Not Done With Sean

Do I ever watch just one video? Oh, hell no, and why should I have to stop? There are too many that are great, and since you’ve read the title of this blog, it must be obvious I’m going to say something about Sean’s videos being great. Yes, they’re great.

I really like the shot of the ocean (or whatever large body of water that’s supposed to be) in ‘Where’s the Donka?’ LOL! Oh, sorry I wasn’t laughing at the video. I was laughing with it, and it really is great, but the name is hilarious. That might just become the name at my house. I hate the remote, and Donka sounds like the perfect name.

I also love the jellyfish, or whatever those things are, in ‘The Mast.’ This is really saying something since I cringe at the sight of jelly fish; might be due to an up close and very personal encounter with one. The music to that video is perfect. It sounds kind of laid back but edgy, slightly energetic but menacing. Yep, that describes a jellyfish.

But the video that really has me fired up (and keeps this post from being labeled a tangent) is the ‘London Film Premiere’ for Spiderman 3. Man, those guys can throw parties. But I think it’s an excuse for pole dancers to be invited and not look tacky (or whoever those women are supposed to be; Spiderman’s “helpers” I guess). How perfect that they had to use “string.” Okay, seriously, wouldn’t it be cool (yes, this is my first use of cool, so it’s not uncool yet) if RA ended up in Captain America as Union Jack or some equally cool (two’s the limit) looking character from The Invaders, and Sean got to work on the project?

Can you imagine what Sean could do with this:

These guys are in need of a serious makeover and Sean seems like just the guy to help. If RA isn’t in this movie, I hope Sean gets something out of it. I would love to see his work on this. Yes, I know he didn’t redraw the Spiderman character, but he helped make a neat looking effect.

I’m not really that keen on RA being in something like this, but the guy does talk about working a lot. I’ll bet he can’t sit still, and I’ll bet (this is my gut talking) that he hangs onto a penny — not stingy but frugal. For all of you gals who are looking for someone responsible, he might be your guy. ;-) Where was I? Oh, yeah, the guy talks about working a lot, so if he gets this, I’m glad for him. But really, it’s not my style, but hey, a few other things RA has done weren’t my style (North and South comes to mind), and I liked them anyway. Even if he doesn’t end up being part of this project, I hope the rumors go on long enough for me to get a few laughs on this blog. This is just too easy to laugh about (damned sentences that end in prepositions, but what am I going to do? Make a sentence like this: This is just too easy about which to laugh.)

By the way, I loved a lot of other things about Sean’s videos (yes, I watched all of them and some more than once, and I’m reflecting — seriously), but I won’t bore you with my thoughts. You can go watch them for yourself.

I need a picture of RA don’t I? Not sure which one would fit here.

July 22, 2010
Categories: Captain America, Miscellaneous works, Movies, Rumors, Tangents . Tags: , , , , . Author: RAFrenzy . Comments: 4 Comments

Tangent — What Color is the Sky?

So Rupert Murdoch finally has the paywalls up completely on the Times. I’ve been reading about this coming event for quite a while now. It’s my understanding that Murdoch based part of his decision on another paper he owns that requires paid subscriptions for online reading — The Wall Street Journal. The only problem with his thinking is that the Wall Street Journal targets a much smaller audience, provides information more difficult to obtain and the readers have more means to pay. It can’t be said enough that the Times stuff is easily available elsewhere unless the Times has one helluva editorial team, which is doubtful. So I’m not sure what Murdoch is thinking to compare the two papers.

Perhaps he’s not thinking, since it’s also my understanding that he personally does not use the internet. ROFLOL!!! Wait. I think he’s almost 80. Okay, that explains it. Wait, my 70 something year old mother has an iPhone and accesses the internet with it, and yes, to get her news. As if that’s not enough, so do my almost 80 year old mother-in-law and father-in-law, so no, age doesn’t explain it. He must be on another planet ’cause the color of the sky in his world is not the same as the rest of us, and apparently he’s as unrealistic as Prince, who I already thought was crazy. Oh wait, I meant the artist formerly known as Prince. No, I’m wrong, he’s back to Prince. Whatever, I’m not talking about the royals:

…”The internet’s completely over. I don’t see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won’t pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can’t get it.

