A Medley of Extemporanea

The Ethical Dilemma Presented by #AmazonFail

Feb05

by berry on February 5, 2010 at 4:43 pm

I would like to get my lovely wife a certain book that she is constantly taking out of the library then having to return it as, yet again, someone else requested it. It is one of those low production books that I haven’t been able to find anywhere in Canada. In fact, the only place (online) that I’ve found is Amazon.com. With the whole hurly burly going on now I’m less inclined to send them my money at the moment.

“But wait,” you say, “aren’t you also punishing the author by not buying her book?”

That, my friend, is where I’m getting dilemmaed. On the one hand, this author has been consistently not alive for almost a dozen years, and so is probably past the point of caring; on the other, her estate would probably benefit, and sweetie of mine would be happy.

Update: Problem solved. I ordered it directly from the publisher. That works.

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Eeet’s So Big!

Feb04

by berry on February 4, 2010 at 11:14 pm

Posted In: Uncategorized

So, it’s finally come. Despite all of the pandemonium that’s hit the various Apple sites over the last couple of months, this thing is pristine, gorgeous, and smoking fast. Ahhh… 😉

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In Which I Notice the Oscars

Feb03

by berry on February 3, 2010 at 5:57 pm

Posted In: deep thoughts, Film

So the Oscar nominations were released yesterday, and it got me thinking: I don’t go to the cinema as often anymore. There’s a reason, obviously, described in detail here. I’m not whinging, I’m just noticing.

I have been keeping stats for the last five years of my film watching habits. Since January 2006 I’ve seen 497 movies; 53 since January 2009. In this time, I’ve seen 9 in the cinema including 3 Oscar contenders (albeit for Art Direction, Cinematography, Makeup and Score (Sherlock Holmes has two)! In comparison, in our last pre-kid year, I saw 62 at the cinema, but only 9 contenders. Only 2 of the 9 were in a major category (Adapted Screenplay). I guess it doesn’t scale. Is this more of the same not wanting to follow the crowd viz my last post? Who knows.

I don’t think I’m missing out though, as documented. I just find the dramatic shift in focus, well… dramatic.

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Revisiting Old Prejudices

Feb03

by berry on February 3, 2010 at 11:23 am

Posted In: deep thoughts

There are things that I haven’t done in life merely because I’ve said to myself, “Self, just because everyone else thinks A doesn’t mean you have to as well.”

This is silly, of course, but has some ramifications. I’ve never, for instance, read anything by Isaac Asimov, by all accounts one of the grand poobahs of science fiction. The last movie I’d seen starring Tom Cruise was Top Gun (I have seen cameo type films, namely Goldmember and Young Guns). I lost Lost.

Not a big deal, true, since other than the reading, I don’t think I’m losing anything other than water cooler conversation by not watching Tom or the cast of Lost go about their business. I decided to revisit this because of Tropic Thunder. Funny movie, but I was really watching it to tick off another Steve Coogan movie (another of my foibles, completism). My favourite character in the film was the producer. Bojana and I had been debating the length of the film who it could be, since he looked so familiar. Tom Cruise. Huh.

Now, another will fall (unless I don’t end up reading it, it happens in a busy house). The Wiki page for L. Sprague de Camp mentions that he was part of a monthly banqueting club that had been fictionalized in a series of short stories that sounded so interesting, I had to read them. The first should be at my library today. The author? Isaac Asimov.

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