If you like romance, comedies and inspiring stories of the underdog winning despite overwhelming odds, check out "Aaah! Zombies!!". A story of five friends who overcome hardship, death and dismemberment to find a place for them despite the genocidal attempts of the living to wipe them out. You'll never look at the undead the same way again.
Monday, August 8, 2011
Monday, April 25, 2011
Don't Eat at Joe's, but rent "Joe's Apartment"
I am very surprised that I liked this one, I figured I'd be disappointed by a decidedly D-List cast (I hated O'Connell in Sliders and what ever else it was I saw him in), the disgusting premise, and over-used plot.
The thing is, this show has all those things, and I still loved it! It made me smile with it's silly musical compositions, cheesily bad special effects, and, most of all, it's simple minded (everything about this show is simple-minded) good heartedness.
The thing is, this show has all those things, and I still loved it! It made me smile with it's silly musical compositions, cheesily bad special effects, and, most of all, it's simple minded (everything about this show is simple-minded) good heartedness.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
'Zombieland' is a cool movie, and related rambling.
I just watched Zombieland, very cool movie, not what I expected, but funny and scary in the parts where zombies show up, well funny through the hole movie, but scary where there were zombies ... oh, and the zombies were funny too, just scary along with being funny. I liked Bill Murray's cameo (oh yeah, if you haven't seen it yet, you shouldn't have read this sentence.
And now for the paragraph where I go off the rails a bit. I don't like the zombieism/vampirism/werewolfism as disease trope. Not just because of all the slashes and all the -ism suffixes, but because it's trying to pass off horror as science fiction and it just doesn't wash. It's a simple-minded ploy to make the idea of monster-x sound more plausible, but you either have to pretend that infections can cause people to defy physics, or you end up with "zombies", or "vampires", that are just sick people with no special powers at all. So let's just agree that horror genres are a sub-set of fantasy, and let the zombies be the reanimated corpses they are meant to be. Vampires the blood sucking undying evil that Brahm Stoker introduced us to, and werewolves be evil warlocks in league with the devil, and for two hours in the dark we'll believe the superstitious nonsense our ancestors lived there entire lives with.
And now for the paragraph where I go off the rails a bit. I don't like the zombieism/vampirism/werewolfism as disease trope. Not just because of all the slashes and all the -ism suffixes, but because it's trying to pass off horror as science fiction and it just doesn't wash. It's a simple-minded ploy to make the idea of monster-x sound more plausible, but you either have to pretend that infections can cause people to defy physics, or you end up with "zombies", or "vampires", that are just sick people with no special powers at all. So let's just agree that horror genres are a sub-set of fantasy, and let the zombies be the reanimated corpses they are meant to be. Vampires the blood sucking undying evil that Brahm Stoker introduced us to, and werewolves be evil warlocks in league with the devil, and for two hours in the dark we'll believe the superstitious nonsense our ancestors lived there entire lives with.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Movie Review: Moulin Rouge
In this movie, Obi Wan Kenobi and Count Dracula vie for the hand of the lovely courtesan who is dying of consumption, whilst lipsyncing more than a battalion of drag-queens. Not that there are any drag-queens in the movie, unless you count that one scene where the midget is dressed like a nun. So knock a star off the final score for no drag queens, but put it back up there for midgets. Hurray for midgets!
Where were we, oh yeah, so Obi Wan woos Nicole Kidman by lipsynching to pop music and Rogers & Hammerstein show tunes (but he's totally strait), while Dracula offers wealth and fame and exudes more creepy perviness than a phalanx of chicken-rapists. Which begs the question, who would win in a fight, Obi Wan, or Dracula? but the question just hangs over the show like the fscking Sword of Damocles, while Nicole pulls a Mimi and dies in the end, but not before professing her love for Obi Wan.
I just can't wait for the sequel Moulin Rouge II, Revenge of Puccini. Where Puccini and Murger come back as zombies kill the writers, and beat Baz Luhrmann to a bloody pulp while lipsynching to Lady Gaga songs and juggling flaming chickens.
Oh, and watch Moulin Rouge in the mean-time, it's actually a pretty fun show.
Where were we, oh yeah, so Obi Wan woos Nicole Kidman by lipsynching to pop music and Rogers & Hammerstein show tunes (but he's totally strait), while Dracula offers wealth and fame and exudes more creepy perviness than a phalanx of chicken-rapists. Which begs the question, who would win in a fight, Obi Wan, or Dracula? but the question just hangs over the show like the fscking Sword of Damocles, while Nicole pulls a Mimi and dies in the end, but not before professing her love for Obi Wan.
