INDIEVENTURES.

This marks the second week-apart post. It would seem that I only feel bad about not posting more often after about seven days of "forgetting."
Concerning said week, nothing all that remarkable happened; work, frisbee, graduation parties, that's pretty much it. Mom left towards the end of the week to go to a piano teacher conference in Houston. We picked her up on Sunday and had lunch at an Indian restaurant in Houston for Fathers' Day, at which point I realized that it had been way too long since I had last eaten Masala Dosha.

I really want to see the new Hulk and kinda want to see M.Night's Happening. From what I gather, Hulk is exactly what people wanted the first time around, a beat-em-up flick more like the television show. People seem to have enjoyed it, and while it's not supposed to be another Iron Man, it's leaps and bounds above Ang Lee's origin- and relationship-based flop five years ago. We'll see, though I would probably have gone simply for the rumored cameos.
Conversely, critics have been thrashing The Happening, which I really wanted to be good; a bad movie is not what Shamalayan needs right now. Oh well, such is life I guess. I found it very intriguing that the renowned Roger Ebert actually enjoyed it. I was starting to think his fame was going to his head, but apparently the man still has balls (WARNING: some, perhaps inferred, spoilers). Seriously, everyone except Ebert seems to hate this film. Maybe I will just download it (in a completely legal fashion) instead of gassin' over to the theater.
In reality, before looking around today, I had low expectations for Marvel's rebooting attempt and high hopes for M.Night's first R-rated venture. My anticipation prospects are now reversed.
Other than that, nothing really has happened. After being so bored that I found myself reading about hypermiling, I realized I can kill time on Hulu in a much more efficient manner (namely, in half- and one-hour blocks).

Time for lunch. Hopefully I'll get back up to daily posts.

Back from all the hype. I guess I'll go ahead and get my recap out of the way, because I'd really like to weigh in on yesterday's keynote.
Work-wise, nothing significant really happened last week. At this point I'm now familiar with pretty much everything that will be asked of me; I spent last week doing a variety of tasks, from checking out keys, projectors, and circuit components to running errands and fixing chairs. We even rushed to replace a fused projector bulb while a class was happening in the room.
I've started to go to AFK's soccer games, and they seem to be doing well this summer season; it's also been good to start playing frisbee again.
I'm also pleased with this past weekend. As you've seen, I finished my Iron Man review, and that was a big relief. I also saw Kung-Fu Panda with the twins, and, having not expected much, was pleasantly surprised. It may not be a "must see in theaters" flick, but it is worth money, so maybe a rent. Suffice it to say the all-star cast was not wasted. Saturday was more frisbee and SG's birthday; we watched American Gangster (which is well-paced and engaging enough to keep me actively watching through 2am, so also definitely worth renting). Sunday night was another soccer game, and that brings me to yesterday.

Very luckily, there was absolutely nothing to do at work. I didn't even check out components. Short of answering a few questions, I had all day to contribute/listen to a live blog/audio feed of WWDC 08, as I hurriedly mentioned in the post below.
Apple announced updates to its SDK, as well as a .Mac overhaul/replacement, called MobileMe. They briefly mentioned the next OSX iteration, Snow Leopard; not much was said on this, as it's really more of an update and improvement on Leopard than it is a whole new OS. Details on it are only slowly coming out now. Anyway, the rest of the first hour was spent demonstrating a plethora of new apps that will be available on the iPhone through their new App Store. There's a lot to cover here, and my fingers are feeling a bit on the lazy side after the liveblog, so here are some links. The general consensus was that everyone was falling asleep, and, having seen Jobsy's keynotes before, I knew that he takes far too much care in crafting his presentations to let that happen on accident.
Cue the new iPhone, dubbed the iPhone 3G...as in network, not generation. It still comes in only 8 and 16GB, and you have the choice of black or white on the bigger one. Here's the rundown:

Pros

1. 3G, about time.
2. A-GPS (that is, GPS is added to the old cell tower triangulation method)
3. Exchange (and MobileMe for the "rest of us") pushes
4. 3rd party Apps / iPhone 2.0 firmware
5. Global market, also about time.
   
