Mahha GoGoGo!!!

"Was that a ninja?!"

(psst, there is geek trivia at the end of this post)

Initially, the plan was to get together with a group of friends mid-Friday, chill and marathon as many eps of the original Speed Racer series as we could, then head to the theater to see just how colourfully The Bros reinterpreted the animation. But as it was we seemed to be the only people interested in that half-day of visual masochism; as it was, we watched one episode on Tuesday or Wednesday and Makal promptly declared--before the ep was even over--that that was enough nostalgia for him! Uh yeah, the original is kinda painful. If you value qualities like "accurate perspective" and "relevant dialogue" in your television shows. /shrug

So, we did not make it to the opening night, instead going to a matinée showing on Saturday with a friend. Plus, you know, mid-day showings are cheaper. Yet as we entered the theater I realized this plan might backfire a little: scattered amongst the seats were tiny little humans, popping up and down like gophers and occasionally tossing a kernel of popcorn at another. Maybe 6 or 7 adults in the audience--including us--plus a gaggle of tweens in the row behind us (everything was "awesome!" or "totally cool!" or some similarly enthusiastic adjective). I think most of the kids were younger than ten, and every time someone in the movie had a particularly catchy line, it echoed here and there throughout the audience, like a flock of seagulls tentatively declaring "mine?". It was a little hard to suspend disbelief for this movie.

But, the movie itself! I think it can best be summarized by Makal's first observation as we left the building: "This world is so drab!" Indeed; the only time you're likely to observe such remarkable colours and shapes is tripping on acid in Vegas, or downtown Tokyo. And while I am a die-hard Wachowski fan ("yes, even the third movie" as I always say), I must admit... there was nothing particularly great about their remake of Speed Racer. It was very fun, I laughed a lot, and I enjoyed the hell out of it, but at no point was I blown away by anything. I had hoped to be wowed, even just a little, by the Wachowski's movie, but I found myself thinking periodically, "Okay, this must be when they're going to try to impress me... any minute now..."

So while not as impressive as we might have come to expect from them, the movie is definitely fun. Ear-to-ear grin inducing, even. The fight race scenes were definitely impressive, and could be quite tense, but they were just kind of "eh". They were exactly what I'd expect to see from The Bros, whereas what I'd like to see from them is what I don't expect to see. See? I think part of why I felt a little let down by the movie is that it was so very kid-friendly (evidenced by the sheer number of "catchy" lines and screen time given to (the very annoying (because I don't like kids) Spritle), leaving those of us familiar with their more adult work (i.e. "Bound") wondering what was in it for us, besides the trippy visuals and nostalgia.

I'm sad that the movie isn't doing too well in the box offices, but it's really no surprise. It has a fairly narrow target market: older geeks, Wachowski fans, and kids whose parents aren't terribly scandalized and/or jaded by the Bros' earlier works. And despite the Wachowski's remarkable talent for making things relevant to whatever's going on in the world, I didn't feel like Speed Racer touched on any of that, save the ambiguous "underdog comes through in the end, Big Guys ftl" that is inherent in every hero's journey. Maybe they're trying to warn us against the singularily, "more advanced technology won't reward the heart" or something. I dunno.

So yeah, in the end, I was glad I saw it in the theater, happy to support the Wachowskis in their career, and enjoyed the two-plus hours of retina burning visuals (we weren't brave enough to see it at the IMAX theater, though knowing that's an option is both disturbing and tempting). But by the end I was just feeling a little let down. "Oh look, they're excited because Neo's here! He can do amazing feats no one else can! He'll save us!" Oh, my other lasting impression? "Please Trixie, jump a little higher! Juuuust a leedle higher, please!" You'll totally know what I mean, if you're a perv like me. ;)

Go see it if you like: The Bros, fast car movies (that are light on realism), acid trips, Christina Ricci, the original Speed Racer series, or overclocking the cameras that are your eyeballs. But if none of those things call you and you have a TV bigger than 21", you'll be just as well off waiting to watch it at home on DVD.

