linkback test

Testing linkback

Kevin’s Guide To Wasted Time Online

Once a day

Once a day

I listened to a podcast recently from Distributing the Future entitled “Write Your Novel.” This is what the O’Reilly website has to say about Distributing the Future,”Distributing the Future” is O’Reilly Media’s weekly podcast featuring the technology and the people behind what you use now and what you’ll use next.”

The “Write Your Novel” article got me thinking about getting more into writing, and talked about the Write Your Life website to get started. Although the link was said in passing, I found it very interesting and something that I could get into.

On the write your life website there’s 30 writing assignments listed one per day. The assignments are supposed to get you started writing 1000 words a day. Writing 1000 words a day is a good starting point for writing a novel. I’m not trying to write a novel, but I’d like to get into writing more and will spend the next 30 days trying out this web site’s format. Over the next 30 days, you may learn something about me. I hope you enjoy the writings.

Philly Cops have a little fun

I was just on the phone with a friend when they mentioned seeing something funny on the news. A few Philly cops thought it’d be funny to toilet paper and shaving cream their friend’s cop car. I had to see if this was on YouTube, and you guessed it… it was. Not only was the video online, but someone already made a fan video of it.

The original video is 7.5 minutes long and shows not only the cops TP’ing the car, but also shows the cop getting in at the end and driving off. Yeah that’s pretty funny in and of itself, but the fan video was even better.

Cops vandalize car (long version)

The fan video speeds up the 7.5 minute video to a 2 minute video, and adds some great music. Having “Bad Boys” juxtaposed on top of cops breaking the law is not only witty, but hilarious. You gotta check out this video! 🙂

Cops vandalize car with music!

Philly Cops have a little fun

I was just on the phone with a friend when they mentioned seeing something funny on the news. A few Philly cops thought it’d be funny to toilet paper and shaving cream their friend’s cop car. I had to see if this was on YouTube, and you guessed it… it was. Not only was the video online, but someone already made a fan video of it.

The original video is 7.5 minutes long and shows not only the cops TP’ing the car, but also shows the cop getting in at the end and driving off. Yeah that’s pretty funny in and of itself, but the fan video was even better.

The fan video speeds up the 7.5 minute video to a 2 minute video, and adds some great music. Having “Bad Boys” juxtaposed on top of cops breaking the law is not only witty, but hilarious. You gotta check out this video! 🙂

Not Your Mommy’s Saw

Review: SAW III

Saw III on Rotten Tomatoes
Official Saw III movie site

Saw III pushes the psychological horror/thriller genre even further without becoming a retread of the previous two Saw films. Like Saw II, the movie’s produced by Darren Lynn Bousman. The writing includes both writers from the first two Saw movies. From Saw I, James Wan, and from the second Saw movie, Leigh Whannell. Knowing this, it seems some elements from both films are woven together to make Saw III. Like in Saw I, there’s a dramatic back-stories of the victims. Essences of Saw II shine through in the editing of the film which inner-cuts between the two story lines.

The plot still involves Jigsaw (acted by Tobin Bell) but this time he’s not the star in his game. His protege, Amanda (acted by Shawnee Smith), has taken over and is ready to dispense some of the goriest scenes in any of the Saw films. (Hopefully the gore is a given if one is thinking about going to see a Saw film.)

Jigsaw’s not doin’ so hot. He’s near death and in need of a little tender love and care. Amanda enlists the help of Lynn (acted by Bahar Soomekh), a doctor, to care for Jigsaw in a rather unique way. Without giving it away, Lynn must help Jigsaw or become another victim in one of his games.

The other story line going on in Saw III involves a man, Jeff (acted by Angus Macfadyen) who’s stuck in one of Jigsaw’s game. Like the other games, Jeff is faced with choices involving sacrifice and death.

The story and writing worked for the most part. What worked was the mixing of psychological elements from Saw I with the gruesome elements of Saw II. Instead of just getting the shock value of the violence, we also feel the emotional agony the violence causes surrounding characters. Each scene of violence seems to be effecting not just one person, but everyone involved. Another element that really worked was the fact that this film adds to the richness of the entire Saw series by going back and telling bits and pieces of the previous films from a different angle. One thing that didn’t work was that some of the catch phrases used in the previous films were overused in Saw III.

