Go take test yourself and let me know who you are in the Comments!
In an office full of computers I sit next to the printers, so I spend my days listening to the constant churn of lasers fusing ink to paper and of my coworkers cursing and fighting with the machines to try to get their documents. With that in mind, Smeliana writes about paper, paperwork, and an unfortunate lack of moisturizer:
Before nanochips, paper was very very popular, for hundreds of years.""NO WAY!""Way, my loves. Now let me get back to what I was saying. You see, back when I was a young woman, I worked in a hospital and had a job that required huge amounts of information changing hands."
"DATA TRANSFERS!""Yes, children. But then they called it 'Paperwork' because everything was written on paper. Lots and lots of paper. Paper everywhere! Whole cabinets full of paper in stacks, held together with more paper of a different color and thickness to show that it was a special section. We called those different colored papers, 'Folders.'"
"Like in a filing system!"
"Exactly, my precious. In fact, we called them 'Files' just like we do today, but the difference is that instead of it all being encoded on a chip, it was printed onto separate pieces of paper. And we'd have filing cabinets full of this paper. Every house had paper. Every office had paper. And because of all this pesky paper people had to work nearby each other if they wanted to share information."
I'm not saying that Alfonso Cuaron's new film is not great. On the contrary, I think it is certainly one of the best films of the year. What I am saying is that for it to be considered (and written off) as "Science Fiction," it would have to be imaginative. It would need to possess those qualities of a Philip K. Dick or an Isaac Asimov story -- that seeing far enough into the possibility of our future mixed with a certain element of creativity and fancy.
Children of Men is many things, but it is most certainly not a flight of some author/filmmaker's fancy.
Last year, Paul Haggis' Crash was given the Best Picture Oscar, to many many peoples' chagrin. I agreed with that decision, not only because I thought it was a great film, but because more than any other film, it spoke to the persistent problem of race in this country. In the year of Katrina, that was incredibly and indelibly relevant.
As of today, more American soldiers have been killed in Iraq than Americans died on 9/11. The cold war with Iran is heating up and immigration issues here and abroad show no signs of calming. I have not seen, nor do I expect to see, any film, tv show, nor have I heard of or read any novel, that better responds to the times we live in than Cuaron's Children of Men.
I would not bet against the likelihood of our 2027 looking quite a bit like the 2027 in the film.
Pretty scary.
Great movie.
Does anyone know what the four Application icons between Keynote and iPhoto are?
Happy Holidays!
Happy Chanukah!
Merry Christmas!
Happy New Year!
From our family to yours...
Love,
Erin and Etan
Has anyone seen these DVD's??
Our copies seem to be on vacation...
I know I may be a little bit behind on this one, but WOW!!! Brian K. Vaughan has been hired to the writing staff over at LOST!
The creator and writer of such incredible stories as Y:The Last Man, Ex Machina, Pride of Baghdad, and Runaways is now working with the Others and the Island -- so exciting!
The only thing I am wondering is why BKV would do this. After all, he has become quite the celebrity in the comics/graphic novel this past year, and is even working with New Line on film/tv versions of Y: The Last Man and Ex Machina. Does he really need to deign to be one of many writers on a TV show creatively controlled by men not him?
Clearly, either it is a better deal than I am assuming or else he didn't see it as a step down.
Either way, we the audience win as Wizard's "writer of the year" is now on the best drama on television.
Chris Pirillo who just got married in Seattle, writes:
It started with the almost move, then it was the almost-almost move, then it was finding a house, preparing to do the new move, setting up the honeymoon, closing on the house, moving across town, getting married later that week (and entertaining family), setting up new / old services, beginning the unpacking process, getting hit with a power outtage, and Christmas is in less than a week and I haven’t received (or even had a chance to dent) Ponzi’s list yet.
When… will… this… madness… end?!
I don’t know what my mental or physical limits are, but I’m pretty sure I’ve been pushed beyond them in recent weeks. Worse yet, I just discovered I missed out on a 40% off sale at Office Depot (where I ordered office furniture today). I’m sure my biorhythm has been spiking and dipping every other hour over the past couple of months.
That's actually remarkably close to how I've felt.
