Why I hate Myspace.com

My Space has to be the most annoying site to use on the internet. Here are my reasons for hating it (in no particular order):

1. People you don't know and have nothing in common with are always asking you to be their friends. I suspect this is just to up their "friends" tally.
2. Porn stars are constantly trying to get you to be their friends. I get nervous opening up myspace when my girlfriend is in the room cause I'm afraid she's gonna think I'm some kind of perv.
3. People change their display names constantly. One day my friend's name is Mike, the next it's "Sarrow and Pain". I don't know who the fuck is sending me messages.
4. The damn songs people put on their pages. You've got no choice but to let them load and you have to click the stop button 15 times before it actually stops. You like My Chemical Romance, I get it...really.
5. The fact that I can't put a comment in my own comments.
6. I have to go to a persons page and deal with their bullshit if I want to send a message.
7. My friends who won't send me email and will only send me messages on myspace.
8. People who put giant graphics in their background making it impossible to read their profile page. Solid colors work people...not fucking mona lisa paintings.
9. The giant singles meeting place ads. Again, with the porn and the girlfriend thing.
10. Can I create my own forum? I have no idea...but I sure as hell don't want to talk to 8 million teenagers in the ones they have set up.
11. That damn Daniel or whoever guy that's a myspace admin who puts himself as your friend so he can show you all the great features. I see him in everyones because they don't bother to delete him.
12. It's organized like a damn maze. There's about 4 places to click to invite people, 3 more check messages, a block or two down here and there showing other people's messages.

There's much more I'll think of I'm sure.

Stay (Spoiler Warning)

The following should only partially be considered a movie review. It should only partially be considered a recommendation. This "article", if you will, should more just be considered my personal reflections and thoughts on the film. You should probably only read on if you've actually seen the film or have absolutely no interest in seeing it. If you want a non-spoiling review I suggest you check out rottentomatoes.com.

Stay is a movie that deserves some thought and perhaps a second or third viewing (and not because it's as confusing as Mulhullond Dr.). Also, I would like to say that this movie is not a supernatural thriller as it's billed as. It can be best described as a abstract examination of the human psyche.

I hesitate to say that this film has a "secret", though I suppose that is one way of looking at it. It's secret only lies in the over-all nature of the events transpiring and why they are transpiring in the way that they are. Of course there are a few instances where it was probably unneeded to give us "clues", such as when Henry accurately predicts Sam's fortune cookie message. At first this film lets on that this is a dual identity thing; you know, when two characters are actually one in the same due to some sort of split personality disorder. As it turns out though, this isn't the case. Sam is very much a psychiatrist (at least from Henry's point of view) and Henry most likely actually is an art student (but perhaps not as good of one as he perceives).

For those of you who haven't seen the film and have chosen to read on, the big mystery of the movie is that Henry is dying, but not in the sense that he is sick. You see, early in the movie Henry tells Sam (his psychiatrist) that he is going to kill himself on Saturday at midnight. The big question then becomes "Why that time?". And the answer is because that was the exact time he was left dying. No, Henry is not a ghost and in all likelihood he didn't survive. Henry is lying on the cement on the Brooklyn Bridge battered and dying after a tire on his car carrying his girlfriend and parents blows out and causes a fatal crash. Sam and woman he doesn't know yet come to the rescue. As Sam seems to be a doctor they do the usual first aid type stuff; prop his head up, check his vitals etc etc. Henry's eyes are open looking at Sam and the Woman and he begins to perceive the events that just occurred in a different manner. This is where the movie actually begins (you of course don't know he's dreaming/hallucinating till the end) He imagines himself walking away from the burning car. He imagines that it was his fault his parents are dead. He imagines that his girlfriend wasn't really in the car and she wasn't his girlfriend at all; just some waitress that was nice to him and he was going to ask to marry. I suspect this last part is a bit more about denial than the rest of it. He imagines that Sam is hit doctor and that the woman is Sam's girlfriend.


