pjungle

Farewell Google!

2012-02-12T11:06:00.001-08:00

Google's privacy policy sucks so I'm deleting all my accounts. This is one of the blogs that will be disappearing before the end of the month.

Farewell, y'all!

If you would like to join me, click the following link: https://www.google.com/settings/

Then click the link indicated here:

Check all them boxes on the left:

Next, you will probably want to opt out of all their tracking by going to this web site: https://www.google.com/ads/preferences/

Then, find this link buried in the page:

Finally, you'll have to click this button:

But if you want to be safe you will probably have to install a browser plug-in (which aren't supported by most mobile web browsers):

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hhnjdplhmcnkiecampfdgfjilccfpfoe?hl=en the "keep my opt-outs" plug-in.

Pig from the depths

2011-08-24T08:11:00.001-07:00

Pig from the depths

2011-08-20T07:08:00.000-07:00

Pig from the depths

2011-08-11T09:51:00.000-07:00

Pig from the depths

2011-08-02T09:18:00.001-07:00

Pig from the depths

2011-07-29T09:04:00.001-07:00

Pig from the depths

2011-07-26T08:21:00.000-07:00

Pig from the depths

2011-07-25T17:22:00.000-07:00

Sunday pigs from the depths

2011-07-24T10:12:00.000-07:00

creepy pig from 4chan

2011-07-22T09:10:00.001-07:00

It's my day off but I thought I'd post a creepy pig from 4chan while I'm busy uploading all these animated gifs to Google+.

Pig from the depths

2011-07-21T16:24:00.000-07:00

Pig from the depths

2011-07-20T11:31:00.000-07:00

Pig from the depths

2011-07-19T09:00:00.001-07:00

Pig from the depths

2011-07-18T08:21:00.000-07:00

Pig from the depths

2011-07-14T12:00:00.000-07:00

Pig from the depths

2011-07-13T11:14:00.000-07:00

Pig from the depths

2011-07-12T09:06:00.001-07:00

A pig I'm working on

2011-07-11T17:53:00.000-07:00

Pig from the depths

2011-07-11T09:07:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's so dark! LOL

Pig from the depths

2011-07-09T00:58:00.001-07:00

pig from the depths

2011-07-08T10:30:00.001-07:00

Pig from the depths

2011-07-07T08:00:00.000-07:00

Pig from the depths

2011-07-06T15:27:00.000-07:00

Pig from the depths

2011-07-05T08:08:00.001-07:00

Aliens on a Farm

2011-07-04T10:18:00.000-07:00

Pig from the depths

2011-07-03T08:20:00.000-07:00

Pig from the depths

2011-07-02T12:01:00.000-07:00

u r special

2011-07-01T15:49:00.001-07:00

Pig from the depths

2011-07-01T10:50:00.001-07:00

moron poetry 2011-06-19

2011-06-19T10:51:00.001-07:00

principled reformer unwavering commitment conservative values small business owner wife and mother Constitutional conservative Founding Fathers preserve and protect fostering an environment dreams could flourish single greatest calling public service ensure liberties enshrined founding documents handed down generation to the next http://www.michelebachmann.com/

Speed Dating with the Enemy

2010-11-22T14:59:00.001-08:00

A parody of Sleeping with the Enemy

Fade out from boat scene where MARTIN BURNEY yells: LAURA!

Fade into bar scene. Speed dating in progress. Aged, poorly taken care of or simply sleazy men and women moving from bar stool to bar stool. Each wearing a name tag and carrying a small stack of flash cards and a pen.

BUNNY: Hi, I'm Bunny!

MARTIN BURNEY: Hello, Bunny. I'm Martin. My wife recently passed in a bizarre boating accident.

BUNNY looks sad: I'm sorry to hear that, Martin.

MARTIN BURNEY: It's OK. We met at a speed dating service so, I figured I'd give it another go.

BUNNY looks perplexed.

MARTIN BURNEY: My first question ... You've just washed your hands. You look and there's three towels hanging in the bathroom. What's the first thought on your mind?

BUNNY seems confused: Dry my hands?

MARTIN BURNEY: Next!

All the dates move one bar stool to the left.

ANGIE sits down in front of MARTIN BURNEY.

MARTIN BURNEY: You throw open the cupboard, what do you see?

ANGIE: Uh ...

ANGIE seems confused, staring into MARTIN BURNEY eyes.

ANGIE: Food?

MARTIN BURNEY: Next!

DESTINEE sits down and introduces herself.

MARTIN BURNEY: My wife just died in a tragic boating accident.

DESTINEE: I'm so sorry to hear that.

MARTIN BURNEY: Yes. ... Can you swim?

DESTINEE: Not at all.

MARTIN BURNEY: Wonderful!

DESTINEE looks confused, as though she wants to move to the next table already.

MARTIN BURNEY: How are you at taking a punch?

Somehow, as I imagined this, the grieving speed-dating husband character wound up being played by Jack Palance.

The Passion of the Chinchilla

2010-08-07T17:28:00.001-07:00

or ...

The History of the Chinchilla

Long ago, people used to live in the mountains and they would go up climbing with Sherpas, and on the way they would encounter these magical fuzzy creatures. The locals revered them, and offered them Timothy Hay and dust. Because where they lived, there was a lot of snow and stuff.

Later, a man named Mr Chinchilla went on a climb and saw them and decided he would take some on as pets. So, he did.

His intent was to return to America with the Chinchillas (named after himself). But, he had a ship wreck and wound up in the U.K. There, he went bankrupt and his family was forced to sell chinchilla fur coats for a couple generations.

Then, late one night, Moseschilla came to visit the grandson of Mr Chinchilla. He sang to him, 'let my people go!' And, turned a piece of straw into some dust. So, Grandson Chinchilla did; he put them in a boat and took them to America.

Generations of chinchillas (and Chinchillas) went by, and the furry little beings proliferated. And now, folks have pet chinchillas.

If you have any other questions about the history of chinchillas, please check out the wikipedia article here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinchilla

Or, simply click here.

HoboSoft

2010-07-29T16:30:00.001-07:00

The business plan is to start a call center in Fresno, California. The lowest-paying, lowest-rent kind of establishment imaginable. All the employees will be paid minimum wage. And, to receive the most return on our investment, we’ll charge them a weekly fee to rent their cubicles.

Sex Offender Shantytown

But who would want to work there? The reason Fresno was chosen is because of its’ criminal Shantytown:

We will rent an old, run down, ex chicken hatchery. Like an unsuccessful and older version of the Belt Hatchery. All stinky and with no heating or air conditioner.

Put a bunch of cubicles in there, lock down all the computers and equipment. Even the headsets will be bolted to the desks; in order to talk on the phone, our call center employees will have to lean over on their side and put their head into the headset.

We’ll put a trailer outside and call it ‘our executive office.’ So that visitors won’t be subjected to the smell. If anyone insists on a tour, we’ll hire bonafide sherpas with oxygen tanks to go in; in case they pass out, the sherpa will administer oxygen and CPR until they are able to continue or exit.

When new employees (sub-sub contractors) are hired, they’ll be taken to the side of the building and sprayed with a hose attached to the fire hydrant, to save money. And, deloused. Then, they’ll be led inside and shown ‘orientation videos’ that explain things like:

Who we are (we began in a garage in California)
How we operate (cheap as hell)
Our Values (not breaking the law while on public property; including a run-down on communicating with customers over the phones, FCC guidelines; and, COPC)

Everyone will be sub-sub contracted, to protect the company from liabilities. For example, the fact that someone will take twenty bucks at the start of the day to a local hardware repair store and hire a day laborer to spray the outside of the building with water (from the fire hydrant only) every couple hours. We do this because it’s cheaper than air conditioning.

It’s going to be fantastic! Another benefit: they’re all Americans (as far as HoboSoft is concerned). So, no complaints from Americans about calling a foreign country for service.

We could even do one in Sacramento (it wouldn’t cost as much as the proposed arena; and, it would create jobs and tax revenue):

Southern Pacific Richards Railway Station

I bet we could get federal funding to cover some of it (e.g. To pay to run the copper / trunk lines so the telephone and Internet could make it to the hatchery / railroad station):

Federal Stimulus Program Pours $54 Million Into Wine Train Project

I’m envisioning mentally deranged homeless people answering the phones; like the guy from Arsenic and Old Lace who believes he’s Theodore Roosevelt:

Theodore: Thanks for calling [company name], this is President Theodore Roosevelt. May I start with your name and [identifier], please?

Customer: President who?

Theodore: Theodore Roosevelt; you know, the twenty-sixth president of this great nation!

Customer: Uhh, OK. I just need help with my [product].

Theodore: What’s it doing?

Customer describes the problem.

Theodore: Wow! Really? Why, we’ve never had yellow fever there before!

And, it’ll only cost our clients one-half the price of competing call centers!

A few concerns that investors might have:

There are no restrooms in a chicken hatchery
- That's why we'll use porta' potties!
Won't you have to pay benefits, vacation time, and carry a lot of other financial risks for the headcount?
- Not if the turn-over rate is sixty days or less! Besides, if an employee survives at HoboSoft for more than sixty days, they deserve to take a vacation. And, with the new national health care plan, these hobos and ex-cons should have no problem getting health care on their own.
Are you an Equal Opportunity Employer?
- You'd have to ask one of the sub-contracted companies responsible for staffing the call center.

Twilight Eclipse and other movies

2010-07-13T16:21:00.001-07:00

Watching Twilight Eclipse was like trying to drink cream of wheat straight out of the box.

Our experience started with the First Look crap that Regal Cinemas always plays. There’s a new show about a guy who is always right. Why would I watch this? What kind of drama could that create? A Crime Scene Investigator who is always right.

DRACULA’S COVE - FLORIDA EVERGLADES
Plastic litters the tan dirt edge of the swamp; the edge of the water choked with thick green algae and floating refuse. Plants poke up from it and run off the edges of the scene creating a furry look. As the actors speak, behind them is the everglades; a green and twisted landscape full of alligators, frogs (queue frog sounds in the background) and perhaps a distant freeway.
Billy is dressed like a cop.
There’s a cop car, crime scene tape is going up thanks to the extras. Two cop cars are next to an old rusty tow truck, the kind with the rounded wheel hubs and so on. Bella from Twilight will be driving one of these by the end of the series; giving up on necrophilia and bestiality (tip of the hat to Reddit) and marrying that Asian chick from her high school, and becoming a tow truck driver.
BILLY: Hey, Chet the CSI. Thanks for showing up.
Chet’s crappy 1991 Ford Bronco pulls up; it’s red with wooden panel looking crap on the side. It has some magnet signs stuck to it that reads, ‘Chet: CSI’ and a phone number.
Chet climbs out, walks around the Bronco. He’s wearing a flannel shirt, a hat that says ‘will hump for food.’ He’s got blue jeans on and they cover up his brown work boots.
CHET burps and sets down the ginormous duffel bag he brought with; it’s black, has CSI stenciled on the side.
CHET: Howdy, y’all!
BILLY: Somebody done gone an’ got killed. Look, there’s a body.
BILLY points at a female body whose offensive bits are covered by a plastic painter’s tarp. It’s kind of a white color, from the overlap and all the paint on it.
CHET: Her butler killed her when she wouldn’t divorce her husband. I’ll get her address with my smart phone.
BILLY: You haven’t even set foot on the scene!
CHET: I’m always right.
END SCENE.

Or, you could go all Minority Report ….

CHET is in an old Pinto. He speaks into a cell phone while someone at Burger King is trying to get his attention and hand him a Hershey Pie. CAPTAIN BILBO can be heard speaking on the other end, a slight distortion on his voice so you know he’s on the phone and not in the same room.
CAPTAIN BILBO: Hello, this is Captain Bilbo. Who’s calling?
CHET: This is Chet. OK?
CAPTAIN BILBO: Go ahead.
CHET: So, the next murders are going to occur on Friday, fifth and broadway, at three P.M.; Saturday, twenty-third and main, at five P.M.; and, Sunday in the Fat Boys Club downtown, at ten P.M.
CAPTAIN BILBO (VO): Fantastic!
CHET: Bye.
For the next hour you watch cops eat donuts and stake out those locations, busting folks when they show up to commit the crime. Doesn’t that sound like an entertaining show?

Next, were the trailers. The Narnia trailer had the same kind of CGI as the wolves from Twilight. So, when they finally appeared (the wolves, not the stupid lion), I turned to my girlfriend and said, ‘welcome to Narnia!’ It was pretty bad; they were lit incorrectly for the scene, seemed quite out of place.

Another trailer that played before Twilight was for the new Resident Evil Afterlife film. It looks like it's going to be a combination of the Matrix, Ultraviolet, and the original Resident Evil movies. But, as anyone who's been following the films knows that every other Resident Evil movie sucks. So, I'll only be seeing it for the sake of having seen them all.

The first Resident Evil film was awesome. I mean, other than the boss fight at the end. You remember; the one with the tongue piercing and all the panty-soiling screaming? The second one though; wow! I mean, it had a girl in a blue dress for no reason at all. And, she never returned in any of the other movies. Then, a boss at the end that looked like a cross between Chunk from Goonies and Jesse Ventura's character in Predator.

The third Resident Evil film, I was in Las Vegas when I saw it. Walking out of the theater at the end of the film and onto the dry Vegas streets was an awesome experience. I'm hoping that the next film isn't set in some specific location. From the trailer, it appears to take place in a grain silo. And, the last character is pretty much a carbon copy of the main villain from Ultraviolet. I'm hoping for a highly stylized remake of the end of the Karate Kid (the original, not that racist Chinese knock-off). Or, maybe like Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Predator; laying in a pit, surrounded by fireworks, covered with mud, and ending in a nuclear explosion.

Ah, Predator; my girlfriend and I also saw Predators. If you haven't seen it yet, make sure you see Apocalypse Now before you go. Lawrence Fishburn's character in the film was the same as his character from Apocalypse Now. When he came on the screen, folks cheered. I have never been at the theater and seen folks cheer because of an actor appearing on the screen.

Predators was a solid film. It didn't seem to be a mash-up. Though Fishburn did live in a big ship, which reminded me of Where the Wild Things Are.

Also, I was a little disappointed that he didn't pull a Morpheus trip on the punk from Summer of Sam.

CLEAN sneaks up on RICHIE while he's taking a dump. We can't see CLEAN clearly because he's wearing a Predator's cloaking device.
RICHIE: Who's there?
CLEAN (VO): Private Tyrone Miller, PBR Street Gang. But, you can call me Clean!
RICHIE seems confused, furiously wiping at his ass: Oh. That's nice.
RICHIE picks up his rifle with his poo-filthy hands, training it on the jungle and listening for a response.
RICHIE: And uh, where are we?
CLEAN (VO): In the Matrix.
RICHIE: What is the Matrix?
CLEAN (VO): No one can be told what the Matrix is, you have to be shown.
RICHIE: Oh my God! The Predators are using us as batteries to power their ships!

Speaking of The Matrix, the new film from the guy that did Batman Begins and The Dark Knight (Chris Nolan) is releasing a new film called Inception. Holy stolen-from-my-blog, Batman!

I'm starting to think that Chris Nolan has read my blog. I know this because he's cast Leonardo DiCaprio in a Matrix-like movie. Unfortunately, he didn't follow my lead and cast him as a cross-dressing love interest for Neo.

Watching the trailer reminded me of my ongoing emotional conflict regarding Leo; I want to hate him. My gut tells me he should only appear in Critters remakes. Or, maybe Troll 3; only in the third film in a series of cheezy horror films. Like Wishmaster 3. Or, possibly as What's Eating Gilbert Grape.

At any rate, his recent performances have inflicted emotional scars; one of my favorite films is The Aviator. And, DiCaprio is excellent in that movie. There's even more; Shutter Island, The Departed, Gangs of New York.

Ugh. Looks like Inception is going to have a permanent place on my DVD shelf (or iTunes Library) when it comes out as well.

Bulletin for iPad

2010-04-26T09:56:00.000-07:00

It looked like it was gonna be great:

+ displays google reader notes
+ share items
+ star items
+ mark unread
+ open link in a browser that takes up the whole screen and seems promising
+ email article (no ads!)
+ 'favorite/like' items

Also: Instapaper, Read It Later, Facebook, Twitter, Delicious. Customize the display order (oldest to newest), group by feed.

And the feature i've been waiting for: Share with NOTE in google reader!! And it works!

However: there are some critical flaws:

- only displays folders (not individual feeds)
- only stores ~~250~~ up to 1,000 unread items
- the 'notes' area populates with the same article a gazillion times

It has the most promise of any reader I've seen so far but, the flaws are just too massive.

There is also as button to mark as read (a checkmark) that has no confirmation box; it marks everything in the current folder as read.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Feeddler for iPad

2010-04-20T12:09:00.001-07:00

This is my favorite RSS reader for iPad. It has some drawbacks. But, you can Share in Google Reader (though not with a note). There's no difference that I was able to find between the free and pro (paid) versions of the app.

When setting up Feedler, this is a common mistake I've seen in other apps. It asks you for your name and password but, the button to submit is hidden by the keyboard.

Sharing what you read

Share with Email or Share on Facebook. You can also Add Star (Google Reader), Like (Google Reader), Share (Google Reader), Keep Unread, or View Full Article.

Miscellaneous Stuff

Viewing the Full Article will show the web site that the content is linking to. However, even when you View Full Article, you cannot open hyperlinks that open in a new window.

You also can't ‘pinch to zoom’ or ‘double-tap to zoom’ on this picture. And, Feedler doesn't support ‘view in browser’ (open in Safari) so, you have to share it some other way, in order to zoom or save the picture.

HTML Open in New Window

If there are hyperlinks that open the destination in a new window, they don't respond at all. Though they may change color.

My Conclusion on Feeddler

This RSS feature has just about everything I look for in an RSS app. Some things that are missing: The ability to open a page in Safari, the ability to Share with Google Reader with a note. Also, being able to save graphics to my camera roll (or Saved Photos album, on iPad).

FeedPad for iPad

2010-04-20T11:57:00.001-07:00

Don't buy it.

As you can see, it includes the ability to add individual feeds, Edit the curently selected a Subscription name, Delete the selected Subscription, or go into Settings.

Settings includes fun stuff like: Google Reader credentials (which don't appear to do anything, but they are saved); change the Default viewmode (from Compact crap to Detailed or Grid crap). You can modify the max number of items to show, and tell FeedPad to Start with subscription: one of the feeds that you've manually added.

My Conclusion on FeedPad for iPad

Amateur.

iPaper for iPad

2010-04-20T11:43:00.001-07:00

It's rare that I run into an app that I am compelled to screenshot multiple times within the first five minutes of using it. But, iPaper for iPad is one of those apps. It reminded me of the first home I almost bought: wasps in the power box, the box wasn't fastened securely to the side of the house, a drop from the power lines ran across the front yard and slapped against the side of the house when you wiggled the power box. And, it only got better when you went inside.