“The internet’s like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good.

“They just fill your head with numbers and that can’t be good for you.”

The rest of the interview.

Alrighty then. Those devices in our hands are really just a figment of our imaginations and will soon disappear. I don’t think ol’ Rupe thinks those devices are going away, but just like Prince, he thinks he can create a scarcity where none exists. But of course the devil’s advocate rears his head and has me remembering that Rupert and Prince are friggin’ geniuses, and sometimes we think geniuses are crazy — especially when they see something the rest of us can’t. This is going to drive me crazy until I know these paywalls fail. Then again, I understand they might be necessary. If so, it’s going to be sad to see the golden era of information coming to an end.

In the meantime, I love how one of the frequent commenters at Tech Dirt put it:

Hephaestus said:

He will fail. Will it get me laid? will it make me money? is it required for work? his paper doesnt match any of those so its a fail, and few if any will pay for it.

I hope you’re right, Heph.

July 5, 2010
Categories: Geek, Tangents . Tags: , , , , , , . Author: RAFrenzy . Comments: 1 Comment

Tangent — Just a Tangent

allwork

I keep finding typos on my blog, and I’m sure if I keep scouring for them, I’ll find them until I’m cross-eyed. This drives me crazy! If I weren’t anonymous, I would let someone proof my stuff, but well, it’s not worth it to me. But still it drives me crazy! And I’ve already gone crazy a couple of times in my life.;-) So I’m not going to look at it anymore unless someone lets me know I have a horrible typo that maybe paints RA as a serial killer or something; otherwise, I’m going to run with these posts and not look back.

That is all.

June 28, 2010
Categories: Housekeeping, Tangents . Tags: . Author: RAFrenzy . Comments: 13 Comments

Tangent — Some Pointers for Twitter

Edit: In my former life, I was actually responsible for clear explanations of technical things. Good thing I’m not getting paid for this anymore. So I’m going to take another crack at thoroughly confusing you, er, explaining Twitter. Edits are highlighted or just read the whole thing again. And I’ve got to stop writing these posts by the seat of my pants! Hope I really didn’t confuse anyone enough to make them say forgetaboutit! Hang in there. Twitter really can be fun.

I’m no expert on Twitter, but I’ve learned a few things, and for those of you who are novices, maybe a few words here will knock down the intimidation factor.

On Twitter there are two pages you need to understand. The home page is the page that comes up when you first login. This page scrolls the tweets of people you are following and it also scrolls your tweets. So following someone means seeing a person’s tweets scrolling on your home page. The other page that’s important is your profile page. This is a collection of only your tweets, and it’s what people see when they look you up on Twitter. They cannot see your home page and the tweets that are scrolling there only your profile page, which again, only contains the tweets you have made.

To make a tweet, you can simply go to your home page and type in a message of 140 characters or less and hit enter. Yes, you can delete it if you mess up. You can also make tweets to someone else. It’s important to understand that when you find something on someone’s profile which you want to tweet about (comment on), you actually “reply” (on Twitter “reply” is a misnomer for comment). Your “reply” then shows up on your profile as a tweet, and it also shows up as a tweet on your home page along with the tweets of the profiles you are following. Since following someone means their tweets scroll on your home page, tweets you make to someone not following you will not show up on their home page, but they still have the ability to see it.

There are countless Twitter apps and services out there (WAY TOO MANY to list them all here; as if I actually know all of them LOL!) which help people figure out what’s being said and where and manage what they find a little easier than the Twitter functions, but I’ll spare you all of that for now. LOL! Thankfully, Twitter has a built in function to query on tweets to you. It’s the “@yourprofilename” button on the right sidebar of your home page. Click on that, and you can see everyone who’s talking to you whether you follow them or not. To see those talking about you but who didn’t do it with a reply, you can use the Twitter search function, which is also on the right sidebar. Well, this is assuming your profile name is somewhere in someone’s tweets, and they’re really referring to you. LOL! This is a good reason to have a unique Twitter profile name. If you want to know about anything else being talked about, you can just use the Twitter search, and Twitter also gives some help with the topics that are of most interest or “trending” on Twitter with a function on the right sidebar.

