I went to see Children of Men today, which was fantastic, disturbing, hopeful, and cautionary. I cried a bit, but left not resenting the movie for making me sad.

Beforehand, we saw four trailers which ALL fell into the new Librarian Avengers Film Rating System. There was a Creepy Child Singing, Two Overly Patriotics, and a Jim
Carrey.

Beware.

Movie ratings suck. “Rated R” doesn’t tell me anything I need to know.
I need to know if a movie contains cannibalism, synthesizers, or Jim Carrey.

I need a rating system that reflects the diversity of obstacles lurking in today’s cinema. Introducing…

	Rated A for Animal Gets Hurt
	Rated B for British Accent Faked by American
	Rated C for Creepy Child Singing
	Rated D for Dialog Written by Committee
	Rated E for Escape-in-front-of-a-fireball
	Rated F for Fun-filled Frolic for the Family
	Rated G for Grab-my-hand!
	Rated H for Heads chopped off/Hearts pulled out
	Rated I for Italian Stallion
	Rated J for Jim Carrey
	Rated K for Keyboard hacks Pentagon in two clicks
	Rated L for Lead Actors involved in Real-Life Romance rendering film unwatchable
	Rated M for Motiveless Villain
	Rated N for Natives
	Rated O for Overly Patriotic
	Rated P for Pacino Yelling
	Rated R for Remake of a Better Film
	Rated S for Scientific Content ≠ Reality
	Rated T for T&A
	Rated U for Un-ironic 80’s Soundtrack
	Rated V for Vehicle
	Rated W for Woody Allen as Romantic Lead
	Rated X for Xenu-Sponsored Script
	Rated Z for Zombies

We had a breakthrough this week in human-cat relations. Plover, our newest cat, was adopted from the pound, and came with a bit of post-traumatic-stress disorder. He had a rough time in cat jail, and has been on edge for the last six months.

Then we got him a shoelace.

We tried everything to get him to play: catnip, stuffed mice, balls, rattling things. He would try, but he always remained a bit reserved. The shoelace changed everything. He instantly recognized it as a toy, and jumped on it with a joyous fury.

He is a changed cat. He carries the shoelace around the house, lays on it, chases it wherever we drag it (even to previously scary parts of the house), and has generally blossomed into a fun-loving, easy-going guy.

This kitty was a mystery, and all it took was a shoelace to decrypt his code and get him functioning. Kittyhack!!!