What's amazing is that this was not the worst iPad RSS reader that I used. In fact, it had some creative (though poorly documented) features.

Museum of the Strange

The first thing I noticed when I started using iPaper was that it included a hyperlink to their own site that opened in Safari:

After I edited the hyperlink, I was able to get their browser to display the developer's web site.

After entering my Google Reader credentials, it populated my unread news. However, it did not respond at all. I came back after a cigarette and was able to look around.

Sharing what you read

Or: What do all these features do?

The check box at the top, next to the edit button, in that last screen shot: It marks everything as read. There is no warning, it just does it. The Edit button next to it, that'll let you delete an RSS feed; this functions just like deleting anything else on iPad or iPhone. The curious buttons on the top right: the arrow pointing to the envelope button. The arrow is actually a speaker, if you press it, you will see little sound waves appear next to it: this turns off the page turning sound. The ‘envelope button’ allows you to: Open in Safari, E-mail to friend, Post on Facebook, or “Twit it” — whatever that means.

Desolation Aggregator

Most articles that do not seem to contain anything in the RSS feed look like this; empty and boring.

That curious tear in the bottom-right corner usually reveals an error — “No Internet connection (Frame load interrupted)” if you are opening articles from the home screen.

One Toilet Flushing

A neat page-turn graphic sweeps across the page, accompanied by a sound effect.

An astute reader might observe: That grayed out page corner in the top-right, it's not faded in this screen shot. That's because it actually allows you to bookmark an item; if it's faded, it's not in your ‘bookmarks’ feed. If it's not faded (as shown), it does.

My Conclusion on iPaper for iPad

I really wanted to like this app. But, as you can see, it is kind of a train wreck. It's slow to respond, doesn't have very good sharing functionality. I didn't test the “Twit it” feature, because by the time I got this far, I knew it would need a lot more work before I could use it. But hey, at least the “E-mail to a friend” produces an email that does not contain an advertisement for the app.

Headline for iPad

2010-04-20T11:16:00.001-07:00

Headline is a nice looking app for iPad. It has cool stuff like its' splash screen: a blue pattern with water stains on it. It also displays a badge on its icon so you'll know how many articles you haven't read yet.

Once open, it starts at the last article you viewed.

It displays your feeds; if you use folders, this screen shot does not display it but, there is a little gray circle around the ‘down arrow’ (inverted control symbol). It was tough for me to reliably touch this button, and I suspect it will need to be enlarged in a future version.

Web page / browser appears when you touch a hyperlink. There is an option to open in Safari (compass in upper-right corner). You can browse unrestricted, following links in the content. Or, change the URL and view other sites.

Sharing what you read

You can share via email (top left corner of the article you are viewing), or open in Safari (compass icon to the left of the envelope). Along the top of the article appears: Star for Google Favorite. Circle for Unread (if it's empty) vs Read (if it's full).

However, any articles you share via email have an advertisement for Headline and its' creator in there by default.

My Conclusion on Headline for iPad

It's a welcome change from the other RSS readers I've tried. It's stylized (like Stickybeak), but also what I expect (like NetNewsWire). However, it is missing some of the sharing functionality I expect. Also, if I pay five dollars for an app, I should be able to turn off advertisements (like the one that appears in the email signature) and badges (I don't need another reminder that I'm behind on my RSS reading for the day).

NetNewsWire for iPad

2010-04-20T10:57:00.001-07:00

I used to use NetNewsWire for Mac all the time. Then, they crapped it up with NewsGator syncing. A while later, I gave it another chance, and it's been pretty solid. Though I haven't invested much time in trying to figure out how to get it to sync up with Google Reader. Mainly because I haven't had the time or motivation. So, my RSS browsing habits on my computer are broken into two parts: Google Reader in a web browser, so I can Share With Note, like Dick Cheney taking notes in newspaper margins. And, using NetNewsWire to browse image feeds (Flickr, etc.).

NetNewsWire on iPhone

To be honest, I hardly ever used this app. I guess I was expecting better Google Reader integration, and it never came. Or, something fancy with NewsGator. Using this app, I can't share with Google Reader at all. But, if I wanted to, I could Email Link to Page, Post to Twitter, Send to Instapaper, Open in Browser.

NetNewsWire on iPad

I wanted to save this image, had to use the "Open in Browser" button:

Sharing what you read

I wanted to share an article in Google Reader - I can only: Email Link to Page, Post to Twitter, Send to Instapaper, or Open in Browser.

HTML Open in New Window

If there are hyperlinks that open the destination in a new window, they don't respond at all. Though they may change color.

Other Thoughts

On another note, there has to be some way to render this object without covering content. This problem is not unique to NetNewsWire; Entertainment Weekly iPad app did it to themselves.

My Conclusion on NetNewsWire for iPad

It's what I'm used to. And, it is very solid. If it weren't for my obsession with sharing things in Google Reader, I would probably be using this as my primary RSS reader.

Stickybeak for iPad

2010-04-20T10:40:00.001-07:00

When I got my iPad, I was very excited to use it to browse the web. So, I tried to get every RSS reader that I could find.

RSS Readers

Over the course of the next couple weeks, I wound up downloading all but RSS three readers.

App store: Only three feed readers I didn't look at (if you search for “rss google”).

The first app I looked at was Stickybeak. It looks great:

Odd representation of articles in the feed

It looks like the developers wanted to display articles the same way that Twitter clients display tweets: with the number of hours or days since they were published. It would be nice if there were a way to disable this; the second column displayed is the one with the summary of the article (from the RSS feed). Providing more control over the number of lines that appear beneath the headline would be cool.

Sharing what you read

The “Tweet” button (which sometimes appears as a button with the word “Tweet” and, at other times, as a cartoon dialogue bubble) in the upper-right does not copy or paste anything related to the article you have selected. It produces a blank box. It does not display a count of characters you are tweeting; I suspect a long message would simply be dropped without notifying the ‘tweeter’.

There are no other features that allow you to get an article out of Stickybeak; you can't email, share with Google Reader, or send to Instapaper. There is also no button to “open with Safari.” But, you can copy the URL and paste it elsewhere.

HTML Open in New Window

If there are hyperlinks that open the destination in a new window, they don't respond at all. Though they may change color.

My Conclusion on Stickybeak

It's not for me. I would be more impressed if the developer added things like the inclusion of a hyperlink and article title when “the tweet button” is pressed, or the ability to share in Google Reader. Or, add the one feather that no iPad RSS reader has: Share with Note to Google Reader.

ventriloquism: ranger's passtime

2010-01-15T01:21:00.001-08:00

I just got done watching Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. At the end, when Aragorn starts singing, my girlfriend remarks, ‘why can I still hear his voice when he's not singing?’

‘Ventriloquism; it's what rangers do when they're bored.’

Another thing; I remembered two things about this movie, prior to watching it this second time: a big spider, and this guy who runs while he's on fire and jumps off a castle parapet. My girlfriend noticed that Gandalf's horse pimp slaps him, he falls down, looks at his son, says a few words, then gets up and runs down this long, stone hallway. That hallway leads out to this platform that's like, at least as long as a football field. It cuts to him running, near the end of the ginormous platform-slash-parapet, and he leaps off flaming into the air, and falls onto the battle taking place below.

My girlfriend said they should have filmed what happened between Gandalf and Pipin (the little halfling dude) while he was running. Like, the two of them watching him run out, on fire. Then, he turns to Pipin who says, ‘so, how you doing, Gandalf?’ And so on.

Or, just film the fifteen minutes it'd take for the guy to run, while on fire, down that tunnel and across the ginormous platform, to reach the end of it, and take the nestea plunge.

bear vs ocean: round one

2010-01-10T16:41:00.001-08:00

So I guess the Jew Bear from Inglorious Bastards nearly died this weekend. The report I read said that he was on vacation in Australia, swimming by some big rock. And while he was trying to climb up, he saw some sea urchins. He knew they were there but, this big wave hit him and tried to suck him out to sea, so he put his foot on one of the urchins for leverage or something. Like, to hold him in place. He put his hand on it, too.

Later, when he swam to shore, some people found him laying on the beach. And they ran up to him and were all, ‘OMG Jew Bear! Can I have your autograph?!’

And he held up his bloody hand but they kept going, ‘Ahh Jew Bear paw print!’

Something you’ll see on ebay, I bet.

Someone needs to do a Red Dawn / Home Alone mash-up. Remember Red Dawn? It was one of those old Red Scare movies, where the commies were out to get ya. Totally capitalized on people’s fears.

It starts with this kid, and he lives in a log cabin with his paw, ‘Getcher-seff ta school!’

‘But paw, I don’t wanna. School’s for sissies.’

‘Get in thet bus!’

Then he gets to school and the teacher is like, ‘Do you want to be an ignorant hillbilly like your parents? More effort!’ And, pounds the lectern.

It’s all normal, like you’re watching Dead Poet’s Society or something.

The next day, it’s the same thing again; ‘But I don’t wanna go to school, paw!’ ‘Get on that bus!’

Then, the teacher hands him his paper and it’s like ‘F - needs more effort.’ And, the teacher starts lecturing all the ignorant unwashed kids. When one of them looks outside and notices that in the background, outside the big window, there’s all these parachutes coming out of the sky.

And, these giant communist bears smack down into the snow; one of them climbs up out of the crater with its AK-47 assault rifle in hand and bellows, ‘In Soviet Russia, algebra solves you!’

Then all the kids scatter and the Russians start attacking the school with rockets and machine guns and stuff.

The kids run back to their house, with the Russians close behind. Their paw and older brothers hold them off, ‘get the deer rifle!’

They’re like, using bolt action rifles versus assault rifles; twist the slide open, eject the spent shell, fondle around for another bullet, slide it into the open breach, twist the slide closed, take aim; like fighting off a modern army with muskets.

At night, the Russians sneak up to the back door of the house and burn their hand trying to open the door ‘cause one of the kids put a curling iron on it.

They kick the door open and pails of paint on strings smack them in the face.

We see the kids putting grease on the welcome mat or something.

Then, they get to the kids’ room and there’s little toy cars all over the ground; the Russians slip and tumble backward down the stairs on top of each other.

‘In Soviet Russia, Hot Wheels you!’

Etc.

Speaking of Ethan Hawke, my girlfriend and I wanted to see this new vampire movie this weekend. Daybreakers. It’s about what would happen if everyone in the world were a vampire. Like, they look at this guy and they’re all, ‘He’s a vampire?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Dude, is anyone not a vampire?’

Like at work, when you run into a moron, ‘Who hired that guy? What does he do here?’

Like you find a really tasty cheeseburger and turn it into a vampire.

‘What are we going to eat?’

There are vampire scientists.

And, if they don’t eat, they turn into those Predator ripoff vampires from Blade 2 or 3 or whatever.

Their faces split open, wings sprout from their backs.

Scary vampire cheeseburgers.

We didn’t get to see it though, instead we stayed home and watched the first two Lord of the Rings movies. I remember needing to drink during the end of the second movie, and feeling very disoriented and exhausted. I think that it would have been better if they had simply cut to the end of the 2nd film. And, instead of calling it ‘The Two Towers’ just call it ‘Trees vs Orcs: Round One!’

Stuff I remembered:

LotR exorcism, Gandalf style.

Stuff my girlfriend remembered:

Sam Wyse was one leering-ass halfling.

Legolas’ crappy fighting techniques.

now we don our gay apparel

2010-01-07T13:13:00.001-08:00

2009-12-20

I saw Avatar this weekend. And, Inglorious Bastards.

I expected Avatar to be crap. I don’t know why; I hoped that it would be merely entertaining, when I went to see it. And, it exceeded my expectations. If you haven’t seen a trailer for it, the synopsis is this: The director of Titanic and Terminator decided to do a sci-flick starring the guy (Sam Worthington) form the latest Terminator film. Except it’s set on a planet in space that’s like, if you ever went to a rave in the nineties when everybody was obsessed with black lights and glow sticks and, OMG you can break open and squirt glow sticks all over!

Yeah. And there’s these lanky furry blue cat things with tentacles in their wiener-tails. And, everything has nostrils on its shoulders, except for the blue lemming-cats. And they (the cats, not the shoulder-breathers) live under a big tree. The humans want them to move, because there’s oil under that there tree. So, instead of creating a desert shield and trade embargoes, or simply rolling out a gatling cannon and going all Wounded-Knee, the government (or corporation; who knows?) decides it’s going to spend a kazillion dollars to create lemming-cat clones. Out of Sam Worthington’s brother. Who then dies. And, the clones can only be controlled by people who have the same DNA, so they grab Sam Worthington. And, since none of the corporate duders understand finance or pop culture, they let him go all Dune on them.

So, if you’ve seen Dune, you’ve seen Avatar.

Inglorious Bastards was a nice fantasy about killing Hitler, nazis, and Brad Pitt. Except that maybe Brad Pitt doesn’t die; I don’t wanna spoil it for you, see it; it’s funny.

Britney Murphy died today. I probably shouldn’t be surprised given that her weight fluctuated like crazy, and she was skinny as hell most of the time. But, for some reason, I had it in my mind that she would last a bit longer; at least long enough to do another movie as good as Spun. But alas, donuts.

Speaking of skinny bitches who need to eat more donuts; Angelina Jolie is gonna do a movie called ‘Salt’! Seriously! I’m not making this up! Stop laughing.

She’s so skinny now, they have to use wires to prop her arms up, since she can’t hold the machine guns in each hand, on her own. And, when she slides across the hood of a car, she’s actually laying on a green screen, with some wind in her hair. And when they’re done shooting, her assistants help her to her feet, then she says, ‘phew! I sure am tired. Somebody, get me my lunch.’ And they bring it out and she’s like, ‘Mmmm! Corn!’ And picks up three pieces, chews them up with her little botox-laden rat lips, and she’s ready to film again.

I’m not saying I hate Angelina Jolie, but I am saying: she’s skinny as hell, and has no business attempting to star in an action film. Especially given her recent acting-impairment. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, watch Wanted. You should probably get it from a used DVD store though; don’t pay more than two dollars to see it. It’s that bad.

And, Salt will be even worse.

I also saw the Hangover this weekend. It wasn’t as good as I was expecting, but it was still pretty funny. I think that whoever wrote it was trying a little too hard to do some kind of ‘bachelor party meets Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’ mash-up. But, it fell flat.

What would have helped the movie is less of everything; it felt like it was trying to go too many different directions, involved an overwhelming number of characters and gags. It could have been more streamlined and had better dialogue.

Nerd Rage and New Moon

2009-11-22T13:02:00.001-08:00

My review of New Moon and Twilight; contains spoilers.

This weekend, I decided to see New Moon. And to prepare myself, I took the liberty of watching the first movie, Twilight. The day before.

It should have served as some kind of warning, when I watched Twilight, and thought, ‘Wow! These kids are using a lot of syllables.’

At work, I regularly interact with high school students, and these are the top of their class. And, I rarely hear any of them talk like the kids on this show. They also dress better.

The first movie, a quick synopsis, goes a little bit like this: A girl moves from Arizona to Washington, single sheriff dad, and starts at a new school. She’s pale and wears mountain clothes, drives a retro truck to work, and is immediately swarmed by kids: There’s the kind-of-a-jock kid, his girlfriend the rat-faced kid; the photographer kid, and her boyfriend the gay kid. You know, the kind of kids you and I used to hang out with every day, when we were in the eleventh or twelfth grade.

When she goes to eat lunch, she sees these other kids. The kind of kids that we don’t hang out with: there’s bulging-eys kid, his girlfriend the waif-like goth-who-works-at-bed-bath-and-beyond kid; then doofy white kid with the sideways baseball cap, and his girlfriend: donkey-punched kid. A gaggle of pale, prurient, and stupid adults, who are obviously too old to be in highschool, and so they do what any sane person would: segregate themselves from the rest of the populace.

Then, there’s soulful jerk-off kid; the loner. You know, the one who doesn’t have a girlfriend yet so our heroine decides she’s gonna go after him.

He also appears to be severely repulsed by her in their biology class. Wish I could find a screen cap of his ‘I am vomiting in my mouth’ facial expressions; you’d have to rent it to see it.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, when I think ‘small coastal town in Washington’ I think more ‘lumberjack Napoleon Dynomite’ than ‘hodgepodge Toronto chic.’

And, when I think of high school drama, I expect more internet or MTV colloquialisms; and when it’s set in a mountainous forest town, I expect less syllables. There’s more than one thesaurus in Fork.

At any rate, she and the vampire jerk-off guy start dating. In the forest. Go figure! And then, when they’re playing baseball(!!!) these three vampires show up and they’re like, ‘we want to eat your baby!’ A chase ensues, then some violence; Ed (jerk-off vampire) has to suck the poison out of ‘bella (our heroine lumberjack gal) so she doesn’t turn into a vampire (get pregnant, grow up).

There’s also these sketchy native american guys who live near Fork and interact with ‘bella. One of them grew up with her, so that’s how she knows them. They go to schools on their reservation, which you never see, but must assume that they are good schools because the kids all seem well adjusted and have great dental insurance, one that covers the whitening of high school kid teeth. They must serve a lot of coffee in the reservation cafeteria.

Now, I can only imagine what kind of Walmartians wander the reservation high school. New Moon being about werewolves, I expected to see it.

Coffee, native american kids with long straight hair, wandering around in those Mexican Serapes to confuse whitey.

But alas, donuts.

Instead, what I got was the longest movie I’ve seen since Transformers 2. And while there was more dialogue and drama, it was still more of the same: instead of exploding toasters trying to kill each other, and a giant sphincter-like transforming vacuum full of sand, New Moon presented something, but I forgot what it was because I was interrupted.

So, in Twilight, we got to see Kristen Stewart’s reaction when Eddie decides to break up with her. And, he’s unsuccessful because of her hysterical, snot-nosed conniption fit. Probably because she’s in a hospital bed.

In New Moon, we get to see him actually break up with her. And, the nightmares that ensue; in the form of pig-squealing, panty-soiling night terrors. Which I found laughable; I could not contain myself, I felt bad for the kids in the audience.

Speaking of the audience, when she goes to kiss another boy, all these girls started screaming, ‘no!’ at the top of their lungs. Amazing.

I think it would have been a more entertaining set of films if Ed had been a zombie, unable to say anything other than ‘BRAINS!’

So, after the break-up with Eddy, she starts hanging out with wolf boy. I don’t remember the kid’s name, I know it was from the bible, and it means ‘Grabber’ or ‘he who grabs people.’ Which is appropriate, because he hangs out with a wife-beating bunch of high school drop-out, neo-nazi kids. They all have the same haircut, the same tattoo, the same cutoff denim shorts. You get the idea.

