Well, this is just unfortunate news.

Variety confirmed today that Paramount has greenlighted Cloverfield 2, with plans to reunite the creative team behind the first film: Drew Goddard will write, Matt Reeves is negotiating to direct again, and J.J. Abrams will be back to produce.

As I said in my review, the film had a lot of problems, and I honestly can’t imagine how a sequel won’t be even more troubled. When you hear the Mr. Reeves talked with ComingSoon.net about one of his ideas for the follow-up, it’s even more worrisome.

CS: Any possibilities for a “Cloverfield” sequel?

Reeves: This was so fun ’cause we’d never done anything like it, and I think we’d want to find a similar challenge, to find a way to have its roots in this but be fresh and new, otherwise you’re just repeating yourself. There’s a moment on the Brooklyn Bridge, and there was a guy filming something on the side of the bridge, and Hud sees him filming and he turns over and he sees the ship that’s been capsized and sees the headless Statue of Liberty, and then he turns back and this guy’s briefly filming him. In my mind that was two movies intersecting for a brief moment, and I thought there was something interesting in the idea that this incident happened and there are so many different points of view, and there are several different movies at least happening that evening and we just saw one piece of another. That idea sort of tickled me. We’ll have to see if anyone would want a sequel. If the movie does well and we find a compelling reason to do so then it would be fun to do a sequel.

Please… no. A whole movie again… from a different angle?  If you have to do this, give us a new part of the story.  Did Rob & Beth survive whatever that bomb was?  (some people speculate it wasn’t a nuke)  Where did the monster come from?  Or, here’s a WACKY idea… EXPLAIN WHY IT WAS CALLED “CLOVERFIELD”!  There are dozens of better ideas than showing us the same story from a different angle, sure, it might be fun, but that doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do.  (I personally lean towards the idea of a news crew… or a soldier on the ground… and how they viewed it, but 20 somethings with a camera again… no thanks)

It doesn’t have to be a “typical” movie, but let’s hope they at least exercise some sensibilities in whatever they choose to do.

U2, the world famous rock band, wants to turn all ISPs in to copyright police and have them stop all that darned piracy!

Paul McGuinness, the gentleman on the right in the picture, has been the manager of U2 since it’s inception. In other words, the man helped craft one of the biggest acts in the music business, and has probably made more money than any of us will see in our lifetime.

According to The Telegraph, while attending the Midem music industry conference in Cannes, France last week, Mr. McGuinness called for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to begin cutting off their customers who were illegally trading music over the Internet. He proposed a three strike system that would eventually result in customers being “banned” from the Internet.

The problem is that Mr. McGuinness clearly has no true understanding of how Internet file sharing works, as demonstrated by his comments. “For ISPs in general, the days of prevaricating over their responsibilities for helping protect music must end. The ISP lobbyists who say they should not have to ‘police the internet’ are living in the past - relying on outdated excuses from an earlier technological age.”

I am going to try to keep this as non-technical as I can, but this is unfortunately a fairly technical issue.BitTorrent, the file-sharing protocol that is used in most piracy, is a non-centralized form of distribution, also known as a peer-to-peer system. This means that there is no one centralized server handling all of the data, it is instead done through multiple computers sending numerous packets of information. Since the packets are small, you can receive say packets “A” and “C” from one computer, and packet “B” could come from a computer in a totally different country.

Once all the packets arrive at the destination computer, the BitTorrent program on the computer will assemble them in to your completed file for you to use.

This is where the problem comes in. Peer-to-peer technology is a fabulous way for a company to distribute an immense amount of data without straining their own systems too much. The systems will use several small parts of bandwidth from numerous sources to off-set the cost to them. This is why companies like Skype, the free computer-to-computer phone service, is a peer-to-peer based system; by using this technology they are offer you the free calls as they are using unused bandwidth where possible. The problem gets bigger here as their packets of information will look similar, if not exactly the same, to a BitTorrent packet.

For an ISP to determine which packets are Skype-like, and which are BitTorrent-like would require them to do “deep packet inspections“. This is defined by WikiPedia as “a form of computer network packet filtering that examines the data and/or header part of a packet as it passes an inspection point, searching for non-protocol compliance, viruses, spam, intrusions or predefined criteria to decide if the packet can pass or if it needs to be routed to a different destination, or for the purpose of collecting statistical information.”

