What we really need for our cats

It's a litterbox-robot that turns cat urine into colored, wrapped, egg-shaped balls for easy disposal.

Yes, it's $600 to make a mildly inconvenient task mildly less inconvenient, and our cats would probably avoid it (Jack would probably attack it), but I still want one, just on principle.

ETA: And I shouldn't be surprised that plenty of you have this device or variations thereof, from the comments!

ShakespeRe Told

We watched the first movie in this series last night (Much Ado About Nothing). And yeah, we're hooked. BBCAmerica is now pretty much neck-and-neck with TCM on my list of favorite cable channels.

Loved the entire cast, even if Billie Piper was the only one I was familiar with (and wow, does she have range!). Damien Lewis and Sarah Parish were just wonderful as the leads, and I adored Anthony O'Donnell's updated Dogberry.

I'm looking forward to the remaining movies, although I'm a tad disappointed that they chose Taming of the Shrew as the final one, mainly because retellings of that tale aren't exactly rare.

Something I've wondered

Inspired by a comment exchange with gwynraven (on whom I'm not picking, as she seems to be a part of a majority, not a minority here):

Why is it that people refer to "Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet," but "Mel Gibson's Hamlet?" I mean, Gibson's a talented director (lunacy aside), but he didn't direct the interpretation in which he starred, and it's not like Zeffirelli is an unknown.

Granted, I can think of plenty of directors who get overshadowed by their stars, but that's usually when the director is some unknown hack producing star vehicles (can anyone name any of Adam Sandler's directors other than Brooks and Anderson? If so, scrub your brain). I mean, it's not like folks go around talking about the amazing job Orson Welles did directing The Third Man*. Are there any other directors of Zeffirelli's stature this overshadowed by one of their stars?

*Directed by Carol Reed. Please say you knew that. Please.

Good news, everyone!

(Aside: I really should get a Farnsworth icon at some point).

WIth all the horrible things happening in the world, like obscene TSA overreactions which are more likely to make things worse, government officials passing laws to retroactively pardon themselves for war crimes ("oops. Was that an act of torture? Well not anymore!"), and "public interest" groups that have no interest whatsoever in helping the public (not to mention the usual trifecta of war, disease, and poverty), it's nice to get at least one small piece of good news:

The last two dating shows on TV have been canceled!

Hey, it's small, but it's a step in the right direction.

TastingMenu on restaurants and saying yes

TastingMenu (one of my favorite food blogs) has been running a nifty series on restaurants and customers. Today's entry, on when restaurants should be flexible for customers, is probably their best entry in the series.

Baby's first Shakespeare

We figured that, since she'd seen the second half of the ShakespeRe Told, it was time for Elayna to see the Branagh version of Much Ado About Nothing. Needless to say, she loved it! Yay! She especially loved Emma Thompson's Beatrice, of course, but she was also rolling on the floor laughing at Michael Keaton's Dogsberry (although much of my favorite Dogsberry moments -- the vocab slips -- went over her head).

Oh, and if anyone is thinking of making another filmed version of it in the next five years, it would be a crime to not cast Rachel McAdams as Hero.