Brendan said that if you needed to post something best do it now, before it’s too late…

So I think, as guest blogs, we all need to make sure we get any and all picking on Brendan take care of and wrapped up before he shuts us all down for good. Like recalling the guy that for months kept calling him Brenda… Or the fact that he still, yes still, wears Velcro shoes (well, last I knew anyway, please Becky, tell me you’ve fixed this?)… I imagine his daughter will be lacing up her own shoes properly long before Brendan… (Update: In comments, Brendan tells us he is now wearing proper lace up trainers, so I suppose we can’t tease him about that anymore.) Anyway, it appears it is last call, so I say we get on with it for a nice good showing these last 20 ish hours.

Really, I’m thinking a good and proper roast for a nice send off…

Update: Or just, you know, say fair thee well and thank you, if that’s more your fancy. (Just remember, odd sentence constructions are encouraged.)

I’ve been working hard this weekend on the back-end tasks necessary to make the big blog switch happen Monday night, and I think I’ll be able to do it on schedule. So, sometime after 7:30 PM EDT, this blog will disappear, and will be replaced with my weekly blog (and my photoblog… and a linklog… and a new “moblog”…).

I’ll save the details of the new blog(s) for later, but I wanted to mention this now so you’re all aware. Guestbloggers, if you have anything you’ve been itching to say, today would be the day. :) And readers, if things are a little screwy in this space Monday night, you know why. Hopefully everything will be humming along smoothly by Tuesday morning, albeit in a brave new world wherein I’m no longer a hyperactive blogger.

P.S. Incidentally, I’ve decided, upon reflection, to drop the “Irish Trojan” moniker from both the titles and subtitles of the new blogs. The sidebar of the weekly blog will still mention my USC and Notre Dame affiliations, and that I used to blog as the “Irish Trojan,” but officially speaking, these are my final 24 hours blogging as the “Irish Trojan.”

I haven’t really been paying any attention to the hype for WALL·E, the Disney/Pixar film that opened Friday, but it’s getting absolutely rave reviews from critics — a 96% “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes! — to the point where, for example, it made the Wall Street Journal’s critic sound veritably Obamaesque in his gushing:

The first half hour of “WALL-E” is essentially wordless, and left me speechless. This magnificent animated feature from Pixar starts on such a high plane of aspiration, and achievement, that you wonder whether the wonder can be sustained. But yes, it can. …

[T]he film stands as a stunning tour de force. The director has described it as his love letter to the golden era of sci-fi films that enchanted him as a kid in the 1970s. It is certainly that, in hearts and spades. Beyond that, though, it’s a love letter to the possibilities of the movie medium, and a dazzling demonstration of how computers can create a photorealistic world — in this case a ruined world of mysterious majesty — that leaves literal reality in the dust. … I must drop my inhibitions about dropping the M word — especially since I’ve already used magnificent — and call “WALL-E” the masterpiece that it is.

See also TNR’s Christopher Orr:

For over a dozen years now, the best name in American film has been Pixar. No movie star, no director, no writer, producer, or studio approaches its level of consistent excellence. Even Pixar’s weaker offerings (A Bug’s Life, Cars, and–in my moderately heretical view–Finding Nemo) have exceptional depth and texture, moral as well as visual. And its best efforts (Toy Story, The Incredibles) are simply transcendent, rivaling the finest live-action films in sophistication and sentiment.

Pixar’s newest movie, WALL·E, is firmly in the latter tier, and quite possibly at the top of it. It is, in a word, a marvel, a film that recalls in equal measure Hollywood’s most evocative future visions–Blade Runner and Brazil, E.T. and 2001–and the silent intimacies of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. It is a story about love and loneliness, perseverance and triumph, the possibilities and pitfalls of human existence. That this story is told by way of the exploits of a tiny, faceless robot only makes it more extraordinary.

Wow. I guess I’ll have to go see it.

Incidentally, speaking of movies, I finally saw Charlie Wilson’s War; Becky and I watched it Friday night on DVD, having rented it from Blockbuster. It’s really good, mostly because Tom Hanks and Philip Seymour Hoffman freakin’ rock. Watching their witty banter — fueled also by great screenwriting, by the way — was just an absolute joy. It’s amazing how much you can accomplish in a movie, with apparent effortlessness, when you’ve got great actors playing the key roles. For a film that didn’t exactly have an elaborate or involved plot, it never seemed to drag at all. It was thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish. (Becky, who hates Julia Roberts, thought she was poorly cast and outclassed by her co-stars, and that she brought the movie down a notch. I agree that she was the weakest link, but I don’t think she particularly hurt the movie.) If you haven’t seen it, you should; it’s a great film.