Pop Culture Happy Hour did a Small Batch on Monday about David Bowie - it was supposed to be about the Golden Globes, but of course this was more important.

I finally listened to it on Friday on my commute in and teared up in a couple of places, everything Linda and Stephen had to say was perfect. And they did put a bit of Golden Globes in at the end, and put into words something about courage and bravery that I think my brain has been trying to settle on for a long time.

We talked about the Hot Coffee case in my Legal Issues class last spring, I admit I was once one of those people who scoffed at it as an example of frivolous law suits. Yes, it was hot coffee, yes she spilled it on herself - but turns out there was far more to it.

For example, if the coffee being served is hot enough to cause third degree burns (that's when you need skin grafts folks), is 'caution, hot' really helpful (safe 'hot' coffee would be 60°C, which I would still find too hot - while McDonalds kept theirs at 82-88°C, enough to cause serious burns in 2 seconds)?

Also, when all she wanted was enough to cover expenses (medical expenses plus short-term loss of income) of $20k and McDonalds only offered $800, it becomes a totally different story. And they were sitting on another 700 reports of people being burned and had previously settled cases for more than $500k.

She was already pretty old when it happened, afterward she needed a live-in nurse and went through eight days of skin grafting and a further two years of medical treatment.

Long Live The Duke

This morning brought terrible news: the Thin White Duke has passed.

Cottage day 8: not long now

Another lovely day - not quite as lovely as yesterday though, when we finally got enough sun for me to break out my bathing suit and sunbathe for a bit. I'm not absolutely fish-belly-white anymore! I wouldn't go so far as to call it a tan though.

Cottage day five: The Cottagening

Today The Boy left to go back South (TFC was calling) so T and I went into Sudbury to get groceries. And didn't come back for 6-1/2 hours. That's what it is to go for proper groceries and lunch up here - either you get meagre overpriced pickings in town (perfectly understandable of course) or you drive out to get proper groceries, too many DVDs, cottage supplies, boating supplies, lunch and cheezies. We chose the latter.

Gloomy cottage afternoons

T and The Boy and I came up to the cottage on Friday night, driving through absolutely terrible traffic until past Barrie and rain just ahead of us most of the way, making our usual stop in Parry Sound (this time we needed lemon for our LawnGuyLand Iced Tea), finally docking at the cottage about an hour later than we'd originally planned - but the water! The water was so high we could almost walk from the floating dock to the upper dock! So nice to see, I've been coming up here since 2001 and I've never seen it this high - T says it's been about 30 years. Big difference from a couple of years ago when we broke not one but TWO propellers on the boat within three days.

iPhoto/Flickr shenanigans

Meme Generator

Today has been a long, beautiful Sunday afternoon. Took The Boy for brunch for his birthday, went to the beach (where the water was WAY too cold), visited The Boy's family, swam in the pool (which was perfect, I'm so spoiled), went for dinner. Then I thought I'd do a bit of blog maintenance - I've now added a 'related posts' widget thingie, do you like it?

Way too obvious, Cineplex.

via Meme Generator

So I noticed about a month or so ago that the size of the concession stand drinks has changed, but the price has not. I just made the assumption they were after more money and left it at that.

Things that happened today

• Had a good hair day
• Made it through another shower with my nails intact
• Didn't need my jacket even after 9pm
• Was thwarted, along with the rest of the world, in my attempt to buy Gally tickets for February
• Had a relatively healthy lunch, which then disagreed with me
• Saw Avengers: Age of Ultron with friends
• Was rewarded for spending yesterday cleaning up my filing
• Discovered that, once I fix my tax return, I'll still be getting money back - 30% less but still OK
• Found out my next course is going to end two weeks earlier than previously scheduled BUT will require TWO SATURDAY MORNING CLASSES to do it

A couple of hiccups, but still a good day.

I miss a man I've never met.

Gorgeous original from MR-Bestiya

Yesterday, the world lost someone amazing. Someone I'd never met, and yet I feel his absence sharply. Someone who many say helped shape their minds and dreams, someone who showed us that every day was a blessing and every person was unique. I speak, of course, about Leonard Nimoy.

