Welcome to Sad Salvation. Day by day by day by day ... this is my attempt to make sense of the world.

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Monday, July 21, 2008

The Dark Knight and Batman

I watched the Dark Knight today. It is a wonderful movie, but it has lots of problems. It is not just a great comic-book movie, it is a great crime and action movie also.

I love the characters in this movie. They are well acted and well written. This is amazing to me. For a long time the characters from Batman have seemed silly. I thought that Bruce Wayne was in need of a grief councilor, Two-Face was just random thug, and the Joker was just too broad.

A lot of problems with comic book characters is that they become part of the comic book universe they live in. Most of the cool things that have been done with Superman, Wonder Woman, The Hulk, and Batman are do to the larger story they are part of the other comics. I think this is why the Batman, Justice League and X-Men cartoons work so well. You can build the whole universe with a TV show.

I am impressed with the two new Batman movies because they have been successful without having all this time to set the universe. They are successful in building a world that the viewer understands easily and instantly. I think part of the reason it works is because the way they choose to show the world.

I like to choice to make the world realistic as possible. It is even less stylized than Batman Begins. I think that it makes the drama hit home a little more. Most of the events of the move seem like they could happen here. I think it makes the unbelievable a little easier to take.

I really love what they do with the character of the Joker. Heath Ledger does a great job with this character. I like the idea that the Joker is just an Anarchist. He just wants to see the world burn. This makes the Joker make sense in this world. They also do a good job with the origin of the Joker.

This is the best movie I have seen this year. Yes, it fails a little more that Iron Man, but it also takes more risks. I would tell any movie fan, if they like comics or not, to see this movie.

Labels: batman, comic book, movie, tag overload

- Rich, 3:04 PM |

Saturday, July 19, 2008

The Road

The drive was easier than I expected. I am not sure why I was expecting more traffic. It might have been easier because I was coming down with Kate. The trip went very quickly. I just hope the drive back will be that easy.

Labels: road trip, travel, vacation

- Rich, 11:11 PM |

Friday, July 18, 2008

Before the trip

It is the night before Kate and I end off to San Diego. We went to Target to buy snacks for the trip. I have taken this trip a lot in the past, but I cannot describe what it will be like. I do not not take this trip often enough that is in the front of my mind. I think that it will be great to drive down with Kate. it is just a time for the two of us to be alone.

Labels: road trip, travel, vacation

- Rich, 2:39 PM |

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Messages of All Lengths

I have been thinking about Twitter, Plurk, email, and blogs lately. I have been using Twitter and Plurk a lot lately. I know that they are mostly chatter, but it is easy to fit chatter in with everything else I have to do.

I remember use to love e-mail. Back in 1996 I used to get up first thing in the morning and read my e-mails. If felt exciting, like waiting for letters in the mail. I was sharing e-mail with people all over the world, at least the English speaking world. When I logged onto my computer I could not wait to see what was there for me. It was new and exciting.

Now a days I mostly ignore my personal e-mail. I check it all the time to see is anything good is there, but I rarely write anyone. I rarely get any good e-mail from anyone. If I get an email the correspondence will go on for two or three days before it dies off. There is a lot of reasons this is true. I do not have the attention span for e-mail anymore. It might be because I am so attached to e-mail every day at work I do not want to be attached to it at home.

Twitter and Plurk are interesting because of the short aspects of both these services. Twitter is amazing at how much can be shared in just 140 characters. It has the ability to make me feel very close to some people because it is so casual. Plurk is amazing because at how quick the communication it. It is really communication in the now.

I know that I need to be willing to put times into communication. I would love to e-mail my friends again, but it is more effort than I have to give right now. I hate to think that these forms of communication are making me lazy.

Labels: blog, email, Plurk, Twitter

- Rich, 4:59 PM |

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Canada and Draft

I do not expect the U.S. Military to ever re-start the draft. There are a lot of reasons for this. The Military leaders say a draft gives them a lower caliber of solider because they have to take everyone given to them. The political leadership would have less flexibility to use military force with more an non-volunteer force.

Right now on college campuses around America there are kids saying "I'll go to Canada if the draft comes back." This is the same thing that was being said when I was in college. They might need to think of another plan. It seems that Canada is no longer friendly to U.S. Military deserters. I am not surprised by this. I did not think Canada would be so willing to thumb the U.S. in the eye now a days.

Labels: Canada, draft, Military, New York Times

- Rich, 8:03 AM |

Monday, July 14, 2008

Television and internet viewing

There is a new Nielsen study about TV, Internet and Mobile Usage Among Americans. There are two really points in this report to me. The first is a surprise in how little time people are watching time shifted programs. If 35% of people have I would expect more that 5% of viewership to be timeshifted. When I worked at TiVo we conducted studies saying that TiVo owners timeshifted a lot more of their programs than the people with a cable company DVR.

I am not surprised that people are watching so little television on the internet and on mobile devices. Even with big jumps, the numbers are small compared to how many people are watching TV. Every group watches more TV than internet video. Even under 35 is watching a lot of television. Even the age group 12-17 is watching almost 90 hours a week. This goes against conventional wisdom, but it is the truth. It is sexy to think that broadcast television is a dinosaur and will be gone soon. From these numbers I do not expect this to be true. Television is going to be around for a long time. I think it will be longer than ten years. I think content companies will not be willing to kill broadcast television while they can still make money with it.

Labels: DVR, Nielsen, rating, television, TiVo, web video

- Rich, 8:05 AM |

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Photography and cops

I hate stories where cops tell people that photography is a crime. I really hate stories where cops threaten someone with Jail time if they do not turn over their camera. Stomping on a memory card because the person took a photo of you on your cell phone is being a bully.

I have been reading the photography is not a crime blog a lot lately. There is a lot in play here when it comes to cops and photography. I know that cops are worried that a photograph does not tell the whole story about what is going on. That does not give cops the right to trample over people because they are taking a photo.

I need to take more photos of police officers. I need to stand up for my rights. I think that every photographer needs to stand up like this.

Labels: crime, First Amendment, photography, police

- Rich, 5:57 PM |

Welcome to the iPocalypse

I wonder if anyone got fired over the launch problems of the iPhone G3. Is it wrong for me to laugh at this problem? I think it is funny that Apple got this much hype about the launch and were still not ready for it. I am not sure where they went wrong in the planning, but it is still funny to me.

In the end I do not think they really lost any customers to this. At most they treated some customers poorly, but not poorly enough for them not to want the product. Apple is very good at treating their customers poorly enough not to effect their business. It looks like they got all their problems worked out. I wonder if this will happen with the next iPhone also.

Labels: apple, customers, iphone, produce launch

- Rich, 4:20 PM |

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