After about two hours of her involvement with Grabber, she starts spouting the same lines from Twilight, but to the wolf kid. Meanwhile, we don’t see Eddy anywhere. Until …

For some reason, we get a bunch of vampire culture. It’s compressed down into about five minutes, spread across the last hour of the movie. And, they’re all rejects from the U … I forget the name of this movie, it was bland, too. Underworld? One of those ‘vampires vs werwolves’ movies, from early 2k.

And, we learn that all the vampires have special powers. And they hang out in some old shabby town, probably in Italy. They do the same things that I’d imagine people really high up in the movie industry doing for fun: get aroused, speak latin, and hang out with Dakota Fanning.

The end.

So, remember: Snape kills dumbledore. And while I’d love to reveal the ending of this movie, I can only imagine the pig-squeals that would ensue. Except this time from Internet retards.

urine dolls

2009-11-15T17:47:00.001-08:00

I had a dream last night that I was looking at this doll, it was on someone’s mantle, above the fireplace. It was naked and had a bulbous plastic head, attached to a crude skin-tone body; plastic arms and feet. At first it was looking away from me, while I was talking to someone. I kept glancing at it. Finally, I stared at it as the conversation trailed off and I felt that something bad was going to happen. Its head moved slowly from right to left and its eyes appeared to fix on me. I reached out my hand and it flew into my palm; I gripped its leg. Then, I felt cold on my shoulders and legs and woke up.

My aunt passed away on Monday. She had been living with cancer for several years. I’m still in this stage where I’m not feeling anything, but have been trying to avoid engaging her memory. I kind of feel bad, like I’m being selfish. I missed her when she was alive, because I hadn’t seen her in years. I read the obituary that her husband posted in the newspaper and realized, there’s only two members of my father’s family that I care to see, that are still alive.

Lately I’ve been watching the Dollhouse and thinking about writing parodies of fan fiction on my blog; stores about Topher and the guy who plays Commander Locke in the Matrix 3 movie, and his unwanted sexual advances. Talking to Topher about wanting to wipe his mind for a few hours and so on.

You can always tell if someone smells their own pee; they don’t like asparagus.

procrastination without representation

2009-10-30T10:38:00.001-07:00

INT. POWER PLANT - CLOSE ON MAN'S BODY

Floating in a what looks like a ginormous, dirty egg yolk.

His body spasms, fighting against the slushy, slimy mess; it’s the same stuff that they put on Bill Murray in Ghostbusters when he got “slimed”.

A big chunky mask with wires and tubes hanging out of it obscure his face. Other lines like IVs are connected to limbs. And, mysteriously, we cannot see his genitals because the scene is lit to protect his dignity.

He is struggling desperately now. Air bubbles into the gooze but does not break the surface. A baby ruth floats up from his backside, just like the pool turd in Meatballs, which also starred Bill Murray.

Pressing up, the surface distends, stretching like goatse.cx, and if you’ve never seen that, just picture some dude trying to bust out of a yellow rubber cocoon.

Unable to breathe, he fights wildly to stand, clawing at the thinning elastic shroud --

Until it ruptures, a hole widening around his mouth as he sucks for air. Tearing himself free, he emerges from the cell.

It is Neo.

NEO (gasping): Shit … hate … lemonade!

He is bald and naked, his body slick with yolky goodness. Dizzy, nauseous, he waits for his vision to focus.

He is standing in an oval capsule of clear alloy filled with yellow gelatin, the surface of which has solidified like curdled milk.

The IVs in his arms are plugged into outlets that appear to be grafted to his flesh.

He feels the weight of another cable and reaches to the back of his head where he finds an enormous coaxial cable plugged and locked into the base of his skull.

He tries to pull it out but it would be easier to pull off a finger.

To either side he sees other tube-shaped pods filled with yellow gelatin; beneath the wax-like surface, pale and motionless, he sees other human beings.

Fanning out in a circle, there are more. All connected to a center core, each capsule like an orange, dimly glowing petal attached to a black metal stem.

Above him, level after, level, the stem rises seemingly forever. He moves to the foot of the capsule and looks out.

The image assaults his mind.

Towers of glowing petals spiral up to incomprehensible heights, disappearing down into a dim murk like an underwater abyss.

His sight is blurred and warped, exaggerating the intensity of the vision. The sound of the PLANT is like the sound of the ocean heard from inside the belly of Leviathan.

Somewhere off in the distance, the Scat Man can be heard playing, but it quickly fades out.

Below Neo, a dirty orange petal detaches from the stem, bearing away the body of an old man like an automated barge even as a new pod rises up and plugs itself into the empty space.

Inside the new capsule, its surface more translucent and pinkish in color, Neo sees a small baby. The liquid in this capsule is completely clear.

From above, a machine drops directly in front of Neo.

He swallows his scream as it seems to stare at him.

It is almost insect-like in its design; beautiful housings of alloyed metal covering organic-like systems of hard and soft polymers.

A black particle beam washes over Neo, he reacts in pain as the scanner seems to expose the nervous system wired to the coaxial cable at his cerebral cortex. The creature’s eyes flick open like a camera aperture; inside, slot machine reels are spinning and settle at cherries in each of its three exposed eyes.

At the back of the neck, the cable lock spins and opens, disengaging. The ringing sound of a slot machine racking up a jackpot can be heard, building and continuing for the rest of the scene.

The cable pulls itself free, a long clear plastic needle and cerebrum-chip slides from the anterior of Neo’s skull with an ooze of blood and spinal fluid, emitting a low flatulent noise like air is escaping from his head. The other connective hoses snap free and snake away as —

The machine reaches out an arm and presses down a toilet handle on the exterior of the yellow tank. The back of the unit opens, a loud flush can be heard and a tremendous vacuum, like an airplane door opening, sucks the gelatin and then Neo, spinning into a tremendous toilet.

The jackpot noise fades away as we transition to —

INT. WASTE LINE

The pipe is a waste disposal system and Neo falls, sliding with the clot of gelatin.

Banking through pipe spirals and elbows, flushing up through grease traps clogged with oily clumps of cellulite and a few stuffed toys.

Neo begins to drown when he and a stuffed toy cow are suddenly snatched from the flow of waste by an exaggerated version of a claw vending machine’s mechanical hand.

The metallic cable then lifts, pulling him up into the belly of the futuristic flying nachine, hovering inside the sewer main line.

INT. HOVERCRAFT

The metal harness opens and drops the half-conscious Neo and the plush cow onto the floor.

A human hand snatches the cow.

WINNER’S VOICE: Mine!

A few more human hands and arms appear, helping Neo up as he finds himself looking straight at Morpheus.

Morpheus is barely recognizable: balding, overweight, wearing a greasy wife beater and a semen-stained pair of boxers, some sock suspenders that keep his mismatched argyle socks slung like a hammock around his chubby calves. Morpheus’ toes and heels are visible through a few timeworn holes.

Trinity and Apoc. And others, dressed in overalls, undershirts; those “jams” shorts from the eighties—the ones that come down below your knees.

Morpheus smiles; lots of missing teeth, the odor of tooth decay wafting into Neo’s face, making him recoil and put on a sour face.

MORPHEUS: Welcome to the real world, Neo.

Neo buries his nose in his arm and passes out.

FADE TO BLACK.

Hong Kong (2008-06-21)

2009-05-09T07:10:00.001-07:00

the boxes of cigarettes in hong kong have these pictures on them, and a statement underneath, what the picture is supposed to represent:

smoking causes periphery vascular disease: and a big colorful picture of someone's foot with the skin turning black and peeling away, bloodied and with yellow, cockroach-looking toenails.

smoking causes lung cancer: this one, not so creative. just an x-ray of some guy's chest and a line to an x on a big white spot behind the ribs. ‘there, it's cancer. what do you want?’

but my favorite: smoking causes impotence. and a picture of a cigarette whose ash is like, bent at a forty-five degree angle, smoke rising from it. plain black background.

when my colleague said he had the impotence pack i was like, ‘no shit? show me the wiener!’ and this is all i got. what a ripoff.

but you know, it's illegal to create porn in china. even if you do it to save lives.

seriously: you have to be eighteen to buy cigarettes, in china you'll be skull-fucked if you show pornography to someone under the age of eighteen. think about it. it might at least keep the packs of cigarettes, and possibly the act of smoking—or at least lighting up—out of the eye of anyone under eighteen.

fuck it, make the cigarettes look like giant dongs! give every smoker a shirt that says, ‘it's my dong, isn't it?’

i doubt this will work (2009-05-01_04)

2009-05-02T00:32:00.000-07:00

Wanted: in Retrospect

2009-04-24T14:21:00.001-07:00

Some thoughts regarding Wanted: the movie (will suck)...

How I explain the numbers below:

dude from night watch / day watch directed it (Timur Bekmambetov)
the textile factory bit was neat

And, people probably went expecting to see:

angelina jolie sex scene (like in the comic book)
more gun fights and brutality than they got

I would like to point out that it made less than Batman Forever and Incredible Hulk (with Ed Norton). While I haven't seen Incredible Hulk, Batman Forever was one of the most hideous movies ever produced. I'm assuming that—like Wanted—the competition in the movie theaters was nil. In fact, what probably happened is the other films were so bad, they actually drove viewers to Wanted.

Just like Fast and the Furious 3 (Fast and Furious): $139,162,100. Sad.

cellpadding="0"> Title Domestic Gross The Dark Knight $533,345,358 Spider-Man $403,706,375 Iron Man $318,412,101 Batman Begins $205,343,774 Superman Returns $200,081,192 Batman Forever $184,031,112 Fantastic four $154,696,080 Incredible Hulk (Ed Norton) $134,806,913 Wanted (2008) $134,508,551 Hulk (Ang Lee) $132,177,234 Fantastic Four II $131,921,738 Tomb raider $131,168,070 2 Fast 2 Furious $127,154,901 Charlie's angels $125,305,545 Daredevil $102,543,518 V for vendetta $70,511,035 Mortal Kombat $70,454,098 League of extraordinary gentlemen $66,465,204 Tomb Raider II $65,660,196 The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift $62,514,415 Hellboy $59,623,958 Spawn $54,870,175 Catwoman $40,202,379 Hitman $39,687,694 Sky captain and the world of tomorrow $37,762,677 Mortal Kombat II $35,927,406 Street fighter (1994) $33,423,521 From Hell $31,602,566 Doom $28,212,337 Elektra $24,409,722 Bloodrayne $2,405,420

PS, Watchmen grossed only $106,936,155

References:

Domestic Total Gross from http://www.boxofficemojo.com/

gravy train anxiety

2009-04-24T13:53:00.001-07:00

INT. HEARTBREAK HOTEL

It is a place of putrefying elegance, a rotting host of urban maggotry. It's even got black and white tiles on the walls, up to waist-level, and they match the black and white checkered linoleum floor. Dangling from the ceiling is a huge poster of Kirk Cameron.

Trinity leads Neo from the stairwell down the hall of the fourteenth floor. They stop outside room 1401.

TRINITY: This is it.

Neo can hear his own heart pounding.

TRINITY: Let me give one piece of advice. Be honest. He knows more than you can possibly imagine.

NEO: About what?

Trinity gives him a knowing glance.

TRINITY: Animal husbandry, among other things.

INT. ROOM 1401

Across the room, a dark figure stares out the tall windows veiled with black garbage bags. He turns and his smile lights up the room.

MORPHEUS: At last.

He wears a long black coat and his eyes are invisible behind circular mirrored glasses. He also has a large, dripping jheri curl.

He strides to Neo and they shake hands.

Neo seems uneasy when he realizes that Morpheus probably isn't wearing any pants; his bare legs coming out of the front of his jacket with each step.

MORPHEUS: Welcome, Neo. As you no doubt have guessed, I am Morpheus.

NEO: It's an honor.

MORPHEUS giggles and gestures with his cane: Come, good food! Come!

Neo glances around the room but doesn't see any food. Then, he realizes that Morpheus is holding a putter upside down, by its bronzed, penis-shaped head.

MORPHEUS: Have a seat, bitch.

Morpheus nods to Trinity.

MORPHEUS: Thank you, Trinity.

She bows her head sharply and exits through a door to an adjacent room.

They sit across from one another in cracked, burgundy barcaloungers.

MORPHEUS: I imagine, right now, you must be feeling a bit like Alice, tumbling down the rabbit hole?

NEO: Bill Osco's version?

MORPHEUS: Oh, you’ve seen that?

NEO: You could say that.

MORPHEUS: I can see it in your eyes. You have the look of a man who accepts what he sees because he is expecting to wake up.

A smile, razor-thin, curls the corner of his lips.

NEO: Yeah, I did kinda feel that way when I watched that movie. Though it could have been the Ketamine.

MORPHEUS: Ironically, this is not far from the truth. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Can you tell me, Neo, why are you here?

NEO: You're Morpheus, you're a legend. Most bros who jack off to easter bunny porn would die to meet you.

MORPHEUS: Yes. Thank you. But I think we both know there's more to it than that. Do you believe in fate, Neo?

NEO: It's romantic.

Neo looks at Morpheus for approval but doesn't receive any.

NEO: But no, I just say that I do ‘cause it gets me laid.

MORPHEUS: Why not?

NEO: Because I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life.

MORPHEUS: You’re right, not very romantic. But, I know exactly what you mean.

Again, that smile that could cut glass. He begins to make little circles with his thumb, just under the head of the penis-cane that is in his hand.

MORPHEUS: Let me tell you why you are here. You are here because you have the gift.

NEO: What gift? Is it a dark gift?

Morpheus licks his lips and flashes a coy smile. He moves the cane a bit closer to his crotch and separates his legs a bit as he looks down toward his crotch.

MORPHEUS: Could be!

NEO: Like in a vampire movie?

Morpheus closes his legs, sighs, and tilts his head slightly. He cups his penis-cane between his hands, with the shaft of the golf club going down between his knees.

MORPHEUS: I've watched you, Neo. You do not use a computer like a tool. You use it like it was part of yourself. What you can do inside a computer is not normal. I know. I've seen it. What you do is magic. And, this line will never appear in the movie that we are making fun of.

Neo shrugs.

NEO: It's not magic. I use a Google Custom Search with absolutely no filters. And, I tricked out a Pocket Pal-

MORPHEUS cuts him off: But it is, Neo. It is. How else would you describe what has been happening to you?

He leans forward.

MORPHEUS: We are trained in this world to accept only what is rational and logical. Have you ever wondered why?

Neo shakes his head.

MORPHEUS: As children, we do not separate the possible from the impossible which is why the younger a mind is the easier it is to free, while a mind like yours can be very difficult.

NEO: Free from what?

MORPHEUS: From the Matrix.

Neo looks at his eyes but only sees a reflection of himself.

NEO: Like those morons who think they can cure you of your homosexuality?

MORPHEUS: Do you want to know what it is, Neo?

Neo swallows and nods his head.

MORPHEUS: It's that feeling you have had all your life. That feeling that something was wrong with the world. You don't know what it is but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad, driving you to me. But what is it?

NEO: I said I know what it is. And, you just ripped off Rob Zombie right there.

MORPHEUS: I did?

NEO: Yeah.

MORPHEUS: Which part?

NEO: ‘A fistful of hair and a splinter in the mind’, right there!

MORPHEUS: Sounds kinky.

The LEATHER CREAKS as he leans back.

MORPHEUS: A-ny-way! The Matrix is everywhere, it's all around us, here even in this room. You can see it out your window, or on your television. It knows when you’ve been sleeping, it knows when you’re awake. You feel it when you go to work, or go to church, or pay your taxes. So, be good for goodness sake.

NEO: I hate taxes.

Morpheus seems to be staring through Neo and starts to vigorously jerk off his penis-headed golf putter.

Neo appears confused.

MORPHEUS: It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth, honkey!

NEO: Oh. Uh, what truth?

Neo yawns and then looks around the room.

NEO: Can we wrap this up? Gettin’ sleepy over here.

MORPHEUS: You are a slave, Neo. You, like everyone else, was born into bondage... And not the good kind of bondage, neither ... kept inside a prison that you cannot smell, taste, or touch. A prison for your mind!

Outside, the WIND BATTERS a loose PANE of glass.

MORPHEUS: Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

NEO: How?

MORPHEUS: Drugs.

NEO: Seriously? ‘Cause I think I’ve done them all. Never seen the Matrix.

MORPHEUS: Hold out your hands.

NEO: Not, ‘open your mouth and close your eyes?’

MORPHEUS: Not just yet.

In Neo's right hand, Morpheus drops a red pill.

MORPHEUS: This is your last chance. After this, there is no going back.

In his left, a blue pill.

MORPHEUS: You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and you believe whatever you want to believe. I can't promise your butt won't hurt though. I mean, won't be the first time I’ve had to bone a sleeper.

The pills in his open hands are reflected in the glasses.

MORPHEUS: Or, you take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you howdeep the rabbit-hole goes.

Neo feels the smooth skin of the capsules, with the moisture growing in his palms. He looks between Morpheus' legs but sees only darkness.

MORPHEUS: Remember that all I am offering is the truth. Nothing more.

Neo opens his mouth and swallows the red pill. The Cheshire smile returns to Morpheus' face.

MORPHEUS: Follow me.

He leads Neo into the other room, which is cramped with high-tech equipment, glowing ash-blue and electric green from the racks of monitors. Displayed on most of the monitors are scenes from Bill Oscoe's Alice in Wonderland.

Trinity, Apoc and Cypher look up as they enter.

CYPHER: Shit.

TRINITY: I knew he would.

Cypher saddles up to Morpheus, talking in a hushed tone away from, Neo.

CYPHER: Morpheus, I know what you believe but I think this is a mistake. He is too old. Yes, too old to begin the training.

Cypher burps.

CYPHER: I'm afraid he might pop.

MORPHEUS: Haven't I always told you, Cypher, not to let fear control your life. Apoc, are we online?

CYPHER: Yeah, but the truth. I mean come on, not everybody can take that much dick at one time.

Neo recognizes the fat man from the El train.

APOC: Almost.

He and Trinity are working quickly, hardwiring a complex system of monitors, modules and drives. And, a banana and a glazed ham.

NEO: Apoc? You wrote the Four Horsemen Virus.

APOC: That's right. And no one will ever know ‘cause these lines were cut right out of the movie version!

MORPHEUS: Neo, time is always against us. Will you take a seat there?

In the center of the room hangs a what looks like a crusty sky chair. Near the chair is an old oval dressing mirror that is cracked.

MORPHEUS: I imagine you know something about virtual reality.

Neo sits and Trinity begins gently fixing white electrode disks to his head, arns, and the back of his neck.

NEO: A little.

MORPHEUS: Good, ‘cause we ain't gonna talk about that.

NEO: Essentially, it's a hardware system that uses an apparatus; headgear, gloves and whatever to make you feel that you are in a computer program.

MORPHEUS: You forgot the really big dildos!