Of course because this is a dream, the logic off it all isn't always consistent. Henry meets a blind man named Leon that he swears is his dead father. Sam meets a woman that he swears his Henry's mother even though the local sheriff has told him that she tied 6 months previous. Things happen in repetition (Sam sees a boy lose the same balloon in the same place at the same time a few days later). As the film progresses, these inconsistencies happen more intensify until Saturday at midnight on the Brooklyn bridge. Here we see Sam trying to stop Henry from killing him self and the background is losing it's hold on the setting. At this point Henry figures out whats going on and says "I'm already dead, this is a dream" to which Henry replies "If this is a dream than the whole world is in it". His unconscious is still wrestling with the reality, though the truth seems to be winning now. He puts a gun in his mouth and pulls the trigger.

Now, we cut to Henry in the cement, and we at last learn the true nature of the events. These events are not significant because it was some shock that it was "all just a dream". In fact, the story probably still would have worked had we been told this up front. The events that occur in Henry's dream state are significant because they are a study on someone's last minutes of life. Of course we usually can't know what someone's thinking right before they die from a trauma. If the person somehow survives the incident they typically don't remember what actually happened let alone what they were thinking about or dreaming. That's why this film is worth thinking about. It examined Henry's perception of himself and the perception of the car accident. Blaming himself, being a great artist, Sam the doctor, and so on. Don't let me forget the most interesting part of his dreamstate; his empty apartment with the words "Forgive me" written on the walls thousands of times in tiny handwriting.

The most remarkable technical aspect of the film is the cinematography. Not only are the shots themselves beautiful, but the scene transitions doubly so. These transitions give clues to the nature of the movie, or if you already know the nature of the movie, they allows us to understand Henry's dream-logic process. Something in the background of one scene becomes something in the foreground of another. At one point Henry enters into a room at the end of one scene, and the beginning the of the next is him entering a completely different room. The room he goes into happens to be the viewing room of a tank at an aquarium. At first glimpse we get the impression that he just stepped underwater. There are way too many to point out, and I'm going to need to view it a couple more times to pick up on all of the subtle ones.

Make no mistake, this is a tragic film about dying. This movie is far more tragic than one about a cancer patient laying on his deathbed (though the film "Northfork" sort of combines these two ideas). If you haven't seen it, watch it once and just sort of let it wash over you. If you have seen it and didn't like it, I hope my thoughts on the film will put the elements you didn't like into a new light.

Fun at the Park

I'm going fucking crazy and I'm about to smash my computer into a thousand peices.

Paxahau
By DetNews

Detroit - Paxahau Promotions Group today announced they have been chosen by the City of Detroit to be the producers of this year’s Electronic Music Festival on Memorial Day Weekend, May 27-29.

“We are sincerely honored that the City has selected someone within the electronic community to produce this event - we have worked extremely hard to establish ourselves as a globally respected organization, specifically to bring this event the cultural attention it deserves”, said Jason Huvaere, owner of Paxahau.

“Paxahau presented a sound plan to stabilize and grow the event,” said Lucius A. Vassar, the City of Detroit’s Chief Administrative Officer. “We want to see this event flourish and continue to draw people from all over the world to Detroit.”

Since 1998 Paxahau has produced Electronic events in Detroit. In that time they have grown to include a record label, booking agency, web-archive and event production company which hosts an average of 20 events a year in the city.

The festival producers have also been endorsed by previous festival directors, Carl Craig, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson.

“As the festival’s 2003 and 2004 producers, we are pleased to see that Paxahau will be taking on the event,” said electronic music pioneer Derrick May. “Jason Huvaere and his group are not only competent event managers, but they are of the electronic music industry. I am confident that in their hands, the event’s integrity as the world’s signature electronic music festival will be preserved, and its operations and management strengthened. “

In an effort to maintain a globally recognized, positive brand image for Detroit, Paxahau will retain the name “Movement, Detroit’s Electronic Music Festival.”