So, even if an ISP would opt to start doing inspections, and sorting out which packets were illegal, they would then run up against net neutrality violations. Net neutrality is a concept that ISPs must treat all packets of information equally no matter what they contain. As Comcast, a popular broadband service provider is learning, when you throttle BitTorrent traffic, even though it’s mainly used for illegal reasons, it can cause the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) take notice and make you face fines up to $1.77 trillion dollars. While net neutrality is still in its infancy, what Mr. McGuinness is essentially asking the ISPs to do is something that is considered unethical to stop something else that is unethical.

He further went on in his speech, entitled “The Online Bonanza: Who is Making All The Money and Why Aren’t They Sharing It?”, to make analogies that make it even more obvious he does not grasp the way the technology he is decrying.

“If you were publishing a magazine that was advertising stolen cars, processing payments for them and arranging delivery of them you’d expect to get a visit from the police wouldn’t you?”

“What’s the difference? With a laptop, a broadband account, an MP3 player and a smartphone you can now steal all the content, music, video and literary in the world without any money going to the content owners.

“On the other hand, if you get caught stealing a laptop in the computer store or don’t pay your broadband bill there are obvious consequences. You get nicked or you get your access cut off.”

His analogy is flawed to say the least. ISPs do nothing but unlock the door to the Internet, a place that is not quite the den of crime people make it out to be, and what you do with it is your own matter. It is more akin to blaming the factory that makes the paper the magazine is printed on then the magazine itself.

A spokesman for the Internet Service Providers’ Association said “We do not support abuses of copyright and intellectual property theft. However, ISPs cannot monitor or record the type of information passed over their networks. ISPs are no more able to inspect and filter every single packet passing across their network than the Post Office is able to open every envelope.”

In theory, yes, they could inspect every packet, but what people like Mr. McGuinness don’t seem to take into account when they make such grand statements is the expenses involved with such an undertaking. Who would pay for the new equipment? Who would pay for the man hours spent going over packet logs to see what was legit? Who would pay to monitor the violations, and the inevitable appeals by customers?

This proposal is an easy out for the music industry. There is no denying that their sales are down, but instead of looking at how the industry is structured, they want to find an outside source to blame. If things were okay inside the industry, performers such as Radiohead and Madonna would not be looking for non-traditional ways to distribute their albums.

The music industry is obviously broken, and instead of looking internally for what ails them, they find it easier to point fingers at external sources, make others (ISPs) “fix” things, and ask them to do that even it is at the cost of neutrality. Mr. McGuinness has accomplished nothing but to show his total lack of understanding of a technology that he feels is evil, and he has also accomplished making me wonder if I should ever support the band he has managed for 30 years, ever again.

I debated bringing this up as I am not one for shameless self-promotion, but no other ideas for a post are leaping out at me.  Let me give you the timeline first.

On Saturday the 26th, I wrote an article over at Mashable.com about the move to make Facebook applications available to websites via a Java Client Library.  The news had been announced late on Friday, and we followed up on it Saturday morning.

At some point (no time stamp provided) Computerworld wrote a very brief article about the news, and it was primarily made up of quotes from blogs, with quotes from my piece taking up a large amount of the piece.

On Tuesday night I got an instant message from Pete Cashmore, the owner of Mashable, asking me about my being mentioned on The New York Times website.  As I had no clue what he was talking about, my eloquent reply was, “huh?” He pointed me to this post on their website.  Apparently Computerworld has a syndicated article deal in place with The New York Times, and so this caused my name and quotes to appear on the site.

While it’s not quite as cool as an actual reporter from the paper picking up the quotes, at least I can still say I was on their site!

Computer gaming enthusiasts are an interesting lot.

Case in point was a comment I found on this post on Engadget about how people are still flocking to Windows XP, even though time is running out. One commenter mentions how he’s skipped Vista as he prefers a more stable OS to work with. He then received the following reply from another poster that said “Let me know how that works out for you when all games require DX10 in the next year or two.”

The original poster came back and stated that he doesn’t game on his computer, and there was no reply, so I imagine the issue is dead. Still, this is a common attitude I run into all over the web from computer gamers that they simply can’t comprehend how anyone can be satisfied with a computer that is anything below a top end gaming rig.

I’ve played my fair share of computer games back “in the day”: Master of Orion II, Civilization 1, 2, and 3, several Star Wars games, I loved the Mechwarrior series and so on. What stopped me was a combination of things, but namely my unwillingness to purchase a new video card every time I turned around. The games constantly expect you to be upgrading and upgrading to keep up with them, and, I’m sorry, but I’m not made of money. Mind you, this was several years ago, and from what I know of the current crop of games, it’s only gotten worse.