Morpheus hoists a handful of rubbery dildos of various colors and sizes from a nearby box and lets them fall out of his hand as he continues talking.

MORPHEUS: What if a virtual reality apparatus, as you called it, was wired to all of your senses and controlled them completely, would you be able to tell the difference between the virtual world and the real world?

NEO: I bet Dave and Buster's could make a killing with a setup like that.

Morpheus looks at him, holding a long, black, double-headed dildo in one hand and his golf club in the other.

NEO: You might not, no. But I'm sure you'd know when you stuck your dick in a pig. That buzzing …

MORPHEUS: No, you wouldn't. The Venus system is real quiet, see.

Neo whispers to Trinity.

NEO: You did all this?

She nods, placing a set of headphones over his ears. They are wired to an old hotel phone.

MORPHEUS: The pill you took is part of a trace program. It's going to make things feel a bit strange. Kind of like losing your virginity on prom night.

NEO: But I lost my virginity in preschool.

Morpheus looks at Neo, interested.

NEO: Standing on a cinderblock, choking on my neighbor's teenage meat.

Morpheus shrugs, unconcerned.

Distantly, through the ear phones, he hears Apoc POUNDING on a KEYBOARD. Sweat beads his face. His eyes blink and twitch when he notices the mirror. Wide-eyed he stares as it begins to heal itself, a webwork of cracks that slowly run together as though the mirror were becoming liquid.

NEO: Shit...

MORPHEUS: No! Mir-ror. Say it with me now: Mir-ror.

Morpheus slaps at Neo's face with the dildo.

MORPHEUS: See? Smell it! That's shit.

Neo tries to evade the dildo but can't because he is sitting down on a sky chair that's wobbling around the room.

Cypher works with Apoc checking reams of phosphorescent data. Trinity monitors Neo's electric vital signs.

Neo reaches out to touch the mirror and his fingers disappear beneath the rippling surface.

MORPHEUS YELLS: DON'T TOUCH IT!

Quickly, he tries to pull his fingers out but the mirror stretches in long rubbery strands like mirrored-taffy stuck to his fingertips. Reflected in the mirror is a cardboard cutout of David Hasslehoff.

NEO: What is this? Mescaline? Rohypnol? Is this your semen on this life-sized poster of David Hasselhoff?

MORPHEUS: Just relax, Neo.

NEO: You shouldn't spooge on the Hoff.

The strands thin like rubber cement as he pulls away, until the fragile wisps of mirror thread break.

With the TINKLING of GLASS, shimmering snowflakes of electric-blinking mercury fall, hit the ground, and fade.

He looks at his hand; fingers distended into mirrored icicles that begin to melt rapidly, dripping, running like wax down his fingers, spreading across his palms where he sees his face reflected. Neo notices that there's a thin speckled-on coating of semen on the mirror. He feels filthy.

NEO: Uh-oh...

TRINITY: It's going into replication.

MORPHEUS: Bitch, in english! Apoc?

APOC: Still nothing.

Morpheus takes out a cellular phone and dials a number.

MORPHEUS (into the phone): Hi, I’d like to order a pizza.

MORPHEUS (to Neo): Oh, stay calm, Neo!

The mirror gel seems to come to life, racing, crawling up his arms like hundreds of insects.

NEO: It's cold. I feel like I'm slipping into the Atlantic ocean at the end of a—

Trinity looks at Neo and then back at the camera, expressing agitation.

MORPHEUS: Don't say it!

MORPHEUS (into the phone): Hi! I’d like two—no, make that: three large pizzas, one with onions, one with pepperonis, and another with—hey Apoc, whatchu want?

APOC: Hawaiian!

Morpheus crinkles up his nose.

MORPHEUS (into the phone): Gross! Yeah, make that third one a Hawaiian.

The mirror creeps up his neck as Neo begins to panic, tipping his head as though he were sinking into the mirror, trying to keep his mouth up.

NEO: It's just like bukkake!

Morpheus is right next to him, with the phone.

TRINITY: I got a fibrillation!

CYPHER: I knew it, I knew it...

MORPHEUS: Shit! Apoc?

Streams of mercury run from Neo's nose.

APOC: Targeting... almost there.

An ALARM, on Trinity's monitor ERUPTS.

TRINITY: He's going into arrest!

CYPHER: He's gonna pop!

APOC: Lock! I got him!

MORPHEUS: Pop? He's hallucinating not masturbating!

Neo's eyes tear with mirror, rolling up and closing as the sound of SCAT MAN emanates from the headphones --

The song gets louder and louder, as it builds to a crescendo!

Neo's body arches in agony and we are pulled like we were pulled into the holes of the phone

Sucked into his SCREAM and swallowed by darkness. Be glad you can't smell his breath, ‘cause it's atrocious.

the next one: procrastination without representation

potluck coronary

2009-04-23T17:34:00.001-07:00

FADE IN ON: GREASY FAST FOOD COMPUTER SCREEN
So close it has no boundaries. So close it is nearly illegible due to all the splashed grease and caked on hand-dirt.

A blinking cursor pulses in the electric darkness like a heart coursing with cholesterol and still-lit cigarette ashes, smoldering beneath the derma of black-neon glass.

A PHONE begins to RING, we hear it as though we were making the call. The cursor continues to throb, relentlessly patient, until --

MAN (V.O.): Hello?

SCREEN: An order appears for a bucket of wings, a medium drink, and a side of biscuits.

SCREEN BELOW THAT, IN THE “Comments” SECTION: Call trans opt: LOL RCVD.
“Comments” CONTINUE ON NEXT LINE: 2-19-96 13:24:18 REC:Log>

WOMAN (V.O.): Where you at?

MAN (V.O.): WHASAAAAAAP!

MAN AND WOMAN (V.O.) IN UNISON: WHASAAAAAAP!

SCREEN (new order appears under the first one): An order appears for a two chicken breasts, a large drink, and a regular mashed potatoes.
SCREEN “Comments” SECTION: A/S/L?

WOMAN (V.O.): I'm inside. Anything to report?

We listen to the phone conversation as though we were on a third line. The man's name is CYPHER. The woman, TRINITY.

CYPHER (V.O.): Let's see. Target left work at 5:01 PM.

SCREEN BELOW THE TWO ORDERS IN A YELLOW-BORDERED WINDOW: Trace program: running.

The entire screen fills with racing columns of numbers. Shimmering like green-electric rivets, they rush at a 10-digit phone number in the top corner. The racing numbers in the background slowly turn into emoticons: smiley-faces, crying-faces, thumbs-up signs, airplanes... you get the idea.

FAST FOOD TECHNICIAN YELLS: Oh crap, the screen’s on the fritz again!

SCREEN SHAKES AS FAST FOOD TECHNICIAN BANGS ON THE SIDE OF IT.

THUMP THUMP THUMP

(THIS CONTINUES THROUGHOUT THE CONVERSATION)

CYPHER (V.O.): He caught the northbound Howard line. Got off at Sheridan.
Stopped at 7-11. Purchased six-pack of beer and a porno mag. Something about t-girls. Returned home.

The area code is identified. The first three numbers suddenly fixed, leaving only seven flowing columns.

We begin MOVING TOWARD the screen, CLOSING IN as each digit is matched, one by one, snapping into place like the wheels of a slot machine. The numbers seem to fall into place as FAST FOOD TECHNICIAN pounds more heavily on SCREEN.

TRINITY (V.O.): All right, you're relieved. Use the usual exit.

CYPHER (V.O.): Lube or no lube?

TRINITY (V.O.): I mean get the hell out of wherever it is you’re at.

INT - SUBMARINE SANDWICH SHOP

Distant shot of CYPHER, back to the camera, sweaty bald head shining from behind, hunched over a netbook. Long black trench coat draped around his ginormous body. Random people around him eating; one crinkling his nose. On the table next to him is an extremely large, half-empty soft drink and what appears to be two exploded, empty foot-long sandwich wrappers.

LITTLE BOY points at CYPHER and says to LITTLE BOY’S FATHER: He smells bad.

CYPHER (V.O.): Oh. Hey, do you know when we're going to make contact?

TRINITY: Soon.

CUT BACK TO SCREEN, it displays only two thin digits left.

CYPHER (V.O.): Just between you and me, you don't believe it, do you? You don't believe this guy is the one?

TRINITY (V.O.): I think Morpheus believes he is.

CYPHER (V.O.): I know. But what about you?

TRINITY (V.O.): I think Morpheus knows things that normal people should not know. Like, about bacon. And sybian autoerotic devices. I don't.

CYPHER (V.O.): Yeah, but if he's wrong --

SCREEN still being pounded on, in slower and harder intervals; one THUD seems to knock loose the final number, which pops into place -- SCREEN stops moving.

TRINITY (V.O.): Did you hear that?

CYPHER (V.O.): Hear what?

SCREEN comes back and displays the original orders, some of them are flashing because they are overdue.
SCREEN (new order appears under the second one): An order appears for a two medium drinks, two medium french fries, and a side of coleslaw.
SCREEN “Comments” SECTION: 16/F/TX, U?
SCREEN BELOW THE TWO ORDERS IN A YELLOW-BORDERED WINDOW: Trace complete. Call origin:
SCREEN SECOND LINE IN YELLOW-BORDERED WINDOW: #602-220-4444

TRINITY (V.O.): Are you sure this line is clean?

CYPHER (V.O.): Yeah, course I'm sure.

TRINITY (V.O.): Because you know Morpheus installed that proxy so he can talk to you about all the porn you’ve been surfing.

CYPHER (V.O.): Don’t remind me.

TRINITY (V.O.): Remember last time; grannies and trannies …

CYPHER (V.O.): I just ate.

TRINITY (V.O.): I’m just sayin’!

We MOVE STILL CLOSER, the FAST FOOD BACKGROUND NOISE of employees attempting to complete the late orders GROWING INTO an OMINOUS ROAR.

TRINITY (V.O.): I better go.

CYPHER (V.O.): Yeah. Right. Salaam ‘Alaykum!

TRINITY (V.O.): Alaykum As-Salaam.

She hangs up as we PASS THROUGH the pending orders on the FAST FOOD SCREEN, entering the netherworld of the computer screen and emerging on the other side.

FAST FOOD INT - DRIVE-THRU WINDOW

DRIVER-CUSTOMER in Sport Utility Vehicle towering above the window.

DRIVER-PASSENGER dancing in the background, waving her arms and looking like she’s either extremely drunk or about to pass out from rohypnol.

BACKGROUND MUSIC is that one song by Deee-Lite, Groove is in the Heart.

DRIVER-CUSTOMER looking in his bag: What’s up with this? This is a box of boneless wings. I said a bucket of WINGS, not an order of boneless wings!

FAST FOOD EMPLOYEE-DRIVE THRU WINDOW: I’m terribly sorry, sir. Due to technical difficulties, some of our orders were mixed up.

CAMERA CONTINUES ACROSS THE PARKING LOT WHERE WE SEE EXT. THE PORN DEN.

Outside, numerous police cars are stationed at odd angles as the police are entering the building.

As the camera gets closer to the building, the sound of a police radio grows around us.

RADIO (V.O.): Attention all units. Attention all units.

CAMERA TRACKS INTO A VACANT, DARKENED WINDOW.

Suddenly, a flashlight cuts open the darkness and we find ourselves in --

INT. THE PORN DEN - NIGHT

The hotel was abandoned after a fire licked its way across the polyester carpeting, destroying several rooms as it spooled soot up the walls and ceiling leaving patterns of permanent shadow over the faint traces of man-juice that speckle everything inside. Heaps of burnt magazines litter the green, shag carpeted floor. Wads of tissue line the interior of most of the large, leather, sphincter-looking chairs.

We FOLLOW four armed POLICE officers using flashlights as they creep down the blackened hall, trying not to touch the walls, readying themselves on either side of room 404.

The biggest of them violently kicks in the door --

The other cops pour in behind him, guns thrust before them.

BIG COP: Police! Freeze!

The room is almost devoid of furniture. There is a fold-up table and chair with a phone, a modem, a pink external hard drive with duct tape on it and black marker that says 'Porn - NO TOUCH!', a ~~powerbook~~ MacBook computer, a stack of brand new (in sealed bags) pornography, a scanner, and a ceramic Hello Kitty tissue dispenser. The only light in the room is the glow of the computer.

Sitting there, her hands still on the keyboard, is TRINITY; a woman in black leather.

BIG COP: Get your hands behind your head!

Trinity rises. The telling groan of a plastic suit fills the room.

BIG COP: Hands behind your head! Now! Do it!

She slowly puts her hands behind her head. The sound of stretching plastic elicits a squint and adjustment of BIG COP’s hat.

EXT. THE PORN DEN - NIGHT

A black sedan with tinted windows glides in through the police cruisers. The license plate reads “2 COOL 4U”.

AGENT SMITH and AGENT BROWN get out of the car.

They wear dark suits and sunglasses even at night. They are also always hardwired; small Secret Service earphones in one ear, its cord coiling back into their shirt collars.

LIEUTENANT is playing Super Monkey Ball on his iPod Touch.

AGENT SMITH: Lieutenant?

LIEUTENANT looks over his shoulder and nearly drops his iPod Touch when he sees AGENT SMITH.

LIEUTENANT: Oh shit.

Next: agent smith gone wild

Thoughts on Defining Success

2009-04-21T16:08:00.001-07:00

This morning, someone asked me why I’m a legend (where I work). I had to dig deep to explain it. Then, I read this article by Lefsetz called We Can Be Heroes, Just For One Day and it got me started thinking about something I wrote down a year or so ago, when I was reading about how the Special Forces recruit and train new troops.

But first, something I experienced when I was learning about street fighting. There is a 7:3 success:failure ratio that must be maintained. In the Progressive Fighting System’s implementation of Jeet Kune Do, if you are correctly performing katas-drills, practicing a series of fighting maneuvers-with a partner, you want to break out of the kata and try to create failure for your partner. It was selected to best prepare a student for a real street fight. When engaging one another in katas, the ratio is intended to disrupt the rote exercise and inject the unexpected. The ability to adapt to fighting situations is desired.

I’ve been able to maintain a fairly good ratio in my current career. What struck me about Lefsetz’ article is the motivation for feeling successful; “what everybody in America is fighting for. You’re looking to climb your way up the ladder to the point where you’re above the fray, where you can piss on the hoi polloi, or just ignore the teeming masses.” I feel most successful when my practices become commonplace, when I can fade into the background after everyone else catches up. Then, I get to figure out something else to do.

In any interview (when I manage to get an interview, which is very rare at my company), I always ask at the end, ‘How do you define success?’ Or, ‘what does success feel like?’ I usually ask for a definition when I’m speaking to someone who is on the military side of things; where metrics and history matter. I ask about feelings when working with someone who is on the religious side of things; where the future and your outlook matter. If I am going to work for someone, and they cannot tell me about their perception of success, it’s going to be a rough ride if they hire me.

I’ve been waiting for some time, hoping that an interviewer would turn that question around on me. And I deliberately have not put a lot of thought into the answer. Mainly because the roles I tend to fill is one where I receive guidance and then provide leadership. But, I think I would start my response by thinking about this quote:

“To be overly preoccupied with the future is to be inattentive toward the present where learning and growth take place.” - Karl Weick (Via Bob Sutton: On Why “Am I a Success or a Failure?” Is The Wrong Question)

Ultimately, I feel most successful when I am reflecting on activities that are in progress or have been recently completed; especially when things are changing. I hate looking back on stuff that’s more than a quarter old, thinking about what could or should have been; and I despise regrets.

I wanted to write about Sparks after reading its eulogy: Dear Sparks: Miss U - A Eulogy by Hipster Runoff

But I don’t have access to all my files. Here’s a summary:

The best job I ever had was when I was attached to a team that was developing a unified desktop application. It was bringing together four or so different tools at the time, and the man I worked for was incredible. However, I didn’t realize this going in, and I the weekend before my assignment to the project, I met Charlie.

My neighbor was an guy named Anthony who had been in prison and on parole, he owned his own garbage hauling business. He also did a lot of legal research and wrote letters to people that he knew who were still in prison. He would occasionally leave computers sitting outside his front door, and sold me an older Solaris machine (an Ultra 10) for twenty dollars (I never did get that computer working, had to recycle it).

So I get home from work, thinking I’m going to have a weekend where I need to clear my head of all the crap that I had been doing, and refocus myself on this new role. When there’s this guy sitting on the steps in front of my apartment.

I ask him if he wants a drink of water, or to use the phone or anything. He tells me he’s already got a drink and holds up a paper bag with a silver can inside. Introduce myself. He seems down. He tells me his name is Charlie, he got kicked out of his girlfriend’s place, or that he’s avoiding it.

Later, he tells me she’s addicted to drugs (implies crack cocaine), and that she’s sleeping with other guys, but he’s OK with it. Kind of.

He is going to school, pre-med. Tells me he’s dropping out though to enlist, hoping that the military will help him get his education at less expense.

He is on the lease with Anthony to improve his credit, so that he can get his own place, eventually.

We start talking about life, I get my things put inside. Then, he says he wants to go to the corner store and pick up more Sparks. I don’t know what that is, so I join him and he says I have to try some.

We walk down there after I drop off my things, pick up some Sparks, and it is definitely different: chalky, orange-flavored, had a malt edge to it that reminds me of Micky’s.

After a couple hours jabbering like a coke-fiend, I come to the conclusion: if I drink enough Sparks, I’ll kill a man.

The next day though, I felt invigorated: Charlie had shared his perspective on the world with me, and we had discussed a lot of the things that were on my mind, bothering me. He had a very carefree outlook, and even though he had lived a harder life than I had, seemed to be confident, happy, and in control. So, I strove to look at everything in my new role in that exact same way. It wound up being a great fit, and my rotation was extended. I owe most of my success to that evening with Charlie, drinking Sparks and walking around my neighborhood, in Citrus Heights.

So, I know that I encountered a bit of failure when I was in that rotation, but the accomplishments were so great that in retrospect—and in the eyes of my peers and managers—they overshadowed all of my failures (learning experiences). Which is another point on defining success.

