Archive for March, 2008

Mysterious Cupcakes

Monday, March 31st, 2008

First report came in that my book is available for purchase at Barnes & Noble. Excellent. I think. I'm terrified.

I came home to find a giant box of author's copies at my doorstep. Then I went to visit wee GracieGurl at Children's Hospital, and promised her we'd break her out, soon. That place is NO GOOD. Seriously. I used ASSCAPS, there, so you know I'm truthing.

When I got back, there was a plate of cupcakes at my doorstep, with no note. Mysterious cupcakes. Should I eat them? Are they poisoned? If they are poisoned, and I do eat one, perhaps I won't have to go to work tomorrow.

I'd rather stay home and be all Flowers in the Attic than to have to go to work tomorrow. I'm too jittery about Book Stuff.

PS: Special shoutout to my mom and my aunt Patty for sending me pretty things for the community garden! Next post will be about the epic fight with the landlord about said garden, a weird new curfew, and how I succumbed to the lure of the possibly poisoned cupcakes.

New This Week @ your library, June 5th, 2007

Sunday, March 30th, 2008

New Movies on DVD

The Messengers
The Solomon family is torn apart by suspicion, mayhem, and murder when 16-year-old Jess and 3-year-old Ben begin seeing ominous apparitions that are invisible to everyone else. With Dylan Mcdermott, John Corbett, Kristen Stewart, Penelope Ann Miller. (2007, 84 minutes, rated PG-13)

Norbit
Mild-mannered Norbit has a second chance at love with his childhood sweetheart, but the one major obstacle standing in his way is jealous Rasputia, his larger-than-life fiancee. With Cuba Gooding, Jr., Eddie Griffin, Eddie Murphy, Thandie Newton. (2007, 102 minutes, rated PG-13)

Cannes Wrap-up

Thursday, March 27th, 2008

Before George the Cyclists bikes off across Europe he has one last wrap-up review of the Cannes Film Festival.

——
With all the good films this year there weren't enough awards to go around to recognize them all.  As expected, the Palm d'Or went to the Romanian abortion film “Four months, Three Weeks and Two Days.”
Also expected, Do-Yeon Jeon from the South Korean film “Secret Sunshine” won best actress.  The early favorite from the Russian film “Alexandra” dropped off the map after this film screened.  And it was no surprise that Fatih Akin won best screenplay for his intricately plotted German/Turkish film “The Edge of Heaven.”
   The rest of the awards were not exactly what was anticipated. The biggest shocker of all was the lead from the Russian film “The Banishment” winning the best actor award. Few expected that film to receive any recognition from the jury. Best director going to Julian Schnabel for “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” was a surprise, even to him.

Of the 19 films I've seen, not a one was a dud. 
Not all were universally embraced, but even those that were reviled by some had others calling them masterpieces, as with the Bela Tarr, Ulrich Seidl and Tarantino films. Half the films in Competition were by veteran, established directors, none of whom stumbled, each delivering another work in their distinctive styles that will at least please their devotees.
 

Do-Yeon Jeon in “Secret Sunshine” plays a recently widowed 25-year old who moves to the city where her husband was raised with their five year old son. The city is small enough that everyone seems to know who she is, but think it odd that she would move to a city she had never been to. As one woman says, “She looks fine, but I don't think she's normal.”  She gives piano lessons and is pursued by a nerdy, never-married, semi-repugnant 39-year old. She suffers a traumatic event that leads to her embracing Christianity. She becomes supremely devoted and seems saved, but she suffers another traumatic event giving her doubts. As with the other film in competition, this movie has a prison scene that is the crux of the story. The range and depth of her performance was profoundly moving.

“Promise Me This,” by Serbian Emir Kusturica, two-time Palm d'Or winner. This rollicking, frenzied, sometimes farcical story of a teen-aged peasant who is sent to the city to find a wife for himself by his grandfather will delight all of Kusturica's fans and others as well. Kusturica's exuberant imagination shows no signs of diminishing. Guys are clobbered left and right by falling and flying and flung objects. A guy fired from a cannon is glimpsed throughout the duration of the movie above the mayhem below. When he lands he wants to know what's happened in the Italian soccer league.

The Japanese “The Mourning Forest” put us back on the “film as art” track.  Panoromic and aeriel shots of lush green forests and precisely trimmed rows of hedges that made for good hiding complemented the story of an elderly Japanese man approaching death and his relationship with a young woman. They go off into the forest for a couple day trek that has moments sweet and poignant.