6. Flush headphone jack means you can use any (re: half-decent) set of cans you want to listen; honestly, they should pump some of that R&D into better headphones.
   
7. Digusting awesome battery life; assuming Jobs-o isn't straight up lying; even as ballpark numbers, these stats are pretty sweet.
8. New plastic back. The new iPhone has a black, glossy plastic derriere, with an option of white on the 16GB model, as I mentioned earlier. The shift away from aluminum eliminates any potential Faraday's cage that might have occured in the 1st-gen model; basically, signal strength will be much better all-around for seemingly no cost (can I get a high-five for being in EE?). Also, plastic is much cheaper than aluminum, which means that Apple can now drop the... 
   
9. PRICE. I've always said it was the biggest turn-off. The 3G is $200/300 for 8/16GB. Granted, this still includes the necessary 2-year contract with AT&T, so you have those costs to include, but at least now the pricepoint is on par with other new phones. Apple's business/marketing department did really well in setting this price at the right level; this change alone has single-handedly won over a number of potential customers. In one fell swoop the most detracting factor is now the biggest selling point.
   

Cons

1. The new plastic back. Despite its benefits, it is already extremely polarizing. Now, I'm fine with it, but scrolling through the comments on several of those articles I provided, it seems to be one of the major complaints with either the colors or the material. A lot of people simply don't like it; for some, it's the only reason they will not be buying. Also, it's bound to attract fingerprints as/more easily than the touchscreen itself. 
2. Despite the "thinner edges" bs, the phone is actually thicker. Now .7mm is very little to argue over, but I really hate being misled (looking at you, Jobsy).
   
3. No (mention of) A2DP Bluetooth support. Most/all current music phones have this, so it would have been good to see the same from the mother of the digital music device market.
   
4. Capacity. C'mon Apple, you have an iPod with 160 GB; the least you can do is push your "latest and greatest" to 32...
5. No (mention of) MMS support.
   
6. No (mention of) tethering.
7. No camera update. This encompasses no update to the sensor (still 2 megapixels), flash (still nonexistent, not even an "always-on" LED), or video recording (also still nonexistent, short of downloading an app to do it for you, which will either involve paying or jailbreaking).
8. No front-facing camera (to compliment the rear one, not replace it). Really, most of the people who complain about this do so because they were expecting it from the rumors that swirled around before the announcement. I guess there's no need for a front camera for video chat if you can't do video.
9. No (mention of) copy/paste. This was missing in the first one, and was a huge issue; it wouldn't be a problem if you never had to type. The thing is, you do. Quite a bit.
   
10. No (mention of) turn-by-turn GPS navigation. Supposedly TomTom has an app already ready for the iPhone that provides this, but anyone in their right mind knows that they'll be charging for this.
11. No replaceable battery. Now, it's not like Apple is known for providing this, the opposite is true, in fact. Still, it would have been nice.
12. Contract and Activation. Like I said earlier, this kills the potentially lucrative pricepoint. AT&T just increased their data plan to $30, and it seems like this will be just the beginning. This effectively nullifies any benefit found in the apparent price-slashing. Since AT&T is passing the cost of subsidies on to the consumer, these consumers will end up paying more over 2 years than they did for the last one, and that is what's known as a price increase, not a price cut. 
13. I hope you weren't planning on pre-ordering.

It should be stated that all of the "No (mention of)" items should be assumed to be absent. First of all, had any of these been changed for the better, Apple would have broadcast it proudly. Additionally, it has now been confirmed that the camera, which they didn't mention, is the same, it is relatively safe to assume the other unmentioned facets will follow suit.