---

Trivia: Most people think the M on Speed's helmet stands for the Mach 5, but in the original Japanese version Speed's character was named "Go Mifune", and the business was called "Mifune Motors"; the letter on his uniform corresponded to that, not being changed after the name was changed. When I first heard this my heart did a little geeky backflip! Could it be that the bad-ass Mifune from both Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions (most remembered for the "Mifune's Last Stand" scene in the latter), was an homage to Speed Racer? Obviously, the Wachowski Brothers are fans of the series, so it seems reasonable that they'd integrate that little hat-tilt into their own works. I'm sorry, but I don't think there's such a thing as "coincidence" when it comes to the Matrix series!

Screw Botox Rumors, This is Reality

Browsing Reddit's top stories, I came across this one from CNN, where they talk about how crowds at a recent Clinton campaign speech didn't like her poking at some of the things ol' Barry said. Yeah yeah, people of all political affiliations love Obama--the man is awesome, and its hard for the public to accept attacks on his good nature when he is indeed so honestly good-natured. But that's not what I noticed about the article; my attention was drawn to the image. My, Hillary is looking tired. Let's compare, shall we?

The picture from CNN made me really want to do a side-by-side comparison of Hillary before the campaign announcement and now, so I did some searching and came up with a few images. This first image(¹) is given a date of November 8, 2006. I feel it's a pretty good judge of what Hillary looked like pre-democratic nomination race, and you can tell that she's not been Photoshopped. How? Well, click the image and view it full size. There are two men on either side of Hillary (probably security detail), one just behind her head on the left and the other at the right edge of the image. Look at their eyes; that's a pretty bad red-eye reduction, isn't it? Not only do they have oddly square pupils that go beyond their eyelids, but they have no irises. Also, note the zombie man just behind right security guard; if I was good enough at PhotoShop to youthen' up Hillary, I'd be good (and smart) enough to remove his undead ass. Anyway, Hillary looked good, pretty much what a woman her age should look like.

Now, for the second photo I'd like to point you to this one in the Clinton campaign's Flickr stream (and don't forget to check the one in the aforementioned CNN story). I'd post the image here, but it is published under an "All Rights Reserved" copyright, so I can't legally reproduce it here. It's a very good image to compare to the one above because she is smiling very similarly. But you can see it too, can't you? She's looking tired. Haggard even, especially around the eyes. To be fair, the campaign trail is hard, never mind that she's still merely campaigning to be elected as the Democratic candidate. And yaknow, being shot at non-stop by snipers while you're in a plane stresses the body in ways that surely take their toll over time. Right.

Now--I can't resist--let's compare some photos of Obama. Ready? The first image(²) is dated October 8, 2006 (a month prior to the "before" of Hillary). To find it I went to the Obama campaign's Flickr stream, but oh, guess what? I can legally post it here, because all the images in that stream are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 license. This is to be considered our "base image" for what Barack Obama looks like before the rigors of campaigning for the Democratic nomination.

Next let's look at something recent; the image at right(³) is dated January 26, 2007, and I'd say it is reasonable to assume the fellow's not changed much in the four months since. In fact, he looks much the same as he did in 2006; I at least cannot find any noteworthy differences. Although in the 2006 picture he does look like he has a little silver in his hair, but that could just be the lighting.

Now, you're probably wondering why I've gone to all the trouble to find and compare these images of these two Presidential potentials. The reason is this: Being the President of the United States of America is a really fucking hard job. And with the current state of our country, making progress in the next four years is going to require a lot of work. I've always thought presidents were underpaid for the work, though I guess if you made it a high-grossing salary it'd be closer to an empire than a democracy (I guess that's why most modern presidents have learned to be sneaky with the way they earn money...)

Anyway, when you have a stressful job managing a business, it shows. Doesn't matter how many people are under your employment; you could be the manager of a software startup that employs less than 30 people, or you could be a politician who helps makes decisions that will govern the lives of millions of people. Either way, you're going to be fucking stressed. And it will show, with every month and every year you work that difficult job. I said before that the campaign trail was hard, but obviously, the post-win years will be even harder. If you can't make it through the pre-election months without looking like you've aged 5 or 10 years, I can't imagine you'll feel very good after four years in the Oval Office.