My current role is creative, but only about twenty-five percent of the time. So, when I read things like this, I pause for a moment and try to reflect on that part of my job, and not take things too seriously:

“Of course it makes sense why corporations work this way, but that doesn’t mean that this is the right setting for creative people. The corporate world rewards based on perceived productivity rather than accomplishment. People who arrive at work at 8am, take a 30 minute lunch break (at their desk), and leave at 6pm are usually congratulated regardless of their real accomplishments, while those who struggle with corporate schedules but produce brilliant work (delivered on time) are often penalized.” - Hivelogic - Offices and the Creativity Zone

The creative projects I’ve been involved in, I can definitely break down using the Special Forces terminology that I read about. And, I try to break down my current creative work using the four phases of creativity:

Preparation
Incubation
Illumination
Refinement

In this capacity, I can gauge a project’s success by asking two questions: can I refine this further, is this effective? I try to fit all projects into one of the following categories, for the sake of how relevant the reward will be to my own career:

The Special Forces (aka SF) are also known as the Green Berets. Their operations can generally be broken down into the following classifications:

Direct Action (DA) - Raids, etc. Good times, lots of drinks. Rewarding.
Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) - the basic SF unit, usually 12 men. More participants, less recognition.
Unconventional Warfare (UW) - The training of foreign forces. Empower others to obtain the rewards.
Foreign Internal Defense (FID) - this is usually a lot of fun; cultural insurgency sucks though. Consulting to counteract local cultural issues is a blast! High risk, high reward; usually ODA.
Counter Insurgency (COIN) - see CA, below. High risk but also very satisfying rewards; usually ODA.
Tactics Techniques and Procedures (TTP) - which in my world involves maintaining familiarity and educating others, leading and reinforcing faith in TTP, but critique and redesign efforts.
Special Reconnaissance (SR) - one of my favorite parts of the job; specifically, conducting official interviews and measuring and providing closed-loop reporting for progress on feedback collected. I get to share the rewards with each step, whether they are small failures or amount to a massive success.
Military Assistance (MA) - I would love to see this done in person but, I think it would create a lot of issues (starting with the morale of the assistance assigned).
Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) - Not really applicable to what I do. But, if the economy continues the way it has been and I move into a management role, I could see it becoming a reality.
Collateral Activities (CA) - does not happen often enough, I blame scope definition and focus. Because these are not ODA, there is a lot of variance in transparency and recognition.

The majority of my projects of late have been UW. What troubles me most about SF versus my current employer is that there is no stake in the culture; this is reinforced by co-employment law. So, I often arrive at a point where I have to carefully craft my suggestions, so that I am not directly managing people’s behavior. Instead, I have to support measurable performance. I also pay attention to the work environment; office supplies, security, and other details that imply lethargy or mismanagement of personnel. It often feels a lot like COIN, but winds up in the CA pile; tough to get someone to officially acknowledge it as success, lots of risk with rewards that are often not measured or monetized.

I’ve witnessed a few opportunities for CSAR projects, but they are usually not taken seriously. And when they do get noticed, it’s usually too late to fix. When I report them, they’re usually in the context of an CA, and my superiors don’t want me distracted from the task at hand.

At any rate, this is a train wreck of a blog post. But, it’s a series of topics that I have been thinking about since May 8, 2006. And, that’s how I have been evaluating my own course and the success of my peers since October 22, 2006, when my rotation ended.

This is Your Brain on Scrivener

2009-04-13T21:15:00.001-07:00

i want to post a meaningful, heart-felt blog that describes the state of affairs in my life. but until i have the time, this will have to do...

the worst movies in history:

blonde and blonder
the mask of zorro

i know there are probably more, but i sold them all to Dimple Records: buyer beware.

i have been thinking a lot lately about what i do for money. and how we had this great opportunity, when the stock market started tanking, to do something real different. like, instead of trading hours of my life for money, and using that money to buy luxuries (wants) and food and so on (needs), maybe i could trade in something else. just gotta figure out another way to get stuff from other nations. wish i had some stuff to propose on this, other than ‘if you lol at my blog, i get a free pizza or iPod or whatever.’

instead, we do the bail-out thing; perpetuating the same problem. throw money at it and hope that we can sustain the same problem, as opposed to looking at alternatives.

It’s a damn shame that we aren’t letting the world economy collapse. As I understand it, our economy is based on a pretty simple system: estimating the value of the capacity to provide goods and services. So, we look at a computer and each of its components, the time it takes to acquire each component, assembling it, and then the shipping costs. Finally, add the cost of supporting it and marketing it. So, you have the cost of the entire product.

Of course, the market takes it up a level: what is the likelihood that a company can keep the cost down, of all the elements mentioned earlier, while still bringing something perceived as valuable to consumers to the market. Can they sustain that innovation? How well are their patents doing? Do they hold intellectual property that will need to be licensed by other companies if they want to repeat their success in the market?

On the other side, we have to evaluate the market: what is the demand for what the company is supplying? How do consumers feel about this product or its market? If you’re building a scientific calculator that folds clothes, do people want it? If they do, is the company that is producing it known for introducing new products, with success?

Then we bring it back down to the granular level again; assuming we get the go-ahead from all these analysts and the forecast, the historians who rate the performance of the company. The reality is: if these corporations are not employing people who can put all the pieces together, support that product, market it, etc. No one can afford the product. There is no market.

What we arrive it as two ‘markets’ composed of goods and services: Necessities and Luxuries. What do you need? Necessities. What do you want? Luxuries.

What the bailout is doing is supporting the banks that loan to all companies. And, we are seeing that the housing (luxuries) and auto (luxuries) industries are on life support.

The question I am getting at: In order to survive, do we need to work for an automobile manufacturer, car salesman or as a construction worker, real estate agent?

There’s an article I read recently [Jonathan Coulton's Payday ] about a musician who uploads his songs to the Internet and the page views generate revenue; he compares it to ‘feeding music to a cow that poops money.’ [Via Daring Fireball's Obsession Times Voice]

Here’s someone providing a luxury on the Internet, the more people that find and view the advertisements on the web page (for more luxuries), the more he gets paid.

I think that what we need in this country are two kinds of people: those that know how to make things work, and those that know how they should work. And, what we have right now is too many people who know how to convince other people that they want things.

Ultimately, why are we feeding hours of our lives to a cow in order to get it to poop money?

Some people believe that the solution is to go into business for ourselves. Provide goods or services to other people and hope that you can afford the necessities.

I wish I had spent more time thinking about this, but there it is. Alas, donuts.

I used to watch a lot of MTV when I was young. I was there when the Reality TV era started. At first, it was novel; the Real World had a bisexual man with a lot of facial hair, it was in New York. There was some drama between the cast, but it didn’t seem too overtly contrived. I don’t know what show I was watching, it was probably Road Rules, but there was a specific moment when I decided I could never watch MTV again.

I was watching one Reality TV show, and something sad happened (dad died, boyfriend breaking up with her, cat ran in front of a car) and MTV played this horribly dubbed in song by R.E.M.: Everybody Hurts. And at the time, I didn’t really realize how overpowering it was. Then, the next show came on, and something sad happened, and what did those bastards at MTV do? Once again—as though I hadn’t been watching the last program—they played the same damn song, completely overpowering whatever dialogue (crying, whining): Everybody Hurts. And, that’s when I realized that for MTV, they have a chart that says ‘Sad Music for the week’ and they stick one fat, sad song up there—probably one that they’re paid to use, or is really hot on SoundScan. So, any time something sad happens that week, you get the song. Like giant, flopping genitalia; the Everybody Hurts tea bag treatment.

My girlfriend mentioned this article in passing (Interface Design Trends for 2009 via Design Reviewer] and said, As computers get easier to use, people get less intelligent.

But, people said the same thing about every technology: eg the effect of radio on politics (Marshall McLuhan rules, btw).

I think that what happens is there are pockets of extremely intelligent people that make up for the rest of the curve. You end up with a bunch of super-brains working in silicon valley, trying to avoid the bible belt.

Eh, my last break has ended. Time to post this sucker and brace for the G's.

Re: World of Twittercraft

2009-03-21T15:51:00.001-07:00

Regarding this...

If I could've had some kind of client keeping track of all my achievements in World of Warcraft, I could use a tool like this to get some idea when they happened, with whom, etc.

Lakeview Terrace Movie Review

2009-02-17T22:25:00.001-08:00

a playlist and some movies

2008-12-17T08:00:00.001-08:00

An odd playlist of I identified using Shazam and by listening to the DJs:

Dead Confederate The Rat

MGMT Kids

Cold War Kids Not Right With Me

JET Look What You've Done

The Swayback Concrete Blocks

The Killers When You Were Young

Duke Spirit The Step And The Walk

The Hives Hate To Say I Told You So

Bob Seger Against The Wind

Screaming Trees Nearly Lost You

Broken Bottles California Sun

Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble Little Wing

The Killers Shadowplay

Stealers Whee! Stuck In The Middle With You

PJ Harvey Sheela-Na-Gig

Pulp Common People

The Strokes Hard To Explain

Saul Williams List Of Demands

The Duke Spirit Lassoo

Marvin Gaye Got To Give It Up

Lucinda Williams Featuring Buck 6 Well Well Well

The Stone Roses I Wanna Be Adored

Corinne Bailey Rae Breathless

And regarding movies, I want to see remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still and Slumdog Millionaire as soon as possible. Here's the Rotten Tomatoes link for Slumdog; the synopsis is cool.

check this out

2008-10-28T23:22:00.001-07:00

The Emergency (draft)

2008-10-28T21:58:00.001-07:00

another dream I had on 2008-10-11

I’m in a resort, the alarm goes off, but they gather everyone in a ballroom with a giant window overlooking the beach.

CNN is on the television, they are talking about an alien invasion. And, people getting strange powers.

I look at the beach and these gigantic, semi-truck sized alligators start running down the beach, chasing and attacking people.

The hotel concierge is trying to give us a speech, telling us to remain calm.

I sneak out, past a large, heavily armed police officer—or maybe he was just hotel security, he was very well outfitted; body armor, riot shield, truncheon, helmet with visor up.

I jump in a dark blue sports car and start driving, looking for a police station.

I see a bunch of guys in army surplus clothing, they have assault rifles and are loading crates into a truck. I figure I can trade my sports car for protection.

I find out they have obtained super powers from the alien invasion. I start following them around.

They have this big fight with other people who have super powers, the ones responsible for the alien invasion?

This guy with a knife, he’s the villain behind the final destination movies; it’s like I’m watching final destination, the final sequel.

A man from our group decides he is going to kill or defeat all of them.

During the fight, he throws a hatchet or rusty piece of rebar at the final destination guy, knocking his dagger out of his hand. Death appears immediately and hugs him. He looks terrified. Pale, bald guy with light blue eyes and plenty of stubble.

Kids Party On Island (draft)

2008-10-28T21:52:00.001-07:00

a dream i had on 2008-10-11

Kids party on island.

History: women and criminals buried up to their neck on island, in front of a big rock with skulls carved into it.

Woman leads kids out to party on island, begins doing native dance near rock, where they cannot see, summoning something.

Woman’s father [or someone who knows what is happening] is trapped, helpless on the shore, yelling to them. He can’t swim.
He looks into the water surrounding the island for a moment, like he might kick off his sandals and try anyway, but something long and dark slithers through the water, like it’s waving, and he quickly steps back.

On the island, as the ritual is underway, a woman (white, blond hair) throws up. They are all drunk as hell. She’s on her hands and knees. Guys circle her, talk about having sex with / taking advantage of her.
Then, one of them, his leg suddenly sinks into a hole in the sand. Another partygoer has the same thing happened; they’re trapped, screaming.
Old, dark blood, preserved in the headless bodies beneath the sand, squirts out onto each person who gets stuck in the sand.

In the end, the woman is laying on her back, up to her face in blood. Each time she inhales, very slowly, the blood lowers, like it is draining out behind her back. Exposes the bodies; severed limbs of partygoers.

The woman from the ritual swam away, with a giant shark mouth made of water and branches chasing her.

Meanwhile, a man’s girlfriend leaves him. He fixes bicycles and vespa scooters. He watches stripes and decides to join the army.
There, he puts his mechanical and electronic engineering abilities to work. Builds robot suits like tony stark in iron man.
Robot suit man versus island woman! They fight on a space ship in a room with eight suits, that he had intended for his trainees to wear, but she killed them all.

The apartment is a mess; walls tan color with dripping nicotine—previous tenants had been lifelong smokers and the landlord painted right over the browned walls. Now, humidity had begun to take its tool. Piled in front of the walls are a series of wooden, hand-made shelves; all very utilitarian; rough and unfinished. Not a hint of lacquer. Strewn all over the shelves: twists of wire and aluminum; watch faces and bands peeking out here and there; ball bearings, pencil leads, bits for an arc welder; blobs of mercury in jars; various shining metal screws, nuts, and bolts. Ceiling fan barely clinging to the roof of the building, only one blade left, slowly warbling. Black leather couch in front of a coffee table, bicycle leaning on it; vespa disassembled on newspaper in front of it, headlight and other bike parts on the table.

Sad Thing I Once Saw

2008-10-22T13:28:00.001-07:00

Two men, aging into their forties, wearing white undershirts, blue jeans or sweat pants, eating out of poorly-cleaned brown ceramic bowls, drinking out of cans. Computers and unfinished plastic models, paper instructions lining the walls; maps and posters from video or board games. A gigantic table running along the center of the room with hexagonal markings; small, painted pewter or lead robots sitting in each space. One shaves his head, the other is balding to the point where only a few stray, four inch long gray hairs jut from his head. Wide, round glasses.

Long ago, the women and the grace left this house, leaving behind the two bachelors.

Regarding McCain

2008-10-22T12:29:00.001-07:00

And by ‘maverick’ I mean: I'm frickin crazy!

a few books i have been reading

2008-10-21T15:00:00.001-07:00

Last night, I finished reading If You Liked School You'll Love Work by Irvine Welsh. The stories are written in different styles, it's pretty neat to experience the way Welsh is capable of pulling off these different characters and perspectives.

The stories themselves are posed kind of like questions, what would it take for you to do X? X being things like sucking rattlesnake venom out of a friend's penis. Would you kill a horse for love? Imagine your favorite competitive sport, then being told that you wouldn't be allowed to play it unless you dressed in drag and consoled a grieving father. All of them have a happy ending, or at least end in a way that is not depressing; I don't regret reading any of it.

The most difficult part of this book was the final story; it is written in part from the perspective of a Scottish ex-jockey-in-training, Kingdom of Fife. It's written like it's pronounced, and reminded me of reading Shakespeare when I was a kid.

The next book I'm starting is Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, whose first chapter bears a heading which describes the major events that are probably going to take place. This provides an awesome insight into his creative process.

The font in the book is creepy-looking; the way it is written compared to No Country for Old Men is like night and day; No Country seems like a sendoff to Fight Club; short sentences, tight narratives; minimalist.

Blood Meridian feels like I'm reading the Bible. Everything is rich; the visuals, large paragraphs, almost prosaic descriptions and meandering. The work of someone who has been writing for years; impressive, but difficult to digest.

I was able to fly through No Country, but I have a feeling that Meridian is going to take a bit longer to finish.

attitude dog

2008-10-13T16:19:00.001-07:00

experience with SMUD

2008-10-10T14:29:00.001-07:00

I don't know how this has been sitting on my hard drive and not put on my blog, but I figured I'd post it now. I've been doing a lot of writing lately, trying to consolidate and expand on some of my work over the past few years.

2007-05-22

so, i dial SMUD to get the name on my utilities switched over
i begin by dialing this 800 number, which tells me it is used to report outages
i try dialing zero to request an operator and ask what the appropriate phone number is: it doesn't work, not even an option on the phone tree.
then, i dial one, which is to report an outage, and the woman who picks up tells me i dialed the correct number.
perfect.
so, she begins asking me for all this extraneous information to set up: social security number, drivers license number, and employer name.
i don't know what would've happened if i had said: i'd prefer not to provide my social security number, i don't have a drivers license (which is a goal of mine, for after i get rid of my car), and i'm self-employed.

then, she says she's going to put me on hold for "just a few minutes"
after ten minutes of listening to this david lynch-style jazz–with guitar and a standing bass and snapping fingers keeping time–she returns and tells me they require one hundred and fifty dollars as deposit, and that i can pay all at once on my first bill, or they can break it up.

now, i've never gotten deposit money back from anywhere. maybe it's just me–i don't push hard enough for it, don't know how to argue to resolve any conflicts. i don't remember having an opportunity to ask for deposit money, in the past. but, what can i do? live without water or gas or whatever the hell SMUD offers? they certainly didn't tell me which service they were switching over.

so, all said and done, i'm one hundred and fifty dollars further into the red, and have provided a ton of personal information to yet another large, seemingly uncaring corporation.

utilities are shit. they seem to be priviledged; they're the only gig in town, and as a result, they don't seem compelled to provide a real level of service, strive for customer satisfaction. instead, you get what they're offering; it's a seller's market. and it makes me sad.

this is similar to the experience i had trying to get internet service at my apartment: you have to pay for cable television or phone service, you can't get just DSL or Cable internet. and, when i told them i didn't want to do that, they had no options for me. it was just, thank you for calling.

holidays on ice and other novels

2008-10-08T17:55:00.001-07:00

working on david sedaris's holidays on ice.

i have also been spending about five minutes each morning trying to create the perfect playlist from a smidgeon of crap on my portable computer.

i enjoy novels and music that share the same basic qualities:

angry
grungy
bitter
depressing
psychotic

as long as they meet the criteria, i'll sit through them until the end.

until recently, i had been purchasing whole albums after only hearing one or two tracks. what i wound up with is albums like Death Cab for Cutie's Narrow Stairs; only five tracks that i would want to listen to more than once. now, i preview all of the songs: twelve track album is ten bucks? i listen to ten tracks; if i can find ten that are good, i'll buy the whole album and let the other two surprise me. this worked out well for every album The Raconteurs have recorded.

unfortunately, i can't do this with novels. i can't purchase only the stories in David Foster Wallace's Brief Interviews with Hideous Men that i can bear reading. for example, the actual ‘interviews’
, which amounts to sometimes-offensive, one-sided dialogue. it would've been great to skip The Depressed Person, which for some reason required annotations that continued on multiple pages, beyond the point in the story at which the annotation occurred. so, you would read the fifth page, see the annotation, read the annotation as it went from pages five to seven, then have to go back to page five and continue reading until the next annotation appeared. sound annoying? not nearly as annoying as the repetitive, doubling sentences with no punch-lines (unlike Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, whose paragraphs would roll around on a point until settling on a witty closing).

holidays on ice and no country for old men are not books that i would want to skip. holidays is an excellent collection of brief situations that david sedaris encountered while working as a holiday elf at macy's. after that section of the book ends, it breaks into a kind of holiday greeting letter gone wrong. then, a story about Dinah the christmas whore. all of which have been extremely entertaining; the stories themselves have appeared in two of his other books. which is kind of depressing, because i was thinking about purchasing them. it's like purchasing an album and getting home listening to it, then seeing in the liner notes: 'oh, don't buy two of our albums, because we've included half the songs here.' but, at least it is a good read.

at any rate, next on my reading list will be either Jennifer Government by Max Barry, or If You Liked School You'll Love Work by Irvine Welsh.

no country for bad novels

2008-10-07T14:45:00.001-07:00

so, i finished reading cormac mccarthy's no country for old men last night. i really enjoyed the way it was written. even the action parts were done extremely well. it was a lot better than Bad Novel Rising.

what i really appreciated was the writing styles; no quotations when characters are talking, few apostrophes (e.g. dont). and, the dialogue and perspectives of the characters was believable.

but by far the best character in there was Anton Chigurh. i haven't watched the movie yet, but from the clips and previews i have seen, it appears Javier Bardem did a great job. i am really looking forward to getting home and watching that dvd.

the next novel i started is buy david sedaris; Holidays on Ice. i'm only a few pages into it, and it's hilarious. it is about his time spent as an elf at Macy's department store.

