Wow, it’s December already.  Got the shopping done?  For whatever gift giving holiday you celebrate? A favorite pasttime around the net is to produce as many “year end” lists as possible.  To the point of insanity, or at least nausea.  I want to play too. What sort of year end list can we make up?  Best Shakespeare movies?  Best Shakespeare books?  I love the idea of just doing “Best Plays”, since it shouldn’t be based on the year-end.  Jasper Fforde does a wonderful series of books (his Thursday Next series) where one of the storylines involves the book awards, and how for example Heathcliffe would always have to campaign for “Best Troubled Romantic Lead, Male” every year, even though his book was written…well, a long time ago.  Looking for ideas.  Or, maybe I’m just bored.

UPDATED December 2010 – Check out the latest Guide to Gifts for Shakespeare Geeks!
 

If you’re interested in Shakespeare adaptations on film, I have for you Duncan’s Shakespeare, a blog which focuses on exactly that.  He (they?) seem to be doing mostly modern adaptations, but maybe they’ll work backwards.  The blog was last updated in late October, so I’m hoping they keep it active.  

Maybe it’s just the geek in me, but I thought “If Shakespeare Wrote Error Messages” worth a link:   Brevity is the soul of wit; too many arguments. ‘Tis nothing to you, for there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so, except for that bad command or file name. Fie, thy grief is a fault to heaven, a fault against the dead, a fault to nature, and a fault of segmentation. Something wicked this way comes — oh good, permission denied.    

I hadn’t actually seen this one yet — maybe I’d just passed over it because I don’t usually go for the Rowan Atkinson stuff.  But I’ve just given it a listen, and it’s quite funny. “Ok, take out victim and coward.  How about just…to be, or not to be?”

“You can’t say that, it’s gibberish!”