In the last week I have seen The Dark Knight twice and listened to the soundtrack ten times. It has been full of Batman saturation and I love it. I can’t add to what has already been said about this movie but I feel that I wouldn’t be utilizing this platform if I did not talk about such a fantastic film.

I enjoyed the movie so much during my first viewing I was among others in attendance that clapped when it concluded. I have never clapped at a movie before, but this one deserved it. This was truly a unique movie and stands out as my favorite for the last several years. It is dark, mature and has a very full story at two and a half hours.

It is not a predictable movie and the portrayal of The Joker really is outstanding. It wasn’t until my second viewing that I was able to relax to the back of my seat and take in all the performances and subtleties of the actors and really appreciate the script.

For the last few weeks a lot of conversations at work have been prefaced with “Have you seen Batman yet?”, it is almost like that replaced “Hello”. People just want to talk about it and for good reason. This is more than your average summer blockbuster movie, it is a standout movie and has added credibility to Nolan’s work of re-imaging the Batman series.

Outside of Facebook I have avoided the social networking game. I signed up there because a few people at work started and then it exploded. Social networking has become a legitimate business strategy and allowing people to connect with each other is a huge advantage.

Still, I played on the sidelines. I knew of Twitter but did not see much use out of it, especially when I was told from coworkers and the Internet that once you start a Twitter account you cease to blog. I held onto my reservations until I did some reading about the iPhone applications Twitterific and Twinkle.

The latter is essentially Twitter with the ability to see who else is on Twitter in your area. This added a very local and real element for the application and one I could see myself using. Moments later I had a Twitter account and both Twitterific and Twinkle installed on my iPhone to give them a test run.

I gave Plurk a run for a few months, got used to the character restrictions but could not get into its purpose. I am not sure if it was the scrolling time line, losing Karma by not having anything to say or something else but it did not intrigue me and I rarely check the site for updates.

There was a surge of people coming from Twitter to Plurk after Twitter became notorious for downtime but the popularity of Twitter and the users on it still make it appealing. I hope the ability to follow people outside of work, see what other Edmontonians are talking about and receive news updates is enough for me to stick with it; all the while without slowing down my productivity here.

Continuing with the iPhone love-fest and things it does, yesterday I used Google Maps with GPS on my iPhone to drive to a new location and it worked like a dream. It took a few blocks to get my exact location but once it was locked on I could track my progress as I drove and it lead me right to my destination. This was a really handy feature and I did not need to refer to my printed out directions once.

If you are keeping track that is iPhone 2 : 0 Everything Else.

seagurs and rogersgurskywedding have received a little upgrade to go along with the release of the iPhone. Both sites have received plugin installations of WPtouch, which allows the site to render in a minimalistic fashion on the iPod Touch or iPhone.

There will need to be some tweaks to the seagurs theme, specifically the title wrapping down onto another line and causing the search/menu options to be hidden but that is for another day. I will never browse to my site on my iPhone but it is a nice feature to implement for those who may make their way over here.

The theme did cause a slight problem yesterday when the mobile site appeared in place of the regular site so I will have to keep an eye on that for fear of everyone getting the mobile site.

What a weekend it has been. I was hoping to have some alone time to play GTA4 and progress my mission in Liberty City but I barely touched the TV all weekend. Instead I was outside playing in the dirt, soaking up the sun and reliving a part of my youth.

On Friday evening a bunch of Statusfirm employees loaded up into a few vehicles and headed west to Young Guns Paintball. We filled up our guns and proceeded to shot each other for nearly three hours on various courses and had a great time in doing so. Most of us left with a bruise or two and it will be a subtle badge of honor on Monday morning.

Saturday was devoted to flowers, bright colors, torches and a beer boat. Dead men tell no tales, neither do Hawaiian lays but I will say it was a great day to be outside, the weather was perfect, the beer was cold and the company was entertaining. The day after hosting an epic luau in Sherwood Park Gord and I went to see Jurassic Park playing on the big screen at Metro Cinema.

