Gotta love the Japanese, they are front-runners in innovation ...
Soccer with binoculars via Dan
thedustindotcomarchives
Soccer as it was meant to be played
Get the Picture
If you haven't heard about The Big Picture, you should check it out. It's generally updated daily, and is the best way to check out current events in large-format picture form. Here's the tribute to Beijing 2008.
I Heard It Through the TV
I'd heard it before, but seeing those Nike commercials brought it all roaring back to me - Marvin Gaye's beautiful rendition of the Star Spangled Banner.
First Annual Baseball Blurb
The Moose is having a pretty decent 2008. I'm not the biggest of baseball fans, but I keep up with it slightly - keeping one eye on the Orioles and the other on the rest of the league. There was a tear in that one eye the day eight or nine years ago when the Orioles let Mussina head off to the greener pastures of New York. Initially conflicted about how I could cheer for the Moose and not cheer for the Yankees, I eventually reasoned that the Major League Baseball season is very long, and a 20-25 win season for a pitcher could, theoretically mean absolutely nothing over 162 games. Needless to say things haven't worked out quite like that, but I'm glad to see Mussina coming back strong after struggling a bit last season.
Wall-E
Being the moderate Pixar fanboy that I am, I saw Wall-E on opening weekend. It's been a few weeks since then, but I've been intrigued by the mixed reactions trickling in as people around me have seen the movie. It seems this Pixar movie more than any other is eliciting emotions from opposite extremes. There are those who were outraged by the "underlying message" ridiculing our society's exorbitance, lack of story/dialogue, and kid unfriendliness of the movie. Listening to these reactions you'd almost think Pixar turned into Pixxxar. Then there's the other extreme who call it Pixar's greatest achievement in animation, a successful experiment in storytelling, and so moving just the trailer brought them to tears.
I'd definitely say I fall somewhere in between, though not really on the fence. I thought it was brilliant film-making, which to me encompasses all aspects - "cinematography", story, and emotion. However, it's important to note that I'm a twenty-something that grew up in the information technology (computers) age, I find myself questioning my wastefulness (albeit not always triumphantly) daily, and I don't have kids. And that last characteristic might be the most important.
No matter how much I think of myself as "still a kid" - and my wife would probably second that - I can't just automatically revert back to kid tendencies that left me as I grew up. I can sit through 30 minutes of visual silence (or should it be silent visuals). I can tell when subtle messages are being flashed (or in this case drawn out) in front of me. I can also decide whether I agree with the message or not. I have a past from which to draw relevance to the film1. And that's just it. More than any other film that Pixar has made, this film uniquely identifies with a specific generation and/or mindset. And that generation is probably older than 13 and maybe younger than 40. And that mindset is not exclusive in that generation.
That's probably leaving things a little more vague than I'd like, but if you saw Wall-E, what did you think? And why?
Embarrassing Note: While writing this post, I had to spell-check the word "experiment".
I'd definitely say I fall somewhere in between, though not really on the fence. I thought it was brilliant film-making, which to me encompasses all aspects - "cinematography", story, and emotion. However, it's important to note that I'm a twenty-something that grew up in the information technology (computers) age, I find myself questioning my wastefulness (albeit not always triumphantly) daily, and I don't have kids. And that last characteristic might be the most important.
No matter how much I think of myself as "still a kid" - and my wife would probably second that - I can't just automatically revert back to kid tendencies that left me as I grew up. I can sit through 30 minutes of visual silence (or should it be silent visuals). I can tell when subtle messages are being flashed (or in this case drawn out) in front of me. I can also decide whether I agree with the message or not. I have a past from which to draw relevance to the film1. And that's just it. More than any other film that Pixar has made, this film uniquely identifies with a specific generation and/or mindset. And that generation is probably older than 13 and maybe younger than 40. And that mindset is not exclusive in that generation.
That's probably leaving things a little more vague than I'd like, but if you saw Wall-E, what did you think? And why?
Embarrassing Note: While writing this post, I had to spell-check the word "experiment".
Waddle Me This
Rumors are flying about who the villain(s) will be and who will play them in the follow up to The Dark Knight - even while the movie continues to plow through the record books. $400 million in 18 days is pretty impressive, but not quite half-way to where it would need to get to surpass Titanic in actual ticket sales. I'll have to check it out at IMAX to help it out a little.
Update: I forgot that the whole reason I posted was to link to this. Hope that helps make this post seem a little less random.
Update: I forgot that the whole reason I posted was to link to this. Hope that helps make this post seem a little less random.
The Power of One
I'm not really sure how it happened, but I am now a Mac user. I know all of the details that led to this, but I'm not quite sure if I'm ready to process them. In the meantime I'm going to see if I can figure out how to get used to "1" mouse button.