Stop The Madness

Of my sucky titles.

I’ve already gone and plunked in a few pages of the new short story, brilliantly titled, for the moment, Serial Jen, because it’s about a serial killer and it has Jen in it. In the future, one thing all literary critics will agree on is that Wayne Santos couldn’t come up with a decent title if you put a pen in his hand, directed him to a large, 100 foot glowing sign that says, “Your title is War And Peace, copy that down exactly” and told him to follow the directions. He’d still end up calling it Fight Book.

I think I’ll just pay someone to come up with titles for my stories. I’m totally hopeless.

In other news, nearly 12 hours after the pathetic love offering was put on the altar, it was finally noticed. The couch has been officially barred as sleeping destination today.

I did however manage to take a good, tedious chunk outta’ the concept proposal/treatment that is supposed to be written for Nadya. The only bit left is the outright lying where I describe what the show is supposed to look/feel like (IE, “treatment”) and gloss over the fact that there will be power black outs, leftist chefs that push their theories of Marxist cooking, and small dogs that like to go wee-wee on the chicken breast. It’s all about the glamour, folks…

Also of note is wondering why Nadya is so excited about this project that she would SMS me to discuss it a little roughly around the hour of midnight on Valentine’s day. There could be much speculation about this, but I prefer to think she was just bored, since I’m no egomaniac, and she doesn’t seem like the sort that would find me terribly amusing anyhow. Her idea of a good time is a wild adventure with the beautiful people in some urban fantasy of glitter and luxury. My idea of a good time is sneaking up behind people in Mark Of Kri so I can grab them by the neck and repeatedly bash their heads against a stone column until said head falls off in a satisfying, wet “plop.” This is not the ideal match for even a casual friendship.

Have now been officially awake for over 31 hours. At some point, sleep will throttle me like a studious serial killer, and I will have the privilige of playing Dead Or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball, the X-Box polygonal extravaganza that is all about realistic physics on bouncing breasts. I have already been informed that the game designers thought of everything; it is possible to play the game with only one hand. It was inevitable, ergonomic masturbation had to be on someone’s agenda…

I have also been told that the Deep and Involving Gameplay is so engaging that players will jerk and spasm when a ball is spiked towards them. My only reply to this upon hearing it was, “I hope that’s the only reason you’re jerking and spasming when you play that game.”

Someone will now probably want to kill me when he reads this and brings the game over later, but then if I can’t drop little gems like that upon the public, why bother calling myself a writer? It’s all about the versimilitude, man. The realness. The raw, genuine exchanges that happen between guys that talk about CG babes, in real time, with zoom and camera rotation functions.

I think the biggest irony of all is that when I first heard of this game, I wanted it immediately. Most serious gamers I know laughed at me. In a twist of fate, said serious gamers were the first ones out the gate to get their mitts on it when it was available in Singapore, so I feel gooshily vindicated, though I won’t be playing it one-handed.

Oh And On Another Note:

Congratulations go out to Danger Gene Whitlock who’s wife brought in a bouncing baby Ninja into the world at 9:09 pm last night. The baby, Alexander Valentine Whitlock, (Referred to by his alter ego super-hero name “Lex”) will be petitioning for membership into Justice League Infants as soon as he can go potty by himself. If I knew how to stick pictures in this damn thing, I would, but unfortunately I’m just not that technically savvy…

Stupid, STUPID Day…

Unlike the nudists who insist that winter was invented by the clothing companies, I think there is something to the conspiracy of Valentine’s Day being invented by the candy & greeting card market. For just a few dollars on this one special day, you can go out and make a declaration of your love that they guarantee can’t be expressed in months or years of loyalty, devotion, laughter, tears or emotional bonding.