In the end, this is clearly planned obsolescence, to a regretable extent, even. The truth is, 3G came out in 2004, which means that it, along with the related features (GPS, etc), should have really been provided on the first iPhone. In that light, Apple is really just bringing too little, too late. On top of that, they left out what really needed to be changed (camera, Bluetooth, tethering, MMS, copy/paste, service provider issues), and if you combine it with the previous facts (new software on the same, albeit thicker, hardware), this is a bigger letdown than the new Zunes.
If anything, we should not rush the stores on July 11. If His Jobsness is going to drag his fanboys around town on a leash like this, I would at least wait until Macworld in January. WWDC is generally more software-focused, so Macworld accordingly becomes their preferred venue for hardware changes, whether thats updating the iPod lineup or announcing what would really be a 2nd generation iPhone.
Honestly, I was almost sold. Had Apple not forced service providers to subsidise the phones (which in turns means they past their costs onto contract-holders), or perhaps if there were more significant changes to the iPhone itself, and not just software and software features, you probably would have found me in-store next month. Now, it is true that the initial pricecut will finally bring the iPhone into the mass market, and perhaps even give it better foot in the enterprise door, I personally would implore you to hold out and resist peer pressure until January, just to see if El Jobso has more tricks up his long black sleeves (which he most likely will).

I guess that may be a bit ranty, but I promised I'd spill full coverage. Hit me up if you have any questions or want to argue at fanboyish levels.
 

You'll forgive me when you hear me out; I was going to apologize and recap pretty much all of last week, but then I found this.

http://www.scribblelive.com/Event/Steve_Jobs_Keynote__WWDC08

If you have an OpenID, Facebook, or MSN account, feel free to join.

http://www.scribblelive.com/Event/Steve_Jobs_Keynote__WWDC08?Invite=E6BF1D95-47BF-4B53-A8E4-5322ADD88716

For clarification, that first link is for watching, second for joining.
More later.

Been a few days, my apologies. As consolation, I have finished my review of Iron Man. Due to the fact that I worked on it for so long, much of the verb tenses won't make sense, so just imagine you're reading this about a month ago. Also, I just realized that I didn't mention the impact of Marvel self-financing this film and how I feel about it; you'll have to do the old "ask on an individual basis" routine. At this point, I don't really want to find an appropriate place to stick it in, in much the same way I don't want to go back and change most of the future tense items to past tense. Also, I'll put up a real post soon, recounting the past few days. Now, read your eyes out...

