Onto the IMAX - Avatar

When it comes to movies, I've always been a sucker for an 'epic' film. Grandiosity and hype are two elements that will always get me excited about a new release. Hell, I get all worked up in Independence Day when Bill Pullman gives his climactic speech about fighting aliens. On the flipside is the massive disappointment I experience when an epic attempt doesn't live up to the hype. Needless to say, I was very curious which way Avatar would go.

There was a nutcase I used to work with who would shout insane exclamations like "Sweet Mary Mother of Jesus" and "Good Night Nurse" when he got riled up at work. Well...even these amazing exclamations couldn't do justice to the feeling I had as I tossed away my 3D glasses and walked out of the theater. My friends who had seen it earlier had all been tremendously positive about it, but a facebook status update of "Avatar = Awesome" didn't really tell me what I was getting myself into.

It really is difficult to explain the experience that you undergo during the movie, but that's the only way to describe it: an experience. You literally are transported to another world that was only been previously accessible in the parking lot of a Phish show. The 3D took a few minutes to get used to, but after maybe 15 minutes you completely forget that you're even wearing the glasses and just indulge yourself in Pandora. You soon encounter weird animals, sparkling shrubbery, epic battle scenes, and even alien creatures doing it.

The only way I can try to describe the experience is what happened after the movie. I was with my mom and two cousins and we all went across the street to a Chili's. Everyone sat there and wanted to talk about the movie. I've been in similar situations after a great movie where afterwards you can dissect the plot, characters, acting, etc. However, over this El Presidente Margarita, there was just nothing to say. It completely affects you without having any trace of a remarkable story. You can't even call the acting really special.

But that's not the point. Nowadays, with massive home tv's and surround sound systems, it's been a while since I felt the grandeur of the movie theater. Things like having popcorn in your hand, a dark theater, the previews, the anticipation walking in followed by the awestruck smiles walking out...Avatar reminded me what "going to the movies" is all about.

I saw the film in regular digital 3D. I am very curious as to how people are feeling about it in a regular 2D showing. I'm also most definitely going to get tickets to a 3D Imax showing, making the first movie ever, where I will see it in a theater twice.

Also, now that I have my own Avatar in FIFA, I've decided that if the humans try to invade the world of the soccer playing FIFA characters, I will probably side with them in the ensuing battle.

The Triple Peanut

Is it the big man on campus of the peanut world, or the genetic freak that is shunned by the rest of the peanuts in the bag?

Finis SwiMP3 Review

Along with doing a whole host of weird stretches and exercises on the mat for my physical therapy, I've had to return to an age old nemesis for cardio: swimming. My sister always was part of our town summer swim team and loved the sport so much she went on to captain our high school team. My mom made me join her on the town team when we were kids, and I would find any excuse I could to get out of the practices.

Once my ph

ysical therapist told me that I'd need to get back into swimming I decided I'd need something to help out with the monotony of going back and forth in a pool indefinitely. Naturally, I turned to my loves of gadgetry and music to help me through these dark times and found the Finis SwiMP3 underwater mp3 player.

The Finis SwiMP3 is not your standard iPod. Rather than a mp3 player with headphones, it's two connected pieces that you press against your skull (attached through your goggles). According to the website, the technology "is revolutionary in that it relies on bone conduction of sound. When the device is placed on any bones of the skull (i.e. the cheek bones or the mastoid tip) it leads to vibration of the fluid in the inner ear."

Yes...you read that right, it relies on 'bone conduction' technology. After reading this absurd description and some positive reviews I decided to try it out.

At first, it was a little difficult to comfortably set the pieces up with my goggles. After a good deal of arranging, I turned on the player. It is seriously one of the most odd and amazing sensations with technology I have experienced. Above water, you barely hear the sound...only as though its being played through a really crappy cell phone speaker. The second that you submerge yourself, the sound instantly becomes crystal clear. It was almost jarring how weird the sensation was at first. After a lap or two of total amazement, I got into the rhythm of things.

The device is almost "Apple-like" in its user-friendliness. Between the two ear/temple/skull-pieces is a little USB connector with a waterproof cap that you can plug directly into your computer. It reads just as an external hard drive, and you can drag over an iTunes playlist.

