August 28th, 2008, 1 Comment »
Just a quick post on upcoming speaking gigs. I’m lightening up on the speaking a bit, what with all the book-writing, house-building and, you know, working, I’ve got to get done.
- I’m going to Toronto for a corporate thing on September 9, in case anybody wants to have coffee.
- On September 11, Julie and I are speaking at the Internet Marketing Conference.
- On September 27, Julie and I are giving a talk at BarCamp Vancouver. It’s not about marketing (saints be praised): “How to Be a Laptop Bedouin - Julie and Darren are going to start a conversation about living where your work isn’t, and what tools and techniques you need to live in Africa and work in Yaletown.”
- October 24 to 27, I’m giving various talks and workshops at the Surrey International Writer’s
Festival Conference.
- On October 24, I’ll also be giving a short talk at the inaugural, uh, instantiation of Interesting Vancouver. I’ve come up with a new topic for that: “How I Enumerate My Life”. Hopefully it’ll be more entertaining than it sounds.
- On November 14, Julie and I are giving a talk at a CPRS conference right here in Victoria.
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May 5th, 2008, 2 Comments »
Jules points to a handy, easy-to-implement list of simple things that you can do to help the planet. Here are a few favourites:
- Hang dry. I also do this because I’m obsessed with my clothes not shrinking.
- Go vegetarian once a week.
- Telecommute.
- Abandon your answering machine. Apparently if everybody switched to voice mail, “the annual energy savings would total nearly two billion kilowatt-hours”.
- Pay bills online.
These changes aren’t going to save the planet from environmental Armageddon, but they’re a good start.
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January 29th, 2008, 4 Comments »
Via Waxy, here is The Hype Machine’s list of the top 50 albums of 2007. They gathered the results based on the top ten lists of 648 music bloggers, and is probably the best list you’ll find of popular bands with some indie cred. I wonder, demographically speaking, who the average music blogger is? I’m guessing an American, 24-year-old male, but I have no evidence to back this up.
I’m just pleased to own four albums out of the top 20. That’s a real improvement over recent years of music apathy, let me tell you.
It’s interesting to compare that list with Metacritic’s list of the top albums of 2007. They aggregate reviews from the mainstream media and some online heavy hitters (see a sample set for reviews of In Rainbows). Presumably these folks are also mostly male, though they’re probably older than the average music blogger. Still, there’s a lot of similarities in the two lists.
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September 29th, 2007, 4 Comments »
This is making the rounds about the web, but in case you haven’t seen it, it’s a list entitled Top 50 Dystopian Movies of All Time. There’s no original commentary–just plot summaries from other sites. That’s a bit lame, but it’s neat to see all these movies in one place, as dystopian worlds are a favourite setting of mine.
Here are a few less popular films from the list which I enjoyed and are worth mentioning:
- Equilibrium - It’s not a very good film, but it has its charms. Plus, I’m a fan of Christian Bale–I think he’s a little under-appreciated.
- District 13 - A French film, and only remarkable because of its excellent fight and chase scenes.
- Dark City - A head-wrecking, visionary film that mixes a beef stew of influences into something new and deeply weird. Plus, I could watch Jennifer Connelly watch paint dry.
- The City of Lost Children - I don’t remember much about this movie, but I do remember being impressed.
- Code 46 - This is a wonderful film that hardly anybody saw. Do yourself a favour and rent it. The leads–Samantha Morton and Tim Robbins. I wrote a review when I saw it in the theatre.
I think the fan-boy (and fan-girl) factor has pushed V for Vendetta and Serenity too far up this list. And I’m not even sure if the latter qualifies–where’s Star Wars, then?. They’re both good movies, but they certainly don’t merit their placings at #23 and #15 respectively.
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