On Blogging

From Christianity Today:

Nearly three years ago, Alan Jacobs wrote in Books and Culture, "Right now, and for the foreseeable future, the blogosphere is the friend of information but the enemy of thought."

I'm probably guilty as charged on that score.

Worth reading the whole thing

Two Things

Two comments on the video below:
1. Road Trip!
2. This is exactly how PoMonkey and I are going to end up, except that she will be the one continually giving up space to my growing collection of books.

Not sure how to title this one

The Cloud Appreciation Society - "we love clouds, we’re not ashamed to say it and we’ve had enough of people moaning about them."

Be sure to check out the gallery.

Different

Turtle Man

Does this cause orchid fever or is it the result of it?

MrG's NCAA Bracket

I scored 81.

The winning score was 177.

That puts me in 270,063rd place.

Based on what I know about and how closely I follow sports, that sounds about right.

Chalk -- B

I can't remember how I became aware of this film, but I popped it into the Blockbuster queue and soon it arrived.

Think The Office, but substitute your high-school for Dunder Mifflin.

Clearly they didn't have a lot of money, but they did have great affection for teachers and teaching. And actual life experience. PoMonkey, being a former teacher, absolutely loved it.

Hot Fuzz -- C- Shaun of the Dead -- C+

Who would have thought that Shaun of the Dead is better than Hot Fuzz? The former relies heavily on "inside" jokes that are unfamiliar to US audiences, which isn't necessarily a criticism, but certainly is an observation. It definitely has its funny moments, but it drags on a bit long.

Hot Fuzz, on the other hand, has few funny moments, and also drags on too long. Other complaints: the quick-cut editing was a cheap effort to ape Madonna's husband's style, and it's a bit bloody.

Or maybe I just don't appreciate British cinema.

Waitress -- B

When watching a film that is directed by the same person who wrote it, I sometimes wonder if and how the film would have benefitted from bringing in someone else to do the directing (The Final Cut comes to mind).

Such was the case with Waitress. It's a good movie, perhaps even very good. But not great.

The longer the movie went on, the less believable I found Keri Russell's character. I believed that she would simply stand up for herself (compare her boldness with her doctor and Old Joe with her timidity with her husband).

My good friend Taran has a thoughtful review of the high and low points of the film (warning, he totally gives away the ending in the fifth paragraph, so you might want to skip over it). I agree with the points he raises, but I think I would still recommend the movie.

Built to Last?

Wednesday morning as I'm putting on my shoes one of the laces breaks. Frustrating, yes. But in the grand scheme of things not that big a deal. I wore other shoes.

Later in the day I remembered that I purchased the shoes in January 1998. Hmm. 10 years. I guess that's not so bad for a shoe lace.