So let’s say you want to know of all the tweets about Richard Armitage (or at least the ones where people were savvy enough to put his name in the tweet). You key in Richard Armitage and it will get all of the tweets beginning with the most recent first, and yes, there will be some of them about the politician. I forget how many tweets are retained before the buffer is overlaid (if it even does get overlaid), but trust me it’s enough to keep you busy.

Another cool thing is you can create a subject for people to use as a tag in their tweets. The sky is pretty much the limit on what you can call it. Tags begin with #. For instance, I recently sighted SFR (StickFigRichard on Twitter) with a tall, leggy red head. So I made a comment and then put my tag #Spying_SFR in the tweet. If you sight him somewhere, you can make your comment and put that tag in your tweet. Then someone can do a search and read about the SFR sightings instead of trying to find them on all these different profiles. Phew! What a pain that would be! Oh, and I also went to StickFigRichard’s profile and did a reply so that it had SFR’s profile name in my tweet as well. That’s for people who don’t know about the tag; they can search on SFR’s profile name. That’s just a couple of ways to make sure people can find things. More later since some of you are just getting rolling.

Well, one more thing. The best way to acquire Twitter profiles to follow is to look at the Twitter profile of someone you’re interested in and take note of whom they follow or who is following them. It is amazing the things you can find this way. Pretty much the same as finding great blogs on some of those blog rolls out there in the blogosphere. I think of it like hunting for treasure. I’ve found some absolutely wonderful profiles, and yes, sometimes very edifying profiles, by just reading other users’ followers and following lists. Of course most of those are on my “real” profile. ;-)

Perhaps all of this is a no-brainer, but I thought I would throw it in for those who might be feeling a bit overwhelmed by Twitter.

We can talk about putting up pictures later. :D

Bottom line: HAVE FUN!

So I guess this post isn’t a complete tangent since I sort of tied it to RA.

And I find it ironic that I’m listening to Streisand sing: Papa Can You Hear me? My mood? Antsy. I alternate between that and flippant.

June 24, 2010
Categories: Tangents . Tags: , , , . Author: RAFrenzy . Comments: 4 Comments

Tangent — Helen James

Like all of us who get these Google alerts and Twitter alerts and all kinds of alerts going on, I got the update on someone named Helen James interviewing RA, and of course good lemming that I am, uh, I mean good Army member that I am, I had to go look at her Twitter account. But my anal nature wasn’t satisfied with waiting patiently for this interview to surface on the Spooks 9 DVDs (at least I think that’s what I read). I wanted to know about Helen James dammit. So I went to her site and watched her and various people who work for her, and I saw quite a few still pictures of her as well. (Man, it’s a good thing I’m a quick study or I would really feel guilty about spending too much time). I got a great vibe from her, and I would analyze her ala the idiot chick on Bill O’Reilly, but I’ll try to spare you. Suffice to say she seems like a neat person, and I can boil it down to one thing. She smiles a lot! How can we not like people who smile a lot and especially when their eyes smile as well? What a powerful tool in our communications arsenal. I’ve told the little SOs ad nauseum that smiling can cover a multitude of sins. So go forth and smile!

Looking at those videos of Helen James helped me understand my obsession with the LOL. I smile a lot in face to face interactions, but obviously, you can’t see the smile on my face 90% of the time as I’m writing this blog. I realize my lack of writing ability to convey that smile, so I frequently rely on the LOL to do it for me. It’s very important to me to get that smile across because I know it radically alters the reception of my words. But I was not always a smiler and learned the hard way how much it colors what is being said, and this has been a blessing for me and hopefully some others. I spend time day in and day out with a good number of people, and sadly, most of it is due to harsh realities of life doing them in. Much of the time is spent listening to their ills, and I am expected to respond to some degree to the terrible things I get to hear. Lucky me. Yeah, that was sarcastic, but I do consider it a privilege (not sure I would call it a pleasure yet) to listen to people who are in crisis and then try to help them. No, I never grin like the Chesire Cat or patronize when someone is pouring her heart out. God forbid I ever do that! I do try to smile appropriately, and it is often a balm — a wonderful balm only succeeded by laughing.