As I’ve gotten older (ugh), I prefer the simplicity of console gaming. Sure I have to buy a new console every few years, but when I buy a game for a specific system, I know it’s going to work. I’m not going to put it in, fire it up and be told I need a more powerful video card… or more RAM… or a new sound card… you get the picture.  I just prefer the ease of enjoyment that a console gives me over finding out I can’t buy a game because I don’t have the WillyWooly 256X Video Card with the Slushee attachment in my PC.

So, I have nothing against computer gamers, knock yourselves out, have a ball and enjoy it if that’s your hobby, but why is their this attitude that those of us who don’t are somehow lesser? I have had many conversations with one gamer in particular who just can not comprehend how I am satisfied with run-of-the-mill video cards, he can’t understand how I enjoy any games with my current computer. No matter how many times I tell him I don’t do computer games, he still doesn’t get it.

To each their own I say, just remember, now all of us are using our computers for gaming, some of us actually use them for work!… and porn… can’t forget the porn.

While playing a quick game of Halo 3 (you can see my lousy service record here) the other night before bed, I somehow ended up with seven teenagers on my team. Considering the hours I play, that was fairly odd, but no big deal. The problem was 2 of them were female, and that just made it that much more difficult to play.

See, when you stick 5 teenage boys in a “room” with 2 teenage girls, all that gets accomplished is flirting. And let me tell you, there was plenty of that! I tuned out listening to them when one boy kept insisting the girls prove they were really girls by sending him pictures of thmselves, which they refused to do. As the game progressed though, and we were getting our asses kicked, I finally started listening to them again and… they were discussing where they would like to be raped.

Yes… rape.

“I think I’d want to be raped in a hot tub!”

And I thought, “Okay, they just don’t know what the word means. It’s disgusting, but they don’t know what they’re discussing,” but then one of the two girls says, “I think I’d want to be raped in the bathroom… it’s already dirty.”

After I picked myself up off the floor, though my jaw was still down there, I couldn’t help but finally make some comments to them about it.

“DEAR GOD! Do you all know what you’re talking about?!? Rape is not something to be joked about! Wait until you get older and you’ve known people who have been raped and then see how funny you think it it is!”

To which one of the boys said, “… you’ve been raped? What was that like?”

Cue sound of me repeatedly slamming my head against my controller.

I think I have finally reached that point in my life where I have to wonder, “These kids today, what are they thinking?!?” Which, I guess officially makes me ‘old’, but I’m okay with that in this situation because I don’t think I would be mentally right to not wonder this time.

Hopefully none of these kids will ever suffer such a fate, but I certainly wish they get a clue about what it they’re saying, and soon.

This isn’t the first time that I’ve suspected the RSS feed service, Feeburner, of being on crack. As you can see from the screen shot on the right, no two days in a row show the exact same number.

• 1/19 - 37
• 1/20 - 32
• 1/21 - 35
• 1/22 - 34
• 1/23 - 39
• 1/24 - 36
• 1/25 - 30
• 1/26 - 35

I wouldn’t care so much, but back December 19th, when I set my blogging goals for this year, one of them wanted to add at least 2 readers a month to my RSS subscribers.  At the time I had 30 (approximately) readers, and I hoped to hit 54 by December, so I would kind of like a more precise idea of how I’m doing.

Does anyone have another way to measure your number of subscribers?  It’s obvious I am gaining subscribers, but it sure would be nice to know more accurately by how much.

It seems that you are no longer only responsible for your own actions, but also the actions of anyone you befriend on a social network.

School resource officer John Nohejl of the New Port Richey Police Department is under criminal investigation is under investigation by the his department and the Florida attorney general’s cyber crimes unit for providing pornography to minors. I know, what a horrible crime, right?

Want to know how he did it?

Officer Nohejl has a MySpace profile, something that was encouraged and cleared by both the school and police department, so that he could interact with the kids that he sees each day. Of his 154 friends, it seems one of them had a link on their profile to something called ‘Amateur Match Free Sex’, meaning that children could reach the porn site in just three clicks.

In a quote to the St. Petersburg Times, Sandy Copes, a spokesperson for the Attorney General, said, “I am sure the attorney general would be extremely concerned if a member of the trusted law enforcement community was either inadvertently or directly placing students at risk to being exposed to inappropriate content.” The problem is that Officer Nohejl didn’t place the kids at risk, even “inadvertently”.

In the same article, Chief Martin “Mo” Rickus said “the department will look into how the links got there and what role, if any, Nohejl played.” Um… what role he played? You mean the role he had of getting on someone else’s account and inserting a link? The chief also went on to say that “It’s unfortunate. We apologize that this happened. But it’s something that can happen on any site. We’re going to look into it and see that it doesn’t happen again.” YOU HAVE NOTHING TO APOLOGIZE FOR!