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The summer movie season is upon us again, and unless you count Harold and Kumar (and let’s be honest, who does), Iron Man is the first summer blockbuster of the year. It seems like every time May rolls around we’re inundated with adaptations of books, comics, video games, remakes, and all other kinds of mindless cash-cow ideas thought up by some studio executive. So far this century has been very big on the comic book adaptations, giving us 3 Spiderman movies, 3 X-Men movies, 2 Fantastic Four movies, a Punisher movie, and soon to be 2 Hulk and Batman movies, and even then I left some out.
But the big this weekend is of course, Iron Man. Even from the get go, this movie seems to be a bit different from it’s predecessors. From the cast to the director to the special effects team, Iron Man is overflowing with talent. So will this movie equal the sum of its parts? Or will we have another neutered franchise to wash out the name of a classic comic book superhero?
First, let me preface this review with my own bias. I wouldn't say I "grew up on comic books," but I did spend a significant amount of time reading quite a few. I was a big Marvel fan when I was younger, so the subject of comic book movie adaptations is very close to my heart. I have hotly anticipated past Marvel outings like Spiderman and X-Men, both of which disappointed me. I know, I know, a lot of you love those movies, and don’t get me wrong, they had a number of commendable features. In fact, they’re kind of enjoyable, but they didn’t wow me, they didn’t give me that child-like excitement the comics always have, and the plots, characters, production design, and casting was all cut off from the knees (with a few exceptions, but the generalization still stands). They’re not great movies. They made all the safe choices, making sure they didn’t get too creative or risky, just to ensure a large box office return. That, as I see it, is the inherent problem of adapting comic book characters and story arcs to films. Comics have always taken chances, challenged their readers, and done things mainstream story-telling media would never do. When you attempt to adapt that into a world that is solely based on the bottom line, you often lose the originality and whimsy of the source material.
And then there was Iron Man.
First of all, the movie begins with a cold open that not only is funny, enjoyable, and brilliantly executed, but it’s incredibly ballsy. If you saw the moments of this film that play out before the title screen, you would have no idea this was a superhero movie. It’s casual, real, entertaining, and finally dark and almost upsetting. These few bits of conversation and setup ground the film, and, from the very start, put you in the headspace that this is taking place right now in your world. Plus, you fall in love with Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark within seconds (more on him later).
One of the major achievements of this film is the comedy. Most action/hero movies have jokes worked into the story to lighten the mood a bit in between the action sequences; however, you can usually set your watch to exactly how often and when they’ll appear in the script. Iron Man doesn’t do that at all. You will be laughing pretty much non-stop through out the entire movie and you’ll hardly realize it. The laugh lines come quickly and organically, feeling just like they were a part of the conversations you’ve been privy to. Never does a laugh feel forced or misplaced, it just so happens that Tony Stark is a pretty funny guy.
Now, given that this is a big budget, summer blockbuster action movie, we must now come to the special effects: Iron Man is immaculate. At the very least, the quality and integration is on par with something like Transformers, if not better. Director John Favereau certainly went through greater effort than Michael Bay, paying very close attention to the visual effects of the film by combining practical and digital technologies. His single goal was to use both to create a seamless transition from real people on real sets to full on CGI sequences. Combined with the fact that the practical effects were done by the great Stan Winston, the digital effects by Industrial Light and Magic, and the film lensed by Matthew Libatique, the Director of Photography from Everything is Illuminated, Inside Man, and The Fountain, you have one of the best looking movies to date.
As previously, however briefly, mentioned, Iron Man also shines in its character depth. Tony Stark is played perfectly by Robert Downey Jr. In fact, one could argue that he has actually improved the character of Tony Stark from the original comics. I, personally, never read any Iron Man books, but from all the Marvel books I did/do read, he shows up fairly regularly. I always read Tony as a snooty, elitist, New York socialite who’s fairly high on himself. Now, Stark is still that way in the film, but instead of giving him the air of New York old money, they moved him to Los Angeles and gave him a slicker, snarky, more likable personality. You almost hate to love Tony Stark; with his womanizing, war profiteering, and  “I bring the party” attitude he would sound unlikable, but through the body of Mr. Downey, he’s the kind of guy you really want to party with at 30,000 feet.
The supporting cast is almost, if not equally, as note perfect. I've never been a fan of Gwyneth Palthrow, so I was shocked at how much I truly loved her performance as Pepper Potts. It's not that I disliked her, I just never cared ("just indifferent," as Rhodie would say). Palthrow as Potts is strong, intelligent, competent, lovable, and the perfect companion character to Stark in the film. Jeff Bridges shows off his seasoned acting skills as Obadiah Stane, Tony’s surrogate second father and business partner in Stark Industries. Terrance Howard as Stark's best friend in the military, Jim “Rhodie” Rhodes, seems a bit out of his league in terms of acting prowess, but is something of a palette cleanser through his fun, jokey relationship with the great Mr. Stark. On top of all this (or perhaps the root cause of the quality of this film), all these actors are Oscar nominees or winners, and have stated their fandom, or at least subscription, to various comics or graphic novel series.
Of course, no superhero movie would be complete without villains. Iron Man has no shortage of the bad guys, and the best thing about them is that they’re totally believable. No longer do we get some random character who gets superpowers and decides to take over the world (complimenting the fact that we don't get a hero who randomly gets superpowers and decides to save the world). We get serious, truthful characters that naturally move in a direction that is the polar opposite to our hero. You understand their mentality; you see the reasoning they follow to their evil demise.
And what would a comic book movie be without Easter eggs and hints towards sequels? In fact, most of these "Easter eggs" are really a good production choice to pay dues to the true fans. If you pay close attention, and know your Iron Man mythology, you might catch references to War Machine, Mandarin, Nick Fury, and Stark's future "man vs self" struggles. Also, Tony Stark owns a Wii, just in case you were wondering which particular brand of fanboy he subscribes to.
Bottom line, this movie is amazing. It’s great in every aspect. You will love it, your mom will love it, your girlfriend will love it, your little brother will love it, and you’ll want to see it again pretty much as soon as it’s over. I saw it twice on the opening Friday, and again a few weeks later. It’s worth the price of admission twice over, maybe thrice with the student discount, and I can’t wait until it’s out on Bluray. Make sure Iron Man has a great opening weekend, not only so that we can guarantee several sequels and cross-reference cameos, but so that we can show the film industry that a comic book movie can and SHOULD be well written, deep, challenging, and artistic as well as awesome, action packed, fast paced, and non-stop fun. Go buy your ticket. Go. Now.

