The New Action Hero King

I just saw the Transporter 3 trailer and thought of this.

Remember when Arnie was the biggest film star in the world? Remember when action films were the staple diet of many at the cinemas? Ahh yeah good times.

Then something happened. No new talent worth their salt came up to the plate. Sure Jackie Chan and Jet Li are still kicking it but it's not new Arnie.

I had high hopes for The Rock until the spat of comedies and the name change. Oh Dwayne I ripped my poster off the wall years ago.

So who's the big action stars of today (with more films still left in them)

Vin Diesel? Will Smith? Tom Cruise? Matt Damon? The Rock? Christian Bale? Marky Mark? Keanu? Brendan Fraser!!!

The only one staying true to 80's action is Jason Stanham.

It's been a staple diet of movies where people get kicked in the head. That's all you want from your action stars. No Disney movies, no light heartered comedies, no dramadies, special interest movies. Just Big silly action movies with "turn to your mate and go ahh F yeah scenes" and the occasional T&A. Throw in a couple of jokes and a helicopter exploding and it's a good night at the movies.

Jason's no Arnie but he's all we've got. If we don't support him and more like him we'll end up with Shia LaBeouf vs Hayden Christensen in 2020's big action blockbuster. And that's just fucking scary.

Put all these guys in the Thunderdome as see which one leaves. Jason, The Rock and Vinny would probably have the most fight in them, followed by Christian Bale but then rest would go down like a sack of wet socks.

Keanu Reeves vs Brendan Fraser is something I'd actually like to see. My money would be on Brendan though.

Castle Crashers Footage

Wow, Tom Phulp is one name you dont here much outside of the flash game industry. But he runs one of the biggest social networks Newgrounds and he's a successful game publisher.

This makes methink of what happened to Ze Frank. Didnt he go to Hollywood to make it big?

Running a big blog is like politics

I copped some negative feedback from readers of Bannerblog for trying to turn off comments for one entry, check it out here. Disqus didnt work and comments were left on (i didnt check) and then it started a debate.

I feel like a local mayor who tried to do something for the community and got his ass handed back to him by the vocal minority.

Funny no one cared I took on a Sponsor and altered the site nav but I try and turn off comments for one banner and they get their knickers in a not.

I'm not crazy

"I'm not crazy. But the voices in my head are."

A friend of a friend (hehe it actuall is in this case) said this to me after explaining why they had to visit a hospital for a while.

"Ahh ok" was my response. I'm pretty bad with dealing with stuff like that.

Getting Things Done GTD

I finally finished reading GTD by David Allen (who looks like my old friend Adrian Rice). I'm now going back and creating a checlist of next steps I need to do to really get organized.

The book is a fantastic resource of common sense tips and insights into how to become less flustered at work. I'm a list junkie but now I know how to make and manage my lists better.

Its the first time in ages I have wanted a Mac so I can use Omnifocus which was imspired by the book. But I'd rather wait to change for another year or so.

USB Knuckle Duster

usb_knuckle_duster_web, View my Flickr stream here.

Nike+ ripped me off. I did this back in 2004 and totally forgot about it. This was part of my Filofax inventor series. Nike+ came in 2 years later.

The idea was you take your knuckle duster out on the town and then download your stats. I'm a stat junkie. I also had bluetooth nun chucks (for the techno ninja) and synced steel capped boots.

If only I had of seen a real idea here instead of a joke.

Stats make sense of your life. I like bowling for the stats I get. I think golfers like that aspect too. If only golf had advanced to let you know your further drive. Exactly how close you are to the pin.

I'd like one of those toilets like in The Island where it told you what was in your pee.

iPod Touch

I got an iPod touch cheap from a friend and have used it for the weekend. I havent actually used it as an iPod yet just playing with it. There's a couple of things I found annoying

1: I imported a whole bunch of photos into it but it seems to have resized them all to fit on the iPod screen. Which means larger images are downsized with no way to zoom in to see detail.

2: I can't use the iPod as a HD?! I need to get a seperare app to get this to work

3: I can't get Gmail to work?

