Slate magazine's academy award coverage is nothing less than brainy. The sometimes controversial writers at Slate are direct, executing their ideas in humor rather than through frustration. The story, Batman Goes Bananas explains why Christian Bale’s latest freak-out may have permanently lost him his chance to be nominated for an Oscar. Chatting about The Oscars reveals why certain movies get nominated and uncovers what members of the committee actually look for when appointing a winner for the best picture.

Ron Rosenbaum is one of Slate's top writers covering the awards. His past critiques appeared in Vanity Fair and New York Times Magazine as well as doing movie reviews on NPR. Before this work, Rosenbaum spent ten years traveling and doing research on Hitler for his book "Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil." His analysis is honest as seen in his newest story "Don't Give an Oscar to The Reader." He writes, “The fact that it was recently nominated for a best picture Oscar offers stunning proof that Hollywood seems to believe that if it’s a “Holocaust film,” it must be worth of approbation, end of story."

Some articles are full of exhaustible colloquial banter, but they're backed up with expert opinion and solid analysis of what to expect from this year's Academy Awards.

I'm Listening

Take a look at one of Neil Gaiman's imaginative audiobooks >

Driving down to central Mass to take ski lessons.





First ski experience... hope I don't die.

Pictures from Harvard's Hasty Pudding : Click Here

Fire Breaks Out in Beacon Hill

Celeste described to me what she witnessed and I wrote it as a feature story.


A two-alarm fire broke out in an apartment building in Beacon Hill next to the State House last Friday. Black smoke shot out the windows sending residents scurrying for safety. Celeste Lam witnessed the fire from her office in John McCormack State Building.

The fire started about 4:20 p.m, “I smelled something really bad,” said Ms. Lam. She was informed of the blaze when a coworker brought up that the stench was coming from a fire down the street. “I was afraid because my apartment is near this building,” said Ms. Lam.

Three units worked quickly to extinguish the fire before it spread to any adjoining buildings including a threat to the nearby State House. “The firefighters arrived in five minutes,” said Lam.

The firefighters discovered immediately upon arrival that their fire trucks were too wide to get through the narrow streets in Beacon Hill.

“The firemen went to the very top of the buildings,” said Lam, “They jumped from one building to the next in order to get to the fire."

According to Ms. Lam the firefighters made an assembly line passing the hose from one another while balancing themselves on the ladder. “The firefighters had to pound on the window to get it open. There was huge piles of black smoke,” said Lam.

The firefighters who responded to the blaze had it under control by 5:00pm.

Officials have not released the cause of the fire. There were no reported injuries.

Metacritic

I discovered metacritic last week and its definitely one of my favorite websites out there. Unlike any other website for reviewing the arts, metacritic lists the reviews from esteemed writers and well-known publications on a variety of new releases from music, books, TV shows, and movies.

The site is intuitive and easy to navigate. Metacritic takes the essential quotes of each critic's review to create a short summary. If I'm in a rush, I can read the excerpts and come up with my own consensus of the reviews. If one of the excerpts seem particularly intriguing, then I can click on the hyperlink and read the entire article from the publication's website.

Metacritic has a personal score system called metascore. This is useful, if I'm considering seeing a movie and don’t want to learn too much about the plot. I can skim down the line at the numeric scores and see the averaged out grade the movie received.

Metacritic also has a top ten list of favorite picks from retail stores like amazon (based on consumer popularity) to local weeklies across the nation.

Turtle Hospital in Marathon, Florida - Archive June 26, 2007

The weather is a steady 80 degrees. I am left with unpleasant itchy welts from the insects looming around the swamps of the Everglades. Fortunately, there are no prehistoric bugs in these parts.

Instead of bugs, we have predaceous barracudas. I observed them from a distance while snorkeling in the morning. They're frightened of humans and captivating to watch. These fish spend all day preying on smaller schools of fish.

The omnivorous parrotfishes gently tried to taste me using their colorful beaks. This is done in the same fashion as a curious baby uses its mouth to discover its surroundings. The water was fairly clear and I could see a new explorable world just below my toes. This is largest coral reef in the Americas, and the third largest in the world.

I rested on the beach and wrote briefly, then drove down an extension bridge linking one island of the Keys to the next. While driving, I saw a sign for a Turtle Hospital. I took a hard right into the parking lot and meandered in. I was greeted by a young girl working the front desk. I asked her if there were any volunteer positions at the hospital. She told me there were many openings and always looking for additional help.


The turtle hospital gave an impressive tour (open to the public) of the facility. The first portion of the tour was aimed at teaching about conservation and methods to prevent problems from pollution to disease in sea turtles. The other half of the tour showed us the aftermath of our neglect.

A turtle the size of a small lap dog rested on an operating board waking up from surgery. The poor turtle had a tube shoved down its throat. His face was sickly and doped out. The tour guide explained that the veterinarians must keep these turtles alert because they are conscious breathers, which means they have to think to breath. To wake the sea turtles, the vets would rub their fins until their eyes opened. This also makes the turtles believe that they're swimming in the ocean causing their fins to move like built in oars.

After surgery the turtles are taken outside to special rehabilitation tanks. Most of these creatures looked like they were on a steady path to recovery gracefully floating in six feet rubber bins. While others were barely alive. The turtles had many different problems ranging from swallowing fishing hooks to being hit by boats.

If the turtles heal properly they are moved into a 100,000 gallon ocean water filled pool. Some of the severely injured turtles have to stay in this pool for the remainder of their lives and most sea turtles live at least 80 years.



Information about the Turtle Hospital and Volunteer Opportunities: http://www.turtlehospital.org