Doctor Frog’s Pontification Pad

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20051219-5802.html

I wonder if this issue is an extension of a change in the way people view movies now.

When I was a kid, going to the movies was a really immersive, magical thing. Leaving the theatre was like waking from a dream. I don’t feel that way anymore, mainly because I can get a faded form of that same sensation with videogames, home theatre, even by closing my eyes and listening to certain music on a portable player. The movie house is not the sole source of that for me anymore.

This is due in part because ‘immersive’ technology is a lot more prevalent than it used to be, and I’m no longer a kid, and can afford to surround myself with such technology.

Going to the movies was a unique thing, shared with dozens of other people. But now, it isn’t as unique, and the other technology that allows us to fulfill our cravings for distraction does so in a more isolationistic, self-absorbed way.

I realize that when I go to a theatre now, it isn’t to experience something with other people, it is to get my own experience. Mine. Me. Everything else that surrounds me at home is focused on me, and my cellphone is an extension of that self-reflective technology, my digital entourage. This isn’t about you, or us. I’m not interested in you. I only want myself to be entertained. I therefore see myself as having a right to retain that cellphone, and no one can take away MY phone from ME. Me. Mine. Conversely, damn YOU for having your cellphone on and disturbing MY movie experience.

Movies aren’t a group experience anymore. The ‘me vs. you’ attitude I have outside is just brought right into the theatre. The ‘OMG Waht if Emergency???’ types are just as selfish as the ‘STFU’ types.

And yet, the feeling isn’t completely gone. I shelled out $20 for tickets to see Born in the Brothels in a small theatre in Palo Alto (how that hurts). There, for the first time in years, I actually watched a movie *with* other people, rather than by myself in a theatre filled with the necessary evil of other flesh. I don’t know what was different, but somehow we were all there to experience a movie. I’m not sure if any cellphones went off or not. It doesn’t particularly matter. The feeling was there. That same feeling is now completely absent from the megaplex. There, I stress every time a baby cries or I see some monkey flick open his celly to see which member of his digital entourage has PM’d him this time.

So, movie theatres, it isn’t you, it’s me.

I was really impressed and humbled by the talent I saw today at the last Tolkien class. My other classes have been rather dull and gray by comparison. Way to nerd it up there, guys.

My final project was a rather banal collection of excerpts from a top-secret sheaf of papers prepared by an elite elvish black-ops organization. It isn’t nearly as interesting as it sounds, but it is a relatively quick read, and you don’t have to learn any long, new, elvish names.

Edit: The file is available for download here (Microsoft Word), or here (PDF).

Enjoy, and never, ever, ever stop reading what you love.

Cure (or at least partially address) your Mac envy with the tuxedo_blue style for blackbox! No twists or turns, just reassuring shades of black, white, gray and blue. Mac-user-esque sense of superiority not necessarily included.

This style is exactly the same as tuxedo, but with a more lively blue background. Like all my styles, tuxedo_blue also comes with a bsetroot background and a 3dc style, to convert your windows background and window style to match the overall theme.

tuxedo_blue is a style designed for bblean for Windows, but should work for any other *box shell. Find out more about blackbox shells at bb4win.org.

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