4: There's no FREE tab in the App store? You have to search for free which is now littered with costly and useless apps.

5: No flash player? You can watch Youtube though so an FLV player is fine but no Flash player.

On the upside I did find that I can sync with my Outlook calendar and contacts which is a huge advantage. I now can check my email where ever there is a WIFI hotspot which is handy

Life To Do from January 2003

After having a chat with Mike after work about the book Getting Things Done and how lists are important, he mentioned a friend told him to list 130 things to do before you die.

It reminded me of my Life to Do list I did back in 2003. I thought I had 50 or so but I only had 24. I've had this list in a Filo Fax in a box under my desk at home. I thought I'd post these online and also add them to my organiser digitally to keep them more top of mind. I was able to tick off a couple of these just in the last 18 months, namely #3 and #6 and#16.

Here's my list in the order I wrote back in 2003.

1: Travel to Japan
2: Feature on Boingboing.net (the recent Sleevage link doesn't count)
3: Write an article for a magazine
4: Write an article for an online mag
5: Speak at a conference in a foreign country
6: Do the Bridge climb
7: Bungee Jump
8: Sky Dive
9: Snorkel the Great Barrier Reef
10: Shoot a gun
11: Write an article in a newspaper
12: Have a photo of mine published in print
13: Design a CD cover that's sold in stores
14: A credit in a Hollywood film
15: Compete in a fun run
16: Own a house/unit
17: Surf a wave on a surfboard
18: Visit Easter Island
19: Visit Antarctica
20: Go bobsledding in a foreign country (ice)
21: Ski in snow
22: See a sumo match in Japan
23: Become a Muslim (what we do for love hey)
24: Learn Indonesian fluently

I'll be knocking over #5 next month when I speak in Brazil.

That's a pretty conservative list when I think that other people have lists of 130. So I've done a quick search for other people's list to be inspired and will add these to the list

25: Be an extra in a film (this would knock off #14 too)
26: Swim with a dolphin
27: Learn to juggle
28: Visit Great Wall of China
29: Visit the Pyramids
30: Do a high dive (10mtrs will do)
31: Attend a Comic Festival in costume
32: Attend a Superbowl
33: Buy something at a big auction. One that requires me to hold one of those big numbers
34: Go white water rafting
35: Have a book published
36: Produce a TV show
37: Go water skiing
38: Ride an elephant (came very close to this one)
39: Make a baby
40: Finish one of the GTA's
41: See a UFC fight live
42: Attend a Wrestling Match live. WWF, WWC any will do
43: Get married. I better add that one in case Ervi is reading :)

Other items like see a Broadway show, see an event at an Olympics, learn an instrument, win a webby, win a Cannes lion, visit Eiffel tower, attend a big outdoor concert, volunteer at a soup kitchen, donate money anonymously, steel a road sign, started a business etc etc I have done already. I felt like adding them in and crossing them out so it doesn’t look like I’m not ambitious but I guess the list is for me more than anyone who reads it.

This also jogged my memory about a book I got for Rob's birthday a few years ago 101 Things to do Before you Die. It had stickers and all these really well put together pages. I've gotta add that to my list of potential gifts for people it's hard to buy gifts for. I love the fact the book has just been updated as of July 2008. Great reader support.

Bananaman

Ive eaten 4 Banana's this week. More than I had last year total.

I am Bananaman. We also get fruit in the office and I swear we went through 3 KG of Banana's in 2 days. Hungry people.

Twitter only keeps the last 80 entries

I was asked to write an article about my experience at Cannes this year. 900 words! So I thought I'd do the easy thing and just edit my twitter feed down to the best pieces.

It was then I found out that Twitter only keeps the last 80 entries!. WTF. So I've lost 50 entries to the interweb. I did a search and found other people trying to collate a years worth and ran into the same trouble. I was able to fudge the first few days but it's sad that I no have no digital record of that period in my life.Maybe I'm missing what Twittering is meant for but it seems silly for there to be no way to archive properly. Even provide a way to do it off the Twitter servers.