Oh, and that’s another thing about Helen James. She laughs a lot too. At herself and just life’s situations. God Bless her. I wonder if she realizes how much she owes her success to her upbeat demeanor. Yeah, I realize she knows the technical side of things, but hey, a lot of people know technical stuff and that didn’t get them very far. Yours truly is one of them. Thankfully, I learned early that being technical was never going to be enough. I had to know how to interact with people in a way that inspired hope in them as well. The combination of the technical knowledge and the ability to make people want to interact with me allowed me to make a crap load of money and then retire and then do what I’m doing now, which ultimately meant I could write all this fluff that hopefully makes you laugh or at least smile.

Ohmygosh, I feel a fake fan letter coming on but it’s to Helen! I guess I have another addiction.

Helen,

I feel like I can address you so familiarly because of your very personable nature. You have that down! For all I know you could be a real pill to deal with, but my gut instinct (aka bs detector) tells me the people around you would willingly deal with it.

I get the sense that you generally enjoy life and love what you’re doing even if things are sometimes going to hell in a hand basket. I know I had fun just watching the promo videos on your site. If I ever need some professional videos, I’m calling you, and hang the overseas airfare. It’s not that expensive.

Oh, and I’m so glad you got to interview our guy. That is sort of a royal “our” since I have the strength of a powerful host of people behind that statement. Now I’m wondering if you asked him The Question. But hey, for you, I can forgive your curiosity about all of us, The Army. For now I can’t wait to see the interview and how much RA was smiling and laughing.

What I would love is if you could somehow interview the husband who hung the moniker on all of us. That would be something to see! Might be therapeutic for Richard to lay eyes on the chap who’s caused him so much chagrin.

Sincerely,

RA Addict and newbie Helen James devotee

P.S. I hope you don’t freak out with all of those Army members now following your Twitter account; yeah, someone really ought to do a story about this phenomenon instead of just relegating it to a joke with RA.

For those of you who don’t know what she looks like, check out her Twitter account or her website.

June 22, 2010
Categories: Interviews, Spooks, Tangents . Tags: , , , , . Author: RAFrenzy . Comments: 6 Comments

Tangent — I Can’t Let This Pass

This really shouldn’t be relegated to a tangent post, but I wasn’t sure how to label it.

I’ve been having a good time watching clips of RA and fan videos. But I cannot let this day pass without paying homage to those who made it possible for me to have this kind of freedom to be frivolous. May I never abuse that.

To all of those who sacrificed their lives and to those who put themselves in harm’s way but survived on this day 66 years ago, I say a hearty thank you for all you have done!

The picture is from this site. I hope they don’t mind me using it, and I hope you will go over there and see all the work they have done to preserve the significance of those events.

June 6, 2010
Categories: Tangents . Tags: , , , , , , . Author: RAFrenzy . Comments: 6 Comments

Tangent — I Like You, Chris Ryan

I know recent articles on Chris Ryan are all part of the Strike Back hype, but the effect on me is not producing a liking for more Strike Back (I already like it plenty) but rather a liking for more information on Chris Ryan. He’s just one likable fellow. I wasn’t kidding when earlier I said he feels like a buddy. Oh, I realize the press may not give an accurate account of him, but he seems to be honest. He doesn’t seem to think he’s superman nor seem to be hot on himself. My understanding is that John Porter is a somewhat autobiographical character, and in the book I don’t see him as all prettied up for our consumption, and if he comes out the hero, could that be Chris Ryan wanting a redo — even if it may only be in his head?

