Script Frenzy

So starting tomorrow there's probably going to be very little posted here for about a week or so, then a flurry of activity, then nothing again. Expect unusual posting habits for April. Why? Because I got talked into attempting to write a 100 page screenplay or script in the month of April.

Yes, this is brought to you by the same people who do NaNoWriMo, the "Write a 50,000 word novel in November" thing. No, I have never written any sort of script before ever. No, I don't expect to produce anything particularly worthwhile, but I think it'll be a decent writing exercise if nothing else.

For NaNoWriMo this past November I was going to try to write a coming-of-age story. Something happened in my brain and I threw that out a couple pages in and ended up writing an attempt at psychological horror involving sea monsters. This month, I'm going to try to write a coming-of-age story. I'll report in a few days as to whether there are sea monsters or not. Also, having another timed writing project to work on will probably be the inspiration I need to finally go back to editing my NaNo novel (which technically is finished, but is a pretty unreadable mess still).

Anyway. Happy writing to us all.

The waves! They burn!

So there's a blurb about my adopted hometown on Consumerist. It links to this article in the Chicago Tribune. Short version: A guy here in Santa Fe is now suing his neighbor for using an iPhone. Really. He says he has "electromagnetic sensitivities"; he claims he bought the house thinking somehow it would be a refuge from...well, electromagnetic radiation. He's also been pissing all over Santa Fe's attempt to get some sort of municipal wi-fi going on.

So, the first thing: electromagnetic radiation includes things like, oh, visible light. And ultraviolet radiation, and infrared radiation, not to mention straight-up radio waves and such. So claiming you have "electromagnetic sensitivities" is completely meaningless. Everyone does - ever gotten sunburn? Congratulations, you have electromagnetic sensitivities! Have you heard of someone getting radiation poisoning? Electromagnetic sensitivities!

Two: If you're going to sue for someone aggravating a medical condition, it's courteous to produce some sort of evidence that said condition actually exists. That does not mean a note from your doctor who you apparently visited with your lawyer (as per a recent article in the Santa Fe Reporter). That means multiple, scientific, controlled, peer-reviewed studies. "My doctor said so" is not scientifically valid proof.

Three: He lists dimmer switches as something that his neighbor was using that bothered him, to which I say: what? Dimmer switches work by, in some way, altering the voltage a lightbulb gets. I know that given the already-flaky claims this is just quibbling, but even if I did believe that my cell phone or wireless router or laptop was somehow giving you muscle pain (which I don't), I'd be pretty skeptical if you claimed that a device which, at it's most basic level, shunts some of the electrical current through a resistor is giving you muscle pain. Really?

Four: Here is a map of where this house he bought is, on Barela Street in Santa Fe. As you can see, it's not exactly remote. Santa Fe one of those places where it's still pretty easy to find a place to live that's way the hell out in the boonies. The state of New Mexico has an average of 16 people per square mile - it's not particularly hard to find someplace in this state with a couple dozen miles between you and your neighbors. If someone using electronic devices can cause half a million dollars worth of damage (he's suing for roughly that), maybe instead of living in downtown Santa Fe, you'd prefer to live on the outskirts of Santa Fe, or even further away from the city out in the middle of nowhere, where the only electronic interference is your own.

Five: Santa Fe sometimes is a great town but my god do I hate that things like this happen here.

Springtime

Spring in Santa Fe: when you have three consecutive days of painfully beautiful, 60+ degree weather...followed with a prediction for three inches of snow.

Alice in Wonderland

Saw Alice in Wonderland last night. Conclusion: meh. It wasn't bad. I fondly recall both the Disney cartoon version and the book from when I was a wee one, so trying to make my mental picture of it change is kind of questionable.

Visually, obviously, there's huge, huge potential. And it was nice and interesting to look at, but again: meh. I think The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus actually did more interesting things visually. The costuming was great, though, and I did like what they did with both the Red Queen and the Hatter.

I'm beginning to think that, unexpectedly, Johnny Depp playing a crazy person will never get old, because he's so good at it. Similarly, no one does evil crazy quite like Helena Bonham Carter. I'm a bit mixed about Alan Rickman as the Caterpillar - he has such a distinctive voice that I'm not sure he's well-suited to voice work at this point in his career.

The Chesire Cat was well done, I thought: Stephen Fry and the visual team did a good job of putting an original spin on him but also keeping his "I'm only doing this because it amuses me" attitude. I'm not sure where exactly the bloodhound came from but he was adorable and I wanted to rub his belly.

All together, I think it's most charitably seen as an homage to Carroll's works, not as a retelling of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (because it's not). I don't think it's a particularly bad movie - the pacing was okay, enough characters were interesting enough, it was pretty enough - but it's not particularly good, either.

The best thing about it, actually, was that it's showing both in 3D and 2D here. I can't see movies in 3D, so we went and saw it in 2D. When we walked in, there was a line crossing the entire lobby of people waiting to get into the 3D showing - it was close to sold out it not entirely - whereas the 2D theater was less than half-full and we walked right in. So that was nice; for once I was glad for my visual processing failures.

My thoughts on a very important issue

I finally gave in and watched (both!) trailers for the unholy remake of The Karate Kid that they're doing (seriously - Jackie Chan as Mr. Miyagi? That just...doesn't work for me).

I like the part where it's now set in China. I really like the part where one of the lines in the trailer for The KARATE Kid is "I will teach you kung fu."

Let's ignore the minor linguistic issues which make it fairly unlikely that a native of Beijing would say that (as opposed to "I'll teach you Wushu). And obviously, the actual 'martial arts' in the movie are going to be very silly. But presumably there was some advisor somewhere who knew something about martial arts. I wonder if this individual even bothered to point out that kung fu is not karate? Really. I promise. Ask either the Japanese or the Chinese - or any student of either art - and they will tell you. They are in fact two very distinct arts, each with a myriad of styles.

So...yeah.