Sunday, November 30, 2008

Isaac Asimov's Foundation As A Movie?

I stumbled across this article talking about Isaac Asimov's Foundation series being made into a trilogy for the big screen. Asimov is probably my favorite science fiction writer of all time, so this could be good news.

The comparison with Lord of the Rings is very fitting, though. When trying to adapt such an amazing story for movie theaters, it's a nearly impossible task to capture the essence of the books and condense it into a couple of hours of screen time. I sincerely hope they don't mess up this one (like the other crappy Asimov story adaptations they mention).

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Personal Space

I feel like my roommate likes to stick his nose in my business a little too much sometimes. He happened to come to my room to show me some computer stuff and noticed I was writing that previous post so made a comment about how he didn't know I had a blog. It's really not any of his business if I have a blog or not. If I wanted him to know I had a blog, I would have told him about it. I would have thought that was pretty obvious.

I don't particularly like knowing if or who reads what I write. I have too much of a tendency to be cautious about how people I know will react, which completely defeats the purpose of having a place to write freely.

He promised to respect my privacy, so I hope he does. Otherwise, this blog will die. I used to have other blogs or websites where too many people I knew were aware of it. Eventually, I felt too constrained to write there anymore for fear of hurting people's feelings or just plain revealing things to everybody I know. My dad still has my old webpage from college bookmarked on his computer... as if I've written anything on that page in like 7 years.

I still hate blogs just because of how people develop this strange obsession with them. Either the writer starts developing expectations that certain people will read the blog, or the readers start expecting certain things of the writer. I'd rather this blog be a place where I can write or not write and it doesn't matter. I also don't want readers to have some sort of expectations of me.

I'm contemplating writing on this awesome site called everything2 instead of writing here. It's a mind boggling concept for a site. Every piece of writing is a node and nodes contain links to other related nodes. The network of nodes actually learns what's relevant and good based on how people visit and move among the nodes. That's about the coolest way to organize a large quantity of writing I've ever heard of. It's rather intimidating, so I'm probably going to explore the site for a while before attempting to contribute anything meaningful.

P.E.T.A Uses Video Game To Deter Meat Consumption

It makes me happy to see that video games can be used to promote socially progressive notions. P.E.T.A. has a brutal, flash version of the famous "Cooking Mama" game on their website just in time for Thanksgiving.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Newsweek's "Secrets of the 2008 Campaign"

Newsweek did an amazing seven-part series of articles looking behind the scenes of John McCain's and Barack Obama's campaigns.

1. "How He Did It"
2. "Back From The Dead"
3. "The Long Siege"
4. "Going Into Battle"
5. "Center Stage"
6. "The Great Debates"
7. "The Final Days"

Lame Ducks

This whole lull period between an election and the newly elected officials taking office has such a strange atmosphere. In general, there's a bit of a feeling that the important stuff will be what happens at the beginning of next year. I suppose that our government never moves all that quickly, but it's like molasses solidifying now.

The last week since Barack Obama won the next presidency has been wonderful. Americans have regained some standing overseas. There's almost a sense of eagerness and anticipation to see what Obama will do to fix everybody's problems. Obama may have the most powerful office in the land, but he's not omnipotent. I hope people realize that our problems will take time to fix and Congress needs to cooperate.

Alas, though, crunch is starting at work again this coming week, so I'll be absorbed into day to day matters again.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

President-Elect Barack Obama

This has been an amazing election and I'm glad Barack Obama will be our next president. I hope John McCain goes back to being the John McCain of 2000 instead of selling out to the far right in order to secure their votes.

The difference in what the two tickets inspire was strongly evident in their speeches tonight. John McCain's crowd contained the negative, divisive elements of our country. They boo-ed Barack Obama and even Sarah Palin. Barack Obama's party cheered and was genuinely supportive of Obama's message of unity.

I really can't help feeling like we have just witnessed a major turning point in American history. This man can inspire us like very few leaders have been able to.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Legend of the Seeker

I remember seeing ads for this new TV show called "Legend of the Seeker" and thinking that it sounded a bit like the book Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind. I never really investigated till I coincidentally saw part of the first episode on TV today and realized "Hey, that's a quad attacking Kahlann!"

Wizard's First Rule is one of my favorite Fantasy novels of recent times and I'm really glad they chose this book to make a television series out of. On top of that, there are advantages to it being a TV series instead of a movie. If they had gone with compressing a book like this into a two hour movie, it would have been terrible.

From what I saw, it looked like it was fairly well done, but Kahlann's hair is supposed to be much longer. This wouldn't be a big deal, but in that world, the social status of women is indicated by their hair length and she's supposed to be even higher status than a queen.

I doubt I'll keep up with this show while it's airing, but I'll probably binge on it when it's done (like I usually do with TV shows I like).

Palin Preparing For Next Election....

It's pretty ridiculous how Sarah Palin is the bigger name on their ticket. They had a rally in Florida where John McCain's name wasn't visible at all. Palin is clearly building up her own reputation instead of worrying about winning this election with McCain.