Ok, so… what did I miss? After 2 hours, the movie left me wanting a solidified storyline, it was built up so much, that by the time the film started to wind down, I simply thought, “Wow, this movie has potential, but how much more time can they go on building it up without cutting to the chase?”… and it just never delivered. I’ve looked at my watch in 3 movies, that I can remember. Return of the King (the end sequence(s)), Attack of the Clones, and now - The Dark Knight.

The acting was great, and I’m a firm believer that anytime you can over-dramatize your voice, you’re going to sound cooler. “Venti non-fat latte easy foam with an add shot” would sound awesome in Christian Bale’s Batman voice, don’t you think?

Character stuff:

The Harvey Dent/Two Face character execution? Weak sauce, and though the special effects job they did on his face were completely awesome, and the “creation” of the the character was pretty well planned out, Aaron Eckhart pretty much annoyed me with his craptacular performance, even more than Tommy Lee Jones (theatrical as it were) when he was Two Face…

Scarecrow? Really? In the film for two minutes? Perhaps a little saving grace would have been some further character development with Cillian Murphy’s acting skills - other than concentrating on the fact that Batman has a LARP-based fanboy crew that follows in his footsteps?

Massaging in the new Rachel Dawes… Need I mention that I hate it when they use a secondary “looks sorta like” actor/actress for movies? Maggie Gyllenhaal, great actress, but to be a Katie Homes knockoff? Kind of insulting.

Joker: Totally awesome, could have been so much better. It’s simple. The psychie of Ledger’s character is twisted as the ring-leader for presenting sociological, psychological, philisophical challenges throughout the story etc… But why mimic the cores of Hannibal Lector, Jigsaw, and Waingro, while tossing in some “my daddy beats mommy” junk, without authentically generating a pure sociopath? The Dark Knight HINTS at it, they get close to mentioning it, they get close to developing it… but… like the rest of the movie, they simply elude, and never deliver.

I don’t know. I liked the movie, it’s definitely watchable, it’s definitely entertaining - and perhaps I just need to see it again. As far as I know now, it fell short, it could have been the most awesome Batman movie ever… but “eh”. The realism added by using Chicago as a backdrop was a neat idea, but um, this is Batman - give me Gotham City (Tim Burton’s rendition of Gotham in the first Batman movie was glorious, in my book).

My overall conclusion:

Yes, this movie applies more of a sense of reality, gritty raw, dark, sinister, etc.. etc… but if it was going to jump down that hole, it should have at least gotten to a solid storyline smoother, cleaner, and sooner. I was more impressed with Ironman than I was with The Dark Knight. In fact, that was the first thought when the credits started, “This movie was entertainment, but wasn’t nearly as good as Ironman“. I liked the way it looked, I liked the way it felt, it just didn’t deliver substance outside of a “wicked awesome” Joker that actually could have been better.

El Ladron: Coming July 2008 (view Trailer here)

Plot: A drug dealer seeks punishment from a no-good thief within his own crew.
Genre: Action / Crime Drama
Director: Enrique Gutierrez
Cast:

• Enrique Gutierrez - Diablo Carranzo
• Jason Weddington - El Martillo
• Gabe -El Ladron

Year: 2002
Company: Wisdom Productions/Enrique Gutierrez

As some of you are aware, the release of “El Ladron” is only happening thanks to the creation and the resurrection of the idea via the making of the sequel, El Ladron II - Venganza de Diablo.

El Ladron II - Venganza de Diablo: Coming August 2008

Plot: Rival drug dealers square off in a fight to the death.
Genre: Action / Crime Drama
Director: Enrique Gutierrez
Cast:

• Rob Schlayer - El Ladron
• Enrique Gutierrez (@nrek) - Diablo Carranzo
• Dan Tentler (@viss) - Loco Cuco
• Rich Alexander - Suerte
• Danny Massaro - Mingo
• Sarah Johnson (@nomatophobia) -”Coneja” Fani
• Risa Patterson (@reesuh) -  Chelo Botas
• Anne Halsey (@sgrmagnolia) -  Puta Drogadicta
• Billy Marsh (@cannibal) - Cuchillo

Year: 2008
Company: Aten Syndicate
Production Notes: July 12th, the shooting is wrapped. In post-production.

