Coccoon is one of those lovely, creepy but fun words to say, but I digress. I'm in the middle of designing a new course about Web 2.0, specifically for web developers who want to use open source apps to create community and niche value. So for the past couple of days I've been all curled up in thoughts about this second web boom, and I'm getting that same cosy feeling that I got from the wide-eyed optimism of 1997. Ah, the nineties. Sigh. Anyway, I've been thinking nearly non-stop about how cool this stuff is, how freeing, and how revolutionary. It's incredibly empowering for the billion people who use the web - which is a huge percentage of the population to accumulate in only 17 years. Knowing that you could contribute to culture, that you could get recognition beyond your village or your employer, is bound to make people think differently about themselves and the power the do have. How will this change elections (or lack thereoff)? How will this change borders? How will this change economies?

It's already having a huge impact on media, as well as advertising which is closely tied to media. TV is deeply affected by viewership - it's already highly fractured because of so many channels, and now it has to compete with the far more satisfying experience of the web (not to mention DVDs). TV producers are scrambling to slap together porgramming they think will appeal to the ever shrinking broad audience. The new show "The Nine" is a perfect example - it's on after "Lost" (its deeply geek origins place that TV history), but The Nine is a bland drama candy coated in a thriller premise - I have no idea what it's about, I don't care about the characters, and it brings me no value whatsoever. I saw two episodes and it just makes me think that it was regurgitated from the mind of a figure-happy accountant with a production credit. That's probably way to harsh - it's ably done, well acted, well filmed, etc, etc, but a TV show should either entertain, say something, or both (and at least hook you in the first episode - no point saving the entertaining bits for the second season).

Back to the coccoon. Two of my favorite shows, BG and SG-1 are getting terrible ratings - even with rapid fan bases and fantastic reviews. Battlestar Galactica is by far the best thing on TV, right now, and perhaps ever. However, its ratings are sliding - people are blaming Tivo, but that's not the problem. BG's core audience is geek - the early adopters of pretty much any technology, and geeks are on the web, being parts of communities, contributing incrementally to culture, creating new apps, instead of slavishly staying glued to the tube like good little consumers and sucking in the daily recommended dose of nationally branded ads. BG and SG-1 are just the canaries in the televised cave. They won't die though - they're on iTunes. I wonder how many times "The Nine" has been downloaded in comparison.

The TV is going away. Years ago, WebTV came out to great applause, but soon fizzled. Who wants to surf the web from the TV? But TV content is perfect for the web - it'll just get swirled into the ecletic mix, and surfers will get whatever they want, when the want it (mostly), however they want it. Have it your way. TV boxes will probaby persist (for sports, or family time viewing), but the tube will no longer be the primary conduit for media in the house. For geeks it isn't now.

I've had the word "palabras" stuck in my head for the past two days like a bad pop song. It's Spanish for "words", which I find ironic.

I've just finished my vacation, and I did get a lot done, but I have so much more to do. I ended up getting 8-10 hours sleep everyday which didn't help with my extra-curricular work, but it was nice. I got sick as a dog yesterday with allergies, and even so, I had a ton of energy at work today (er, yesterday I guess). I didn't realize that sleep deprivation was having such a negative effect on me. Yet another reason I'm glad to be going to Hawaii in January (for at least a year).

I just saw the film "Crumb", which I had been wanting to see since I saw "American Splendor" a couple of years ago. I had been fascinated with R. Crumb's portrayal of female characters, objectified yet highly amazonian. I've wondered if that's how men really react to the feminist movement (it would explain a lot).

Last night I saw a great documentary on the perils of producing Sesame Street in foreign countries (it's seen in 120 countries, nearly the entire world). It was really well done, and illustrated how TV and telling stories can really affect people's lives for the better. It was really sweet. I actually cried when it showed the Bangledeshi Minister for Women and Children's Affairs explaining how the show would help educate the poorest children in her country who could not afford to go to school at all. It's really sad the TV fills the gap, but if it weren't for Sesame Street, these kids would be far worse off. At least they have the opportunity to learn how to read and count - and they get a bit of intellectual relief from their poverty, which may be the most important function of children's television. Escape.

