They learned NOTHING from the first atrocity? The script is still stilted, insipid, and pointless. The acting…”acting” is barely people moving around and saying words on film. You can’t even critique it, or reflect on it, because it’s just crap. It’s like trying to apply literary critical theory to a hand turkey by a two-year old. Only, the two-year old probably put a lot more thought into the paint on their hand, than anybody put into this movie.

 Surely there’s no possible way the book characters are so flat and uninteresting.  The “plot” so far is one cliché after another, to the point I’m confused. Didn’t anybody read this script, first? Or see any footage of Kristen Stewart? The vapid, angsty blandness worked for her suburban stereotype in Adventureland, but her passion/emotionless recitation of dialogue (“acting”) detracts from the already clichéd(I need some other words for cliché, if I’m going to keep talking about this movie – why am I even talking about this movie?), poorly written script. Are teen girls today (not to mention grown women, don’t even get me started) so identifying with this perpetual damsel in distress? So devoid of sense of self and strength she latches uncommunicative, violent old men…oooh, there’s nothing I could say about this, that someone else hasn’t.  

Emphasis mine.

“New Moon” is a terrible, terrible movie that is essentially “Transformers 2” for the training bra set with pseudo-soulful glances from bare-chested boys substituting for giant robots blowing things up.

Watching it is like staring at one of its promo T-shirts for 130 minutes–in both cases, the people on display are pretty enough but after a few minutes, their one-dimensional natures and the fact that they don’t actually do much of anything will quickly grow wearying for anyone looking for more than eye candy for unimaginative 14-year-old girls….Bella is crushed and spends the next few months (signified by arguably the most unintentionally hilarious moment in a film chock-full of them), weeping herself to sleep, trembling like a withdrawing heroin addict and acting even more anti-social than usual until she begins spending more and more quality time with Jake (Taylor Lautner), her newly buff and often shirtless best pal who, it turns out, is also a werewolf (though easily the least threatening one to appear on the big screen since Jason Bateman suited up for “Teen Wolf Too“)…what I fail to understand is, based on the evidence seen here, why the large and fanatical audience that is has developed would want to associate themselves with something as utterly dreadful as this. Do they actually admire a central character like Bella, a whiny mope who apparently can’t function in the world unless she has herself a fella? Do they actually find Edward to be a compelling and fascinating romantic foil even though it seems that he has managed to live for more than 100 years without developing anything resembling a personality. Do they actually find some trace of romantic chemistry between Bella and either one of the non-threatening boys that she finds herself flirting with in the most passive-aggressive manner and without any evident curiosity about their supernatural natures? Do they actually enjoy the maddening story construct that, much like the previous film, finds the characters more or less treading narrative water for more than 90 minutes before any actual drama kicks in, only to have it all more or less resolved in about 15 minutes or so?

 Then again, it could simply be the fact that the story, once again adapted by Melissa Rosenberg, is such a lugubrious lump of unplayable scenes and unspeakable dialogue that not even the finest and most distinctive filmmakers working today could make much of it. ..Kristen Stewart…her performance is so lumpy and listless that it feel as if she was whacked upside the head with a two-by-four before every take. As for the guys, Pattinson is so limp and listless throughout that he seems in more need of a flu shot than a taste of blood. while Lautner literally lets his pecs do the talking throughout in the chestiest performance to hit the screen since Gerard Butler bounced around in “300.”

~

New Moonis…so tedious and stupid that it makes last year’s Twilight seem like Nosferatu.

~

You can’t help watching without worrying about the future of humanity. It’s a bona fide box office smash, largely because seemingly every teenage girl on the planet is lapping it up. They all wish they could be Bella, some vacuous girl who pines over a guy who looks like he’s stuck his head in a bowl of flour, has about as much personality as a sock, mumbles incessantly, dumps her, buggers off to Italy and then turns up in her dreams whenever she seems to be getting over him to wag his finger because she’s callous enough not to be pining for him anymore.

Why? Well, he’s sorta good looking, and it’s the power of true love, right? If this is the world’s next generation of womanhood, that’s a century of female emancipation down the drain.

…the dispiriting dullness of the central plot, hamstrung by the fact that the two central characters are so insipid.