What’s interesting about this article and others I’ve read is that although Chris Ryan is a decided Alpha, as he gets older he’s learning to appreciate his Beta. I just hope he never has contempt for Alpha but puts it in perspective and really learns to appreciate it in a way that maybe no young man can ever do. Any man who gets that right is about as sexy as they come.

Maybe I need to break down and read more of his books to see if he’s already there. Not sure which one to begin. Perhaps his first, The One That Got Away.

I challenge you to read this article and come away not liking Chris Ryan or worse just dismissing him.

SAS author Chris Ryan: I fear for mental health of veterans of Afghanistan

May 12 2010

CHRIS RYAN is enjoying the spoils of war – the former SAS soldier has used his frontline expertise to become a best-selling author.

Decorated with a Military Medal for his exploits in the first Gulf War, which he survived against the odds, he has also appeared in testosterone-fuelled TV shows, including the aptly titled How Not To Die.

One of his books, Strike Back, has just been turned into a major new drama by Sky One, starring Richard Armitage as John Porter, a burned-out special forces soldier haunted by the past.

Like much of Ryan’s fiction, it’s something he writes about from first-hand experience. And for all the success he’s had as a writer since leaving the SAS in 1994, the memories of battles fought and fallen comrades remain with him.

He said: “There are always regrets. Usually when somebody was killed, wishing you’d done something differently. But that’s the gift of hindsight, which is invariably right.

“It’s always there but you can’t undo time and you just have to live with the decisions you made.

“As you get older, you look at it differently. You look at yourself and you are greyer, wrinklier and a bit heavier.

“The guys you lost never get older. You think of them as you last saw them and, as time goes on, as you push through the years, the reality of that is sadder.

“You just think, ‘What a waste of life’.”

Born near Newcastle in 1961, Ryan now spends most of his time in America, where he has interests in the security business.

But during his 10 years in the SAS – or “the regiment”, to those who have been part of it – he became part of its legend.

He took part in the disastrous Bravo Two Zero mission to Iraq in 1991, led by his fellow soldier turned author Andy McNab.

Four members were captured by the Iraqis and three died – two from hypothermia as temperatures plummeted to below zero.

Ryan was the one who got away, enduring the longest escape and evasion exercise in SAS history.

He trekked 200 miles to Syria over eight tortuous days with no food and little water. He lost 36lbs in body weight, his toenails fell off and he had sores all over his body.

Ryan puts his survival down to many things – SAS training, the thought of his then two-year-old daughter, Sarah, and that basic human instinct, fear.

He said: “An SAS soldier is trained in escape and evasion. I knew the process of getting out by hiding during the day and walking at night, but it was fear which got me home.

“It wasn’t just fear of bumping into the Iraqis, it was fear of the winter they were having – two of my colleagues had died through hypothermia – and of not seeing my daughter again.

“She was just two and I desperately wanted to see her. In fact, in the latter stages of my escape, I was hallucinating and I saw visions of her.

“Fear is a great motivator, especially if you think you are going to die. I had never pushed myself the way I did in Iraq – and that was only due to the fear and adrenaline which drives you on and keeps you going.

“It’s coming up for 20 years now. I can remember every day but there are bits that are hazy.

“It’s like toothache. It feels like the worst pain you’ve ever felt at the time, then a week later you can’t remember it.”

Although he remained in the SAS for a few years after Iraq, Ryan suffered from post-traumatic stress, which manifested itself in sudden bouts of rage.

It’s a condition he afflicted on Porter in Strike Back, and one which he is convinced will be a problem for many of the soldiers serving in Afghanistan.

He said: “I don’t think we have seen anything like what we have witnessed over the last 10 years, the amount of stress our young men are being put through.

“My brother is in the Parachute Regiment and tells me stories about guys who are out on foot patrol and see their colleagues vapourised. Over the period of a six-month tour, they are losing 20-odd men.

“Think about it. You go to your office and know that, out of a couple of hundred of colleagues, in six months about 27 of you are going to die. You are going to see a few of them go and a lot of you are going to come back without arms and legs. It would freak you out.