It reminds me of the film "Sullivan's Travels" where a jaded screenwriter travels America during the Great Depression to find out what the average down and out American really wanted to spend his nickel on. The screenwriter assumed that people wanted to go see socially relevant stories, but in the end, he learns that all they want is the innocent relief of Mickey Mouse.

In the end, in a rare combination of adequate sleep X vacation X PBS, I came up with a new screenwriting idea - think Sesame Street cross polinated with The Wizard of Oz and Grimms' fairytales. A sweet, family friendly story about using your imagination to solve problems, and lots of puppets. Without strings. I think this proves that I'll never be able to write a straight-forward thriller or a romantic comedy (actually I could do the latter because they are so formulaic, but I'd rather abrade my eyes with sandpaper dipped in buffalo wing sauce - I'm still trying to exorcise snippets of "The Notebook" from the deepest corners of my longterm memory).

In other news, I scouted a location for "The Typist". That sounds so weird and official. Anyway, I've decide, perhaps rashly, to extend the film to take advantage of the location, Freestone Park. I've driven past it dozens of times, but I never went in. Almost all of the park is hidden from the road by a huge berm, and what lays beyond is an incredibly surreal landscape. It's very green, but overly landscaped, so it has kind of a futuristic look. As soon as I saw the rolling manmade hills pricked with sculpted pine trees the Looney Tunes people would be proud of, I knew I could get the shots I had originally wanted, and had planned for Papago Park, which is much more natural desert landscape. I was worried about shooting in Papago Park because it is really rough, and therefore difficult to schlep equipment around.

The extended parts are going to be shot on MiniDV, but there will still be a central stop motion component. The whole point is to be able to illustrate a particular set of emotions, and stop motion captures that best IMHO. The downside is that I've never worked with MiniDV, and actually haven't shot video since I was 10 (I did an instructional video on programming Basic for my gifted class). I'm also going to be shelling out $250 for a camera (Canon of course). On the plus side, MiniDV is totally digital (even though it is tape), and it's easy to get the footage into the computer. Shooting video also gives me the opportunity to tell more story, and actually have a plot - so this will truly be a short film, and not so much a proof of concept.

The other cool thing is that Freestone Park has a skate park, and I might be able to convince my friend Matt to do some skating for the film. He expressed interest in acting in it, and is already lending the typewriter for the shoot. This also helps with the plot and makes his character (if he accepts) more interesting.

I just spent the last couple of hours trying out claymation for the first time (and no, that has nothing to do with Clay Aiken). You can see the animation and read about the process. Be forewarned, there is some gore involved, but it's just clay gore, so it's not particularly pyschologically scarring. (There might be some Freudian analysis in store for me however...)

This was really strange, but for most of yesterday I was very anxious, and I kept thinking about the story I sent to INTERZONE. I thought, "I'm going to get a reply - I don't want to look at my email, because there'll be a reply..." There was no particular reason why this should have been in my head, I haven't thought about the story in awhile, and I wasn't expecting a reply so soon. I was so antsy and out of sorts that I needed to go for a drive (for whatever reason, traveling of any kind mellows me out).

So, I get home, and after futzing with the new domain name I'm setting up for a Base discussion board, I finally get around to checking my email, and what should I find, but a reply from INTERZONE, posted at about the same time that I started feeling better during my drive. Creepy. Being a science geek, I have to chalk it up to coincidence, but it's still creepy.

Anyway, the reply was a rejection, but it was a nice, polite, form rejection (love the Brits) - so I'm cool with that. I still think the story is worth publication, so I'm going to review it, and see if there are any weak areas to revise. I won't resubmit to INTERZONE specifically because they only accept email submissions twice a year, and I don't want to futz with international return coupons. I'll probably try FSF next. If I can get 3 stories published I can join the Science Fiction Writers of America.