There were talks of a prequal, which I started writing already, and a spin off movie of one of the characters (Mingo)… This is going to be a lot more fun than it already has been, and it’s already been a greatly awesome time.

What I will do is mention the new Nokia N96 campaign. A sleek martial arts marketing platform, great brand projection, and though its creative, it’s still mature enough to make it feel like, if you do buy the N96, you’re not buying into the teenager fad-campaigns such as those presented by Apple for their bricks.

The N96, which I may actually upgrade to, features:

• 16GB internal storage space
• MicroSDHC Slot for expanding the memory up to 32GB total*
• 5MP Carl Zeiss Optics camera
• Near-DVD quality video recording
• LiveTV with DVB-H technology
• Integrated A-GPS and Nokia Maps
• The usuals (unless you own an iPhone)
  • Removable LiIon Battery
  • Multi-media Messaging
  • Front facing 1.3MP camera (yes, 2 cameras)
  • A flash (5MP camera only)
  • Tactile number pad
  • 3D stereo speakers … on the handset
  • A plethora of awesome gadgets (That are largely compatible with Nokia products in general *cough*)
• Nokia PC Suite
  • Send SMS, MMS, Email via the handset from your bluetooth or STANDARD USB cable connection
  • Manage photos, videos, files from the Media Manager, File Manager
  • blah blah blah tons of awesome stuff etc etc

Needless to say, the king of cell phone innovation has been Nokia since the early 2000’s and what they’re doing today is still no exception. Pretend for a moment the iPhone didn’t have MultiTouch, what do you have? A PDA phone, lacking in features, with an extra large footprint, an Apple OS, clever marketing campaign that turns Apple fanboys into herded cattle when an upgrade or update comes out, and about as much awesome as the Air, which is really an overpriced Eee PC with lots of pretty.

Shiny appliances with great (young feeling) marketing ideas, lacking sophistication, maturity, and business sense. Go Apple, go!

*32GB total is dependent on ScanDisk actually releasing their 16GB microSD card already. I’m waiting patiently, but have the option to upgrade from my 8GB to a 16GB card w/o buying a new phone. Neat, huh?

Well?

You can, obviously. Joiku is an application for your mobile device. I installed it on the the Nokia N95-3, fired it up, and with a few minor configurations? I had connection available to those around me for the “yays!”.

I’m pretty sure you don’t absolutely need HSDPA/3G, but if you don’t, you’re just begging to be victim to 9600 baud-rate speeds, and you’ll end up gouging out your eyes with your bluetooth headset before even the simplest of pages load on whatever your serving your FreeWeeFee to.

I’ve only had to use this a couple of times, because I typically just connect to my N95 as a modem via bluetooth or USB to enjoy blazing hot speeds w/o sharing! GREEDY ME! But in the event that I’m around iPhone users that don’t really have that luxery? I feed my connection to their devices to be a nice guy… and rub in the fact that Steve Jobs is a lame.

Commenting/threaded conversations for every post: This feature is strikingly similar to Pownce’s idea of allowing threaded conversations to posts… making these sites a little more like message boards than microblogs.

Aggregation of services: MyBlogLog aggregates services, and spews them out via a nice time line (check my Lifestream). This feeding a feed other feeds to feed the feed is a very common thing these days, SocialThing does it, Pownce kind of does it, Jaiku as well… MyBlogLog, a Yahoo! service, is the closest to FriendFeed.

Subscribing to Feeds of others: MyBlogLog… and pretty much every other site with members + RSS, but MyBlogLog specifically, as… it’s an aggregator.

Liking a post: Twitter, Pownce, Digg… shoot, everywhere’s got this.

What makes FriendFeed different?

Imaginary friends, taking stuff from wherever, compiling a single feed or a few feeds from it, and organizing what you read by creating “friends” for them. This is much like Google Reader, you know… adding stuff to your RSS feed reader? But you can have more than one… so this makes it a little more like FilterMyRSS, which actually I think it a slightly better way to handle this, because it’s just merely managing a custom URL/Feed that you can alter and add to whatever, and it can be de-noised at the same time.

So… What makes FriendFeed different?

