Wed, June 27

Paris, baby!—3:39 PM

I try not to overdo it with links to the same stuff over and over. Jubilant celebrations of Pixar's eternal infallibility, Onion "man-in-the-street" interviews that rattle my uvula with laughter, snarky politics from the Kung-Fu Monkey blog, etc. Since I try really hard not to overdo it, I hope you'll believe me when I decide I have to post one of those links – it's worth it.

Here's two from Scott Adams, who I also link too much, on the subject of Paris Hilton. I relentlessly don't care about her, although the last time I relented and read a "news" article about her, I used that information to get a huge laugh at a party the next day, so I'm not entirely ungrateful.

Anyway, Scott Adams has a tremendous ability to change my mind on a subject. Here's how he did it with Paris:

Can't... Resist...

Irony Storm

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Fri, June 22

Animal Husbandry—12:29 AM

Colbert is fake mad about a new ad for Trojan condoms, which uses animatronic pigs to symbolize irresponsible sex partners. It's a cute ad, and Stan Winston worked on it.

Stephen refers to an excellent article in the New York Times about the commercial and the controversy it raises. It's a great evaluation of sexual double standards and a chilling reminder of how skittish we are about admitting to drugstore clerks that we sometimes have sex for reasons other than spawning more li'l soldiers. What's odd is the comment from Fox, explaining why they join CBS in refusing to air the spot:

“Contraceptive advertising must stress health-related uses rather than the prevention of pregnancy.”

Christ, can we please get the Pope's tongue out of this country's asshole for a minute and stop pretending that adults must be protected from even the idea of contraception? If a hypothetical viewer is going to boycott your network for the mere suggestion that someone somewhere is having safe sex to avoid pregnancy, that person is already going to have a list of reasons as long as his arm for boycotting every other advertiser – he's already a lost cause.

In actuality, the commercial stresses neither use. So, on top of this weird double standard (cited by Colbert, as well as many in the article) about how it's okay to sell cars or beer with sex, but you can't use sex to sell sex – there's also a willful interpretation of any message that doesn't explicitly say "you could transmit an STD" to mean "you could have a kid, which would serve to hamper your non-stop, responsibility-free fucking, you gorgeous hedonist, you." Meanwhile, how many times did Al Bundy talk about children being the ultimate sexually transmitted disease?

Also, I think everyone is overlooking the important fact here: pigs have 30-minute orgasms. Why haven't we been using pigs to sell condoms all along?

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Thu, June 21

Overthinking It—2:35 PM

The National Geographic Singles Map tells me I made the right move leaving LA. Apparently Southern California is fresh out of single gals. Which is a good thing, because it means all those cuties I adored from afar were already taken anyway.

There's a red dot hovering right over Jacksonville, which means it should be better here. I admit, I've been dating up a storm compared to LA. (18 months, 2 women, 6 dates! I feel like Hef.) Of course, sheer volume isn't always the key. (As they love to say, "the odds are good, but the goods are odd.") I'm pretty open-minded, but I'd still prefer someone who doesn't smoke, takes up a maximum of one seat on an airplane, and doesn't want to talk to me about Jesus. Of the 2,500 spare women we've got, many are into dance clubs or Bush, or would just prefer a mate who won't be burning in hell.

Sadly, the Singles Map says I need to stay east of the Mississippi until I meet someone, which I'm not entirely prone to do. All the fun is out west! Chicago is the only red town I can imagine moving to – and I've been strongly advised against it. Perhaps a mail order bride or a Real Doll is the way to go.

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Tue, June 19

Pixar Tricks—12:46 PM

As usual, we can expect lists of cute in-jokes to look for in Ratatouille. The main difference between Pixar and, say, Shrek is that the in-jokes are thrown in as extras. They're not meant as the main joke of the scene.

For instance, I spotted a cameo by Bomb Voyage – the terrorist mime from The Incredibles – in a street scene, and I noted that Linguini wears Incredibles boxer shorts. I'm sure there are many others. A-113 is in there somewhere. On the first viewing, I'm always way too absorbed to notice much.

Patton Oswalt offers a great insider view – not in-jokes per se, but delightful things to notice while you're watching the film. And, if you're like me and you stay till the very very end of the credits, you can enjoy Pixar's Quality Assurance Guarantee: "100% Genuine Animation! No motion capture or any other performance shortcuts were used in the making of this film." Hooray!

