A couple of years ago I became obsessed by that lil' indie flick - you may have heard of it - Juno. Y'know the one with the pregnant teen and the sweater vests and the much-lauded soundtrack? Well, anyway, through some related googling around that time I came across the script for Peacock.

*spoiler alert*

I read the leaked script online a long time ago now so I'm a little fuzzy on the details but essentially it's about this very 'average' dude (played by dollface Cillian Murphy) who, it turns out is not such an average dude afterall. A train crashes into his house one day and the ensuing drama upends the very meticulously scheduled double life he leads. As himself, and his wife.

Sounds cool right? Well it's finally gone from 'in production' to 'completed' and I for one am very excited. (oh and did i mention it stars a certain Academy-Award nominated actress from Canada?)

Parenthood Is...

Oooh hurray, Lauren Graham is back. And not just her neither. You may also recognise Mae Whitman from In Treatment, and Dax Shephard of Punk'd fame, among others.

As a worryingly avid Gilmore Girls fan I couldn't be more excited.

Watch the wee promo here

A picture is...

Worth1000.com is a 'creative contest community', the most competitive on the web - or so they say. Recently they hosted a contest for Daybreakers, yknow that vampire movie with yer man where vamps are king and humans are farmed for blood. The competition 'if vampires ruled' was to come up with images of how the world would be if nearly everyone on earth had fangs. They range from the witty to the downright freakish, these are a few of my faves.

Ok, ok so there's not enough grit and the minister's on holidays and the bus service is a shambles and half the population of the country have broken a bone... but c'mon. How could anyone not love this weather? This crazy cold spell gives us all a legit reason to skip school/work/college/hospital rotation, it gives grumpy old people something else to moan about besides the recession, it gives me an excuse to not ever take off my beautiful rubber soled ugg snow boots... What's not to like? plus... SNOWMEN! The only thing that bums me out is the thought of the thaw.

Televisuals: Modern Family and Cougar Town

So, I've spent the last month in Naas. I was on placement in the hospital there and living across the road in an old rather dilapidated but not uncharming Res which had cable tv (yay!) but no internet (boo). On weekdays I was confined to using my handy little meteor internet stick but when I came home on the weekend I made the best of my free unlimited 54Mbps broadband and downloaded enough tv to keep me sane.

It's probably best at this point to explain that I watch ungodly amounts of tv. Not on the actual tv, but online. Right now the weekly roster consists of 90210, Bones, Brothers&Sisters, Desperate Housewives, Glee, Gossip Girl, House, How I Met Your Mother, Mercy, One Tree Hill and Private Practice. It's astounding I ever get anything done, when you think about it. But being in Naas left me with the unpleasant dilemma of being unable to watch these as usb internet just isn't up to the job. So I decided to branch out and see what I could find. I remembered watching an episode of Dexter that happened to be on my ipod one very boring day. It seemed like a good enough show and I was 3 seasons in arrears. Excellent. Plus it turns out you can download entire seasons at a time of shows that have been around for a while. Perfect. I did that, watched all 3 seasons in a month and am now hooked. Ahhh eztv, how empty my life was before you came into it.

On the subject of tv: When I first saw the ad for Modern Family it struck me that this could be a bit of an Arrested Development substitute: the quirky character traits, the closets full of skeletons, the awkward semi-incest, the voiceover. Comedy gold. So when I got back from Naas I promptly procured all 8 episodes aired to date and had myself a bit of a marathon. It was every bit as good as I'd hoped. A little bit weird and funny as hell. Not unlike Arrested Development but toned down and more market-friendly. Sadly The Bluths were a little before their time. I mean, nowadays I don't know a single person who doesn't love their Arrested Development boxset like a first born, but at the time it can't have been so popular or the studio big wigs wouldn't have axed it. Let's hope Modern Family has a little more longevity. Also Look! It's Al Bundy, the later years




Also Cougar Town. It's not fantastic, but it's entertaining enough if you find yourself with too many hours in your day.

Holidays are coming

Last night I watched The Late Late Toy Show for the first time in years. Back in the day it was a sacred annual ritual up there with the best of 'em. You'd have your bath, get into your jammies and snuggle up with the family to see how long you could hold out this year. Inevitably by the end of Part One your eyelids were drooping, and you could barely keep it together through the ad break. Then the next morning the disappointment would hit as you realised you'd missed a whole 50% of the toys and entertainment. You weren't big yet. There's a photo of 7yr old Rosie in her favourite Winnie The Pooh dressing gown, head falling off the couch, limbs akimbo, dead to the world in front of The Toy Show. It's amazing my parents even allowed it to happen (those were the days when tv was only allowed on weekends and even then it was just half an hour a day), but they couldn't fight The Toy Show. It was an institution. Then in 1999 Gaybo hung up his Santy hat and Pat Kenny took over. After that I never watched it. Pat didn't have any charisma, the kids didn't like him, the whole thing just faded into awkward cringey-ness. Plus I was 10 by then and bordering on too old for toy show.

Last night though, it all came flooding back. Of course this time I stayed up til the end, and it was accompanied by a nice glass of wine but still, it was at its core the same Pre-Christmas bonanza I remember from my youth. I laughed, I coveted, I cringed at some of the acts. It was just like the good old days. Because this year Pat Kenny was nowhere to be seen. Ryan Tubridy was in charge and he did a damn fine job.

There were Billy Barry Kids, mini Irish dancers, Westlife, Jedward, Junior Culchie of the year, a hilarious kid named JohnJoe, christmas cheer and of course TOYS. My favourite of which I'm not sure can be called a toy really, but it's a portable dvd projector and it looks awesome.

So if anyone's looking for an expensive gift idea for, say, me...
(Ok I was going to put a link to where you could buy one but attempting to do so nearly crashed my computer, so never mind!)

Mega pain in my ass

Damn you MEGAVIDEO for your well curated archives of excellent quality videos. You tantalise me with HD versions of practically every episode of virtually any show in the world that stream at incredibly high speeds. I'm all lured in and then you slap a big fat restriction on viewing time? Why so mean? Ok, I get why. It's so I'll upgrade to having to pay for MEGAVIDEO and getting unlimited access. And my GOD it's tempting sometimes. Like when you're just getting into an episode and all of a sudden you're locked out. Or when you're *this* close to the end but that final 5mins pushes you over the limit. It is SO tempting not to wait 54 minutes, to hit that 'Premium' button and continue watching. But lucky for me I don't have a credit card, so even on those days when my tv addiction causes me to act recklessly I physically can't buy a subscription. Thank goodness for that. Cos quite beyond the fact that I can barely afford bus fare after paying for credit and internet (damn no-broadband-Naas forcing me to buy USB stick web access), the only time I get any work done at all is when MEGAVID forces me to stop watching. Without the limitation I would turn into a freakish mole, spending all my time in bed watching seasons and seasons of ever more awesome shows. (I know I'm not far off but right now I think I still count as normal)

Time for me to go do something life affirming. I still have another 40something minutes to use up...