In case you think I'm being superficial by analyzing how these two people's faces have aged in the past two years, please understand. I don't care. I don't think I'm being superficial in the least. The body is a machine and when things start breaking down on the inside, there will be signs of it on the outside. I'm not calling Hillary a "broken machine"; I'm merely pointing out one of the most obvious risks to working a stressful job: it's hard on your health. And one of the easiest, time-honored ways to gauge a person's health and resilience is by analyzing their physical appearance.

Additionally, it's been heavily rumored that Hillary has used Botox to regain some of her youthful appearance, and can you blame her? She's up against someone 14 years her junior who will be one of the youngest presidents in history if he wins. But the difference between Hillary using Botox to look younger and a Hollywood actress doing the same is that an actress' entire livelihood is based on her maintaining an attractive, desirable physical appearance, whereas politicians are required to make difficult decisions and represent The People--an ability that (as far as I know) does not change with their appearance.

So what if Obama is maybe using hair dye for men to cover a bit of silver? I'm much more comfortable with a politician (male or female) dying their hair than I am with their using Botox. The latter just seems far more deceptive. If Hillary is 60 years old now, and appears to age 5 years in less than half the time, what will it be like when she's at the end of her first term--which would logically be more stressful than two years of campaigning--and looks like she's in her mid- to late-seventies? The presidential campaign is as much about health and longevity as it is about ideals and experience, because it would really suck if our next president up and had a stress-induced heart attack in the middle of his/her term. I'm not going to judge or vote for a candidate based purely on the "attractiveness" of their appearance, but I will certainly take my time to consider each, and use my own mind to contemplate less-discussed aspects of the candidate and the job, and how the two will work together.

¹ - via WikiMedia Commons
² - via Flickr
³ - via WikiMedia Commons

I've Been Hit by Stereotypical Ugly

There is one aspect of the modeling world that people always assume, and that many question me about when they learn of my modeling. Is the modeling industry really as corrupt and catty as it seems? In short, yes. In long, hell yes, but there are also some amazing gems of personalities and talents to be found.

I've been modeling for a year, so I guess being the victim of a malicious, model-and-photographer spread rumor was inevitable. Makal says it's a sign of popularity; that people are jealous of a model's success and can't resist the opportunity to take her down a peg. And maybe sometimes it works. I'll admit I was a bit distressed for, oh, maybe 30 minutes after finding out. But I am not an irrational, egotistical model; most of my friends say I am the most rational person they know. So learning that someone--or rather, a group of people--have been trying to blindly attack me via this method strikes me as more than a little absurd.

Now, I won't go into details, but here's the gist: (supposedly) I've been bad-mouthing another local model because I think she's trying to steal my boyfriend. Now, let's think about this for a second.

Trying to steal my boyfriend.

This... this honestly makes me laugh a little. Makal is even a little flattered that someone thought to include him in this rumor. See, the thing is, it's pretty much impossible to steal my boyfriend. If a chick hits on him, I hear about it that evening, and vise versa. We have a fairly open relationship and are very focused on keeping open communication as well (a must, really). So if there was a person trying to "steal" Makal, they would have to be making persistent advances... and I would know. Besides, I tell him all the time that I'd love for him to find some young sweet thing to tickle and go bicycling with and whatnot (activities I'm none too keen on). And I mean it. See what I mean about this being impossible, and thus quite funny to me?

Now, when I first heard about this, my immediate response was sadness, frustration, and anger. Sadness that someone would dare spread lies about me, frustration that the modeling industry really is that shallow, and anger that someone would dare spread lies about me. I wasn't really sure I should blog about it in a public space, because I wasn't sure it was the sort of thing that should be made public. But hell, what do I have to fear? It's not true, that's why it's called a rumor.

So, now I know, and knowledge is power. :) Worse comes to pass, and a small group of NW-local photographers and models will think I am a catty bitch. To that I say: good thing I have no plans to stay local. As it is I try to avoid working with people who suffer from sheep syndrome, so no loss there. And here's the tricky thing about rumors: they're like a game of telephone. One person says something to someone else, the message gets passed on, garbled, rewritten, as it moves from mouth to ear to mouth to ear.

One person.

