“This week Torontoist decided to work out for itself exactly when The Simpsons was good. Because it’s just been so long, so depressingly long, since we’ve seen a episode that didn’t make us want to open a vein. Seriously. Using the powers of science (well, Wikipedia) we’ve decided it was good between seasons three and ten, peaking in (roughly) season seven.”

Where would we be today without Wikipedia, eh?

“If today’s column title gets Rachel Sweet’s Hairspray stuck in your head for the rest of the day, good! Because then we’ll have made our point that the version of Hairspray hitting this weekend isn’t as good as the John Waters original. Though the music not being as good is only part of it. There’s also the inherent irony about making a musical in which one of the central themes is integration through a shared love of largely-African American music that features only music written by a couple of white dudes. Hell, the irony of just making a musical about that. Musicals are basically the whitest form of entertainment we can imagine.”

No one in Toronto has much of a sense of humour this week, apparently, judging from the responses in the comments to this post and my earlier post on the Toronto International Film Festival 2007 Canadian Press Conference, TIFF 2007: Canadian Promises.

“One of the most exasperating things about being a Canadian gamer has been the drastic change in value between the Canadian and American dollar. With the currencies due to reach parity any minute now, having to pay a $10 to $20 premium on any game purchased at retail (and that’s not even including provincial and government taxes) starts to sting pretty hard. Unsurprisingly, despite the distinct lack of physical constraints such as importing, shelf space, etc. downloadable titles also require that Canadian gamers pay a premium, generally costing roughly 20-25% more than they do for American gamers.”

Published a little late this month, due to the combination of E3 and some other factors, this is the first of a regular monthly column on downloadable titles for The Globe and Mail. This month covers June’s releases, looking at Pac-Man C.E., Carcassonne, F-Zero X and Super Stardust HD.

And yes, I started this column to justify purchasing Pac-Man C.E.! Anyone familiar with the Pac-Man back catalogue should be amused to see I call it the best Pac-Man title since the completely bonkers Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures. If you haven’t played that, you absolutely must – maybe it’ll hit the Virtual Console?

“Lars Von Trier’s newest film, The Boss of it All, might suit. Probably the first Von Trier film we can think of in which you might feel like you’re laughing along with the director (though you’re probably still being laughed at). We caught it when it was shown at Cinematheque Ontario, and while it suffers from several unfortunate affectations (Von Trier’s appearance as the director in reflections, his ‘Automavision’ computer-controlled camera, his obvious lack of knowledge about his satirical target) it’s actually quite amusing, thanks to strong performances. We recommend it!”

A quiet week in film for Toronto.

“Mario Party 8. Eight Mario parties! That’s a lot of cake, streamers and mini sausage rolls over the years, and that’s with fudging the numbers; there was also the poorly received Mario Party Advance, plus an e-Reader card game and an arcade installment that were never released here. With that in mind, the first Mario Party to hit the Wii had better do something pretty special to make it worthwhile if you’ve already purchased one already – especially considering you probably already own about 5 mini-game collections for the Wii, anyway.”

I go on to explain that it doesn’t do anything special, for anyone under any illusion that the latest Mario Party title is worth a punt. It isn’t. It’s an absolute dog.

“Carcassonne is a solid game in the Xbox 360′s online multiplayer line-up, but if you’re in the market for a board game designed by a German with a title that begins with the letter C, it’s probably not quite as worthy of a purchase as Catan.”

I think this is a fair enough review as long as you remember that reviews are unavoidably subjective – Carcassonne is quite good, but I personally don’t like the core game as much as Catan. I do really like that it’s perfectly playable offline and with only 2 players, though.

A slightly different post on the workblog, this one. Last night I was at the One Inch Punch art show, as my button design was part of the show.

One Inch Punch is a very clever (and fun) art show – the buttons on show are sold in random bags of $5, and so during the show people purchase buttons and trade them to get all of the ones they want. I’m pleased to say that my button was a hot commodity! Whether that’s to do with the fact that it’s good or not I don’t know – it might have had a lot more to do with the fact that I didn’t take the opportunity that I had as an artist in the show to have extra copies of my button printed, so there were only the copies of my button that people got in the random bags available, unlike other artists who chose to flood the marketplace. Economics at work!

The button, titled “We Don’t Talk Anymore” was popular despite no-one I asked clocking the idea behind it – it’s a man with a book on his face. A facebook, get it? (The book is actually in the Facebook colour scheme.) And the title is a commentary on the way people communicate now blah blah boring artistic statement blah blah.

Anyway, it’s a great event and big thanks to the One Inch Punch organisers choosing my button. It looks a lot better in physical form than it did when I was designing it in Photoshop. Any for anyone who visits the One Inch Punch website, that’s actually my hand that forms the biggest image on the flyer. I could be a hand model, I really could.

“Tut tut tut. We’re all very disappointed in you, John Krasinski, for your decision to star in License to Wed. Sure, you’ve been working so hard to build up your hipster cred—interviewing the Shins, playing on stage with Ben Gibbard, but I’m afraid we might have to revoke your hipster privileges.”

I like the American version of The Office roughly a billion times more than I liked the British version. This does not make me a bad person (it just makes me someone who really, really hates Ricky Gervais.)

“Mobile porting technology provider Tira Wireless recently announced Tira Jump 2007, the latest version of their flagship product suite, including a new feature, “Jumplets.”

Games On Deck talks to Tony de la Lama, SVP Product Management and Marketing and Simon Keogh, director of Product Management, about the company’s history and their future.”

I’m linking this because it’s a nice reminder to the beginning of my career as a journalist – my first paid article was in fact a review of the Tira Wireless Product Suite for Game Developer Magazine. Game Developer Magazine, of course, part of CMP, who are the umbrella group that own Games On Deck.

My other recent articles on the site include Q&As with Mike Nelson, CEO of Timelapse Mobile, and Eric Berger, the Vice President of Sony Mobile Entertainment.

Perhaps surprisingly, 52 Gaming Similes To Describe Your Relationship still gains this site a ridiculous number of daily hits, mostly thanks to Stumbleupon, a site which I wasn’t actually previously familiar with. It’s done the article a lot more good than Digg did, strangely (I always thought Digg was where the action is.) Anyway, as part of my plan for global supremacy, the first language this has (officially) been translated into is Danish for Game Reactor. You can download the PDF from the Game Reactor website, but it’s also available online at Thomas Tangaard’s blog.

Interested in translating the article for your own regional publication? Do get in touch, dears.