I just can't wait for the sequel Moulin Rouge II, Revenge of Puccini. Where Puccini and Murger come back as zombies kill the writers, and beat Baz Luhrmann to a bloody pulp while lipsynching to Lady Gaga songs and juggling flaming chickens.
Oh, and watch Moulin Rouge in the mean-time, it's actually a pretty fun show.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Movie Review: This Film Is Not Yet Rated
This Film Is Not Yet Rated is a documentary about the shady, underside of the film industry, the MPAA, and it's secretive rating system. Director Kirby Dick exposes the biases in the rating system between sex and violence in film, homosexual versus heterosexual sex scenes, and the lack of any kind of published guidelines as to why one movie may get a PG-13 for instance while another very similar movie will get an R, or NC-17.
From there he segways into the secretive world of the raters themselves, interviewing some former raters, exposing current raters, and how they differ from the 'normal parents of 5-17 year old kids' that the MPAA claims they are, and finally exposes the appeals process. Dick manages to make the documentary light and fun with lots of interviews from film-makers like John Waters, Kevin Smith and Matt Stone. I definitely enjoyed this doc.
From there he segways into the secretive world of the raters themselves, interviewing some former raters, exposing current raters, and how they differ from the 'normal parents of 5-17 year old kids' that the MPAA claims they are, and finally exposes the appeals process. Dick manages to make the documentary light and fun with lots of interviews from film-makers like John Waters, Kevin Smith and Matt Stone. I definitely enjoyed this doc.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Sky Captain is Fluff, But Very Pretty Fluff
Take a very pretty cast, the plot of a 30 minute cartoon adventure, lots of crazy action with no clear connection, stylistically fantastic designs, a far too limited color palette, and too much Vaseline on the camera lens. And what do you get, a fantastic action adventure short. Now stretch it out to nearly two hours, and you'd get Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.
Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, and Bai Ling were all very pretty, and with the exception of Bai Ling who I haven't seen in a movie before, I know they are competent actors. Their acting abilities are wasted on this film however as no character is thicker than soggy single ply toilet tissue. I would have happily given up just a bit of the action sequences to learn why Dr. Totenkopf was driven to destroy the world, or what the deal between Joe, Polly, and Franky was.
Instead, as the credits rolled, I felt like I'd seen the longest trailer to what could be a really great movie, especially if the camera man would take the time to clean some of the grease off the lens before shooting.
Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, and Bai Ling were all very pretty, and with the exception of Bai Ling who I haven't seen in a movie before, I know they are competent actors. Their acting abilities are wasted on this film however as no character is thicker than soggy single ply toilet tissue. I would have happily given up just a bit of the action sequences to learn why Dr. Totenkopf was driven to destroy the world, or what the deal between Joe, Polly, and Franky was.
Instead, as the credits rolled, I felt like I'd seen the longest trailer to what could be a really great movie, especially if the camera man would take the time to clean some of the grease off the lens before shooting.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Star Trek Rocks
I just watched Star Trek. Wow! what a great movie, it beats the first Star Trek movie by a mile despite having to recast everybody, and, by the way, the new actors filled their rolls superbly, I thought. This was quite possibly a better film than Wrath of Khan, it's that fscking good. I started watching with a trepidation, spawned by watching the Star-Wars franchise swirl down the quality crapper. So I might just be relieved that this new Star Trek movie didn't piss all over a beloved universe, but no, I don't think so, I think they hit a home run with this picture-show.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
I can writez sci-fi.
Yes, I'm writing again, I just got a little bit of an Idea of a science fiction story. I decided to write it on-line, sharing the process with my friends and random strangers. Feel free to critique, but don't get your feelings hurt if I don't incorporate your suggestions into the story. I don't have a title yet, I don't really know where it's headed yet, my protagonist hasn't even left his bedroom yet. But here it is so far.
Tim woke to brilliant sunshine, it burst through the window pane, stained gold the opposite wall. He blinked, rubbed sleep from his eyes, and stretched. It was a week day, but he had nothing to do this morning, so he turned over, closed his eyes and indulged himself in the simple joy of a warm bed.