Of course, despite all this, that didn’t stop me from scurrying off and buying the meager rose I could afford, or writing the love letter, or placing these pathetic love offerings on the girlfriend’s drawing table while she sleeps (and is still sleeping as of the moment of this writing) hoping that this will be enough to placate her and say, “I really care, but I’m also really broke right now, so please don’t make me sleep on the couch tonight…”

Of course, in a sick, sad, emotionally retarded sort of way, it’s also a kick and a half, since this is the first time I’ve ever actually been in a position where I COULD get someone Valentine’s Day stuff, so there’s that victim of consumerist-societal-conditioning that whispers, “Yes! There is someone I have to spend money on! I AM AT LONG LAST A REAL BOY! HOLD ME, GEPETTO! NO, NOT THERE, YOU OLD LECH…”

So yeah, for those of you who were regular victims of my old mass mails before I started blogging, there will be, much to your relief, no Valentine’s Day rant about how much you all suck, how much I hate you all, and how much I’m going to punish myself because someone loves you and no one loves me, so there… Yeah, and I’m reeeeeal sure you’re all going to miss its absence this year…

Fortune Smiles On Children And Fools

My luck has always been much, MUCH better than I actually deserve.

When it comes to job hunting, it’s never really been much of hunt, so much as a call from the blue, with a nice job all prepared and tied up in a shiny red ribbon, left at my door with an R.S.V.P. Usually this happens when I’m on the brink of starvation (Again…) and wondering what the hell I’m going to do next.

Well, guess what happened today?

Yep. Another call. Though this wasn’t quite a total surprise, as previous experience had taught me that this was a possible outcome. And in this instance, it was.

A few days ago, I got an SMS message from, of all people, Nadya Hutagalung.

It would seem she’s about to become my new boss.

For non-locals who don’t know who Nadya is, you can check her out here.

I don’t know what the hell it is with me and these Beautiful People–particularly from the MTV crowd–but there you go.

The way that this particular job seems to be going is that Nadya has put together a production company, and she’s going to be throwing out a bunch’a shows on the airwaves. She was talking to her friend Audrey (Who is married to my friend James, and who I met, along with James during my stint with other MTV-ers at the ill-fated Interruption Television) and was asking about people who knew anything about writing. I seem to have accrued some kind of reputation around here as the MacGuyver of the English language, whether it’s ad-copy, corporate videos, television scripts, magazine articles, or business reports, and so Audrey threw my name at her, and the next thing I know, the wet dream of millions of males across the region is asking me to help her out.

So I thought it might just be a little one-shot thing (She needs help with some kind of concept proposal/treatment for a show she’s putting together) and she sent me a document someone else had wrote which or more less needs to be trashed and rewritten from the ground up. I told her so, and she agreed with me on the phone earlier today, then switched gears and asked me if I’d like to write for a show that’s already going into production. When I said that we could either work out a per episode payment plan, or she could just put me on monthly salary/retainer, I could pretty much hear the grin in her voice when she asked, “Hey, if we put you on retainer, does that mean you could do more projects with us?”

I said something like non-commital, and I think we’ll probably have to discuss this later.

Will someone please explain to me how I end up hanging out with these people? It’s not like I go looking for them, it’s not like I want to hang out at the clubs and be part of the in-crowd, so what’s with this vortex that keeps drawing me in with the inevitability of gravity?

To be fair, I’m probably just prejudiced. There’s still the alienated geek within that reflexively regards anyone popular as The Enemy, but of late, I find myself working for/with them more often over the last few years. Admittedly, it’s kind of satisfying that the same fixations and skills that made me such a pariah in my youth with these people is now eagerly sought, but it’s still a bit disquieting, and gives me rather unpleasant, vaguely whore-ish feelings when the cycle starts up again.

Then again there’s the mercenary part of my brain that reminds me, “Your girlfriend paid the rent this month.”

So I find myself in the curious position of about to embark on a job that most people would pay to get, and my sole motivation is that I want to be able to pull my own weight at home and not have to feel bad about knowing that I’m living off the understanding and compassion of the girlfriend. The beautiful model and all the time I’ll be spending with her is just an occupational hazard. Been there. Done that. Got a free t-shirt out of it.

