Tuesday, January 29, 2008

The Heart, The Head, The Gut: Superbowl 42

This one should be pretty easy... then again maybe not. On the one hand you've got the undefeated New England Patriots, led by quarterback Mr. Gisele Bundchen, the guy most Americans would now most want to be like. On the other hand you've got the upstart New York Giants, probably the team with the most momentum in the NFL (or at least... more than the Patriots), led by the incomparable (well, apart from his brother... and every other quarterback in the league) son of Archie Manning.

The Heart says: I wanna see history happen. I wanna see that video games can be just as realistic as real life. I wanna see a 19-0 team in my lifetime. And yes, I too wanna be like Tom. He left his old flame Bridget Moynahan (but not before giving her a lasting parting gift "wink, wink"), and then actually UPGRADED in companionship. The only other guy who managed to do that, was Brad Pitt, who traded Jennifer for Angelina, and even he had some detractors for that. Tom doesn't have those.

The Head says: I gotta give it to the Pats again, but in all fairness the Giants actually look stronger. Tougher. More scary. They've got a duo of backs (Bradshaw, Jacobs) that strike fear in the hearts of opposing linebackers. They've got a duo of defensive ends who strike fear in the hearts of opposing quarterbacks (Umenyiora, Strahan). And they have Peyton's little brother. The Giants don't turn the ball over much, while the Pats seem to be slumming it a little. And the Giants take their three-point loss to New England in Week 17 as a moral victory, one that might give them the edge come Sunday.

The Gut says: the upset won't happen. Moss will not get a clean catch, but probably a few good penalties called in his favour. Brady will find Welker when he needs to. Maroney will pound the line for critical yards. Belichick will come up with some intelligent plays. And Boston celebrates their dominance over the North American sports world with another ticker tape parade.

New England by 10 points.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Live Fast, Die Young, Leave a Good Looking Corpse

We're hardly out of the New Years mess, and already we've got two contemporaries pushing daisies (non-firework related of course). Brad Renfro and Heath Ledger are two twenty somethings that were good names out in Hollywood, and were looking to make headway into a significant movie career (well, at least Ledger did). We still don't know what happened, but usually if the media can't explain the cause of death, they always have the big old standbys:
  • open jar of "sleeping pills"
  • loaded revolver
Because how else can anybody come to grips with death, about 40 years before the tax office gives you a break?

This fascination with trying to find out why (young) people died, is understandable (because if self-preservation is your thing, you don't want to end up with the same objects in the same room); however this fascination is too easily placated by those standbys. That cannot and should not be the case. We should have more tolerance for the real. We should not be afraid or lazy to ask more, to delve deeper.

Saturday, January 19, 2008

MASK: The Series Volume 1

Ah nostalgia... it's that beautiful feeling that allows you to recognize a mistake, when you make it again. I got spoonfuls of this watching M.A.S.K. again, now available on a four-DVD set.

MASK for those who were wise enough to forget about this show, is about a special task force led by the enigmatic Matt Trakker, who battle a band of criminals called Venom. The people in the task force wear hi-tech masks, which can perform a variety of functions. One shoots lasers, another makes holograms, yet another allows the wearer to fly.

The 20-minute show itself is rather formulaic. The first act usually sets up the day's episode, with some freak occurrence or some mystery to be explained. The second act reveals what everybody in the audience already knows... that Venom is behind the problems, and that MASK must be called in to save the day. Matt Trakker then always contacts his supercomputer at home to select the "best agents suited for this mission".
Venom and MASK then have a confrontation in the third act, which usually ends unresolved because "SFI" manages to get himself into trouble again (I'll get to him later). In the fourth act MASK works out what to do to get rid of Venom once and for all, and in the fifth Matt and his band of cronies finally win the day. The episode usually ends with a lame joke, and a PSA (because the US networks will not show a cartoon without it).

Now, watching this show again, it is hard to see what's to like about MASK. I already spoke of the agent selection process, which is insipid. In the first couple of episodes big boy Matt brings in everyone (which makes the process overly long and unnecessary), including hick boy Dusty Hayes, token black dude Hondo McLean (Hondo?? Really??), the aforementioned Japanese inventor Bruce Sato, champion race driver/martial arts expert Gloria Baker (can you do that!?), and rock star Brad Turner. In later episodes the selection process is more curtailed and only a few people are actually picked, even though it is never really apparent why the agents were selected; a random selector would achieve the same effect, and the computer nearly always chooses Bruce Sato to come along. And why is everybody always called away when they are doing something else? Like driving a racecar, or teaching a class, or baking a pizza?

Then there's SFI, otherwise known as Scott Trakker, Matt's son. I call him SFI, because he really is a Stupid Freak'n Idiot. He is probably the most annoying bitch in the history of cartoons. He always whines about wanting to come along with his dad, and he always has some delusions about winning the day. (Okay, considering nobody ever gets killed in this show, even to an exploding car, I can understand why SFI is acting like he does.) SFI is a bloody smartass, hugely obnoxious, skinny as a stick, and once he gets into trouble he always cries out for his dad... like a whiny bitch. Maybe he would behave a little better if he got some corporal punishment once in a while, but all he gets from his dad is a pat on the head... after he caused an accident which nearly KILLED HALF of the MASK team?!

