“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.” -Voltaire

Stanzi just sent me this political compass test. My scores were:

Economic Left/Right: -5.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.74

That puts me slightly on the libertarian side of Gandhi (!), somewhere around the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela. That hardly seems right, but I suppose I have the luxury of answering a web poll rather than fighting for my beliefs in a jail cell. I’m surprised that I scored so far to the left economically though…you’d think a business degree, a pending MBA and years of working for a bank would have drilled Friedmanesque free market capitalism dogma into my head.

1. The Daily Show. Mocks the news media while showing it up. Watch the Daily Show for a week and then try to watch Leno; it’s like switching from a gourmet meal to a TV dinner.
2. Arrested Development. We just finished watching the first season on DVD, and rather than wait for season two to come out we started watching season three last night. The show’s all about timing and perfectly executed use of the 3-second flashback.
3. The Office. While it can never capture the originality of the British series, it’s still miles ahead of anything else on the major networks.

Have I mentioned how much I want one of these? Ask my wife how much I drooled on the magazine ad I saw last night…

[UPDATE: Actually, what I really want is one of these.]

Few songs can cheer up a generally lousy day like Sonic Youth‘s “Theresa’s Sound World”.

Whew. That was quite a day. Nellie and I are both a little pooped after a visit from my brother, his wife and their three kids. We sat here at our place for a while, had some McDonald’s, went to the Ontario Science Centre (where we saw a presentation with Sony’s QRIO robot…which was really. Freaking. Cool.). After we walked all over that place we went to the Rainforest Cafe at Yorkdale Mall. By that time the kids were pretty much zonked, and we definitely were, so we crawled onto the subway and slunk home, vowing to have redundant operations to ensure we’d never have kids of our own. I mean, we love our nieces and nephews, but our cats would never forgive us (Michael spent their whole visit cowering in corner fo the bedroom).

Thank You For Smoking (imdb | tiff) was a great way to end things. A great movie before a huge crowd on the last night (and second-to-last film) of the festival. It had amazing dark humour, criticisms of lobbying, politics, marketing & spin, even some nearly-heartfelt father-son stuff. It deservedly got picked up this week by Fox Searchlight. I’m glad it turned out to be our last film; what a way to go out.

Rating: 9 out of 10.
Star power: Director Jason Reitman (Ivan’s son).

We just got in line for the movie. It’s a frickin’ mile long. Good thing the Ryerson theatre’s huge.

I’m taking a week off from studying; having just finished one easy course and knowing that the next should be fairly relaxed for me (it’s an IT strategy course, which is kinda what I do for a living) I’m just taking this time to relax a bit and gear up for economics, which starts in November. Might try to get those books early. But for now, until the Monday after next, the textbooks stay closed.

And a good thing, too: my reading pile has grown completely out of control: two issues of Esquire, one Playboy (plus the Thomas Friedman interview from the last one that I’m finishing up), a Toronto Life, two Stuff gadget magazines, a Hockey News yearbook and a Harry Rosen magazine…not to mention the daily Toronto Star (which shows up even though I don’t pay for it), weekly issues of Eye and Now, and the daily deluge of news feeds.

Not that I plan to get much reading done tonight (last film festival movie) or tomorrow (my brother, his wife and their three kids are coming to town for the day).

This morning’s early, early movie was Winter Passing (imdb | tiff), another no-cast-or-crew-on-hand screening. It’s little wonder; this was the third screening, and it’s a little early on a Saturday for stars to be up and about, let alone the rest of us.

The verdict: very good. Difficult to watch at times, but light and funny at others, so I agree with the TIFF’s assessment that it’s a well-rounded film. Brilliant performances all around, especially Zooey Deschanel, who’s quickly becoming one of my favourite actresses, and Will Ferrell, who nails it without ever really falling back into the typical Will Ferrell persona as you half expect him to.

Rating: 8 out of 10.
Star power: Nada.