thinglets: Soundtrack Shirt

You've gotta give it to ThinkGeek, they come up with some of the most cool concepts in gadgets. How many times have you thought it would be great to have a "walking down the street" song or a Barry White song as you moved across to pick up that special someone at a party. This shirt lets you customize your own personal soundtrack with a remote control that allows you to select the song of the moment... maybe Heat of the Moment. Maybe not High Fidelity, but certainly gives one of your lists a practical output. I'm sure the speaker doesn't have the greatest bass response... on second thought, maybe Barry White isn't the best selection... perhaps the White Stripes?

soundtrack shirt

thinglets: The Dymo Disc Painter

dymo disc painter

I'll be the first to admit that I am far more likely to just store things on hard drive now that GB/$ ratio has become so low. That said, while I would have coveted the Dymo Disc Painter five years ago, it's still very cool. 600dpi custom disc painting in 60 seconds. If I knew someone who was still burning binders full of discs, this would be my holiday present for them. Unit is $280 and additional cartridges are $40... if only it was five years ago, this would've saved me a lot of ruined discs due to label glue degradation... and, as an added bonus, it kinda looks like a toilet on your desktop.

Here are the specs:

Technology: Patented RadialPrint™ Technology, dedicated CD/DVD printing direct to disc* as it revolves.

Resolution: Fast 600 dpi (two nozzle passes), Normal 600 dpi (eight nozzle passes) and Best 1200 dpi (eight nozzle passes)

Speed: DiscPainter CD and DVD labeler has three quality settings--Fast, Normal, and Best. Printing speed increases with higher quality settings, increased ink density settings and complexity of design. Times range from 30 seconds (simple text/design and Fast mode) to three minutes (more complex design and Best quality)

Compatibility: Prints on all inkjet-printable CDs, DVDs (full sized) and mini discs with four print settings: 120 mm hub printable, 120 mm non-hub printable, 80 mm (mini) hub printable, and 80 mm (mini) non hub-printable.

Ink Density: Nine ink density settings for precise ink control on matte, glossy, or colored inkjet-printable discs.

Ink Cartridge System: Full color printing with single cartridge system (one included). Prints about 100 discs with one cartridge based on "Normal" print quality and ink density setting "5".

thinglets: DiCaprio's Black Friday House Deal

Casa Leo

Leonardo DiCaprio has listed one of his Malibu Beach properties for $8,999,000. Now I'll admit that had he listed it for $9,000,000 I wouldn't have taken a second look, but, with Black Friday Fever just passed, $1000 dollars off of anything must be a good deal. The house "sits on the bluffs above the Pacific. A stairway leads to the beach cove below. The main house has two bedrooms and two bathrooms in 2,374 square feet. The master bathroom has marble fixtures and a steam shower. A separate guesthouse has two one-bedroom suites. There is a four-car garage and a large grassy area, and -- no surprise to DiCaprio followers -- the property is private."

Do you think there's a mail-in rebate available with a six to eight waiting period? I bet the Flypoints are off the hook.

lovehate: Scope, Scale, Setting and The Watchmen

I'm certainly not the only waiting for the Watchmen movie to come out in March '09. There have been plans to make this film for almost two decades and all reports, even with the liberties Zack Snyder has apparently taken with the ending, are that the film is the best anyone could expect from a feature-length Hollywood production. Why is it that the "Hollywood production" is what scares me the most when ever I hear a story is being adapted? Could it be that the same studios responsible for every Eddie Murphy film of the last 15 years, Beverly Hills Chihuahua, and the gelding of Vince Vaughan and Will Ferrell have put me off of most major studio efforts?

The reason I'm so eagerly anticipating the Watchmen film is, of course, due to the comic book series and subsequent graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Gibbons. The thing that impressed me so much upon first reading the series was the scope and scale the story took. Moore and Gibbons didn't only create a world, but they inhabited it with hyperreal characters and landscapes and I daresay, more than any other comic at that time and since, enveloped readers in it.

Such a method of grand scale doesn't always work, and rarely in comics, especially only given the 12 issue run. I remember reading Frank Herbert's Dune series and really struggling as a teen trying to get through at least half of the first book just to feel like I had a grasp on the setting. I'm not saying the effort was not worth it. And, to be sure, I admired the first five or six of the Dune novels... I didn't really keep up after that. Yet there was an example of grand scale gone wrong when it came to David Lynch's film effort. I enjoyed the film enough when it came out, but realized that even I (after reading four books at the time) was having trouble following some of the history and practices from scene to scene. The friend I went with was completely lost. He told me that after about 45 minutes he pretty much just gave up on the story and settled back to watch it as a psychedelic tryptich. Therein lay the problems and pitfalls of trying to contain scope and scale and setting in a Hollywood production.

Don't get me wrong, Hollywood can present scope, scale and setting through a well-crafted screenplay incredibly effectively. Give me a sweeping crane shot here, an flourishing orchestral score there, a supporting cast of thousands in period costume and weve got the makings of grandiose epic. But the transition of book print to a film print always loses something in translation precisely becuase the film tries to remain faithful. I would suggest the very reason that Stephen King's The Shining and Stanley Kubrick's adapted film were both great is precisely because, just as King concentrated on writing the best novel he could without thinking of how it would end up on film, Kubrick concentrated on making the best film he could make without concerning himself with remaining completely true to text.

I appeciate the desire of Hollywood to start with a product that has been at least successful in one venue or another. Such is the reason that every novel that makes a popular list gets optioned by some producer or studio these days. I'll further concede that the stories presented in a novel must look far more rich when placed side by side with a screenplay. Actors clamor to delve into a well-developed character that verges away from stereotypes and while novels can paint broad two-dimesional stroke when the want to, they do have much more canvas to experiment with. The successful novel will always be a popular catalyst for a film, and, more often, comics are providing that incentive as well because let's face it, some of them have years and decades to explore a character and, quite frankly, they need it. The development in any given character within one comic book issue is miniscule at best. Let's face it, superheroes are often two dimensional at best and the only depth we ascribe to them is buried in the decades long history they encompass.

And so we come back to the Watchmen. Depth of multiple characters, plot and setting in 12 issues was near unheard of in a comic book era that birthed the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I understand why Alan Moore has become forever hesitant to watch any of his stories brought to film. In the same way we create imaginary worlds when reading novels, try to conceive of the scope and scale in Moore's mind upon creating the Watchmen world. How much did he conceive of that he couldn't even fit into the books? When we feel things are missing as readers, I can only imagine the process of seeing a film adaption is deathly uninspiring to the orginal writer.

I hope for the success of the film. I hope it inspires millions to go and read the original. I hope that Zack Snyder gets lauded for the attempt even if not the execution. I know that if I can line up at midnight on 03/06/09, the answer to "who watches the Watchmen?" will be me and a horde of fanboys.

watchmen

thinglets: 35 days against DRM

I don't know that I would have posted this had we been on Day 28 of this initiative, but, since it's just starting, people may want to check it out until the new year. Defectivebydesign has started a blitz of 35 reasons why Digital Rights Management practices and policies are often flawed and some of the problems that arise from companies asserting arcane restrictions on technology. Day One deals with one of the most proprietary corporations around: Apple.

dbd drm