Here’s one of the neatest little concepts I’ve heard in a while. Also, probably the title of my next spec screenplay: Uncanny Valley.

I type this while watching Paycheck on pay-per-view. It’s a movie about a man who gives up three years of his life and ends up with nothing to show for it.

After two hours of watching, viewers will be able to sympathize.

Re. this:

Wee, sleekit, cowrin’, tim’rous beastie
Seranadin’ the customer’s feastie
Thou need not run away down Murray
with sporan trailing
I’ve not a restaurant owner’s fury
and aesthetic failing

I’m truly sorry Byward merchants
think you deter tourists’ purchase
and chase away their business perchance
down to the Glebe
That bagpipe-hating Beavertail vendor
is such a dweeb

I have not doubt your drones and chanter
Interrupt the sales clerk’s banter
But so too does the endless pealing
Of Parliament’s bell
(And when it’s shrooms and drugs they’re dealing,
It’s just as well)

Okay, I’m only five years late to the game… but I finally had a gander at Ari Gold’s short film Culture. I haven’t laughed that hard at a movie so far this year. If you haven’t seen it yet, check it out; it’s 60 seconds of Lars von Trier doing Tarantino.

Alex over on Dear Ralph has discovered a treasure trove of reviews of The Pet Goat, the book that captivated George W. Bush so completely on the morning of September 11, 2001.

Oddly, the reviews are pretty much all from Crawford, Texas…

Promoting social democracy in Alberta is one of those jobs that would reduce most people to sobbing frustration. Hercules would probably have rather gone back to the Aegean stables after a dysentery outbreak than take on the leadership of the Alberta NDP.

Yet Raj Pannu — possibly the un-meanest, least ego-driven person ever to enter politics — has been at it now for four and a half years. Yesterday’s announcement that he’s stepping down as leader isn’t especially surprising; with an election on the way, it’s a pretty compelling way of generating some excitement and interest.

He’s staying on as an MLA, and will run again in the fall. Brian Mason promises to take the party to a new level of articulate, forceful dynamism. But I’ll miss Raj as leader. Smart, sweet and funny in equal measures, he was a pleasure to write for — and a truly positive presence on the political scene.

Now that Alberta has paid off its debt, I can reveal Ralph Klein’s surprisingly simple strategy — one that every province can and should emulate:

1. Bury dinosaurs.
2. Wait.

For sheer nastiness, few candidates in the last federal election could top Vancouver East Liberal Shirley Chan.

Chan blamed her defeat on anti-Liberal sentiment “stirred up by provincial governments in B.C. and Ontario.” And it’s doubtful that Gordon Campbell did the Liberal brand any favours.

But that doesn’t explain how Libby Davies’ margin ballooned from 3,397 votes in 2000 to 12,722 in 2004. That sure didn’t happen to New Democrats elsewhere in B.C.

A more likely explanation? Voters got to know Shirley Chan. And not the nice Shirley walking so peacefully through that park with Ujjal and Dave in the Liberal TV ad.

Chan proved herself a mean, vicious piece of work who sank lower in both polls and tactics as the campaign progressed. As the Globe and Mail reported, “she accused Ms. Davies, a lesbian, of wasting taxpayers’ money by flying her ‘girlfriend’ around the country under a parliamentary program the gives travel rights to partners and spouses of MPs.

“Ms. Chan also chastised the incumbent for living in co-op housing despite having an MP’s income of more than $100,000.” She glossed over the difference between market-value and subsidized housing — the same slur launched so often against Jack Layton.

And her blog accused Davies of supporting child pornography — the same slur that caused the Liberals such outrage when the Conservatives aimed it at them.

The blog itself is worth a second glance as a measure of just how foul the Chan campaign became. And it’s an object lesson — along with that 12,722-vote margin — on how there’s a crucial difference between going negative and going berserk.