If you go to the officer’s profile now, you’ll find the following statement:

*****DISCLAIMER: NEITHER I NOR THE NEW PORT RICHEY POLICE DEPARTMENT ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY CONTENT FOUND ON OTHER MYSPACE PROFILES LINKED TO OR THAT CAN BE FOUND IN OUR FRIENDS LIST.*****

This should be the end of the story. The officer did nothing wrong, and if you read his comments from students and parents, he is obviously a loved part of the school community. As I said, he has 154 friends, is he supposed to check each friends profile daily for questionable content? Is he supposed to be now not only his own keeper, but the keeper of everyone who talks to him?

So, ready for where this story gets even odder? According to the original story I read on Wired, Lauren Weinstein of People for Internet Responsibility was following the story and investigated the schools website where he found a page with links to sites for clip art. Testing their three clicks theory he checked out the sites and discovered one was now a gay porn site.

The page has since been removed from the site and the principle is “outraged”. Will there be an investigation of him now?

However you slice this, this is despicable and wrong. The officer did nothing wrong, and the stress this must be causing him is just cruel. You can NOT be held responsible for what someone else does with their social profile. Yes, it was unfortunate and embarrassing, but to launch a “criminal investigation”? Inexcusable and wrong in my opinion.
One of my followers on Twitter, sheagunther, was posting about this story yesterday, so all credit goes to him for finding it.

So… this picture hasn’t been 100% confirmed yet, but it’s looking like the picture to the left is the new Enterprise from the new Star Trek movie they’re working on. (You can click it for a MONDO-sized view) If it is the real deal (which I believe it is), they really are going for the re-imagining route. There are some large changes to the nacelles, and the primary hull (the neck down) has lots of new tweaks.

Yes, it is basically the Enterprise, but if you’re doing a prequel, why change it at all?  Take for instance the bottom of the saucer neck, that looks to be photon torpedo tubes like the ship had in all of the movies.  The TV series didn’t have that, so I’m guessing the Enterprise once had it… they cut it off for a few years… then put is back on?  Er…

Now, the pic to the right is an official shot, and 100% confirmed, of the new corridors of the Enterprise.  You have to jump through some hoops to get to it, but it does come from an official source.  (For those who can’t remember what the old corridors look like, I made a comparison shot)  Yes, it looks like JJ Abrams is going “viral” even with the marketing for Star Trek.

I don’t know why this whole concept is bothering me so much, but I just think there are certain things that should be left alone.  Yes, the original series looks dated, but so what?  It was never a show about the sets or locales, it was about good stories and characters you cared about, and the Enterprise was one of those characters.  To change something that so many people grew up with just seems wrong.  Never mind this all looks a little too much like the 5th television series, Enterprise, for my tastes.

It could also be this is coming from J.J. Abrams who just gave us the much hyped, but really pretty much sucked, monster film Cloverfield, and my view may be tainted.  I fear that Mr. Abrams is turning into the next M. Night Shyamalan where people confuse style for talent.

Only time will tell, but I’m getting less enthused by the day.

I came across the unfortunate news that The Wire is losing viewers. Why, I have no clue.

With the current writer’s strike going on, you would think people would be starved for new entertainment, and with this being the final season, you would think would be glued to it.

For those of you unfamiliar with the series, it’s the story of life in Baltimore, MD told from multiple views: the police of Western district, the drug lords that rule there, the backstabbing politics of city hall, and the toll these lifestyles take on these people. Each season has had a different theme, and a whole new set of problems for each group of players in “the game” (as the drug lords like to call it). The name of the series comes from the constant efforts of the Major Crimes Unit always trying to stay ahead of the ways the bad guys constantly change their means of communications, and their need to find ways to intercept their talks.

HBO has a tendency to pick amazing shows (The Sopranos, Deadwood), and The Wire is no exception. The writing is superb, the acting impeccable, and the characters as rich and textured as any you have seen. Without exception, almost everyone will point to the characters of Bubbles, a drug addict, and Omar, a… wow… not sure how you’d label him, as examples of astounding characters. Even the “bad” characters have their good moments, their sense of right & wrong provides some moments of jaw dropping surprise. And, of course, the same goes with the good guys such as McNulty, a cop that has proven he will go to ANY lengths to do the right thing.