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Mon, June 18

It Comes In Threes—6:50 PM

I ducked out of work early today to finally get Spider-Man 3 under my belt. It was the only major movie so far this summer that had slipped away from me. Usually, when events conspire to keep me away from a movie I had planned to see, I get a nagging feeling that there's an underlying reason for that.

Damn right there was. It's unlikely I'll summon the time or energy to write a review of Spider-Man 3, but I spent a lot of my time in the theater (and there was plenty) thinking, "Is it possible for a comic book movie to be too comic-booky?"

Also, since this is the "Summer of the Threequel," there's something we should pay attention to. The third Pirates movie had its problems (nothing compared to Spidey 3), but both suffered for having amassed more and more characters over the course of their trilogies. People! It's okay to do like Batman or James Bond and just move on. There's no cause to top yourself if you got it right the first time. I like Topher Grace twice as much as I don't like James Franco, but this movie would've been much better without both of them – and maybe it would've come in under two hours. Each successive Spider-Man movie added a villain and about ten minutes of running time – and lost about a star. I don't think it's a coincidence.

Fortunately, the cast of The Bourne Ultimatum doesn't have this overpopulation problem. They took the bold move of extracting the love interest in the opening moments of Bourne 2! Matt Damon is quoted as saying they made each movie with no expectation of making another. This is likely just movie PR-speak, but it's definitely a workable strategy. The Bourne Supremacy joins a very short list of sequels worthy of their original: Toy Story 2, Back to the Future, Part II, and – if taken together – the Indiana Jones sequels. (Terminator 2 and Aliens go in a different category – they should've been made instead of their predecessors.)

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Fri, June 15

Show Runners Discuss Lost Endgame—12:45 AM

Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse did yet another Q&A about Lost, with some vague references to their planned endgame for the show in 2010. It's interesting that J.J. Abrams – who was initially the star of the threesome because of his Alias pedigree – now seems "too good" to talk to anyone about the show. Or maybe he's just not involved any more.

Anyway, these guys continue their criminal practice of taking potshots at Nikki and Paulo – who absolutely deserved to live – and being very vague about any substantive forward-looking questions (which, given what they're up against, who can blame them?). One part I liked a lot, though:

Cuse also noted the reality of the sometimes vociferous and heavily engaged viewership of the show, which uses the Web to advance theories and post explanations and even freeze-frames to parse further meaning.

"I'm not sure there is any ending that will satisfy everyone," Cuse said. "Our hope is that the ending will be ... the logical conclusion of the story."

Damn right. Here's hoping they do that (if I'm still watching by then). I definitely agree, they've been the guinea pigs for running this type of show while trying to engage the obsessive fans without being overwhelmed by them. It has to be very, very tough. Sometimes they've responded with poise, other times quite the opposite. Can't feel too sorry for them, because in many ways they brought it on themselves. But it can't be easy.

Okay! No more Lost talk 'til February! (Except to say that the surprise twist of the finale was obvious to me from the first scene, and the way it was meted out undercut almost all of its dramatic intensity. Stop writing suspense for the sake of suspense!)

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Mon, June 11

3 Reasons I Love the New Safari 3 Public Beta More Than My Own Mother—4:26 PM

From the History menu (top) and General Preferences (bottom):

These are so very excellent. Only time will tell whether "Last Session" includes a session which ended with a browser crash, but either way: a godsend.

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All That—10:04 AM

Clearly, I'll need to move faster if I'm ever going to get anything done. This is part of a larger scene, but I spent most of Saturday at a birthday party. So this is the work in progress as of Sunday night.

(Readers complained that the QuickTime movie was crashing their browsers. Windows readers, of course! I prefer the smoother, classier QuickTime – perhaps in the future you'll be able to set a preference for one or the other.)

Fortunately, I started with the most complicated part of this scene. Just about everything else is rectangles, so the modeling should proceed quickly, with a little time devoted to textures and lighting. For an idea of what to expect, view the planning sketches below. (I'm learning that most of 3D is planning, so by the time you get to the computer, you know exactly what you're aiming for.)

Come to think of it, this part would have proceeded much more quickly if I hadn't spent so much time designing the texture. I put in many little jokes for myself, and they probably won't show up in the scene. (Not that I mind that – it's the Bob Ross Code, after all.) Nevertheless, they'll show up better than this; for some reason, the texture that looked great in preview got all blurry in the final render. That's something I'll be fixing.