Recommended friends (like Facebook)… Best of X (day/month/etc … like Redit). Well, what makes FriendFeed really different is the fact that I rattled off a sevens site names, and where I found features similar to FriendFeed’s… but obvioulsy these features are all on FriendFeed.

To make FriendFeed “King of the Mountain”, and just anihalate the competition, indirectly as it may be since they’re peace loving happy campers of the Internet, would be to add the following:

1. SMS/MMS Support
   That’s right, eliminate the need to use Twitter all together. They’re up only 80% of “The Time” anyway, so to hell with it. Bring on photo sharing support via cell as well, and you’ve got yourself an end-to-end elimination of Twitter, Twitxr, Twitpic, etc.
2. Related to #1: Allow for direct messages, and scheduled activity summaries to be sent via SMS and/or Email
3. Support geotagging
4. Create a FireFox plug-in for “Share this on FF”
   This will alleviate the need to use sites like Tumblr, Digg, Del.icio.us, Ma.gnolia.com, Reddit… etc… etc
5. Related to #3, add a Stumble feature to the toolbar to show me random items that related to things I like.
6. Allow tagging of things I share
7. Start to grab the excerpt from blog-posts, via the RSS input
8. Give the option for some sort of customization through a dashboard similar to Tumblr.

That’ll about cover it… I mean, FriendFeed doesn’t really need AJAX awesome, or any other major infrastructure pieces, they have the best features from a good number of sites, and, interact with an even bigger number of them… so, to wipe Twitter off the map, and a few other sites that aren’t really needed… That’s the path of awesome. Unless I’m forgetting something…

The very first thing that I noticed about the 8GB is the screen slider. Compared to the 3G, it’s flimsy feeling, lacking that stable, sturdy feel I like so much about the 3G. Why would Nokia do such a thing?

Otherwise, the phone is awesome. It’s fast, it’s filled with great features, strong hardware, and 8 GIGS of storage! Granted, I have an 8GB micro-SD card in my N95-3, so that point is a little moot, but, it is handy to have space on a phone, no matter what. The 8GB also shipped with the updated firmware software that I’ve since downloaded and installed on my 3G.

I’ve raved about the N95 in comparison to the iPhone for months. The camera, the ability to do real video, the interface, software and features, the fact you can take out the batter and SIM card at will, use standard USB and headphone plugs to interface with the handset, and the Nokia PC Suite sofftware that comes in the box for the the phone… all awesome, and both the 8GB and the 3G boast the same awesome.

Nokia N95 8GB price: $595.00 (Froogle, average)

Nokia N95-3 w/ an 8GB microSD Card:$565.00 (Froogle, average)

The benefit of the N95 8GB is obviously the larger screen, which is very pretty, but the fact that it’s very flimsy, compared to the N95-3, and mixed with the inability to add more memory to it? I’m going to be happy with the N95-3 with the smaller screen, and a 16GB microSDHC card when it becomes reasonably available.

Currently - I tout the N95-3 (US version of the N95) with blazing fast 3G and HSDPA data support, GPS, a 5 megapixel camera, video, removable/upgradable microSDHC card (currently housing an 8GB beast), super long lasting LiIon battery (I have two), a slew of awesome Symbian S60 and Java-based applications - including games, and fancy pants tools that marry the hardware and software seamlessly to bring you an absolute great mobile-computing experience.

From all this, I’ve found that everyone that has a Nokia handset, preferably the N95, should have these apps installed and used liberally:

1. Sports Tracker (available here) - This application uses the accelerometer and GPS to bring you an awesome companion to your workouts. Features include:
   1. GPS tracking of your route
   2. Altitude/Speed/Duration logging
   3. GeoTracking of photos taken during your walk/run/ride/etc
   4. Route saving
   5. Workout Diary - summarizes and logs
   6. Sharing online

   This is when it gets down right f**king cool. A year ago, April, Digital Urban, did a write-up on using the data collected in Sports Tracker for GeoRadness in Google Earth, creating a whole “new” application all together. I’d like to coin this, Life Mappery… All in all Sports Tracker is an application that can be used to track and geotag “You”, which is (again) awesome.