The unfortunate thing is that this show has always been like the unwanted child of the HBO family. It has struggled for renewal each season, but has always come back to even larger critical acclaim than the season before it. It has never won an Emmy, it gets very little “water cooler” chat, and, I hate to say it, but I agree with th numerous people who have said over the years that the show is just simply “too black”.

The cast is probably 90 - 95% African American, and it sadly is the only thing that makes sense as to why it doesn’t do better in the ratings and awards. It is on par, if not superior, to the vast majority of shows on television today, and it’s just sad to not see it do better.

As I said earlier, this is the last season, but don’t let that put you off from giving it a try.  Yes, they do reference past stories and events, but each season has it’s own story arc and is easily accessible to new viewers.  They’re three episodes into the fifth season, but HBO does have a habit of running marathons early on in the seasons to let people catch up.

With no new shows for at least a couple of months, now would be the perfect time to give this show a try. Find it for rent, or pick-up the season sets. You can find season 1, season 2, season 3, and season 4 on Amazon.

In a rare fit of “I have no effin’ clue what to blog about today”, I took a hint from ProBlogger, and threw the question out to my Twitter followers for a suggestion. Low and behold, I got a good one back from Leslie Carbone! Thanks Leslie!

It seems that a Ms. Candy Tistadt, the wife of a Fairfax county, Virginia school administrator’s wife, has some anger management issues. Dave Kori, a student in the schools, called the Tistadt homestead to inquire as to why the schools had not been closed when it snowed. What follows is the voicemail Mr. Kori received in return. (ETA: Gee… shocker… the video has been pulled)

So… I Guess No Snow Day Then? This 17-year-old called his principal`s home phone regarding a potential “snow day.“ He got more then he bargained for.

ADDED TRANSCRIPT:
This is Candy Tistadt, Dean Tistadt’s wife. This message is for Dave Kori. How dare you call us at home?! If you’ve got a problem with going to school, you do not call somebody’s house and complain about it. My husband was up at 4 o’clock this morning, trying to decide the best thing to do, to send you to school, on a day when the weather man is calling for one thing and another thing happens. You don’t begin to know what you are talking about, and don’t you ever call here again! My husband has been at the office since 6:30 this morning, so don’t you even suggest that he purposely didn’t answer his phone. He is out almost every single night of the week at meetings for snotty-nosed little brats, and he may not have called you but it is not because he’s home because it snowed. Get over it kid, and go to school. Get an education, that’s what you’re there for.

Okay, I’m of two minds on this… I know, you’re all shocked, so just follow along. While I have never been known for my love of public school administrations (just a couple of examples), I do think without hearing Mr. Kori’s message can we actually completely condemn her. I do feel her level of reaction was uncalled for, and I do wonder what the student thought he was doing calling over something that it was too late to do anything about, but she still went too far. In short, both sides are faulty in this, and it’s easy to condemn Ms. Tistadt, but let us not forget that Mr. Kori probably went a tad too far also.Everything she complains about her husband doing for the “snotty nosed brats”? Guess what, it’s part of being a school administrator. It’s not just an 8 AM to 3 PM job, so her husband knew what he was getting into when he took this line of work. Yes, she could have called him and explained herself in a calmer manner, no matter what Kori’s unknown side sounded like, and she could have refrained from the name calling.

Seeing as this story has been picked up by places such as WashingtonPost.com, I think it’s safe to say this man is going to have a long, long rest of the week thanks to his wife.

Well, this sucks.

Heath Ledger, star of Brokeback Mountain and the upcoming The Dark Knight, has been found dead in a Manhattan apartment.  The apparent cause of death was some form of cardiac arrest as that’s what the call came into police as at 2:27 PM EST.

Considering he was only 28, I hate to say it, but I’m calling drugs on this one.  I hope I’m wrong, I sincerely do, but seeing as pills were found in the vicinity of the bed, things don’t look hopeful for it to be anything else.

When are actors going to learn?  How many have to die in such silly, frivolous ways before they realize they are doing nothing but throwing away their lives?  Ledger was an amazing, rising talent.  His turn in Brokeback Mountain, no matter your view of the subject matter may be, was amazing.  What little of him as The Joker from The Dark Knight that has been seen looks equally genius.  He had a long and bright future ahead of him, I despise the idea he may have intentionally thrown that away with illicit drugs (there’s every chance this is a “Doctor over-medicated him” situation, so I’m not fully condemning him yet).

Only time will tell, but what a horrible loss of a young talent.

SPOILER HEAVY - Do not read if you do not wish to be spoiled. It is not a normal review in that it expects you to have seen the movie.