“I don’t know how these young lads are bottling it up. It’s got to come out somewhere.

The rest here.

Oh, and I would put up a picture, but I don’t have permission (didn’t take the time to get it). I’m just enjoying this picture. Hopefully, the owner will not pull it since it appears to be for public viewing. If the owner happens to stumble on this blog, I would love to embed this picture, but sometimes WordPress is a bully. :D

June 2, 2010
Categories: Interviews, Strike Back, Tangents . Tags: , , , , , . Author: RAFrenzy . Comments: 2 Comments

Tangent — My Timing Stinks or Maybe Not

I bitched in this post about the British making us Americans the bad guys and how unoriginal that is, and the same day I posted that, this article below was printed. Wow I was more right about the lack of originality than I realized. I’d forgotten about this. Yes, I was guilty of forgetting about this! LOL!

Why does Hollywood ALWAYS cast English actors as villains?

By Barry Norman
Last updated at 9:25 AM on 20th May 2010

The most dastardly villain in Ridley Scott’s new Robin Hood movie – Sir Godfrey, who plots to betray his country to the French – is played by the British actor Mark Strong.

Well, fair enough: he’s an English knight, albeit probably of Norman descent, so you’d expect an English accent.

But, hang on, Robin Hood and Maid Marian are English, too, and they’re played by Australians – Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett.

And Sir Walter Locksley, Marian’s father-in-law, is played by Swedish actor Max Von Sydow. So what, you may ask.

Good at being bad: Mark Strong as the evil Sir Godfrey in Robin Hood

Well, cast your minds back a few years to another Sherwood Forest epic, Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves. Who was the gloriously over-the-top villain here?

Yep, another British actor, Alan Rickman, as the Sheriff of Nottingham. And who played our hero, the Saxon Robin of Locksley?

Why, Kevin Costner, whose transatlantic twang was such that he seemed to have arrived in Nottingham only after an extended sojourn in Southern California.

So a disturbing pattern begins to emerge. In the casting of big budget Hollywood movies the rule is clear: bad guys British, good guys anything but.

Helen Mirren sounded off about this in Los Angeles the other day.

‘I think it’s rather unfortunate,’ she said, ‘that the villain in every movie is always British. We’re such an easy target that they can comfortably make the Brits the villains.’

This, however, raises the question of why we’re such easy targets. I mean, why pick on us?

Oh, and he does go on to explain why, in his opinion, and of course it involves us being dumb. You do know that we’re all dummies over here who can’t grasp anything that’s nuanced? LOL!

What had me laughing is that Mr. Norman and Ms. Mirren don’t get when the English are being complimented. So much for understanding subtlety. Sure we could have had an American or someone else playing baddies, and we have. But they’re not nearly as cool as the English baddies. We love those guys! I mean we darn near root for the English baddies. Well, yeah, sometimes we do root for them. I guess I should have known the English didn’t get it when they have such dumbass Americans as their bad guys. By the way, anyone who makes Toby Stephens look like a dumbass ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Really I guess this is turnabout is fairplay. So we’ll have to endure a while of being the baddie to satisfy some notion of fairness. That’s my take on it, but then that might be too literal. ;-)

May 25, 2010
Categories: Strike Back, Tangents . Tags: , , , , , , , . Author: RAFrenzy . Comments: 12 Comments

Tangent — Words Mean Something Don’t They?

When you join WordPress, you’re automatically subscribed to a blog. That’s fine, and for the most part I’ve enjoyed reading it. But I sometimes let the posts stack up. That was the case the last few weeks. When I finally got around to reading them this week, there was one about “Congratulations to Our ‘Bloggers Who Really Count.'” It was a little blurb about the WordPress bloggers who made a list compiled by the Timesonline.

I have already been fighting off guilt for writing this blog, so I did not want to read the full list. Just the mention of it made me gut check what I’m doing here. Then I read Mulubinba’s post about RA’s charitable bent, and my guilt for spending a little bit of time writing fluff was full blown. Uh, you do know this blog is fluff with a little introspection thrown in? Maybe I’ve been watching too many action shows, so I felt like I had to just tell you that instead of hoping my writing was good enough that you already get it.

