Things that annoy me

I'm not Peter. I'm not a film critic. But there are certain things that, when I notice them, really annoy me.

Studios have been trying a lot of things lately to get more people interested in more films. Pre-releasing movies on iTunes before they're in the theater, viral marketing campaigns, etc. How then, in this era of media and public saturation and scrutiny does this happen: A new, A-list film (if Nick Cage really is A-list) releases a clip from the film, something to wet appetites and it has, to my untrained eye, a glaring cinematic mistake...

Image 1 - 00:17

 

Image 2 - 00:20



Did you catch it? It's called match-on-action. In the first shot the detective, played by that grumpy looking guy, is opening his folder (you can see it's partly open) and in the second shot (after the cut) it is closed again.

This is such a simple thing to edit correctly and it's such a simple thing to not put in the one clip that you release for promotion. My dream of becoming a Hollywood editor is alive again.

Watch for yourself here.

*End of Rant*

Records

The Satisfaction of modern records

This morning I entered 4 download codes from 4 records I recently purchased. This isn't what I like best about records -- what I like best is how they force you to actually sit down and listen to music -- but it is one of the most satisfying aspects of modern vinyl. It's really nice and convenient to just open iTunes and download an album (or song) but then what do you have? I would much rather wait for a good cloud-based music service to be available (rdio is good, but not what Lala was or what Spotify would be) than download a song to a single computer (or device) and then go through the hassle of putting it on multiple other devices and computers that I use throughout the week.

With a record I know what I am getting. I am getting an object that I put into my record player and it works. It does not work in my iPod or CD player or computer... just the record player. I expect to listen to that music in one place; my living room. It's nice to download the music and have the option to transport it, but really, if I want to listen to it at work or at home I will usually just play it off of Grooveshark. I know this isn't the model for everyone... in fact, most people would rather download the song once to their iPhone and play it through the built-in speakers or plug it in to their stereo. That's cool (expect the built-in speaker part -- music should never go through those). The end.

P.S. The currently downloading song in the image is Mumford & Sons' Dharohar Project which you can listen to here

Techno Jeep

Best part starts at 1:32 --- keep watching...as if you could stop.

Absolutely Unique

Have you ever sat in traffic listening to your favorite CD and wondered "is anyone else in the world sitting in their car listening to this exact song at this exact moment?" What are the chances?

Well there are nearly a billion cars on the roads of the world and, assuming that your favorite CD is at least a gold record, one million of those cars could contain that CD. Even if only one tenth of those CDs made it into cars, and only one one hundredth of the cars containing the CD are currently being driven, that's still 1,000 cars simultaneously being operated with the potential of listening to your same song. That's not terrible odds... of course you could add levels of complication like "...driving a Buick with a busted front end and heading North by Northwest while listening to..." and make the odds go way down.

There are also times when what you are doing is so strange that the question becomes "has anyone in history ever done this?" (which, by the way, if you can immediately, with confidence, say 'I am the first', you should probably stop right then... there's probably a good reason why no one else has done it). Some people get this feeling when walking on freshly fallen snow. I hate to burst your bubble but that snow has been walked on, peed on, sweated out of someones forehead, evaporated, shaken off a wet dog, boiled, drunk, and spit out millions of times over thousands of years. I, however, did something yesterday that has never been done before. I didn't realize I had done it till after the fact, but I am convinced that my actions were unique across time, space, and multiple duplicate dimensions; I watched the film The Remains of the Day while wearing a Bruce Lee t-shirt.

Let that soak in.

You might be tempted to think that it's not really that strange. I assure you, it is. You think, "well, I'm sure some random guy wearing a Bruce Lee t-shirt could have, spur-of-the-moment, decided to walk into the theater." But no, that never happened. I am the first, and may well be the last. I am a unique individual dang it.

PostPost: The image at the top has nothing to do with this blog entry.

Monopoly - City Streets

Today is the first day of the largest Monopoly game in history [if it ever starts to work that is].