Continue Reading ->

While listening to The History Channel today as I wrote, a documentary about Jonestown came on that got me to thinking about how words and phrases work their way into our vernacular.

For those unfamiliar with the story of Jim Jones and Jonestown, it would take forever to explain the finer details, but essentially it was a religious cult that set itself up a small town in northwestern Guyana. When the town came under investigation for various crimes, and was visited by United States Congressman Leo Ryan, several cult members decided to leave with the politician, setting Jim Jones into a rage. He ordered the Congressman’s plane attacked, and fearing retribution for their acts, he ordered the entire cult to commit suicide. Those that did not commit suicide of their own accord were killed by the devout followers.

The means by which everyone died is where this plays into my thoughts on language. A large vat of Kool-Aid was mixed up and laced with cyanide. The followers were then told to “drink the Kool-Aid”, those that did not do so voluntarily were injected with it.

At some point, this incident turned to the sayings of “Don’t drink the Kool-Aid” when you think someone is being blinded by someone or something, or “They’ve taken a drink from the Kool-Aid” if you think they’ve already been sucked in. Of course there are numerous variations of both, but you get the general idea.

So, I’m curious as to how this became such a part of the American lexicon when I highly doubt many people realize its origins. True, it is very fitting in some situations, but how many people realize they are referencing an instance of mass murder when they use it? Do people not care? Do they not know the origins? Do they not care? And don’t get me wrong, I’ve been known to use it, and I did know the reference long before today, but it is the best analogy at times.

What do you think? How did it get so ingrained? Do you know other odd instances? What do you think of this particular one?

It appears with the success the Director’s Guild of America (DGA) had in their negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers (AMPTP) has led to the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) asking to go back to the negotiation table.  Apparently talks could resume as early as this Tuesday.

I had wondered if the AMPTP settling so quickly with the DGA may have been their way of sending a message to the WGA without actually having to tell them directly that they want to talk.  So long as the writers get what they deserve, I could care less when the talks happen.

Well, I think it was more a slap in the face than anything, but the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers (AMPTP) has already settled their negotiations with the Director’s Guild of America (DGA) after only six days of negotiations.  It seems the directors are getting a bump to their DVD residuals, and they’re getting paid for streaming Internet video with ads.  At least that is what The New York Times is reporting.

Um… isn’t that what the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) has been asking for?  I mean, we’re in week 10 of the strike, with no movement, and the DGA gets exactly what the writers have been asking for in the span of six days?  I don’t want to scream about the way Hollywood views writers vs directors, but I think this pretty much speaks to it.

In my opinion, writers have never gotten the respect they deserve in the creative process, and this is just another example of it.  How DARE those writers ask to be paid for work they’ve done!  Who do they think they are wanting to make money from their toils when the producers are collecting advertising revenue based on said work!  OUTRAGEOUS!

This just smells of an insult to me.  It’s insulting they won’t give writers the pittance they are asking for, and its insulting they would bow to the DGA as quickly as they did.  At this point, I hope the strike drags on for months, if not years.  The 1988 strike went 22 weeks, we’re almost half way there, let’s see how the producers feel at, oh say… week 40?

Time for yet another random movie post where I ramble endlessly about things that probably only matter to me. Always a good time for you, dear readers.

X-Files 2 is currently filming in Canada, and the studio has seen fit to release four stills from the shoot. Believe me, the one to the left is the most exciting one, but if you want to see them all, here are shots #1, #2, #3, and #4.

Luckily the press release included with the photos indicated that the film is a stand alone story, and has nothing to do with the alien invasion mythos that muddied up a good chunk of the series. Don’t get me wrong, I have no problems with a show having an overall story arc, I actually prefer it, but when you have one that you can tell they’re making up as they go along, it can be downright painful.

The whole black oil/old-guys-in-suits-who-know-what-it-is storyline just never played right with me, and I always preferred the stand-alone episodes a heck of a lot more. I think it may have worked better had they had it all plotted out, but seeing as the show was on Fox, and you can never count on how long they will let a show run, they probably never saw a point to getting things plotted out.

So, yay to their being a new X-Files story, and even bigger yay to it being a stand-alone!

Movie #2 is the Star Trek prequel J.J. Abrams is behind. An image came out from the teaser trailer (as usual, click for largeness), and I hate to say it, but I’m not sure if a promise of a flight in a real U.S.S. Enterprise could get me excited about this project. I’m a long time Star Trek fan, but the idea of a series “reboot” for such an iconic series just seems wrong to me. Yes, I realize the franchise is currently in limbo, but did anyone ever think that maybe that’s where it belongs?

