes) tonight at the Varsity. I really, really, really liked it. About the only way to describe it is a juxtaposition of noir and high school styles…like an episode of Veronica Mars starring Bogart and Lorre, written by Mamet as he wrestles Hammett to the floor.* Dialogue so dense and fast that you have to work to keep up at first, a plot that expects you to pay attention, a staggering main role played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt…yup, the kid from Third Rock From The Sun who’s become an indie hero. If you like good movies, you’ll like this. At least, you should. Get thee to a cinema.

* side note: Mamet vs. Hammett is a play just waiting to happen. You heard it here first.

.:.

I’ve heard about this before but it’s the first time I’ve seen detail on it: NBC will be releasing 10 internet-only episodes of The Office this summer that’ll feature more of the background characters. More Kelly & Ryan!!

.:.

Scientists claim that “Jesus may have appeared to be walking on water when he was actually floating on a thin layer of ice, formed by a rare combination of weather and water conditions on the Sea of Galilee.” Why would they bother pointing this out? People that actually believe a bearded dude named Jesus walked on water aren’t going to suddenly believe it wasn’t a miracle just because you say so, no matter how sound a theory you throw at them. You can’t reason someone out of a position they were never reasoned into.

[via]

.:.

Sometimes I wonder why I blog. I’m not like most people who have a specific topic for their blog; I throw pretty much everything that enters my mind up here. I’ve owned single-purpose blogs before — radioDan (music & movies), skirl (general stuff that eventually became this blog), and Girlfriend Du Jour (my future wives) — but it gets to be a pain in the ass and so I consolidated the first two into this one. I still post to Girlfriend Du Jour ’cause it’s so much fun. I think being a generalist is more important, or at least more interesting, to me than going in-depth on a topic like music or movies or technology or…I don’t know, maple syrup. Whatever.

I think it has to do with how we were raised. None of my brothers or I focused on any one thing, though we were usually pretty good at a few; we were encouraged to play more than one sport, or learn more than one instrument, or read from a variety of sources. We all seemed to fit in a couple of social worlds as teenagers (at least, that’s what I remember; my brothers were basically out of high school by the time I arrived), so I could hang out with the skids or the jocks or the smart kids. I was on the basketball team, but I was also in the jazz band. I had long hair and played in a bad rock band, but I also knew more about computers than anyone in my school. I grew up on a farm but I feel at home in a city. And so on.

I think I’m still the same now. I feel like I have so many interests that I can’t keep up the way I’d like to, and it comes across in my blogging: scattershot, brief summaries of thoughts that whip through my brain. The categories over on the right are pretty much the breakdown of any given moment inside my head: music, movies, sports and the news are constants, and the hundreds of news feeds I read every day give me plenty of content. Books, food, my friends’ blogs, politics, Toronto goings-on and whatever subject I’m studying for the MBA right now are usually top of mind as well. Work keeps my mind focused on technology, especially developments in how people — the general population, not just geeks — will be using it in the next few years.

And in true Dan form I’ve forgotten why I even started writing this post. Arrrgghhhhuiworuowytwhgkfdnkf. Oop, wait, I’ve got it now: would this blog be better off if I just picked a particular topic and went with it? Or is it ok the way it is? I can tell by the stats that more than half the readers are not friends and family who just want to know what I did last night, but I wonder if my attention span could fuel (tolerate?) a single-topic blog…

OK. Bed now.

"Is there going to be a change in Canadian music?"

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Kevin Drew and Leslie Feist made some comments about the Canadian Idol teenyboppers who were nominated Junos. The CTV president of programming got her back up, asking “Why trash somebody else?”, but if you read the comments Drew and Feist made, they don’t seem to be running down the kids…they seem to be taking a shot at the music and tv industries. And with good cause; they’ve basically made music an excuse to have a tv show (or entire channel).

Also: the day when the president of programming at CTV can lecture members of Broken Social Scene about music is the day I teach Al Pacino about method acting.
.:. I won a pair of tickets to see Brick (imdb | rotten tomatoes) on Wednesday. Thanks NOW!
 .:. By now I guess pretty much everyone’s seen the trailer for the Simpson’s movie. I have both high hopes and terrible fears about how it’s going to turn out. I think it would be funny if Marge cussed like a sailor on shore leave. But that’s me.
 .:. More developments, though little progress, in the James Miller case. I wrote about it two years ago, when I saw the documentary, and again about a year ago.

Six + six

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We did the Six Feet Under marathon yesterday, finishing the last episode of the series somewhere around 3:30 AM. I don’t want to say too much, as some people who read this haven’t yet watched the last season. I think Big Chris said it best when he said, “It’s been emotional.”

.:.

In between SFU episodes I managed to watch the Canadiens eliminate the Bruins from the playoff race. Even though this is their sixth straight win, they’re still only tied for 6th; I’m really hoping they can nail down the 6th spot so they can avoid the Senators or the Hurricanes in the playoffs, both of whom dominated them during the regular season. The team they’re tied with? The New Jersey Devils. Buying tickets for this Saturday’s game against them is looking luckier and luckier all the time.

No more economics

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It’s nice to have a day to relax, just space out after a week at school. Even though we were just north of the city, it feels like I’ve been in another province for five days, so it was almost like becoming reacquainted with Toronto. Read the paper, went up to Summerhill for a pile of yummy bread, did some errands, picked up dinner for tonight and came home to watch several more episodes of Six Feet Under…which is pretty much all we did last night too. We’ll burn through it by the end of the weekend at this rate; we even found time to watch the latest episode of The Sopranos last night and I caught up on tons of PVR’d shows.