May 2007 Archives

I am not well. I don't mean this in the alarming sense that there is something wrong with me. I suffer from no ominous disease. It is likely something simple. However, whatever it is, I stayed home from work today and I have just woken up from an interesting dream.

With me, in the dream, were two women. I'd give them names if I remembered them, but, as dreams often go, I'm not entirely sure I ever really knew their names.Regardless, one was a friend who I think was an actress and the other a romantic interest and may or may not have been famous. The three of us were walking somewhere, talking about random things, when The Friend had to go. As she ran off I yelled, "I love you." She came back over and said, "I love you too." We hugged and I said, "In case we never see each other again, have a great life." We smiled at each other and I said, knowing she was an actress, "Well...I'll be seeing you around." She laughed and we parted ways.

The Romantic Interest and I walked around more and talked. As time went on I began to realize she had to leave, too. I remember there being a good reason for her to go, but it escapes me now. I told her I loved her and she smiled. I don't remember if she said she loved me, but we discussed how we might be able to maintain a relationship. Since she was moving far away (Canada, I think), we decided friendship was best though she agreed if she were staying we would be dating. I cried, but understood that she had to go. We never kissed or hugged, but we did smile at each other and parted ways.

And thats it. Normally, I'd be apt to say this doesn't deserve much analysis. It's just a dream, after all, and dreams generally seem to be effected by our everyday life. For example, I've had dreams about deserts after watching the movie Dune and I've had dreams about being in a bar with a pool table the same night that I've played pool. What strikes me as odd about this dream, though, is that of all the elements I can remember (I really need to get a dream journal), I don't recall experiencing any of them in my waking life. To me, that indicates the dream merits some analysis.

So I pose this question to you, intrepid reader: what does it mean to say I love you to two women, one a friend and the other a romantic interest, and have them both leave?

This is freakin' awesome.

Maybe my next post will be, like, philosophical and stuff.

As the sun rises in the East and sets in the West, such is my love of zombies. Timeless. Natural.One might even say expected. Though no one, not even myself, can place the moment when this love began, it is nevertheless the truest thing have known through my very few years. From the shambling Romero-zombie, stupid and slow, to Danny Boyle's quick and cunning "rage-infected" zombies. Something about the undead is alluring to me. Perhaps the answer lies in a common fear: is there life after death? Or maybe....maybe it's because there's nothing quite as satisfying as a zombie catching a .50-caliber shell to the face, spewing bits of brain and gore out the back of his slowly rotting head.

Back in 2002, Danny Boyle directed a film noted for it being shot almost entirely with digital cameras. Boyle hoped that in doing so he could give the film a real, more gritty feel. It also allowed him to set up shots far quicker than film cameras. The film, 28 Days Later, tells a story of how a Greenpeace-esque organization unleashes a virus, simply called Rage, on an unwitting English populace. As is common in zombie films, the movie is more about interpersonal relationships than not being eaten. The film introduced a quicker, more intelligent zombie than those of the Romero films of past decades. And now, in the year 2007, we have a sequel to Danny Boyle's classic.

28 Weeks Later is about the repatriation of England, specifically an area of London, several months after the Rage outbreak of the previous film. It does an excellent job of both carrying the tradition established by the first while solidly standing on its own. I was a bit skeptical of how this film would be carried out. The writers and director of the sequel were, insofar as I can tell, not related to the first film in any way. And, honestly, how often does a sequel, with none of the original talent succeed? Add one to the books.

28 Weeks Later is, without a doubt, the best zombie movie I've ever seen. While the "plot twist" is obvious to pretty much anyone, the film does a great job of keeping you on your toes. Yes, the storyline is a typical zombie movie storyline: start with a population, narrow that down to about 6 people, then kill them off as they try to reach their goal. Still, keeping with tradition is what gives this movie strength. More time is spent developing the characters than trying to explain what's going on. As I said, zombie movies are about interpersonal relationships more than anything. Each character is developed and given an appropriate amount of backstory. Nothing felt overdone or hastily put together.

As far as the actors go, I feel like everyone did their job competently for the most part. Mackintosh Muggleton (I swear I am not making that name up), the actor who played Andy, performed a little under par for my tastes as some of his lines felt recited. Imogen Poots, who played Tammy and is the future Mrs. Roberts, did an amazing job. The subway/night-vision sequence was probably the closest thing to real terror I'd ever like to see on someone's face.

In closing, I cannot rave enough about this film. When I say I think it's the greatest zombie movie ever made, take that as holy writ. I've seen the vast majority the genre has to offer (including Plan 9 From Outer Space). This one blows them all away, including its predecessor. I will see it at least two more times in theaters.

To leave you, the devoted zombie movie fan, with one thought, I would like it to be this: what Braindead/Dead Alive did for lawnmowers, 28 Days Later does for helicopters.

In the realm of what is called Information Services or Information Technology, there is a key differentiation between a "test" environment and the "production" environment. The test environment, obviously enough, is where I do 90% of my job. I make changes to existing applications, add features, and fix problems. Once I've made sure that everything's done, tested it, if you will, I save my changes to a central repository.

From there I log into the production environment. The best way to describe production is that it's kinda like a Catholic church: you know you're allowed, even encouraged, to be there, but you get the distinct feeling that if you do anything, anything at all, you will be sent to hell. Once in the production environment, I copy the changes I made, make sure everything copied over okay, and then I get the hell out of Dodge. Like church, production is sacred. It is holy. A sanctuary for all the mission critical applications that run a business.

So imagine my surprise when I logged into the production environment this morning to see this:

Uh, yeah. In case you didn't already gather, Micky Mouse is pretty much the antithesis of what production stands for.

The following comments are regarding todays Manchester United vs. Chelsea match from the ManU website. They read bottom-to-top.

UNITED!
CHAMPIONS!
UNITED!
CHAMPIONS!
UNITED!
CHAMPIONS!

Packet Garden is an app that grows a virtual garden based on the ports packets are sent to on your machine. I'm installing it now and will report more later. Seems like a fun, if useless, piece of software.