Hey, I’m reviewing another Canadian Heritage commercial! This time we’ve got a bunch of Irish kids whose parents died on the trip to North America and some Quebecois families who take them in. That’s nice. But there’s a catch! The kids are to take on the family names of their new guardians! HORROR! But when the kids tearfully point out that they’d rather keep the names that represent their real lineage, everybody is like “That’s cool”. There’s really only one line in this one that I can see being especially quotable and that is “No! We have to keep our Irish names!” though I admit that as a bearer of the name Patrick, I’ve had “Patrick, Patrick O’Neil” thrown my way more than once. I would imagine that anyone named Molly Johnson heard about this one on a regular basis. I have never been able to make out the name of the adorable little girl, though. Katrine Ryan? Kathleen O’Royem? Katya Nguyen? Yeah, that’s probably the one.

So we’ve got a story about Canadians letting orphans keep their identity and a mild quotability quotient. What else is there to say? Well, I like the soundtrack to this one. It’s starts with that ominous churchy sound and at the end when everything is happy is turns into a lively jig. Way to play, music. Plus, Molly’s new dad has a glorious moustache. All in all, I’m going to hand out Four And A Half Pieces of PDR’s Reviewing System Cake for this one. It entertains and educates, I guess.

But why did Molly’s mother care so much about keeping her name that it was apparently the last thing she spoke to her daughter about? I mean, when Molly grows up, she’s liable to get married and I doubt they were letting women keep their own names in those days so basically if she finds true love Molly is going to have to defy her mother’s dying wish? Great! Way to mess with your daughter’s head there, Mrs. Johnson.

This here is my least favorite of the Canadian Heritage Minute things. That last line is just so stilted and unnatural that it sucks any joy from me that might have been gained from Canada’s helping the world get its human rights on. I mean, I understand that they are trying to stress that John Humphrey is Canadian, but the way the lady said “Isn’t that the CANADIAN who actually wrote the declaration of human rights?” just makes me cringe. People don’t talk like that. Realistically she’d say “Say, isn’t that the guy who wrote the declaration of human rights?” specifying his nationality makes it sound like she’s impressed a Canadian can write anything at all. It’s like “Isn’t that the gorilla who can do sign language?” or “Isn’t that the bear that can ride a bicycle?”

And the best thing about these little pieces of propaganda is the lines that get stuck in your brain and you carry them with you throughout the rest of your life. That line is the only one in this Minute that fulfills that requirement and it sucks. Poor John P. Humphrey.

Anyway, for that reason this Canadian Heritage Minute gets only One out of Six Pieces of PDR’s Reviewing System Cake. That is all.

So, I just finished reading In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck. In this book, a character who is a doctor says “Damn it, Jim” and that made me laugh.

The fact that that is all I have to say about this book pretty much shows why I am not a qualified book reviewer. Nonetheless I give it Four and a Half out of Six Pieces of PDR’s Reviewing System Cake. It was an interesting look at things like socialism and mob mentality even without the accidental reference to a program that aired decades after its publication.

Sometimes I feel like I am bad at being a comics reader because I don’t read enough Batman. I mean sure, I loved the Batman Animated Series and I have enjoyed probably more Batman movies than I haven’t. Oh, and the Adam West Batman Show is right up my alley as well, but as for comics I had read pitifully little.

Well this week, I got Batman: False Faces a collection of Batman Stories and Batman-related Stories by Brian K. Vaughan author of such wonderful comics as Runaways, Y: The Last Man and Ex Machina. These Batman tales were found by me to be perfectly adequate. I guess I’ll throw them a Three and a Half Out Of Six Pieces of PDR’s Reviewing System Cake. Nothing epically amazing. I did like that every story in the collection dealt with Batman villains I was familiar with but who is not one of the really big names among Batman villains. Batman really does have a great collection of villains, doesn’t he?

In other news, I managed to get another Adventure Dennis Level done since my last post and I am currently working on the Last Level! Hooray.

I just finished watching Turtles Forever. I am very pleased that that movie exists. I’m all like OMG Technodrome! OMG Krang! OMG BEBOP!!!!!!! This movie made my day, for sure. Sure, some of the voices were not perfect, but OMG BEBOP!!!!!!! Five out of Six Pieces of PDR Reviewing System Cake.

Haiku!

OMG BEBOP!
Bebop is totally cool.
I love you Bebop.

In other, non-Bebop-related news, I got myself a pig-flu vaccine on Tuesday. So I am now immune to the pig flu, probably. This is practically a super power, practically. Go me.

And even with that super power, now I gotta go to work. Lame.