Gooooooooooooooal! Gooooooooooooooooal!!

It’s DONE! FINALLY.

Weighing in at 92 pages (10 point, when it’s brought up to submission format size of 12, it’ll probably break 100) and just a little over 30,000 words, my unicorn story, suckily titled “Alicorn” was finished as of 11:30 am today.

I REFUSE to let the next Jen story get this out of control. The last thing I need is for a supposed anthology to be bigger than my actual novels.

There were a few unexpected, little twists towards the end, but nothing that made the main thrust of the story do a 180, so it’s all still good. And I just got in a very belated review from a Japanese permanent resident who told me that my WWII Nagasaki era story was more or less dead on (A few linguistic discrepancies notwithstanding) and he complimented me on my studied rendering of Japanese language structure to English. He thinks I must have studied the Japanese language to have gotten the nuance so eloquently. I still have to tell him that I ripped it all off from Akira and Miyazaki sub-titling jobs…

And why, WHY do I suck at titles?!?

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Too late. Must sleep. ‘Night…

My Agent ROCKS!

Nope, no news about a possible publication yet, but it seems like Jack is about as fed up of the waiting as I am. I wrote him an e-mail yesterday detailing a tactic of a friend of mine. Her name is Nicole Luiken and for years I had the biggest inferiority complex around her, ’cause she was one of those “wunderkind” prodigies who got her first novel published at the age of 12 and has been churning them out ever since. We met in the Cult Of Pain writer’s group (I’m still holding out for being next in line to get a major publication, then that would make three of us. That’s pretty good odds for one group, but then they were all pretty good writers) and she’s already gotten her books published under the publisher that is currently holding my books hostage. Her agent is Lucille Diver, a woman who turned me down flat when I wrote to her, without even asking to see the manuscript, but by then, it didn’t matter, ’cause I already had Jack.

Anyway, apparently what Nicole’s agent did to get some attention was to break the rules, somewhat. Normally in publishing, the understood convention is that a publisher usually has exclusive rights to peruse a manuscript, meaning that as long as they’re looking at it, no one else does until they’ve made up their minds. Nicole’s agent waited a certain period, then crisply informed the publishers that they were taking too long, they could still peruse the book if they wanted to, but their exclusivity period was over and she was sending the books off to other publishers. When Nicole told me about this, I thought, “Golly and Tarnation, that’s a right fine idea! Thanks, little lady!” Okay, I didn’t actually think it that way, but if I were on a horse when I said that, it would sound fine, trust me on this.

So I wrote to my agent to present him with this option and ask him if there were any ethical dilemmas arising from it that he might not want to deal with, and he responded with, “Actually, I just told the publishers the same thing last week.”

This is why having an agent is so cool. They don’t have to deal with all that politicking and negotiating shit that involves sitting in restaurants and trying to understand the intricacies and legal enigmas of the publishing world. Or, in the immortal words of some other writer who’s name I forget, “My agent lives in New York so that I don’t have to.”

Brilliant. Bloody brilliant.

It’s My Fault Inc.

Lately it has come to my attention that there is an extremely lucrative and profitable area of the market that has, until now, gone largely ignored and unexploited. That area is Scapegoats.

I don’t know why I never saw this before. But it seems to me that there is a market out there that can be mercilessly exploited because human nature, in all its adorability, never wants to own up to its own fuck ups, and has a desperate need to push the bad karma on someone else to keep the Victim Fiction going. I foresee an agency that operates off the pimp/hooker/escort service business model:

IMF: Good afternoon, It’s My Fault.

Client: Yes, I need a scapegoat this evening.

IMF: Excellent choice sir, have you used our service before?

C: No, this is my first time.

IMF: Then perhaps you should answer some questions ahead of time so that we can better cater our service to you. Would you prefer a male or a female scapegoat?

C: Male.