So today's post will be pretty short, but will still have content. yes, I know, there's a first time for everything.
Apparently today is for a lower level of detail; once again, if you want me to go more in-depth, hit me up via the usual venues. I will preface by saying that you shouldn't be surprised if I explode into a rant in responding to your request. I'm pretty drained of any restraint at the moment.

So, the short version of this morning: Shaved, drove (no cd), did nothing at work. Actually, I'm expect a lot more of nothing on the job, as there are now other employees here. Someone else is always working the front desk where you check in/out equipment, and that's where most of the action now is, since summer school has started and a number of lab projects (I'm looking at you ELEN 405) cycle through parts in a library-member fashion (borrow, return, repeat).
Unfortunately for me, my day was about to become much more full of action. I walk out to the parking lot at the beginning of my lunch break and find...nothing. I find it interesting how something as simple and common as a single empty parking space can spark so much fear and anxiety when that space was filled with your [father's] car only a few hours ago. The point is it was the worst lunch break ever. I'm too tired to go into more detail about...the details, like how my parents chucked a spaz, and how I barely kept myself from doing the same. As of now, all the worry, frustration, solution, and punishment have each been resolved, but you'll have to ask me individually; I'm hardly in the mood to detail the before and after of every one. Anyway, I came back to work, re-inked a couple of printers, checked out a few keys, and continued to nothing (aka update the blog). I'm out in 15 minutes. Hopefully ultimate will pick me up.

Hidey ho, readers. I've almost completely calmed down from today's incident, which will be covered in the next post, so I figured it's a good time to review the past week or so.

In my last one-liner post I assumed that I had previously detailed the "everyone" that "showed up." I just skimmed over the past few entries and was hard-pressed to find the object of this allusion. Granted, it may just be that I did actually mention it, but was buried in my wordiness (have no fear, this post will most likely be another long-winded saga). Whatever the case, I should probably play it safe and detail it here. We had a couple of sets of cousins come into town last week, and it was pretty chaotic, as I mentioned in the last entry, in the best kind of way.
I should probably do names and method of relation here; it might make it easier if I ever have to refer back to it. I'm fairly sure both are related through my mother's side of the family, one set of kids being 2nd cousins and the other set, 3rd. Their names, by order of age (father, mother, kids) within each respective family are Abie, Shanu, Nisha, and Nithin, and Biju, Sara, Johann, and Reuben. Also, one last bit of housekeeping: for the purposes of this post, achacha means "uncle" and ammama means "aunt."
Soooooooo...Abie Achacha and crew flew in from Malaysia and arrived in Houston on Friday night (5/23, I believe). They spent a day or so there with some of their relatives, and Dad and I went to pick them up on Sunday after church. We got back at around 4pm, and about an hour or two later, Biju Achacha and family arrived from Fort Worth, since they also left after church and lunch.
Thus began said chaos. I think I've discussed this with a couple of you individually on AIM, but I've noticed a very strong tendency among members of my family; you have to be awesome. I have yet to encounter a member of my family who is lame, or awkward, or secretly shunned or avoided for any reason. This isn't to say that each familial unit has achieved some utopian perfection; we aren't robots (I think I even have a cousin in prison). It's just that any time we get together, it's non-stop fantastic..ness on the laugh rag until everyone has to leave; non-stop to the extent that I now consider being awesome a character trait that is necessary to be a part of my family. Lucky me, I guess.
Anyway, we exposed the Malaysians to American meat and American serving sizes at Fuddruckers on Monday for lunch. The Dallas crew left shortly afterwards, and that night we loaded up a 15-passenger van and drove to San Antonio. Tuesday was for Sea World, Wednesday for Texas history and shopping in the outlet mall on our way back. Thursday was spent winding down and packing back at home, and they left Friday morning, which also happened to be the end of my vacation from work. Oh, and over the course of the week, they were able to experience authentic barbeque, authentic Tex-mex, and fake Mexican food (re: Taco Bell).

