You think you got it bad?

According to Back to School and Back to Work, a study released August 23rd by Scotiabank (of all people), university students are almost twice as likely to 'work' (i.e. a job for pay) during the school year today than 30 years ago. In 1976, ~27% of full-time students aged 20-24 worked during the school year; in 2004 it was ~47%. Since these figures don't include "informal" jobs like babysitting and tutoring, the figures are probably substantially higher.

While the skyrocketing cost of tuition is an obvious factor here, the report also refers (somewhat obliquely) to "the desire to earn more discretionary income." In other words, the pressure to consume more and more useless junk has become more and more acute over time. Is capitalism snowballing? What happens when it hits the ski lodge at the foot of the hill?

Anyway, just a little something to throw in your elders' faces when they start lecturing you about how much harder it was 'back in the day.'

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I've now been alone for a week. It blows. 'Nuff said.

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The last time my baby was away, I rented Assault on Precinct 13, expecting to be bored and vaguely annoyed with the whole thing, but I wasn't. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised by a taut, well-paced, efficient action movie with some good stunts, visceral gunfights and a cast which did the best they could with a flat and lifeless script.

Ethan Hawke's gotten lean & hungry again and suddenly I'm interested in seeing what he does next. Between this and Training Day (another pleasant surprise), he may be etching out a new niche for himself. Laurence Fishburne may be an acquired taste, but I like him: he always carries himself with this charismatic mélange of hard-edged wisdom and cool, vaguely sinister detachment.

Much of the movie is driven by the relationship between Hawke's cop and Fishburne's gangster and while it's not as compelling as the De Niro/Pacino mirror dance in Heat or even the master/student tragedy Hawke plays out with Denzel Washington in Training Day, it's done well enough to be eminently watchable.

All in all, not disappointing--worth the four bucks.