World Basketball Championship 2006

World Basketball Championships 2006 [logo]

The FIBA World Basketball Championship is going on right now in Japan. At a time when the NBA hasn’t started their season, you’d think this would be all over the sports networks. Not in Canada. Does anyone have any idea if any of the remaining games will be broadcast here? The otherwise comprehensive web site for the tournament doesn’t have broadcast schedules. (Go Slovenia!!)

TIFF 2006: Preliminaries

It’s almost that time of year again. From September 7-16, Toronto is taken over by celebrities and celebrity hounds, partying into the wee hours and clogging up Yorkville with their bling. Oh, and they show a few films as well.

I’ll be attending for the 12th year, though I’m only seeing ten films again. Without taking vacation time off work (which I’m saving for our trip to Slovenia just after the festival ends), ten is about the limit for me.

I was a little bit excited for about thirty seconds when I saw that the official TIFF web site is offering a feature called “Your Blogs”. That is, until I read part of the lengthy terms and conditions:

You grant to the Toronto International Film Festival Group and its parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, employees, officers, directors, representatives, partners, and agents (collectively, “TIFFG”), a perpetual, royalty-free, transferable, irrevocable right to reproduce and/or quote from the original content that is placed on your blog or that you submit to the Toronto International Film Festival’s website. In addition, you waive in favour of TIFFG, all moral rights you may have in or to your content. TIFFG reserves the right to alter, edit, and/or delete any submissions you make to Your Blogs.

Uh, no thanks. Instead, I’ll be posting my reviews here as always, and cross-posting them to TIFFReviews, a site which has been covering the festival since 2004.

The complete film list was released yesterday, so now comes the hard job of deciding what to see and when to see it. If I’m careful, I might just be able to avoid anyone famous.

Pick Me!

Each March, for the past six years, I’ve attended the South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin and have always wondered why there were no panels on faith or spirituality. The Internet has made a huge impact on how people interact with each other and this area in particular has always fascinated me. Will “cyberchurches” replace megachurches? Can people worship together when they’ve never physically met? How is the web changing how we talk to each other about faith? I decided I’d like to find out, so I’ve proposed to moderate a panel at next year’s conference.

About 200 other people have made panel proposals, too. Which is where you come in. Check out the handy-dandy Panel Picker and nominate the ten best ideas. It’s ok if you don’t think mine is one of them. But if you’re intrigued, and are going to be there (hey, even if you’re not going to be there), do me a favour and throw me a vote. My proposal is under the “Community” and “Miscellaneous” categories, and is entitled “Ghost in the Machine: Spirituality Online.”

Your input on the panel is welcome as well.