Micrsoft and AOL Spam

Wednesday, March 19th, 2008

This email spam is not even professional. I don’t think the recipient could simply be deceived by it. Any recipient will get doubts about it as the spammer wrote AOL all in small letters. He forgot also to paragraph his email. The entire email spam with its signature file is all set with no line breaks. The spammer is absolutely one of those few people who believe that they could deceive others because others are not clever like them. This is a bad feeling and a bad habit.

I’ll break those lines for him or her here:

The prestigious Micrsoft and aol has set out and sucessfully organised a Sweepstakes marking the new year 2007 anniversary we rolled out over 5,000.000.00 Pounds (Five million Great Britain Pounds) for our end of year Anniversary Draws.

Participants for the draws were randomly selected and drawn from a wide range of web hosts which we enjoy their patronage.

Your email address as indicated was drawn and attached to ticket number 008795727498 with serial numbers BTD/9080648302/06 and drew the lucky numbers 14-21-25-39-40-47(20) You have therefore won the entire winning sum of 500,000.00 Pounds (Five Hundred Thousand Great Britain Pounds).

To file for your claim Please Contact your fiduciary agent:

Mr George Simmons
Microsoft Promotion Award Team
Email: george . simmon @ yahoo . com
Email: microsoftpromo @ microsoftpromo. cjb. net
Phone : +44-702-408-2713

You are advised to contact your fiduciary agent with the following details to avoid unnecessary delays and complications:

Your Full Names
Country
Ticket Numbers
Batch Number
Serial Number
Lucky Numbers as indicated in this winning Notification and
Phone numbers.

Thank you for being part of this promotional award program.

Our special thanks and gratitude to Bill Gates and his associates.

We wish you the best of luck as you spend your good fortune.

Thank you for being part of our commemorative new year Anniversary Draws.

Sincerely,

Mr. Nicky Oswards.
______________

Well I don’t know how could a Microsoft Promotion Award Team get an email address at Yahoo and other unknow Microsoft emails but not at his Microsoft primary address!

This is why I am feeling sorry for those spammers.
_______________

Read other articles but not spam:

http://www.sbisconsultation.com
http://www.home-biz-trends.com
http://flowers-essence.wordpress.com
http//www.ezine-act-politics-business-and-love.com/ezine-act-blog.html
http://www.child-book-publishing-ezine.com/child-book-publishing-ezine-blog.html

They’re dropping like flies

Tuesday, March 18th, 2008

Death must be in the air these days, and I don’t believe it’s just the stench of human decomp wafting over from Abby Chapel of the Redwoods.

Let’s pause for a moment to reflect on some of the passages we’ve noted recently…When wine mogul Ernest Gallo, the 297th richest person in America, died last week at the ripe old vintage of 97, my thoughts turned to his younger brother Joseph, who passed away about three weeks earlier.

Joseph Gallo owned a cheesemaking enterprise known today as Joseph Farms. (Good stuff, as stock American-made cheese goes. We buy Joseph Farms products quite often.) Originally, the company was called Joseph Gallo Cheese. Ernest and Julio Gallo, however, didn’t like the fact that their junior brother was slapping the family name on his dairy output, so they sued Little Joe over the rights to the Gallo moniker… and won. Thus Joseph Gallo — despite being every bit the Gallo his elder siblings were, genetically speaking — was legally estopped from using his own name on his cheese.

Blood may be thicker than water, but wine is thicker than either.

Wow… Richard Jeni. There’s been any number of comedians whose lives played out like horror headlines waiting to be written — Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, Freddie Prinze, Sam Kinison, and Mitch Hedberg are just a handful of the names that leap to mind — but Jeni didn’t seem like that kind of guy.

Jeni always seemed amazingly normal for a comic, and his wry observations about life were earnest and easily to identify with. Whatever his demons were, they didn’t surface in his comedy to any pathological degree.

Maybe that would have helped.

Most casual comic books readers likely never knew who writer Arnold Drake was. To the cognoscenti, Drake was a legend — an iconoclastic creative talent who specialized in unique ideas and good old-fashioned fun.

In the realm of superhero comics, Drake’s best-known creations reflected his wonky sensibility: Doom Patrol, which was kind of like the X-Men as seen through a funhouse mirror, and Deadman, the bizarre tale of a murdered circus acrobat who wandered the earth hunting his killer. But Drake was more than just a scribe of muscular, slam-bang fantasy — he also invented a clever comedy series called Stanley and His Monster that in many elements prefigured the later Calvin and Hobbes. Drake also wrote dozens of issues of Little Lulu.

