What Silver Spring is to me

I'm going to have to write this post quickly. I have had a hectic past 2 weeks, what with my Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close project, and exams. But now that I'm done with this my schedule should be free. I'm probably going to have a good next few weeks with the play and the British students. So to quote Paul Revere, "The British are coming, the British are coming!" I have always wanted a reason to say that. Anyway. the video may seem a little choppy , but that was only because of the constraint on the time. Also the fact that a few clips are missing... well that's the reason  need to type  quickly. I tried to re-upload the video, and restore the video files, but my computer came up with a blue screen of death. So as I'm writing this my computer is a ticking time bomb for another blue screen and potentially an unfixable one. Hopefully if I shut it down for the rest of the night the problem will go away, and i realy hope this problem will not persist and that  the computer isn't doomed. Well untill then I better give my computer a rest.

Minecraft 1.4.6 Review

I finally had the time to do something Minecraft related! It's been so long since I last posted something Minecraft related on this blog. So today I will treat you with a visit from a long awaited minecraft video. And before you ask, no it's not a machinima. I've been having a hard time coordinating a time that my friends can log on and be actors, and when I finally coordinated a time that worked for everyone, the universe decided that that would be a good time for my server to crash making me unable to film. Well I got around it by recording my review of the new minecraft update. Remember the last update review with the picture gallery? Remember how it took up so much space? well now that I put that in a video this post will not be as long as the 1.4 update review. I did forget to mention in the video that the Minecraft programmers added a Christmas surprise that only took place on the 24th and the 25th, they made the chests in minecraft look like Christmas presents. For some reason blogger is not letting me post a picture, so I will get you a picture of that when I can. There really is not that much to cover because this wasn't as major of an update as 1.4 was. So without any further ado here's the review video. I hope you likle it!

Religulous Review

Documentary Review

Bill Maher, a self-admitted “potty mouthed, pot smoking atheist” created the documentary Religulous in 2008. This movie was his effort to expose the largest organized religions in the world as insane, irrational and destructive. Maher inserts himself into this film in the same way he runs his late night show on Fridays on HBO, “Real Time with Bill Maher”. That show mixes round table discussions that include politicians, Hollywood celebrities and academics with a healthy dose of his monologues from his stand-up comedy routines. And just like in his TV show, Maher appears in almost every shot of Religulous. He often looks straight into the camera and rolls his eyes or feigns shock to show that he and the viewer are connected and share the same opinion. That makes Religulous an interactive documentary, a documentary that is actually more entertainment than it is an exposé of the absurdities of religion.

In Religulous (a combination of the words ‘religion’ and ‘ridiculous’), Maher travels the globe speaking to every kind of religious person, including the devout as well as the hypocritical. He asks them to explain their faith and the nature of their God. Maher claims that he would like to believe in God, but says that no one has been able to say anything intelligent or convincing enough to persuade him. In this movie he talks to shop owners selling “holy” items, small town preachers, televangelists, a man from “Jews for Jesus”, a fundamentalist Christian U.S. Senator, Vatican priests, a religious astrologist, secular Muslims, gay Muslims, Mormons and ex-Mormons in Salt Lake City, and people in Jerusalem and the Arab peninsula. He reveals what is stupid, foolish and narrow-minded in the philosophy of each of these people.  

Although most of the interviewees are pretty harmless as an individual, their total intolerance of anyone with a different view hints at what Maher thinks is the worst aspect of organized religion – black and white thinking – an inability to accept those with an opposing view. There is an apocalyptic thread throughout the movie that reaches a dramatic and terrifying conclusion at the end when a montage of terrorist bombings, mushroom clouds, starving refugees and hate-filled religious demonstrators flash furiously on the screen while Maher does a voice over arguing that religion isn’t just ridiculous, it is fatal. Millions have already suffered and died in the name of various gods he says, and religion will ultimately destroy humanity.

Even so, Religulous is an entertaining movie. At first is certainly seems to give religious people a voice, but really Bill Maher has dealt himself the better hand in these interviews. The people he interviews are easy to scoff at and aren’t capable of putting up much of a fight. Maher doesn’t interview the intellectual heavy hitters of modern religion. He interviews a man who claims to be a direct descendant of Jesus Christ, because he believes that Jesus had children. To main stream Christians this idea is preposterous and presenting a fringe character like this serves to make all Christians look ridiculous. Maher also interviews a priest at the Vatican who must have had one cocktail too many before the interview because all he can do is giggle. The list of silly interviewees goes on. Maher interviews American truckers, in their small chapel in a trailer where each person makes up his own personal brand of Christianity. Maher even went so far as to conduct an interview with the actor who plays Jesus at a Disney-esque theme park called “Holy Land”.  It seems to me that if Maher really wanted to make a point he wouldn’t have interviewed this pathetic crowd of naive people, but he would speak to someone as quick witted and intellectual as himself. Since he did not choose worthy adversaries, he lost an opportunity to spark a conversation about the real place for religion in modern society. Instead he turned the movie into a bunch of cheap shots at the absurdity of religion.

As I mentioned, this is an interactive documentary. Bill Maher is on the screen about 96% of the time. Although it was filmed at various locations around the world, it is basically a series of one-on-one interviews edited together with multiple cuts to B- Roll. Maher also uses inter titles to flash his sarcastic comments and rebuttals onto the screen even as his guests attempt to explain their points of view.

