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7:42 pm May 7, 2008
After some late dinner I caught the last showing of
Iron Man Sunday night. I don’t quite want to give it a review, but I will say it was nothing short of a good time. I enjoyed the movie very much. It was that zany comic book world without being as boring as
Spiderman. Yes I hate the Spiderman movies, all of them. Deal with it.
Iron Man struck me on many levels as something worth my 8 bucks. First off, Hollywood only seems to be making a few movies that really require the ‘theater’ atmosphere. You know big screen, big sound and annoying people whispering behind you. These are all good movie theater experiences. Iron Man, as most scifi / fantasy movies really thrive on the theater experience. In fact the movie was too loud. Someone rocked the theater by turning the volume level to 11. Honestly I didn’t mind. When was the last time the movie was to loud, usually it seems the other way for me.
Plot aside, because I care not how accurate it was to the comic or anything like that, the movie appeals to my sense of engineering. Tony Stark played by Robert Downey Jr. (which was say 80% why I wanted to see the movie), builds all kinds of cool stuff in this movie, most notably the Iron Man suit itself. However there are lots of cool toys and tools in which he does so with. It’s like when you watch
Minority Report but it doesn’t feel like the director is looking down his nose at you with all his fancy technology. Instead, the technology in Iron Man feels more realistic, even though it is perhaps farther off than the tech in Minority Report.
So what’s cool about the movie is the inspiration factor. Who cares if the technology doesn’t exist. It feels right. This isn’t technology for show (Minority Report) this is technology as a tool.
- Minority Report obviously inspires large multi touch screens (cool).
- Iron Man inspires small power sources, robotics and holographic CAD programs (very cool)
- Spiderman inspires shooting jizz out of your hand. (not cool)
I am not alone in this spark of inspiration stuff. A blog I regularly frequent known as
Hack a Day asked its readers for their
inspiration from the movie. If you aren’t familiar with Hack a Day, it is a cool blog that is like Macgyver’s blog but driven by a community. The hacks on this blog do often emulate movies and I don’t think it would be that far fetched to see a post in the future on Iron Man realities. They’ve already presented some spin offs from X-Men, (i.e. The Mechanical engineering student who made a
Pyro device for his final project).
Sidenote: AOL bought the blog a few years ago but has not at the time of writing managed to totally screw it up like everything else it touches. Yet.
So go watch Iron Man. Go enjoy it. Then wait two years for the sequel April 30th 2010.
Can’t wait? Then watch
The Incredible Hulk (June 13, 2008), X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), Thor (2010), Captain America (2011), and The Avengers (2011).
Yeah, they’re working on some more.
It comes down to this. Much like Batman (
The Dark Knight starts July 18, 2008), Iron Man is just a man who controls his destiny through tools and technology not witchcraft, mystical powers, or a freaking spider. Super abilities aside, these are always characters/movies I want to relate to.
11:38 pm April 24, 2008
Here’s the skinny.
Morgan Freeman = As an ex-Military badass in which I assume he will play something very similar in the upcoming movie “
Wanted“.
John Cusack = Plays a mix between
Grosse Pointe Blank and
Martian Child - an ex-cop turned gym teacher. I assume he will play something very similar in the upcoming movie [insert Cusack movie here] until the 80’s return.
The tagline is “Every Killer Meets His Equal”. Ooooo mercenary vs gym teacher. Round one, fight!
This is a movie that disappoints on so many levels. Again like a lot of let down movies lately it is high production value with no story. Cliche cliche cliche. I found myself actually mouthing words of characters before they uttered them. It’s that bad.
There are lots of characters in the movie. But you end up caring for none of them. A single dad failing at fatherhood (Cusack). A rebelious son who you wish would die (no name bad actor). And the less interesting makeup of the A-Team representing Freeman’s ex-military team. But the fun doesn’t stop there.
Yet again, The State of Washington makes a sad typecast appearance as ’state of epic monsoon rain’. Not quite as bad as in the movie
Firewall when it comes to the rain, but equally disapointing, there are other fun suprises in this movie like a shot of Spokane Washington with added trees to represent Woodburn Washington. This would probably piss off the real residents of Woodburn, except there is no Woodburn Washington. There is a Woodburn Oregon though, but Oregon, Washginton, they all kind of blur when you have no real sence of geography, climate or any basic knowlede of the world around you.
Now you start to understand the quality of this movie.
It’s not even useful in the sense of a good/bad Van Damme movie. Not even a group viewing and lots of alcohol can save this one.
It’s no
Cast Away, so I give it a
2 out of
5.
9:22 pm April 24, 2008
Sometimes things happen for a reason. That is what I told myself when a baby goat show up in the office. I really don’t know the details, but yeah, a footstool sized goat just appeared out of nowhere. It did have a handler trailing it, and it did leave a liquid present, but that doesn’t take the shock factor out of a goat in the office. It’s just one of those things that you can’t really understand until you see it for your own eyes.
Dramatization
3:27 pm April 13, 2008
I’ve been living in Spokane now for about 3 and a half months. I arrived in Janurary so basically all I’ve experienced is cold and windy. Knowing Spokane can get pretty hot, I’ve been excited that the weather lately has been quite nice. Well too nice I guess.
