Borrowed Inspiration

Why I'm Stupid Enough to Buy an iPad

So, I have this water bottle, right? I've been filling it with $20s since late January.  Saving up for an iPad.  No, really, I'm doing this the way an elementary school kid saves up for a new Nintendo DS.

I figure that way, if I don't pull anything out of my bank account, I can't be struck with that tinge of "I don't actually need this product" anxiety.  I'll tell myself that I've had months to save up and to think about whether I really want to buy one, and therefore if I do, it will have been a responsible, mature exercising of my American-born purchasing power.

But then, iPad doesn't do Flash, does it?  And it's still a closed-development environment, just like the iPhone and the iPod touch.  Why buy a keyboard-less non-computer that doesn't do Flash, when I could buy a high-end, full-feature netbook for that price?

Well, as anyone who's surfed the net or watched a favorite TV show on their iPhone knows, there's something about the intimacy of holding your content in your hands, and interacting with it directly, without the abstraction of buttons, that goes far beyond the thirty-year-plus convention of a keyboard/mouse/screen interface.

Pictured: M-Edge "Trip Jacket" for iPad

My iPad will be like a universal journal.  It will be where I scribble notes for story ideas when they hit, where I go for immediate web references and location information (In lieu, as a Verizon customer, of an iPhone).  It will be my entire media library, more than my iPod touch can hold.  And it will be a fantastic canvas for creating digital illustrations on the go:



Games like this one will be experiences on this device, when you put your headphones in and get sucked into them.

Plus, my god, what a relief it will be to forgo the physical textbook in favor of digital, searchable, weightless copies.  iPad, where were you when I was in junior high?



Lastly, I'm going to Italy for a month this summer, and bringing this instead of a laptop will be much preferred.

In fact, the only things it won't be are 1) A way to watch Flash-only video sites, 2) a torrent-grabber, and 3) a mobile video editing suite.

So, yes, I am dumb enough to buy an iPad.  :)

Take two thrills and call me in the morning

Last night's Lost, "Dr. Linus," finally signaled our penetration through the rocky outer crust of the final season and the beginning of our descent into the gooey, warm nugat center of the final hurrah.  I'll explain what I mean by that, but in order to do so I've got to take you into the way back machine for a moment:

Season three began with a half-dozen episodes focusing on a part of the ensemble, locked up in the Others' jail.  This was a slow and frustrating start for an already frustrated audience, and contributed to the bad press the show got at that time, right?  But eventually, once we got to know this new cast of characters our protagonists were now immersed with, the season's tonal and thematic arcs became clear--we knew which direction the season was heading, what story it was trying to tell.  By the final four episodes of season three, many viewers were saying the show had gone from its worst place to its all-time best place.  And that was before the season concluded with perhaps the most pivotal conceptual invention in the show's history. (Immortalized, of course, in Jorge Garcia's "Geronimo Jack's Beard" podcast.)

Look at season five.  The first few episodes were a little tough to swallow--not poorly-written, mind you, but just not very rewarding (at least not until watching through again on DVD, knowing where they were headed).  It just consisted of a LOT of time-jumping, leaving audiences scratching their heads as to whether the potential for Back to the Future plotlines was really justified this late into the series, or if it was just the show jumping a Dharma-branded shark.

But, just like in season three, about a third of the way into the run, the reason behind the season's central conceit starts to become clear.  The writers knew the viewers desperately wanted to know more about the nooks and crannies of the island's history--What happened to the Dharma Initiative?  What was the story with Rousseau?  So instead of just telling it to us, they made those events a pivotal component in our character's lives, by putting our characters in the history.  Now, what was became what is.  

And it made for some of the most satisfying long-term payoffs in the show.  Payoffs that could never happen in a series that wasn't as uniquely dense and interconnected as Lost, such as all that Miles and Daddy Chang stuff towards the end of the season.  When Chang's hand was crushed during the Incident, it was one of those little details that showed the master plan for the season--now, all those Lostpedia-obsessing fans who wanted to know why Chang appeared to have a fake hand in the first Orientation film could have an answer.  (More mysterious: Why, in a later-dated Orientation film, Chang's hand is A-OK.  Cloning experiments?  Casimir effect resulting in a duplicate Chang/Candle/Wickman?  Egregious continuity error?  Such little things will be the stuff fans argue over for eons.)



Now, season six.  The first batch of episodes has again left people mostly scratching their heads.  Sure, the flash-sideways are an interesting idea, but it seems to many that we just don't have time for these shenanigans this late in the series, with so many questions left unanswered.  But last night's Ben-centric "Dr. Linus" was without a doubt the most compelling use of the format so far.  We still don't know how, story-wise, the two timelines are going to inevitably merge.  Are we seeing a twisted fulfillment of the promises Smokey has made to the castaways who've joined his effort?  I tend to think so, but we'll see in time.  All I know is, this season has finally started.

It's just too bad the intended oomph of that final, "Oh, it's on!" scene was completely debilitated by the goofy periscope gag.  Austin Powers called, it wants its bit back.

This is a test

of the emergency blogging system.

Come on, say it with me, just like every year: "The Oscars Are a Joke."

Source: Kotaku - Oscar Winning Film Features Xbox 360 Time Travel

"In five years time everyone will remember Avatar and many will remember Basterds. The Hurt Locker is one of those Oscar winners where people will ask, 'How the hell did this win?' and those of us around at the time will say, 'Well, it had a woman director, we were at war at the time, it was all very political.' It stinks."

- Posted by Agumen on Mar. 8, 2010

Well, I think "Agumen" was primarily complaining about The Hurt Locker stealing Avatar's thunder.  I really couldn't care less about which half of that divorcee couple walked away with the Oscar last night; I just think District 9 really got snubbed.  

I suppose it's a combination of 1) timing -- D9 is halfway around the world as far as Oscar's concerned by now; and 2) genre -- There was only room in His Golden Generosity to flaunt so many CG creatures in one season, and most of it went to That Movie With the Blue Native Americans and the Mustache Twirling Rovian Villain.  


But District 9 is a prime example of what I consider to be the best potential in Hollywood filmmaking: A strong, pertinent message in a clever, sellable storyline; good characterization; and the ability to take something utterly unreal and make it relatable.  Because that movie's not really about space-lobsters hanging around Johannesburg too long, is it?  Granted, it may have gone a little action-heavy in the third act, but how many times in a year does a movie put a grin on your face like that without making you feel like you're watching a guilty pleasure?


Those are the kinds of movies I want to make.  Movies like Children of Men, which similarly got no love in 2007, despite that film's groundbreaking cinematic techniques and amazing technical artistry.  Even without the compelling premise, the super-taut script, the pitch-perfect performances, or the visionary directing, Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men was near-perfect on just about every technical level.  Man, I love that movie.

All I'm sayin' is, District 9 deserved to be nominated in a category that it didn't have to share with Michael Bay's Big, Wet, Explosive Robot Dream.