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Fri, June 8

Zen Tacos—3:29 PM

I've been meaning to bring you a picture of this for months. A Taco Bell in town closed down months ago (years, maybe) and this is what remains.

Originally the sign read: "Store is closed. Visit South Jax Beach location." Something like that. But time has taken its toll, and now the message is much more existential.

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Wed, June 6

Shooting Skeet—11:23 AM

I couldn't help it; I've been reading non-stop about these Jericho loonies (they call themselves Rangers; how sick is that?) and now I've become one of them.

I grabbed the addresses off the Jericho Lives site and dashed off a couple of quick postcards, just so Nina and Les don't think the voice of these psychotic nut-purchasing lunatics represents any kind of majority. (And not a moment too soon – rumors say the Save Jericho campaign is having an effect.)

As it happened, I had a couple of free postcards lying around from the old ABC "TV is good" campaign. You can believe I was quite proud of myself.

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Mon, June 4

Google Street View—5:06 PM

The history of Google Maps has been rich with fun add-ons. Lagging behind Yahoo! Maps, they caught up fast, integrating their cartoony streets and multiple-destination driving directions, then adding innovations like satellite photos, building outlines, etc. Now you can take a street level view, and know your landmarks before you drive.

As with anything else, there are immediately dozens of lists of things people have found looking around the service. Like the giant desert Maxim cover or the flying missile in Satellite Maps, but much more in-your-face. My favorite list so far is this listing, but there are many. A reflection of the Google van in a storefront; a guy seeming to pee beside the road; a throng of abortion clinic protesters. You can Google around and find them all. The topless (?) sunbathers have made pretty much every list.

Tremendous fun to look at, but my question is, how the hell do people find this stuff? Are they literally clicking through, block by block, on every single street in the major cities that are online? That's commitment. If only we could leverage all that energy and defeat global warming/the Chinese/Trump.

Now it's just a matter of time before someone takes a low-level job with Immersive Media, sneaks a look at the vans' daily route, and stages some kind of wacky scene, performance, or crazed nude bacchanalia for the cameras. I can't wait!

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Sandbag Test—12:25 AM

At long last, some animation to enjoy! Might not be much, but it's a start.

Longtime readers might have wondered if I'd been working on 3D stuff all this time. Sadly, no. Not as much as I should have. A little more discipline would've certainly kept me from forgetting as much as I did. I devoted about a day to this little gem, and I learned (and remembered) a lot.

I was hoping for more interesting lighting but it was taking a lot of time, and this lighting setup was just for the demo anyway. More to look forward to next time!

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Sun, June 3

D'oh!—11:47 AM

TVSquad has a quick blurb about how Springfield, Minnesota is not having any of the Simpsons Movie hoopla. It includes a quote from a woman who hates the show, finding it "unwholesome."

Which is technically true, but come on.

A couple of weeks ago, I picked up Seasons 7 thru 9 of The Simpsons on DVD for the low, low price of $27 apiece. (Thanks, Sam's Club! Now quit building Wal-Marts! No one wants you!) On the way out of the store, the lady who scribbles on your receipt with a highlighter took a look at my loot and said, "Oh, you like The Simpsons? I hate that show." And then something along the lines of "It's filth." We smiled and nodded, because there's no reason to debate ideologies with a woman who's being paid minimum wage to scribble on receipts with highlighters for no apparent reason other than she and the highlighter weren't doing anything else. (And don't think for a minute that if Walton MegaCorp could find a way to get the highlighting onto the receipt without that lady, they wouldn't kick her to the curb and stomp on her non-existent medical benefits.)

It seemed an odd place for soap-boxing. Maybe there's something about working at a big, faceless corporation with only one point of interaction with customers that causes people to use that moment as a mouthpiece.

Anyway, the point is, of course you can dislike The Simpsons. (And wouldn't it be great if both of these women were objecting not because of taste but because the show's writing has devolved into mirthless, tin-eared goop over the past few years?) In 1991, it made plenty of sense to be jumping up and down about how "unwholesome" the show was, because it was legitimately pushing boundaries, and some people are just crazy like that. But now, nearly twenty years later, it's absurd. It's integrated into the culture; we've collectively said, "Yes. That's within the bounds of contemporary mores and standards." For that matter, it helped create some of those standards. Today, The Simpsons is tame compared to its former self, as well as just about anything else on television. More importantly, in today's TV world, even the bawdiest, edgiest episode of The Simpsons would be pretty tame.

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