A few weeks ago I got my mp3 player up and running, updated with all the music I'd gotten over the past year, doing the radio show and whatnot. Anyway, I was able to get some quality time with it during all the driving back and forth, and having realized that there was a good portion of music I hadn't truly listened to, I just left it on "shuffle all" for the whole week. I guess this is somewhat ramble-y so to make a long story short, the main point is that I really like Blindside now. Very much.

So that was all of last week, more or less. If you're really antsy for more details, hit me up. Nothing really happened this weekend, and I'll cover today in the next post, which should be the beginning of another set of entries at regular intervals.

Sorry about the gap in regularity. It's been chaos since everyone started showing up. I'll have to recap after its all over.

I leave work early today, woo woo.
Anyway, the day started off funny. Having only gone to bed after 1, because of Indy, I woke up at the normal time and promptly fell back to sleep. The next time I came to, it was 9:30; I guess it would have been a lot worse if I didn't start work at 10 on Fridays, but with traffic and distance, it still takes about 20 minutes to go to work. Let's just say there wasn't time to pick a cd for the day. I manage to make into work on time, just in time for...nothing. Once again, short of a few disjoint errands to the dumpster, there was nothing significant to do. Apparently I'm still not on the payroll, which is approaching maddening at this point, but I've made it known that it won't be my fault if my timesheet doesn't get turned in on time, and we've worked something out, so it seems that that situation is handled. It looks like my schedule is finalized as well, but there might be changes if more people start working here. As of right now I'm doing 32 hours, and if anything changes, it will be a decrease. Also, I've barely been driving consistently for a week, and I'm already beginning to have bad fuel days. That reminds me, since I've subscribed to the feed and all, I'm going to try and use urbdict's word of the day every day. Guess I'll have to start on my staycation (hoo ha!). Hopefully in the future theyll be better integrated. Oh, look, it's time to go; gotta go pick up Dad from the airport. Yay friday.