IMF: Would that be an articulate male, or a strong silent type?

C: Talkative. Very. Oh and contrite and guilty, I want VERY guilt-stricken.

IMF: I see. Any preferences for appearances? Stylish or fashion crime victim?

C: More of an… an artsey type, I guess. Someone that pretends to be substantial.

IMF: Yes, I think I can see where this is headed. Will this be for a single or multiple blame scenario?

C: Um… multiple. I’ve been saving up my issues.

IMF: Thank you sir. I think we have just the man for you. Will this be cash or credit card?

C: Is C.O.D acceptable?

IMF: Yes, it is, but should you decide to cancel your appointment less than a half-hour before commencement, there will be a penalty fee.

C: I understand, that’s fine. Would 9:00 pm tonight be all right?

IMF: You’re in luck sir, we had a cancellation at the White House, so I think our man will be available for you. Thank you for using It’s My Fault. Have a cathartic evening.

[Later, at roughly 9:00 pm...]

C: [Answering the door] Er… come in.

Me: Hey. [Looks around, lets out low whistle of appreciation] Niiiiiice place.

C: Thanks. I have to give it up in three months. Want a drink?

Me: Yeah, thanks, gin and tonic will be fine. Why do you have to give it up?

C: [Pauses as ice tinkles into glass, the only sound in the deadly silence. He comes over and hands the glass] It’s part of the divorce settlement.

Me: Oh. I’m… I’m sorry.

C: WELL YOU SHOULD BE, SHOULDN’T YOU?!? AFTER ALL, YOU TOOK HER AWAY FROM ME, YOU TRAITOROUS FUCK…

Me: [Getting into IMF Mode] God, you’re right… I’m sorry, I… I just couldn’t help it. I was just so jealous of you. I… I wanted to hurt you somehow.

C: I KNEW IT! FUCK I KNEW IT! ALL THOSE PRETTY WORDS, ALL THAT SO CALLED “SUBSTANCE”, ALL THAT TALK ABOUT HOW YOU UNDERSTOOD HER BETTER THAN I DID… WHO CAN LIKE “BEACHES” ANYWAY?!? IT’S A DUMB MOVIE! THIS WASN’T ABOUT HER AT ALL, WAS IT?!? THIS WAS ALL ABOUT GETTING TO ME!!

Me: Yes! Yes, I admit it! I didn’t even love her! I could never love her the way you could love someone, but I felt so small and weak compared to you that I had to do something… I was so jealous of you… It was all I could do… And even though she didn’t deserve your love, you gave it, and I knew I couldn’t exploit your weaknesses, you don’t have any, so… so…

C: You little manipulative prick… You exploited her.

Me: YEEEEEEEEES!! Yes, it’s true! All of it!

C: AND THE JOB TOO?!? YOU GOT ME FIRED?!? I’VE NEVER BEEN AN INCOMPETENT OR NEGLIGENT EXECUTIVE, THAT WAS YOU TOO, WASN’T IT?!?

Me: Yes! It was! I… I forged the documents, I started the rumor mill, I worked up the others against you!

C: YOU SET THAT SECRETARY UP TO SEDUCE ME IN THE COPY ROOM, DIDN’T YOU?!?

Me: Oh God, you know about that too… I told her-

C: Him.

Me: [Blinking rapidly] It was a HE?

C: [Nods]

Me: [Shrugging]… YEEEEEEES!! I TOLD HIM TO MAKE YOU LOOK AS BAD AS POSSIBLE! I WANTED TO HURT YOU FOR BEING SO MUCH MORE SUCCESSFUL THAN ME! [Gets on knees and heaves shoulders up and down] I TOLD HIM ABOUT YOUR FONDNESS FOR SLIM-

C: Fat.

