The Illusionist

This appeared in theatres around the same time as The Prestige and thus obvious comparisons are to be done, but apart from the magic theme, few parallels can be drawn between the two movies.

The Prestige is all about the rivalry between two magicians. The Illusionist is more of a love triangle and the jealousy of the the third wheel, the rich prince.

Where it was key to the story line in The Prestige to divulge the secrets of each magician, The Illusionist never divulged the magician's stage secrets, other than a small parlour trick shown to the detective played by Paul Giamatti.

A good movie though, well acted and a bit of suspense.

Will Traveler

The Traveler is ABC's latest new Summer drama. Typically I don't think shows starting mid season make it past the first few episodes.

But who knows, this latest conspiracy theory may provide enough intrigue to last. The question is whether it will follow in the errors of Lost and have too many questions with not enough answers.

With only two episodes aired it's too soon to say.

The premise of the show is three friends, Jay, Tyler and Will, having just graduated, go on a road trip before hitting the real world. They have been house mates for the past two years and developed a strong friendship during that time.

Their first stop is to have some fun in a New York museum. Jay and Tyler don rollerblades and glide through the museum as a prank with security guards giving chase. Will holds back to film the fun.

Once Jay and Tyler are free of the museum a bomb goes off. Will disappears, along with any trace that he even existed, and Jay and Tyler are prime suspects after being caught on film fleeing the museum just prior to the blast.

It seems that everyone is against them, even Tyler's rich father. And there's even hint of a conspiracy with Homeland Security part of the cover up.

Hogzilla's revenge

I'm not a big supporter of hunting, but I'm not that against it that I'd usually take a stance against it, but this is a bit over the top.

A giant hog, over 1000 pounds being chased through the woods and shot mercilessly multiple times with a pistol by an 11-year old. (The kid shot his first deer at 5! What lessons is he learning?)

Sure one can argue that if it's that big it's probably led a long, full life, but that doesn't justify it's end.

And to top it off, to get the giant hog out of the woods they had to chop down trees and bring in a backhoe to get it out. So not only was the animal shot multiple times, but the environment had to be disturbed and trees killed as well. So much for leave no trace mentality.

And this hog is supposedly larger than hogzilla, a large hog killed in 2004 and now the focus of a horror film being created. And to reward the kid for the most recent hog kill he's being given a small part in the upcoming movie.

Spiderman 3

I think the effects were the star of this movie. The first two were definitely a lot better.

This movie tried to do too much with the story line of who actually killed Ben Parker and the creation of the Sandman, plus Venom and the strained relationship between Peter Parker/Spiderman and Harry/New Goblin. Two (sic) many villains.

The Spiderman movies do one thing good over other superheroes movies and that's the ongoing character relationships and interaction.

However, I think the happy ending was a bit strained and seemed out of sync with the rest of the movie, almost like an add on at the end to make sure there weren't any loose ends.

Overall, it's a good movie though and definitely worth seeing in the theatre if just for the effects.

"I'll be back"

The famous line uttered by Arnold Schwarzenegger's title character in the first Terminator movie. And he wasn't lying.

"The Terminator" was followed by two movies completing the trilogy.

The Halcyon Co. has acquired the franchise rights to the popular "The Terminator" movie series and intend to make a new trilogy.

However, there was a little white lie on behalf of Arnold as he won't be back for Terminator 4.

Vader Conducts the Imperial March Anthem

This is pretty cool: Darth Vader as conductor of an orchestra consisting of storm troopers.

Pop can heater for the garage

A little pop can ingenuity and you've got a solar heater for the garage to take the chill off when you're out working on the old beater (or restoring a classic 'vette).

Next

What would you do if you could see two minutes into your future?

If you're Chris Johnson, aka Frank Cadillac (Nicholas Cage), you help the FBI fight terrorists and hopefully you get the girl in the end.

With the ability to see the near future, he dodges bullets while trying to stop terrorists from detonating a nuclear bomb in California.

As the reviews say, there's a surprise ending. I won't spoil anything, but expect the unexpected.

It is a good action-packed movie though and Cage even has a love interest with Jessica Biel.

Kryptonite found in Serbia

A new mineral has been discovered in Serbia.

It's composition is sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide, the same scientific name written on a case of rock containing kryptonite stolen by Lex Luther in Superman Returns.

The new mineral will be called Jadarite. It can't be called kryptonite because it does not contain krypton, an inert gas already found in the periodic table of elements.

Serbia, eh... it's cold and barren up there ... the Fortress of Solitude is in a cold and barren location...

The Prestige

"Every great magic trick consists of three acts. The first act is called "The Pledge"; The magician shows you something ordinary, but of course... it probably isn't. The second act is called "The Turn"; The magician makes his ordinary some thing do something extraordinary. Now if you're looking for the secret... you won't find it, that's why there's a third act called, "The Prestige"; this is the part with the twists and turns, where lives hang in the balance, and you see something shocking you've never seen before."This is a really good movie. It makes good use of flashbacks and jumping around in the timeline to tell the story.

However, it's a bit tragic and disturbing in the lengths that each man goes to in their battle of one-up-man-ship and their obsession to perform the ultimate trick.

Cogito ergo sum

Initially, Greek's had no concept of mind. A Homeric warrior had emotions, plans, and preferences, but Homer did not unify these into one common thing.

Descartes philosophical logic was that: thought exists. Thought cannot be separated from me, therefore, I exist (Discourse on Method).