~

If further evidence was needed (and it really wasn’t) to support H.L. Mencken’s assertion that “no one ever went broke by underestimating the taste of the American public,” the opening weekend take of $140 million for The Twilight Saga: New Moon is that evidence.

a tedious morass of emo goo that goes on for 130 seemingly interminable minutes. Even the amusing gay werewolf subtext—with Jake (Taylor Lautner proving that his acting peaked four years ago in The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl) dumping Bella (Kristen Stewart) to be his real werewolf self (“it’s not a lifestyle choice”) by hanging out with a bunch of beefed-up shirtless boys—is only mildly diverting. You’re still left with about 20-minutes worth of story that mostly keeps going by reels and reels of moping from Bella and Edward (Robert Pattinson). To pad this out, the two have more mood swings and changes of heart than the entire cast of Gone With the Wind.

This might work better if either actor had any charisma, or if their attraction to each other made any sense. I guess Bella’s all hot and bothered over Edward because he can walk in “romantic” slow motion whenever he enters a scene.

~

MovieJuice’s whole review is worth reading. Also, a review in poem tome. I think what really irks me isn’t what a piece of crap New Moon is. Plenty of bad movies get made, all the time. Heck, I own a lot of them. I tell myself it’s a fad, these girls will know better in a few years…but then, how to explain the grown women?

I just don’t get it. Luckily, The Oatmeal does.

Please to read How Twilight Works.

And you saw Twilight: Three Wolf Moon, right?

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAA HA!

Food for your feet – from Geekologie

Ah, it is amazing what a corney *bah-ha* joke can do for the sole *double bah-ha*!

I read an interesting article from the Times online this morning, about how women are not being catered for in the current technological market. It obviously hit a nerve as it was followed by numerous comments about how women get patronised in shops, offered tech advice along with champagne and nail polish, how the only alternative colour we get offered is pink. Some mentioned how information is “dumbed down” for us, we are only told what a laptop or camera can do rather than given specs and other info.

But the article didn’t, for me anyway, answer the question of what women are really asking for? We don’t want to be patronised in shops, or offered girly products? Fair enough. We clearly don’t want to be treated differently by the companies who manufacture the phones and camera and laptops that we increasingly want and can afford to buy. It claimed that women don’t feel connected to specific brands – but what do these brands do to connect to men? It’s not about gender, surely loyalty stems from function and good design?

My problem with this argument is, I don’t believe we are being treated differently. Technology seems to be one area where gender shouldn’t need to be an issue at all. I agree, some companies make the same cliched mistakes and bring out a pink laptop or phone with in-built mirror compact, which will sell, albeit to a small minority of female consumers.  But what about the other 99% of tech products out there, easily accessible online and on the high street. Most laptops, cameras and smart phones aren’t marketed to women, they’re marketed to people. There aren’t shops marked ‘men only’, although many women claim to feel unwelcome, uncomfortable and uncatered for when buying tech stuff.

Whose fault is it that often the majority of staff in computer/electrical/phone shops are male? I would argue, that although a growing number of women are very interested in technology and becoming very knowledgable themselves, a smaller number are interested to the degree that they would choose to work in a tech retail environment. Men are. They love this stuff – they read Wired and subscribe to Geekologie, and twitter about Windows 7 and beg for Google Wave invites….I see it online every day (and before any women get annoyed with me for saying that, I’d just like to add that apparently we women are far better at saving the planet; give it 20 years and see whose priorities were better!). But the numbers of women subscribing and contributing to these sites and forums is definitely on the rise.

My point is, the technology is out there. The information is out there. If we arm ourselves with some knowledge before we run the gauntlet of buying a new tech product, we lessen the chances of being patronised or being ripped off. I personally know that if a computer salesman starting reeling off the full specifications of a particular laptop, pretty soon I’d be standing in front of him with a glazed look in my eyes. But I do understand enough about processor speeds, hard drive capacities etc to make the right decision for me. And I don’t feel patronised if a salesperson points out features of a particular item in a jargon free way – otherwise there is too much information to take in. We do need different ways of presenting and selling technology to cater to different groups, not just women. Someone who is well trained and knowledgable should be able to sell anything from a mobile phone for a 70 year old man who has never used one before, to offering advice on a new lens for a professional photographer who knows exactly what they want (obviously not the same salesperson but if they do exist I’d like to buy from them).