Me: -WHATEVER! BODIES, AND HOW IT WOULD DESTROY YOUR REPUTATION IN THE OFFICE AND FINALLY BRING YOU THE RUIN THAT YOU NEVER DESERVED BUT THAT I WANTED BECAUSE I WAS PETTY AND JEALOUS! IT’S TRUE, ALL OF IT! IT WAS ME, ME, MEEEEEEEEEEEEE!! OH GOD I’M SORRY!

C: [Rolling up sleeves] And now I’m going to kick your sorry ass… for ruining everythi-

Me: [Standing up and getting brusque and buisness-like] Hold it.

C: [Blinking] Huh?

Me: While physical violence is included in our list of services, there’s an extra charge, depending on the severity. What would you be looking at in court for something like this?

C: Um… Assault and Battery?

Me: Hm… That’ll be an extra $2,000.

C: I don’t have the cash on me.

Me: [Whipping out electronic wireless credit card reader] Do you have Visa or Mastercard?

C: [Pulls out Visa]

Me: [Scans and confirms] Right. Where were we? Oh yeah, NOOOOOO!!! PLEAAAAAAAAAASE!!!

C: This is sweet SWEET justice you little shit…

Me: Aigh! Argh! Oh! The pain! The pain I deserve for doing this! The- HEY! WHAT THE FUCK??!!

C: What?

Me: This is “It’s My Fault”, not “It’s My Ass”. You want that, call a gay escort service.

C: Sorry. Got a little carried away.

Me: Try not to do it in my pants, okay? I’m professional for God’s sake. CHRIST…

C: Sorry. Anyway.

Me: Right. ARGH! OH HOW I DESERVE THIS! IT’S MY FAULT! IT’S ALL MY FAUUUUUUULT…

Random Interesting Fact Of The Day

Plutonium 242 has a half life of approximately 37, 600 years. This means that if we were to build the great wall of China out of the stuff, the Earth would have a big green, night glo snake crawling across it visible to the aliens that come to the moon after George W. Bush has bombed everything into annihilation.

A Procrastinatin’ We Will Go…

Does anyone else who writes have this problem?

You know how the story is going to end. You even know how you’re going to write it. And yet when it comes down to sitting down and writing, you’re lucky to get a sentence out every half hour despite the fact that it’s sitting in your brain, all ready to spooge on the page.

The unicorn story is giving me that problem. Despite the fact that it’s more or less “written” in my head, it’s refusing to come out, like a baby that had a preview of how bad life could get and has decided to stay in the womb and is digging in with both hands, refusing to come out and get spanked, screaming “No! I don’t wanna’!”

I hate these difficult children.

Whatever Happened To That Guy?

While walking around on the street today, somehow the topic of Lazarus came up. It got me to thinking, “Hey, when Jesus ressurrected that guy, did he remember to put a timer on him, or is the poor bastard condemned to eternal life?”

I pretty much see the conversation going something like this

Lazarus: You fucker. You rat fuck, son of a bitch.

Jesus: What?!?

L: You know what, don’t you? Don’t pretend to get all confused with me, you know exactly what I’m talking about!

J: What? No, really, what are you talking about?

L: Look, J.C., you’re a nice guy. At least I thought you were, but you’ve really gone the absolute limit with this. What’s wrong with this picture?

J: I don’t know.

L: Let’s start slowly. It’s the end of the world, right?

J: Right.

L: And here’s this big rapture thing, taking all the souls up to heaven, right?

J: Right.

L: And as promised, this is taking place thousands of years after you’ve been nailed, right?

J: Right.

L: So don’t you think that it’s just a little bit funny that I’m sitting here? Talking to you? STILL ALIVE?!?

J: [Thinks about it for a second] Oh. Ooooooh…

L: EXACTLY, YOU SANCTIMONIUS DORK! When they said you were supposed to be the son of God they failed to mention you were the slow one! YOU FORGOT TO MAKE IT POSSIBLE FOR ME TO DIE WHEN YOU BROUGHT ME BACK, YOU IDIOT!