I grew up on this movie and seeing it in a theater was a wonderful experience. It has been years since I saw it last but I still remembered the musical cues, certain quotes (On my way down I’m going to run you over or This is a Unix system, I know this…) but most of all it is still a brilliant movie. Jurassic Park was released in 1993 but the effects and quality of production still look great, which is a testament to Speilberg’s ability to create a world you never forget.

Amidst all of this weekend activity something wonderful happened. Joss Whedon released Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. If you are reading this now the movies have been removed from the main site and will no longer be available for free but all three acts are a $1.99 on iTunes and if you are a fan of Captain Mal, Barney Stinson or musicals it is worth your time (and money) to look for it.

When TV shows aired their final episodes in May Jenna and I were left wanting more. We turned our craving to The Sopranos, a show neither of us thought we would watch but thought we would give it a shot anyway. I knew nothing of the series except the ending had fans and critics talking and it sparked a large loved it or hated it response.

For the next six weeks we watched nearly ninety episodes of the New Jersey mob family. We fell into their story hard and while each episode had a casual ending we wanted more. What seemed like an uphill battle was quickly taken down in size as we were finishing a season a week.

I thought the series was really solid. It was more of a character series than thug life on the street. You felt compassion for the characters even though they were all ultimately evil and self-centered. The slow builds to a climactic point which was well orchestrated and I can see how this show made its way to the top of peoples favorite TV shows. Thinking about how the story unfolded I want to watch it again, perhaps when another television lull occurs.

I can’t talk about The Sopranos and not mention the infamous ending. As the final scene played out I immediately felt upset, like I was taken advantage of. It felt like a cop out. Although over the next few days I thought about the ending, did some reading of what other fans thought about it and came to not only appreciate the ending, but love it. I felt it was perfect and the only appropriate way to end such an intense series.

For anyone who has not seen Sopranos I would highly recommend it because it will continue to stand out as one of the best shows ever for a long time to come. We started watching another HBO series called The Wire. This is another show that is well received so I will see if it deserves all of the attention it has received.

Steve Jobs is the ultimate master of spin and hype. If Jobs told us there were WMD’s found years ago we would be okay with it. In fact we would probably encourage him to keep looking because he had us by the throat and we loved him for it.

For the last month the internet has been buzzing over the World Wide Developer Conference in San Francisco and speculation about unveiling of the new 3G iPhone.

On July 11 the 3G iPhone will be released in Canada, a year after the original was made available in America. The new version will run on a faster network, include a GPS and a software store. The announcement of the new iPhone not only captured the attention of Mac fans like myself, but anyone who is a fan of technology and wants to have their life simplified into on

Google FaviconIn the Google Blog yesterday they talked about updating their favicon, which I commented about yesterday. I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but I have to assume that the article was written in reaction to me.

Some people have wondered why we changed our favicon — after all, we hadn’t in 8.5 years(!). The reason is that we wanted to develop a set of icons that would scale better to some new platforms like the iPhone and other mobile devices

I guess that is an acceptable answer. Between Google and I, only one of us are developing applications for mobile devices and advertising outdoors so I guess they can do what they want. Interesting though the number of favicons they went through and the difficulty they had with such a little icon, but Google is about branding so they had to do it right.

Today may be Saturday but it’s the first day of my sixteen days of vacation.

I am taking a week off before the wedding to finish any last minute planning, stay relaxed and perhaps further Niko on his quest of dominating Liberty City. After the wedding we will be spending a few days in Banff for our honeymoon and then it will be back to work.

Because I’ll be a little busy for the next few weeks updates may not be as frequent but we will return to our regularly scheduled program by the end of the month.

It’s a bittersweet moment, really. Since the season three finale of Lost last May I counted down the months until season four began. Then when it got close enough I was counting down the days. It was all I wanted and the opening moments of the premiere were worth it.

We were welcomed to a season of flash-forwards as Hurley tried to evade the police. Thursday’s became the highlight of my week and even the weaker episodes (The Other Woman or Eggtown) were enjoyable because it was still Lost.