Light, tinted red through his closed eyelids tugged at his consciousness, he frowned, without opening his eyes, snaked an arm from below the covers to swipe across the window fader, turning it opaque, and drifted off to sleep only to be nudged awake by the increasing pressure of his bladder. Finally giving up to the inevitable, he threw off his covers, swiped the window transparent once more, stumbled out of bed and towards the open washroom door.
While still urinating in the toilet, he dragged a rectangle across the deep golden wood of the bathroom’s panelled wall.
“Rec reflect” he mumbled, and the rectangle he had drawn out with his fingers faded to the reflected image of his own face. He momentarily entertained the idea of a goatee, decided to go clean shaved instead, wiped the mirror effect away, and turned towards the shower stall as the toilet flushed.
Tim opened the shower door, stepped into the steamy sudsy mist and sighed heartily, A warm shower makes even a bad morning bearable, today, with no clock ticking away the minutes of his free time, it was pure bliss. Almost too soon, the water and cleanser was replaced by warm breezes, and he leaped out across the washroom, refreshed and invigorated. crossed the bedroom to gaze out the window, It was a real window, a large piece of clear plastic with only controls for polarity and opacity, and looked down on the small but well groomed garden below.
“Outside temp,” he said, gazing down on the rose vines and sun-dappled grass of his mother’s back garden.
“Twenty-four point six,” replied the room. He smiled to himself and slid the window latches aside, lifting the window up half way, breathed in the pleasant scent of roses and fresh cut grass.
“Vivaldi, Springtime”, he sang out, crossing the room to the closet as his room came alive to the thrilling sound of strings, “mirror full length.” A section of the closet face faded to a full length mirror surface, he called up window of shirts and pants, picked a pink cotton polo, a pair of white shorts, and matching white running shoes, turned around, checking out the fit of the ensemble on his reflection, swiped away the pink polo, dialed up a blue and white striped tee, touched the accept tab on the window, picked the clothes out of the drawer as it slid out and dressed.
Tim woke to brilliant sunshine, it burst through the window pane, stained gold the opposite wall. He blinked, rubbed sleep from his eyes, and stretched. It was a week day, but he had nothing to do this morning, so he turned over, closed his eyes and indulged himself in the simple joy of a warm bed.
Light, tinted red through his closed eyelids tugged at his consciousness, he frowned, without opening his eyes, snaked an arm from below the covers to swipe across the window fader, turning it opaque, and drifted off to sleep only to be nudged awake by the increasing pressure of his bladder. Finally giving up to the inevitable, he threw off his covers, swiped the window transparent once more, stumbled out of bed and towards the open washroom door.
While still urinating in the toilet, he dragged a rectangle across the deep golden wood of the bathroom’s panelled wall.
“Rec reflect” he mumbled, and the rectangle he had drawn out with his fingers faded to the reflected image of his own face. He momentarily entertained the idea of a goatee, decided to go clean shaved instead, wiped the mirror effect away, and turned towards the shower stall as the toilet flushed.
Tim opened the shower door, stepped into the steamy sudsy mist and sighed heartily, A warm shower makes even a bad morning bearable, today, with no clock ticking away the minutes of his free time, it was pure bliss. Almost too soon, the water and cleanser was replaced by warm breezes, and he leaped out across the washroom, refreshed and invigorated. crossed the bedroom to gaze out the window, It was a real window, a large piece of clear plastic with only controls for polarity and opacity, and looked down on the small but well groomed garden below.
“Outside temp,” he said, gazing down on the rose vines and sun-dappled grass of his mother’s back garden.
“Twenty-four point six,” replied the room. He smiled to himself and slid the window latches aside, lifting the window up half way, breathed in the pleasant scent of roses and fresh cut grass.
“Vivaldi, Springtime”, he sang out, crossing the room to the closet as his room came alive to the thrilling sound of strings, “mirror full length.” A section of the closet face faded to a full length mirror surface, he called up window of shirts and pants, picked a pink cotton polo, a pair of white shorts, and matching white running shoes, turned around, checking out the fit of the ensemble on his reflection, swiped away the pink polo, dialed up a blue and white striped tee, touched the accept tab on the window, picked the clothes out of the drawer as it slid out and dressed.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
What was your favorite toy to play with as a child?
I can't think of a single toy that I enjoyed most as a child, but as a class, I'd say constructive toys. I had a 200 in 1 electronics experimenter toy (or something like that), essentially a set of various caps, resistors, transistors, diodes, 7-segment LEDs speaker and mic, a collection of wires and a cookbook with lots of electronics projects in it, from Radio Shack. I really liked that.