I sat in on Drake’s delightful showcase panel at WonderCon two years ago. The man knew where all the industry’s bodies were buried, and he knew how to tell a great story. I’m grateful now that I took the opportunity to see him in person while he was still among us. He was a genuine treasure.

I felt a twinge of sadness when I heard some time ago that the Stardust Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas had shuttered. That twinge hit again as I read the news this morning about the old joint being imploded to make room for a new megadevelopment. By the time of its demise, the Stardust wasn’t the swankiest joint on the Strip, but it sure held a history.

KJ and I enjoyed a terrific evening at the Stardust some years back. We dined at the ‘Dust’s resident outlet of Tony Roma’s Ribs, then caught a pretty decent production show called Enter the Night. Of course, the show that made the Stardust famous, Lido de Paris, was long gone by then, its stars Siegfried and Roy having jumped ship for the Mirage several years earlier. But we had a nice time anyway.

I’m told that the Stardust’s legendary sign, at one time the largest display on the Strip, has been preserved by the Neon Museum in Vegas. As for the Stardust itself, the lights are out, and the party’s over.

Russian hackers target political LiveJournal sites

Monday, March 17th, 2008

LiveJournal have raised questions as to the hackers’ identities and suspicious-looking motives.

Not a Good Morning

Sunday, March 16th, 2008

First you’ve got Anthony’s idiot date telling him to go for that idiot Elizabeth, who’s decided to make moon-eyes at him for the past couple of months, which put me right off my mood, and now this:

The Times - Hamas-land and Fatah-land at war. Amir Taheri on three reasons for trouble ahead

The medium-term cause of the fighting is Hamas’s desire to push the wooden nail into the heart of the Oslo accords, the “undead” that haunts Palestinian politics with the elusive prospect of a two-state solution.

Fatah bought into the two-state philosophy in the 1990s. It regards Gaza and the West Bank as pieces of a jigsaw that, put together, would make an independent Palestinian state that would exist alongside Israel. The constitution of Hamas, however, commits it to the creation of a single state. Gaza and the West Bank are regarded as bases from which the struggle for the liberation of the entire mandate of Palestine, that is to say the elimination of Israel, is pursued for as long as necessary. …

Having won the general election 18 months ago, Hamas launched a drive to “Islamicise” Gaza, forcing women to wear the hijab and men to grow beards. It burnt down the last beer factory in Gaza and banned the sale of alcoholic drinks. Bands of youths calling themselves “Brigades of Enforcing the Good and Combating Evil” raid homes in search of alcohol, Western music and videos, unIslamic T-shirts and other “sinful items”. Young men and women found together in public, or even in private cars, are stopped and interrogated to make sure unmarried couples do not violate Sharia rules.

Hamas is convinced that time is running out for Israel and that, with Islam experiencing a global renaissance, the chance of victory against the “Infidel”, in this particular corner of the world, is rising by the day. Exclusive control of Gaza will enable Hamas to devise a low-intensity pincer war against Israel with the help of Hezbollah in Lebanon, supported by Iran and Syria. Hamas is also encouraged that, for the first time in two decades, several regional powers, including Iran, Syria, and Libya, support its “one-state” strategy.

And:

The Times - Two-State Solution
The world must come to the aid of the West Bank

Some will argue that the violence of the past week is no more that another upsurge of the factionalism and internecine rivalry that have repeatedly dealt blows to Palestinian hopes. This is naive. Something fundamental has changed in Gaza. Secular politics has been replaced with Islamist extremism, rational argument with zealotry that has no wish to engage but to conquer. This, to many Arabs, is the spillover from Iraq, the triumph of a revolution that began with the Ayatollah Khomeini and has now affected politics across the Middle East. Those Arab governments that have seen the need for reform, that are desperate to ward off popular unrest, are deeply worried by what has happened. They – and the Israelis – must redouble efforts to end the political stalemate, however impossible any initiative seems in Gaza. But in the end it is only the Palestinians who can prevent the collapse of their aspirations. They must take responsibility for what has happened. For they, again, are the victims.

And we have to save them. They, again, voted for these idiots, let’s not forget. Maybe if we leave them alone they’ll stay out of it and vote for the Liberal Democrats next time, eh?