To be honest, if I’m looking to make a expensive purchase, by the time I get into a shop and am talking to the salesperson, I’ve usually already made up my mind as to what I’m going to buy. Yes, their opinion and advice can be very helpful, but don’t rely on it. Stores are there to make money at the end of the day, and while I’d hope that all companies train their staff to sell with integrity, I wouldn’t always count on it. Cynical maybe, but I’ve been sold the wrong things before, at considerable expense to myself and I have learnt from my mistakes – namely not going in there pre-armed with some information.

I used to feel quite uncomfortable going into bike shops. I still haven’t encountered more than one or two female staff in the countless shops I’ve visited in my time, and it is still a very male dominated industry (at least on the retail side). But I love bikes, and I love browing accessories and looking at new things. So what to do? The answer is simple. I educated myself. I asked people I knew, I read magazines, I researched online – both official company websites and open forums within the mountain bike or bmx communities. I figured out what I’d be looking for and what was out there. And you know what, the next time I went looking for a bike, the young (male) sales assistant came up to ask if I needed any help, I told him exactly what I was looking for, we looked at a few bikes, discussed price and that was it. Painless. In fact, actually even pleasant. We ended up having a good talk about bikes and where we had ridden locally. If we are unfortunate enough to encounter a patronising, chauvinistic salesperson, we can always walk out. There are so many options for where and how we can buy things now, the power is all on our side. Obviously sometimes a certain store might have the rights to a product, but in that case  just get in there, get what you want, and get out.

If women are not asking for female specific products, or easier to understand information, then in what ways are the companies ignoring the female market? If we don’t want what’s out there then what do we want? If men are missing the point then do women have to start creating the companies and designing the products themselves? I personally would love to see more of this, as long as it’s done well. Going back to my bike example, I’ve seen and heard women complain about being marginalised and misrepresented - only to go off and set up companies with twee names and flowery websites. This is not what I, and probably millions of women like me are looking for, be it technology or bikes or whatever. But my point is, if we so easily patronise ourselves, should we be so quick to point the finger at the big companies? Until we can clearly say what it is we are looking for or start creating it ourselves, I think we remain part of the problem instead of the solution.

(Read the original article here http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6903265.ece)

I have a droid herbie curby! Herby kurby! Whatever! But my camera died, so pics will have to wait.

In the meantime, meet my new hero. “And get this, Speers says he isn’t really a huge Star Trek fan.”

Also, Cats 4 Gold!! Mail your gold, get some cats!!

from TDW, of course.

I wish I had a product to sell so that I could hire these Japanese artists to make a bar code for it. Found on Geekologie.

UPC Art

I wanted to do a post today to celebrate and thank those who have served in our military, and those who are currently serving. All day I’ve had different ideas of how I wanted to go about it. Some of them were so elaborate and stretched out it seemed more like a ploy to get people to look at my site rather then to truly thank those who put everything on the line just so we can continue to have the government we all bitch about today. On the other side of the spectrum, I’ve had thoughts that were so simple that I felt it wasn’t doing justice to how I felt. While checking my email and the news through my iGoogle page, I noticed that the Geekologie Writer had put out a new post since my last check titled “FREEDOM ISN’T FREE: Happy Veterans Day”. Looking at it I found the satisfaction that I was looking for in my own post. 3 lines and an image is all there, but he says what he really feels, so I say thanks to GW for helping me realize t hat it doesn’t really matter how elaborate or simple the post is; the idea is to give thanks for those doing for the many what not everyone is capable of doing.

I hadn’t bothered to watch the auto-tune science video thingie, because I don’t understand science and the autotune gimmick fad wasn’t all that funny the first time I saw the news autotuned. But now Bill Nye Science Guy is involved, so I watched it.

Again, another job well done. Really made me want to blast off in my rocketship and crash into a planet. And by that I mean drop a bunch of acid and listen to these guys talk about outerspace while I roll around on the carpet. – Geekologie, who makes everything awesome

Oh and…and…I helped my friend be a Klingon for Halloween once, in Phila. She had bought this forehead prosthetic, and it was awesome. This was circa Before Nerdy Shit Was Cool and Hip. I would describe it with words, but I don’t know if the brains of kids nowadays know how to make pictures in their brains. (Really nobody reads this so I’m not going to waste my time.) Anyways, this shirt wins.

I keep looking at this to see how it was done, but haven’t figured it out yet.

via Geekologie

without some dope links to uh…bookmark.