Bailout for Wooden Arrow Shafts

2008-10-01T18:14:00.001-07:00

SEC. 503. EXEMPTION FROM EXCISE TAX FOR CERTAIN WOODEN ARROWS DESIGNED FOR USE BY CHILDREN.
(a) IN GENERAL.—Paragraph (2) of section 4161(b) is amended by redesignating subparagraph (B) as sub301 O:\AYO\AYO08C32.xml S.L.C. paragraph (C) and by inserting after subparagraph (A) the following new subparagraph:
“(B) EXEMPTION FOR CERTAIN WOODEN ARROW SHAFTS.—Subparagraph (A) shall not apply to any shaft consisting of all natural wood with no laminations or artificial means of enhancing the spine of such shaft (whether sold separately or incorporated as part of a finished or unfinished product) of a type used in the manufacture of any arrow which after its assembly—
“(i) measures 5⁄16 of an inch or less in diameter, and
“(ii) is not suitable for use with a bow described in paragraph (1)(A).”.
(b) EFFECTIVE DATE.—The amendments made by this section shall apply to shafts first sold after the date of enactment of this Act.

from Salon.com, “A tourniquet for a hemorrhaging economy” (Via reddit.com)

FansEdge and Telemarketers

2008-10-01T16:30:00.001-07:00

So, I ordered myself a hat to wear while I'm out on business, here's a link to it:

New Jersey Devils Franchise Hat

Unfortunately, I had to submit the following review regarding their service:

My main problem: Telemarketers called me within a week of receiving my hat. The only new location or company that I shared my phone number with was fansedge.com when I placed the order.

Looks like now I have to figure out how to get myself removed from whatever list fansedge.com placed me on.

Economy 101

2008-09-30T16:26:00.001-07:00

I'll summarize: You go wine tasting, encounter a great new winery and no one else is around. Upon tasting, you decide it's the greatest wine ever made. You decide to dump 70% of your life savings and retirement income into casks to hang onto until the wine has matured, so it will be worth more when you sell it off.

You get home and as the years go by, you crack open a bottle every now and then and notice that it's tasting worse as the time passes.

You try to contact the winery but they're out of business; the previous owner asks you to buy a timeshare at his new desert resort, but you can't afford it.

Hurricane Ike wipes out your house, leaving only your wine cellar in tact. Now, you're essentially homeless. You start telling everyone, “if only I could sell this rotting wine, I would be rich.”

Your rich Uncle Sam buys all the wine for you at market value. You rebuild your house and use the extra money to buy a time share at the winery's previous owners' desert resort. After a brief sabbatical, you go and buy even more wine to put in your disaster-proof wine cellar.

Your Uncle Sam gets in an accident and his debt (your toxic wine) is the only thing left to will to his children.

You insure your house and are glad you didn't have children.

crazy pictures

2008-09-29T17:37:00.001-07:00

- crazy chinese theater where I saw Choke

- Pineapple Mojito at Cuba Cuba

- Plates with Pockets, bar-b-q

turtle with mohawk comment

2008-09-26T16:30:00.001-07:00

Turtle with mohawk - Boing Boing

2009-09-26_dream

2008-09-26T16:02:00.001-07:00

In my dream last night I was exhausted. I had been trying to care for an infant, living in a run-down house with peeling wallpaper, a leaking roof. It was sorely in need of painting and cleaning. The bathroom was covered with orange and brown grime. It felt like I was squatting. I changed the baby on an ironing board.

In the first dream, my friends tried to get me out of the house, to meet a woman. I went to a bar; hard wood floors, brown wood on all the furnishings; and I collapsed in between two stools. I tried to sleep while every woman in the place—wearing acid-washed jeans and tight t-shirts with v-necks—they were cheering at a band. Then I realized: my eyes were closed, but I could still see them. I concentrated and was able to close my eyes completely.

The next dream started when I returned home. The baby needed changing, so I picked it up and opened its diaper. It wasn't like a Taco Bell burrito on the inside; instead it was kind of grainy, like ground beef cooked in a frying pan. I decided I would skip straight to the bath, so I sat the pale infant in the tub, diaper hanging open, and began running water. I was so tired that I zoned out, and when I looked in the tub again, the baby was face-down.

I picked up the baby and tried to squeeze its little chest, forcing water out of its lungs. Face-down. I leaned it back a bit to look at its face, but it was dead. Like an extremely realistic baby doll, its arms hung lifeless at its sides, feet dangling on their own. The face began to turn into plastic, its glazed eyes began to focus and the irises become a deep cobalt blue. The whites became whiter. Then, I woke up.

The second and final dream, I returned to the house where a friend of mine from work had been taking care of the baby. He told me the kid was in the tub, since I didn't have a crib. Remembering the last dream, I hurried into the bathroom. In the tub, a hole had broken open. A thick blue sludge (like the drano from the film Heathers) was seeping from one side, down toward the drain. At the deepest end of the tub, the baby had its head cocked back, eyes wide open, and filling its gaping mouth was drano. It drizzled down its sides and was slathered all over its hands. I could barely make out its legs beneath the tide of blue cleaning solution.

I woke up again and was unable to get back to sleep.

Righteous Kid Rock

2008-09-25T19:42:00.001-07:00

So, last weekend I went to see Righteous Kill which ... was definitely not Heat. In fact, it was more dramatic, more like Glengarry Glen Ross than an action movie. But before the film, this ~~video~~ piece of propaganda played:

Only in Colorado! This would've had the entire theater in California rolling! This is a career-killer. It's some of the most self-righteous, dogmatic, evangelizing, glamorizing, falsified piece of crap ever. What the hell is going on in America? I mean, how is this album even close to making the Billboard Top 100 Albums?

From what I remember, while gasping for air and cackling throughout the entire video:

The song is co-credited to Dale Earnhardt
It's about the National Guard but shows a soldier saving a boy who chases a ball in front of an armored personnel carrier.
In the background, you can hear, during one of the choruses, someone sing the words "Christian Warrior"

What a bunch of shit. Does this kind of recruitment tactic actually work?

McCain Gets Testy On Morning Joe

2008-09-17T22:15:00.000-07:00

McCain Gets Testy On Morning Joe: "McCain openly sparred with Brzezinski, whom he accused of being an open supporter of Obama." More coverage by one of my favorite television journalists Mika Brzezinski.

Leprechaun in Mobile, Alabama

2008-09-15T12:06:00.001-07:00

rap version:

Customer Service Coin Toss

2008-09-02T17:23:00.001-07:00

Heads: consult your documentation
Tails: I'M FUCKIN CRAZY!

Bob, ‘thank you for calling the help desk, I'm bob.’

Customer, ‘I'm having this trouble with my service’

Bob uses the widget.

Bob, ‘HOLY SHIT! I'M FUCKIN CRAZY!’

Mika Brzezinski

2008-08-28T18:43:00.001-07:00

Paris Hilton Is Not News - Watch more free videos

Sickly Gisele

2008-08-26T18:32:00.001-07:00

lets get on with it

2008-08-13T20:37:00.001-07:00

myspace 12-13-2006, updated 2008-08-13

INT. HEADHUNTER'S OFFICE

HEADHUNTER: So, Neo. I understand you're looking for work. I know the story; before you liberated the Matrix from all those machines and started offering people free passes to Zion, I've been hard pressed to find anyone crazy enough to continue trudging along.

Neo shrugs and looks kind of worn out.

HEADHUNTER: Right. So, the usual? Just like everybody else? You want to be an actor or a CEO or a porn star, right? Well, those jobs are all filled, my friend.

NEO: I want to do something different.

HEADHUNTER: Yeah, you and me both! We all do! But, unfortunately, the only positions I have open at this time are in government jobs.

Neo gags and then coughs up some bile onto the back of his hand.

HEADHUNTER: Now now, it's not so bad. All you have to do is sit in a cubicle in a big warehouse with a bunch of other people. And, do stuff like open letters or make copies, maybe mail a few things to different warehouses for other people to open and make copies of. Then, after lunch, you can hammer out a report on your progress. Sound nice?

NEO: That sounds perfect.

HEADHUNTER: Well, don't let this other opportunity pass you by, there's a lot of jobs ...

Chad the headhunter flips a page on his clipboard.

HEADHUNTER (quoting the page): Exciting job as a recruiter! Do you like helping people? Want to connect companies with the employee of their dreams? If so, consider an exciting job in-

NEO (cutting off the headhunter): Look, man. I just saved the world, OK? And my girlfriend is dead. So, don't fuck with me. Just submit my application, tell them I'm interested, and lets get on with it.

pictures from Hong Kong

2008-08-06T18:02:00.001-07:00

World of Twittercraft

2008-08-06T07:31:00.001-07:00

I want a World of Warcraft AddOn that interfaces with Twitter and updates it with things like:

name of instance I just entered
name of gear/loot that drops
name of gear/loot that I receive
possibly a link to the DPS and reporting info for the raid at the end
possibly post my DPS (and deaths would be funny) when a boss dies
possibly count up the number of Badges of Justice I loot (e.g. “Badge of Justice 2 (total 12)”)
when my character gains a level
possibly the names of people I kill in PVP

weekend movies (Bruce & Lloyd, Drillbit Taylor, Intimate Affairs

2008-08-05T12:23:00.001-07:00

Get Smart's Bruce and Lloyd Out of Control
just watched Get Smart's Bruce and Lloyd from iTunes Store: two stars

the funniest part of this move is after Bruce tells Lloyd that he is in love with the coroner. they discuss her stench. later, after their relationship is on its way, Lloyd reveals that he’s been spraying her with a custom-tailored pheromone, to mask the scent. then, a sequence of clips begins in which Lloyd is crawling out of air ducts and stuff, spraying her so she does not notice.

the least funny part of this movie: i paid like, $4.99 USD to rent this hunk of crap and then sat through it all.

Drillbit Taylor

this was what i expected; funny, wacky, and completely predictable. the plot does not surprise, its character arcs are also fairly stale. however, Owen Wilson does not disappoint; he’s a funny but somewhat tame person.

it wasn’t very memorable, in retrospect. i am trying to remember some of the funnier parts, but i don’t want to spoil the ending. which contained one of the only surprising elements, but it was a gag and not relevant to the plot.

Intimate Affairs
the movie Intimate Affairs: a good four-star movie; very interesting, odd, but kept our attention. better than Drillbit Taylor or Bruce&Loyd

this was a comical, interesting, and dramatic film. its synopsis (lifted from http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809935019/info):

“A group of surrealist artists and writers gather to discuss sex in this Alan Rudolph ensemble film, loosely based on Jose Pierre's actual 1928-1932 Paris study. Neve Campbell and Robin Tunney star as stenographers hired to transcribe the sessions and also act as muses for the male subjects. Alan Cumming, Elliot Davies, Terence Howard, and Til Schweizer play some of the artists present, who delve into topics like bestiality, onanism, and menage-a-trois. Their leader, Edgar (Dermot Mulroney), is in love with a female demon who haunts his dreams, much to the annoyance of his flesh-and-blood girlfriend (Julie Delpy). Nick Nolte and Tuesday Weld give the film's best performances as Edgar's boozy, sex-crazed sponsors. The characters gather in a modern art-filled room and an orgy practically ensues as they find themselves liberated by the erotically transgressive talk and surroundings. The script, by Rudolph and Michael Henry Wilson, utilizes the actual session transcriptions to create an overflow of poetic, insightful dialogue. Another of Rudolph's signature explorations of jazz-age love and artistic camaraderie (see also THE MODERNS and MRS. PARKER AND THE VICIOUS CIRCLE), it's set in 1924 Cambridge, Mass, but filmed in Berlin.”

Some comments:

the ‘poetic’ parts were often pretentious
the ‘insightful dialogue’, the majority of it was cliché
‘an orgy practically ensues’ is not a very accurate description of what takes place
Dermont Mulroney was fairly convincing, though a bit pretentious at times. his character’s statements in an attempt to manipulate or impress at certain points in the film reminded me of people i’ve known when i was growing up.
Robin Tunney - at least her head wasn’t all big-looking
Neve Campbell - her head also was not big-looking; putting two heads this large on one screen together is often risky, see The Craft
Alan Cumming is always brilliant
Nick Nolte’s performance was hilarious and appropriate; if you imagine the loss he experiences in the film, within the context of history, it seems believable
the paintings and art that was used were pretty neat to look at
I especially liked the interactions between Cumming and Nolte; or more accurately, Nolte’s attempts to ignore and work around Cumming without confronting him. And, Cumming’s pouting and protests at Nolte’s orders and activities.

Movie Embed from Doomsday Review

2008-08-02T08:16:00.001-07:00

click the movie above to start playing

Movie from fourfour: Everything awesome in Doomsday.

“this post-apocalyptic cannibal society thinks puns are better than punk, despite its collective appearance. I mean, "Good Thing" is sooooo not hardcore, but the fact that it's performed by the Fine Young Cannibals (jab, jab, get it? get it?) is extremely cute.”

Code from Jake Ludington's MediaBlab: Embedding QuickTime MOV.

awesome commentary from smatterist

2008-07-16T11:13:00.001-07:00

“If I worked at a silicone manufacturer, I would have a silicone breast monster in my closet by now. Different sized breast bags glued to a pillow. My breast monster would also double as a waterbed. Have you ever slept on a hundred boobs? It’s softer than any down pillow ever made.”

Lee Hyori hypes upcoming album with sexy pics - Smatterist

Blogged with the Flock Browser

jet lag induced rant

2008-07-08T08:40:00.001-07:00

2008-06-21

i sat and read a few more pages of bad moon rising. during one of the attack scenes, mr maberry does a pretty good job of describing things. it was entertaining. but still not as entertaining as reading his double-descriptors and verbal gesticulations.

so, by show of hands, how many of you have read the stand?

ha! that was a trick question. no one has read the entire book, the stand. even steven king, and he wrote it. yeah, that last couple chapters he just fell asleep on the fucking keyboard.

he turned it in to his publisher and all he got was, ‘wow stephen! you have a gift.’

and he held that fucking manuscript in two hands, because it's so heavy, and he said, ‘no it's not even going to an editor. what would be the point? i mean, why dilute the genius?’

anyway, my book-consuming habits start with one simple rule. and it's like the rule of thumb—sorry ladies.

here's how it goes: if i pick up a book and it's as thick as my thumb. or, i throw it on an oak table, and it shivers like i just dropped a copy of the stand on it. that's a book that i am not going to read.

make sense? see, it's easy.

of course, i couldn't sleep on this flight at all. i was awake reading bad novel rising. and just thinking. thinking about having a god damn cigarette. and how i always get upset when i cross the fucking international date line. like, raging pissed off, at such insignificant things.

it's probably some form of jet lag. i become intolerant. and a perfectionist. irritable. and violent. i blame the violence on growing up in arizona, where the tempers are quick.

like the last time i traveled to the asia-pacific region, it was a strange experience. i start looking at asian women and i'm like, wow! she's so short. and so skinny. wait a minute! how old is she?

but i guess that's just because i'm used to looking at americans. who wear so much make-up, and work forty hours a week or more, trying to afford gasoline so they can get in their convertible cars and drive–no sunscreen–for miles to lay on the beach and tan. or, they just go to tanning booths.

like giant heifers lounging in the sun.

in asia, unlike mexico, the skinny girls don't get eaten by the fat girls–the gorditas.

whereas americans, who are all cellulite-riden beasts (my self included), ridden by business men and their carefully-crafted marketing mechanisms. thriving on our inexplicable and often hypocritical desires, our greed. eat a half pound of ground beef, but wash it down with a cola that contains only one calorie.

rather than improving public transportation to help reduce pollution, encourage car manufacturers to make new cars that pollute less; because you know, having your own car is freedom. and, everyone can afford a new car to help stop the climate crisis.

i don't really know. i'm tired and i'm rambling and i am gonna land and then get on a shuttle and sit while i'm driven back home. it's going to be ... wait, i'm just bitching now.

Musings of Violet Red: 07.07.08

2008-07-07T22:08:00.000-07:00

Musings of Violet Red: 07.07.08: "'Yes, you'd be surprised to know Iraqis everywhere have quite a penchant for Croc-wear...'"

Re: The End Of The Innocence

2008-07-07T18:02:00.001-07:00

The End Of The Innocence: "They said life would never be the same after 9/11.But somehow it was."
...
"We’ve been living in ignorance for far too long. Thinking some men in white robes were looking out for us. But they just turned out to be profiteers, paying lip service to bettering society, but really only interested in lining their pockets. Now, to be an average citizen is to contemplate one’s future. One’s economic future. No one’s worrying about whether a bomb is going to hit their city, rather whether they’ll have enough money to put food on the table."

(Via Lefsetz Letter.)

If you don't read the Lefsetz Letter, this post would be a good one to start with.

movie reviews are on the way

2008-07-06T21:11:00.001-07:00

... but until then, here's something funny:

see more pwn and owned pictures

Jumper

2008-06-25T07:37:00.001-07:00

so, this last weekend my girlfriend and i rented a couple of movies. the one i remember is jumper.

i appreciated this movie, not only because it was an entertaining action flick with some semi-tastefully employed special effects. but also because of its realism. for example:

samuel jackson with white hair
hayden christensen as a shy loner
rachel bilson putting out on the first date, after hayden flies her to rome and refuses to answer questions about himself
the fact that david rice (played by hayden christensen) didn't use his jumper powers to go ass to mouth with rachel bilson

that samuel jackson would appear in another movie with hayden christensen just goes to show how out of touch he is with his fans. after all, seeing them together again consistently reminded me that samuel's most memorable line in a george lucas film was a girlish scream when hayden betrayed him and the emperor touched him with his lightning finger, compelling him to take the nestea plunge out of his office window.

Bladerunner Survey

2008-06-16T07:21:00.001-07:00

“Describe in single words only the good things that come into your mind about... your mother.”

