The
title of this site comes from the following passage, as it
struck me as an interesting concept as well as a colourful
phrase when I came across it.
"The
techniques of autostimulation are extremely various.
Just as one can notice that stroking oneself in a certain way
can produce certain only partially and indirectly controllable
but definitely desirable effects (and one can then devote some
time and ingenuity to developing and exploring the techniques
for producing those desirable effects in oneself), so one can
also come to recognize that talking to oneself, making
pictures for oneself, singing to oneself, and so forth, are
practices that often have desirable effects. Some people
are better at these activities than others. Cognitive
autostimulation is an acquired and intimately personal
technique, with many different styles."
--Daniel
C. Dennett, Elbow Room
This
site doesn't have many visitors at the moment, but that will
hardly affect the content or frequency of posts herein.
I hope that doesn't bother you ... like it matters.
You may follow this link to add your own comment, but this is
what another "visitor" had to say
I
have been webmastering my own sites for several years now. (You
could say I've been the master of my own domain.) My
original home site entitled The
World Bri'ed Web is now in its seventh incarnation or
so. I write and record music, and use the site incessantly to
pitch the albums to all few of my visitors. I now invite you
to read my thoughts, rants, tidbits, musings, and brain-rains.*
May your stay be full of fruit.
*Brain-rain:
(n) Not as severe as a brain-storm, and hardly as vulgar as a
brain-fart, but somewhere safely in between.
May 15, 2005 THE CHOSEN ONE
There's no angle I could take that would be fresh or interesting. The fact of the matter is: you do not care about my experience or review of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. Heck, I would be bored just reading whatever I would end up typing. I'm even bored thinking about my thoughts on the movie. The sentiment of anticipation and fulfillment for things like movie releases has worn me down too much over the years. With Star Wars alone, the memories are grating.
In the grand scheme of the world, things you have no control over or that will affect you in no direct way are just the small-talk topics of conversation in the fleeting whimsicality of time and space. Direct the important things inward and then you can appreciate your own greatness for a standard with actual value, rather than pushing empty praise on unreachable standards that have such fluxuating value that the investment therein would drain.
I experienced amusement at Star Wars, but I felt exhilaration when I passed the fourth and final certification test on the first try, making four in a row; a feat hereto unheard of. Value.
Besides, things can't fly off spaceships in space. That would require some amount of wind resistance? And sound from space battles being heard though not only the complete vacuum of space, but the shielded airtight windows of an observation deck as well; well, that's just silly. Ohm's Law and changing several thousand-dollar lamps correctly; well, that will get me a raise. 5:51 PM May 13, 2005 MOMENTS WITH JOHN, #375
The first thing I figured I would try out in Windows Movie Maker was the titling capabilities. And what better raw material to work from than this classic clip of my good friend John.
Warning: subtitles may contain graphic content. View the clip. 2:19 AM May 1, 2005 MORE CONTROVERSIAL THAN OOLON COLUPHID'S TRILOGY OF PHILOSOPHICAL BLOCKBUSTERS
The love/hate relationship phenomenon: you either like it or you don't. There are things that people will have opinions on, and those opinions are derived from specific reactions to facts. It is the weight of each of the many facts that carry a perspective one way or the other. The reason a love/hate relationship develops is because the types of facts involved, in a particular situation, are those with an "either/or" value, rather than the type with gradations of value.
What makes a good movie? Well, it must contain enough components are "good". The problem is that different people want different "good" things. "Either/or" values (those of a yes/no, 0/1, on/off, pregnant/unpregnant variety) that will make a movie good for one person may be the mere presence of: character development, plot arc, fire, breasts, one-liners, and explosions, the depictions of which fill a screen completely. Those objective values that will make a movie good for another person will be a clear "yes" to the questions of things like: did I laugh?, did I cry?, did it do these things more to me than when I saw Cats? These are all straightforward judgments with no ambiguity or subjectivity. The movie either contains these things, summoned these reactions in you, or it didn't! Easy. Things like cohesiveness, actor chemistry, cleverness, believability, and whatnot are not involved. If they were, then a love/hate relationship would not emerge, but a wider scope of gradations; for they are Subjective judgements, not cold/hard facts.
The interesting dynamic in this is that when one says "This movie didn't have any characterization. It didn't have a point to it or any message conveyed by the end" as a way of saying that it was a bad movie, another will respond with "Oh, characterization and a message? Of course it doesn't have those things, never said it did, but what does this have to do with making it a good movie?" as a way of settling that. Clearly these approaches meet at an impasse, acknowledge each other with a noncommital nod, and utterly refuse to shake hands (supposing that the other had offered a hand to shake in the first place, which he didn't).
The fact that Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, the 2005 movie, did not seem to have a message, didn't have a tangible plot, didn't get to the root of what motivated the characters, didn't explain what the hell was actually going on, didn't make it clear what roles were being played in the big picture, didn't have any cohesive flow, and didn't make any attempts to explain why it didn't have these things ... well, not only did all these absenses NOT affect how great the movie was, they were primary characteristics of the radio series, the BBC television series, the novels, the Infocom text-adventure game, and the breakfast cereal in the first place!
No, this movie wasn't made as a giant inside reference to the already-fans! It was telling the same story, with the same nonsensical approach that was inherent to it. Don't go reading the book after seeing the movie looking to find what you missed. There's nothing "inside" in the movie. Yes, it was an adaptation (and a great one, at that, in my opinion), but you'll change the nature of the beast if you force it into a new mold, just because it's a new medium.
Imagine if the way they told the South Park movie's story was with a new, movie-budget animation style! I suppose, logically, it would make sense for the new medium; but it would defeat the purpose, the appeal, and the entire entity of what South Park exists as.
Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, the movie, was exactly what it needed to be and was done in the only respectable way it could, and for that I loved it. It just happens to be a cold/hard fact that, as well, I laughed, I cried, and I threw away my copy of Cats. 11:30 PM
I
have been webmastering my own sites for several years now. (You
could say I've been the master of my own domain.) My
original home site entitled 
May 15, 2005