Then there was the Legos, the sets that had gears, pistons, rods cams and such that one could use to model machinery with. I played with them for a very long time.
But mostly, my personal computers, especially my C64, because it was the first microcomputer I owned that had enough memory to do anything.
Thinking back on it, the "toy" I probably got the most joy from as a child was simply a piece of paper and a pencil. I remember drawing for hours on end, lost in the drama of creating imaginary worlds.
Later, the same thirst for creative toys showed itself in the kind of books a I've always preferred books that left me a universe that I could continue to toy with in my mind long after the last page in the novel. That's probably why I like science fiction so much. And why I prefer stories that don't quite tie all the threads in a neat little knot at the end of the book. If the characters are interesting, I want to follow them around a bit in my head after I close the back cover and place the book back on the shelf.
Same for games, I like to be able to explore the game world, find out how to effect it, and make something unique with it. I get bummed out if I run into invisible walls, find out that an environment doesn't allow you to move around freely, or that nothing you do changes the environment or final outcome of the game. Oh, I enjoy shmups and FPSs just as much as the next boy, but I'll tire of them after a while, and games that push you in one direction are likely to find themselves unfinished on my shelf. While open-ended games like Sim-City, Civilization, Flight Sim and the Sims will keep me coming back night after night for years on end.
Then there was the Legos, the sets that had gears, pistons, rods cams and such that one could use to model machinery with. I played with them for a very long time.
But mostly, my personal computers, especially my C64, because it was the first microcomputer I owned that had enough memory to do anything.Thinking back on it, the "toy" I probably got the most joy from as a child was simply a piece of paper and a pencil. I remember drawing for hours on end, lost in the drama of creating imaginary worlds.
Later, the same thirst for creative toys showed itself in the kind of books a I've always preferred books that left me a universe that I could continue to toy with in my mind long after the last page in the novel. That's probably why I like science fiction so much. And why I prefer stories that don't quite tie all the threads in a neat little knot at the end of the book. If the characters are interesting, I want to follow them around a bit in my head after I close the back cover and place the book back on the shelf.
Same for games, I like to be able to explore the game world, find out how to effect it, and make something unique with it. I get bummed out if I run into invisible walls, find out that an environment doesn't allow you to move around freely, or that nothing you do changes the environment or final outcome of the game. Oh, I enjoy shmups and FPSs just as much as the next boy, but I'll tire of them after a while, and games that push you in one direction are likely to find themselves unfinished on my shelf. While open-ended games like Sim-City, Civilization, Flight Sim and the Sims will keep me coming back night after night for years on end.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
How would you describe your personality?
Guarded, but among friends, out going. I suspect I sometimes bore people when I get excited about a subject. Others often bring up a topic just to leave it when the conversation becomes interesting. Which is a self-centered way of saying, I suspect I drone on about subjects that interest me long after others grow tired of the conversation thread.
This is probably why I prefer on-line communication, and especially fora like USENET groups where the subject is somewhat set, rather than chat. Chat doesn't reward thoughtfulness, but quick typing skills, but the question isn't "what form of on-line communication medium you prefer?", it "how would you describe your personality?"
I have a tendency to run off half-cocked, to rush out the door, for instance, just to return and collect my things. I find it difficult to connect emotionally with others, although I am prone to emotionality, at times, but often disconnected from any events that I can attribute my emotions to. Rather I end up riding through mood swings. I have learned to expect and, with mixed, but mostly positive success, ignore these waves.
Philosophically, I am materialistic, and humanistic. I regard individual human happiness as the only good, and pain and suffering as the only evil in the universe.
I'm creative, a decent writer, or so I've at least deluded myself, but have trouble with large projects as I'm pretty well always going off on tang ... Oooh, shiny!
This is probably why I prefer on-line communication, and especially fora like USENET groups where the subject is somewhat set, rather than chat. Chat doesn't reward thoughtfulness, but quick typing skills, but the question isn't "what form of on-line communication medium you prefer?", it "how would you describe your personality?"
I have a tendency to run off half-cocked, to rush out the door, for instance, just to return and collect my things. I find it difficult to connect emotionally with others, although I am prone to emotionality, at times, but often disconnected from any events that I can attribute my emotions to. Rather I end up riding through mood swings. I have learned to expect and, with mixed, but mostly positive success, ignore these waves.
Philosophically, I am materialistic, and humanistic. I regard individual human happiness as the only good, and pain and suffering as the only evil in the universe.