So this was going to be a normal entry, beginning with me leaving work yesterday. As you'll soon see, my decision to split the original post based on length was pretty well-merited.
Anyway, after work yesterday, Simon and I went and bought tickets for Indy, which we saw with about 10 other people. We bought tickets separately so that we could just walk in and hold reserve a whole row for everyone else. This plan proved to be a good idea, as we had to fend off people who were trying to take our good seats (2nd row behind the railing in Cinemark).
Everyone showed up and there were a number of good trailers. Now for the actual movie. I can see why that one early reviewer at Cannes complained so much. Coming away, I can definitely understand how people would be displeased. Don't misinterpret me, I did enjoy it, but there were a number of things I had a problem with. Now, if you were expecting to be completely free of campy-ness, you should not see this movie. That being said, you can tell Steven Spielberg took a lot of care to preserve the integrity of this character/franchise; there seems to be a good balance of camp, humor, danger, action, and swashbuckling to keep both sides (true believers and ironic snorters) well-enough pleased. Nobody can orchestrate this robust silliness better than Spielberg, who brings effortless visual panache to the proceedings, even when he can't entirely hide its mercenary nature. It's as good as it needs to be to justify its place in the Indiana Jones canon, and that should be enough; the sad truth is that in reality, it isn't. Some will say its the worst of the four, but still finds a good place alongside the previous three; it may not be the best, but it belongs. Others will be more optimistic, claiming it stands up just fine to Temple of Doom and decently to Last Crusade (although this may be a little more debatable), but that it does not stand up to Raiders; so it finds an even better place among the three that came before it. Here, then, is the problem; everyone wanted it to stand up to Raiders. Any disappointment is the result of a discrepancy between expectation and reality: Since the time it was announced, every hope for a fantastic Indy 4 grew from the special place that Raiders holds, the remembering of how Dr. Jones pushed all the right hero buttons the first time we saw him on screen. I think many hopes were crushed when people saw the movie, because even though it could have been much worse, it really could have been much better. It just seems as if the whole thing is...tired, aged like Indiana. All this to say, even as the movie occasionally trips over its nostalgia, it's still a likable, if unremarkable, entertainment, a pleasant echo of past delights; Spielberg has ensured that, at very least, the spirit of the film is spot on.
However, we now come to the involvement of one George Lucas. Every problem I had with Indy can be traced back to Lucas being too demanding about things that he wanted in this movie. It's very difficult for me to rant fully without providing significant spoilers (and I've always hated spoiler reviews), but it should suffice to say that if when you see this film in theaters, you'll know which portion of the plot development is the work of ol' Georgie. I would still love to vent, so if you have seen the movie and want to hear my tantrum, feel free to contact me. I mean the fact that Lucas forced Spielberg and Ford (who argued against this aforementioned idea in the story) to compromise in this area, and that he has, when confronted by the media, gone out of his way to lower expectations (look for any of his comments on the movie in articles online) for what should be a summer blockbuster that is hyped by its producer shows that the man is losing it. Hard. On top of that, Lucas decided to thrust his space-lined belly into more than just this one plot element. The other main problem is all the CGI in this film. Now, normally, I'm one of the last people to knock a film because of its animated parts, and I'm usually also the last to be disappointed with its quality when others complain about how fake it looked. In general, I tend to cut effects artists a lot of slack. So now I hope you'll understand my full meaning when I say GEORGE LUCAS NEEDS TO STEP OFF. Now the CGI was not like that of Transformers or Iron Man, and some will complain accordingly, but that's not my issue. I don't/didn't expect it to be, it would have been out of context. What really cracks my whip is the fact that it was so prevalent. Lucas is clearly blind to the fact that its Indiana freaking Jones and that CGI does not belong. I find it very unwelcome. Much of the thrill of the original trilogy came from great action taking place on or around elaborate set pieces. The effort in building such quality items payed off directly in the amount of enjoyment found in watching a scene that was that much more realistic (giant boulder, anyone?). This is not to say that there were absolutely no green screens in the first three, or that there weren't fantastically expensive-looking, very real sets in this one; the point is that there is so much more CGI and that most of the time, the events taking place on screen suffer as a result. Indeed, most, if not all, of the scenes where acting performance (not dialogue) flounders involve CGI of some kind (usually "some kind" = "dumb and unneccessary and Lucas can die, or retire, in a fire," but that's just my humble opinion). Granted, there's nothing that can be done about it now, and I guess that makes it like crying over spilt milk, in some sense; You could smack 'I want to believe' on the poster and it would sum up the theme nicely. Unfortunately, this is just a "pretty good" film with a few standout scenes and a solid ending. It's not an instant classic by any stretch. I just find it so very tragic that the plot device and the computer-generated effects brought the film so far down from the "instant classic" status that people expect based on the previous three, especially when both infractions are the result of one man.
Boy, that's a lot of negativity, and it wouldn't be wise to dwell on it. So, here are two positives.
First, I'm not evil. Lucas, despite botching this one, has done great things, and I so want greatness from him in the future. For all the crap I gave him about putting his Star Wars CGI space syndrome into this movie, it does have its place. I am a fan of all 6 Star Wars, as a collective whole. Still, Georgie should move on.
Second, see the movie, in theaters. It is a lot of fun, a great theater experience, and it is Indiana freaking Jones, after all.
 
That was pretty much the end of the night. I'll post about today in a separate entry. My rant needs space.

Note: Any necessary antecedents exist in the previous post (how appropriate). This entry is only a supplement to the last one, it is not intended to standalone. Should you choose not to read the prior post, any confusion, no matter how prevalent or abounding, is entirely your own fault. Disregard this disclaimer at your own risk.

As promised, here I am, wasting more time .