The quality of the franchise degraded drastically towards the end, and the last Next Generation movie, which I can not remember the name of to save my life, nor do I feel like looking it up it stunk so bad, coupled with the abomination that was Enterprise, pretty much told everyone what they needed to know: It was time to close up shop for awhile.

So, here we are just a few years later, and we’re going to try to “reboot” the series by bringing us a prequel that fits in some sort of weird limbo between Enterprise and the original series, and gives us the adventures of the young, original crew. Couldn’t we have waited another 5 or 10 years? Why now? Why THIS concept? It’s sophomoric, trite, and been flogged to death as a concept. I guess they are hoping for a nostalgia factor, but for me it smells of desperation.

Please tell me I’m not the only one who wants to call this Star Trek Babies…

Last, but not least, is Cloverfield. I’ve been so stoked for this movie, but now that I have seen a spoiler shot of the monster (no, I am not ruining it for people)… I’m passing.

I don’t really care what format you shoot a monster movie in, and this one does have a cool concept, if the monster isn’t a kick-ass design, then it’s just not going to matter. From what I have seen of it, the descriptions I’ve read and heard, they missed the mark and it comes off more as goofy than cool.

Sure, Godzilla was always a man in a suit, but you didn’t care because he had a T-Rex vibe going.  (and no, I am not counting that craptastic American remake)  Gamera may have been a turtle, but he was a FLYING turtle… okay, possibly a bad example.  You have to enjoy the monster design though to enjoy a MONSTER movie, and if it comes off as goofy, then… it’s just plain old goofy.

No matter how Abrams may have tried to make this movie about people surviving, he should have realized that people were still going to care what the monster looked like.  I think that may have also been why he hid this monster so much and distracted us with so much viral marketing (which, has now been learned has about zero impact on the plot) was to keep us from seeing the incredibly silly design.  I’ve heard some talk that he brought in various animal experts to help with the realism of the monster, and make it believable.

… did someone forget to tell him it’s a frikkin’ monster movie?  WE DON’T CARE IF IT’S “REALISTIC”!

March 4th…

No one talk to me for a day.

I have often seen people blog about suffering from “information overload”, but I honestly could never understand it.  How could any one ever suffer from TOO much information?  Knowledge is power, and the more knowledge I have, the happier I am.

Or so I thought.

The Internet has put an endless amount of information at our fingertips, and it can be intoxicating to absorb as much of it as possible.  However, like any fine wine, if you consume too much, you find yourself in the bathroom, wrapped around a toilet, cursing not only the person who gave you said wine, the winery, the person who grew the grapes, and the deity of your choice for having given the world said grapes.

I think I am quickly reaching this point.  As I have immersed myself more into the tech blogosphere,  I’ve found my need for information has grown exponentially.  I have numerous sources I must check every day for story leads, see what the competition is up to, check my emails, see what’s been published by the blogs I work on while I slept, etc, I am finding it is taking an hour or more each morning to “get up to speed” when I get going each morning.

The question is: What techniques do you use to absorb as much information as possible in the shortest space of time?  I went over to RSS reading months ago, so that’s done.  I’ve condensed my email addresses as much as I think I can.  So what are your time shaving tips and tricks?

I know everyone is excited about the MacBook Air, and I hate to steal its thunder, but I have come across some top secret photos of the next iteration of the MacBooks!

Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, let me introduce you to the MacBook Paper!

This is how I think the presentation might go.”The MacBook Air was amazing, measuring only an astounding 0.76″ thick, and that was quite an accomplishment, but we were sure we could do even better. So, today we’re introducing the MacBook Paper. It measures in at a mere .004″ thick.We had our designers working over time on this, and I just can’t believe what a quality job they did, this truly is the most exciting MacBook yet.With MacBook Air, we were all excited about bringing in the weight at 3 pounds, but even that was just too heavy. I wanted it lighter, I wanted to barely know I was holding it, so this comes in at… 1 gram. I really don’t know how we can get any lighter, but we’ll be trying!

Now, the screen size was an issue, but we got it worked out, and it’s truly a full-screen, 8 & 1/2″ X 11″, there’s not a millimeter of space that isn’t occupied by this display… it’s amazing.

Interface has always been an issue. Too many keys, QWERTY is a thing of the past, I’m bored with it. So, I looked to the iPhone and iPod Touch, one button, that’s all we needed, so why not have one interface for the entire Paper?

We’re going old school with a stylus folks. That’s right, you’ll be able to write on the MacBook Paper, making this our first tablet Mac!

