Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Materials

"1 1/2" copper coupling, 1 length of ABS pipe, 1 Moon Troll, 1 co- wait, what the fuuuuuu...."

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

HP

HP has the worst business practices. I'm trying to get a somewhat older HP printer - the HP PSC 2410 - to work. All I want to do is fax. But the ink cartridge in the printer has a built in expiry date. Now the printer won't let me do ANYTHING unless I replace this cartridge. I don't even NEED ink for scanning and faxing. I don't intend to buy HP products in the future.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Inception - Movie as Metaphor for Dreaming

We've seen in Nolan films that he likes to structure the movie in such a way that the medium becomes the message. In "Memento", the backwards dynamic recreates the protagonist's short-term memory and confusion. In "The Prestige", the film itself plays out like a magic trick. In "Inception" the movie itself brings to light how many movie tropes are like a dream. Consider:

- In movies, like in dreams, we don't see how the characters get from place to place. Often the scenes start in the middle of action. We don't see characters go to the bathroom or sleep.

- In movies, like dreams, which take place in real time over several hours, entire months or years can transpire. Time is perceived differently.

- In movies, like in dreams, the reality is not quite right, details sometimes don't make sense, but we suspend our disbelief and make the world feel real. We take our own preconceived notions and projections into movies and dreams.

- The irony of this is that even if Cobb did wake up in the end, the world is not real because it transpires inside Nolan's movie.

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Stupid Commercials, Part 1

Just saw a commercial for "Extra" gum where a woman kept trying to clean her teeth by putting Scotch tape over her teeth and ripping it off. Could you spare us "Extra", this is disgusting.