Keith Today
 
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Mood: Snarly. Oh how quickly my mood changes

Outlook: Snarly
Listening to: Massive Attack
Last TV watched: Sealab
Last film watched: "Bourne Identity"
Last book read: "War at Sea in the Age of Sail" by Andrew Lambert
Last magazine read: Film Comment
Last comic read: The Filth
Currently playing: Battlefield 1942
I want to see: The Ring
Forums I visit: Skate Jesus, DVDA, Micah Wright, The V, DVInfo.net

   
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Feb 20/03                                                                            More in weblog archive
  Scary Big Brother image of the day
Images from the Ministry of Truth
From the Washington Post comes this photograph of the head of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge, blown up on a large pale screen at yesterday's press conference announcing the ready.gov, terrorist readiness education campaign. Obviously some photo editor thought it would be funny to show the entire affair as a not-so oblique reference to Orwell's "1984" with Ridge as Big Brother. Click on the image or here to see the larger version. It's chilling.		  
Feb 19/03                                                                            More in weblog archive
  Homeland Security's new Duck and Cover website
Americans could have been warned about Texas before the last election
In the 50s, fear propaganda was spread through newsreels epitomized by the naive "Duck and Cover". Now, fear propaganda is spread on the Internet. Witness the new Homeland Security website ready.gov which purports to be a center of information to help Americans prepare for possible terrorist attacks. It's open to debate whether the information contained therein is actually useful (it's rather mundane and common sense) but what it does very well is convey a pervasive fear of all kinds of unlikely scenarios ranging from nuclear devices to chemical attack. Yesterday in South Korea, however, it was shown that a single madman with nothing more than containers of fuel could cause the deaths of more than a 120 people trapped in a subway. Compare that to the dozens killed by sarin gas as perpetrated by the Japanese sect Aum Shinriyko in the only known terrorist attack using chemicals. How is Homeland Security going to warn people against an insane firebug? Better that Tom Ridge posts warnings about eating too much fast food and keeping to the speed limit.		  
Feb 18/03                                                                            More in weblog archive
  More news in robotic and unmanned warfare
We must embrace our Skynet masters
And all of it from the U.S. military, surprise! The Register reports on DARPA activities showing that the U.S. military is rapidly adopting robotic warfare as a way to avoid casualties while making use of American advantage in technology. Among these plans is one to form a platoon of ten 'hunter-killers' (shades of Terminator?) to be deployed deep into enemy territory, something which the Register tongue in cheek prophesizes will enable the U.S. to dispense with Europeans. Also today is a news article on a new robotic scout that resembles an RC off-road truck and a flying UAV scout. With all this news coming today I can only conclude that we must declare our allegiance to Skynet within the next ten years.

Irony killed and buried in a shallow grave
Comics writer and anti-propagandist Micah Wright found this inadvertent (or subversive) reference to 1984 on the front page of AOL this morning and claims it wasn't Photoshopped. If true, then irony is truly a forgotten historical concept. Well, even if no one got it, pretty soon we will all love Big Brother Dubya Bush.

  
Feb 17/03                                                                            More in weblog archive
 

Buy your kid a 'peace toy' today
Buddy James Everett found this gem today. In the JC Penny online catalog there is a toy called the World Peace Keeper's Battle Station. I love irony in toys. Looks really peaceful. Not even the inclusion of a blue helmet could make this any less warlike. See it here or here if they take it down.

Filming again Sunday
Yesterday I helped film two shorts. Pickups for Bulent Hassan's short about a guy who thinks a thug (me) chasing after him is out to do no good and a quickie assassin short by Dylan Couper with a thug (me again) on his day off. After I got back I was energized with a creative idea and quickly wrote up a treatment for a semi-action film that has CanCon (Canadian content). Maybe some day Ivan Reitman can give me a clap on the back? :)

Bourne Identity

Identity crisis
Rented this to help settle down from the day of filming (and before I wrote my treatment). Entertaining action picture that has plenty of movement and style. Full of the usual spy schlock: technocheese, gadgets and fighting. I had some fun thinking of ways a story about a spy who has no knowledge of his past could be made more interesting. In one scene in the film Matt Damon has an awkward moment where his love interest tries to kiss him. At that moment I thought: what if the spy is gay and he doesn't remember that? Maybe that's why he's having such trouble kissing the lovely Franke Potente (Run Lola Run). 		 
Feb 15/03                                                                            More in weblog archive
 

Anti-war demonstration 2
I was late to today's anti-war demonstration. It was easily five times larger than the first one I attended and by consequence I had a hard time getting a position to shoot any decent video. In fact, I pretty much gave up halfway through. Obviously, by the numbers (estimated 35,000) Vancouverrites are very concerned about the way world politics is headed. In other cities the numbers were huge, an estimated two million jammed the streets in London.

 

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Unless otherwise indicated, all material on this site is copyright 2002-2003 Keith Meng-Wei Loh.