Arts

Film and motion pictures — Comments Off on My Revenge of the Sith Review
24
May 05

My Revenge of the Sith Review

Jody and I went to see “Revenge of the Sith” today. RoTS was way better than any of the previous two movies, however it just makes you wish Lucas had his stuff together for the first two because they could have been a lot better. Now here come the bullet points:

The Good

  • Action is steady. This is number one reason it didn’t suck. The other two movies had too many slow points that were awful.
  • The special effects were awesome.
  • Nice conclusion. Everything is tied up, although what was the deal with the part about Qui Gon Jin?

The Bad

  • Bad dialogue. I could have come up with something more romantic and that’s quite a statement.
  • The emperor Palpatine / Darth Sidious makes the Dark Side look sissified. I still don’t get the Sith thing. Who are they? What’s with the weird names?
  • Jimmy Smits looks like a Ren-fest attendee.
Media — Comments Off on The Military Changes Their Sales Pitch
12
May 05

The Military Changes Their Sales Pitch

As has been widely reported, the military is having trouble meeting its recruitment and retention goals since launching offensive action in Afghanistan and Iraq. This is to be expected in our media-savvy and highly educated society. As people gain access to more information and a resistance to marketing-speak it becomes tougher to sell what amounts to, in the simplest of terms, an opportunity to get yourself killed. The message is that joining the military is an act of service to your country and that it’s the most patriotic thing you could do, but if you look around you realize it is much more complicated than that. When the most influential people in this country (even the past two presidents) avoid military service the impression is formed that it is far from desirable or wise.

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Media / Software / Internet — 2 Comments
07
May 05

Shhhh… The Blogging Business Model

Blogging is becoming a business for a select few, but how long can it last before the business world catches a whiff and susses out the simple mechanism for generating ad-driven revenues? Many for-profit blogs like, Boing Boing, simply repackage actual content allowing them to make money off the teeming masses of individuals that publish original material to the web. As a business model, it’s rather uninspired: grab a bunch of junk from RSS feeds, technorati pings, and credit-link-whoring tipsters tied to their computers and post it before the plebes see it anywhere else first. Anyone can do this, and they will.

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Literature — Comments Off on Your thought for the day: Change
05
May 05

Your thought for the day: Change

From Frank Herbert, courtesy of Quipsmart, a blog for quotations, which I’m trying to update regularly:

Without change, something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.

Frank Herbert’s Dune had an enormous impact on me. It has as much to do with our world and history as it has to do with Herbert’s artificial world and history. There is a strong human dimension to his first book: the power of destiny, the influence of history and tradition, and the relationships between family members. It’s also a book about growing up, and taking your place in the world around you.

Cool Tools / Music / Technology — 1 Comment
27
Apr 05

Phone droolage: 4GB Nokia N91


The zero key on my cellphone has been broken for a while, and you would be surprised at how much you need that particular number when dialing. So, I’ve been looking at phone reviews and what options I have for getting a new one. I’d like to have speakerphone and bluetooth, for example. Anyway, I heard the awesome news that Nokia is releasing an iPod-killing, mp3-playing phone as part of their new phone line-up. The Nokia N91 looks to be a winner.

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Quotations / Society — 26 Comments
26
Apr 05

Meme: “Busier than a…”

The past few weeks I’ve been busier than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. I try to make a lot of lists and at least get through at least 7 items a day. I’m also starting to crunch for E3, which means we’ll be working twelve hour days until the end of May. That’s good because I’ll need all the scratch I can get before I leave to work for myself full-time.

Busier than…

  1. a one-armed paperhanger with a case of the hives.
  2. a one-eyed cat watching nine rat holes.
  3. a one-legged man in a butt kickin’ contest.
  4. a one-toothed man in a corn-on-the-cob eating contest.
  5. a mosquito at a nudist colony.
  6. a one-armed paper hanger.
  7. a cross-eyed air traffic controller.
  8. a set of jumper cables at a country funeral.
  9. a cat with puppies.
  10. a weatherman in a tornado.
  11. a desert cobra at a mongoose convention.
  12. a termite in a saw mill.
  13. a dog scratching fleas.
  14. a one-armed-pimp in a bitch-slapping contest
  15. a one-armed trombone player.
  16. a rooster in a henhouse.
Comics — Comments Off on Drawing with the mouse
19
Apr 05

Drawing with the mouse

Drawing with the mouse is a lot like drawing with Prisma Design Markers, except you have somewhat less control.

Literature — 2 Comments
28
Mar 05

Books for young people

I was talking with Jody about books we had read as kids, and I thought it might make a good post.

  1. The Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. This was a good series, which I remember little about, except for its good description of pioneer living, like living in a sod house, for example.
  2. The Great Brain series by John Fitzgerald. I read these in my fifth grade class. When you finished your work you could read from the bookshelf in the classroom. That’s where I discovered this series. The stories revolve around these brothers as they get into mischief and solve mysteries.
  3. Flinx Series by Alan Dean Foster. This is a good sci-fi series about an orphan, Pip, and his pet flying snake, Flynx.
  4. The Oz books by L. Frank Baum. These were essentially fantasy books, before fantasy was a genre. There’s a lot going on in the Oz books. Magic, witches, and other assorted craziness. I never really understood the whole Ozma / Pip situation.
Cool Tools / Media — Comments Off on Trendy
21
Mar 05

Trendy

If you’re attuned to what people wear and do you’ll notice fads. Why do people follow the lead of other people? What are you thinking when you wear certain clothes or buy certain products? How do you decide what has value? Here are a few things I’ve noticed:

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Arts — 2 Comments
17
Mar 05

Graffiti link-o-rama

  1. The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal: graffiti removal as art. The squarish areas to cover graffiti as minimalist works. Can graffiti removal be an artistic response?
  2. GRAFFITI REMOVAL: basic technical advice from English Heritage after damage by vandals to historic buildings and monuments
  3. Comprehensive Wikipedia entry on graffiti including types, methods, history, etc. Informative!
  4. Online graffiti generator.
  5. Banksy, graffiti as subversive art. His work is creative and effective.

In thinking about the subject, it is clear that graffiti can operate from many angles. In essence it is a mode of communication. I’m hesitant to use the word “expression” because it’s a loaded term that conveys legitimacy. As a form of communication, it comes in many varieties: political graffiti, graffiti art, advertising, gang-related tagging, drunk shaming, culture jamming (subvertising), etc. How do you decide when it’s a positive thing or a negative thing? I suppose it all depends on point of view, and if that’s the case whose point of view wins out when there is a conflict?

graffiti

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