Wallace & Gromit are back again

Exciting! I'm not that much into animated movie, but I loove Wallace & Gromit. So it's very exciting to hear that these two funny guys are going to be the stars of another movie which will be out in October.

The 'Fahrenheit 9/11' for Oenophiles

Director Jonathan Nossiter, with camera, in Sardinia filming "Mondovino."

If you want to start a fight, mention the documentary "Mondovino" to people in the wine business and step back, the New York Times writes. The film, by Jonathan Nossiter, argues that the homogenizing force of global commerce is threatening the distinctiveness of local cultures. But like "Fahrenheit 9/11" it has been a huge hit (in France so far), but also polarized its audience. Nossiter focuses his camera on the international wine trade, traveling to France, California, Italy, and New York, speaking with winemakers both great and small. While old-timer Aime Guibert, of tiny Mas de Daumas-Gassac, pronounces that wine must be made by a poet, high-powered consultant Michel Rolland circles the globe ensuring that wineries make lots of money. Nossiter meets the Mondavi family, one of the wine world's largest conglomerates; the de Montille family of Burgundy, in which a daughter has chosen not to work with her father and brother but instead with a competitor; the Staglins, who financed their own high-priced vineyard in the Napa Valley; and critics James Suckling and Robert Parker, whose words can make or break a vintage. Nossiter also visits with New York wine importer Neal Rosenthal, Christie's wine director Michael Broadbent, and Chateau Mouton-Rothschild CEOs Patrick Leon and Xavier de Eizaguirre to get even further perspectives.
Although Nossiter set out merely to find the characters behind the wine industry, he ended up with a poignant look at some important issues, including deforestation, the corporation versus the independent company, and even communism. His bouncy handheld camera captured more than he had ever imagined. The result is an entertaining inside exmination of a world very few people see, a fascinating exploration of wine and the families who produce it. The Harward Crimson writes: Mondovino’s subjects are driven alternately by money, fame, winelust, and terroir, the film’s untranslatable but ubiquitous term meaning something between “soil” and “heartland.” The film itself is driven by its energetic camerawork, tantalizing leads, and a madcap soundtrack ranging from vintage French cabaret to the Kinks. Adventurous moviegoers should be driven by curiosity and the desire to stray from the well-beaten Hollywood track, and they will not be disappointed.
MSNBC: "Nossiter's “Mondovino” (ThinkFilm) is a love letter to maverick winemakers around the world, but it's also the wine equivalent of “Fahrenheit 9/11”: a screed against what he views as darker forces of globalization, which squeeze the individuality and the terroir — wine's sense of place — out of the bottle.""Mondovino" opens next Wednesday in New York and April 29 in Los Angeles.
Plus: More reviews, the website of the movie distributor and the french promo website

Blogs help to detect and analyse social trends

Researchers in the University at Buffalo's School of Informatics have undertaken a long-term research project to study how information from blogs produced in specific American urban areas reflects the political agendas, opinions, attitudes and cultural idiosyncrasies of the general population of those places. Some of their finding from their press release:

- American blog distribution correlates positively with the distribution of the U.S. population, with most bloggers heavily concentrated in large cities in coastal areas and their surrounding suburbs (New York; Boston; Los Angeles; Chicago; San Francisco; Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia)
- New-technology and economic centers and clusters have formed large groups of bloggers. Among them are the San Francisco Bay area; Austin; Houston; Atlanta; Orange County, Calif.; the region east of Phoenix (Mesa, Chandler and Tempe); Las Vegas, and Portland
- Suburbs and regions surrounding big cities such as Detroit; Washington, D.C.; San Francisco; Boston; Phoenix; Los Angeles; Dallas, and Seattle have blogger groups comparable in size to those of their center cities.
- There are very few blog concentrations in the inland U.S., particularly the Midwest.
- The densest concentration of bloggers is found in areas traditionally associated with "culture elites" and high socioeconomic status: Average household incomes in which the majority of blog-clusters are found are, at around $59,000, higher than the national average and in six of those 26 areas, average household income is more than $100,000.
"We cannot ignore the blog," says Jia Lin, one of the responsible study conductors, "it is a rapidly emerging political and cultural entity whose importance is likely to increase. It is our contention that blogs not only tell us about those who write them, but quite a bit about particular urban areas in which we find them."

The latest trend: metrosexual

What it is? Let's hear it from Daniel Worthington in "The Shorthorn":

Being fashionable isn’t just about your clothes and hairstyle. It’s also about dating the right people. In 2004, every girl needed her very own metrosexual, but in time, we discovered some flaws with the trend. For starters, metrosexuals spend more time on their hair than Dolly Parton, and they’re so absorbed in clipping and shaping their nails that they forget to gaze lovingly at the girl of their dreams.
Ladies, starve for attention no more. This year, a whole new kind of man is in. He’s smart. He’s savvy. He’s independent and inventive. He’s a technosexual. That’s right. This modern ladies’ man isn’t afraid to strut his smarts, and he won’t stomp and cry if his date beats him at Halo 2. Yes, he may talk tech day and night, but it’s better than hearing about football. And really, girls, at least he’s useful.
The technosexual is available in a variety of styles, too. The Computer Geek is the most popular, but the Library Buddy and the Gadget Guy are equally intelligent and can perform tasks like helping with homework or providing dozens of time- and effort-saving devices. Though technosexuals are passionate about geekery of all kinds, the prospect of a date with you will always win his attention. Your girlish charms will never fail to bring him out of the office long enough for dinner and a chick flick, or at least a couple hours of “The Simpsons” on DVD. (...) So forget about guys whose wardrobes cost more than your rent. Call these guys nerds if you like, but I say there’s nothing cuter than a boy with a computer.

Plus: Another interesting article about 'metrosexuality' in the Economic Times.

That Pepsi Girl

A Michigan college student launched the (in the meanwhile very popular) blog "That Pepsi Girl" decicated to the half-Asian hottie Mandy Amano after he saw her in the Pepsi/iTunes Super Bowl commercial.

A History of Communications

Wow, very interesting, this history of communications, from 35,000 BC until 1998.

Great list with PR blogs

Constantin Bastuera made his list with PR blogs public via Bloglines.

Sales power of blogging

Readers of a blog from author Keith Thompson, the writer behind the soon to be published novel, “Pirates of Pensacola“, have driven the yet to be released novel to the top of Amazon’s Early Adopter list, based upon sales. The blog, hosted on the Lycos’ Tripod blogging service, has surpised the publishers of the novel, who were not aware of the sales power of blogging. (Via Blogherald)

"Daily Show" Clips

I'm a huge fan of the "Daily Show with Jon Stewart". Since I've been missing the show a lot lately I check this website and watch the video clips of the show.

New podcast site

Adam Curry, the former MTV VJ and the most prominent creator of Podcasts, announced the launch of BoKu Communications and its first Web site, Podshow.com, "to bring together the elements necessary to create a marketplace."

Hand bookbindings

Great hand boobindings from a special collection in the Princeton University Library.