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Stranger Things
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 1276
This was a recommendation from the boy, something to watch while we were away in Utah. Shame that didn't work out, but if it had (and I'd a brought a PC or tablet) it would have been good camping fare. There are abundant reviews of it online, good, kinda-reminded me a bit of "Super-8", only serialized, and it got me to thinking - of the last 5 or 6 TV shows I've watched - Breaking Bad, etc - easily half of them have been sponsored/created by Netflix. "Better Call Saul", the third (??) season of "Arrested Development", then this. Clearly Netflix is winning the Cable Quality Awards...and they're not even cable...
Limitless
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 1320
Found a referral to this in a couple of neural hacking videos I was watching, so I downloaded.
To sum up the plot, young struggling writer is presented with magic pill that improves his thinking by a couple of orders of magnitude. Silliness ensues. Not a bad movie, not one I'd recommend, it has a few moments, but an observation before I leave it:
- The embedded narrative that the drug must be addictive and have unpleasant side effects
Now this seems to be a part of our cultural narrative - perhaps largely generated by big-pharma, with their rush to release new placebos of suspect value and frequently real harmful side effects. Or it's the innate belief that all good things must involve a trade-off, there's an inherent belief that all coins have two sides...
...but, aside from the film (these effects are needed to create or further the plot) - think, in the real world, that most things don't have that trade off. A carrot is good for you. Period. So is an Apple. So is breathing. Just noting, the attitude regarding drugs is always one of a "mixed blessing" or "necessary evil" whereas real world experience doesn't always substantiate this. Just found it curious is all...
...now back to the neural hacking videos, some interesting points of view - contrasting, one presenter in favor of every new touted enhancer, TDCS, drug, supplement, vitamin, etc, the other, a doctor, empirically demonstrating the benefits of breathing, exercise and meditation...two very contrasting views on how increase performance...
Lost in a Mall...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Dreams
- Hits: 1254
I'm in line to see a play. Red velvet walls with sculptures inset into niches, a formal atmosphere, a small gathering of people. I recognize a couple of girls, don't know how or from where, we make eye contact, glance away, it's a bit awkward...
They begin to allow people in to be seated, and I pop outside for a final cigarette...
I find an exit, go out, pull out my cigarettes and one flies off the balcony down below, there's a black guy, across from the balcony, hinting he's going to get it, I tell him not to worry, looking over the balcony it's several stories to the bottom, a many-storied mall of sorts, he's making some sort of to-do as if my cigarette was lit and starting a fire, so I find a route down and begin to look for it...
...down and down, inter-crossing stairways, it's a maze of sorts this, and I run into Michael J. Fox, and we're talking and walking and I'm a bit distracted, he's a pretty nice guy, or he's warmed to me because I'm recognizing him not for his celebrity...
...and then around a corner and I'm in a multi-storied mall, filled with amusement acardes and barkers, I'm obviously a bit lost because one of the barkers in the center of the mall and sees me and says "Looking for the movie - Last Exit to Uxborough? It's just straight ahead in Phase 2"...and I get that it's a burn, Phase 2 of the mall is miles away, and nobody wants to see Last Exit to Uxborough and as I'm walking past I can still here him and his friends loudly laughing, they think they've sent this tourist on a wild goose chase in the wrong direction, and I get annoyed and go back, and say..."At least I'm not working in a mall..." and now they're a bit annoyed...
...there's a couple of slender stairwells that lead up to a glass faced world-health center, by slender I mean a few inches wide, going up narrowly and letting myself in a small glass porthole, I'm lost, have missed the play, and there seems to be no escaping this mall...
The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Link of the day
- Hits: 1260
If you recall Snoopy's line: "It was a dark and stormy night..." was actually borrowed from Edward Bulwer-Lytton's novel "Paul Clifford", and according to the wiki represents "the archetypal example of a florid, melodramatic style of fiction writing,".
But take heart, there's actually a contest where people compete to write the most melodramatic opening phrase. This year's winner:
Even from the hall, the overpowering stench told me the dingy caramel glow in his office would be from a ten-thousand-cigarette layer of nicotine baked on a naked bulb hanging from a frayed wire in the center of a likely cracked and water-stained ceiling, but I was broke, he was cheap, and I had to find her.
William "Barry" Brockett, Tallahassee, FL
You can read more great entries here: http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/
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