With a network of alliances and resources that span the globe, the Paxahau team has emerged as a premier promotions group within the electronic music industry. They plan on growing the festival into a cultural attraction that celebrates not only to sonic art forms associated with Electronic Music, but also the visual arts culture that has evolved from its influences as well.

“We see the festival as an opportunity to bring Detroit’s influence all over the world home and nourish one of Detroit’s primary opportunities for tourism and development,” said Huvaere.

Specific details regarding the festival will be released at a later date. Please visit www.demf.com to find the latest news as it develops.

For now Detroit and the world needs to start getting ready for a 3-day party at the end of May. Detroit’s electronic music festival will go on.

Look how much I'm enjoying work.

I'm such a dork. I keep having dreams that edgar didn't really die and it was all just a big misunderstanding.

A video of my cat doing a 5 foot verticle leap into the air...

catjump.wmv

I've upgraded Buzz to the current Overloader hack and actually got it to work this time. Now I can refresh my wavetable without crashing the program. Hurray.

Buzz Overloader Edition

The Body Count Rises

24 Update - Day 5 epispde 13

Tony Almeida makes 2 major characters taken out in as many hours. Tony was killed by a posom-playing Christopher Henderson right as Tony was about to exact his revenge for his wife who was killed less than 13 hours earlier. Great last lines, "I lost her*".

The Fox 24 forums are all abuzz with people saying "I'll never watch the show again!", "This is bullshit!" and "...totally jumped the shark". People pull that 'jumped the shark' bit at least 4 times every season. As someone put it so well, "The phrase 'jumped the shark' has jumped the shark". 24 is very much a tragedy, and you can't have tragedy without death. More importantly, it's not tragic unless someone important dies. Plenty of CTU redsuits get killed, but who gives a damn. No one gave a damn when an extra on Star-Trek got vaporized. I think the writers probably did the right thing. The personal stakes needed to be raised for the surviving core characters. I hope Henderson survives this season, it'd be cool to have him pop up in later seasons kinda like how Nina Myers used to (before jack shot her in the face in season 3).

I go through these irrational emotional cycles when I'm working on music. First I start out thinking I'm the absolute worst at what I do and a 4 year old banging on a keyboard could do better. Then, I get cocky when things start to go well and I think the track I'm working on is going to be the biggest thing since fucking was invented. Of course, things start to go badly again and then I feel like a shitpie.

R.I.P. Edgar Stiles

That's right, the beloved Edgar Stiles has perished in a nerve gas attack on CTU. This was perhaps the most shocking episode of the season so far. With 24, you know people are gonna die, but every time it happens it still seems to be surprise. The writers seem to wait until you're used to a character being there and aren't paying too close attention to them. So the latest on the show is this: The terrorists acquired Lynn Mcgill's keycard to CTU, broke in and released nerve gas into the ventilation system. Many of the CTU staff died, but a handful, including Jack, Audrey, Chloe, Bill and others managed to seal themselves into a conference room. Martha Logan has forgiven the President for being such a spineless weasel, and we still don't know what deep dark secret about the conspiracy Christopher Henderson is hiding. I think Jack's losing it a little bit. He shot Henderson's wife in the leg in episode 11 to get him to talk; it didn't work. Also, Kim Baur is back in all her whiny glory.

Well, 2 out of the last 3 years of the actual best picture winning the oscar isn't bad I suppose. "Crash" certainly was a solid second place, but not a close second place. I think "Brokeback Mountain" and "Capote" were neck and neck for 1st and would have been happy to see either of those win. I'm certainly not nearly as upset when friggin "Chicago" won for 2002 over "Gangs of New York" or when the overrated "A Beautiful Mind" won over "The Fellowship of the Ring" for 2001. You want to see a much better movie about a crazy genius, see "Proof"

Click here for a complete list of winners.

An amusing video of Samantha painting, for those non family members who didn't get this in their email...

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