You say you want
Diamonds and a ring of gold,
You say you want
Your story to remain untold
But all the promises we make
From the cradle to the grave
When all I want is you.

So here I am.

What an amazing Halloween.

I love nostalgia. The sudden eruption of whole sections of neurons, the vague, unspecific memories of a feeling. The lingering pathos.

I do love to flush a few hours down the photoshop-hole every once in a while. This was last night's pursuit, completed while drinking a bottle of wine and smoking a fat joint. You like?

What counts as being "real"?

As a secular humanist ad an atheist I'm often asked some pretty weird questions in an attempt to bait me into a long and unproductive religious debate. Don't get me wrong - I'll almost always engage in such debates mostly to see religious folk desperately try to apply logic to an inherently illogical concept.

Last night I was high on weed and found myself staring into the fireplace thinking existential thoughts. I got to wondering: do I consider myself a Physicalist? Can I accept the philosophy "everything which exists is no more extensive than its physical properties and that there are no kinds of things other than physical things"?

So my mind took to wandering a bit, and I began to really ask myself if I could come up with an example of something that is said to be "real" but yet is not strictly physical. The mind is the first and easiest stop on that particular road of inquiry but I am of the opinion that the human mind is very much a product of its physicality and that without the brian (and all of its complex structures and functions) the mind doesn't exist. So scratch that.

But then I hit a stumbling block. I began to consider the question of emergent phenomenon and wondering about their place in the question. Specifically, can an "idea' be said to have any existence beyond the brain that is currently thinking it? What about 'love'? Does it exist as something apart or is it merely something each individual brain experiences? The same could be asked about "culture" in general. Certainly, at no particular time does a society's culture ever exist wholly inside one person's brain, but yet most people would argue that it does still exist.

While certainly far from any sort of religious experience, the whole thought process has got me thinking about the nature of what we consider "real" and how our minds categorize things within reality.

Everyone can plainly see a tree is real, but how real is the forest?

My son will never refuse an opportunity to slide down the slide in the park near our house - even in the dead of winter after a huge snowfall. In fact, the snow made it even more fun because the slide was very fast and the landings were always cushioned.

This year was one of those rare years where I actually take advantage of boxing-day sales. Well - boxing week really. Does anyone just have a sale on boxing day anymore?

Anyway - I bought a shiny new dishwasher. Bosch. Saved a bit over 700 bucks on it and the thing is whisper quiet. Of course - as usual - installing the thing was an epic that would make The Odyssey seem like a half hour jaunt through a pretty flower garden. Okay - that might be overstating it a bit. Suffice to say, the crazy European people who owned my house before I came along had managed to use pretty much every non-standard fitting, wiring, conduit, and fastener they could. It's infuriating.

But I got through it and now, unless I'm actively staring at it, I can't tell it's running at all. In fact, it's so quiet they actually added a visual feedback mechanism (a pulsing red light that shines on the floor near the base) to alert the user that, yes indeed, your dishwasher is currently washing dishes.

And as if that weren't enough - I splurged on an (expensive!) pair of UGG slippers for myself. There was a time in the not-too-distant past where spending $150CAD on a pair of slippers would have seemed like a completely crazy thing to do, but with my publisher payments coming in, I'm feeling in the mood for some fucking luxury. Let me tell you - these slippers are fan-fucking-tastic. Never before have I worn a pair of slippers that have managed to keep my feet warm without ever making them sweat. If I were religious, I'd suggest some sort of foot-centric miracle had occurred. Instead, I'll silently thank the sheep and cow whose wool and flesh have come together in a beautiful, comfortable, and functional package that shall keep me comfy for (hopefully) years to come. If you're in the market for slippers and have some extra money, I highly recommend looking at the UGG brand. You won't regret it.

EndOfLine.

First movie watched of 2011 - the 1992 classic "Sneakers" starring Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier, Ben Kingsley, and Mary McDonnell way before she ever met a Cylon. Lots of good laughs to be had and some decent nerd-love throughout. The movie does suffer from a few weird editing and continuity problems but they're easily overlooked for its charm and humour. I still laugh out loud when Redford's character takes a header when trying to jump over a bank-counter during the opening "sneak" of the film.