I would recommend Religulous to many of my friends; but frankly if you are religious and a faithful church goer, then do not watch this documentary. Maher goes after every single religion without holding back any punches: Mormons, Muslims, Catholics, Evangelists, Christians and Jews beware. Remember that Maher is famous for his being offensive.  Then again, even church goers confess to getting their fair share of laughs from this documentary. And even though it’s not as effective as it could be, this movie does get the viewer thinking about religion and its place in our century.  If you aren’t too sensitive to this kind of humor, Religulous is a thought provoking and enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours.

Religulous, 102 minutes R (for language)

A tragic event

Tragic. Senseless. Devastating. Unimaginable. There really are no words that adequately describe what occurred in a Connecticut elementary school on Friday. The massacre that left 26 people dead, 20 of them little children, leaves a gaping hole in all our hearts. looking for a way to honor those personally affected I attended a vigil on Saturday in down town silver spring. People cried, lit candles, sang and talked about remembering and taking action. there was a discussion about organizing a march on Washington on December 22 to demand that legislation be passed regarding the accessibility of guns. Many also brought up the need for better supports for people with mental illnesses. If you want to learn more about the march, Ed Weingart at MisterDudeDC@me.com

Model Rockets

Every December, my friends and I go launch model rockets at the college my mom's friend's husband works at (if you managed to keep that straight then kudos to you sir or madam) every year I take video of the event, but I never post it on the Internet. Since I'm already posting on this blog why not make this year the year I finally put this kind of thing online. Anyway, the whole thing is very 1950's-ish in the aspect that the men go and launch things into the heavens, while the women stay home and make Christmas cookies. And before you think I'm a sexist jerk let me explain... the kitchen that is used to bake the treats is tiny and cramped enough as it is and with the 3 teen girls and 5 women there is just no room for the guys in there. In fact we are normally kicked out of the kitchen for taking up too much space. So 3 years ago today my mom's friend's husband (I'm just going to call him Tom from now on) took me, Nick, and the other boys and their dads to go launch their model rockets. And let me say that over the las two years the lost rocket count has dropped significantly. Actually a few years ago a rocket came straight down on us and no parachute deployed so it was going to drill into the ground and what did we do? We stood there like idiots filming the danged thing untill we realized that the parachute wasn't comming out and it was roughly 50 feet above the ground. But don't worry nobody was hurt. Anyways Here's the video I hope you enjoy it!

Family Picture

Saturday I spent the entire afternoon in a mall in Waldorf, Marylad getting a family portrait done at the JC Penney photo studio. Everything went Okay... except for the traffic on the way down. It was horrendous, on Route 301 nobody was moving, and if they were it was probably at an average speed of 3 mph. Ugh! And our family from Southern Maryland complains about the traffic in Montgomery County?! Please! That drive that should have taken about 45 minutes to an hour took an hour and a half.
We were the last ones to get to Penneys for the picture my Grandma has been wishing and wishing for: all FOURTEEN of us (2 grandparents, their 3 daughters, their 3 spouses and SIX grandbabies including me!). After the formal shot, we did a picture of all 14 of us again but wearing sunglasses and making faces. My biker aunt insisted on this goofy one. Then we split up into different group and took more pictures - one of each of the 3 families, one of just the 6 grandchildren, one of the grandparents, and one of the three moms/sisters. Yea... lots of pictures! Now you have to keep in mind how... very different my family is from each other. Personality-wise and physically. We've got a cast of characters. For example my aunts are both 6 feet tall but their sister (my mom) is only 5'3".  The 6 grandchildren are very different. We range in age from 2 to 21. Two are high school graduates, one is a Junior, I am a sophomore, and then we have a third grader and a toddler in his terrible twos! It was So difficult to make him hold still for a nanosecond for even one picture. We've got red heads, brunettes and blonds. We've got Harley bike club members, ambulance drivers, retired Navy, a teacher, an airplane mechanic a technowizard and a professional nurse. I have to tell you that my parents and I were the only liberals in the picture. Wait why did politics come into this? Only because politics ALWAYS comes up with this group of highly opinionated people. But we love each other VERY much and I'm glad that we have the pictures to show for this long afternoon of sitting and waiting. It was worth it.

Some Changes To My Idea For Recording Mincraft

Several posts ago I talked about recording myself commentating Minecraft gameplay. Well I took some time to think about how long it would take just to record one episode.... a day in Minecraft is 10 minutes, dawn and dusk are 1 and a half minutes each, and night is 4 minutes long. That's 20 minutes from one morning to another. Nobody has the kind of free time to sit around for 20+ minutes watching some dude play a game. So I'm yet again changing my plan: I'm going to be filming short stories called machinimas. These movies are generally made as a person is playing a game and can range from 2-3 minutes. They can be really short - just for kicks - or they can be as long as a feature length move. I promise I will only post only short "just for kicks" videos on this blog. Machinimas have become increasingly popular lately and there is even a company (Machimina) solely dedicated to making these movies.
Here is one of my personal favorites from Machimina. I can explain what he is talking about in the first 30 seconds or so. Earlier in the year the Minecraft 1.3.1 update was released and VASTLY expanded the possibilities of the program. The update also allowed players to trade with the villagers in the game. The video below  shows how the company poked fun at the update.
Sorry about the advertisment trailer for a Halo movie at the end of the clip, but Machinima also made that movie and they're showing off their  creations. Anyway, here's the machinima.