Are you questioning the nature of pirates? And not all acts of betrayal in the movie had a negative intention and/or consequence.
shadi
Hey, piracy is a pirate's nature, and that's fine by me... I never said the betrayal was all negative - all I'm saying is, you can't have every character betraying people otherwise it just loses it's impact, you know? I mean, you can I guess, if you want it to lose it's impact or something. In fact, I would trust a ninja to give the real low down on the movie. There just so happens to be one here.
Went to see Pirates 3. Boy was that ever bunk. I mean, there's a few fun parts, but it was pretty much a huge jumble of nothingness. Not only does it's length peeve me (does every film now have to be at least two and a half hours?), but when every single character betrays every single other character, eventually you feel nothing and you don't really care and or believe what anyone is saying anymore. You can't have everyone do that. Like real life, eh? :D
They try to cover this up with two hours of exposition. That just ain't fair.
Friday night was Clutch at the Roxy, and Clutch rocked it. Club shows are so much cooler than their large arena counterparts - you're so close, the sound is better, and it's more like you're just hanging out with the band rather than a formal viewing. Man they were so tight, so on-point, so solid. Clutch is one of those bands that has a live sound much bigger than their CDs... it is definitely the way to experience them.
This weekend we went up to big bear to relax at Rad and Mandy's cabin. This means: amazing Mandy-cooking, an awesome group of people (including a pretty large Dreamworks posse), board games, movies, a night walk, drawing (and talking about drawing), sleeping bags everywhere, and an oh-so-relaxing boat rental and lake day trip. We have to go back... have to.
Tomorrow I'm off to SB for the week, then I'm on my own.
There is a company called Steorn, and they have me very excited. I've been loosely following news surrounding the company ever since I read an article about their call to scientists the world over to test their "free-energy" technology and prove them wrong (they claimed to have broken the law of conservation of energy, and in a nutshell created a perpetual motion machine that produces clean, constant energy and has an efficiency rate that is > 100%). I won't go into too many details here, because the story is a long one, but you can read about it here and here (thanks for the research, work buddies!). Steorn has discussed the involvement of magnets before, but recently they revealed more information about it... namely magnetic viscosity. The short explanation is that the law of conservation of energy does not take into account the amount of time that the work put into a system takes, and it can affect the amount of energy produced by a system. There is a slight latency when dealing with magnetic attraction, and if the work put in is faster than this latency, then you have a slight net gain in the energy coming out. I'm sure I'm messing this up completely. The humanitarian impact of free, constant, clean energy is ridiculous. There is a public demonstration in London in July, and I am seriously considering going... it's too exciting/scary/intriguing (even if it is a hoax, which I hope it isn't).
There is a new trailer for Assassin's Creed, which looks incredible - but what impacted me the most was the song used, "Lonely Soul." I immediately recognized the voice of Richard Ashcroft; he was the singer of The Verve, and Urban Hymns is one of my favorite albums of all time. I was super excited, did some research, and apparently he is one of many vocalists with the Unkle project. From what I've heard so far, the tracks sound really cool. Hot damn, new music!
Sitting in my hotel in sb, flatting pages for Amulet, patiently waiting for June.
This was the nicest mother's day in a long while. My brother and I drove down to Temecula, then the family took a long drive through the Palomar mountains and valleys, stopped to eat at a small, warm restaurant along the road, then visited the western/country town of Julian (east of Escondido), and back through more valleys and mountains home. The views were amazing... so California. A couple of funny signs:
"God bless us, everyone." - Are they asking God to bless them, and everyone else too? Or are they announcing to everyone that God is about to bless them?
"Rare Stuff and Refined Things" - This was a store's description, and I thought "stuff" and "things" were funny words to go with "rare" and "refined." Refined things! That's hilarious.
I got an adapter that lets me attach lenses on backwards to my new camera, effectively making them macro lenses (of decent quality). Fun!
This Saturday is the God of War 2 art show at Nucleus - I think it's going to be a ridiculously packed house. There's a lot of buzz in the air about the show, you can feel it! See you there.
I splurged a little bit and got some new toys: a Canon digital rebel xti (EOS 400D) SLR camera, a 18-55mm lens (came with the kit), and a super-exciting 28-135mm IS lens (thanks Matt!). I've been reading the book, playing with everything, taking test shots... so much fun! It's weird to take a picture of a camera, but here it is:
Yesterday was a somewhat-surprise party for my bro- it included friends, parents and the best food. Happy 30th, Wasim! Weird. I just watched "Whisper of the Heart" again... so amazing! I'm sort-of going through all the movies in my Studio Ghibli box set and I'm still surprised at how moving they are.
We also saw spiderman 3... man was that ever weird. I don't even know what to think. During the film we were laughing (mostly at it) and felt as if it was confused and campy. I'm pretty sure that it actually was - and they knew it - and the actors just had a good time. When I look back, I can't help but think the movie was horribly-unfocused, but I had a good time and loved how cheesy it was, so does that make it good? Weird.
For you fellow nerds out there, I'm sure you're aware of the recent outburst on digg.com. Basically, someone had figured out the hex encryption code for HD-DVD and posted it on digg. It was promptly removed because digg was threatened by the MPAA, which was followed by a fanatical flood of postings of the code from angry digg users who were making a point about free speech and censorship. Whether or not they are right, it is definitely interesting what has happened. The code is now plastered absolutely everywhere. Unable to keep up, digg has caved in and said rather than try to remove all the postings, they will try to fight the MPAA or die trying. I think it's a pretty remarkable turn of events, an example of a "digital mob," and more proof that the internet is actually making it increasingly difficult to hide corruption - or anything for that matter. I know it's a small example, but it's awesome to see real people starting to control the global flow of information, with those who used to control it frantically trying to figure out what to do. I'm sure we're headed towards a weird new era of human civilization.
For non-nerds, here's a sketch of a dog and some mushrooms. Actually I guess this is for nerds too.
