In the World

I bought my first book from lulu.com a couple weeks ago.

Perhaps book isn’t quite accurate. It was more of a booklet. Okay, it was really a booklet. A 30-page, staple-bound booklet.

I bought it on a whim. I was surfing around one night, and found a link to a parody fanfic. The next thing I knew I had a lulu.com account and they were in possession of $12 of my hard-earned cash.

There has been much talk of the lulu.com “business model” over the past few years in the publishing industry. While I think lulu.com has a great business model (publish anyone, anytime, anywhere), I don’t really think traditional book publishers have a great deal to fear from lulu.com.

Why would I say such a thing? Is it because I am actively engaged in the traditional publishing industry? Am I just jealous/afraid/outdated? Respectively, no, no, and maybe.

The reason I’m not afraid of the lulu.com model is that while lulu.com allows anyone to publish whatever they write, there are still the matters of marketing and sales, editorial consistency, critical reviews,  and the all-important word-of-mouth. You might have unlocked the secrets of the universe, but unless you can get the word out, and your writing is of a quality that encourages people to read what you’ve written, then what was the use of writing anything down?

I’m not bashing self-publishing. I think that anyone who believes enough in their own work to be willing to invest in it and try and be a part of its success is to be commended.

But I think that in the age of information and free-flowing information there is even more of a need for “traditional” publishers than ever before. Who better to cut through the clutter and noise of the deluge of information we are bombarded with every day than those industry experts who already know how to do it?

There are plenty of people out there who disagree with me on this point. Two big proponents of the death of traditional publishing are Cory Doctorow and Chris Brogan, and I believe they are right–at least as far as “traditional publishing is over.” With the advent of the digital printing industry (of which lulu.com is a big part), anybody can be published for a few bucks and a few minutes of their time. I think that’s actually pretty amazing. I occasionally use lulu.com as a tool for fast idea prototyping (which it’s not designed for, but it works pretty well for it). I like the idea of publishers as the gatekeepers to quality. What this means, though, is that publishers have to stop doing things like Ghosts of Onyx (if you don’t know what I’m referring to, be thankful).

Rather than being afraid of lulu.com (and the myriad of digital self-publishing services), publishers should be meeting the challenge head-on. Publishing is undergoing the most fundamental change since Gutenberg, and it’s exciting.

And the book I bought off lulu.com? It’s horribly written, is impossible to follow, and is bad even by fanfic standards.

Before I say anything else, let me qualify this movie review. I do not have a uterus, therefore my ability to appreciate this movie may be somewhat lessened. (Or, said another way: “You’re not a girl so you just don’t get it.”)

There won’t be any spoilers here, either, because they just aren’t necessary to talk about this film.

I actually liked the first movie. Yes, the movie was angsty and emo, but it was entertaining. and it had a pretty great soundtrack.

New Moon? In a word: Meh.

The characters are still angsty and emo, but I thought the acting improved somewhat over Twilight. The director didn’t try to dress up Bella Swan, so she still fits the picture of the average, ordinary, non-modelesque girl we are beaten over the head with in the books. Jacob is very likable, even if he does spend most of the movie without his shirt on. I was expecting the wolf pack to have a little more bulk rather than just being ripped, but that’s my own built-in vision of the books at work. And this movie had the largest number of  male nipples in a single scene since 300.

I thought some of the scene transitions were confusing–while others were brilliant. A particular moment of nicety? The several-month time gap between Edward leaving Bella and the story picking up again (the music here was also fantastic). I think though that in some ways the movie fell into the trap of not really quite explaining things because, after all, “everyone’s read the book.” More time could have been spent making the Volturi a little more menacing, and making the danger that Victoria posed seem a little more tangible.

There was one big disappointment with New Moon: (Hate is a strong word, but) I really, really, really, didn’t like Alexandre Desplat’s compositions. I felt yanked out of the movie every time an orchestration kicked in. To me, it made the movie feel like a romantic drama (think The Prince of Tides or A Walk to Remember). I only remember hearing very small bits and pieces of the music on the official soundtrack, which I really like. I really liked the music in Twilight. My problem with the music in New Moon is that the orchestral compositions never seemed to fit the tone that the movie was trying to portray.

Overall, it’s not a bad movie. It’s not a great movie, either. If you liked Twilight, you’ll like this one. If you didn’t like Twilight, this movie is unlikely to turn you into a fanpire–although I have been told by a number of women that it is very much worth watching just for the wolf pack.