A new online game from Hasboro, Monopoly City Streets, goes online today and the registration process has been a pain. I have been hitting the refresh button over and over and when I finally got through, it played a little flash intro and stopped, I couldn't do anything (I think the navigation was hidden and I couldn't scroll to it).

Anyhow, the game is based in Google Maps and allows users to purchase any real estate (any street) in the world and then charge rent. You start off with 3 million Monopoly Bucks and, from what I've read, the game goes 'till January, making it not only the largest game (most players) but one of the longest (though, I think the board game averages 2 months to play and I personally have played one game that lasted 1 and a half years).

How many people will sign up? How many will play? That, obviously is yet to be seen, but one thing's for sure... if any of you are planning on building on any street that we have ever lived on... better think again... you'll be paying me rent! Bookbinder here I come!

And now for something...

...completely different.

This from the deep tomes of the inter-tube-web:

Alles Neu - Peter Fox



I apologize if this guy uses profanity in his music, but it's in German. In German, everything sounds like profanity.

Jumping Jon

Consistently (and this has nothing to do with the Guest post below) Japanese culture baffles me. Don't ask how, but I stumbled upon a Japanese McDonald's site today that allows you to upload a picture of yourself (or your brother Jon) and turn it into a Fast Food themed avatar --- in this case, a hash brown. Mmmm, could anything make you want to eat at a Big Mac more than seeing Jon's face with a red-dot-nose dancing around to Japanese children singing a Zelda song? I submit it could not!

You can sign up here, they'll email you your password.

Wacky Wednesday

So, here's the non-update.

Still no baby born. Waiting... waiting... waiting.

Tonight David and I have our third installment of THE DANGEROUS BOYS' CLUB (see our new site here).

And this... this is the strangest (yet coolest) video ever evah...

Have a great Wednesday:

Luke Buda - Special Surprise

Movie Trailers

I was just looking through movie trailers that I hadn't yet seen (on a site that I just found, Trailer Addict). I had just finished watching the trailer for Jim Carry's new movie, Yes Man (looks pretty good), when I saw this: "The Mummy: Tomb of the Drag..." now having already seen the preview for the new Mummy movie I had to wonder if the "tomb of the drag" wouldn't actually garner better reviews than whatever the real full title is.



I have also been thinking recently, does anyone know why pre-views are sometimes called "trailer". Is it because it trails the commercials before the movie?

Preview or teaser seem to make more sense.

Peter, do you know the definitions here?

What Happen?

Somebody set up us the bomb...



Have a great weekend, and Happy Birthday Matt!

Facebook Rant

Over the past couple of years (basically since I graduated from College), Facebook has been becoming ever more-and-more popular. First it was a hit with it's targeted college-crowd, now everyone from my father-in-law to my little sister have their own facebook account.

Even knowing that is was really popular didn't prepare me for the family visiting back in March (for Matt & Emily's wedding). I don't know if David ever logged out of facebook on his iPod touch and I know Thomas spent countless hours "racing" in some Facebook app.

It's cool how much interaction people can have on this site. It's waaaaaayyyyyyy better than the crap you can do on MySpace (all I have ever seen is people posting messages like "Thanks for adding me" or "Thanks for posting my ad, you guys are awesome, keep it up dudes" and stuff like that). Facebook really seems like a community (albeit superficial and ultimately pointless and/or redundant with "the real world").

I really hope Facebook and Google collaborate in the near future. It would be great to see the power of Gmail married to the scope of Facebook. It would be nice to be able to send messages (in a real mail form, not like the current Facebook message client) and have multiple 'pages' so that you don't have a ton of crap on one page like Jill does.

So am I missing something? Is there actually a point to MySpace? How much time do you-all spend on Facebook a day (a week)? What would you like to see change with Facebook?



This is a screen capture of my Facebook. I run a deviantArt skin to make it easier on the eyes. It would be nice to be able to choose from a couple of different templates for your profile (so that others could see your page this way).