I'll start with the less in-depth idea. I realized that I should make a note of what music I'm listening to, especially when I have the car. Since having the car at my disposal, I've essentially gone through a whole cd every day; between going home for lunch and/or going to ultimate, I make at least 4 trips ranging from 10 to 20 minutes each. Anyway, I decided to put this in the 'separate post' to lay out my intentions, though in the future, discussion of which cd is in the player should be included in the post associated with that day. So this, then, will be a chance to review. Wednesday I was able to listen to Relient K's latest a couple of times through, since I had extra time in the car when I drove home for lunch and drove around before and after ultimate. I really enjoyed it, albeit again, because it's been about 6 months now since I listened to it. All of this past semester, as a result of the radio show, I really didn't to listen to them that much (along with Switchfoot, Flyleaf, and Jars of Clay; yes, it's regrettable). Today, I put in Freaked! A Gotee Tribute to dcTalk's Jesus Freak, which, I confess, I've never listened to straight through. I remember, back when I first picked it up, being so excited at the bands that were covering the songs, as well as the songs that were being covered, that I would go from song to song in a very random order. I guess at this point, I'm more than halfway through, and it's very good, in a different way than when I didn't listen straight through. Today I saw reason behind the song order on the disc; the album as a whole is very well-paced. I think that's all there is to say about that, other than the fact that I'm looking forward to the last song very much.
If (more likely "when") I continue to do these album comments, don't expect anything other than a positive, if not reminiscent, review; I can't really imagine myself having a negative opinion on a cd that I already own and have enjoyed every time I heard it before.

The other, perhaps more intriguing, item, is simply something that I failed to discuss and would have been more inclined to if I had time to post on Wednesday. Come to think of it, I really should have mentioned this on Tuesday, when I was informed, even though my first chance to use it was Wednesday. This mystery topic is merely the slightly privileged level of access that comes with this job. As the resident errand/stockboy/handyman, I have a Department Master Key at my disposal, which, unsurprisingly, gives me access to any of the rooms in Zachry that belong to EE, exclusively or in part. By extension, I also have access to hidden (and probably unknown, as it was to me) areas in the building, such as "The Old Cage" within the already restricted underground parking lot, as well as the secret 4th floor and compoundingly secret 5th floor (which can only be accessed via the fourth). Now, I don't think it's quite worth bragging about, since it is pretty necessary for the job, as I've found over the past two days, moving things back and forth, up and down. The access simply removes dependency on others to provide entry when I need it, and it ends up being easier for everyone who would be involved. Still, I think it's pretty cool; it's probably just pushing the same excitement buttons that get hit by kleptomania.

That's really all I had to discuss. I guess finding the balance between making my posts too long and posting things slightly out of order (having to refer to other entries) is difficult to find; this is how I cope for now, I don't know if it will become a trend, and whether it would be beneficial or detrimental should that occur.

BREAKING: Just as I was about to lament the fact that I was done with my superficial post and still had more than 2 hours to kill, another "typing point" buzzed by, so you'll have to bear with me a little longer.
A number of people have complained about the arguably ridiculous amount of items I post on Facebook. Some have asked how I do it, and that's pretty easy to answer; most of the time, I just open in different tabs all the noteworthy articles I encounter when I traipse through my RSS feeds. After my reader is cleared, I go back through the open tabs and post whatever I still find interesting after a second look. If it's any consolation, I'm not posting everything that comes up in all my feeds, so I'm actually reading more than you. Still, the fact that I have 478 posted items at this moment is a bit absurd, and understandably so. The more difficult question was why I did it, why I am compelled to postroll and no one else is. I think that I post items as if it were a social bookmark. Indeed, my motives in posting are often no different to people on Digg or Redditt, Del.i.cious or Stumbleupon. In fact, I'm pretty convinced I'm using this feature to this end, since I only started postrolling because I already had a Facebook account (and none on any of the other sites listed) and was already familiar with it and using it consistently. Now, of course, it's force of habit, and I've already got so many items to back me up, there's no point switching. And that's that.

...I think I will attempt to kill the last hour or so out of the blog.