So now if you ever Twitter a major event in your life be sure ot have a backup plan in place or you're fucked.

I am MrTruffle

Mr Truffle is my web name I've been using for a while (I started with Salvador Ghandi in 1998) but that become too much of a mouthful. (and yes I was a Marilyn Manson fan)

A quick search for Google for Mrtruffle reveals social networks, forums, accounts that I had totally forgot about. It also makes it easy for someone to stalk me as I've got my MrTruffle fingerprint everywhere.

Myspace is the only site that some idiot in the UK beat me to the punch. (If I ever meet you Pat you're going to get an earful.

I had to settle for DrTruffle which is OK but I Am MrTruffle not this imposter. Also it's myspace which I only use to test stuff when clients force us to use it.

I am Batman

I just saw Batman Dark Knight. Wholly blockbusters it was pretty damn solid. Sure it's weird (this was pointed out to me after the film) that Bruce Wayne still talks in his silly deep Batman voice even to people who know who he is and there were a few BS tech moments but the flow, the story, the script and the acting were all solid as a rock.

Iron Man set the bar and Batman jumped his Batbike over it. The comic book flick can no longer be out down as a sub genre of film. This stands up there with the best entertainment you can get in a cinema.

This and Pineapple Express have given me joy in the cinema lately for totally different reasons.

Linked on Boingboing

I can finally tick it off my web todo list.

A site I worked on finally got linked on Boingboing. Not a full feature but hey I'll take what I can get. Sleevage was linked up in a Blog Zen post by Xeni here. The one post also resulted in 5 other blogs posting to sleevage with the same post name. This must be replicator blogs that copy content.

I'll have to edit my list to say "feature article" but for now I'm content.

So you think you can dance 2007 tour Sydney

I had the displeasure of seeing the So you think you can dance 2007 tour in Sydney yesterday. This is part of having a girlfriend obsessed with the show.

If you are wondering wether to spend your $60 a ticket ($80 if you go to the night show) then think again. It's a waste of money. The same $60 would get you a ticket to JT or a big name band that actually cares about what kind of show they are putitng on. Here on SYTYCD Tour you get a tiny stage, shitty light show, the same dances you've seen on TV (two new ones though) and a heap of TV montages to fill up the time.

The script was written by a Play School's head writer and the light show was a preset piece of poo.

The 35 minute intermission was way to long and invoilved just 4 Optus ads on the big screen.

When the dancers were on stage you are treated to graphics that bare little resemblence to the music or dance. It must have been tooo expensive to hire a cameraman.

This is a money making endevour and a waste of money for most little girls who like the show.

If the tickets were $20 I can understand but even then this was a trial on how cheaply can you put on a show.

So in summery if you like the show then just watch it again with all your friends. If you want to get a glimpse of a guy with his shirt off then look up gay porn and cover up the rude bits. Then spend you're $60 on something more worthwhile. Or in reality let your parents save the money.

Kanji: Not a rude word

Kanji. It sounds like a rude word but it isnt.

Used in a sentence such as "that girl gives good kanji" or "we went out the back for a bit of kanji" or "she showed me her kanji" it could be mistaken for a rude word. Niot that you'd ever use these sentences.

I'm adding to my my lexicon of words like flange and cumquat.

Subway Drummer

Subway Drummer, View my Flickr stream here.

Classic. I knew Dave Chappele was in NY these days.

Japan's Super-Kamiokande: Neutrino Detector

This is probably the craziest shit I've seen science wise. HTF do people even start to design this facility in an effort to research cosmic rays.

See the full post on the City of Ember Underground Blog.

Share Prices

"Once the biggest company in the world, General Motors is now valued by the sharemarket at $US5.6 billion. Mattel, which makes Matchbox cars, has a market capitalisation of $US6.2 billion"

Gift Guru

Lately I've been on a good strike rate when giving gifts. Admitadly I've just been choosing gifts for people that I actually want myself (or in the latest case already had) but that doesnt count.

The Happening Experiment Sydney. Pitt St Mall

The Happening Experiment Sydney