I'm creative, a decent writer, or so I've at least deluded myself, but have trouble with large projects as I'm pretty well always going off on tang ... Oooh, shiny!
Friday, January 28, 2011
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
What's in a question?
Last evening a friend exposed me to a new social media tool called Formspring. You may have noticed this if you follow me on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, or read this blog regularly. I apologize for the cascade of stupid questions and short one or two word answers that came down to clog your bandwidth while I messed with this new toy trying to find out what it would be good for.
But I think I've got it now. It seems to me to be a really useful tool for self-discovery much more than for social interaction. I find that 90% of the generic questions that pop up are uninteresting, but now and again, you find something that makes you think, wonder about yourself or the world around you.
Sometimes all it takes to get me writing is a simple question. Questions are odd in that they can often teach us more about ourselves, our assumptions, and culture than the answers we give. That the I ask may tell the world more about me, than the answers will tell me about the person being asked is very interesting. Also, a question out of left field, one I'd never think of asking myself, can send me down a whole new route of self discovery.
In the tab I have open to Formspring now, the question awaiting my answer is "what is your earliest memory?".
That's a very simple question, on the face of it, but when I think about my earliest memories I notice some odd peculiarities. my really old memories seem to be in a third person perspective, as though I'm watching them play out before me. It's also telling that most of these early memories are from periods when I'm at home, often holidays or family gatherings.
This could just be a coincidence, or it could be that I am not remembering the events in my life at all, but my family member's retellings of these events. I for instance can remember quite clearly (despite the peculiarities I mentioned previously) the events that occurred on christmases and birthdays when I was only a very young child, but I have no recollection of my early elementary school lessons, teachers or friends. The difference I think is that the earlier memories were reinforced, perhapse even implanted by retellings by family members, long after I lost track of my elementary teachers and school-yard chums.
But back to questions, a question about what your favorite movie, song, book or video game can tell you as much about how important the particular medium is to the answerer as it tells you about their favorite piece of art in that medium. I find it really hard to write a short answer to for instance what's my favorite book, or favorite song, because writing, and music are both hugely important to me, but I'ts not hard at all for me to knock out a favorite movie, or TV show, because I just don't care as much about movies or television as a whole.
So, Formspring to me is a perfect opportunity to learn a bit about my friends, and a whole lot about myself.
But I think I've got it now. It seems to me to be a really useful tool for self-discovery much more than for social interaction. I find that 90% of the generic questions that pop up are uninteresting, but now and again, you find something that makes you think, wonder about yourself or the world around you.
Sometimes all it takes to get me writing is a simple question. Questions are odd in that they can often teach us more about ourselves, our assumptions, and culture than the answers we give. That the I ask may tell the world more about me, than the answers will tell me about the person being asked is very interesting. Also, a question out of left field, one I'd never think of asking myself, can send me down a whole new route of self discovery.
In the tab I have open to Formspring now, the question awaiting my answer is "what is your earliest memory?".
That's a very simple question, on the face of it, but when I think about my earliest memories I notice some odd peculiarities. my really old memories seem to be in a third person perspective, as though I'm watching them play out before me. It's also telling that most of these early memories are from periods when I'm at home, often holidays or family gatherings.
This could just be a coincidence, or it could be that I am not remembering the events in my life at all, but my family member's retellings of these events. I for instance can remember quite clearly (despite the peculiarities I mentioned previously) the events that occurred on christmases and birthdays when I was only a very young child, but I have no recollection of my early elementary school lessons, teachers or friends. The difference I think is that the earlier memories were reinforced, perhapse even implanted by retellings by family members, long after I lost track of my elementary teachers and school-yard chums.
But back to questions, a question about what your favorite movie, song, book or video game can tell you as much about how important the particular medium is to the answerer as it tells you about their favorite piece of art in that medium. I find it really hard to write a short answer to for instance what's my favorite book, or favorite song, because writing, and music are both hugely important to me, but I'ts not hard at all for me to knock out a favorite movie, or TV show, because I just don't care as much about movies or television as a whole.
So, Formspring to me is a perfect opportunity to learn a bit about my friends, and a whole lot about myself.
Do you have any scars on your body? If so, how'd you get them?
