Thinking Chaos, Thinking Fences

Monday, May 19, 2003

The Matrix Reloaded and its Dance Breaks So I saw The Matrix Reloaded this afternoon. I'll spare you my personal review, which is long-winded and luke-warm. There are plenty of other reviews which will no doubt reflect what I have to say. However, I did have one observation that feels both fresh and insightful: The fight scenes in The Matrix Reloaded are like dance breaks in musicals. They thrill and entertain, but serve little useful purpose and tend to finish the same way. The martial arts, choreography, cinematography and CG effects in the fight scenes are all amazing. However, most of them tend to finish like an Italian soccer game: no result. By the end of the fight scene, the protagonist runs away or minor enemies are (often temporarily) dead. Do we ever really worry that Neo or Trinity are in any danger? No, so we sit back, ooh and aah at the choppy-socky fanciness and wait for one of them to go sprinting off in search of further adventure. 4:38:26 PM

Where's Willy? My brother recently paid me back some money he owed me and on one of the bills I found some writing: As you can see, the writing referred me to Where's Willy, a paper money tracker. From the Where's Willy FAQ: The point of Where's Willy? is not to make money or collect email addresses. It is to have fun tracking your Canadian dollar bills and interacting with thousands of other fun and interesting people here at Where's Willy? Please join in the fun! This was a first hit for this bill, but there are others that have been referenced by up to 12 different people. This reminded me of the 1000 journals and BookCrossing, both studies in good karma and social connectivity. Note to the people behind Where's Willy: the Internet of 1997 called. It wants its HTML frames back. 4:29:53 PM