Problematic precedents and mangled metaphors

Saturday, March 15th, 2008

I’m moving house, business is booming, we’re running a complex project, and I’m travelling a lot. Oh, and two kids and a wife who are hinting they’d like to see more of me. Plus I can’t live without some occasional time off and fun too. I don’t have any spare time for much right now, but this one is too important not to comment on, so I’ll break my long radio silence.
Susan Crawford, one of the sharpest knives in the telecoms policy drawer, reports on the 700MHz spectrum auctions in the US. (Susan, for some reason Blogware refuses to display pages when the referrer is Bloglines — get ‘em to fix it :) ) — she has several follow-up posts worth reading.
The nub of the issue is whether the auction should mandate some kind of open access regime where users can attach any device of their choosing to the wireless network, not just ones approved by the carrier who supplies the retail connectivity. This is (misleadingly, in my opinion) referred to as a wireless equivalent of the famous Carterphone decision that heralded the break-up of the vertically integrated AT&T landline monopoly (rev 1.0). (Susan’s just reporting the proceedings, not advocating the terminology, so I’m just pointing you that way for the succinct background material.)
I don’t think the Carterphone precedent is an apt one for wireless IP networks. The fixed network provided an end point with metered access to a (then) noticeably capacity-limited circuit-switched network. You could attach a device with a radically different usage profile (e.g. a dial-up modem, fax machine) and you’d automatically carry the cost of that usage yourself. The network also offered a single line speed at the edge — you couldn’t demand more (at least not without a massive price leap to a business-class T1 line or more). Metering based on time alone works well.
Furthermore, the competition between users for scarce capacity was in the switching fabric and the long-distance network, not in the local loop. Yet when you move to an unbundled regime these cease to be bottlenecks as competitive carriers can simply install their own switches and backhaul — at least, it works here in Europe, even if the FCC can’t figure out how to enforce its own rules in a timely manner.
Wireless doesn’t work that way. When you buy an “unlimited” Internet access plan from Sprint or Verizon, they’re calculating the likely usage profile based on the capabilities and form factor of the device and pricing accordingly. Yes, in some cases they even nobble these features to dampen demand. They also use contractual terms to say you can’t use the device as a modem for a PC, for example.
If you can come along with any data-hungry device and expect to demand the same retail pricing plan, you’re going to blow up the business model. The network becomes over-congested, often with low-value file sharing or media download traffic for which there is low user willingness to pay.
Destroying the vertical silo might sound like a good idea to those who feel the telco business deserves some radical change. However, you need to come up with a better idea of creating a market around access to a finite spectrum resource. (And you mesh folk have a lot of technology, economic, policy and usability problems to solve before that changes.) Unlike wireline, there’s contention on the access layer. The scarcity is at the edge, not in the core.
The outcome of a “retail Carterphone” will be a shift to metered or congestion-based pricing. This may result in a loss of consumer welfare, as users highly value flat-rate price plans. Flat rate only works as long as the usage curve has a reasonably large and predictable spike in the middle, and you can manage the fat tail via traffic shaping, fair use terms, and contract enforcement. Allowing any device, software or service drives the network capex tail of heavy users without raising compensating revenue.
We’ve already seen in Korea on their fixed network a move from flat rate to metered, with much consumer resistance. The same has pretty much happened in the UK with BT’s wholesale pricing regime on fixed. Due to over capacity of 3G spectrum and networks from the build-out mania, it’s too early to say if the huge buckets of data offered by folk like T-Mobile with Web’n’Walk will persist. If they got too popular, and people actually started to use what they’ve bought, say to watch unicast video on their iPhones, the networks would clog up quickly.
You could instead opt of a “wholesale Carterphone”, where anyone can come along and buy wholesale connectivity, and then offer retail pricing for locked-down and non-interchangeable devices. Those wholesale contracts can then be extremely complex if need be, with mixes of usage, time, congestion, device class and other factors such as traffic shaping in the backhaul or content caching services. The users never get to see that complexity. However, we’re getting a very long way from the original Carterphone deal where the retail market was opened up to competing device suppliers, and we’re a long way from designing a dynamic marketplace for wireless spectrum.
And it’s all because of the physics. Spray photons in every direction, and you get a different market structure than guiding them down a strand of glass to a concentration point, because the scarce economic resource is in a different place. Hey, go ask KPN, who cunningly are creating a scarce resource by putting all the electronics into street cabinets (with limited physical space) and selling off their exchanges (where it’s easy to put in competing unbundled gear).
My policy recommendation? The incumbents own too much of the backhaul and on-net traffic, which gives them an unfair advantage over new entrants. Do what we did in the UK, and reserve some slices for new entrants (Hutchinson 3G won it), and tilt the field a little in their favour with the interconnect and termination rules. Keep the network auction national so the initial starting condition isn’t fragmented with “missing patch” owners extorting everyone else. Don’t place any rules or license conditions on how the spectrum is used, except to mandate that squatting isn’t allowed. Assume every rule you campaign for will be outweighed by two bought by lobbyists. Allow sub-leasing and resale. Make public safety users pay market price, just like they do for office chairs and other inputs. Even better, make them buy the output safety communications service in the open market, not the input spectrum.
If there’s more value in creating an open wholesale network than vertical integration, someone will conduct that experiment without the need for bureaucratic seers predicting the right market outcome. The future is uncertain, none of us are smarter than the market. There’s no need to mandate any kind of wholesale structure.
Another fallacy is that raw and pure Internet access is the end-user service. It’s not, it’s the things you can do with the device. So if I can use a locked-down browser to access any kind of HTTP-sent site, that’s not the same as a “go anywhere, do anything” Internet ISP plan. Just ask Steve Jobs. Users don’t want to hear “megabyte” once in the store. The YouTube app on the iPhone isn’t a bug in the economic model, it’s a feature. Users will buy the degree of openness and flexibility they need, not pay for option value of the network capacity that they don’t need and others redeem at their expense.
We’ve already seen the first step with MVNOs and alliances like Sprint-Clearwire-Google and AT&T-Apple. Wholesale and alliances are the future. Fine-grained wholesale for mom’n’pop entrepreneurs will arrive some day without external intervention as long as there are enough competing nationwide spectrum owners (my guess is 5-6) and a vibrant backhaul/backbone market. And the users will get the right devices, plans, connectivity and apps packaged up in convenient form.
Less regulation is better regulation. Particularly in Washington DC. Stop trying to make rules to shape the future, let it sort itself out.
Martin Geddes