New Moon will probably make a kazillion dollars and negate any grounding of my opinion in reality, so take this review with a grain of salt.

I have a new mobile phone.

Last Friday, the official launch day, I picked up Verizon’s Motorola Droid phone, in spite of the ridiculous and confusing television ads.

Like the iPhone, it’s an amazing piece of hardware. It’s sleek, fast, and easy to use.

Unlike the iPhone, it has a slide-out keyboard and is super-customizable, among other things.

I almost got an iPhone. I’ve used them. I do tech support for iPhone users. I’ve even dabbled in iPhone app development. But there was one thing on the iPhone that I just couldn’t get past: (Hate is a strong word, but) I really, really, really don’t like the on-screen keyboard.

I’ve lost track of the number of phones I demo’d looking for a new one, but none of them were the slick, simple, advanced device I was looking for. Eventually I settled on an iPhone 3Gs, but when I came across a couple pre-production reviews of Motorola’s Droid, I decided to wait until the Droid was launched before making a decision on what phone to get.

It’s been almost a week since I got the Droid. I like it, but it’s not a phone for everyone.

The phone itself, physically, is solid. It feels solid in your hand. It’s got a bit of weight to it. Like it’s a solid piece of metal. It doesn’t feel “plasticy” or “flexy”. The phone has a nice rubberized coating that keeps it from sliding around in your hand, and on a note that only applies to me, it looks and feels like the same non-slip coating used on Lenovo Thinkpads. The color and styling also matches my Thinkpad, which is a nice touch.

The touch screen is very responsive (a requirement to even think about competing with the iPhone–Microsoft, your Windows Mobile team needs to take note of this!). It doesn’t support multitouch, which I guess for the first generation of the device is okay, but as someone who is very familiar with iPhones, it’s somewhat disappointing. The screen resolution, however, is better than the iPhone 3Gs (at least, it looks better).

And now the feature that sold me: The slide-out keyboard. Droid does have an on-screen keyboard, which is better than the iPhone’s, but I still don’t like on-screen keyboards. The slide-out on the Droid feels very solid under your thumbs, and has a nice, smooth slide. The keys light up, which is useful in low-light situations. Unfortunately, the keys are fairly small and smashed together. I think the real estate used for the d-pad on the right could have been better spent making the keys a bit bigger. But the keyboard is still quite usable.

The Droid has 4 electrostatic (meaning they aren’t actually buttons, but spots sensitive to touch, like the touch screen) “soft keys” (meaning the keys themselves can be reprogrammed for different functions) below the main screen. They’re pretty useful, but can take some getting used to for someone with iPhone experience. Blackberry users will be able to make the transition a little easier, I would guess. One of the keys is a “menu” button that opens up whatever menu options are available for whatever program you happen to be running.

For future revisions, I have a suggestion for the soft keys: Make the bar above the keyboard electrostatically sensitive too, to make it easier to scroll vertically when you have the keyboard open. I find myself trying to use the “Motorola” logo as a scroll bar when reading my e-mail in landscape mode.

Like the iPhone, the Droid also has an application store, called “Market.” Unlike the iPhone, there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of quality control or compatibility testing for the Android SDK market. I’ve downloaded a handful of applications, and several of them have frozen my phone so badly that a hard reboot was required. On the other side, there are some incredible applications for the Droid. I’ve already gone wardriving with my phone, and I’ve picked more than 100 wifi points in Shippensburg, many of them unsecured and configured with default router passwords.

The iPhone’s App Store is significantly more mature than the Market at this point (but Apple has had a several-year head start), but it shouldn’t take much or this to even out. I mean, if people can program something like Fieldrunners (my absolute all-time favorite game on the iPhone) in Objective-C then I would be real surprised if I doesn’t show up for the Droid rather soon (hint, hint).

The Droid is extremely customizable in ways that Apple would never even consider for the iPhone. You can load your own programs on the device, change your icons, replace the default e-mail and text messaging apps, and even download different on-screen keyboards. One of my favorite customizations is the wallpaper. The wallpaper you choose is shown behind the phone menu at all times, even when unlocking the phone. (You can see my current phone wallpaper here.)

Today I decided to run a battery stress-test on the Droid, and I can only describe the battery life with one word: Epic. My phone spent more than 12 hours unplugged today, and six-and-a-half of those hours were spent streaming Pandora radio without wifi, using the internal speakers to play the music. I also sent and received a number of phone calls, text messages, and e-mails, and checked Facebook and The Weather Channel. My phone was still at 10% battery when I got home. I’ll say it again: EPIC battery life. (At least, more epic than an iPhone.)