Yes, I have a scar in the center of my forehead I got as a child when I busted my head on the corner of my aunt's brick house. I have a small scar on the skin below my right eyebrow from when I crashed my motorcycle and my glasses cut me there. I have a largish scar on the inward face of my left-knee from where my knee kind of got caught between the left cylinder-head of my bike and the car's fender. I have a scar on my right thumb where I accidentally cut myself with a sword, and several very small scars on my left hand from working on several vehicles.
What's the weirdest thing you've ever eaten?
I've eaten a few odd critters in my life, rattle-snake, turtle, armadillo, but most aren't really weird, in that they're just meat from ordinary animals that people don't ordinarily eat. I'd have to say that oysters are the most unpleasant food I've ever tried to eat. Foods that others might find unpleasant but that are actually quite good are things like ceviche made with squid and muscles, squid based sushi, conch and other squidgy type sea foods.
I love mollusc like squid and octopus and conch, and muscles and clams, both bivalves, I should also like oysters, but the one I ate tasted like cold flem. Ew!
What do you think is your most attractive feature?
My nose. My calves are quite nice in form, but are extremely harry on the inward sides, and virtually bald on the out-facing sides..
What was the most interesting place you've traveled to?
Probably South Florida, where I grew up in Ft. Pierce and Vero Beach, for the sheer bio-diversity of the flora and fauna, particularly I loved the Indian river (actually a brackish lagoon), where my family spent much of our together time.
Are you more of a talker or more of a listener?
I'm definitely more of a talker than a listener, just try to shut me up once you get me started talking about a subject I care deeply about.
Do you believe in life after death?
I don't believe in dualism, the soul as a separate entity from the brain/body. There is too much evidence of peoples personalities being altered my changes in the brain (drug use, physical trauma, etc.) to seriously entertain the idea that who I am is in any way separate from the patterns on neurons in my noggin.
However, I do believe there may come a day in the future when the pattern of neurons that is me can be copied and transferred into some other medium, allowing a sort of life after death. In the mean time, I'm betting that when I die, my soul will cease to exist.
Would you rather get up early or sleep late?
All other things being equal, I'd rather sleep late, not really late, but I don't like getting up before sun-rise. However, since most businesses, employers and etc. start work relatively early, I'd rather get up early as I hate having to race to get dressed, get my kit together and get out the door and get to an appointment on time.
If you won a million dollars what would you do with it?
Pay off my debts, and invest the remainder in land in a state or nation with very strong property-rights laws, and a very stable government.
What's one thing you own that you should probably throw away, but never will?
My Apple //e which needs some repair work to get working again, but I just can't bare to throw it out and don't have the equipment to fix it.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
What is one of your favorite novels and why?
Wow, that's a tough choice, but I'd have to pick Eon by Greg Bear, partly because I like the characters, particularly the ever plucky Patricia, and Farley's gregarious and generous nature. And partly because the story is just so epic, but mostly, and this is going to sound totally geeky, but because the Thistledown, and Nexus city technology is just so cool.
I love the idea of neomorphs, building structures with space-time, hollowing out asteroids for space-ship/cities, and the idea of a religion where Ralph Nader is a prophet for a Luddite religion. But mostly I just like a big epic story.
Star, Fate and Pneuma be Kind,
Dowe Keller
I love the idea of neomorphs, building structures with space-time, hollowing out asteroids for space-ship/cities, and the idea of a religion where Ralph Nader is a prophet for a Luddite religion. But mostly I just like a big epic story.
Star, Fate and Pneuma be Kind,
Dowe Keller
What's the kindest thing someone has ever done for you?
My mother loaned me the money to buy a car, and helped find a very nice car to buy when my old reliable finally gave up the ghost. That being said, I've run across many very kind good people in the world. If you turn off the nightly news and meet some folks out in the world, you might just be pleasantly surprised.
Is the general public becoming more nerdophillic, or am I living in a virtual nerd ghetto?
A Facebook friend posted a popular comic strip, popular off-line, in the world of paper and ink and Sunday funnies as well as with the internet crowd, that contained a reference to Star-Trek red-shirts (that is the nameless crewmen who get shot/eaten/vaporized/etc. upon beaming down to that episode's planet or abandoned space-ship). I commented that I wondered how many of the comic's readers would get the red-shirt reference, and the poster replied that the strip in question often referenced Star-Trek and other "geeky" content.
That got me thinking. It seems like over the last few years, the general public is becoming more nerdy or at least more nerdophillic if you will. We have Big-Bang Theory on network television for instance. But I'm also aware that just as I am more likely to associate with people based more on similar interests than geographical nearness to me since the internet, I am also able to filter a larger amount of entertainment media based on my interests than I would have before broadband made the worlds media so ... so greppable.