Bad Novel Rising

2008-06-15T04:31:00.001-07:00

i am writing this as a review, and to prevent anyone from accidentally purchasing this book without knowing what they are getting into.

first, Bad Moon Rising by Jonathan Maberry is the third part in the Pine Deep Trilogy. so, if you—like myself—have not experienced either of the first two books, you will be in for a surprise.

the author's note begins by ruining the mystery and confusion of the book, presenting a lot of facts that are then re-hashed in later segments, which are presented in the style of news stories. i recommend just skipping straight to the fake news, which harbors two of its own flaws.
first, the articles are dated sequentially. normally, there would be a follow-up a few weeks after the initial reporting, to clarify or go in-depth. however, the press uses some kind of clairvoyance and presents all the critical details within the first two days. amazing fact-checking. this can be summarized in a note to the author as: timeline should be established in the body, not as the date the article was published.
second, the fake journalists never wonder, why are these criminals going after the same family, repeatedly? as i was reading, i kept wondering: why didn't the criminal mastermind just leave town? i mean, he was trying to escape the police, Philadelphia and so on. why stop, establish some vendetta, and lose sight of his initial goal?

next, the prologue; all the transitions include two quotes from made-up artists. i sat thinking, why are there two? are there supposed to be dual meanings, delicately interwoven within the context, themes of each section? of course not. next, i will explain why.

“fluttering against the stick slimness of his legs. his coat flaps snapped vigorously but silently around his emaciated hips”
- we know he's skinny, then you have to use the word 'emaciated'. pick one.

numerous, very specific items: who cares? unless you're brett easton-ellis, don't include brand names.

“the scream as the enormity of that pronouncement drove a knife into his mother's heart”

“over and over again” - why not simply, 'repeatedly.'? it saves on ink.

“... at the moon.
it was an ugly quarter moon, stained yellow-red like [paragraph omitted] hectoring him like Romans at the circus.”
- we all know what the moon looks like, and in the context of the first paragraph, why elaborate?

the visuals in this novel are often cluttered, it's not just the detail.

“tightening the noose around his neck.” - where else would the noose be?

“eyes was like looking into a dark well that was drilled all the way down to Hell.”
- why not, "like looking into hell” or “looking into a dark well”?
- is this some kind of duality which relates to the two quotes in the Prologue transition?

“dragging in a deep chestful of smoke” - is "chestful” even a word?
- being a smoker, i understand what 'taking a deep drag' is. i can assure you that in the context of the prologue, one would not take 'a light puff'. instead, 'a drag' would be sufficient.
- unless the smoke is going to come pouring out of his ribs, who cares whether it's 'a chestful' or simply 'a drag'?

words i crossed out while reading the first chapter:
“badass”, as in “a badass sneer” - what sneer is not badass? is there a cute, short-hair girl with wide blue eyes giving us a playful sneer? is she wearing a big sweater and sheer panties? i think not.

“not in this latest round” - who cares what round it is? this book has nothing to do with sports.

“but toughness hadn't been enough to get him to Val's side in time to help her” can be reduced to "but hadn't been enough to get to Val in time to help her.” that's worth about twelve cents or so at the press, i'm sure.
“he wished he could fly counter-clockwise around the world like Superman [... change ...] the way things happened” - puh-lease! who is old enough to get this reference? and, who wants this image distracting them from what's supposed to be happening in the book?
in a long-winded paragraph about this character's inability to save his girlfriend, “His ... rather than Val.” why use "His ...” at all? waste of space and time.
then, the paragraph goes on and on with details that the character couldn't possibly know.

here's another hum-dinger from chapter 2: “he wasn't the one to swoop down like Captain Avenger” and later in the same paragraph, after the woman began to recover “it wouldn't be Captain Avenger she'd need.”
or, “[he] gave him a Clint Eastwood squint. the one Clint uses when he's trying to ...”

“He got up from his chair and stared out the window at the featureless black of the middle of the night”
- or, 'he got up from his chair and stared out the window at the black of the night.'

“it worked on his mind like rat's teeth”
“his blood pressure could blow half-inch bolts out of plate steel”
“more gooseflesh rippled along Crow's arms”

“rewarded by a savage beating”

“the elder crow was one of a select group of young men” - is he elder or young?

“[he] used them to satisfy his peculiar hungers; that he hunted them [don't laugh! ... cows. he hunted cows.] the way a wolf would”

the novel then describes the farming town as an "arts community"; this is 43 pages into the book, there hasn't been a damn mention of the following: kilns, hippies, easels, canvas, knick-knacks, old grandma's knitting, cross-stitching, those little rocks that are big in the midwest—the smooth ones with faces painted on them. those stone rabbits—you know what i'm talking about.
- no art has been mentioned at all in this entire novel! and suddenly, there's a folk explosion in the author's mind!
-- 'I've got it! ... because farming will not sustain a community, they will turn to arts and crafts! *typa typa typa*'

“looking back on it with vision filtered through his rage, [he] realized ...” - Jonathan, anger reduces your IQ. it does not enhance it. you will not find a single innovation that started with, 'Dr Philbin was so pissed off, he had an eureka moment! and, that's how gelding was invented.'

“sent buckets of ice water sloshing down through [his] bowels.”
“his heart crashed.”

“it sounded like the word had been pulled out of his mouth with pliers.”

“he screwed on a genial smile and it fit so badly that it hurt his cheeks.”

“his abraded elbows.” - watch CSI much?
“demonstrated his fury.”

“in his ears he could hear the pounding of his heart—it sounded like someone hitting a bass drumm with a fist wrapped in gauze.” - i think we're alone now, there doesn't seem to be anyone arou-ound

this is supposed to be tough-guy dialogue: “Maybe you opened a box of cracker jacks and the toy surprise was a new set of balls, but believe me when i tell you that ...”
- don't get me wrong, most of the dialogue I've read so far has been surprisingly good [page 183 out of 608]
there's even a self-mocking exchange involving a 'if i need you i'll dial one eight hundred dial a drunk' where the other character's retort is: 'is that really the best exit line you can think of?' the whole exchange could have been crossed out.
think of the children, Mr Maberry.

“the sun was setting brush fires on the horizon”

another surprise, one of the characters was reading “a volume of Eastern European folklore” ... how the hell did this make it into a small farming community? and, why hadn't it been located and burned by the local parish?

“his face as gray as a five-day-old steak.”

“[he] put his palm flat on [the dude's] chest and gave him the smallest of pushes—not hard, but hard enough.”
- or he could have 'put his palm on his chest and gave him a light push'

Chapter 3, first paragraph contains “In his dreams” ... four times. repetitive. and, later: “a dissociative fugue state” - who knows what this means? they're called syllables, use less.
“the chrysalis forming in the shadows of his deepest mind—that part of him knew everything” - and that part of him probably wanted to cross out this entire part of the sentence.

“played out over and over again as the night ground to its end” - or, 'over again as the night ground to its end'

“overhead, from horizon to horizon; filling the sky like ...” or just, 'filling the sky like ...'

“'This is what Hell looks like,' [he] heard himself say. “The [good line].” - why not just end with the good line? why all the references to Hell and so on? It doubles up and distracts.

“someone went off” vs 'someone left'

“There was no foot traffic, no one to take notice of him, no one to see a man sitting [...] no one to observe a young man sitting” - 'no one' x 3, 'sitting' x 2. is this an anagram?

“a wad of Starbucks napkins” - tons of branding in this novel. it makes me wonder whether Jonathan is getting paid each time he says Yoo-hoo, Starbucks, and so on.

“with all the residual hot-blood flush in his thighs from where he'd pounded out his rage,” - this is after two paragraphs of thigh-pounding (and not that kind of thigh-pounding, you perv), to introduce a spoiler ...

“Later on he would remember that dime, and a toss of that coin would [big ol' spoiler here]” - this revelation seems extremely unnecessary and crass. i imagined watching porn in reverse; 'his man-butter crept from the back of her throat, lolled around on her tongue and lips. suddenly sucked up her chin and off her taut breasts, into his pulsing purple ...' you get the drift.

“making it a slow roll, making it look casual” or just 'making a slow roll, to look casual'. another ten cents at the press.

Dialogue:
“'welcome to my world.'
'it's my world too, damn it.'”
- this contributes nothing, i crossed it right out of my book

“keep it on the QT” - have you seen L.A. Confidential? if not, he means: 'keep it on the DL'
- this is on Page 73, which is chock full of dialogue that explains a bunch of events ... that were explained in an earlier reveal. one wonders why the initial reveal was preserved; the dialogue does a way better job of explaining it

“not that i want to play who's the bigger dog, [man], but i sure as hell got you beat there because” - i crossed this right out. it seemed insincere and inappropriate for this character. read the chapter and see how far out of context it really is:
'sis is dead, papa and mama are dead. hell, we're havin' this conversation in the ER where my kin are all laid up. but, not that i want to play who's the bigger dog, i sure as hell got you beat! yee-haw!' much whoopin' went down. get a rope.

“serial killers are well known for [...] it's a known pathology.” lolz

Dialogue:
“'we seem to be in vampire territory.
'did that statement sound as stupid to you as it did to me?'

'probably'”
- it probably should have been re-written so it didn't seem so stupid

“like a needle stuck in my brain ever since.” - or, 'it's been stuck in my head ever since'. i'll even concede trading 'brain' for 'head' if you like the visual, just ditch the needle routine. or just quote rob zombie, 'a splinter in my mind'

“i've been in the martial arts since i was a kid” - when i read this, i knew immediately that this trilogy (and it'll go beyond just a trilogy, trust me) was a Robert Jordan e-peen in the making. here's a little history:

robert jordan, perhaps the most long-winded novelist in history, made a living writing extremely long books. longer than stephen king. and, a primary theme is this: character A is introduced, he sure is scared of character B. however, character C comes along, and he can kill thirty of character B. but, character D is introduced. and man, character D can eat character C for breakfast. in fact, character D could snore and the mere sound would crush characters A and B. but character E can kill thirty or forty of character D.
imagine this chain going on infinitum; like Lambert, 'this is the song that never ends'

at any rate, more dialogue:
“man, i think we left rational behind by a couple of miles.”

“i may never laugh again. ever.” - melodrama

“'don't you think that's a little strange?'
'a “little strange”?' [dude] echoed hoarsely. his color was horrible.
'well, buckle up 'cause it gets stranger.'”
- cross those last two lines right out, it's less embarrassing

Chapter 4, “the silence between [A] and [B] was thick as mud.”

“'you will regret it. don't push me on this.'” - pick one

“her grip was tightened like a vise on his wrist.”

“washed his mouth with Scope” - another product-placement dollar for the author

“his eyes were ordinary blue. no trace of fire or blood—merely a cold and hopeless blue.” or, 'his eyes were ordinary blue.' full stop
“he did not even remember that he couldn't remember” - and i was glad i couldn't remember how much i paid for this book that i did not want to remember

“[his] heart froze in his chest.”

“he had several google search pages open on each and a half dozen word documents.” - product placement FTW; this must have been a twofer, there's another reference to Google in this same paragraph
“cup of coffee was cooling to tepid sludge” - tee-hee
“typing in search arguments, scrolling through the lists of web pages, cutting and pasting information and URLs”
- it must be fun to use a computer

things mellow out for quite a few pages, but on 102:
“[he] knew that as sure as he knew dogs didn't fart gold coins.” - how distracting

Chapter 7, “he liked them, they were his friends in this.” - or just, 'they were his friends in this,' who doesn't like their friends?
“[showed] their support like Baptists in a revival tent.” - what. does. it. mean!?

“his dry lids scraped over the arid surface of his eyes once, then again.” - his attempt at being prosaic scraped over my nerves once, then again.

Page 121, dialogue; paragraphs 4 through 9 can be removed, beginning with the retort to “but no pressure” and ending with “like truth in advertising.”
- please don't even read it! within the context of this conversation, your eyes will bleed: imagine a woman whose husband just tried to commit suicide and a man whose pregnant wife may be blind in one eye and miscarrying his child as they speak. they take a moment to trade quips about pressure and advertising. yukking it up

“the hospital physical plant” - just let that one roll around your brain pan for a few minutes
... do you feel it? gnawing. like something that no human being would ever say? but he did, he said it.
now you know where aneurysms come from; thoughts like these that just won't wash out

how about, “i've forwarded a lot of it to your Yahoo account”? - he didn't get paid for this product shot; it would have to be, “to your Yahoo! Mail account.”

“[his] fetid blood screamed for black joy.”

Chapter 11, more product placement: “big Nakamichi Home Audio system”, “hurt as if he'd been stomped by ten skinheads wearing Doc Martens.” - yes, they used to wear Doc Martens. no, this visual has no place in this novel

“[he] had left them, had caught the night train out of town, and now all they could do—the sum effect of their years of training, their collective experience; the weight of their science—was to watch and wait for him to die. Because [he] had left.”

...
“over and over again; through ...” over and over and over

Page 143, “bagging the Robert Jordan novel” - And he said unto them I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven (Luke 10:18)

“he took a tin of Altoids out of his pocket” - i sure hope this character is not a vegetarian, the thought gave me chills
- and don't get on my case about 'modern Altoids don't contain gelatin!'

“the sun burned itself to a cinder and left the sky a charred black.”

“macho Pine Deep rah-rah bullshit, then we're done. Fat Lady's finished her aria and gone home” - why does this guy know what an aria is? because it's completely distracting to the reader?

“The whole house seemed drained, like a battery that's almost run down—not quite dead—but with only enough energy to be frustrating, or a cheat.”
- this extra “or a cheat” got me started thinking about Homestar Runner and The Cheat.

“[her] domain, where she'd happily cooked a thousand meals for the family with all of the charm of a TV housewife, maybe that redhead from Desperate Housewives.”
- why not just say Marcia Cross? it's less distracting when i have no idea what you are talking about than it is when i am taken on a journey of self-discovery, reflecting upon a television show that i have no interest in watching

“and who would have thought cancer would be the kinder, gentler way out?”

“growled in red fury.”

OK so that's all the notes i've got, because i have not tried to return to the book since my intercontinental flight ended.

Agent Smith: Kool Aid Smile

2008-06-11T17:50:00.001-07:00

'Gears of War 2' Will Be More 'Girlfriend-Friendly'

2008-05-22T20:58:00.001-07:00

'Gears of War 2' Will Be More 'Girlfriend-Friendly': ""How do you make a game girlfriend-friendly?
You do jump-in, jump-out co-op. You have configurable difficulty settings for the other player. You have very cool and bad-ass main characters that have a very human side. And you make sure that the female characters in your game don't have ginormous tits and aren't bad stereotypes.""

(Via Wired News: Top Stories.)

I may have to buy this game, if only because this is the first person in the gaming industry who's said exactly what I've been talking with my girlfriend about since we bought a PS3.

Matrix (in progress)

2008-05-16T18:56:00.003-07:00

Matrix 1:

The Matrix IV, etc:

the dumbest question i've ever been asked

2008-05-16T18:56:00.001-07:00

2007-04-23 17:06:00

INTERIOR TIME PINTO

MORPHEUS: We have arrived.

Neo pulls his head up from Morpheus' lap and wipes off his mouth.

NEO: That was quick.

MORPHEUS: It's lonely in here.

Neo looks around.

MORPHEUS: I meant back on the Nezzakanezz keh neh zuh... the ship, damn it!

Neo looks out the side window.

EXT TIME PINTO

The area outside the pinto is dusty and shrouded in wet plants. They are hard to identify. The pinto it's self is sitting in a little clearing; it is completely surrounded. Odd noises off in the distance sound like retarded pandas making love.

And, if you've never heard a panda make love, or someone retarded making love to a panda ... that sound is exactly like the background track in all those horrible movies and tv shows about prehistoric times.

A deep rumbling shakes the pinto.

INT TIME PINTO

Neo looks down and sees little ripples forming inside the numerous mostly-drank plastic Pepsi and Coke bottles.

EXT TIME PINTO

The sound gets closer and from behind the Time Pinto we can see the what's left of its antenna quivering.

The camera cuts to a close-up shot of the license plate as it rattles with each loud noise.

TIME PINTO LICENSE PLATE reads: LUV2 LUVU

INT TIME PINTO

Neo looks really scared, he's starting to sweat.

Morpheus seems very calm, looking in the rear-view mirror.

As Neo is looking around, first at Morpheus and then out into the wilderness on his side of a car, behind him we can see a massive triceratops move up next to the car. It raises its tail and presses its filthy butthole up against the window. Then, it groans very loud.

Morpheus casually glances over, then does a double-take and begins to lower his glasses.

Neo, oblivious, starts craning his neck to look behind the car.

MORPHEUS: Oh ... my ... god.

Neo's head jerks and he stares straight at the butt of the dinosaur; like a giant, swollen, pink flour opening, flushing feces against the side of the car.

Neo screams in a high-pitched, Michael Jackson style squeal.

Morpheus struggles to start the car, his sunglasses falling down on his nose.

Neo begins thrashing around the car, continuing to scream.

EXT TIME PINTO

Outside the Time Pinto, the triceratops is rocking the car back and forth, attempting to scratch its butt on the top edge of the passenger side of the car.

We can hear Neo's scream, muffled by the car, and the engine seizing up repeatedly in an attempt to start.

INT TIME PINTO

The car finally starts.

MORPHEUS: Buckle up.

Morpheus reaches his hand up real quick behind Neo's head and pulls it down into his lap again; Neo's mouth open, frozen in a scream and disappears.

EXT TIME PINTO

The car streaks off toward the jungle really fast, trails of flame following it as it disappears through a tree.

EXT TIME PINTO, IDAHO

Keanu Reeves is walking down the street with River Phoenix. They're looking all gayed-up; denim clothes, light brown coleman boots; River is wearing a pair of khaki slacks and an open, silky dress shirt. Keanu has lipstick on and River has faded eyeliner.

INT TIME PINTO

The car is basically puked out on the stretch of road next to the two men. Neo looks out and sees Keanu.

Neo sits up and wipes his mouth off again.

Neo gasps for air and begins screaming again.

NEO (screaming): Oh god no, anywhere but here! Take us back, take us back!

MORPHEUS: But Neo, don't you want to save Trinity?

NEO: Not like this! Oh sweet jesus on a totem pole! It's just not worth it!

Neo begins crying, puts his face in his hands and heaves heavily. The sound of empty tin cans shifting beneath his feet with each impassioned sob.

darth pinto

2008-05-16T18:55:00.005-07:00

2006-12-13 20:13:00

The Matrix IV:

INT. HEARTBREAK HOTEL

The gang's all here; Neo walks into the room. In the corner, some dude wearing leather is putting some tools away. In the center of the room is a 1972 ford pinto, and it's yellow with a white top and lower panels.

Morpheus enters the room from the open garage door. Rain is streaming down, yet he's barely wet.

MORPHEUS: Neo.

NEO: Morpheus, what's all this about?

MORPHEUS: Neo ... I know this must be difficult. Trinity is dead. She was shot and then squished on the pavement. You just weren't fast enough to make it in time.

Neo winces.

MORPHEUS: But ... have you ever seen Back to the Future, Neo?

NEO: That one movie with Michael J Fox and Crispin Glover?

MORPHEUS: You've already learned that ghosts, vampires, and werewolves are real. What if I told you ... that you could go back.

