Books(in140) & Other Things

So Matt started a new blog this week, Y Working. It’s about the generational gap in today’s workplace.

The site’s only been up a few days, but it’s something Matt’s thought a lot about over the past few years and he’s got a lot of interesting things to say.

I’m not just saying that because I date him. Although, it’ll be nice to have someone else listen to him for a change!

For months I’ve been meaning to post some insightful meta-crap about living in Toronto and what it means to be a small-town Nova Scotian living in Toronto. It’s supposed to blacken my soul and harden my heart; a horror I don’t realize it until some family tragedy forces me home and I open my eyes and see that a community of high unemployment, low population and little to do is really the way to the good, the truth and the light.

I always hated Toronto growing up. Hated it for having the things Digby didn’t, hated it for appearing to have economic and political clout, hated it for the fact my parents’ income couldn’t buy them a one bedroom condo downtown there, hated it for being smug and superior, hated it for being smoggy, hated it for being there.

Then I moved here. It wasn’t intentional, it was just the path my life took. It made sense to live here and no sense not to. I still can’t fully embrace living in Toronto (hell, living in Ontario), because somewhere I’m convinced a little part of me will die.

I don’t even like Digby. And I still can’t do it.

However, I’ve realized a few things. Toronto gets the short end of the stick most of the time. I can take the subway regularly (during rush hour!) and not want to kill myself. It’s actually nice to be able to shop at three different Gaps in a single day if I really wanted to. Saying hello to the hooker who works the corner is a nice thing to do. That even though I live in the downtown core–within walking distance of all those icons that make Toronto what it is–it bugs the hell out of me that my walk to school is routed so that I can’t see the CN Tower.

The fucking Soctiabank building is in the way.

So yeah. This wasn’t profound at all. But then, neither is living in Toronto.

Matt killed BE Something yesterday. It was a sad but necessary death. Now that I actually go to school for hours on end (as opposed to spending all day in my pajamas reading stuff and “thinking”), Matt commutes like a maniac, and there’s that damn writers’ strike (for the record, I support the writers!) there hasn’t been much activity over there. It makes me sad.

But what can you do?

Maybe I’ll revive it when the new season of America’s Next Top Model starts. Those recaps made me pretty popular. I’d like to think it was my stellar wit and not my fantastic Google ranking.

The nominees are in! And finally, this is a year where I’ve seen enough films that I don’t have to make blind guesses about most of the categories. Sadly, there might not even be a ceremony this year, leaving any hilarious live-blogging attempts futile. You can’t blog an hour-long news conference, even if Billy Bush is a moron.

The nominees are below the jump:

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Here is my magazine website anaylsis assignment for my Mags 2.0 class for the Book and Magazine Publishing Program at Centennial College.

All three magazine selected, The Walrus, Entertainment Weekly and Teen Vogue have an established online presence of varying success. Here they are, presented from best to worst.

The Walrus

The Walrus is one of the best 2.0 magazines out there. They have lots of unique online content that is interactive, including eight different blogs from various contributors, regular podcasts which can be subscribed to via iTunes, a Discussion section featuring articles of particularly interesting or hot topics, and interactive and online galleries.

Their RSS options are showcased on their header, multiple times on their sidebar and in their footer. They have several different subscription options including their Features, Blogs, Field Notes, Discussions, Podcasts, and News and Events.

All these features are clearly showcased on the frontpage of The Walrus’s website, using a clear color-coded system. The ability to subsribe to any of these features is evident using the RSS icon button beside each headline.

You have several options through which you can subcribe to their feed using both online RSS feeds as well as desktop software through a variety of programs. For their content that is free to readers, several social bookmarking sites are available at the top of each article including RSS. They are clear and use the bookmark tools’ original icons, yet integrate seamlessly into the design of the website. New readers can immediately recognize the site’s interactive potential no matter where they enter the site from and then are immediately provided with several different options through which they can interact and bookmark the site.

The Walrus provides its readers with a variety of 2.0 content. There is essentially something for everyone. The 2.0 element is very clear with the Walrus from the get-go and it has more online and interatvie content than most 2.0 and online magazines. However, it is frustrating when you are navigating their website and hit a “sorry this is for subscribers only” page. Advertisers and editors should be able to easily recognize The Walrus’s interactive new media approach and be able to easily capitalize on this opportunity for developing new and innovative content and reaching consumers.

Analysis of Entertainment Weekly and Teen Vogue below the jump!

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I saw 27 Dresses last night. It was one of those movies I pretend to hate, but will watch over and over again while wearing pajamas, eating ice cream, crying at the most random parts and feeling sorry for myself.

The plot is simple enough. The plain-Jane perennial-bridesmaid type secretly pines away for the perfect man, gets upstaged by perky and flashy younger sister, disaster ensues, gains self assertion, realizes that that asshole who was using her for some reason is the one and it’s happily ever after for all.

James Marsden was delicious but flat. I find it hard to believe someone as attractive as him would be forever stuck in the “Commitments” section of any newspaper, but I’ll suspend such disbelief for now. In his defense, he wasn’t given much to work with.

Judy Greer overplayed her over-sexed simple-minded best-friend character. She normally gives these characters more depth.

Katherine Heigl held her own, but she lacks that spark that makes a romantic comedy starlet really work. Reese has it, Julia has it, Cameron has it. Katherine’s not quite there yet. But it’s her second major film (unless you reaaally want to count My Father, the Hero.

I need to point out a bias here: I can’t stand her. She has this aura of self-righteous self-entitlement (see: most interviews with her, her Emmy acceptance speech) that transfers over to most of the characters she plays. In 27 Dresses, she was playing the insecure wallflower and it came across as “I’m an insecure wallflower because I deserve to be.” as opposed to, say, Anne Hathaway, who plays plain jane characters whose plainness stems from naivete. In such a case, when the wallflower finally gets the guy, you get a little gooey inside as they evolve and find love. With Jane in 27 Dresses, that growth wasn’t really there.

The best element of this film were the bridesmaid dresses. The mandatory montage was well done, the closet anchored the film and I enjoyed how it call came together in the end, as cliche as it was.

So in sum, 27 Dresses accomplished exactly what it set out to do: produce a cotton-candy colored sugar-coated romance and propel James Marsden and Katherine Heigl into A-list stars. It’s a cliche bubblegum click flick. Nothing more, nothing less.