Stephen Colbert the Sunday School Teacher

Every once in a while it's time to post something from You Tube and this is one of those times. Dave who writes at FIKA was telling some of us about an interview he saw on The Colbert Report recently. It sounded interesting so we looked for it on You Tube and sure enough it was there.

He's interviewing a guy named Philip Zimbardo who wrote a book called The Lucifer Effect. FYI this clip has some language that has been bleeped out and may be offensive.

Click on this link to view.

It seems he really is a Sunday school teacher too.

"Stephen is a happy man,'' Karlin says. "He goes home to a lovely wife in New Jersey with a new dog and three beautiful children. He teaches Sunday school and knows his way around the kitchen. And then he has this deviously brilliant comedic mind." link - (top of page 2)

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More Snow!

So we are having a great winter here in Southern Ontario. That is if you like snow. This is the 3rd time we've had this much snow and our driveway snow banks have been this high. The thing is that it keeps warming up enough to melt it all before the next one comes. So at least it hasn't all totally piled up. Anyway, here are some pics from this morning after Dad and I cleared the driveway. You'll notice in the second picture there is something sticking up in the snow. Yes that's a fire hydrant almost buried. I guess we should maybe dig that out a bit for safety reasons! The last pic is just looking up our street. I love how the snow rests on those large coniferous trees. It looks so pretty. It sounds like we might have more coming again this weekend!!

Glenn

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Once

We took the plunge and tried out the itunes movie rental service the other night. We'd definitely do it again. No trips to Blockbuster, no having to worry about returning it, download was fast, quality was good enough for our TV. We don't watch movies hardly ever so it was a nice treat.

Anyway, we rented the movie Once as it was one of the ones listed under movies to rent for Valentines. (Click on that link so you can hear some of the music while you are reading the rest of this post!!!) If you enjoy music and a departure from the big Hollywood productions this movie is for you. Here are a few of my thoughts after watching.

This is a slower paced movie than what we are used too and it has a very indie feel to it. At times it felt too indie to me but there's just something about it that I loved.

I'll grade a few things based on my old elementary school scale of grading.
Story - good
Acting - good
Music - Excellent
Look of the movie - Excellent. (Being set in Dublin pretty much makes things look great automatically.)
Understanding the characters accents - Fair (The leading guy is Irish and the leading girl is Czech.)

Favorite parts.
- There was something really moving about when the "guy and girl" sang their first song together. They don't really know each other at the time but I felt a little teary at that moment somehow?!?
- It's rated R for language but I've gotta say that the opening scene, which has a bunch of the bad language, is pretty great. It was an excellent way to grab our attention and start the movie.

Things I didn't like.
- There are a couple of scenes that are just too set up. Most of the movie feels pretty natural and real but then there are these scenes that are just so "movie-like". I don't mind them once in a while as they are often needed to help tell the story but there was something about these I didn't like.

All in all a good rental. Maybe not so much for Valentines but it's still a great rental. I've been on their myspace page for the last couple of days listening to the music from the movie. Now I'm interested in checking out more about the guy who plays the lead part and his band The Frames.

The movie trailer is below. Enjoy!

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Scary?

The other I day I was wearing the t-shirt pictured above. A free photoshoot shirt I might add. Anyway, it was supper time with my parents, my nephew Miles, my son Jonah and my wife. My sister Tracy was out for a run.

I like to mess with the boys often. Just little things like, I may be spreading butter on bread and Miles will come up to me and say, "Uncle Glenn, what are you doing?" and I'll respond with something like, "building an airplane" or "standing on my head" to which he always says nooooo and laughs. You know, the kind of thing Uncles and Daddy's have been doing for years. At some point during our meal I took off my sweater and revealed the scary tiger. One of the boys asked something about the tiger on my shirt. I said that if little boys didn't finish their meal that this tiger may jump out of my shirt and bite their heads off! Maybe a little too drastic. After that comment they were both legitimately scared. Miles kinda cuddled into Grandma and Jonah said something like "Nooo Daddy" with a bit of a grin and the sound of unbelief in his voice but still little bit of fear in his eyes.

They got back to eating but I could tell they were more scared than I anticipated so at that point the tiger started to get sleepy. Have I mentioned how loud supper can be? We needed to talk much more quietly in order for the tiger to fall asleep. Eventually he did fall asleep so I put my sweater back on. The rest of the meal was so peaceful. We all spoke in whispers and if anyone said something in normal voice the boys would shush them. If I even motioned at unzipping my sweater the whispers got loud in a hurry telling me not to do it.

Jonah and Miles both told me a few times that I should go and change my shirt but I had way too much control wearing it to do that. So I left it on until we left the table.

The next morning after waking up and coming upstairs for breakfast the first thing Miles said to me was something like, "You're not wearing your tiger shirt right Uncle Glenn?". So I guess that whole ordeal was pretty serious. Hopefully their weren't any bad dreams to go with it. All I know is that those boys better behave or the tiger may have to come back out.

GL

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Bad weekend in the airports.

After a weekend of being stuck in a a closed airport, dealing with two delayed flights, a cancelled one and a changed one I'm happy to be home. I've always been of the opinion of once I check into that airport things are out of my hands and they certainly were this weekend. I was planning on writing a post about why people get so angry at the things they can do nothing about, however, Shlog beat me to the punch and did a great job. Check out today's post.

Glenn

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Vote Chooser

I'm no American but with "Super Tuesday" tomorrow I thought it would be fun to try out this site someone told me about during my airport travels on the weekend.

www.votechooser.com

Answer 10 questions and find out which politician you most line up with. It is only 10 questions so the results aren't too scientific but it'll at least give you a start. My results are below. Turns out I should vote for who I thought I would vote for if in fact I could vote.

On that note, I just found out my application for an O-1 U.S. work visa was approved!!!! For any of you who know what we have to deal with every year trying to work in the U.S. as musicians you will know that this is huge for us. We will have 3 full years of peace in dealing with the INS. Wonderful!!!! Glorious!!

Glenn

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