Rad-Dudes!! - pictures of awesome and totally rad dudes from across the ages

Black and White WTF? – pictures of awesome and totally WTF old people

 Got some time to kill? Stars Wars in ASCII.

I stumped LTSIFY with “Schopenhauer.” Otherwise, this is way fun. Use “I” a lot,  it’s from Wicked Games, sexiest song evah.

from tdw, of course.

Well… that Sesame Seed Bun is actually a Pumpkin. The meat is actually your dead dog. And it was undercooked. Gave the rest to your new dog to finish.

(Thanks Geekologie)

Another gem from Geekologie. Laughed ’till I cried with this one: 

Oh Geekologie, you are truly awesome. 

-Jack

I was on twitter today and noticed that At&t was a trending topic, AGAIN. While trying to get to the bottom of the twitter conversation this time, I came across a interesting video. During a campaign in 1993, At&t produced a series of “You Will” ads that talked about the future, and all of the “futuristic things” we would be doing. I can imagine myself watching this commercial in 1993 (at the ripe old age of 5) and thinking that things like, webcams, wireless internet, and GPS’s were fantasy sci-fi. Now I’m disappointed if my iPhone can’t tell me where exactly the traffic accident is that the DJ is talking about on my satellite radio!

They did a great job at looking at the way technology was progressing at the time, but it looks like they missed the whole cellphone thing completely.

When was the last time YOU used a pay-phone?

Dial “down the center much?”

1800-CALL-ATT? (remember that? haha)

Thanks to: Geekologie.com

Some things I saw online today that made me laugh:

• A list of the Top 33 Most Deadly Substances: We’re basically not safe to eat, touch or get close to anything. Some of those things are too cute to be posionous!
• How spoil your dog : Yes, I love lists, and yes, I think fur for dogs are ridiculous.
• Pimped out cars: Really? A bedazzled car?!
• Jacob or Edward: A twilight themed crop circle. What is wrong with the world?

Via Presurfer and Geekologie

Mayer "dapper gentleman" Hawthorne

Mayer Hawthorne introduces his spin on the Motown sound with a raucous cover of M.I.A’s Paper Planes, live @SF’s Barrel House.

Since “The Guardian” is all hoarding their content and doesnt wan’t people putting it on their websites etc I have to link you to their video rather than posting it directly on here. Sorry but yeah pretty cool and worth checking out… I still think I like Mayer even if he’s getting a little too much mainstream coverage.

Click here to go to the Video.

FROM GEEKOLOGIE.COM

Sure we’ve seen canned bacon before, but I don’t want to seem I give preferential treatment to one pig’s belly over another, so here’s Tac Bac! Like its competitor, this bacon is good for TEN FREAKIN’ YEARS. Buy now and you can eat the very same can in 2019 while huddled in your basement praying the robots’ heat sensors can’t reach you down there. Each tactical can will set you back $16 and contains approximately 54 strips of fatty pig. Definitely not the cheapest thing to survive on, but it’s worlds better than ten year old Ho-Hos and Ding Dongs, which, I don’t care if they’re the last things on earth, are still illegal.

ThinkGeek

Thanks to MDGrein, JFreezy, stereotypical, Harsh, Cpt. Awesome, Ste, Hammer, Dave, LucidSteel, Bryan, shogunu, and anyone I may have missed, you are all welcome to take shelter in my robot-proof lair, but only because I love sausage fests.

ENJOY.

D.

…my inner geek (who really isn’t all so different from my outer geek :/).

Deep down inside all of us, there lies an inner geek. He’s that tiny voice at the back of your head shouting: “hooray!” for new gadgets and the latest superhero movie to hit the silver screen. Here are two of my fave websites that really indulge my inner geek.

Photojojo: so much fun-filled photography related information neatly wrapped up into one newsletter. The site with the most kick-ass photo tips, DIY projects, and gear you’re not really sure what to do with, what but want all the same.

Geekologie: just awesomeness. Seriously, no other way to describe it, it’s just plain awesome.

Remember kids, be kind to your inner geek and he will reward you with new and shiny things to show off to all your friends.

Speaking of geeks, who watches Big Bang Theory? Am I the only one who things Sheldon is sooo misunderstood?! Also on a related note, when’s the new season of Chuck (I heart the nerd herd) coming?

-Jack

p.s.

I’m giving the flower photos a break for today, don’t worry, I’ll find someway to work it into a post tomorrow

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