Keeping in my ’seeking out inspiration’ kick, I just registered for the Seed conference with Jason Fried, Jim Coudal and Carlos Segura on October 29th. I’m looking forward to it, I hope to learn a lot. I’m also really enjoying networking as of late. I’ve been astounded by the people I’ve been meeting lately and it started with An Event Apart.

Coming out here to Chicago has been a huge opportunity for me, there is always something new and inspiring going on that fascinates me. So much to learn.

Last week I was lucky enough to attend a screening of Wes Anderson’s Hotel Chevalier at the Apple Store. The screening was hosted by producer Roman Coppola. Afterwards Roman stuck around for Q&A. The crowd was excellent and his rapport with them was phenominal. While film is not my field of choice listening to Roman was really inspiring. He spoke about starting a project, from researching it and making compromises to achieve a vision. I’m really looking forward to The Darjeeling Limited.

It’s weird but I spent years in New York, the “cultural center of the world”, and somehow I missed opportunities like this. I think I’m just more in tune with the world around me now.

I’m excited.

Warren Ellis posted a link in his blog today to a site advertising ‘The Veidt Method’ by Adrian Veidt. Adrian Veidt is a fictional character from Alan Moore’s cult classic graphic Novel ‘Watchmen‘ which, after years of false starts is in the process of being turned into a movie directed by Zack Snyder (300, Dawn of The Dead). The movie has all the makings of a hit, even so I’m sure of course Moore will have nothing to do with it. The man is historic for having his works bastardized for film and removing his name from them.

The site in question, Mr. Ellis speculates that it may be tied to the movie release as viral marketing ARG (Alternate Reality Game, ala The Hanso Foundation and the TV show Lost). If he’s right it leaves much to be desired. Sure, the site makes mention of ‘Nova Express’ a fictional magazine from the Watchmen story and hawks the character’s ‘life changing methods,’ however the links are nonfunctional and even the mailing list box doesn’t work, it instead is a mailto link to ‘adrian@theveidtmethod.com‘. The site design is weak at best, I would imagine if Warner Brothers were to be getting into the viral game, they’d put a little more effort into it. A quick look at the HTML code reveals the site to be based off a free template webdesign credited to a ‘Joseph De Araujo‘. Lame.

Putting those things aside, the site still doesn’t make sense. For one, the Watchmen storyline takes place in an alternate reality, cold war era, 1985; a detail which is reportedly being retained for the movie. If that’s the case, a viral web ad campaign or ARG would be out of place. Especially seeing as how it’s not 1985 and the World Wide Web didn’t exist in it’s current form back then either.

The true telltale however is this: on the bottom left of the page there is a login link that brings up the following:

Real ARGs are never this sloppy. Suddenly it all makes a lot more sense. Looking a little harder one finds that the site is actually hosted at theonering.net: a Lord of the Rings fan site. Turns out, this isn’t their first attempt either, they’ve also been publishing a blogger website entitled ‘rorschach’s journal.‘ Some believe the guys at ‘theonering’ have been lobbying to try and get some deal with Warner Brothers to do viral marketing for the movie. My best guess is they hope to make another unofficial hub like theonering.net possibly based around Moore’s works or something. Since Lord of the Ring’s success they’ve sort of made a business out of movie fan sites apparently.

Conclusion: It’s nothing but a bunch of geeks with a hard on for the original comic book having some unofficial web fun and a letdown for us other geeks looking for something fun to dig though while we get hyped up looking forward to the movie.

To date the only official Watchmen teaser info can be found here. Go back to sleep Watchmen fans.

Comedy Central’s new show Lil’ Bush is not funny. It’s just lame. I give it 6 weeks tops. If you need proof you can watch preview clips on YouTube. The show is terrible, I challenge anyone to state a decent case otherwise.

Finally got my HDTV working! I’ve got a MacMini and an AppleTV hooked up to it… it’s amazing and i’m ripping my first DVD. ‘The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi’ Some Japanese samurai movie my friend Chris made me borrow it a while ago and I keep forgetting to watch it, so I’m ripping it and giving it back to him.

I’m going to have the most awesome home theater setup in the freakin’ world when I get to Chi-town.

Living Room:
40″ Samsung HDTV capable of 1080p
Apple Airport Extreme Basestation with 802.11n
Nintendo Wii via composite wired to basestation
Microsoft XBox 360 via component wired to basestation
Sega Dreamcast via VGA with 2 keyboards for typing of the dead.
Sony PS2 via composite
AppleTV via component wireless 802.11n
Apple MacMini via HDMI with eyeTV Hybrid for recording. MacMini is modded to have 802.11n instead of g! MacMini has a Nyko AirFlo hooked up to it via USB and will be loaded with Emulators.

Last but not least:
Namco TV games Ms. Pac-Man / Galaga. via composite.

In the other room:
PowerMac G5 with a 500gb harddrive, wired directly to airport base station. Drive will be filled with movies, music and TV shows eventually to stream to the AppleTV!

and my favorite part:

At my parent’s house:
SlingboxAV hooked up to digital cable and eithernet to stream TV from NY… to Chicago.
Definition: Free NY cable in Chicago! More importantly - Free Yankee Games in Chicago!

All i need now is the Slingbox and the Wii network adaptor.

Note about the wireless: The MacMini is modded to 802.11n from 802.11g because it’s my goal to have only n wireless devices in my apartment, meaning: really fast data transfer rates between devices. Doing so voided the warranty but that’s besides the point.