The most notable aspect of the film-making is the editing effects. The scenes that would normally freak out the viewer have been intensified with camera and editing effects including quick edits, zooms, and lighting flashes. (Picture an 80s Flava Flav video.) This works in both adding suspense and wince-value to an already disturbing set of scenes. Match this up to dark musical swells and each dramatic moment seems like a cliff-hanger from a TV hospital drama.

The generally dark tone of the series is withheld, and the ambiance of the sets becomes as much of a character in the film as the actors themselves. Even when the sets are well-lit, the light only seems to highlight an even more shocking moment. We’re expecting for things to pop out of the darkness at us, but sometimes knowing what’s coming is even worse.

One thing that didn’t work were the back-stories of the victims. Instead of getting the viewer into the head of the characters, the back-stories just seem like bad bits from a Lifetime TV drama. More dramatic moments from the character’s past could have helped us sympathize with them. Instead, the viewer is shown the characters staring blankly off into space that seem more like bad cologne commercials.

More psychological, still gruesome, and often shocking, Saw III lives up to and surpasses the previous films. We’re given the best of what worked in both films to end up with a better movie-going experience and story than either movie did alone. What worked was violence that effected not only the victim, but also inflicted emotional damage to the surrounding characters in the film. What didn’t work was the fact that the writers started overusing some of the key phrases used in the previous Saw films. Fans will not be disappointed by this movie. The interesting story lines and film-making are only complemented by the insight
provided into the previous films. This serves as only icing on the cake of an already great
film.

Rating: 4/5

[10/25/2006] Better Blogging

Trying out some new blogging software. I know you all really care, but I found it pretty cool. What
Performancing is a plug-in for Firefox that lets you type into a window that sits right below the web page you’re viewing. I can then drag and drop things from a web-page into the area I type into for added sha-bang. The best part is I can one-click publish to my blog, to MySpace, or other blogs I have. Pretty damn cool if you ask me. What this means is that it will be easier for me to blog; and better for you, the loyal reader.

[Edit]
I was previously using Flock to publish my blog. I kind of got out of that because of the crazy things the blog poster was doing to my blog post before it was posted. The craziest thing was what it interpreted me doing and what I actually wanted to do. Now this is happening in Performancing too, but not as badly.

What I’ve noticed Performancing do is add a blue border to all images I drag and drop from a web page into Performancing. I may end up ditching it sooner or later, but to be honest, I got Firefox 2 and wanted to try it out! 🙂
[/Edit]

Until I have something to actually write about,

Kevin

[10/23/2006] A Beach of a Weekend

[10/23/2006] A Beach of a Weekend

I had a great weekend this weekend at the beach. We went to Assateague State Park. It was only Ryan, Abra, and myself, but still very fun. Tom and Lauren did show up too and that was a pleasant surprise. I was a bit upset at the poor turnout considering everyone I invited, but who was meant to be there was. If you want to know more about it, please just talk to me. I don’t feel like writing out the entire story here. Ask about apples in the fire and our ‘dark’ covert ops mission.

Other than that, simply being in Maryland at Assateague was a bit trigger for me. I was reliving some old feelings of a certain female I once dated. We went there one weekend when things were good. (This had to have been 4 – 4 and half years ago.) She’s recently appeared in some journal writing I’ve done. She’s a person I owe amends to for the way I mistreated her back then. A close friend questioned me to see if maybe I set myself by going there knowing that these feelings would probably come up. I think in a way I did. I also think that I didn’t know how bad these feelings would cause me inner turmoil like they have. (I wasn’t doing this journal writing when I initially made the plans.)

I am not sure there’s much to say about that except that it’s not up to me to do anything with the thoughts and feelings that I’ve been having except to let God deal with it. I am not ready to actually make the amends for the things I’ve done wrong to this person, but it does help being aware that I still have such feelings. Not everything has immediate closure. Closure is optional in my experience. Even if I did set myself up, or if I didn’t… it always seem that I’m meant to be where I am for a reason.

Overall, I’m very glad I went and work isn’t that bad right now. I love how my life takes a back seat when all that bothers me while camping is that a fire’s lit and that there’s some food source available to us. I can’t wait to go back.

