Calculated Thought: Matters of interest, part deuxLast issue I voiced an ominous warning to not celebrate low interest rates, as they can be a sign of wobbling economies grasping for growth. And at such extreme lows, rates generally have only one direction to go. If interest rates rise, it shows that there’s confidence in our economy, which hopefully means wage increases […] Continue Reading |
To See or Not to See: Adaptation is a modern masterpieceAdaptation (2002) 5/5 “Do I have an original thought in my head?” This is the first line of the Charlie Kaufman-written, Spike Jonze-directed Adaptation (2002), and from there the film sets about exploring the depths of its own question, proving itself to be one of the most fascinating, inventive, and oddly universal plumbings of the […] Continue Reading |
To See or Not to See: Fitzcarraldo fearsomely and fantastically unfalteringFitzcarraldo (1982) 5/5 Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo (1982) is a film so bizarre that there are scenes that, in retrospect, I feel I must have dreamed. There is an untenable wild—a musty creeping of fortune and disaster—at the heart of this film. There’s an omnipresent sense of dread and unease that captures the viewer and slowly […] Continue Reading |
Calculated Thought: Matters of interestCanadians are binging on cheap debt. Interest rates are at historic lows and household debt at record highs. Earlier this year, Canada topped the charts of G7 countries with the highest “debt to disposable income” ratio, recently clocked at 167 percent; for every dollar of after-tax income Canadians make, we owe $1.67 to someone else, […] Continue Reading |
Lit Matters: The magic reality of Gabriel García Márquez“A novelist can do anything he wants so long as he makes people believe in it,” said Gabriel García Márquez, a Latin American novelist and journalist best known for his sweeping novel One Hundred Years of Solitude. Márquez grew up in Colombia and began his literary career as a journalist. But when the government was […] Continue Reading |
The Bi-weekly Gamer: Rebooting esportsChange is inevitable; when you are the biggest esport in the world, change can mean the difference between bankruptcy and fortune. Riot Games recently released a new set of changes for their professional League of Legends players. Centred on fandom, economics, and stability, Riot hopes to apply these changes (and more) to all 13 leagues […] Continue Reading |
The Bi-weekly Gamer: Smeb best player in worldWhen I originally wrote this, I planned on doing a ranking of the top five players at League of Legends World Championships. As I was writing, it hit me: I would run out of room just trying to talk about how awesome Song “Smeb” Kyung-ho is. The 21-year-old top laner is the best player in […] Continue Reading |
Lit Matters: Going gonzo with Hunter S. Thompson“I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me,” Hunter S. Thompson, the father of gonzo journalism, once said. Thompson first gained notoriety as the writer of Hell’s Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs, a book he researched by spending a year […] Continue Reading |
Calculated Thought: Student tax changes afootStudents who are inclined to save will feel the crunch from recent changes to federal student benefits. The education and textbook tax credits save working students up to $558 per year. Analysts argue that this doesn’t help students who may not be able to afford the up-front costs of post-secondary education (you have to wait […] Continue Reading |
To See or Not to See: The World’s End wide awake and wonderfulThe World’s End (2013) 4/5 Edgar Wright has made a name for himself by making razor-sharp, tightly wound comedies that do what most comedies of late don’t do: make us laugh. (And, at the risk of being branded an old fogey, I’ll say that Wright achieves this in a much cleaner, more civilized manner than […] Continue Reading |