J: But, but… I was just trying to help…

L: Help? HELP?!? Like you were trying to help the apostles?!? Do you know what happened after you kicked off? They took that whole “You will be a fisher of men” thing to the next level and opened up a gay bar! When they were martyred, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John’s crucifixes spelled YMCA! Mary Magdalene started up a hair fetish brothel! AND I’VE PAID ALIMONY TO 638 WIVES! Do you have any idea what it’s like to be told “You’ve got cancer,” and realize you’ll have to live with that lump under your armpit FOREVER?!? And how, HOW, I ask you, was it “helping” me when my own relatives put out a bounty on my head to get at my will, a bounty that has persisted for TWELVE GENERATIONS. Every time I visit my relatives I have to bring a mine detector and kevlar vest! YOUUUUUUU SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!!

My Life Is More Boring Than Your Grandma’s Power Knitting Sessions

This is inevitable. Once you actually settle down and start doing actual work, interesting, witty, insightful things/events/people rarely enter into your sphere of influence. And this is one of those points. Mostly I’m just writing. A couple of freelance jobs have cropped up which will help with some bills, but still probably won’t adequately pay the rent, which means that karmically, the rock on the ring for the girlfriend just keeps getting bigger and bigger. I am painfully aware of this, but it’s a small price to pay in the long run, I think.

End, Damn You!

The unicorn story (Which, as usual, has a sucky title, God, I’m hopeless…) is at long last nearing completion, and is about 30 pages bigger than I had initially estimated, which always seems to be the way it goes with me. It’s being one of those difficult children. You know the kind; on the one hand, it constantly misbehaves, doesn’t necessarily do what you ask it to, and you suspect that it might have a case of attention deficit, or slight mental retardation. But in the end, it just might surprise you as it proves to be autistic and excelling at music or math or something.

This story is one of those ones which is taking much longer to write than what I’m used to, and when I go back and read previous passages, depending on my mood on any given day, sometimes I don’t like them, and sometimes I think they’re pretty cool, which is why I’m scared to touch them as usually I only operate on my editorial instincts when they’re sound. On these rare occasions where even my own brain can’t make up its mind about whether it likes the writing or not, I just wait and see. The usual response is that people like or dislike things that I didn’t even see, so this is probably shaping up to be another one those stories that might not be a particular favorite for me, but that seems to strike a chord with other people. I don’t get it, but then why should I? I just wrote the damn thing, I don’t have to read it…

She Ain’t Lesbian But She Likes Little Girls

Since the Open Space anthology people are asking me to submit another story, I’m giving myself a deadline of about a month to see if I can crank out my next short story, one based around Jen and her attempt to track down a serial killer who goes after children. I won’t go into too much detail, because I’m sure at some point I’m going to be ramming this down people’s throats, but I’m torn right now between having this story take place when Jen was still hanging around with Frank & Michael in university, or during her “lone ranger” years when Frank & Michael had already gone to Singapore. Part of my head keeps telling me I might be trying to cram in too much “cool continuity” with the other stories by linking it in with Frank & Michael. The other part of my head, irrational writer part that does things ’cause The Muse Says So, keeps insisting that whether I intend it or not, Michael is going to be going along for a ride, because every Buffy needs a Xander, and Michael is it for Jen. And besides, Michael just wants to go along anyway, so if I throw the party without him, he’ll just gate crash.

Anyone who says the neat thing about writing is the total control you have over your characters’ lives has never tried writing with pig headed characters who do what they please.

There Is No Spoon. There Is No Plot Either…

I was initially really, REALLY looking forward to the Animatrix series as an ubercool presentation of the ubercool backstory behind the Matrix, but after watching the first episode, Second Renaissance, Part 1, I’m beginning to scale back my hopes and settling for ubercool anime.

The biggest problem I have with this story is the presentation of the story itself. I’m not sure how much of that is the fault of the Brothers Wachowski (Who wrote it) or the director (The guy that did Blue Submarine 6) but I’m taking serious issue with the way this story is being told.