2. ShoZu (available here) - This application is available for a LOT of phones, but the N95’s handy-snappy-FAST GPS + Camera + ShoZu is a friggin’ great combination. Auto-GeoTagging of photos and videos taken, then uploaded to your file sharing app of choice (Flickr), makes for even more awesome. I spent about 20 minutes setting up Tiwtter, Flickr, Twitpic, and the account - including installation of ShoZu on the phone. I immediately adopted the app’s behaviors on my handset as “the way it should’ve been all along”.

   Their developers are definitely people who wanted to make sure their application integrated effortlessly with your phone’s existing interface, just making it “more gooder” than it was before you installed it, and it shows.

3. Nokia Communication Center (available here) - First of all, Nokia’s PC Suite is pretty sweet, but adding this extension to their already awesome PC/MAC interface? Oh boy. This boasts a near real-time interaction with your handset’s messaging (SMS & MMS) - allowing you to read, reply, forward and send new messages to contacts through a robust, but lightweight, desktop-based application.

   You can also manage contacts (edit, add, delete), send emails, and compose an MMS message, if you wish… and quickly!

4. Conversation (available here) - One of the advantage the iPhone has over the Nokia N95 (Symbian S60, really) is threaded SMS messages. Well… Conversations takes care of that, and one-ups it by threading MMS into the mix as well. One of the features I like about this the most is, the ability to mass delete entire threaded conversations without sifting through messages in the normal list view (so you can axe all your GoogleSMS queries at once, etc).

   It embeds itself right into your Contacts feature, as the first sub-menu item. So, all you have to do is select “Contacts” then push right once, and you’re there. I have mine set up as a main shortcut, replacing what was previously “Messaging”. Great thing is, it doesn’t replace messaging, allowing you to use either medium for interaction! Just rad.

5. MOSH (available here) - Short for “MObile SHaring”, MOSH is an online community where people upload, collect, and download tons of great stuff. Mobile themes, ringtones, games, apps, widgets, video, images… You name it. I grabbed my current theme from MOSH’s website, as well as a few great time killing games and some pretty sweet apps that are just plain fun to have. The application is accessible via the web, as well as through the handset, making it for an all-around quick-to-access experience, so you don’t have to kill a load of time loading up your handset with neat stuff.

Of course, there’s also Qik, Google Maps (great for traffic reports), Gmail, Google Search, Fring, and YouTube… I guess the only thing that’s really missing is a way for me to uh… make a cup of coffee with my cell at this point.

What the hell is up with Apple users, and why in God’s green Earth would you purchase an iProduct? I’ll give you this, the MacBook is “just another laptop” that looks neat and is about the only tech-standard item you can purchase from Apple Inc. But this isn’t really about the MacBook, in fact, if this were about the MacBook - I’d probably have a hard time coming up with more than one or two bad things to say about it.

This is about the EPIC FAIL of the iPhone, and all the Lemmings that still love this damn thing. I don’t get it.

1. No Video Recording? … STILL?

2. Weak ass camera? … STILL. 2 Megapixels and no front-facing camera? Say “bye bye” to Video Teleconferencing in REAL 3G service areas (outside of the US)

3. No MMS… STILL

4. Copy/Paste on a touch sensative screen makes sense… Oh, it’s not there.

5. I bet it’ll fit in the old iPhone cradle and such, right? … NOPE!

6. 16GB version! WOW! Don’t they make a 80GB iPod?  Or better, I know there’s a 32GB iPod Touch out there.

7. Can’t remove the battery, still, and you’re looking at a full finger print version with a high gloss back to go with the front now.

All this points to squeeze every last $100 bill out of your pocket and keep you coming back for more sodomy by a company that claims to be innovative. The only innovation they’ve had is … Invent MP3’s… no wait… um… Invent MP3 players, no… um… Oh yea, the ONLY FEATURE iPHONE HAS TO OFFER:

Multi-touch.

Sorry, but that’s a load of crap. I’ve played with Multi-Touch - I think it’s neat, but it needs to interface with TODAY’S TECHNOLOGY.

- My thoughts after reading this: http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/09/iphone-3g-hands-on/

MEdia™ Net - from AT&T Wireless’ Q&A section (link):

Q. What is MEdia™ Net?
A. MEdia Net gives you access to all the cool things you can do with your wireless phone—email, Web sites, games, and more. It is wireless Internet access for your wireless device.