I've just started 10 days of vacation, and after a frustrating couple of weeks, I've got a fantastic running start on completing several of my extra-curricular back-burnered projects. Most importantly, I've finally gotten my other writing section back up, and it's better resurrected now than before it was zombified by script kiddies. I've also consolidated all my art stuff to one page.

Technorati Profile

I've gotten my new schedule for 2007, and there are a lot more class sessions this year for DB design. It's posted in my class section, but here it is as well:

• January 22nd: MS300 Intro to Database Design
• March 19th: MS300 Intro to Database Design
• March 19th: MS311 MySQL
• May 14th: MS300 Intro to Database Design
• July 9th: MS300 Intro to Database Design
• July 9th: MS311 MySQL
• September 4th: MS300 Intro to Database Design
• October 29th: MS300 Intro to Database Design
• October 29th: MS311 MySQL

Many other things are going on as well, but I don't have the time to blog about them at them moment...

I've been feeling a bit restless lately, mainly because I've only been getting a minimum amount of writing done. I tried to set aside more time to sleep, since 2 hours a night every night for months on end, can't possibly be healthy. Of course what gets squeezed away are all the fun extra curricular activities.

In my restlessness, I've naturally picked up a new and distracting habit (which isn't helping the sleep thing). Three latin textbooks made their way into the bookstore a few days ago, and I immediately had my eye on them. Kate is into latin as well, so I had to snatch them up before she did. Good latin textbooks are rare, and I've been wanting to learn ever since my older brother took Wheelock's latin in high school. Wheelock is crap, but this set, "Latin for Americans" is really quite good. Why study latin you say? Oh, possibly to magnify my already earth shattering nerdiness. Sic!

Other than that, I found out that the short script I entered into the screenwriting expo contest didn't win. This is for the best, since I decided it would be too stressful to go (it's LA, there'd be crowds of people, I'd have to stay in a hotel and rent a car, and for what? A chance to be glowered at by the producers of some random crappy TV show? My IMDBPro membership is cheaper and less random). Anyway, what counts is that I like what I wrote, and now it is here for your viewing pleasure. That reminds me that I need to get around to fixing my "other writing" section.

I've seen two good movies lately, "Everything is Illuminated" by Liev Schrieber (sp?) and "The Straight Story" by David Lynch. Both are fantastic, though the former has the vice of being too short. Both stories unspool a simple tale where characters are allowed to develop and change naturally without being forced in the telling. I'm not sure if I'm explaining that clearly, but 99% of the time for most movies, I pretty much know how the plot is going to unfold, and what will ultimately happen to the characters. Even when the movie makes a gimmick out of unpredictability, the decisions and actions of the characters can still seem forced. Anyway, these two movies were a refreshing departure. Lauda Netflix!

Also, I've added a new friend to my gallery.

Yeah, that's not very P.C., but I had a mild panic attack after I heard about the underground nuclear test in North Korea (I assuaged it with a post-midnight quest for iodine containing food - the pickens were slim so I settled on a can of salt and a bottle of Centrum). Anyway, the Team America characterization of Kim Jong Il is totally on the money. As soon as he loses the spotlight (cou*Mark Foley*gh), he pulls another world stage stunt.

It doesn't even make sense for him to behave this way. The Soviet Union collapsed nearly 20 years ago, China is more interested in putting a man on the Moon, and Wal-marts in Beijing than in adhering to Mao or Marx. There is no point in acting out the plot of 1984! Rrrrrrr. What a creep.

In other news, I've made some progress with the short film. I haven't actually shot any of it, but I did some tests and I realized I absolutely have to use a tripod. The worst problem I'm going to have (so far) is with the stability of the image. When it's handheld, the shots aren't close enough to override the motion of me simply breathing or pressing the shutter button. I've found out that I can also remotely trigger the shutter with my laptop so I will probably use that so the camera doesn't risk being nudged at all.

