Point Break Sequel - Is that funny Whoa! or Uh-oh Whoa!

Every now and again I badger people about movies I would like to see. One movie I feel is overdue is a sequel to Point Break. It was a seminal movie of its day and even if the dialogue was a bit corny ("If you want the ultimate you have to be willing to pay the ultimate price.") Who can forget the parachute jump at the end, even though done once before in James Bond - Moonraker, it works better as a climax scene.

It turns out in May of this year I missed the announcement that there is going to be a Point Break sequel. It turns out that Bodhi survived that massive wave and will be found hanging out some where in South East Asia catching some "Radical" waves. Patrick Swayze is attached and it is unlikely that Keaunu Reeves will returns, blah, blah, blah.

ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY!! That's terrible, that's Highlander 2 bad. That is not the movie you want to make Peter Iliff! This sequel can be Aliens good if you have some imagination. Screw Bodhi, he has contributed enough to the story, let that little white dot of foam on the face of a monster wave be his final call (sorry Patrick I know you don't want to be be remembered for playing pedophile). The sequel of interest is with Johnny Utah. It's 20 years later and the clean cut , "Freeze FBI!", young dumb and full of cum G-Man wannabe is long gone, along with the badge on Bells Beach. He has traveled the path and we find him as the new Bodhi mentor character. Utah has reached a state of zen oneness after traveling the world and realised dancing for the man ain't where it's at. This is the perfect jumping off point and Keanu Reeves, if he is still in Matrix shape, could probably pull it off.

In my opinion once you have this setup the rest of the movie writes itself. Is Utah holding up banks? sure why not. Who the FBI green horn this time? Pappas son who Utah helped raise after his dad bought it in the first movie is torn once he finds out who he has to bring down.

Bohdi: Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true.

For this and more classic Point break quotes check out this link.

Rare Bill Watterson Art

I first came across Bill Watterson's creation Calvin & Hobbes in my teens and wasn't too far from the age of the creative ego centric character that I could identify. In fairness Bill seemed to know how to tap into the simple logic of a child that it would be hard not to identify with him. Like Seinfeld and the Police before him, Bill Watterson walked away at the top of the game in 1995.(The Police have recently gotten back together)

It is a shame that there has been no further work from Bill Watterson available since then. I was surprised to find a website last week that detailed some of his work from before his Calvin and Hobbes days. Included are a number of single panel cartoons he did for the college paper. A number of them are a bit dark and don't come from the same place as Calvin. There was however one standout that reminded me what it was like again when I was younger. Sunny days were few and far between when I was in college, so much so that when one did come along I was damned if I wasn't going to take advantage of it!

More Steve Jobs distortion?

iPhone party
Originally uploaded by nobihaya

The blogosphere at the moment is aghast at Apple's announcement that it will only sell two iPhones per customer at Apple retail stores and purchases are limited to credit or debit cards. The assumed (and trumpeted) reason is to block the resellers and preserve, as much as possible, the $831 Apple is supposed to receive on each AT&T iPhone. Most of this money is apparently lost when and iPhone is unlocked and sold on by a reseller. It doesn't ring through that Apple would turn down a sale. It is not like the iPhone is like the Xbox, where an expensive device is sold at a loss and the final revenue comes from games that are sold. Apple make profit on every iPhone that is sold. iSippli estimates the 8GB cost US$280.83 of total expense to produce and it currently retails for US$399. (The 4GB model is no longer available)

However, as my skeptic mind is prone, what if the reason given by Apple, while has an element of truth, isn't the whole reason. My guess is Apple need to limit the sales and try and preserve as much of the AT&T sales as possible because they don't have enough iPhones to last through the Holiday period to supply both the legit (arguable) AT&T sales and the resellers.

We'll see.

Ride to work day - October 17th

Look, Ma, No Hands!
Originally uploaded by edwardaggie98

In case any one doesn't know (I didn't until this week). Next Wednesday, October the 17th is "Ride to Work" day in Sydney. There will be functions all over the city apparently. Hopefully it will be enjoyable and convince some non cyclists to try commuting a bit more. More details can be found at this site.

Stupid Dog

I first saw this a few years ago but it is still hilarious. The dog seems to think his own leg is another dog trying to steal his bone. There is no end to the fun you can find on YouTube.

More Flickr Woes

Dump Your Pen Friend
Originally uploaded by sesh00

I, like many of my friend, have recently joined facebook. Unlike Flickr it has drawn in a lot of people who are not normally of the technical persuasion. They think it is great to upload pictures usually of some drunken night where the participants look a little worse for wear. I recently noted to a friend that I like the tutu she was wore out one night. The only problem was I wasn't there and I saw the picture from a non-mutual friend that tagged the image on her facebook wall. She was a little surprised and didn't know that people could do that, but in this case it was innocent enough.

Like the early days of e-mail, i.e. when regular punters started using it (not the techie weirdos that usually play nice when it comes to computers) there were many stories of people hitting reply all instead of reply and the embarrassment that ensued from some off colour humour reaching the wrong person or persons. Over time the netiquette of e-mail has settled down and there are now less of these reply-all stories as people have learned either the hard way or some horror story.

The new netiquette comes to taking and posting photograph of other people to the internet. The examples are beginning to rack up. Just this week Virgin mobile in Australia have found themselves sued by a Texas family after their 16 year daughter, Alison Chang, was featured in a ad campaign. Virgin used an image that was uploaded Alison's youth counselor that was released under creative commons. As a result of her image being they are seeking damages :

Claiming it caused their teenage daughter grief and humiliation by plastering her photo on billboards and website advertisements without consent

The technical legal details are abound. They correctly used the image under creative commons however they did not have a model release for for the feature participant. In the past it was usually the photographer that took care of this, but he/she was also a professional who living was selling of said photographs.

However while Virgin might find themselves on the wrong end of this one and will hopefully learn from it. I think the blame also reside with the person who uploaded the photograph, the youth counselor, Justin Wong. Blinding uploading pictures of other people without their permission is going to cause a lot of problems. Just because you don't mind having your life laid bare on the internet for all the world to see doesn't mean every body else feels that way.

As a result of cases like this and other emergent problems, I have been trying to educate friends and show them when and how they are leaking information that probably wouldn't prefer. Also as a Flickr pro user I have marked all pictures containing people as visible to family and friend only, it is a shame that only flickr users can only be marked as family or friend.

It is a shame that Alison picture was used in that way by Virgin, I don't think it was with malice just as a bit of a laugh and I hope that when she matures a bit she'll find out that there are plenty of worse things in life. She may even be able to ride out the noterity, maybe she should take some notes from Britney Spears defender Chris Crocker, who went from been slagged off one day for his over the top YouTube video to been given his own MTV reality TV show.

Bike Hack

I found this image over on Wired. An interesting upgrade to a bike to allow for greater carrying capacity. I can't imagine this hopping curbs too well though. This has got face plant written all over it.