Quick thoughts on Interstellar

Went to see it on the IMAX screen with T and my Work Wife. Briefly, here are some thoughts (a few minor spoilers on cast and plot, be warned):

Movies by year: 2007

So 2007 was a mixed bag - Stephen King gave us both the underrated 1408 and The Mist, Neil Gaiman brought us the delightful Stardust and the violent CGI Beowulf, the sun got jump-started in Sunshine, torsos glistened in 300, and it was goodies versus baddies in Hot Fuzz and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. With all that seriousness (yes even Hot Fuzz), I needed a break with a good laugh.

Movies by year: 2006

2006. NASA sent New Horizons to Pluto, and later that year it was demoted to a dwarf planet. The baiji dolphin's deafening, blind existence ended as the species finally hits extinction. A little site called Twitter launched. And I saw a ton of movies.

Bond returned with a new face in Casino Royale. My heart pounded through The Descent. The Fountain was gorgeous and made us all scratch our heads. The Illusionist and The Prestige competed for saddest magician ever. Night Watch was a ridiculously stylish film.

And then there was...

Movies by year: 2005

(Be a leaf on the wind and avoid the spoilers below!)

2005 had some great movies that everyone heard of (Batman Begins, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, War Of The Worlds, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire), some long-awaited but not universally well-received ones (Constantine, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Sin City, V For Vendetta) and some really interesting ones from out of left-field (Brick, The Matador). But there was really no question about what film I would choose to talk about for this year:

Movies by year: 2004

(Aim for the head - spoilers ahead!)

We're up to 2004! And what a year for film it was. Wes Anderson came back with my favourite of his (so far), The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou; M. Night Shyamalan also returned with the mixed The Village; we had a variety of heroes with Hellboy, The Incredibles and Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow; and Daniel Craig made dangerous waves in Layer Cake. But my favourite had a bit of everything:

Movies by year: 2003

(I love spoilers, don't you? There are some here, be warned!)

There were some big blockbusters in 2003. The Return Of The King closed out The Lord Of The Rings trilogy with a splash; we got our first look at Johnny Depp's Keith Moon/Pepe LePew amalgam in Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl; Pixar gave us the amazing Finding Nemo; The Italian Job was super slick; and X2: X-Men United brought us an explanation for Wolverine's claws. But there were a couple of smaller films that I can't decide between so we'll just talk about both:

Sssshhh - listen!

Why do we talk to ourselves when alone? Perhaps it's because somewhere, in the bottom of our minds, we know there's someone listening. Spoilers ahead.

Movies by year: 2002

(Sssh, the spoilers will hear you!)

Films seemed to stop pulling punches in 2002, and we got a lot of 'both-sides-of-the-coin' sort of selection: 28 Days Later and Bubba Ho-tep redefined Zombie culture in very different ways; The Bourne Identity, xXx and Undercover Brother were three completely different takes on the spy genre; Minority Report, The Transporter and Catch Me If You Can gave us great long-form chases; Secretary and My Big Fat Greek Wedding showed us very different ideas of love; and Hugh Grant reinvented himself with About A Boy.

But there was a little one that came and went without much fuss, though it deserved more...

Yikes and away - it's Robin Hood!

This weekend's episode of Doctor Who fell directly into the 'light and fun' category. There are spoilers ahead...

Movies by year: 2001

(What was that? Was that a spoiler? Look out!)

2001 saw the beginning of not one, not two but THREE successful franchises, that also happened to be very good (The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring, Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone and Ocean's Eleven; Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson brought Derek Zoolander and Hansel to the stage; Jake Gyllenhall starred in the game-changer Donnie Darko; Audrey Tautou stole the hearts of everyone in Amélie; and the controversy around the fake reviews of A Knight's Tale kept me from giving it - or Heath Ledger - a chance (turned out it was a lot of fun, and Ledger was kind of awesome).

This little film came and went quickly, but it made quite an impression...