peterme.com

Convergence of some sort

So, I was reading the comments to my last post, one of them from a woman at Hallmark. I figured she was a longer-term peterme.com reader.

Well, it turns out I'm in Hallmark's offices, and when I open up iChat, I see this woman on the local network. So I say, "Hi! I saw you had written on my site!"

In chatting, I found out that she hadn't been to my site before today. What had happened is that my computer had popped up on the local network, and had appeared in people's iChat and iTunes. She Googled my name, and saw my site, read that I was in Kansas City, and posted a comment. I then read that, and later discovered her on the network.

I don't know quite what to make of all this, except that it seems like a glimpse of what's to be as things get increasingly digital and public.

Heading to Kansas City

Tomorrow I get on a plane for Kansas City. I'm there for a few days of business. Evenings free.

What should I do?

Post a comment or email me at peterme@[thisdomain.com]

petermedia update

Batman Begins - ...and ends, with little to show for it. Before it opened, I had little interest in seeing it -- the Batman film franchise has been one long disappointment. But both critics, and many many friends raved about it, so I thought I'd take a gamble. Particularly because I wanted some escapism.

What I got was merely competent fare. The movie takes an awfully long time to get going, setting the backstory for Batman's transformation. And then it takes a long time to continue. One problem with the film is that it's all exposition. As Joe Bob would say, there's too much plot getting in the way of the story.

BB doesn't measure up at all to, say, either Spider-man movie. For starters, it's not nearly as fun. But more importantly, I think, the Big Action Sequences are instantly forgettable. Spider-man and Spider-man 2 have bunches of unforgettable scenes -- the wrestling match where he first dons his suit, chases down the cavernous streets of New York, the out-of-control subway that nearly kills him. Batman Begins has nothing so memorable, so iconic. The action tends to be stock fight scenes or car chases, very mechanical, with no emotion.

Word Wars - rented this documentary on DVD, and it is well worth a look. I loved Stefan Fatsis' Word Freak, upon which this film draws a lot of inspiration, and the movie ends up bringing to video the characters that Fatsis brought to the page. Word Wars is about the world of competitive SCRABBLE™, and follows four top players as they make their way to the Nationals. It's clear that this doc would never have been released without the success of Spellbound.

This film doesn't really compare with Spellbound, but it's good nonetheless.