Pottermania

The unauthorized book The Great Snape Debate is just what the title suggests, arguments about just what side Snape plays for. While I’m not normally one to go for these types of things the fact that Orson Scott Card is one of the authors grabs my attention.

Root For Us

Our fair city (Portland ME) is a finalist for the Food Network’s “Delicious Destinations of the Year” award (to be revealed April 15). Honestly, I think Portland has a lot to shout about because it’s a pretty great food scene here, but man, there are a lot of other cities that should be on the list. I guess the key words the evaluators kept in mind are “rising cities with fast-growing food scenes.”

i love the zoo.

Over spring break, my parents and little sister came to visit me. One of our activities was a trip to the Riverbanks Zoo and Garden. The gardens weren’t too impressive since things hadn’t really started to bloom yet, but the zoo was a lot of fun. The best part was when we got to the giraffe exhibit it was feeding time. For a dollar, I was given a handful of carrots and food pellets which one of the giraffes scraped out of my hand with her top lip. A fun experience despite all the giraffe slobber. I also got to feed lorikeets.

Here is the zoo set on my Flickr page. After this trip I just had to go and buy a new camera.

R2D2 mailbox.

I remember seeing a post about the R2D2 mailboxes on Boing Boing last month, and about a week ago I saw this guy sitting outside the main post office here in Columbia. I drive past it every day and it makes me smile.

The USPS site is also done up in Star Wars fun. The stamps coming in May look great, except for the 41 cent price on them. Didn’t we just have a stamp price increase?

Hott Fuzz and Grindhouse

This last week was one of shiny new movie goodness. The cliches will fly for both of the new features we saw but cliches are often based in truth.

Wednesday night we went to the Paramount with ‘Topher Palmer and Carolee Mitchell to see Grindhouse. Grindhouse is a double feature from Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino (with trailers from Edgar Wright and Eli Roth) homage to the grindhouse cinema of the 70s and 80s. QT, Rodriguez and several stars were there. (Sidney Portier is hot and very tall.) It’s a violent gross-out thrill of zombies, psychopaths and automobile destruction. It is everything you expect, plus several of Austin’s Rollergirls have bit parts.

Sunday was a 12 hour cop movie marathon hosted by the Drafthouse and Edgar Wright that culminated in a US premiere of Hot Fuzz and a Q&A with Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. Hott Fuzz does for cop movies what Shaun of the Dead did for zombie movies. It’s hilarious while being true to the genre, and it delivers as a stand-alone cop movie too.

I didn’t get any good pictures, but Carolee has these snaps at her Flickr site.