Last night I went with the family to the midnight showing of the new Batman movie. Just by chance it was opening in Oslo on my birthday. I have been looking forward to this movie all year. I am hesitant to admit that the flick did not live up to my expectations. I won’t write anything about it just yet. I think that I will just Continue reading “Batman: The Dark Knight Rises….. ehh.”
A dark night indeed
As long as I can remember I have had a special place in my heart for the comic book character known as Batman. More than any other fictional character, and if I am really honest, more than any real life person as well, Batman has helped to define my own personal and moral code. My mother, who is a fairly religious person, has lamented over the fact that I have never in my life asked myself “what would Jesus do”, but have on more than one occasion chosen a course of action based upon “what would Batman do”. With that said, as I sit here on my vacation Norway I have been thinking about the recent shooting in Colorado during the midnight showing of “The Dark Knight Rises” and the Norwegian shooter from last summer quite a bit.
Anyone familiar with the Batman mythos will know that Bruce Wayne’s (aka Batman) parents were senselessly murdered in front of him while on their way home from watching “The Mark of Zorro”. Their murder marks a critical turning point in the life of the young Bruce Wayne. I keep thinking Continue reading “A dark night indeed”
If I can’t be famous, I’ll be infamous!
The martial artist in me is conflicted by the recent turn of events in Colorado, and the anniversary the mass murder in Oslo, Norway. The Norwegian gunman had more than an hour to hunt down and attack his victims. More than an hour, which means that he had to stop and reload at multiple points. As a person that trains in self defense based arts, I can’t help but think about what I would do if faced by such a threat. Would my training make a difference? Would I freeze or rise to the challenge? Are the arts that I am studying really effective in real combat situation? In truth, I don’t have any answers. I would hope that be able to protect myself and my loved ones. Or at the very least make the son of a bitch regret picking me or mine as a target.
My father was gunned down when I was fourteen as he was closing down his candy shop for the evening. The murderer was never found. Even as a young man I often Continue reading “If I can’t be famous, I’ll be infamous!”
……does whatever a spider can!
It was a pretty good day for me. I had a couple of really productive meetings followed by an opportunity to reconnect with an old passion of mine that I have neglected for far too long, podcasting. Thanks to a good friend of mine I was asked to participate in a podcast about the new Spider-man movie with the guys over at NewYorkCine. I was brought in for my expertise on all things related to Spider-man and comic nerdism/geekdom. Plus I was one of the few people on the panel that actually loved the new Spider-man reboot more than the Sam Raimi versions.
Big up to my boy Thomas Edward Seymour for the invite. I had a blast. Here is to hoping they ask me back to help review the new Chris Nolan Batman flick, The Dark Knight Rises, later this month.
The Spider-man podcast with my commentary can be found here:
If your browser does not support the audio element. Please access the podcast at:
http://newyorkcine.podbean.com/2012/07/10/new-york-cine-not-so-amazing-spider-man-27/
You can check Continue reading “……does whatever a spider can!”
More light please!!
With the summer fully in swing I am making full use of my break from teaching to spend some time to study new things. A few months back I took a workshop on shooting video with HDSLR cameras at Studentfilmmakers. I enjoyed the workshop a great deal and have wanted to sample some of their other seminars. Since then I have taken two other workshops at StudentFilmmakers on “Lighting for Mood” and “Directing for Video”. I am hoping that have been wanting to jump into the DLSR video waters for awhile. My lovely wife bought Continue reading “More light please!!”
The new baby
I just got the new Acer Aspire V3-771G-9875 17.3-Inch laptop I ordered as an early birthday present to myself. I bought it online from Amazon for a great price. My 2009 17 inch Macbook Pro was starting to show it’s age with the old Intel Core 2 Duo processor powering it. I was starting to worry that my Macbook was going to have problems dealing with the new Adobe CS6 software suite, especially the video based applications like After Effects and Premiere Pro. So I put on my big boy pants and finally pulled the trigger on a new Acer system.
Now for the record I am not happy that I have switched from Macs back to the darkside, but this laptop was too good to pass up. I love my macs but the new systems are priced too high when compared to some Windows systems. The desktop system that I built a few months back had made me more comfortable about switching to Continue reading “The new baby”
Graduation day for the kids!
Congratulations to my beautiful daughter and son on their graduation day! Their graduation ceremonies were held on the same day, and at the same time. As a result, the wife and I couldn’t go to both. So we threw our names in a hat and the the kids picked which one of us would go with them. My daughter picked my wife’s name and my son picked mine outta the hat. The only solace was that I had enough video cameras for us to tape both events. I can’t believe they are graduating. As cliched as it may sound, it really seems that it was just yesterday they were starting school. And for the record, I have video of my daughter’s graduation as well. She just won’t let me post it. I believe her words were “Dad, stop being such a nerd”.
I still don’t want a dog
As I mentioned in a previous post, the wife and kids have been working on me non stop in the hope that I will relent and agree to get a dog as a new pet. Anyway, I showed the below Geico commercial to the wife and kids as a response to their prodding. They didn’t find it as funny as I did.
And just for the record, Continue reading “I still don’t want a dog”
The 2012 Five Boro Bike Tour
My wife and I have done this bike tour for probably the seven or eight years. We always have a good time. One year it rained the entire time and it was still fun. This was little man’s third bike tour with us. He hung in Continue reading “The 2012 Five Boro Bike Tour”
A debate on the value of a college education
One of my former students posted this documentary on the value of a college degree on Facebook. I thought that I would share this many of my friends, students, and colleagues to spark a discussion on whether or not the view of higher education has come to this point in these difficult economic times. In my opinion the documentary Continue reading “A debate on the value of a college education”