Apparently, someone has it out for me. Isn't it cute? I have an enemy! ^_^ Wow, that must really mean I've made it, eh? I thought things had been going well lately, but this just confirms it for me. Although frankly, I would have liked something a little more colourful, with a real sense of scandal to it. Maybe that I was stealing discontinued M.A.C. eyeshadow pots from my makeup artist, or that I'm actually a victim of syphilis and don't warn photographers that they'll have to PhotoShop my nose back on. But another model trying to steal my boyfriend? So cliche. Besides, I play my cards right, and that could be a recipe for serious win. Better luck next time.

The Conundrum of Creating a Professional *and* Interactive Portfolio

As I've been working on the Members Only portion of my website, I've also been trying to build in some additional functionality. Just, yaknow, get everything really clean and smooth running. I have a tendency to rush things like layout releases and whatnot, so I definitely have the work cut out for me (and karmically due, I guess).

One of the things I've been working on adding is an extensive, publicly-viewable portfolio, run on the Gallery2 system. It's what I--and probably most every other tech-savvy independent adult site owner--use to organize my private image gallery, so using it in the public portion of my site seems logical. Thus I built a solid portfolio; each photographer has their own album with links to their other websites/network profiles, every image is tagged with appropriate key words, and each album's photos are logically arranged from most recent to oldest. I mean, what more can you ask for from a good, online modeling portfolio?

The irrevocable answer seems to be "personality".

I've sent the link off to a handful of good friends, all of whom I've worked with (or at least, talked with) in a professional regard, but who also happen to be people I trust will give me an honest opinion ("zomg does my ass look fat in this photo?!" "yes, but your ass IS fat." "good point."). And the comments back are so similar across the board, something I really had not expected. I think one person phrased it well when he wrote, "Feels, generic coming from a mind like yours. Yes, it's WELL organized but there is also something intangibly 'you' that's absent."

Wait wait wait, my modeling portfolio--which is obviously FULL of "me"--isn't "me" enough? I don't know how that happens, but after taking a short break from working on the overall site to play WoW (i.e. I am avoiding most responsibilities and have been gaming 8+ hours a day since Thursday or Friday, leveling a Belf rogue*), I can kind of see what they mean. My response to the aforementioned person was that the concept of inserting an accurate representation of my intangible qualities into an online image gallery is a fairly daunting task. But one that I must undertake.

I think a lot of it is coming from the colour scheme. At this time, it is pretty much all white, with some gray accents, and all the links are blue (I am working with a user-provided theme). Now, when a person thinks about what colours represent me personally, white, gray, and blue are definitely not in the final round. Maybe some aspects of me could use one of those colours, but Merrick as a whole? No, not at all. Not in the least. My colour theme is a very established black, red, and white; I've been living that theme online since 2004 and in real life since around 2000 (although mostly unwittingly, up until late). So colour is definitely one of my first steps in making this thing seem more "me".

And it's been a hard decision, but I think the tagword cloud in the sidebar has to go. I don't know; I think it's neat. But tag clouds are most definitely one of those "Web2.0" cliches, and my portfolio has been accused (by another person) as being "too Web2.0 slick". This was another review I hadn't expected, but it's good to know. The tag cloud is a feature I had not integrated into the Members Only gallery, but I've had a few select members testing out that portion of the site and they all really like the "Web2.0" changes. Perhaps this says something of the nature in which people are viewing these images/albums, and how the layout and navigation either supplement or hinder their overall intent in being there--same images, different purpose. Yes, I would say that is likely. Interesting.

Perhaps my issue is partly that I am trying to do too much with this portfolio. Let me back track a little and explain it to you: there are two main albums, one being the "official" portfolio (the creme de la creme, if you will) and the other being the "extended" portfolio (showing multiple images from every look and shoot I've done with every photographer I've worked with). The former is obviously much smaller and requires less extensive organization; the latter I summarized in the second paragraph. Both albums are organized with square thumbnails, and are, well, very well organized. I have a fetish for meticulous organization, so I can at least say that this portfolio represents that portion of me. ;)

I think the reason I am torn here is because I want to essentially combine two different things that people usually don't combine. On one hand I want these albums to be interactive, hence the keyword albums, the ability to leave comments and rate each photo, etc. Yet on the other, I want to present my work in a professional manner. Unfortunately, artists rarely seek out or appreciate critical interaction with their work once it is "published". They get all uppity and personally affronted if you breath any hint of "you should have done..." or "I think I like the other one more..." (and I don't blame them). Because with artists, EVERYTHING is art, even the format and order the art is presented in. Nobody can reasonably mess with that, because it ruins the artist's intent with his/her work. Yet if the artist (or, in this case, model) is more than welcoming of input from the public, and presents his/her work in a manner conducive to doing so, it is no longer seen as "art" by other artists, and loses professional merit.

