the pod bay door

:: Stevie Ray and I saw Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith this afternoon. I had tickets for the 6:45 pm show, and we arrived early, around 4:15, assuming long lineups would be in order. It was the opposite: small lines had formed for some of the later shows, but no line for the 6:45 show had started. As we prepared to wait in line for two hours, a colleague and her family walked by, and said they had exchanged their tickets for the 4:45 pm show, which was in Theatre 1 (the biggest of 16 theatres at South Edmonton Common). We decided to do the same, quickly swapped our tickets, and entered Theatre 1, and found two great seats in the top row.

This was a bit of an event for us; when Stevie (a good friend’s daughter) was 8, I took her to see The Phantom Menace, and when she was 11, The Attack of the Clones. We had a blast, and really enjoyed the movie. It’s easily the best of the first three episodes, with space ship and light sabre battles like nothing seen before. The history and background of the characters is explained, and we learn how Luke and Leia become separated to live on different planets, how Anakin morphs into Darth Vader, why Yoda ends up on Dagobah, and more. The dreaded Jar Jar Binks appears in two scenes with no lines, and C-3PO’s role is also reduced. Most of the dialogue remains true to the bad space opera of the other five episodes, but the performances do compensate for it. Ewan McGregor is solid, Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman have matured into their roles, but it’s Ian McDiarmid as Darth Sidious/Chancellor Palpatine who chews up the screen and steals most of his scenes from the other actors. I’m surprised that he hasn’t appeared in more movies. The other scene stealer is Yoda – what more can I say? I also found it easier to accept Samuel L Jackson as Mace Windu – in the previous two films, I couldn’t separate the actor from the character. This time, I bought it – his character’s presence is much more convincing, and he has one great light sabre duel as well.

Besides the release of the last Star Wars ever (or is it?), Canada’s government barely survived a confidence vote today (it was a 152-152 tie), with the Speaker having to cast the deciding vote in favour of the governing Liberal Party. A defeat would have resulted in another federal election, less that a year after the 2004 vote.

This morning, my clothes dryer gave indications that it wants to move on and meet its maker. So after SWIII, I dropped by Sears Home and ordered a Kenmore washer and dryer on sale for $940 or so, with tax. Both will be delivered next Friday with the sofa I purchased in April. Yes, I am still zen with the debt load.

Tomorrow I’m off to Lethbridge, and to Sunburst MT on Saturday for my friend Sharon’s son’s high school grad ceremony, and then back to Lethbridge on Sat night, returning home to Edmonton on Monday. Twelve days later, it’s off to Toronto for SLA.

This news release from Westjet is very cool:

WestJet (TSX:WJA), Bell ExpressVu (TSX:BC.PR.A) and LiveTV (NASDAQ:JBLU) today announced that all 39 of WestJet’s Boeing Next-Generation 737-700 aircraft are now equipped with live satellite television. WestJet is the first and only airline in Canada to offer an in-flight TV service that can be individually controlled by each guest from the comfort of their own seat.

WestJet’s complimentary satellite TV service offers a selection of up to 24 television channels from Bell ExpressVu in every seatback on all of WestJet’s 737-700 aircraft, including news, sports, music, children’s and leisure programming. The real-time in-flight experience features individual adjustable seatback screens, personal headphones and an armrest control to change TV channels, brightness and volume levels.

I wonder how long, if at all, it will take Air Canada to follow suit. All the more reason to fly on WestJet. As fate would have it, my flight to and from Toronto in June is on AC.

I am so tired…

:: I renewed my membership in the GeekBoy Club this evening by purchasing two advance tickets to the May 19th, 1830 hrs showing of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. The early reviews are mostly positive, with the Critics Tomatometer reading 86% positive as of this evening. A number of reviewers are calling it the best SW installment since The Empire Strikes Back, which was directed by Irvin Kirshner.

:: Mike sent an e-mail reminding me that Arianna Huffington‘s new blog debuted this week on the web. It gained notoriety weeks before it began, when it was announced that the blog, part of the new web site, The Huffington Post, and known simply as “The Blog“, would feature up to 300 “celebrity” bloggers, including the following who have already contributed brief entries: Larry David, Walter Cronkite, Tina Brown, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Brad Hall, Mike Nichols, John Cusack, Ellen DeGeneres, David Mamet, Harry Shearer, Paul Krassner, and David Frum. The group (so far) leans heavily to the left, and features mostly members of the entertainment industry. I love John Cusack (I want to BE John Cusack!), but I’m not sure what qualifies him and the others from film, tv, and music, to be blog columnists. Then again, doesn’t that define blogs – anyone can write about anything at any time, without the worry of a deadline or an editor? In this instance, the posts are edited, according to Mike, but I can’t find anything on the site to confirm this.

One thing missing from the blog are comments – readers cannot respond to the posts. Another section of The Post, The News Wire, does allow comments. It’s unfortunate that comments are not allowed on the blog. Comments on blogs are what make them interactive and worth revisiting. Comments make a blog lively and challenging by allowing for discussion and discourse.

I was talking recently with colleagues who like myself, contribute library-related blogs to the field. There are many good blogs covering many different aspects of librarianship. That said, I wondered out loud if we are approaching the moment where library blogs experience some kind of dot-com bust, wherein we reach a critical mass, and the library blogosphere does a self-correction, and reduces in size. Might the same thing happen to other subject-related blog communities?

My Bloglines feeds currently number 143 – there is no way I can keep up with following most of them. Arianna Huffington has created a community blog, with up to 300 handpicked contributors, perhaps the highest profile blog of its type. Will it be possible to keep up with so many contributors, or will it be easier because all are contributing to the same site?

The politics notwithstanding, I’ll be interested to see how this new template of a blog is received, and how it will develop. If only she would add comments to the mix.

Also published on Blogcritics.com.

:: Comment function is not working. Again. I’ll try to fix it soon. My apologies. Again. Argh.

:: Update – comments working again.

:: I’ll be in Jasper tomorrow until Sunday afternoon, attending the Alberta Library Conference.