Where your host, refreshed by two ibuprofen and eight hours of sleep, replays his experience and impressions of Bloggercon.
Closing music from garageband.com:
Errata: I said “Michael Scoble” on the podcast, he is of course Robert Scoble. Why is it that my brain can remember thousands of Simpson’s quotes verbatim, but fails on these rudimentary social tests?
Well, I’m back after my full day at Bloggercon. Apologies for not trying to stick around and catch dinner with some of you folks: I was nursing a sinus headache by the end of the day, and still had an hour and a half drive to get home. I had a great time: expect a full post mortem tomorrow after I’ve had time to recoup some of my energy.
But just to keep some of the bullet points that I found most interesting:
These are mainly just placeholders for what I’ll podcast about tomorrow when I’m sufficiently energetic, and I’ll probably remember a couple of other things along the way. Stay tuned!
Addendum: They aren’t much to speak of, but you can see my photos of the event here.
Well, it’s finally arrived: Bloggercon. I’m just arming myself with my digital camera and my tiny voice recorder, I suspect that if I brought a more powerful gadget, I would be more tempted to pay attention to it rather than what’s going on around me. So, blinking the sleep from my eyes and armed only with a coffee and Krispy Kreme donut, I’m on my way. Oh, and the map. Need the map. And more coffee.
If I update during the day, it will be solely through the kindness of strangers. Expect a full post mortem in my next podcast.
Today is the opening day for the latest Pixar Animation Studios film, The Incredibles directed by Brad Bird. In the interest of full disclosure, any opinions I have about it are highly suspect, since I have two credits on the film, but you can trust my wife, and she thinks it is the best movie that Pixar has ever released.
Warning: it is the first Pixar film ever released which carries a PG rating. If you have young children, they may find it a bit intense. Of course, when I went out to see The Grudge a surprising (to me at least) number of parents seemed to be bringing their five and six year old kids with them, so what do I know?
Addendum: I’ll be wearing my Incredibles crew jacket at Bloggercon tomorrow. Be sure to say “hello”.
Disgruntled? Harpers published a practical guide to what you can do about it.
Where your host records half of the program with his mike muted, then re-records an apology to his brother, spins two rockin’ blues tunes from garageband.com, and records some impressions of three independent film books he has begun reading.
The songs:
We will not recognize America in four more years. That will make half of America giddy. It will terrify the other half.
While as of this hour Bush has not declared victory, nor Kerry conceded victory, both seem to be inevitable. I’m depressed, and I can’t help but wonder where my country has gone.
Don’t think I’ll be up to podcasting today. Four million of you conspired to ruin my mood.
Russell Holliman’s Treo Podcast is rapidly becoming one of my favorites. Try looking at his mobilepodcast.org: Pre-Election Podcasts NOT About Election episode. Particularly amusing: his proof that John Dvorak doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Inspired by Dave Slusher’s mention of Robert Rodriguez and his Ten Minute Film School, I decided to get a bunch of books on the subject of low budget guerilla film making. To get the total up high enough to get free shipping from Amazon, I purchased
I got them mainly to absorb a bit of the low-budget bootstrap mentality that seems common among film makers. It certainly has never been more affordable for amateurs to develop powerful media, and I’m hoping that by reading them, some of their enthusiasm and knowledge will rub off on my feeble efforts.
I’ll be reviewing these in future podcasts, so stay tuned.
In a previous lifetime, I actually knew something about the compilation of functional programming languages. Hence, I found this presentation about writing a Scheme to C compiler by Mark Feeley to be rather familiar, and yet still useful and inspiring.
Breaking with the tradition of geeky news, your host explains why he’s voting for the Kerry/Edwards ticket this year, and encourages everyone to go out and vote, no matter what your political affiliation. After tomorrow, it will be back to geekiness, I promise.
For Halloween, I decided to pick up The Phantom of the Opera: The Ultimate Edition, which I got for $15 or so from my local mass retailer. This is actually a 2 DVD set, which includes two versions of the film: the longer 1925 release version, as well as the re-release 1929 version.
I must admit, I’ve only watched the 1929 version, and have not absorbed the audio commentary or extras on the disks, but the high quality of the 1929 version alone merits purchase of this DVD. It is a beautiful restoration. From their blurb:
This deluxe 2-DVD package features both versions of the spine-tingling Chaney horror masterpiece: the longer 1925 original release (rarely available due to print quality issues) and the 1929 re-release, mastered from gorgeous original 35mm materials including the film’s famed Technicolor sequences. The 1925 version boasts a splendid score by composer Jon Mirsalis. The 1929 Phantom has a full orchestral score by the legendary Carl Davis as well as an alternate track with the never-before-available original Vitaphone soundtrack!
The print is just about as beautiful as you can imagine. Obviously they have worked hard to stabilize the image: there is no sprocket weave as is seen on many cheap transfers from old film. Tears, pops and other problems have been removed, and it just looks gorgeous. In particular, the Bal Masque and the scene atop the Paris Opera house are gorgeous uses of Technicolor. Amazing stuff from an early film.
Don’t settle for cheap public domain substitutes. Go spend your bucks. Worth it.
Addendum: IMDB has some additional commentary on the color processes used in early prints. Apparently the Bal Masque and Apollo’s Lyre sequences were filmed in an early two-color version of Technicolor. There were other prints in different early color processes. Good stuff.
C-SPAN recently ran an interview with Jon Stewart and just like his appearance on Crossfire, he continues to roast the conventional television media for participating in the farce that is “popular journalism”.
I’ll undoubtably rant about this some more in my podcast, but here is an idea for thought: Fox News made a deliberate choice to advocate the conservative agenda in America, and has become a commercial success on that basis. Here’s the question: why can’t a news network be similarly focussed, not on the “liberal” viewpoint, or the “left” viewpoint, but the viewpoint of integrity? Why not make the news network that really is Fair and Balanced and News You Can Trust?
More in the audio podcast soon. Download and listen to his interview, it’s great.
First thing this morning I decided to try to track my latest amazon order to see when it was going to arrive. I got the following:
Date Time Location Service Area Checkpoint Details Nov 01, 2004 09:05:00 AM ALLENTOWN PA WITH DELIVERY COURIER. Nov 01, 2004 07:55:00 AM OAKLAND CA ARRIVED AT DHL FACILITY. Oct 29, 2004 05:06:30 PM Lexington KY USA SHIPPED
I rather liked the idea that it was in Oakland, because that is fairly local. Allentown, PA, despite being lauded in song by Billy Joel, is nowhere near where I am at though. The distance between these two cities is 2483 miles, and apparently there was only one hour, ten minutes between their appearance. Hence, the most logical explanation is that my package was carried by SR-71.
We shall see if my package shows up sometime soon.