What a conundrum I now find myself in.

*if you play Horde on the Korgath server (not the same as Kargath) let me know!

So Close...

I've been quiet here this past week, moreso than I've really felt like being. Which is to say, I've had a lot on my mind! Stuff has been going on and damn, it's some exciting stuff. But my focus has been on the paysite, re-editing stuff that was lost, fucking around with the back-end stuff, and battling with CCBill's obscenely counter-intuitive user interface, trying to figure out how the fuck to get them to reissue licenses. Or whatever it is they do. Either way, the site will be back once I get that figured out, and then I can come back here and ramble at all of you. :D Won't it be grand?!

Everything... Gone...

I've been working on my Members Only site a lot lately. A LOT. I have been level 69 in WoW for over a week yet the only thing consuming my mind has been that website, I kid you not. Saturday night I worked on it late enough for it to become Sunday before finally giving up to my current mental block and deciding I needed sleep. Waking up on Sunday, it was the first website I loaded. Except it wasn't there.

Funny, I thought, maybe the server is down for repairs? Nope, nothing from the hosting company in my inbox. So I logged in and loaded up cPanel to see if there were any notices there. Not only were there no notices, there were no files. My entire user directory on the server had been wiped clean.

We've given the hosts a day's grace since we discovered this on a Sunday and, as much as I (really, severely) dislike the situation, I realize that things happen--not that that makes it okay. So Makal is coordinating with their tech support to see what the problem is and why in holy hell it happened. They're good guys, my hosting company, but I'd rather not be as social with them as has been needed of late.

I told Makal that I'm being not-freaked-out about this. He said I "seem to have more of a aura of... passive acceptance." Yeah, prettymuch. I mean, it really really sucks.

If you can recommend a phenomenal hosting company that accepts adult content, by all means please leave a comment! I might just be in the market soon.

Piracy for the Good of Mankind!

Regular readers will know I'm a huge fan of the Creative Commons movement, and of alternative methods creators use to get their goods to the public. So I got a little thrill this morning when I saw that Two Knotty Boys, the amazing rope bondage team, had gone to such lengths with their new YouTube video, "Rip Off Our Videos!"



It all started Saturday March 8th, when TKB found that YouTube had suspended their account with no explanation as to why. Here's an excerpt from the letter J.D. sent to YouTube regarding their suspension:

Given my attention to providing positive, educational, and compliant videos, I’m at a loss to understand why the suspension occurred. As irony would have it, one month ago I received an email invitation to the YouTube partner program (an offer I was seriously considering).

Adding to my dismay is the fact that I’ve been a consummate and enthusiastic supporter of YouTube and the YouTube viewer community. I not only post, but routinely view the videos of others and comment upon their content; in the process I’ve developed multiple YouTube friendships. With the suspension of my account, all those friendships have now been severed.

Monk, of TwistedMonk.com, posted in his blog about the situation, encouraging people to contact YouTube and voice their opinion on the company's actions. By Wednesday the duo posted on their MySpace that their YouTube account was back up, but was still missing 10 of the previously posted videos. And as luck would have it for TKB, a representative from YouTube said that they had never received the aforementioned letter regarding their account. Super.

Nonetheless, the TKB duo has done a remarkable job staying strong under unnecessary scrutiny and have kept a remarkably positive face. Their YouTube video stream is alive and kicking, and you can watch their videos here. They offer fairly extensive tutorials on specific knots and rope bondage methods, as well as many fun videos chronicling their public shows. And yeah, you can download any and all of them and keep them for yourself, burn them to a CD and give them to someone, whatever! How cool is that? I love progressive thinking.