Monthly Archive for February, 2008
Rikke recently gifted me this poster. We had it framed and are now trying to figure out which wall in the apartment is actually strong enough to bear it.
At first I was confident it would hang nicely over our bed. Unfortunately it’s a cardboard room-divider more than it is a wall, and so I question whether or not I really want to wake up one night with a framed pixel-art poster of New York embedded in my skull?
So the search continues.
I don’t mean to be an ass about these things, and I really wish I could just sit back and enjoy it when it’s released, but I’m going to tell you up front, just so you know, that the live-action adaptation of Akira will suck, teh balls.
Let’s forget the fact that it is one of the best comics ever written.
Let’s forget the fact that it cannot be adapted properly in full, even for two ‘epic’ movies and that even the animated movie, while interesting, doesn’t make a dent in the manga.
Let’s forget the fact that it breathes post-WWII-Japan, and that replacing ‘Tokyo’ with ‘Manhattan’ for ‘Neo-Manhattan’ is so retarded, not to mention ironic, that I can’t even begin to describe it; and that the film, if it were to be made, could only be made in Japan and still make sense.
(And let’s forget that it will undoubtedly become a post-911 discussion seed… Yeah, like we need more of those).
Let’s forget that Leonardo Dicaprio is 33-years-old playing Kandea, 16-year-old leader of a bike-gang, when he’s not being reprimanded by his gym-teacher…
Let’s forget that it’s a first-time director.
Let’s just forget the whole damn thing.
It’s true, I did. And this is where I would cue the dissonant choral music that builds to the crescendo of civilization taking a step up the ladder; which, by the way, had Rikke trying so very hard to suppress her laughter at its pompousness… Foiled, again!
These things are hard to gauge, and even perhaps overly self-centered, at least by Danish standards. But between Kubrick, through various endeavors, like the Latest Comments plugin and Live Archives (and its successor) and up to K2, I hope my time in the world of blogging has left a mark of some kind; an echo of sorts, for low-level interaction designers, like myself, to not merely lemming their way through the craft, even if it’s on a hobby-level.
I don’t give them all the love they really deserve, so I thought it was time again for me to drop some love for the Media Temple servers, on which Binary Bonsai is hosted.
I don’t believe in marriage at such, but if I was forced into a marriage, I would want it to be with Media Temple.
Media Temple is a good kisser.
Since my 360 recently died, I’ve been wondering what the actual failure rate of the 360 is. Peter Moore claims that it’s a mere 3%, which seems unbelievable, considering how many people I know, who’ve lost their 360 to failures.
Well, it turns out the truth is a bit more severe:
Working with a sufficient sample size of over 1,000 claims, SquareTrade, a warranty seller, has projected the Xbox 360 failure rate at 16.4% — and likely climbing. Comparatively, the company reports failure rates hovering around 3% for PlayStation 3 and Wii, based on less accurate sample sizes numbering in the hundreds. #
16.4% and rising! Phew.
I’m so fucking tired of people gushing over Guillermo Del Toro as the director of The Hobbit. What the fuck are you gushing over? Blade 2? HAH! Or is it how Hellboy looks like the long-lost, but severly swollen cousin of the real Hellboy? Hellboy as a film lacks all of the charm and enchantment of the comic, not to mention the fact that it’s lit like a cheap TV series, and has none of the graphic grace of the comic. And let’s face it, Ron Perlman ain’t that fucking good, okay!?
Pan’s Labyrinth? Yeah, it ain’t bad, but let’s be truthful, it’s also way way overrated. And now that Del Toro’s still tripping on the admittedly nice visuals of Pan, they somehow found their way into the The Hellboy 2 trailer, which is TV-lit swollen Hellboy meets SFX from Pan’s Labyrinth!
But more than anything?
I tried my best to read Lord of the Rings, the trilogy. I could not. I could not. They were very dense. #
Try harder you fucking hack!
I rest my case.
Spent half an hour recording the first in an impromptu series of screencasts about interface design. This episode takes a look at the WordPress dashboard and why it ought to be discarded immediately. There’s also a short look at the WordPress widget system and why that isn’t entirely up to snuff either.
You can comment on the Viddler page or download the fullsize 374mb quicktime file, if you’re so inclined.
PS: With a face for radio and a voice for TV, I should’ve probably just written it; but hey…
Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of the original Charlton Heston vehicle, Planet of the Apes; it having first premiered on February 8th, 1968. I would have written a lengthy adoration, but couldn’t find the time. And having also not been able to find the time to finish this fan-film of sorts, I leave you with the unfinished cut of ‘PLANET’.
That is, Planet of the Apes, sans ‘of the Apes’.
Consider it a rough cut, if anything; it’s very basic and has none of the remixed soundtrack I was planning but the gist is there. It’s based on an idea of a couple of friends of mine, and so intrigued me that I eventually started doing this cut to get the idea out of my mind.
I’m not pointing any fingers, but note this interview with Warren Ellis in Writers on Comics Scriptwriting:
And yet you continue to write superhero comics, why is that?
At the moment, yeah, I’m still writing superhero comics. But Planetary I’m only expecting to run about three years, and that will be the last superhero project I do. Once Planetary is complete, that’s it, I’m out of the genre. Planetary is designed to say everything I have left to say about superheroes.
Page 63, Writers on Comics Scriptwriting by Mark Salisbury
Now note who is scheduled to take over Astonishing X-Men after Joss Whedon.
Not that I’m complaining. I’m just waiting for the damn trade to be released and rereading my Iron Man: Extremis in the interim.
In the case against intelligent design, I say it’s time we stop worrying about the appendix — that wretched evolutionary deadend — and start focusing in on what must surely be the single most retarded piece of code in our collective reptilian brains; Kinetosis.
Or, in the common tongue: ‘motion sickness’.