• Mail & Messaging: Check your Yahoo! Mail, MSN Hotmail and chat with friends with Yahoo! Messenger and Upoc.
• Sports: Get the latest scores from CBS SportsLine and ESPN.
• Ringtones, Games, and Graphics: Personalize your phone by downloading your favorites.
• News & Finance: Stay informed with round-the-clock headlines from CNN.
• Entertainment: Get local movie times and reviews, dining recommendations, and more.
• Weather & Travel: Check your forecast from The Weather Channel, get flight times, and traffic reports.

Neat! This MEdia™ Net shindig should allow me to do what I need on my N95 (and my PDA, but we’ll not get into that)… and the MEdia™ Max Unlimited feature looks like a good fit. As a result - I pick up the phone, and now have this featured added to my plan… and had the $39.99 (PDA Personal plan w/ 1500 txt message - no longer available) feature on my plan,as required by AT&T at the time for the PDA’s, removed.

Here’s a paraphrase of the conversation I had with the nice lady on the phone at AT&T Wireless:

Me - “Is there a bandwidth difference between the PDA plan and the MEdia™ Max (i didn’t say ‘tm’)?”
Nice Lady - “Not that I’m aware, I think it’s just if you have a PDA, you’ll be accessing your email and the Internet more frequently”
Me - “Oh, neat. So since my phone isn’t a PDA, I can get this MEdia™ Max Unlimited?”
Nice Lady - “Yep, would you like me to remove the PDA features from your plan?”

So, this confused me, as I told my friend Genevieve to do the same thing with her N95 about a week ago… and she got a guy telling her “The N95 is a smartphone, you’ll need to upgrade to the PDA data plan”… buh? (image right)

Ok… so the wheels started turning pretty quick in my head:

1. Does the iPhone qualify for the MEdia™ Max Unlimited Plan (yes - at least I think so)
2. Is the iPhone capable of email access? (yes, without MMS even… heh)
3. Is the N95 not a smart phone? (email, office, gps, camera, qik.com, web browser… hmm)
4. Why are Windows Mobile users getting charged $15 more a month?
5. Why does it seem that “some people” get the same features for $35 that others have to pay $50 for?
6. What the hell qualified a phone as smart? (answer)
7. Is AT&T aware of what a smartphone really is? Are their employees universally aware?

I’m going to figure that I just got lucky because I outright asked for the  MEdia™ Max Unlimited Plan and got someone who was completely unaware what the hell the N95 is, count my lucky stars and give this bit of advice to people that have … a “smartphone” that’s not an iPhone:

Call AT&T - ask for the  MEdia™ Max Unlimited Plan - if they say no, hang up and call back. Save yourself $180 a year.

Unless I’m completely missing something. Which … I just speed tested my phone after a reboot and I’m still getting 4.2 Mbps over their air… and uh… I’ll keep testing to see if there’s a downside here to paying less, anyway.

I actually had a good job at the time, so I just planted some cash on some MiniDV tapes, and a camera, wrote up a quick synopsis, and started to think about a shoot location.

Synopsis: Rico “Diablo” Carranzo’s shipment of product was stolen, he’s found the thief, and is going to make him pay.  The thief is a henchman on his own goon squad, cousin to his second in command, El Martillo. The Diablo way is punishment by death, and the trigger man has to be family. El Ladron is going to be an example of how bad ass Diablo truly is.

Oh yea… cheeeeese galore. Funny thing is, I know I didn’t invent this storyline, and chances are it’s been done 1000x before with REAL production money behind it, somewhere. I laugh just thinking about it.

Anyhow, in 2003 I wanted to digitally remaster my piece of work, because it really didn’t come out all that bad. Aside from the really horrible everything, it was well received by the class, at least - and! - I got an A on the project… I never did follow through with that project though. I ended up getting a job at the DoD, and that took me away from El Ladron.

I’ll post the trailor I created pre-remastering in 2003 in a few days to my Tumblr, I’m sure, but I’m seriously considering picking this 8 minute epic back up and dusting it off to share with the world. The shameful humiliating criticisms that will follow shall be glorious.

Oh, I forgot to mention, 1 of the people that were in our team dropped the class, so we were down to two people. After which, the stoner I was paired up with failed to show up to the two meetings we had about the project, so … I enlisted two of my good friends: Jason and Gabe. Good sports.