I've also downloaded a ton of open source stop motion and video software. I'm experimenting with it, to see what the limits of what I can do for free are. I've also downloaded some batch image processing software, but I think I might write some of my own so I can tweak things just right (cause I can too). I bought a copy of Movie Studio a long time ago, and that's what I'll end up using to add the sound track (I think I bought it because I missed the sweet DVD authoring software that came with the Mac I used to write DTP).

My friends Sam and Steve bought me a big 30oz bag of Phillipine dried mangoes - the absolute best food on the planet IMHO. There are to me what chocolate mikshakes are to Fidel Castro.

While I was over at their place, I had a interesting conversation with my godson Aric. He was trying to prove his slacker geek cred (we were teasing him about his extremely hip haircut and the legions of preteen girls he attracts like moths with his luminous personality), and after a lengthly conversation about Spider-Man's character arch, he said that Tom Cruise should play Ironman. With a moustache. Sam and I were eecked out. Tom Cruise with a moustache is just wrong (I imagined one of the Jason Lee/Earl variety). Aric also suggested Edward Norton, which is better, because Edward Norton could play a one-armed Russian bicycling circus bear and still create a fantastic, moving performance.

I've really overdone it with the sleep deprivation lately. I'm totally exhausted. However, there is an upside. After I said I wasn't going to write a script for my short film before I did some test shots, I took a shower and of course, inspiration flooded over me (which always seems to happen in the shower - I hate that). Anyway, the end result is about 3 minutes long - plenty long for a stop motion short that I have to piece together frame by frame (24x60x3=4320=OMG-what have I gotten into?)

So, Monica has agreed to "star". I need to find two other actors, and have some people in mind, but I need to confirm. I have a location in mind, and this is probably bad, but I think I can get away without getting a permit. It's in a city park, and I've never seen a ranger there. It's important that filming takes place in strong sunlight - I need to be sure I can get every frame as crisp as I need it.

Before I film though, which will hopefully be later this month, I need to plan out the shots with storyboards. This is a little intimidating - my drawing abilities aren't geared to sequential art. I guess they just need to communicate what I want to do, and might only be seen by me. I have a lot of shots in mind, but it might benefit from some simplicity. Luckily I can break up the shooting into two portions so no one has to stand around for too long. I only have to torture Monica.

The film requires only two props - a manual typewriter and a spool of black fabric ribbon. I've already wrangled the typewriter (my friend Matt's - it's amazing what you can get in exchange for a free lunch or two). I just need to pop into JoAnn's to pick up a spool or two. I might need to buy some mascara as well (to simulate ink - mascara doesn't stain skin). This is getting complicated!

I've decided to make the film black and white - though I'll film in color (my camera can film in black and white), but I've noticed that with digital photography at least, desaturating a color photo ends up with a richer look than a photo that is grayscaled. Plus it gives me the option of using low levels of color to affect mood.

In other news, I've been doing more writing on Magnus. I've refined the structure more to make the emotional journeys of the characters more dramatic. I've also decided to wrap the script around about seven core dialogs. These are written for maximum tension. I'm worried that the story might be too slow moving to hold an audience's interest (especially an audience conditioned by an endless string of action oriented blockbusters), so I need to rely on crisp, determined dialog to make the major plot turns. This is really difficult, but when it works in movies, it really works well.

I want the story to have a documentary, realist feel. I want the audience to believe it could happen now - which will make the scifi elements easier to digest. I don't want anyone to get hung up on the weirdness of the ideas - I want them to accept the idea of a realistic looking android, which will allow them move on and think about the greater moral implications of the story. I also want the them to not think about other android movies. I've said this before, but I don't want to follow the well tread paths of Pinnocchio and Frankenstein's monster. I want to take a darker, deeper, and more challenging path.