Happy new year SGers.

A while back I resigned myself to knowing the new Tron movie wasn't going to be what I wanted it to be. But I still had hopes that they'd manage to keep the movie from blowing donkey-dicks. How wrong I was.

Here is a point form rant regarding Tron Legacy. SPOILERS ABOUNDING.

- Who the hell is this Kevin Flynn? Other than the name (and the somewhat arbitrary fact that he was portrayed by the same actor), the Kevin Flynn in Tron Legacy bears just about no resemblance to the one in the original. We first encounter the "old" Flynn and right away, the writers are trying to make you swallow some Zen-esq personality traits that just don't ever really go anywhere or add anything to the character. On the contrary - Flynn spends a good portion of the movie "wisely" saying that the best course of action is no action at all. Then, just as he's flipping out as his newly-found son, he decides "naa, maybe we should get up off our asses and do something... or something".

- What happened to Nerd Power? In the original Tron, Flynn says "I play video games better than anyone" and when he hits the game grid, he shows that his wrist-prowess has translated into 'physical' prowess. He shows that he is as comfortable in a lightcycle as he is at a joystick and in that way, he lives out a common gamer-nerd fantasy.

- Why did they bother setting up the "free vs open source" story hook only to abandon it right away? Why introduce Edward Dillinger Jr (Cillian Murphy) at all? Oh, right - how stupid of me - we need seeds for the inevitable sequel. Seriously though - this could have been the basis of a far more interesting and topical movie than what we got.

- It was dirt obvious that Rinzler was actually Tron. What purpose did it serve though? I thought we were going to get into some interesting redemption sub-plot but instead all we ended up with a kung-fu fighting, faceless dude who can make the Predator sound. And in the end, he turns "good" again for NO OBVIOUS REASON. Just shakes his head and hears Flynn's voice and figures "awe, fuck it.. I'm good after all". Great job writers. You suck.

- Why the hell did it have to be so dark inside the computer world all the time? And stormy? And for that matter, what's with all the water? Why is there an ocean in there?

- The religiosity of the whole movie was way overblown and poorly executed. It's never clear whether the programs are glad to be "rid of the users" or actually still revere them. The mysterious "user powers" that we saw in the original movie are hinted at and even sorta half-used to push a floundering plot forward, but are never explored or expanded upon.

- What was Clu's motivation? Why, exactly, was he behaving like a maniacal dictator? We see Clu go ape-shit after the ISO's show up but we don't exactly know why he felt they all needed to die in his pursuit of the "perfect system". Did he regard them as errors? Why? And how does invading the "real world" with an army of repurposed programs further his goal of creating the perfect system? Why would he talk about DESTINY!!! to an army of programs? How does he even know what will happen when those programs enter the portal? Doesn't it make more sense that they would just NOT be able to go through since there is no matter suspended in the laser with which to construct their bodies? For that matter, why does Cora need to go through the portal? I mean, obviously she gets made into a Real Girl, but what for? At the end, is Sam Flynn driving her to a military base so they can dissect her? What possible purpose does her "escape" serve other than being free of the only world she has ever known? I don't get it.

- The whole concept of the portal is fucked. If you were Flynn, wouldn't you just create a hard wired timer for your laster-digitizer that, once it ran down, automatically re-rezzed you in the real world? Or SOMETHING? A portal that is intentionally difficult to get to as your only way out seems like a recipe for disaster! Also - if the portal is so hard to get to - why is there a fucking light-beam transport ship GOING RIGHT TO IT? We've seen that pretty much any program who wants to can get one of those light-fliers and fly their asses out to the portal. Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis, you should be ashamed of yourselves. I fucking 10 year old with a pencil-crayon could write a better movie than you.

- Why does the Grid look and feel just like the real world? Why do the programs have cities and streets and all the rest? Couldn't you have put some more thought into things than that? What about the night club? What's it doing there? Does it add to the thematic elements of The Grid or does it just make it seem like a weird version of a real-world place? Yet another example of how the writers SUCK AT WRITING.

... I could go on for a long, long time. I haven't even touched on the forced, weird, and ultimately abortive "love plot". But I'll save it.

Endofline.