I went to see Cloverfield tonight. With high expectations, I am sorry to say I cannot recommend this move to those that may be susceptible to motion sickness as myself.

First I generally love JJ Abrams work. I cant wait until December for the new Star Trek. However, Cloverfield left a bad taste in my mouth. And that is not a metaphor.I went to my local multiplex, the AMC PAlace 16 in a suburb or New Orleans, to see Cloverfield. I had very high hopes. Quite frankly, I am fed up with todays current crop of "action" flix. Are the directos today spending so much money on special and digital effects that they can't afford a frickin' Steadicam?!

What in the hell is up with the shakycam!? It seams every movie these days spend an inordinate amount of screen time using this zoom in, zoom out hand-held "shakycam" technique. I am sick of it. Literally. Cloverfield is the 2nd movie that I had to leave because of motion sickness. Prior to that was The Kingdom. I did not last until a little after the Brooklyn Bridge destruction.

Now, I have to admit, the sequences up until then were quite impressive.

I saw the previews. I sort of new that there was going to be a significant amount of shakycam, but the entire movie!? There was even a sign at the ticket booth warning movie goers of the technique causing a sensation that not unlike a roller-coaster. I should have paid attention. But I figured, how bad could it be. They certainly wouldn't shoot the whole flic in shakycam. Hopefully cutting between character pov to locked off cams for the money/hero shots. But no.

So here I sit with a cold towel on my neck, sucking on ice cubes, trying to keep the images of some dillweed running down the Brooklyn Bridge with a home DV camera (even the cheapest, crappiest digital-8 handicam has built-in steadyshot image stabilization).

I think from now on I will do a little more research and avoid these type of movies.

As most of you know I am a computer/video geek. I couldn't resist (with some minor changes, of course).

-----------------

Dear Tech Support:

Last year I upgraded from Girlfriend 3.0 to Wife 1.0. I soon noticed that the new program began unexpected child processing that took up a lot of space and valuable resources.

In addition, Wife 1.0 installed itself{readmore}into all other programs and now monitors all other system activity. Applications such as Poker Night 10.3 , Football 5.0 , Hunting and Fishing 7.5 , and Racing 3.6.

I can’t seem to keep Wife 1.0 in the background while attempting to run my favorite applications. I’m thinking about going back to Girlfriend 3.0 , but the uninstall doesn’t work on Wife 1.0 . Please help!

Thanks,
Troubled User…..

____________________________________
REPLY:
Dear Troubled User:

This is a very common problem that men complain about.

Many people upgrade from Girlfriend 3.0 to Wife 1.0, thinking that it is just a Utilities and Entertainment program. Wife 1.0 is an OPERATING SYSTEM and is designed by its Creator to run EVERYTHING !!! It is also impossible to delete Wife 1.0 and to return to Girlfriend 3.0 or even 2.0. And is even a bigger problem to move to Girlfriend 4.0. It is impossible to uninstall, or purge the program files from the system once installed.

You cannot go back to Girlfriend 3.0 because Wife 1.0 is designed to not allow this. Look in your Wife 1.0 manual under Warnings-Alimony/Child Support. I recommend that you keep Wife 1.0 and work on improving the situation. I suggest installing the background application “Yes Dear 356.5”
to alleviate software augmentation.

The best course of action is to enter the command C:\APOLOGIZE! because ultimately you will have to give the APOLOGIZE command before the system will return to normal anyway.

Wife 1.0 is a great program, but it tends to be very high maintenance. Wife 1.0 comes with several support programs, such as Clean and Sweep 3.0 , Cook It 1.5 ! and Do Bills 4.2 .

However, be very careful how you use these programs. Improper use will cause the system to launch the program Nag Nag 9.5. Once this happens, the only way to improve the performance of Wife 1.0 is to purchase additional software. I recommend Flowers 2.1 and Diamonds 5.0 !

WARNING!!! DO NOT, under any circumstances, install Secretary With Short Skirt 3.3 . This application is not supported by Wife 1.0 and will cause irreversible damage to the operating system!

Best of luck,

Tech Support

This post is a little late regarding the 2nd anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. But I have decided to publish a fraction of thephotos that I have either taken myself, friends of mine had taken, or were emailed to me. So, below are some links to my Picasa Albums (Google Photo Manager) here on That DAM Blog.

As I speak to people around the country and around the world thru my job, I have learned that many either are forgetting what really took place here or  they never really new in the first place.

A vast majority of these photos were taken by the fire department in Paris, Maine. I have several thousand photos. Some the firemen asked my not to show publicly. Some that contain "floaters", that is the bodies that were floating in the midst of the neighborhoods.

No comments. No editorial. I will just let the photos speak for themselves.

Hurricane Katrina Pics

Here are a few additional photos that were either emailed or given to me.

Misc Katrina Pics