All of this comes to an end tonight with a two hour finale. Then we launch into another nine month break and I slowly crawl up the walls and wonder how I will ever survive the break. I will go through the stages of grief and eventually resort to counting down the months. It is a vicious cycle, but one I do not share alone.

When I watch Lost I immerse myself in the moment and am on the edge of my seat. I figured I would do some real time updating between the commercial breaks and share my first impressions of the episode as it unfolds. Obviously what I write is going to be relevant to the episode so read lightly if you haven’t seen it yet.

7:07 PM: The final Lost Intro of the season and it wastes no time with being awesome. We have to go back and we pick up where we left off. Jeremy Bantham is in the coffin, who is that? It has been three years since they returned from the island. Jin understands what boom means. Where did Ben and Keamy go? boom.

7:17 PM: The freighter people are no match for The Others. Awesome fight between Sayid and Keamy.

7:27 PM: Walt, Hurley and Jeremy Bantham. It was Locke’s idea to protect the island, wonderful. Was that the final Man of Science, Man of Faith showdown?

7:37 PM: This is over the top with wonderful. Miles does a fantastic Jim impression and Charlotte has been to the island before? Apparently Ben didn’t get the TPS report about no metal objects inside the time portal. How come the bomb hasn’t gone off yet? Is the time shift playing into the benefit of those on the boat? boom.

7:48 PM: You just killed everyone on that boat. So?

7:57 PM: Charlotte was born on the island? What! Poor Sawyer…

8:10 PM: So sad…so incredibly sad. I told Jin to run, that was not cool. Stuff about Bantham not being his real name is overshadowed by this. Not cool, I need time to digest that, I need a hug.

8:19 PM: I’m still thinking about Jin and that last segment. Christian is the Grim Reaper? Sun wants…what…closure with Jin so is getting Widmore involved? Metal objects in a microwave are not a good idea.

8:30 PM: OH MY GOD! aklsdrflk;asjdflkasjdfWHAT?! Purple sky, Ben ends up in Tunisia after that, Farady’s people on the raft…what, WHAT, WHAT!? Desmond and Lupidus are the other two that survived the crash but died before the Oceanic Six rescue? No, do not do this to me. You took Jin and now Desmond dies. No, no way man. aksdjfl34713rsawhat?! Show has reached level bananas…gah!

8:44 PM: Beautiful. That was beautiful. That felt so good. Years of waiting, and hoping, and that was it. Bring a Kleenex to this party because you’re going to need it.

8:57 PM: As I stare at the TV, jaw agape, I am trying to piece everything together. Lost spent the last two hours completely wrecking me.

Locke gets off the island (if Tom can do it, I guess it’s not unreasonable) and things do not go well for him and The Others. They all have to go back, does that include Desmond and Frank? I’m glad nothing tragic happened to Desmond, he can live happily with Penelope…until Jack comes calling. Jack orchestrating the secret drove him to madness.

Was Ben moving the island the Frozen Donkey Wheel moment? It seems to be a very literal interpretation of it and hidden deep beneath The Orchid station is a poor donkey that just wants to get warm but can never get behind that other wall.

…we have to go back.

Amazon.com is having a Father’s Day DVD sale and I noticed Minority Report was on sale. Since I already own the movie I wasn’t interested in purchasing it, but what caught my attention was that Colin Ferrell was the actor they listed to sell the movie.

I didn’t think Ferrell had a big part in the movie, and when I confirmed with IMDB’s listing of full credits Ferrell is listed twenty-fifth. Suspicious? Definitely. Is Amazon afraid to promote Cruise movies with his name? Are they a part of the Xenu project?

Would Amazon sell Top Gun promoting Val Kilmer or Whip Hubley? Will Days of Thunder be plagued by the same thing and list Chris Ellis instead? Fortunately neither of those two movies have been cleansed of Cruise but is Amazon a part of an underground movement?

If Amazon is up to something they didn’t let Google Trends know. Searching for Tom Cruise brings up data whereas his Minority Report counter part does not even show on the Trends radar.

Your terms – colin ferrell – do not have enough search volume to show graphs. Google Trends

More details to come as this conspiracy is uncovered.