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.

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.

Customer Service

I called WSIB to get a clearance certificate and the women who answered on the phone was surly and I'm pretty sure chewing bubble gum as well. She was being uncooperative so I just said I'd call back. The next woman who answered was extremely polite and helpful and didn't make me jump through hoops. If you ever get a terrible customer service agent on the phone, just hang up and call again.

Go to hell, Rogers.

Great article on Wired explaining why ISPs like Rogers are total money grubbing assholes. You Don't want ISPs to Innovate.

Get Off My Lawn

I was walking my dog earlier this evening. As I was passing by a house, an old woman sitting on a lawn-chair started yelling at me to move my dog off her lawn. Actually, she was yelling at my dog.

"MOVE DOG! GET OUT OF HERE DOG, GO! STUPID DOG! I'M AN OLD CUNT!"

I'm paraphrasing there but you get the picture. I didn't say anything. She was likely afraid that my dog would take a shit on her lawn. I just kept moving. After my dog had done his business somewhere else, I bagged it and headed back. When I reached her house I lifted the bag up and yelled "WAS THIS WHAT YOU WERE LOOKING FOR?" and threw the bag at her. It hit her squarely in the face, leaving a streak of shit on her forehead. She rose up to chase me but her kneecap buckled and she fell on her lawn... where she lies to this day, quietly crying about her sad pathetic life.

This comedian is about to die

Gabriel Iglesias is on the Comedy network right now. This guy is going to die of a heart attack. In fact, in researching for this post, I googled "fat mexican comedian going to die of heart attack" and Iglesias' name showed up. At least he won't be gracing us with his horrible comedy for much longer.

Troubleshooting

I have Ubuntu and Windows installed on my old computer, and just for funsies I decided I would do two things:
1. Back up all my old documents on to an external harddrive.
2. Update Ubuntu to the latest distribution (9.04)

Unfortunately, I decided to update Ubuntu first. The update went fine, but when I rebooted my computer I couldn't boot up Windows. A startup file was missing. Turns out I left Windows in hibernation mode - bad idea. I started up Ubuntu to try and fix the problem from there, but Ubuntu won't let you access hibernated drives - or so it says.

I used the Windows recovery disk to fix the master boot record, but guess what that did? Now I couldn't boot Windows OR Ubuntu. I had to take out my trusty Super Grub Disk to repair the MBR. I was finally able to get back into Ubuntu, and it turns out you can enable access to hibernated disks.

Quick sidenote; it's absolutely asinine that you have to use the terminal to do anything useful in Ubuntu. This is why Linux is not catching on - everything should be accessible from a GUI. Also, if I'm the only user, I should have full privileges, I shouldn't need to be "root". There are all these levels of security that seem redundant and confusing.

Anyway, I somehow enable access to the harddisk and I'm able to drag the necessary file from the Windows CD on to the harddrive. So it only took about 4 hours, but thankfully I was able to update Ubuntu, back up my documents, and get full access back to Windows and Ubuntu.