Tokyo, TGS, DiGRA walkthrough

Friday, March 14th, 2008

It´s September again! Since 2001 (with the exception of last year´s, damn thesis!) I´ve been going to Japan in September. First for pleasure, then for the Tokyo Game Show and this year both for TGS and the DiGRA conference. As always, I´m staying at my good friend Alvaro´s (of Khronos Projector fame). Oh, and the photo credit belongs to Jason Della Rocca, who I´m looking forward to see again next week.

Since it´s likely that many of my readers will be in Tokyo next week for DiGRA, I decided to write down a few tips. I´m not an expert in Japan by any means, but I hope they´ll be somehow useful.

Tokyo Game Show (TGS)

TGS is split into two: Business Days (September 20th and 21st) and regular days open to the public (September 22nd and 23rd). Tickets are very cheap by E3 standards (only 1200 yen, about 11 dollars). Business Days are great because not only there are presentations but the show is less crowded and that means that you get a higher chance of actually testing the games and bagging in the goodies offered on the floor. On the other hand, during regular days you get to see the actual Japanese gamers going crazy for the games, as well as witnessing families and children at play (something unthinkable during E3). Additionally, you get to see the cosplayers and that is something that should not be missed.

TGS takes place in Makuhari, which is about 45 minutes away from Tokyo. It´s a business satellite city and you should NOT, by any means, get a hotel there. The reason is simple: it may be convenient for the show but it´s really far away from the Tokyo action. Another important tip is that, in my experience, a day is enough to see the show. This year I´m probably just going during business day (all you need to prove that you work in the games industry are two business cards). However, if it is your first time (and you do work professionally in games) you may want to try one business day and one regular day.

How to get your TGS ticket? Simply print this form and take it to the show. Make sure that you print a copy at home, so you don´t have to beg for printing at your hotel.

One last thing: be prepared to walk a lot. The line on regular days is enormous and the sun is generally very high in September (and the humidity could literally drown you). The walk from Makuhari Station to TGS takes at least 15 minutes, so make sure you have good walking shoes.

Rest of Japan

Unlike previous years, I do not plan to ride bullet trains up and down the islands. If it is your first time in Japan, you may want to stay in Tokyo, too. There´s plenty to see in the city if you are staying for one or two weeks. However, if you want to explore the country, Kyoto and Nara are a must see. If that´s the case, you MUST get a Japanese Rail Pass that entitles you to a fixed amount of days of train use. You can only buy these overseas, so make sure that you get one before you visit Japan. The Pass is great for bullet train (shinkansen) hopping, but it is also good for the JR lines inside Tokyo, too (it may not be worth to use a day only for taking the train in Tokyo, but if you end up with spare pass days, it may come handy).