-hold for roar of the crowd and widespread adulation-

Thank you… thank you… and for those of you wondering where the stylus fits since it’s thicker than the Paper, we’ve come up with a universal holder you can take with you anywhere. The iCarrier will come free with the MacBook Paper, but because it’s just so good looking, you’ll be able to buy them today at the Apple Store for $29.99.

I really don’t know how many more features I can announce on this but there’s even more. Battery life. It’s always been a problem, running out of power just as you’re finishing a document in Pages, so, again I went to the designers, and we think we’ve done it… the iBattery. If you’re awake, it’s on. I was up for 48 hours straight with the thing, and it didn’t die on me once!

Now, we did find storage space a bit tricky, I’m not going to lie. Hard drive designers just couldn’t keep up with us. So, it may sound a bit crazy, but… we’re selling them in bulk. You’ll get 500 MacBook Papers at a time.

-random heads in the crowd explode-

It’s okay, there’ll be clean-up crews moving amongst you, we planned for this. They’ll be using the new iVacs by the way, that guy from Dyson got on my nerves, so we designed a vacuum with 50% more power than his.

So, to recap, full-size screen, unlimited battery, one touch interface, the iCarrier comes with it, 500 in a package, you can order yours in the Apple stores today for $999. We may have actually gone too low this time, but we view this as a great introductory level Mac for the novices.

Oh, and one last thing, we’ve gone completely green with this one, it’s 100% recyclable.”

With all apologies to Fake Steve Jobs… because that really isn’t the vibe I was going for.

This will be my final post on “GizmodoGate”, (yes, I made that the name… this was needing of a “Gate” <em>edit:I didn’t mean first anywhere… I figured SOMEONE had said it, I just hadn’t seen it, much to my surprise</em>) as it is obvious that they have their heads to far up their own hindquarters to care what anyone in the world says about them.

They have posted a reply to their “critics” about the “prank” they pulled at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) last week. Instead of standing up and taking their comeuppance like men (it was all men from what I understand, so I’m not being sexist), they have decided to wag a finger at the people who have criticized their childish antics.

What Brian Lam, the “man” in charge of Gizmodo, fails to see is that his actions reflected on the entire blogosphere. Any blogger trying to get access to an event now will now be lumped into the same primordial ooze pit these troglodytes crawled out from. Bloggers already have credibility issues, and for you to attend a major business function such as CES with the intent to cause disruptions is inexcusable.

Journalists are meant to report the news, not to create it. By injecting themselves into the proceedings in such a manner they ended up doing just that; you became the story. They took the focus away from the event, from the companies who pay enormous sums to hold this event, and made their little Jackass style prank the belle of the ball. If it wasn’t their intent to put the focus on themselves, they wouldn’t have videoed the entire proceedings and then placed it on their site.

In his response, Mr. Lam tries to make the prank sound almost noble, as if it was his site’s duty to do this.

You don’t get more access by selling out for press credentials first chance you get, kowtowing to corporations and tradeshows and playing nice; you earn your respect by fact finding, reporting, having untouchable integrity, provocative coverage and gaining readers through your reputation for those things. Our prank pays homage to the notion of independence and independent reporting. And no matter how much access the companies give us, we won’t ever stop being irreverent. That’s what this prank was about and what the press should understand.

“Untouchable integrity”? Intentionally interfering with the operations of a business during a presentation is now considered “untouchable integrity”? And to lift your antics to such lofty levels to say it “pays homage to the notion of independence and independent reporting” is nauseating, at best. How was this reporting? At what point during this “homage” did it lead to anything more than a self-gratifying night of giggling as these people edited together video snippets of their acting like asses?

Mr. Lam tries to liken his site’s reporting to great journalism, but I hate to burst his delusional bubble of self-importance… he writes about gadgets. Yes, it is a multi-billion dollar industry, but at the end of the day, it’s still just shiny, expensive toys. This style of reporting isn’t saving lives, it isn’t uncovering government corruption, it’s not reporting on genocidal crises such as Darfur, or the current unrest in Kenya, it’s expensive toys. Nothing more, nothing less.

This isn’t to say gadget bloggers shouldn’t be considered journalists, it’s no different than someone working at a newspaper as a food critic; that person is still a journalist, just of a different stripe. And gadget bloggers could be seen as journalists someday, but we won’t ever get their if we continue to over inflate our importance in the world of journalism, or as long as we pull grade school pranks.

Gizmodo should have said “mea culpa”, taken their lumps, and moved on, instead they decided to alienate themselves from the rest of the industry. Good job.