What I'm Watching and Reading These Days

My new course is keeping me so busy, I’m getting no other reading done. I’m writing a 25-page paper on Alice Munro’s treatment on the mother-daughter relationship, so I’m rereading all her stuff as well as criticism and a couple of biographies. That is on top of the course list, which is also a handful. I’m loving it though—it’s turning me on to authors I hadn’t read much before, like Guy de Maupassant and Kate Chopin.

Anyway, I don’t have any new fiction reviews for you, so Cakes stepped up to fill in. Her latest obsession is Cock-a-Doodle Quack Quack, a sweet little book about a young rooster who doesn’t know how he’s supposed to wake everyone up in the morning. He asks all his barnyard pals, including Cakes’ favourites, the ducky ducks, but no one can give him the right answer. Finally, the wise old owl sets him straight: if he listens, he will learn. Whimsically illustrated with gorgeous, vivid colour, the book is charming. You picked a winner Cakes.

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Well, I’m not be perfect, or funny, or just, or thinking, but apparently I rock! Sam at Temporarily Me has awarded me with my very first blogging award, The Rockin’ Girl Blogger. Thanks so much, that rocks! I’ll pass it on to crazymumma, who I'll be rockin' with up North this weekend. Can't wait.

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The Future is a No Brainer

If you’re into some toilet humour for a rainy summer evening, check out Idiocracy. Created by Mike Judge, the man behind Office Space and Beavis and Butt-head, Idiocracy begins in present time. The high-IQ men and women are postponing childbearing, choosing to establish careers and financial stability first. Meanwhile the, ahem, less intelligent are reproducing like rabbits, creating a weaker and weaker gene pool.

Luke Wilson stars as Private Joe Bauers, who is selected by the US Military for a top-secret hibernation experiment because of his average intellect. Due to a lack of willing female military candidates, Rita, a local prostitute, is also selected to participate. The hibernation was to last only a year, but after a huge scandal the man in charge is arrested and Joe and Rita are soon forgotten, the pods in which they lay frozen eventually built over by a super-store.

Fast-forward to 500 years later. The population is dumb as hell and the world is in trouble. Big corporations rule the planet, the president is the smack-down champion and language has deteriorated to a combination of grunts and slang. When a garbage avalanche (we still don’t know what to do with our garbage) dislodges Joe and Rita’s pods, they emerge to find themselves the smartest folks in the world and the future is in their hands.

I love me some low comedy. Idiocracy is a very entertaining satire.

My flix list is getting low. What have y’all seen on DVD lately?