Back to self-flagellation. I finally worked up my courage to read that Times piece, and the altruism dripping from the page is almost non-existent. Most of the blogs are about trends from technology to fashion. How does that really make a difference? To someone’s boot time? Or their boots? Maybe if I’d had a little help with my shoes early on, I wouldn’t have worn so many 2-1/2 inch heels, and my mood would have been better, and my relationship with SO would have been better. I know for a fact he got more sex once I went to running shoes with almost all of my outfits. These days I’m mostly in Tevas or Chacos, and they make my mood even better than the running shoes. I wonder if a study has been done on the correlation of wearing comfortable shoes before 40 to a healthy sex life; if not, someone needs to do one. It might be a shot at the Nobel.

But I was all wrong in my thinking. This article is not about making a difference. See how my mind works. That’s what I inferred. I thought something that really counts would be about a blogger who is dealing with people who are starving or dealing with people who have no roof over their heads or have to endure some other kinds of abuse or dealing with any number of things that make this place a much better world for mankind or animals in general. It wasn’t that kind of counting but more the numerical kind like counting fans or money or some sort of hipster scale being tipped.

For bullshit masquerading as beneficence, I could have just read my horoscope today:

Your horoscope for May 19, 2010
Do things with passion today to take care of any detective work that needs to be done, _____ [this is where they put in my first name so I feel like it’s really my personal horoscope]. You will find that high-tech devices and new fangled gadgets will aid in whatever sort of work you are engaged in today. Embrace technology and new ways and attitudes toward the world. Adopt a humanitarian approach toward whatever issues you have in your life that require closure.

And you just thought I was going to talk about JP’s identity crisis. Well, if I can write something that interests me let alone you, I’ll post.

Screencap courtesy of RobinHood2006.com

May 19, 2010
Categories: SO, Tangents . Tags: , , , . Author: RAFrenzy . Comments: 8 Comments

Tangent — If Media Producers Would Just Listen to Me

I knew I was right. Of course I was right. I always am — in my dreams. But I am right about something this time. Media producers need to get it. People don’t want to watch shows through nefarious means. Well, at least most people don’t. Of course there will always be some people who just want to steal. But most people just get frustrated at the difficulty of accessibility. It’s only due to this frustration that most resort to viewing shows through YouTube, P2P sites, etc.

I hope someone who can effect a change is reading this:

When asked if they would pay for a service which provided an advertising and DRM-free TV show, movies and music experience, an impressive 66.4% of respondents said they would be prepared to pay for that.

The prices they would generally be prepared to offer are $1 per TV episode, $2 for a movie and 50c per music track. ($1 AUD = $0.91 USD)

edit: The problem, my friends, is that media producers are trying to create a scarcity where there is none. This is done to keep the price point artificially inflated. It’s not going to happen. Now that average Joe Schmuck (which is how I think media producers, and I’m mostly thinking of Hollywood, think of us) has the means to manipulate the technology, it’s not going to go away. Once people got a taste of that, they’re not going to give it up easily. About the only way this could be controlled, and even then I don’t think it really can be, is if we have an international group that has the ability to exact punishment. We are moving toward that, but we’re never going to get there, and do we want to go? I know I don’t, and it’s not because I’m a law breaker but because that kind of control is not necessary. The short of it is media producers need to catch up. They are lagging far behind, and it shows and it’s going to keep showing unless they learn to deal with the competition. Okay, I’ll stop now because I feel a serious diatribe coming on about copyright and all sorts of related subjects that this blog SHOULD NOT be conducive to.

But before I drop this, I love the last paragraph of this piece.

Here’s my gratuitous pic, so this post is not entirely me bitching, and it’s the tricep this time:

Screencap courtesy of my stash.

May 8, 2010
Categories: Strike Back, Tangents . Tags: , , . Author: RAFrenzy . Comments: 4 Comments

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