Juried? Really?

Saw a play at the Bad Dog's short play festival. Awful, just awful. Junior high school awful. On par with the worst of the Fringe.

But then again, 90% of everything is crap. Why do I expect so much from entertainment?! Sigh. Glad I won tickets.

Dance of the Daleks

Streaming online until August 31, 2010, part of BBC Proms 2010: a discussion of Doctor Who's early incidental music, with composer Dudley Simpson.

http://tinyurl.com/28tdjfs

Anyone interested in TV/film scoring will like this 20 minute programme.

Jarvislanes are Go!

Took a ride on the newly-minted Jarvis bike lanes. The road is far better than Sherbourne, but I'd forgotten how many lights there are between Charles and Dundas.

Now if only the City Planners would realize we need a decent East-West lane through downtown, we'd be getting somewhere. Literally.

Must we eat Crow?

Caption: This is what passed for comic art in 1989, kids.

Okay, we're safe on the Robocop front, but now I read that there is to be a remake of The Crow, the Alex Proyas and Brandon Lee adaptation of James O’Barr’s undead avenger comic book. Really?

The comic from 1989 doesn't stand up. It's a nasty bit of work, devoid of anything remotely resembling a compelling story. So why would anyone buy the rights to remake it? Couldn't you just do your own "guy and gilfriend get killed by a gang, man comes back from beyond the grave to avenge her death" film? As for the original Crow film, it did well on initial release. I saw it on video at some point and thought it as slight and uninteresting as the comic was. Wonder how much of a bump it got because of Brandon Lee's onset death?

I guess if the Hollywood boffins (and I use that term very sarcastically) are determined to remake films, better they remake these than start trying to "reimagine" the classics.

Nogocop

According to io9.com:

Robocop:

Darren Aronofsky's much-rumored reboot can pull up a chair next to Darren Aronofsky's Watchmen adaptation in canceled movie heaven, because it's been all but officially scrapped, another victim of MGM's bankruptcy.

Huzzah!

BIXI

I'm trying to decide how I feel about BIXI. The premise is this:

"The name BIXI is a combination of the words bicycle and taxi, indicating how easy it is to access a BIXI bike wherever you are and reach your intended destination - without worrying about a parking space, a lock, or what to do if you weren’t planning on biking back afterwards. The bicycle’s engineering as well as its solar-powered docking stations located less than 300 meters apart define the accessible nature of this program.

"Since BIXI Toronto will run year-round, a hassle-free bike will always be conveniently close by. For a $95 (tax incl.) subscription members will receive one year of unlimited use of the BIXI system for up to 30 minutes at a time. For example, a subscriber could arrive at Union Station, take a BIXI bike to ride to work, drop it off in front of their office, then pick a different BIXI bike up at the end of the day to head back to Union Station. Or, if your trip will last longer than 30 minutes, you may dock the initial bike and access a second bike for another 30 minutes of usage."

(Source: Toronto Bike Union members' Email)

While I'm all for getting people out of cars and onto bikes, will this do it? I'm not convinced. I'd rather any tax money that is going into this be put into more bike lanes, more secure bike parking spaces, and road repair. Sherbourne's bike lanes need some work.

Ninety-five dollars is good chunk of change towards a used (or new) bike, for a person to use whenever and wherever they want.

For the commuter who might use it from Union as suggested above, that's an extra $95/year on top of transit fees. Unless they're cutting out a TTC ride or two each day, will it be worth it for them?

Will Tourists use these? Not without more bike lanes. Imagine a Tourist renting a BIXI at City Hall. Where are the bike lanes? Queen? Nope. Bay? Sort of, in the shared diamond lanes, so really nope for the leisure rider. Dundas? Nope. University? Sadly (and damn you, City Council!), nope.

Maybe they'll have BIXI on the Toronto islands? I'm all for that, and I'm sure they would be well-used there, freeing up space on the ferries on the busy summer weekends. I'd bet 50 or even 100 BIXIs on the Islands would get used every weekend, six to eight months of the year.

Finally, while I know helmets are not mandatory, BIXI riders--since I'm guessing they won't be lugging around helmets of their own--will be that much less safe if they do ride.

I'm not dumping on the hard-working bike advocates trying to get this program going, More bikes, fewer cars is my mantra. I'm just failing to see who the target market is for BIXI and wondering if the docking stations will be as ugly as the rest of Toronto's street furniture.

Time will tell. In the meantime, ride ‘em if you’ve got ‘em!

In case you don't know when you're being a &#$@ing jerk

Click here.

You're fucking welcome, and get off your high horse why don't you?!

It won't be long until we really do become the fat, floating-chair society shown Wall-E.

To each his own, but...

A friend who loves Nolan's The Dark Knight doesn't like Inception at all. Hey, at least Inception didn't have the climax in the middle of the film. And, unlike the lumbering The Dark Knight, Inception fairly zips along.

Salt... m'eh

Caption: "Is this American Table Salt? Russian Table Salt?
Ah, who the hell knows? Too much! Too much!"

This one's being compared to the Jason Bourne movies. A better film to compare it to would be The Fugitive sequel, U.S. Marshals. Yes, Salt is that predictable and dull. It's a plot-heavy character-light film that zips along until it's over and you're left thinking "but how could she do--?" and "how would she know--?"

There's never any feeling that Salt is improvising her way through situations, which I assume is what we're supposed to believe she's doing. Everything happens by rote: every gunshot, every explosion, every kick, and no one is in any danger of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Baddies get shot, blown up, and kicked; Salt does not. And, in a case of stretching credibility particularly thin somehow our heroine can predict the outcome of crashing a car she's not driving nor buckled into, leaving her to walk away to the next set-piece.

A better action vehicle for Angelina than the awful Tomb Raider pictures, miles better than the morally-repugnant Wanted, but not as good as the very average Mr and Mrs Smith, which a least had some humour in it.

On the dollar scale: I paid $8 to see it, worth about $4.

More weirdness from writerspace

I can't prove it, but I think the idiot from this posting sent me another Email, from a different Email address. It has the same smarmy "charm" and egomaniacal flavour. I've not responded to anyone else who has sent me Emails (yet), so the reference to the little brother being a brat makes sense...

I've been thinking about it and I really think we should do this comedy thing. Sorry about my little brother being a brat. He can be annoying sometimes. Anywho when are you free? [...I] hope you haven't found another "partner in crimedy"!

So I have a few questions to ask about the project.

[...including] 4) What was your most embarrassing moment?

I'm really excited about this. My friends tell me I'm super funny (and super hot!). What do you want the different sketches to be?

I can't wait till we do live performances and make a lot of money (50/50, right babe?). I'll totally be the best writer you ever work with.

Message me back and send me a pic, babe.

Same guy, you think? And who calls another man "babe"? Either way, I'm not responding. (Moves mouse over the "report spam" button in Gmail...)