December 7th, 2009

For Your Information

1) The Fantastic Mr. Fox is pure unadulterated joy. Go if you like animated movies, film technology, Wes Anderson, or subtly weird humour. I think go if you like Roald Dahl, but I haven’t actually read the book on which the film is based (don’t start with me) so I can’t say for certain. That link above is the Rotten Tomatoes Top Critics page–the film got 100% tomatoes (that’s good, yo!) Also, I’m still slightly nauseated from laughing so hard. “I see…a fox on a motorcycle…with a slightly littler fox in the sidecar, along with what might be an opossum-type creature…this mean anything to anyone?” See it even if you are not or do not possess children–this film has enough layers for anyone.

2) Did you know Facebook has friend-spam? You get these friend requests from randos and then if you do it, they just send you ads and things. Well, they do, and this is why I never respond to FB friend-requests from people whose names I don’t recognize and who don’t send a note. If, however, some nice friendly blog reader thought it’d be fun to be my FB friend, I would totally endorse that. So, if you happen to be one of several people I don’t know who friended me in the past couple days, but are not a spammer or a stalker, please send me a note to that effect and friends we shall be.

3) I am listed as one of the judges for the University of Toronto Alumni Writing Contest, story division. I’m thrilled to be associated with the amazing stories that won, as well as the energy in the UofT Magazine office that got it together, and my groovy fellow judges.

However, a wee disclaimer here, as you might have noted that a very dear friend of mine won. So you should know that another judge read “Georgia Coffee Star” in the first round, and when it appeared on my list in the 2nd, I made arrangements to recuse myself in further rounds. Which wound up being a sort of fascinating experience, as the rest of the committee made exactly the decisions I would have made, for rather different reasons. Everything I do with short stories teaches me something.

Anyway, I’m so pleased for Kerry’s winning story–go read!

RR