The promise of summer brings out the best in many. All I can hear is birds chirping non-stop out my window now. The blue sky is calming and the fresh breaze is well, refreshing. But while relaxing on my balcony and taking in the view my peace was interupted by the roaring sound of a two-stroke engine grinding away down the street.
The sound got louder, and louder. Then the culprit presented itself…
I care not why they have lost their shirts. I care not why they are wearing wigs. I don’t even care about where they got the cane that the second one is being pulled with. I care to know if this was just a few degrees above normal, what possibly can mid summer bring?
4:28 pm April 12, 2008
Balance.
Progress through your work. Make change inspired by your life around you.
Peak. Platou. Stress out. Go Play
Balance.
Recover through play. Recharge your creativity, your place in the world.
Smile. Become complacent that nothing gets done. Go work.
(kind of haiku like eh)
1:12 pm April 12, 2008
I have to take a second and recognize two very cool things that have come across my desk in the last week or so.
First django. Django is a web framework that is written in Python. Basically it translates to some really cool stuff that I have not seen in web publishing in many many years. Short of all the technical reasons why it is cool, I usually explain django as a philosophy change more than a new language or tool. django really emphasis reusability, separation of ‘code’ and design, and collaboration. All of this translates to sites that are quicker to build and faster to evolve. All good things. You’ll see more of this I promise.
Yeah not as new as django, but certainly no slouch. Wordpress is by far my favorite blog engine. It is the most powerful and most customizable engine that I’ve ever come across. And I’ve tried them all (I researched this for about 3 months once). Now the reason I blog with a smile lately is Wordpress released version 2.5 about 3 weeks ago. Well since I run my own installation of Wordpress I didn’t see the upgrade immediately like the people at Wordpress.com (where they host it). All I can say is yes!
The new interface is something worth admiring. Even though Wordpress did their ‘big’ upgrade to 2.0 a while ago, it’s been the same interface for ever. An interface that you get by, but don’t particularly love to use. The new interface? Butter, pure butter.
If you don’t use Wordpress or have a blog (equally offensive), get on that bandwagon now. It’s only getting easier and I’m serious when I say that the interface makes it fun for once. Kudos to the random designer locked in a basement at Wordpess.
10:53 pm April 6, 2008
I just came back from the Desert 100 in Odessa. Although I didn’t ride, I am very much beat. The photo is one of the devices I ended up throwing together in order to get point of view footage from a racer. Erik Miller volunteered and we ended up shooting over 90 minutes of the “Ironman” event Saturday. Unfortunately the Ironman was a little too much man for Erik and drained him so much that he didn’t participate in the Desert 100 race on Sunday. But that is ok. You’re still an Ironman in my book Erik. (he also got a t-shirt to prove it).
Anyway Odessa provided a vast amount of opportunity to test, experiment and break all kinds of stuff. I basically played around all weekend with camera setups, angles, audio, gps and any other information sources I had at my hands. Now I’ve got to sift through it all slowly in the coming weeks.
The event was great. And although camping was dirty and cold it looks like I’ll be back next year prepared and with more helmet cameras.
Erik and I decided this camera setup would not be TSA approved. …the other one looks worst.
2:56 am April 4, 2008
It’s about 3am and I’m really tired. Unfortunately this isn’t the end, but only the beginning.
I’ve had a lot on my plate in the last week or so. March ended with me presenting on Multi-Platform Publishing to an audience of experienced journalist at the Society of Professional Journalist conference in Portland. There was prep, travel and of course the actual presentation. All went smoothly but was only a sign of things to come.
Then comes April. So far April is all about the prep. I’ve been getting book smart on Django in preparation for training next week. However tonight I spent my time wiring electronics and testing cameras for the
Desert 100 motorcycle race in Odessa Washington that I will be covering this weekend. This will be madness. In fact so much madness that I am going to release it in parts, but stay tuned for that.
So why is April going to be so bad then? I’m going to make it that way.
Yeah you heard me right. I’m designating April to be the month that kicks my ass. There’s too much I want to accomplish, and time passes on without your permission. So with a little sacrifice to sleep time and health I’m going to get some of these projects off of the ground once and for all. Projects like “FTF”. Other projects may include the
CFP redesign, the Multimedia contest redesign and other side projects. But really “FTF”. For those of you who know what “FTF” is you’ll be glad to know it is coming soon. If you’re in the dark, just wait a little longer.
So here’s to you April. I’ll see you in four weeks beaten, bruised and a lot to show for it.
10:01 am March 26, 2008
You have to understand how fragile I am at this point. Sunny warm day - Snowy cold day. Just pick one, I’ll be fine then. Stop flip flopping weather!
He’s the situation outside my window. Not enough snow to be useful. No sun in sight. Sucks.
2:02 am February 27, 2008
After watching
this video I feel compelled to work for
Connected Ventures, LLC, the company behind
CollegeHumor.com,
Busted Tees and
Vimeo.com (you should know of at least one). It looks to be one of those fun, work & play type environments that you always dream of working at.
Again, I am compelled to work for them. And they are hiring for a Flash developer. Hey no way, that is me. Hmmm…
If you watched the video are are equally compelled I apologize. But it is like the movie “
The Ring” (
American/
Japanese), if I didn’t show you I would end up working there myself. Now, watch and send to someone else so they are compelled/cursed.