My Laptop, the Mini, and the AppleTV all have n. g will be disabled. Hence why the Wii will be hard wired instead of wireless. Any g device on the network brings the whole speed down to g instead of n. Only downside: no online PSP… but I never use it anyway.

I am such a huge fucking nerd. But I know you’re jealous.

My apartment is going to rock! It’s like a mecca for consumer electronics whores like myself. Now I need surround sound… haha

I’m going to go out on a limb and just flat out dissagree with Robert Scoble.In his latest post he cites an EngadgetHD article noting that there are only two years remaining until the government mandated shut down of analog television. Thus completing the switch to the more efficient, higher quality and most of all, media company friendly, digital signals.Scoble uses his own father for the example as to why this shutdown won’t happen. While he raises a good point his arguement is flawed. His point is old people vote, and they vote in large numbers. He argues that when they find out we’re going to take their analog TV from them, they will come out in droves and change the laws. I’ll go on the record and agree if there is anything that would, and could stop this upgrade it’s cranky old people voting it down.But I’m also going on the record to say it won’t happen. The transition will happen without a hitch.I think by the time the analog switch is flipped off no one will really notice. Especially the elderly who are less in-tune to technology. The main reason for this is something I’m not sure Scoble really caught: the switch doesn’t require the average consumer to upgrade their set, only their signal. It just means that pretty much every household who wants a cable connection will have to switch from an analog reciever to a digital reciever. They don’t need to buy an HDTV or anything of the like. My parents 15 year old TV works fine with the digital box and probably so will Scoble’s dad’s.The thing is most people don’t understand the difference between analog and digital, nor do they care, they just know the cable company is offering them a better deal and more channels if they switch the box on top of their TV. Most people won’t even be aware it’s happening, or that they have digital service.In my area, here on Long Island, the transition is pretty much completed already. Cablevision, the dominent provider in the area has made it cheaper to switch to their iO digital cable service than to keep your existing analog one. Combine that with the cheap bundles of broadband with your digital signal and it’s pretty much insane not to. And now more companies are getting into the game. Verizon for example has started to penetrate the once monopolistic grip of Cablevision with their FiOS service and they don’t offer analog service at all.I think Scoble raises a good point, if highly publicized I think people would come out against the transition. But I believe it would be almost entirely based on misunderstanding. Even if people did band together against it, if consumer rights groups got up in arms, I’d argue you wouldn’t hear about it too much. Not to sound cynical or conspiracy theorist but the media companies aren’t exactly going to publicize it when they stand to benefit from the transition and the people who would be up in arms aren’t exactly reading blogs on a daily basis either.Watch, the transition’s going to happen with a whimper. The media companies have been working on this for a while and by the time the clock expires to be done people won’t even know it happened, with a very small handful of exceptions who are too out of touch to have their voices heard. Mark my words.

So, I’d like to actually write an entry but there isn’t much going on right now that interests me right now. The biggest, most interesting thing going on in the media right now in my opinion has got to be the whole Boston v. Aquateen Hunger Force scandal. It has got to be the most ridiculous case of paranoia and stupidity I’ve ever seen in this country.The city officials in Boston should be the ones facing trial not these two guys. They caused mass hysteria and wasted tons of taxpayer money with this whole affair and insane. I especially love their insistance on calling a glorified Lite Brite a “Hoax Device” seeing as their whole case exists on some bizarre premise that light up advertising boards with cartoon characters and D-Cell batteries somehow look like bombs.To be perfectly honest I think this is one of the most interesting things to happen in our country for a long time. If these guys get any sort of punishment it’ll be a grave injustice in our legal system.I’d like to contribute something to the discussion about it but to be perfectly honest.. I don’t think there is anything left to add from my angle.For those uninformed, the best place I’ve found to get info regarding the topic has been Boing Boing.

The Prestige was everything a good movie should be. It had everything: thrills, suspense, mystery, heartbreak, humor and romance.

Much applause for Chistopher Nolan who really put together a fine film. I was also floored by the excellent cast and the stellar performances all around.

2006 has been a great year for movies, I’m curious what the holiday season will bring.

I already put this on my del.ico.us but I figured it needed more attention because it was that damn good…. More rotoscoping and compositing! I’m sure you’re thrilled oh fictitious reader.

Special Effects house Buzz Imaging shows off how it made the effects used in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The clip showcases some incredible 3d modeling, rotoscoping and compositing work and makes it almost look easy. Don’t be fooled, this sort of thing takes days, weeks even months to get right. But it’s still incredible.

(Via Daring Fireball)

Wow… this makes my stomach turn but I cannot believe how true it is, this guy is a genius.Why Paris Hilton mattersIt’s incredible, hilarious, but incredible how right on this is. This should be cause for a great deal of thinking. I never imagined that something so superficial and worthless could be such a good model for success.(Via Digg)

So, I’m not really a big anime fan or that much of a video editor
but this blew my mind. I can only imagine how many hours this took to complete.

If you’re completely confused, let me explain. This guy noticed that Japanese cartoons or ‘anime’ tends to have a lot of running scenes and decided to do something with it. He spend hours combing over cartoons, isolating scenes and editing down shots to combine them fluidly and create one project. He wasn’t content with just cutting scenes together. He went into the video and used a process called rotoscoping to isolate individual characters from their shots and lay them out in other ones.

Think Roger Rabbit, Lord of the Rings and Forrest Gump.

Painstaking and time consuming to say the least. Excellent work by this Istiv guy, best of luck to him.

(Via Boing Boing)