Most famously, this is known as "I think, therefore I am" ("cogito ergo sum" or "Je pense, donc je suis").

I was out of town last week, and have been neglecting this blog. Plus I've been busy with life and work. (I have an exam tonight and this is a distraction from last minute cramming.)

Anyway, I returned to the office this morning and learned of a tragic event this past weekend. A co-worker passed away tragically after a hot-air balloon accident down in California. I didn't work closely with her, but she was a really nice person, full of life and always seemed to be joking around and enjoying herself. And affecting others around her in a positive way.

Then this afternoon I learn of the most recent school shooting, the worst to date with 31 people killed.

It's been a very reflective day so far. Such tragic accidents can happen through the fault of no one, and then tragic events can occur that are not accidents, but results of human intervention in dark and evil ways.

Lots to think about.

Magic Toothpicks

Not sure if this is for real, but it looks kind of freaky. I'd like to try it and see if it works.



I can kind of understand them coming together as the water drop would run down between them and kind of draw them together with the water tension, but I don't see how it would then separate again.

1.25 Red Bulls in one Foosh

FOOSH™ Energy Mints contain the equivalent amount of caffeine as 1.25 Red Bulls! All in one little 22 1.8 gram mint.



Try one of these next time you need to be ALERT for a late night/early morning, whatever floats your boat. :)

More Web regulation Doesn't Make Any Sense

Some groups want the CRTC to regulate the Internet and even make YouTube subject to Canadian content requirement.

I think the key point of this Toronto Star article is this:

"If Canadian broadcasters are unable to rely on cheap U.S. programming, they will be forced to compete by investing in their own original content. This will dramatically alter Canadian content production from one mandated by government regulation to one mandated by market survival.

It is increasingly clear that the blossoming of new media is a threat to old business models, not to Canadian content."

I've talked about this before when it comes to government interference in development. Everyone would be a lot better if government and organizations took a more hands-off approach.

We live in a free society driven by the laws of supply and demand. If the old model isn't working, the government shouldn't throw money at it. Companies should either adapt or move on.

Hopefully lots of people will link to the TorStar article and get across that those who want to regulate the Internet aren't logical and their arguments don't make economic sense.

The Collective Mind

Gerry McGovern makes an interesting case in his post, Web facilitates wisdom of crowds.

He argues that the collective intelligence is perhaps more reliable than that of an expert.

An expert's advice could be skewed to the expert's own views and experiences, and therefore could be biased. Also, statistical research is only the analysis of the limited population surveyed. There is always a degree of error.

Mass collaboration, by definition will be free of any one person's particular biases. And all the skepticism of Wikipedia could be unwarranted. Most people want to take credit for putting in accurate information and not be blacklisted for putting up bad data.

And that's why The Borg was such a formidable enemy. :)

Island Celebrates 40th Anniversary

This is the 40th anniversary of San Serriffe, a small republic located in the Indian Ocean consisting of several semicolon-shaped islands.

British newspaper, The Guardian, published a seven-page supplement describing the geography and culture of the two main islands, named Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse.

Check out the article for more info.

Lost and then buried alive!

Last night's episode of Lost had one good point - it introduced a mystery and the solved it by the end of the episode?

THIS IS A SPOILER WARNING. I'm about to reveal the ending.

The episode was the whole back story of two Losties, but they were minor characters who weren't even introduced until this season. I'd like to watch the first episode again and see if Nikki was really there running around the crash site or if they refilmed those scenes. She was probably just an extra who was written in this season.

The only tie-in to the rest of the story was showing why Paulo used the bathroom at the Perl station, which I don't really care about. It did show Ben and Juliet in the Perl station hatching their plan to kidnap Jack, Kate and Sawyer. But we already knew all that.

The episode reveals that Nikki and Paulo discovered a few of the islands secrets before the rest, but they never shared the info, so what's the point?

This episode gives the back story for a couple unknowns and how they stole some diamonds, but by the end of the episode they're buried alive! With the diamonds!

The episode starts off with them dead (paralyzed). Why get us involved with these characters and then kill them off?!? Is there hope that they will dig their way out before suffocating?

Tune in to next week's episode for the exciting conclusion. Or not.

Ban on plastic grocery bags

Many foreign cities and nations have already implemented legislation to ban one-time, non-recyclable plastic bags, and now SF is the first U.S. city to enact the legislation.

San Francisco stats:

• 200 million - number of plastic bags used each year
  
• 740,000 - population
  
• 1000 - estimated time it takes a traditional plastic bag to dissolve
• 413 million - number of gallons of oil saved by eliminating use of 100 million bags
• 9.2 million - number of pounds of carbon dioxide not produced

Leaf Rapids in northwestern Manitoba is the first Canadian community to ban plastic bags.

And the B.C. mountain town of Rossland is considering a voluntary ban on single-use plastic bags.

816 million gallons of oil saved each year in SF! That's huge.

One barrel of crude oil, when refined, produces about 20 gallons of finished motor gasoline. On average, a car will consume 750 gallons of gas per year.

So, the elimination of bags in SF is the equivalent of 1,088,000 million cars off the road for a year!

The Cybertron knights

The Transformers movie opens July 4, the date reserved for the summer blockbusters. I know I am anxiously awaiting it.

The writers of the screenplay liken the transformers to shape-shifting mechanical knights and modeled Optimus Prime after King Arthur. Cool.

Can't wait. And they're keeping quiet on what Megatron will shape-shift into.

POTC: Can you wait until May 25?

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End opens May 25.

Check out the trailer in this blog entry on film.com