WHAT TO DO IN TOKYO

Tokyo is one of the biggest and coolest cities in the world, so you can basically do whatever you want. Here´s a list of some of my favorite places.

The Ghibli Museum

Ghibli Museum was built by Studio Ghibli and it features many of their characters. It´s a tiny museum and do not expect to see the animators at work, since this is not the studio itself. The museum was built with children in mind, so adults generally have to get on their knees to fully appreciate some of the exhibits.
The museum is located in Mitaka, a Tokyo suburb. It takes about 30 minutes to get to the station and then you must take a bus to the museum (a 10 minute ride). It may be faster (albeit more expensive) to take a taxi to the museum from the station, if you are not alone.
Tickets MUST be bought overseas at Japanese Travel Agencies. Sadly, these agencies are not located everywhere, but only on major cities (I know for sure there are available in London, Paris, NY and LA). Tickets are sold for a specific date and cost about 15 dollars. Again, you can´t buy these tickets in Japan so if you don´t get a voucher before arriving to the country, don´t bother to show up. Why is this? Well, the museum is wildly popular in Japan so if you try to buy a ticket today, the closest available dates that they´ll offer you are three months in the future. Since tourists generally never stay more than a few weeks, the museum decided to make special arrangements for foreigners.

Akihabara

Needless to say, this is where geeks go to get their electronics and videogames. You could literally spend days in these shops. Two tips: look for used electronics stores. Generally, the have fairly new stuff, in great shape and at a reduced price (even though the reduction may not be huge, so make sure you double check before buying anything). Another tip: there are plenty of minuscule vintage videogame stores where you can find cartridges for old consoles. Many of these are hidden inside apartment buildings and hard to find if you don´t know how to get there.
Akihabara is also a good place to find manga, anime, toys and figurines

Harajuku

It´s the fashion district and you´ll find some of the coolest clothing on Earth in there. Take Takeshita street, which is a pedestrian street, and get lost in the crowd. It´s much better to go at noon in weekdays. After you got you share of young clothing, you may want to walk to Omotesando (just take a right at the end of Takeshita and walk for 10 minutes), the Japanese Champs Elysees, where you´ll find the posh version of what you just saw. Omotesando is well worth the trip, even if you don´t plan to spend a fortune in clothing. And even more important, Kiddyland, a huge toy store, is located on that street and it´s a must see. A new mall, Omotesando Hills, opened last year, but I haven´t yet been there.

Ueno Park

Ueno Park is fairly close to the University of Tokyo, so if you are going to DiGRA, you´ll likely find yourself there. Additionally, the train from the airport will leave you at Ueno Station. You´ll find plenty of small shops around it, including a few nice toy stores and decent places to have a snack.

Tokyu Hands

A fantastic department store where you´ll fin almost anything, particularly in what deals with hobbies and home improvement. A nice place to find great quality small things for the house.

The Sony Building

If I´m not wrong, it´s located in Ginza. Back in the time when Sony was the coolest brand, this was their Apple Store. I´m just being a bit mean. It´s actually well worth the trip to see what Sony has to offer, from TV sets to Playstation gear. It´s more like a museum/showroom than a shop, but if you enjoy technology, you may want to check it out.

Place I´m looking forward to visit

Any of these museums looks incredible! I´m really looking forward to visit the toy museum (the link on the page is broken, this is the new link).

That´s about it for now (this was a LONG post by my standards). I may include something else in the future. And feel free to drop me a line if you are going to Tokyo. I´m looking forward to seeing you there!

Jax Film Festival Roundup # 1

Wednesday, March 12th, 2008

ok, i’m three films in and haven’t had a lemon yet! good stuff!

FUCK - hilarious doc about the history and importance of “the F word”…great found footage and interviews from both sides of the argument…Sam Donaldson and Ice-T were particular treats. well done doc that was much better than expected!

Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis - a doc i had been dying to see once i found out it was playing. i had read so much about Jack Smith but never had a chance to view any of his work. this was a big treat for me, despite the copy problems.

Puzzlehead - another one of my planned viewings. very solidly acted and scripted. though frequently compared to Lynch I felt a better comparison would be the work of Jan Svankmajer (sans animation)…just had the look and feel similar to Svankmajer. very original and well done.

be back tomorrow or Sunday…going to see Jumping Off Bridges tonight and then should have a busy day tomorrow with the Chalk viewing…cheers