On the surface the premise of this first animatrix episode is pretty cool; a historical document, ostensibly pulled from the Zion archives detailing the genesis of the Machine War that brought humanity to the battery-supply state it is in The Matrix. But the anime itself is trying too hard to push a message or be “political” with its liberal use of iconic images from religion and historical moments of oppression. The plot is that humans have no respect for the machine workers, and that gradually, as AI grows more sophisticated, the machines begin to resent the lack of respect and one day, a machine, BR-166-ER rose up against its human owners and killed them when they wanted to shut it down, citing its actions as self-defense and having the same basic survival prerogative that any sentient creature has. From there, riots begin, humans join the cause for protection of sentients, and the machines are forced to retreat to Africa, where they form a nation known as “01″, and begin to slowly take over the market with their incredible advances, eventually ruling the stock market and devaluing the currencies of the human nations. The story ends with the application of 01′s entry in the United Nations being rejected, and I think we can all guess where it goes from there in Ep.2.

But it’s those entirely too self-consciousness images that bug me. For instance, all the machine laborers are built as humanoid. You have these Fritz Lang Metropolis-esque moments with legions of robots marching off to work. You have INCREDIBLY archaic looking images of scores of robots using cables to pull up bricks to construct a pyramid, and don’t tell me that there’s no similarity there to the Egyptians and Hebrews. Then when the robot rebellion begins, there is a Tianemen Square style shot of a robot protesting in front of a huge tank that gets run over. There’s even the aping of the famous Vietnam photo where a robot with its hands tied up has a gun put to its head and gets shot. Shots of piles of robot bodies being dumped into a ditch, a la the Nazi holocaust. Even a “gang rape” sequence where a robot in human skin, like a terminator, has her skin ripped off by a bunch of guys and is tossed to the ground before she’s decimated. And towards the end, when the pair of 01 ambassadors is pleading their case with the U.N., they are a male and female robot, holding hands, with the female robot holding an apple in her hand, some kind of pseudo-Adam & Eve reference.

First, it bugs me that if we were to make machines, we’d make them human shaped and have them build pyramids the way we had to 6,000 years ago, instead of building them like sentient power lifters and cranes, which would make more sense, one incredibly powerful machine that could independently life huge blocks of steel and masonry, as opposed to thousands of small ones that have to tow a block up a slope with glorified ropes just seems more logical to me.

Second, I guess I think that the Brothers Wachowski may be taking themselves too seriously. What I liked about The Matrix was that it was essentially a comic book ride, fun and adrenaline pumping that had some “serious” elements in it, usually just quick references to actual philosophical texts (Like Neo storing his pirate software in a copy of Baudrillard’s Simulacra & Simulation) or just broaching on the topics of what is real and all that stuff. I liked that approach in that they seemed to realize they were doing glossy SF/Chop-socky/wire-fu that was supposed to be fun, BUT, they laced it in with some actual thinking here and there that would compel the curious to go off and do more homework. It was kind of like lacing popcorn with a little bit of smart drug.

With this first episode though, they seem to be really pushing the whole “Folly Of Man” thing by making humans out to be these totally paranoid, fearful types with no tolerance whatsoever. It
‘s very skewed so that the machines are always reasonable people that try to present rational, peaceful solutions that man irrationally rejects and responds to with violence, so that we’ll feel the machines are completely justified in retaliating, just that they took it too far. Suddenly the fun stuff is taking a back seat and some kind of pseudo-political agenda is being pushed, and that bugs me, because it’s overt and not subtle at all. The Matrix asked questions, and then left it up to you to find answers if you wanted. Here, we’ve got a definite message being shoved down our throats, and it’s done pretty bluntly, with little room for debate.

*Sigh*…

I guess they can’t all be winners… Still I was hoping that since this was coming from the brothers themselves, they’d stick to the winning formula as opposed to getting all preachy and ethical…