Matt Trakker should be flipping arrested for taking his son along on EVERY SINGLE MISSION. He is probably the most irresponsible parent in the history of parenting. My friends tend to bring their children to a nanny everytime they go out to dinner. And you can't tell me Matt doesn't have cash to hire one. The guy lives in a freakin' mansion and has his own personal army! (At this point I should point out that Matt has no wife, and thus SFI has no mother. I guess it is not nice to be the mother of a S.O.B., and they couldn't cast anyone to fill the role).
According to MASK lore Matt Trakker is not actually SFI's father. (I mean, c'mon. Matt is He-man blonde, SFI has this red-brownish brunette hairdo) My theory is that Scott is actually Dusty Hayes' boy, and Dusty is too hick to take care of SFI. It also explains the apparent lack of morals, self-preservation, and general intelligence in SFI.

And for some reason Matt is always surprised to find out that Venom is behind the episode's problems. I mean, you gotta get a clue after twelve episodes, man. Don't get me started on Venom by the way, which has Clueless, Hapless, Arrogant and Easy on the same team. Quite how they manage to get up from bed without tripping over themselves is beyond my comprehension.

There is something to like about MASK though. MASK has a wicked themesong and an even better battle sequence theme, which really gets the adrenaline pumping. The MASKs themselves are funny as hell. Bruce's Lifter is quite useful. He can lift objects from small cars and boxes to huge jumbo jets and mountains. Buddy Hawks has Penetrator, which allows him to phase through walls, solid rock etc. Of course Matt couldn't be head honcho, if he didn't have the most pimped out MASK of them all. Spectrum allows Matt to fly, fire lasers, analyze radio frequencies, phone headquarters, and see through Gloria's blouse.

And of course the stars of the show are the vehicles. Who didn't dream way back in the early days to have a car that can turn into a plane, a motor cycle that turns into a helicopter, an SUV that turns into a tank? I wish the cartoon's writers would pay attention and let the vehicles speak for themselves. Like the Transformers movie, they should not have made people the focus of their stories.

Except for Bruce Sato. His fruity expressions/one-liners every episode crack me up. They also always seem to confuse his team mates, which is more than they deserve.

Ah nostalgia... now I remember why I side with the movie studios nowadays.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

How Rude

Rude is rude; an insult is an insult. Unless it's so over the top that it takes the edge off things. You can scream at the top of your lungs that your girlfriend is a ho'. You can yell a bald guy is a sub for his gay boyfriend. And yet - given context, intent, placement - even the harshest sounding insults are no more harmful than a tap on the shoulder. In the same way, even the most polite, sweet, and caring statement can be perfectly aimed at the core of your soul. Such a thing can really bring you down hard.

If you want to see an example of this, go here. Better yet, buy tickets.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Sidney's Laws of project deadlines

In any project you should do some planning. You should be able to show some foresight about which direction you're going to. You might leave some room for safety or contingency, but you should have a coarse-grained idea where you're going and when you're going to get there.

Some basic truths apply the closer you get to the edges of your plan. This is my interpretation:

  1. "The number of questions posed to you directly grows, the closer you get to a deadline."
  2. "The actual importance of said questions decreases against their perceived importance, the closer you get to a deadline."
  3. "The urgency of answering said questions increases, the closer you get to a deadline."

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Car Haters

This past new years several Ford Ka's got burned up and you could probably chalk it up to the aesthetic police. (I already mentioned earlier I didn't get why people would just burn someone else's property... then again a Ka was drafted by a drunk artist at Ford, so in a sense I do understand...) Maybe some guy got shafted by a girl in a Ford Ka, and decided to pay her back by burning her car. Unfortunately he didn't know the licence number or even the colour, so he just decided to get all of the Ka's in the neighbourhood.

And now it's Peugeot 206s that get the fiery treatment. In fact they don't take any risks with these cars and just use bombs to blast these to kingdom come. Again, why? 206s aren't bad cars. They're a little small, that's all.

What's next? Stingers against Toyota Aurises? Gatling guns against Renault Meganes? Somebody must really hate certain cars.

Saturday, January 05, 2008

The Glass House 2007 Themesong

Every year 3FM's Glass House project in Holland brings together three deejays who spend almost a week together in a Glass House, vasting. They play songs 24 hours per day, and accept donations for a good cause, the Red Cross.

Every year one song rises above the pack, being notable or memorable. In 2006 it was the Fratellis, this time it was this live recording from Chicago and Al Green:



Well you can't probably sell it anymore, but the vibe is great!

Friday, January 04, 2008

Optimus Prime was wrong

What is wrong with people that they use any half-hearted excuse to smash shit up? People have put schools on fire, put cars in the scrapyard, taken every busstop apart, put graffiti on buildings... and that was only in the last two days!!

It pays testament to the state of our society that we need these acts of violence to feel alive, to draw attention, or just to entertain ourselves. And there's little to no protection possible, because people will say doing so violates their freedoms: their freedom of speech, freedom to express themselves, freedom to do as they please.

And that's total crap; there's no kind of freedom that permits you to insult my mother. I see no freedom for anyone to take a mallet through my car's windshield. And I definitely don't see why you need to be entertained by burning every Ford Ka in the neighborhood. (well... okay...)

Optimus Prime was wrong. Freedom is not the right of all sentient beings. Freedom is a responsibility.