Augie Bytes

I’m usually not one for reading movie reviews. Most of the time, I find that instead of being honest about what they personally thought of a specific movie, the critics tend to be too concerned with what their readers will think of them. So they spout off about the artistic breakthrough of some horribly tedious movie and then bash on movies that were simply meant to be (as contemptible as it may seem) entertaining.

But during my lunch break a few days ago, I sat down at a local coffee shop and there on the table was a section of the New York Times with a large review of the new Transformers movie. At least that’s what it implied with the large robot image with the subtitle reading “Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots…” Since I’ve been curious how the Transformers movie will be received, I decided to go for it.

Unfortunately, what I proceeded to read was not a movie review at all. No, what I read from Manohla Dargis was a jumbled mess that started as a brief historical review of the Transformers line and a few common facts about the movie, a grade-school level “boys are stupid” review of the summer action movie genre as a whole, and a list of people who worked on the Transformers movie with mentions of the other things they had worked on that she didn’t particularly like either. She then complained about things like female leads having large breasts and obvious product placements as though those aren’t common fixtures of most Hollywood movies and she was stunned to see them here.

In fact, based on the absolute lack of any detail as to the actual movie outside what anyone could have found in previous write-ups and in the trailer, I have a hard time believing that she didn’t have at least the majority of the review written before she ever saw the movie.

I personally don’t care if she disdains the very thought of a big-budget action movie being made, but that’s not what a movie critic is supped to let us know. A good critic should be able to cross the lines of genre prejudice, and watch each movie for what it is. Transformers may very well be a horrible waste of film, but I want to know that based on the notion that the critic actually opened there mind to who and what the movie was made for.

I have no idea what I’ll think of it myself, so I’ll at least add a comment to this article once I see it. For reference, I’m not a huge fan of summer action movies myself in general, though I do like some. I think a lot of them are indeed a waste of film including everything else Michael Bay has even directed. Some of my favorite movies include The Spanish Prisoner, Much Ado About Nothing, The Sound of Music, The Fifth Element, The Princess Bride, Adventures in Babysitting, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Gattica, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Men in Black, and just about everthing Pixar has ever created. I like cartoons, mysteries, documentaries, musicals, sci-fi, you name it. They all contain good and bad movies and I refuse to listen to those who would bash an entire genre.

Rant over…

I still remember the first time I had to do it.  Sheila was sick, she was out of pads, and I had to go to the store to get them.  Trust me, after growing up with four sisters, it wasn’t a completely foreign concept.  I got married with a leg up on most young guys.  I knew the difference between pads, liners, and tampons, which at least when I was younger was better than most guys.  I knew this was going to eventually happen and I was determined that it wasn’t going to be a big deal.  I would simply walk up to the isle, find the appropriate product, and be on my merry way.

I walked up and scoped the layout.  It all looked very organized at first, and I continued to believe that it was going to be a cake-walk.  What in reality happened was just short of a panic-attack.  Playtex, Kotex, Always, Pink, Blue, Long, Light Days, Regular, Wings, Scented, Unscented, Overnight, Big Boxes, Small Boxes…

All I wanted was to grab the specific product that Sheila wanted, purchase it, and leave.  But I couldn’t find it!  I could feel every woman in the store looking at me.  “Poor guy doesn’t know what he’s doing”, “He looks completely lost”, “Would you look at that kid fumbling around?”.  I could hear them all in my head and it was just as distracting as all the choices.  The room was spinning, my heart-rate was through the roof, I couldn’t concentrate, and I finally just grabbed something.  To this day I still wonder if I got the right stuff that first time.  I didn’t ask.  I just went in the other room to suck my thumb and lick my mental wounds for a while.

Fast-forward 14 years…  Now that I’m picking the stuff up for my daughter as well, you’d think it would be as second-nature as picking up some toothpaste, but the game never stops.  I thought at first that it was just something to get use to, but that wouldn’t be fun.  No, the various companies seem bent on the idea of making it an ongoing challenge.  I swear it seems as though the stinking packages change every couple months.  The names, terminology, package designs are ALWAYS changing, keeping every man on his toes to remember what it is they’re supposed to pick up.

So there I was last night at Wal-Mart, staring at the wall of products and I realized that it’s all an insidious plot and all men are doomed.  But seriously, why does it have to be so difficult?  Other types of product that could potentially be confusing are made simple for the consumer.  Have you ever picked out printer ink?  You don’t have to know the cartridge size, ink level, consumption rate, or any other details.  You just need a number.  So why can’t the makers of these feminine hygiene products catch on and make it easy for us guys?

“Oh sure honey, I can grab those. That’s a G72 package right? No problem!”

But I guess that wouldn’t be fun, now would it?

In the world of professional sports, there are a lot of great examples of how NOT to act, how NOT to treat others, how NOT to play. Practically every sport out there has a revolving doorway of players through the legal system for one reason or another. Others may stay out of trouble off the field, but play in such an un-sportsman-like way that they disgust me almost as much as their criminal cohorts.

But I tend to get sick of how the media in general focuses on these losers, not just in sports but in all areas of life. Feel-good stories just don’t get the headlines they deserve. My favorite football team is the Green Bay Packers and they’ve had their share of players getting bad press over the past decade. But there are a lot of guys on these teams that go out of their way to make life better for others.