Swimming with music can go on forever and is almost relaxing. I realized early on that, unlike running, rather than intense techno type music, you can go through even Radiohead or Sigur Ros albums. The only caveat is I attempted a podcast and spoken word doesn't really translate to well to the swimming experience. Other than that, I would strongly recommend this device to anyone looking to add a little life to the repetitive world of swimming.

Grassroots

Doing volunteer work with the Obama campaign last year gave me an opportunity to try to translate my obsession with reading about politics into actual tangible activism. However, the extent of my work was limited to Manhattan, and it can get a little difficult to get that warm, fuzzy grassroots feeling while phonebanking from fancy hotels or checking in Anna Wintour at a fundraising fashion event.

Well, there's a special election to fill Ted Kennedy's Senate seat, and my friend Josh had been volunteering for the campaign of the US Rep Mike Capuano. I was a little on the fence about Capuano as a candidate, but last Tuesday was the big Democratic Primary and I was excited to help Josh out on voting day. It was grassroots time, baby.

We began the day at 6am, driving to donated political office space in a small city I'd only known of from seeing exits on the highway. The goal of the day was purely a Get Out the Vote operation: Phone calls, organizing rides, reminding voters, providing information, etc. As we set up the office with some munchkins and coffee, our first two volunteers showed up: Two guys from the Bricklayers Local 3.

They assumed they'd be given some signs and told to just hang outside in front of a polling booth, but the campaign specifically had said they needed everyone making phone calls. It was kind of awesome watching Josh, in full "young hotshot politico" mode was in a suit (no tie, you know, to be relaxed), try to explain to them the complicated phone banking system. Somehow we were soon cranking out phone calls and within minutes began getting both lauded and berated by voters.

The Bricklayers soon filtered out to get to "a job", and there was a steady rotation of some extremely random people. There was a 65 year old guy who had to use scissors to push phone buttons due to a lack of feeling in his fingers, the daughter of a local politico who I imagine will soon be seriously on the scene, and a few random older women in business casual. Most entertaining was probably the mid-life divorcee who had apparently once lived in the grandeur of D.C. in with her British diplomat husband. After "cleaning her husband out", she now does volunteer work to meet people and repeatedly asked me to friend her on facebook.



The phone banking technology was surprisingly much more advanced than that used during the Obama campaign. The technology around us, however, was not. Proudly displayed on the shelf was a Netscape Communicator box, now with "Internet compatibility" and to be used with Windows 3.1....about as grassroots as it gets. Another favorite piece of technology I found was a document shredder that had an option for "CD/DVD/Disk" shredding as well....only in politics.







Capuano lost by the margin expected and we missed the concession speech as we rushed to get over to the hotel where the main campaign event was taking place. It was fairly anticlimactic as we knew the results via Twitter way before arriving. I guess sometimes real-time information has its drawbacks. In the end, one similarity existed between the grassroots organizing of a local race and big-city, fancypants politicking. Win or lose, everyone involved in the campaign went straight to the bar in the aftermath.








Josh in fancy pants suit

It's All Relative

A bunch of my classmates were partaking in the time-honored Movember tradition last month, and had me "remotely mustache" for a video they were making. I have always had a soft spot for ridiculous mustaches and couldn't turn down such an opportunity.

I only had nine days to grow it before they needed the submission, so took the standard route of growing a beard and then shaving it into a mustache at the last minute. During the process my mom was complaining every day about my beard...labeling me both "terrorist-like" and "homeless". However, the day I shaved it into a mustache, she said "okay, well now you at least look proper".

Only then did it occur to me, she is an Indian woman, and consequently a mustache is completely normal to her (we all know the Indian population is not lacking in mustaches). It then hit me, there are entire generations of women who would consider a man more attractive with a mustache. If a woman who came of age in the 1970s or 1980s (I'd consider this late teens to your 20s) does she still find a man with a mustache to have an irresistible appeal to him? How can there be such a discrepancy in the continuity of what is physically attractive? Shouldn't biology somehow control for growing hair on your upper lip ever being attractive?


The 3rd eyebrow



*Disclaimer: I will concede this is a standard "I will philosophize about mustaches to post mustache pictures of myself" blog post. I feel it must be an institution among bloggers.