Sonic Youth sucks, they're just noise — Juno Juno is the kind of movie that reminds you why being alive (oh yeah, and watching films) is a good thing. From the Sunny D-guzzling opening to the bittersweet ending, it definitely delivers the laughs as the reviews promised. They’ve pinched a few of the cast from Arrested Development, a quality American sit-com, and it shows in the delivery. Ellen Page is also strong in the title role as Juno herself.

Hmm. Got this letter through the door the other day: Dear Ms Ferrier [sic], **Born before 1958! Your age could save you money on your home insurance.** Let's face it, you are bombarded with messages promising you cheaper insurance... [etc. etc.] Quite entertaining that they managed to get both my sex and my age (quite significantly) wrong. I don’t think they’ll be getting my business.

I stayed in London last night, so decided to try something a little different and fly out of London City rather than Heathrow for my upcoming journey to Madrid. I think I’ve decided that this was a mistake. I was staying at R’s in Hammersmith, and the journey to City is much longer than it was in my head. In retrospect, Heathrow would have been much simpler; just a quick trip down the Piccadilly line.

With Ratatouille, Brad Bird and Pixar have finally transcended animation. Bird recently said that they wanted animation to be seen as an art form rather than a genre, and one can see why. Ratatouille has a subtle plot, well-designed characters, humour, tears, and much of the other excellent content one has come to expect from Pixar. At times it drags a little, but in showing how animation can serve to tell a story (rather than simply entertain), as well as any live-action film, they deserve total credit.

I’m in Toronto this week, working with some of my colleagues from the Toronto development lab. Some observations on the trip so far: If travelling via the US, JFK is preferable as an interchange to O’Hare - the terminal is modern and pleasant, and changing is easier. But: Go direct to Canada if you can - you cut down on immigration paperwork. My car (a Pontiac G6) is pretty cool, and like all North American cars I’ve driven, very usable and drivable.

I met Alexander Kjerulf, the self-titled Chief Happiness Officer (possibly one of the most cheerful and effusive people you’d ever meet) at euroGel 2006, where he was running a workshop. Now he’s coming to the UK to work with HP, providing consultancy on happiness in the workplace. There’s a competition running to win free consultancy for companies of 100 employees or less. If you work somewhere of that size, and you think your workplace could do with a few smiles, I’d strongly suggest taking a look at his blog entry on the subject.

I use Firefly (previously called mt-daapd) as a media server for my Roku Soundbridge. It has a feature called ‘Smart Playlists’ that dynamically create playlists based on certain criteria, but they aren’t that powerful - they don’t support sorting or other more advanced query features. Fortunately, underlying Firefly is a sqlite database, which can be queried using standard SQL syntax. This enables a technique of creating static playlists that are automatically re-generated periodically instead.

I’m surprised at the poor state of online contact management, given how mature the online e-mail market is. I’ve just spent a frustrating and mostly wasted morning with Plaxo, trying to see if it could fulfil my relatively simple needs (online contact management, syncing with something desktop-based, ideally Thunderbird, and syncing with my mobile phone as a nice to have). After struggling with the over-engineered Plaxo interface, a wobbly Thunderbird sync extension that loses critical bits of data, and a de-duper that misses obvious duplicates, I gave up.

The Rescuers is perfect for Christmas - it’s a lovely family movie without the irritating Christmas tat. From its basic yet beautiful introduction with static paintings. through the robust characterisation, rough animation and moving song, it’s a classic from start to finish, especially compared to some of the more recent Disney fare. It’s well plotted, with no parts that drag or bore. The voice talent, particularly Oscar-winning Geraldine Page as Madame Medusa is hilarious and well-timed.

Tip for anyone who blogs and uses Google Reader: the new ‘Discover’ feature of Google Reader enables you to see how many people are subscribed to your blog. Select ‘Browse’ and search for your blog using keywords. When you’ve found it, it’ll show how many subscribers there are. Take the number with a pinch of salt: it is, of course, only one of many blog readers, albeit a popular one.