One of my favorite examples is Donald Driver, currently the Pack’s go-to receiver. This is a guy whose family went through some really tough times when he was young. He has just as many things to point at as “reasons” why he could be a complete malcontent, but he doesn’t have to. He’s a stand-up guy that deserves to have the big headlines that all the Pacman Jones and TO’s of the world get. He and every player like him that works hard, plays hard, and lives in a way they can be proud of.

I just read a nice little article that, like so many I’ve read before, give a brief overview of what Driver has been through and what he’s accomplished. It should be the lead story on NFL.com, instead of who’s holding out for more money (to play a stinking game) or who’s going to miss time this season due to legal problems. But it’s not, so I’ll help point a few more people that way to read it…

I still remember this argument back when I was caught up in it. It was me and my best friend. I was the proud long-term owner of a Texas Instrument 99-4A with practically every add-on and upgrade you could attach to it. He was the proud new owner of a Commodore 64. I loved that TI. I had learned to program in Basic on it and darn it, it would always be the best computer you could own! But then he got a modem and the world changed. The boards, ah yes the boards. I won’t bore you with the details, but when it came down to it, his Commodore was better at certain things than my TI (and faster!). My TI was still easier for me to use to accomplish other things.

It’s a matter of apples (no pun intended) to oranges people, and the sooner all the eternally devoted, the sarcastic, and the bitterly nasty people out there understand this, the better. Out of the box, Macs are much better than their counterparts in some environments, especially with many creative fields such as advertising or design. Period. Out of the box, Windows based machines (as well as Unix, Linux, Solaris, etc) are much better than Macs at things that businesses (specifically medium to large businesses) need to accomplish. Period.

The argument that Macs are just over-priced well marketed toys is just stupid. You tend to get what you pay for in this world. The average Mac is more expensive than your average PC. The Mac also tends to be a bit beefier on average, and comes with a lot of software that is very useful to much of Apple’s target market. They’ve also done a lot in the past 5 years to make them more applicable for average home use when business isn’t the primary function. Flip that and give a die-hard gamer the same money you just spent on that Mac and they’ll build one kickin’ PC. And you guessed it, it will be tricked out and ready to do what THEY want it to do best. Flip again and give that money to a developer (of any affiliation) or business power-user and they’ll get a pretty sweet machine as well with the software they need to do THEIR job.

You can purchase extra hardware and software to make either “better” at what the other does, and in some cases it makes sense. In most cases it doesn’t. Why does a company need to be a “Mac House” or a “Windows House”? Again, it’s apples and oranges, so why can we have the whole fruit basket?

Most of the time the issue comes down to prejudice and/or ignorance getting in the way. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard of someone trying (or even personally tried) to get a Mac in use at a company that runs a Windows shop. The IT guys act like whiney crybabies or just stuck-up brats. “I’m not helping you get that thing to work”, “I don’t support that stuff”, or my favorite, a nice simple, “Have fun, you’re on your own”. We had an Admin years ago who went out of his way making sure the Macs never played well on the network. He in fact spent multiple times the hours working against the idea than it would have taken to simply do his job, support the computer environment.

I do understand to some degree though, the animosity. Apple and the Mac base has made it a pass-time trying to figure out how to unfairly compare what Macs do well to what PC’s generally aren’t geared to do. Then in turn, they like to point out every time Microsoft trips over issues that Apple has never been in a position to falter at. The sidelines are always an easy place to criticize from. I doubt any of that type of Mac user has an inkling of an idea what goes in to creating and maintaining a corporate network with file sharing, databases, e-mail & communication systems, and all the layers of security needed to make sure every user can get their job done while securing everything so that malicious activity doesn’t occur.

It really irked me when I saw the first “Hi I’m a Mac and I’m a PC” about the Vista release. They had the gall to make fun of Windows for releasing an operating system that not all software and peripherals would be compatible with. Talk about hypocritical! This was the same company who just a few years back released OSX. A great step for them, I admit, but they left EVERY Mac user in the lurch on that one. All the software needed to be upgraded. I know, I was running one at work at the time.

Neither system is ever going to be the silver bullet answer to all computer needs. I’d just like to use them both in peace for what they do well. The arguing always feels like politicians going at it. Different versions of the same imperfect, problem ridden blah blah blah, too wrapped up in their dislike of the other side to ever open their eyes and look at their own faults.

Things for the record:

1) I’ve used both Macs and PCs over the years. At work, I currently use an HP laptop running WinXP and I hate it. It’s slow as snot. I had trouble logging in to domain this morning. I’d love to have one of the Macs that the folks across the hallway use because that would mean I get to play with graphics and video all day. An over-simplification, yes I know. But you know what? I’d have a nice fast machine that isn’t capable of doing half of the tasks that *I* do each day. So I use the tool need.

2) I bought an iPod. It was a cheap piece of junk. The first one died after 10 months. The brand new replacement they sent me died a year later. I think I’ll go back to a Rio. Not everything Apple makes walks on water…

3) I lived through running an IT department during the Win XP release. I don’t plan to even consider Vista for at least another year. MS has never gotten this “new OS” thing right, and I doubt they will this time.

That’s all! Whew, I like this ranting thing…