etc.

· celebrating: one weekend, two weddings. My cup runneth over.
· gathering a small covey of books to release in Montreal this weekend. Ever since news arrived that a previous Book Crossing release of mine had been captured (and re-released – I swelled with pride when I saw it), my enthusiasm has been renewed.
· reviewing: some of you have noticed that updates on the film page have been pokey off late. Some backstory: I originally went with five word reviews because I was having trouble with relative rating scales and the fwfr people had just come along and it was so easy to filch the idea right out from under them. So I did. I don’t know who I was kidding, I am far too verbose to condense my thoughts into five coherent words and I’ve never been any good at self-editorship. So, to hell with it, I started reviewing films elsewhere, using as many words as I liked and it was all on the QT while I worked out whether or not I could sustain such an endeavour. Almost one month later and I think I can.
· shutterbugging: Saturday morning we were having our breakfast on the deck at 8am (plain yoghurt with wild blueberries thrown in, those of you who know me will be impressed at the giant strides I am taking towards uniting fruit and dairy in my life). Peche came to visit and while Mike held her down, I ran in for my camera. Finally, some pictures.
· reading and scribbling notes for my chapter: I approched my editors with a change in topic and I haven’t had confirmation yet that it’s OK, but I’m forging ahead nonetheless. It’s going well.

Honey, is it just me or is it cold in here?

I liked this film. John Travolta plays a former-ranger current-DEA-agent/interrogator who is called back to his old ranger training base to talk to two lone survivors of a training mission gone awry. There was a decent amount of schmaltz and the non-existent sexual tension between the two lead characters made for very predictable repartee, but by the end of it, I liked it. The story was twisted and had lots of “but-wait” moments but it all came together in the end. Mostly.

Not just any bunny for dinner tonight [not for the faint of heart].

Magazine photograph touchups, here’s some solid mouseover proof. [caterina]

Bloggers block on Doonesbury.

Have I sidebared the Blogaholic Quiz before? I don’t think so.

Peche is her name, as I’ve mentioned before. We haven’t really adopted her because she looks well-fed and we can only assume that means she is already someone else’s pet, either that or the whole neighbourhood is feeding her, like we are, sneaking handfulls of kitty kibble when our own cats aren’t looking and filling old bowls full of water and leaving them out for her to quench her thirst on. Lord knows, this neighbourhood is full of cats and cat owners, we all have access to kitty kibble and Peche is practically angelic, who could help but get taken by her fuzzy kitten-ness and tiny mew?

She is an intrepid little thing, fearless really, she bolts up the tree in our neighbour’s backyard, chasing impetuous squirrels all the way up. And no getting caught high up in the tree and needing a fireman-rescue, oh no, not for our Peche. Once her interest in the squirrel has waned, she rests for a few moments in the highest branches of this very old, very tall maple tree and then shimmies her way down without missing a beat. All those leaps and fearless bounds on thin kitten legs, it’s like watching those monkeys that swing in trees in the African Sahara on the Discovery Channel. Sometimes she gets us a little worried because the squirrels don’t often stop in the tress but instead use them to get to the hydro lines above and run across those to get to the next tree, which is often across the road, and Peche, not knowing better, hankers after them, obviously assuming that she too can conquer the hydro line, if the squirrels can why can’t she? And she probably could, she just hasn’t tried yet.

She’s a jumbled mix of grey and white and peachy hues, and if I could take her picture, I would, she’s just such a restless soul, all affectionate and chatty one minute, and the next chasing after two dobermans on leashes, being walked by their owner who scratches his head and chuckles at this tiny creature, so chockful of moxie, who thinks she can take on big dogs with her fierce hiss and ferocious kitten claws all the while weaving through his legs, just looking for love.

Have you played the FAQ&A game yet? Predictable odds, folks: the more you enter, the better your chance of winning.

It sometimes happens that I watch a movie based on a book I have not read, like it, and therefore feel the need to read the book even though I already know how it all ends. Or not, you can never really tell with Hollywood I guess. When this happens, more often than not, I really like the book too, and usually more than I liked the film. This time is no exception.

Monty Brogan is a former drug dealer who has 24 hours of freedom left before he gets sent to Otisville Federal Penitentiary to serve a seven year prison sentence. The book details these last 24 hours in an unsentimental and sometimes darkly humourous way. Monty is a brazen, vaguely smarmy, hipster who has earned a living off of other people’s weaknesses, but Benioff does a great job of making him sympathetic even though he remains recalcitrant throughout the book. He spends his last hours celebrating with his two friends: Frank, a bond trader, and Jakob, a teacher. The juxtaposition is an interesting one because it sort of illustrates that for all his evil-doing, Monty is actually a good guy, certainly nicer than his high-wheeling, predatory, bond-trading friend, and far more well-adjusted than his other, sexually-awkward, pedophile friend. By the end of the book, you’re rooting for Monty all the way.

Sidenote: the film script follows the novel very closely with a couple of very minor deviations. The most striking difference for me was that in the film, Monty (played by the very earnest Ed Norton) was even more sympathetic than he was in the book, with a couple of key details (like his final-hour romp with a prostitute) edited out. Probably a clean-up job for the audience.