(If you’re curious as to what I listen to on Pandora, here are the stations I was listening to today: [Angels & Airwaves], [Delirious?], [Vindicated], and [Howard Shore]. I have more than 20 stations.)

Overall, I’m very happy with the Droid. Motorola’s finally got a smart phone winner on their hands.

Because my life isn’t busy enough, this past weekend I decided to catch a late showing of The Fourth Kind with my brother and friends and coworkers.

It was good, but not for the faint of heart.

Before I get into more of a review, let me say up front that this movie is NOT a sequel to Close Encounters of the Third Kind. There are no well-meaning, friendly-looking, spindle-limbed aliens implanting hypnotic suggestions into people’s minds.

Okay, there is a bit of the messing with peoples’ minds.

For those of you who like sci-fi movies, you should be forewarned that this is not Fire in the Sky, Independence Day, or even Aliens. It’s creepier, and sinister. If you liked The Ring then this movie is for you. It has more scare factor than The Sixth Sense, and Wil Smith never shows up to punch an alien in the head.

The Fourth Kind purports to tell the true story of a psychologist in Nome, Alaska, who seems to uncover evidence of alien abductions while treating patients. The movie is put together like a dramatized documentary, putting dramatized footage (with recognizable actors Milla Jovovich, Elias Koteas, and others) alongside actual footage of recorded events, interspersed with an interview with the psychologist herself. Often, the movie will show the real and dramatized versions side-by-side on the screen.

This claim to realism begins as soon as the movie starts, with actress Milla Jovovich actually introducing herself before the movie starts. I can’t claim the truthfulness of the claims of “true story” here, but if it isn’t then the filmmakers did an excellent job of making you believe that what you are watching actually happened.

Overall, the movie itself is predictable, and you’ll find yourself easily knowing what’s coming next. It won’t keep you from jumping in terror, though. And there are a few little creepy twists that might just keep you up at night.

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The next few paragraphs are going to discuss specific plot points and event sin the movie. If you plan on seeing the movie, and don’t like spoilers, stop reading now.

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There are a lot of Christians who believe that alien abductions are really demonic activity. This movie makes a strong case to support that view.

The “aliens” in The Fourth Kind speak ancient Sumerian through (except at the end)–and twist the bodies and minds–of those they “abduct.”

It is important to remember, at this point, that the movie claims to not just to be based on a true story, but to actually document it. But knowing movies, I see 3 possibilities:

1. This movie is exactly what it appears to be: The true story of a mentally disturbed psychologist throws herself obsessively into her work after her husband’s suicide and uncovers evidence of violent abductions and possession of humans by rather vicious aliens. Actual recordings make a strong case for authenticity.
2. This movie is almost what it appears to be: The true story of a mentally disturbed psychologist throws herself obsessively into her work after her husband’s suicide and uncovers evidence of—rather than aliens—a powerful and pervasive demonic possession of an entire region. Authenticity is supported by actual recordings.
3. The Fourth Kind is a very well-made scary movie, with two sets of actors and incredible attention to detail. Aliens? Demons? Doesn’t matter, the movies is still creepy as anything.

In the movie, the people who experience the abductions recall their terrifying experiences while under hypnosis, and then the “aliens” speak through them. Anyone who has been involved in any kind of spiritual warfare against demonic possession will recognize these scenes: Human bodies twisting into unnatural positions, levitation, and foreign voices speaking through humans. Ancient Sumerian features prominently, although there is some English spoken by the aliens or demons late in the movie.

Any time “real footage” is used, the transition is clearly noted, so there’s no confusion between what is “real” and what is “dramatized”. Nearly everything that I would classify as special effects in this movie take place in the “real” footage. Grainy picture (reminiscent of VHS recordings and the type of dash cam recordings seen on the TV show Cops), EM interference, and the aforementioned levitations and inhuman voices.

If the story is real, it will undoubtedly result in Nome being the new hot spot for UFO hunters. Christians looking for a fight with the demonic will also likely begin taking pilgrimages to Nome to cast out the powers active in the area.

In either case, it will be interesting to follow the reaction to the film. If the “reality” has been faked, then there will be very little interest in trips to Nome.

