Hats off to the Brits

TV has been dismal this past summer. If not for So You Think You Can Dance, I might have considered selling our new HD TV. Recently, however, we've had the pleasure of watching a truly enjoyable movie, Hot Fuzz, and just the other night the BBC series Jekyll, currently being broadcast on Showcase. And it's all thanks to the Brits. (By the way, So You Think You Can Dance is produced by Nigel Lythgoe, a British television and film director and producer).

James Nesbitt plays the modern-day descendent of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and he is truly at war with himself in a most diabolical way. I can't wait to see how Tom Jackman manages to protect his family from his alter ego and thwart the sinister designs of the mysterious agency watching his (and Hyde's) every move.

As for Hot Fuzz, picture the plight of a straight-laced policeman tossed out of his London precinct because he is too good at his job, who is transferred without his consent to the model British village of Sandford. The film reminded me of the Westerns I used to watch as a kid — imagine Simon Pegg as Officer Angel swaggering in Clint-Eastwood style and, come hell or high water, cleaning up Dodge City...that is, Sanford.

Adobe set to enter the office arena

According to Wired, Adobe is considering taking "the plunge into the lucrative world of office applications. It may sound far-fetched at first, but the stage is set for Adobe to flex its muscle in the office-app[lication] arena."

Recently having had a go at an open source office application, OpenOffice, which some speculate may factor into Adobe's plans, I'm relishing the idea of Microsoft Office losing ground. Isn't it time Word faced a real contender? Imagine the wonders Adobe, famous for Acrobat, Photoshop and arguably Flash, might bring to our desktops.

However, the revolution will take time. After all, Firefox has yet to outstrip Internet Explorer where it counts...in number of users. People will be slow to make the transition.

Which reminds me, what's this I hear about Google coming out with a new browser?

Learning by laptop

For the past two summers, between contracts, I've learned new programs, usually because a prospective client required that I do so. I've a fair number of software applications under my belt, so I'm usually more than game to try my hand at a new technology.

Learning by laptop, usually while on the road, is quite different from a style I might have used years ago. My Toshiba weighs a tonne, which means I'm reluctant to lug textbooks along in addition to clothes, toiletries, and shoes. (Fortunately my daughter is old enough now to haul her own stuff.) So now I learn by tinkering and only resort to the manual, usually a pdf document, when I run into trouble.

This method of learning, and also of travelling, begs the question: "Will someday manuals, textbooks, even fiction, exist only as files accessible on one's computer, in much the same way that music is now easily accessible from a laptop or Ipod/MP3 player?"

I haven't yet cottoned on to reading ebooks — after all, I spend enough time as it is staring bleary-eyed at a computer screen — but I see the advantages of downloading a dozen novels to my laptop before embarking on a vacation. Think of the luggage weight to be saved!

Snuggled up in bed at home, however, nothing beats a paperback.

Although one mustn't forget the husband, of course.

Missing

My daughter feels there aren't enough posters around the city of Cedrika Provencher, the nine-year-old who went missing on 31 July in Trois Rivieres.

Around 8pm on July 31st Cedrika went on a bike ride and didn't return home. She was wearing a red bike helmet, a lime-green sundress, and green flip-flops. Neighbours report that she was looking for a missing dog, even though she doesn’t own a dog. Police say three other children had been approached by a suspicious man days before Cedrika’s disappearance, asking for help finding a dog.

Cedrika's disappearance touches us all, not only recently turned ten-year-olds and their parents.

Cedrika Provencher is 5 feet tall and weighs 70 pounds. She has curly red hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information about her disappearance should call the Surete du Quebec at 1-800-659-4264.

Rush to the shops

A friend of mine has just had her first novel published. I for one can't wait to read Amanda Ashby's You Had Me at Halo, published just two days ago by Signet.

Here is the blurb: "Holly Evans has just seen her body laid to rest. Now she would like to move on to the afterlife. But apparently she has some mortal baggage to unload first, starting with the matter of how she died. Her heavenly shrink isn't buying that she didn't kill herself and says she must return to earth to straighten things out. The thing is, she needs to borrow the body of computer geek Vince Murphy to do it. Oh, and although Vince was supposed to have vacated the premises, he apparently never got the memo.

Now, Holly has forty-eight hours to resolve her issues while sharing arms, legs, and...other things...with a guy she barely noticed while she was alive. But the real surprise is what life has to offer when you have only two days to live it."

Publisher's Weekly is saying: "It's The Lovely Bones meets Bridget Jones in this fluffy take on what happens after death...it's a fun, witty traipse through the afterlife."

I'm sold.

Good things come to those...

...who wait, and certainly to those who go on vacation.

We returned two days ago to find our front porch nearly finished.