NEO: Back?

MORPHEUS: Back ... to the future.

NEO: Impossible!

MORPHEUS: That's exactly what you said when I told you that you are The One.

NEO: Uhh ... yeah, I guess it is.

The man in the black leather jacket wheels a big green garbage can in through the garage door. It makes an awful sound.

MORPHEUS: We can change it all, Neo. None of that has to happen. We don't have to make any sacrifices.

NEO: What do you mean?

Morpheus opens up the back hatch of the pinto, then the man in the leather jacket opens the trash can.

MORPHEUS: Observe.

Morpheus stuffs some banana peels into what looks like an old toaster oven, sitting on an old betamax cartridge kiosk and a bunch of stray VHS tapes.

Morpheus closes the hatch and gets in the driver's seat, closing the door and looking at Neo through the open window.

MORPHEUS: Get in.

INT. TIME PINTO

The interior of the Time Pinto is littered with old bags of fast food, pornographic magazines, dirty socks and flannel shirts, a few crusty towels. Its dashboard is falling apart, most of it sagging open like a gaping wound, exposing fuses and numerous wires that appear to go nowhere.

MORPHEUS: This machine is just like the Delorean in that movie, but with a few important differences. In order to travel through time, I am going to need your help, Neo.

NEO: OK, what do I have to do?

MORPHEUS: You see Neo, in order to put this machine into motion, we'll need to generate some very specific frequencies. The kind that can only be produced by a mixture of disgust and ecstasy.

Morpheus unzips his pants and leans back in his seat.

Neo looks confused.

MORPHEUS: Come on, Neo. We don't have all night.

lonely trails of man sauce

2008-05-16T18:55:00.003-07:00

2006-04-29 19:37:00

INT. NEO'S APARTMENT

Screaming, Neo bolts upright in bed.

He realizes that he is home. Was it a dream? His butt is normal. His ass looks fine. He starts to take a deep, everything-is-okay breath, when --

The PHONE RINGS.

It almost stops his heart. It continues RINGING, building pressure in the room, forcing him up out of bed, sucking him in with an almost gravitational force; the kind of force one feels in the pit of the stomach at the onset of diarrhea.

He answers it, saying nothing.

MORPHEUS (V.O.): This line is tapped so I must be brief.

NEO: The agents --

MORPHEUS (V.O.): They got to you first, but they've underestimated how important you are. If they knew what I know, you would probably be dead. Or, not just young and dumb, but also full of cum.

NEO: What do you know?

MORPHEUS (V.O.): Well, I know the muffin man. And, that you're the One, Neo. Isn't that romantic? You see, you may have spent the last few years looking for me, but I've spent most of my life looking for you. I even tried match dot com!

Neo feels sick.

MORPHEUS (V.O.): Do you still want to meet?

NEO: ... Yes.

MORPHEUS (V.O.): Go the the Adams Street bridge.

CLICK. He closes his eyes, unsure of what he has done.

EXT. CITY STREET - NIGHT

It is just beyond the middle of the night; that time when it seems there are no rules and everything feels unsafe. Like bareback 'toothing on Castro Street. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, just keep reading because some day, i'll get back to it.

Neo's boots scrape against the concrete. Every pair of eyes he passes seems to follow him... and then dwell on his ass.

As he reaches the bridge, headlights creep in behind him. He turns just as the car slides quickly to a stop beside him. The back door opens.

TRINITY: Get in, bitch!

INT. CAR

A large black man named APOC is driving. Beside him is a beautiful androgyne called SWITCH, aiming a large gun at Neo.

NEO: What the hell is this?!

TRINITY: A car.

NEO: No, I mean the gun!

TRINITY: It's necessary, Neo. For our protection.

NEO: From what? That thing's huge!

TRINITY: From you.

She lifts a strange steel and glass device that looks like a cross between a rib separator, speculum and air compressor.

NEO: Oh hell no!

SWITCH: Take off your pants.

He looks at the strange device and the gun still trained on him.

NEO: What? Why?

SWITCH: Stop the car.

NEO: Uhh, you know, I'd really rather not!

Apoc stops the car.

SWITCH: Listen to me, chicken! We don't have time for 'twenty questions.' Right now there is only one rule. Our way or the highway.

NEO: Fine.

TRINITY: No, we can't let him go --

Neo opens the door.

TRINITY: Neo, please, you have to trust me.

NEO: Why?

TRINITY: Because you've been down there, Neo. You already know that road. You know exactly where it ends: a VIP lounge in the back of some humid bar, men with moist wads of cash chanting the same thing they do every weekend, 'ass to ass. ass to ass.'

Neo stares out into the dark street beyond the open door.

TRINITY: And I know that's not where you want to be.

APOC (Off Camera): Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family, Choose a fucking big television, Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers.

NEO: ... shit.

He closes the door.

EXT. LOWER WACKER

A moment later the green lights of Lower Wacker curve over the car's tinted windshield as it rushes through the underworld. A sparkling mauve low-rider rolls by with gold trim and rims, 'the Scat Man' can be heard playing from its stereo system.

INT. CAR

Neo grudgingly strips off his crusty pants.

TRINITY: Lie back.

Trinity sets the device over Neo's butt its three corners resting on the tip of his tail bone and pelvis. She then guides a mounted cylindrical probe into his rectum and squeezes a hand pump a few times to form a tight seal.

NEO: What is this thing?

TRINITY: We think you're bugged. Try to relax.

NEO: Why is it so big?

TRINITY: For effect?

APOC giggles.

She turns a dial and the machine--bearing the name 'assmaster 2000'--bears down on Neo's butt, the cylinder sucking hard at his stomach.

Neo moans, smirking with a peculiar mix of pleasure and pain, as Trinity watches the needle on a pressure gauge climb steadily.

TRINITY nearly whispers the words: ass to ass. ass to ass.

NEO: Hey. (groaning rhythmically) cut ... that ... out!

The machine quivers as the pressure builds higher and higher until something finally rockets wetly out of Neo's ass, and through the machine's coils.

TRINITY: Got it.

Trinity shuts off the compressor, Neo sits on his hands and winces.

NEO: Got what? My spleen?

Trinity lifts a glass cage at the end of the tubing. Inside the small fluke-like bug flips and squirms, its tendrils flapping against the slightly-browned walls.

She unrolls the window and dumps it out.

EXT. CAR

It hits the pavement with a metallic tink, reverted back into a common wire tap, as the car disappears down the street.

EXT. HOTEL LAFAYETTE

The car stops in a deserted alley behind a forgotten hotel.

wonger--SO not funny!

2008-05-16T18:55:00.001-07:00

2005-07-12 21:26:00

20 INT. INTERROGATION ROOM 20

CLOSE ON a camera monitor; a wide angle view of a white room where Neo is sitting at a table alone. We MOVE INTO the monitor, entering the room as if the monitor was a window. At the same moment, the door opens and the Agents enter. Agent Smith sits down across from Neo. A thick manila envelope slaps down on the table. The name on the file: "Anderson, Thomas A."

Agent Smith: As you can see, we've had our eye on you for some time now, Mister Anderson.

He opens the file. Paper rattle marks the silence as he flips several pages. Neo cannot tell if he is looking at the file or at him.

Agent Smith: It seems that you have been living two lives. In one life, you are Thomas A. Anderson, program writer for a respectable software company and sexual deviant. You have a social security number, you pay your taxes, you whack off to Internet porn, and you help your landlady carry out her garbage. You also do not clean up after yourself, and have poor personal hygiene.

The pages continue to turn.

Agent Smith: The other life is lived in computers where you go by the hacker alias Neo, and are guilty of virtually every computer crime we have a law for. Especially laws involving the butt sex.

Neo feels himself sinking into a pit of shit.

Agent Smith: One of these lives has a future. One of them does not. One of these lives will get you laid, the other ... will get you fucked.

He closes the file.

Agent Smith: I'm going to be as forthcoming as I can be, Mr. Anderson. You are here because we need your help.

He removes his sunglasses, his eyes are an unnatural ice-blue.

Agent Smith: We know that you have been contacted by a certain individual. A man who calls himself Morpheus. Whatever you think you know about this man is irrelevant. The fact is that he is wanted for acts of terrorism in more countries than any other man in the world. He is considered by many authorities to be the most dangerous man alive.

He leans closer.

Agent Smith: And he talks with a lisp.

Neo looks shocked for a moment.

Agent Smith: My colleagues believe that I am wasting my time with you. But you see, Mister Anderson, I've never been one to pass up the chance to break in a new piece of ass. I believe that you are interested in the future. That is why I believe you are ready to put your past mistakes behind you and get it on with me--err I mean, get on with your life. Yes, that's what I meant.

Neo tries to match his stare, but then looks freaked out when Agent Smith licks his lips. In this close-up of Agent Smith's lips, he has a Kool-Aid smile.

Agent Smith: We are willing to wipe the slate clean, to give you a fresh start and all we are asking in return is your cooperation in bringing a known terrorist to justice. And, a few hours pounding your rectum like a ball of pizza dough.

Neo nods to himself.

Neo: Yeah. Wow. That sounds like a real good deal. But I think I have a better one. How about I just give you the finger --

He does.

Neo: And you give me my phone call!

Agent Smith puts his glasses back on.

Agent Smith: You disappoint me, Mr. Anderson. I would have given you chocolates.

Neo: You can't scare me with this Gestapo crap. I know my rights. I want my phone call! And I need to use the restroom too, all this talk of buttsex is giving me diarrhea.

Agent Smith smiles.

Agent Smith: And tell me, Mr. Anderson, what good is a toilet if you are unable ... to poop?

The question unnerves Neo and strangely he begins to feel the muscles in his buttox tighten. The standing Agents snicker, watching Neo's confusion grow into panic. Neo feels his sphincter grow soft and sticky as it slowly seal shut, his butt cheeks melding into each other until all traces of his ass are gone. Wild with fear, he lunges for the door but the Agents restrain him, holding him in the chair.

Agent Smith: You are going to help us, Mr. Anderson, whether you want to or not.

Neo: Rape!

As Neo screams for help, one of the agents stuffs a rolled up tie in his mouth.

Smith nods and the other two rip open his pants. From a case taken out of his suit coat, Smith removes a long, fiber-optic wire tap.

Neo struggles helplessly as Smith dangles the wire over his exposed butt--or the rounded end that it is. Horrified, he watches with one wide fish eye, as the electronic device animates, becoming an organic creature that resembles a hybrid of an insect and a fluke worm.

Thin, whisker-like tendrils reach out and probe into Neo's butt. He bucks wildly as Smith drops the creature which looks for a moment like an uncut umbilical cord -- before it begins to burrow, its tail thrashing as it worms its way inside.

Of course, since it's going up Neo's butt, you just see it from the side of his hip, and it covers the real action. Perhaps in the DVD release, we'll show some hard core stuff that won't get this film banned from public showing in the United States.

The next scene is wrong in my script, so I’ll actually have to watch the movie again to remember what all happens. Basically, they fish a worm out of Neo’s ass with a bassmaster 2000.

hang up on me

2008-05-16T18:54:00.003-07:00

2005-06-24 02:48:00

15 EXT. SKYSCRAPER 15

The downtown office of some software development company. Birds fly around in the sky outside the skyscraper, kids play in a little park across the street, somebody is filming a commercial for an SUV. It's idyllic, and makes most fans of this movie want to puke.

16 INT. META CORTECHS OFFICE 16

The main offices are along each wall, the windows overlooking downtown. Rhineheart, the ultimate company man, lectures Neo without looking at him, typing at his computer continuously.

Neo stares at two window cleaners on a scaffolding outside, dragging their rubber squeegees down the surface of the glass. Neo is fantasizing about being the glass, and the window cleaners dragging their squeegees down the surface of his ass. And lathering him up with their loofa-like sponges, all soapy and drippy like some kind of ejaculate.

Rhineheart: You have a problem with authority, Mr. Anderson. You believe that you are special, that somehow the rules do not apply to you. And I gave you my phone number two weeks ago but you never called. Obviously, you are mistaken, and neither of us are getting laid.

His long, bony fingers resume clicking the keyboard.

Rhineheart: This company is one of the top software companies in the world because every single employee understands that they are a part of a whole. Thus, if an employee has a problem, the company has a problem. And I think that we both know what our problem is here today.

He turns again.

Rhineheart: The time has come to make a choice, Mr. Anderson. Either you choose to be at your desk on time from this day forth, or you choose to find yourself another job. And if you don't want to look for another job, it would also be a good idea for you to buy a bunch of whipped cream and duct tape, make some time on your busy itinerary--pen me in. And then give me a call this weekend so that we can work out some of this professional tension. Do I make myself clear?

Neo looks disgusted, but tries to choke it back because he needs the money.

Neo: Yes, Mr. Rhineheart. Perfectly clear.

17 INT. NEO'S CUBICLE 17

The entire floor looks like a human honeycomb. Honeycombs have honey in them! And everybody loves honey. And uhh, a labyrinth of cubicles structured around a core of elevators.

VOICE (O.S. = off screen): Thomas Anderson?

Neo turns and finds a FEDERAL EXPRESS GUY at his cubicle door.

Neo: Motherfucker! Don't you bitches got enough product placement in other movies? Why you gotta come get all up in my shit? Did you throw in any cash at all for the production of this piece of crap movie?

Fedex Guy: Well, yes. We paid for the director's last colonoscopy.

Neo: Oh. Then yeah. That's me. Mister Anderson.

Neo signs the electronic pad and the Fedex Guy hands him the 'softpak'--as opposed to a 'hardpak', which is what Rhineheart is going to be doing to Neo in about 3 scenes.

Fedex guy: Have a nice day. And don't make any long distance calls--you're roaming.

Neo opens the bag. Inside is a cellular PHONE. It seems the instant it is in his hand, it RINGS. Unnerved, he flips it open.

Neo: Hello?

Morpheus (V.O. = Voice Over) Hello, Neo. Do you know who this is?

Neo: Burl Ives?

Morpheus (V.O.): Who?

Neo: You're the guy who did the voice work in The Ewok Adventure, right? Caravan of Courage!

Morpheus (V.O.): Ummm. No.

Neo: James Earl Jones?

Morpheus (V.O.): No! I'm Morpheus, god damn it!

Neo's knees give and he sinks into his chair.

Neo: Morpheus...

Morpheus (V.O.): I've been looking for you, Neo. I don't know if you're ready to see what I want to show you, but unfortunately, we have run out of time. They're coming for you, Neo. And I'm not sure what they're going to do.

Neo: Who's coming for me?

Morpheus (V.O.): Well, actually, I lied. I do know what they're going to do to you. And I also know that it's going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts them.

Neo: I don't like being hurt.

Morpheus (V.O.): You want to know who ... stand up and see for yourself.

Neo: Right now?

Morpheus (V.O.): No, just stay where you are. You'll see soon enough. Just be patient. Yeah. It's cool.

Neo starts to stand.

Morpheus (V.O.): Do it slowly. The elevator.

His head peeks up over the partition. At the elevator, he sees Agent Smith, Agent Brown and Agent Jones leading a group of cops. Another employee turns and points out Neo's cubicle.

Neo ducks.

Neo: Holy shit!

Morpheus (V.O.): Yes. You could say that.

One cop stays at the elevator, the others follow the Agents.

Neo: What the hell do they want with me?!

Morpheus (V.O.): I'm not sure, but if you don't want to find out, you better get out of there.

Neo: How?!

Morpheus (V.O.): I can guide you out, but you have to do exactly what I say.

The agents are moving quickly towards the cubicle.

Neo: Sounds kinky!

Morpheus (V.O.): You know what... maybe you should find out what they want. I mean really, it can't be too bad, right? I mean, they are wearing suits, after all.

Neo is gripped with horrible flashbacks to men in suits, drinking cheap whine, twisting their ties around their fingers, laughing and offering him fists full of sweaty dollar bills.

Neo: No!

Morpheus (V.O.): The cubicle across from you is empty.

Neo: But what if...?

Morpheus (V.O.): Get-outta-there-cracker!

Neo lunges across the hall, diving into the other cubicle just as the Agents turn into his row.

Neo crams himself into a dark corner, clutching the phone tightly to him. In the fetal position, this moment seems quite familiar. Almost like... the first time he fought Tyler. Wait! Wrong movie!

Morpheus (V.O.): Stay here for a moment. Chill, honey bunny.

The Agents enter Neo's empty cubicle. A cop is sent to search the bathroom. No one knows why. Maybe he's looking for the inspiration for Agent Brown's monicker.

Morpheus' voice is a whisper in Neo's ear.

Morpheus (V.O.): A little longer...

Agent Brown is talking to another employee.

Morpheus (V.O.): When I tell you, go to the end of the row to the first office on the left, stay as low as you can.

Sweat trickles down Neo's forehead.

Morpheus (V.O.): Now.

Neo rolls out of the cubicle, his eyes popping as he freezes right behind a cop who has just turned around. Staying crouched, he sneaks away down the row, shooting across the opening to the first office on the left.

18 INT. EMPTY OFFICE 18

The room is empty.

Morpheus (V.O.): Good. Outside there is a scaffold.

Neo: How do you know all this?

Morpheus laughs quietly.

Morpheus (V.O.): The answer is coming, Neo. There is a window in front of you. Open it.

He opens the window. The wind howls into the room.

Morpheus (V.O.): You can use the scaffold to get to the roof.

Neo: No! It's too far away.

Morpheus (V.O.): Don't be a pussy, Neo. There's a ledge. It's a short short climb. You can make it.

Neo looks down; the building's glass wall vertigos into a concrete chasm.

Neo: Woah! No way, dude! No way, this is crazy.

Morpheus (V.O.): There are only two ways out of this building. One is that scaffold. The other is in their custody. You take a chance either way. I leave it to you.

CLICK. He hangs up. Neo looks at the door, then back at the scaffold.

Neo: That bitch! No one hangs up on Mister Anderson!

Some toilet paper drifts into the room on the wind for no apparent reason.

Neo: This is insane! Why is this happening to me? What did I do? I'm nobody. I didn't do anything.

He climbs up onto the window ledge. Hanging onto the frame, he steps onto the small ledge. The scaffold seems even farther away.

Neo: I'm going to die.

The WIND suddenly BLASTS up the face of the building, knocking Neo off balance. Recoiling, he clings harder to the frame, and the phone falls out of his hand.

He watches as it is swallowed by the distance beneath him.

Neo: This is insane! I can't do this! Forget it!

He climbs back into the office just as a cop opens the door.

Neo: Shit!

Cop: Come on, you fucking quitter.

The Agents lead a handcuffed Neo out of the revolving doors, forcing his head down as they push him into the dark sedan.

Trinity watches in the rearview mirror of her motorcycle.

Trinity: Shit.

The Agents seem to notice Trinity and pause for a moment, she drives away real fast and conspicuous-like.