That being said, I’ll keep you posted,
Kevin

Live concerts a go-go

NPR : NPR Live Concert Series

Found a fun website today. The NPR Live Concert Series features full, streaming live concerts for free. I listened to a Jose Gonzalez concert today and it was awesome. He even covered Massive Attack’s Teardrop, which I love. The concert was an hour long and for free, that was a great deal in my opinion. They feature mostly lesser-known stars who come through the DC area where NPR is located. The artists, for the most part, are featured playing from the 9:30 club in DC. If you like discovering new bands, live music, or a combination of the two, I’d highly recommend checking out this website.

powered by performancing firefox

An online game that’s actually fun

Well, the stipulation is that the game’s fun if you’re into logic. Sudoku is a pretty simplistic game once you understand the rules. The rules are even simplistic. The game board consists of a 9×9 set of boxes that resembles a small checker board. Each row must have only 1 number from one to nine. Each 3×3 box must have only one number from 1 to 9. Those are the only rules. The game supplies you with a few blocks that are filled in to get started, but you must fill in the rest. The game is basically logical deduction. There tends to be one logical spot for each number which you can figure out little by little.

I finally took a serious look at this game after listening to a Slate podcast about an article written entitled “My Days are Numbered” by Seth Stevenson. You can find a daily, variety podcast slate offers at http://www.slate.com/id/2119317/ .

I checked out the Sudoku website to understand the rules, so I know what the hell they were talking about on the podcast. Over an hour later, here I am writing about my experience. The rules seemed easy enough and said a typical game usually only takes 20 minutes. Well, I was intrigued by the simplicity of it, and went ahead and tried a game. Thirty-eight minutes later, I’m finally done round one. I thought well, maybe it took so damn long because it was my first game. I tried again. My second game took me thirty-six minutes. Wow; I must suck

So after wasting almost an hour now playing Sudoku, I’m oddly intrigued to play another game; not now, but eventually. At this point I’m trying to see if it does get easier, and less time, the more times I play the game. Also, I do computer programming, so logic is something I’m very familiar with. Now, if I could only find a hobby that allows me to not think at all! 🙂

Till next time,

Kevin

[9/2/2006] Movie Review: Hustle andFlow

Hustle and Flow (2005) was not a traditional rags to riches story. It seems to me hard to dub a movie traditional when the main character is trying to rap his way to stardom with subject matters involving whoopin’ dat trick and how hard it is bein’ a pimp. Hustle and Flow however, seems to pull it off in a semi-believable way.

The movie stars D-Jay, Terrence Howard, who was in Crash and Ray. D-Jay is a down and out pimp who’s trying to rediscover what he wants to do with his life. After bumping into a friend from high school and getting some inspiration from a local bar tender who he’s selling weed to, he decides he’s gotta get out the rappin’ that’s going on in his head.

Howard’s acting is believable, even though he doesn’t look like much of a thug. His forceful confrontations with his hoes come across well. You can smell the air of desperation he deals with in order to provide from his family, if you can call it one. The family consists of a hodge-podge of whores, baby-mamas, and sure enough, babies. The desperation continues through the film and as the stakes get higher. Howard comes through with the crazy eyes as he pushes the character to the brink of insanity while still seemingly with his eyes on his goal of being a rap star.

The movie also calls for Howard to do a bit of freestyle flowin’ too. The freestyle was good and wasn’t over-played to the point that it became a music video. The director, Craig Brewer, did start to make it like a music-video with quick cuts in-time to the music, but it was used sparingly enough not to get too annoying. Some humor is added to these scenes by DJ Quall, who you’ll probably remember as the skinny, white kid from Road Trip. (Yes, he’s the kid who eats the French toast that the diner waiter wiped his ass with.) The humor lightens the mood of the almost always serious movie.

The tone of the movie is mostly dark and serious, except for the humor plugged into the rapping scenes. Long takes of the street-life in the beginning of the film set the tone for the D-Jay’s (Howard) hard lifestyle. These opening scenes seem to drag, but give the rapping scenes an odd sense of authenticity later. The rapping gains a level of urgency too, knowing that D-Jay’s flat broke and needs this break in order to continue living.

The direction is straight forward. There is some hand-held action for the more intense scenes of D-Jay ruffing up his hoes, but the main use of the camera is for story-telling. The editing was, more likely than not, used to tell the story as well. There are some quick cuts to add intensity to the more emotional moments of the film, but most time the editing is not noticeable.

The plot seems to wrap up too quickly at the end of the film and we’re left with only wondering if D-Jay’s character achieves fame or not. It could have been that the story was only about how D-Jay tried to jump start his rapping career, but with the time invested, it’s almost a shame we don’t see the outcome of his perseverance.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie, but only give it a three out of five stars. The story succeeded with getting me emotionally involved with the characters in the film, but lacked an interesting or fulfilling ending.