People would just shoot: We were watching Star Trek last night. It was the episode where Lore (Data’s evil twin) comes alive and is trying to give the Enterprise to the Crystaline Entity. Towards the end of the episode Lore is pinned in a transporter bay by Dr. Crusher who has him a “gun point” (set to stun of course). Lore goes into an emotional monolouge that distracts the doctor long enough for him to knock the phaser out of her hand giving him the advantage. Data and Lore then battle until Lore is beamed into space. This reminded Steve and I of an earlier conversation in which we discussed for the world would be a better place if people just acted when they were supposed to. You know the scene, its in almost every movie and show. Our hero is about to conquer the villian through a variety of means and they hesitate. They decide to talk to them, try one more time to reason, or worst of all they listen to the villian’s tacky but well rehearsed speech. The oppurtune moment is lost, the hero looses their footing and the carefully arranged plan of defeat is undone. All too often this faltering would never have happened if the hero had just acted sooner.
Category: Life
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The World would be better if…
People would just talk to each other: We recently watched Evan Almighty, in which Evan delays telling his wife about God’s instruction to him to build an ark. I found his resistance interesting and it makes my second point. I can’t help but think that if Evan had told his wife sooner about what he was doing and why he was doing it, she may have been more understanding. I think too often we, both men and women, fight too hard to not communicate basic things. These things are probably awkward or silly, which can be most of the reason for not communicating about them, but in the end if someone had said something sooner outcomes could have been much better. My roommate Steve, who is heading home for the weekend, wanted to surprise his friends by just showing up. In the end he decided to tell them thus ruining the surprise but allowing them to make plans without him instead of having to change all their plans once he showed up. In general things work out better with even a little communications. -
Geotagging
I have finally finished geotagging all my digital pictures from 2000 to the present. My mission pictures were a little hard, but I am relieved to not have to remember where anything is anymore. Now I just need to figure out what I do want to remember.
Geotagging is a process that Uses Google Picasa and Google Earth to mark where a picture was taken on a map. Once it is marked Picasa stores the longitude and latitude in the picture so that everyone you send the picture to can see where the picture was taken. -
Like James Bond…
It’s like James Bond because it is not bad enough to have to find a pernicious enemy but you have to do so while navigating a deadly array of spikes, magma bursts and a sundry of platforms. Plus you have to remember to look at the camera every so often. For life to be so complicated.
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A hint of deviancy
My first assignment in my Visual Media class was to use square shapes to describe six words that the teacher assigned. We were to make six mockups for each word making a total of thirty-six mockups. We were told to read the rules very carefully and I noticed that they were carefully written. I put my three best designs into Illustrator as instructed.
While it was implied that we could only use squares I carefully read and reread the instructions and realized that all the rules applied only to squares, including being limited to only four squares. I decided that I should push the limits of the design and make the designs more meaningful.
I realize that this is being slightly deviant, the directions were clear, but design is about pushing the requirements. Besides, I think that the designs are so much better with a little bit of line art.
(Postscript: the teacher has since heavily revised the rules to forbid any additional lines. I feel proud to have helped improve the syllabus.)
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Boots and Coat
I have decided that I shouldn’t be allowed to wear my black trench coat with my black snow boots while going out on business. The other day I went to the library and talked to them about a book that they said was overdue for a month. I found it shelved and brought it to there attention. They reversed the fines and as I was walking back to the apartment I was thinking “I own this place”. Then I realized that my attitude was really different than I thought it would be. I decided that wearing my coat and boots made me feel like I owned the world. That is a good thing, sometimes.