Global Reset

I watched the trailer for the upcoming film A Scanner Darkly and a brief cameo of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead caught my eye. It looks like an interesting movie. I kind of like the art style, where real actors are colored over. I’m not sure if it’ll get old after a few minutes, but I’m willing to give it a shot.

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The character shown holding the book is not the best advocate for Ayn Rand’s novels. The scene leading up to this one showed him screaming about something in his hair (the government?), then he’s staring down the barrel of a weapon held by a guy in a suit who has a head with a hundred eyes. There are obvious dystopian overtones here, which makes me wonder why he wasn’t reading Atlas Shrugged.

Update: Figured out why he’s holding a copy of The Fountainhead… From the pages of A Scanner Darkly:

He spent several days deciding on the artifacts. Much longer than he had spent deciding to kill himself, and approximately the same time required to get that many reds. He would be found lying on his back, on his bed, with a copy of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead (which would prove he had been a misunderstood superman rejected by the masses and so, in a sense, murdered by their scorn) and an unfinished letter to Exxon protesting the cancellation of his gas credit card. That way he would indict the system and achieve something by his death, over and above what the death itself achieved.

Ugh… What an awful interpretation of the book. Roark rejected the “masses” (or rather the idea that society was more important than the individual); he didn’t give a damn if society at large did likewise to him.

A few weeks ago, I made a post to my delicious page referring to the Chaiyya Chaiyya song and dance routine from the Bollywood film Dil Se. Since then, I see at least 20 hits a day from google looking for information on Chaiyya Chaiyya. Since the post to delicious quickly scrolled off my sidebar (which only shows the most recent items), I’d thought I’d post it here for all to see.

I discovered the song (like many recent fans) through the recent film The Inside Man. It was the opening song, with a closing version that included some rap from Panjabi MC (whom I also enjoy). The song is immediately infectious. I was searching for more information about it and I discovered the full video on Google Video. It’s an amazing routine performed completely on top of a moving train. I’m not sure what safety measures they had in place, but those dancers sure look brave to me.

According to my friend Chowdary, Chaiyya means shadow. The fella in the red jacket is living in the shadow of love, as he’s obsessed with a beautiful woman. I got some of the song translated, but it kind of takes away from the magic without the lyrical poetry. He assures me that the lyrics are consistent with the video: a very uplifting example of romantic art.

• Chaiyya Chaiyya Bollywood Joint – from iTunes (Panjabi MC Remix)
• The train scene from Dil Se – from Google Video
• Dil Se – on DVD

Spoiler alert: Apparently, the girl the guy is in love with is a terrorist bomber. What a bummer…

We had a conversation a couple of weekends ago about how you destroyed the beyond excellent tv series Firefly by not watching it. I had hoped that you learned your lesson and you were going to take this second chance you’ve been given. Unfortunately, it seems that on Serenity’s second weekend, more of you decided to see The Gospel than a movie about space cowboys. Are you completely out of your respective minds?!

To help sweeten the pot, Universal has now started offering a 9 minute free preview of the movie so you can better decide if it’s something you’d enjoy. That’s a really generous offer; don’t be ungrateful.

My personal review of the movie is that it is an excellent and fun film. I am too biased to say whether or not you have to be a fan of the show to enjoy the film, but I want to believe anyone can enjoy it. I did have a disagreement or two with the film… For example, that bad thing that happened that most are upset about. Not only was that a “shock” moment, but it’s an excellent example of bad fiction. I don’t go to the movies to see random maladies afflict good people for no good reason. If that’s your kind of thing, you can get plenty of it by watching documentary shows like Trauma: Life in the ER. It actually turns my stomach a little that the scene made it into the final cut. But, the fact that I feel so strongly about that scene, yet I still enjoyed the movie, should be a considered a good sign that the rest of the movie makes up for it in spades.

Now, hurry up and go watch it. If I don’t get my BDT (Big Damn Trilogy), I don’t know how I’ll ever forgive you… But I will most certainly repay you in kind.

Yes! Yes, I am! So excited, in fact, that I bought a Captain Malcolm Reynolds doll! (I know I am supposed to say action figure, but come on… It’s a doll.) I like having a few dorky desk toys to lighten up my work place. Might as well have a desk toy of my favorite anti-hero.

This is a big weekend for me… The release of Serenity and the celebration of my birth are both on Friday, followed up by my Wedding Anniversary on Sunday.

Now I know some of you did not watch Firefly while it was on Fox, so they cancelled it. I have noone to blame but you for this injustice. Now Paramount has decided to give you a second chance, and if you don’t watch it this time, I will never forgive you. Wikipedia has a lot of information on the original show, which you completely destroyed.

Today, I stumbled across a puzzle game which has completely owned me: GODTOWER, THE SKILL OF GOD. Each level of the tower requires you to come up with the appropraite password (all-lowercase, no spaces). Something in the picture you see, the title of the page, or an occasional extra hint picture is going to lead you right to the answer. Some of the puzzles are easy, requiring only a second or two to figure out, but they are still very clever. As of this posting, I’m completely stuck on level 14. If you need any help getting there, leave a comment and I can drop some extra hints. Let me know how far you can climb the tower and whether or not you posess THE SKILL OF GOD

As a hint, if you don’t use Windows and a standard keyboard, you’re going to have to do some legwork to solve some of the puzzles.

Update - I’m now entranced by that damn arrow on lvl 18! If you have a subtle hint, I wouldn’t mind reading it in my comments.