I guess what I'm wondering is if I'm seeing a genuine shift in the culture as a whole, or if I'm living in a sort of virtual geeky/sciencey ghetto. I can see both happening, in the eighties, when I was a teen, there was no internet access outside a few expensive universities, so we had BBSs that were either local and cheap, or long distance and expensive, and neither was likely to have the best social software. So we tended to befriend people based on geography more than on shared interests, goals, and etc.
I've read blogs and opinion pieces that argue that we as a culture are segregating ourselves into like-minded on-line ghettos of people who all agree with us, cutting ourselves off from the culture at large. In my opinion, this is an oversimplification, at least as far as my own experience leads me to believe.
In my experience, while I do befriend people on common interests rather than geographic locale, I don't end up with a load of Facebook friends who all mirror my ideals and beliefs. Why is this not the case? Because in reality we are more than one dimensional, just because you and I may share an interest in an author, television show, political issue or computer system. It doesn't then stand to reason that we agree on everything else.
While some interests may well intersect in individuals (for instance, computer geeks are more likely than the general public to be sci-fi fans), others don't. So that if you, like most people, have more than one are of interest, you will find that your on-line community actually turns out to be quite a diverse group.
So, that leaves the question open, is the culture at large becoming more geeky, or am I just filtering for geekier entertainment?
That got me thinking. It seems like over the last few years, the general public is becoming more nerdy or at least more nerdophillic if you will. We have Big-Bang Theory on network television for instance. But I'm also aware that just as I am more likely to associate with people based more on similar interests than geographical nearness to me since the internet, I am also able to filter a larger amount of entertainment media based on my interests than I would have before broadband made the worlds media so ... so greppable.
I guess what I'm wondering is if I'm seeing a genuine shift in the culture as a whole, or if I'm living in a sort of virtual geeky/sciencey ghetto. I can see both happening, in the eighties, when I was a teen, there was no internet access outside a few expensive universities, so we had BBSs that were either local and cheap, or long distance and expensive, and neither was likely to have the best social software. So we tended to befriend people based on geography more than on shared interests, goals, and etc.
I've read blogs and opinion pieces that argue that we as a culture are segregating ourselves into like-minded on-line ghettos of people who all agree with us, cutting ourselves off from the culture at large. In my opinion, this is an oversimplification, at least as far as my own experience leads me to believe.
In my experience, while I do befriend people on common interests rather than geographic locale, I don't end up with a load of Facebook friends who all mirror my ideals and beliefs. Why is this not the case? Because in reality we are more than one dimensional, just because you and I may share an interest in an author, television show, political issue or computer system. It doesn't then stand to reason that we agree on everything else.
While some interests may well intersect in individuals (for instance, computer geeks are more likely than the general public to be sci-fi fans), others don't. So that if you, like most people, have more than one are of interest, you will find that your on-line community actually turns out to be quite a diverse group.
So, that leaves the question open, is the culture at large becoming more geeky, or am I just filtering for geekier entertainment?
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
No Internet and No Phone for Nearly 3 Weeks
Some of you might have noticed that I've been remiss about updating my blog, or for that mater, my normal quotes and other trivial blithering on facebook and twitter. Well, whether you consider it a curse or a blessing (or something in between), I'm back. You see, Bakersfield had a bit of bad weather, some rain and wind that would have been routine in much of the country, but was, for this area considered an emergency, and AT&T's cobbled network of 19th century technology patched together and last maintained, I assume, sometime in the mid 1950s, failed.
Worse yet, because they were taken completely off guard (surprised, I expect, to find that anyone actually still used land-line and DSL), it took them forever to get the grand old copper kluge back on it's casters. The result is that for several weeks I got to experience life with out telephone, Internet, and because I get all my TV through Hulu and YouTube, no TV either. Not to mention no online gaming and pr0nz. But I'm back and I've written a comic-strip about the incident (think of it as a sort of natural experiment).
Worse yet, because they were taken completely off guard (surprised, I expect, to find that anyone actually still used land-line and DSL), it took them forever to get the grand old copper kluge back on it's casters. The result is that for several weeks I got to experience life with out telephone, Internet, and because I get all my TV through Hulu and YouTube, no TV either. Not to mention no online gaming and pr0nz. But I'm back and I've written a comic-strip about the incident (think of it as a sort of natural experiment).
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