To me, however, much of the movie is very reminiscent of instances of demonic possession. The voices (claimed to be aliens in the movie) speak in freakish tones using long-dead ancient languages, twist their human hosts into positions that actually cause bodily harm, and incite terror, despair, and hopelessness in their victims.

The time 3:33 also features prominently in the film. I’m not going to go into a full numerological study, but 333 is half of 666, which has strong numeric link to satan and the other fallen angels. One of the voices even claims to be God, which is a well-known trick of demons. This was either a very clever ploy by the movie makers, or evidence of true demonic activity.

The movie is frightening. More so because it is so good at convincing you that it’s true. It’s something that will stick with you for a while.

You know, I’ve been around Christians much my entire life. I know so many Bible verses, and so many interpretations of those verses, that I can take just about any side in a theological argument, whether I subscribe to a particular belief or not.

Until recently, though, I haven’t really cared much about why these different interpretations arose, how they spread, or the social shifts behind why one dogma became more “accepted” than another. For the first time I’m actually getting interested in the history of the early church.

And the source of my interest? Anne Rice. Yep, THAT Anne Rice. I recently finished reading Pandora, and through the latter portion of the book there is a fascinating running commentary on the growth of Christianity in the Roman empire. Rice’s histories are usually meticulously researched, so it really piques my interest when she talks about Paul, or Jesus, or the disciples, even in a fictional sense.

Anybody have any good, readable histories to recommend?

I really probably shouldn’t blog this, but it’s too funny not to share.

There is a woman–let’s call her Mabel–who has been calling Destiny Image over the past couple of months.

She started out calling the sales line, but has graduated to the general office number and punches in random extensions.

“Mabel” seems like a nice woman. She has a strong Boston accent. And she is very inquisitive.

In fact, she asks so many questions that today one of the employees dubbed her “Our Very Own Corporate Stalker.”

Every time Mabel calls she seems to need different information. Today, she was asking for the official job title for one of our Acquisitions Agents (it’s “Acquisitions Agent”) for “correspondence.” Previously, she has asked to speak with the heads of certain departments, she has asked who the managers of certain sales representatives are, and has asked probing questions about our authors and attempted to get personal contact information for them (which, really, is not that unusual).

I can only imagine that she is trying to build some kind of organizational chart of the company.

When asked her name, or queried for contact information, she politely declines to answer or ignores the question completely and continues to ask her questions. A staff member once began to pray for her over the phone, and Mabel began screaming “moron” into the phone.

One of these times, I’m hoping that she gets through to me. I have a whole list of fake names and positions (such as Dr. Green in Trauma Counseling, Westley in Wardrobe, and Asuka in Angelic Warfare) that I would like to add to her list of Destiny Image employees. I’ve also got some choice jokes involving caller ID and reverse name lookups that I’d like to share with her.

It’s rather entertaining, really. I think though that Mabel may need a hobby. Or a pet. Maybe I’ll send her a kitten after the next time she calls. Everyone likes teh kittehs.

Organizing links to new music I need to buy for Rock Band night:

Tribute by Tenacious D
Kryptonite by Three Doors Down
So Cold by Breaking Benjamin
I Will Not Bow by Breaking Benjamin
Ironic by Alanis Morrisette
Head over Feet by Alanis Morrisette

I need more Microsoft Points. Again.

I posted on twitter/FB today that I had some really strange dreams last night. A few people asked me about them, so I’ve relented and will post it here. I apologize in advance for the blank spots. Dreams are like that: They don’t have to make sense.

//start dream//

I’m sitting in a train station, on a bench on the platform.

A train passes through the station, and stops suddenly. Over the loudspeaker, it is announced that there was an accident, and that Dora the Explorer is trapped under the engine guard.

For some reason, this really upsets me, and I determine that I have to go save Dora.

I run to the end of the platform, and in moments find myself lost in the middle of an endless swamp crisscrossed by sections of rotting wooden platforms. I begin jumping from crumbling dock to dock, trying to make my way to the front of the train, which is nowhere in sight.

After a while, I am overcome with emotion and collapsed, crying and screaming. For some reason, Dora being trapped under the train still has me greatly upset.

Eventually, I see some birds circling overhead. I stand up, and the birds fly back towards the platform, which has reappeared. In the distance, I can see that the train has started moving again.

Suddenly, I find myself running through a store. I pass several clothing racks, and stop at a shelf full of large plastic spaceship models.

And then I woke up.

//end dream//

So, did I make anyone’s brain explode?