Tag: camera

This afternoon Ariesna and I went out to see The Bourne Supremacy. As I expected it was mostly a fast paced action movie with just a hint of drama tossed in to spice things up. Was it good? Well… it would have been better if they didn’t use such jerky camera work for the action sequences, particularly the car chases. I have a fairly strong stomach for such things but even I was starting to feel a touch of motion sickness by the end of the movie. Poor Ariesna was downing some Dramamine to try calming her stomach and fight off the severe motion sickness that she was feeling. Still if you can get past the motion sickness issue; there are some other disappointments in store for you:

  • Matt Daemon isn’t playing the role of Jason Bourne as well as he did back in The Bourne Identity.
  • Figuring out the real bad guy in this film takes no effort and that ruins the suspensefulness of the film.
  • The portion of the movie where Bourne goes to Russia, feels tacked on like it really belongs in another movie1.
  • The way Bourne dealt with the Russian assassin didn’t make any sense.

So am I saying that I hated the movie? No, I enjoyed it quite a bit. It was a fun film that allowed me to have some mindless entertainment for an hour & 48 minutes. Given I woke up exhausted and was in a sleepy haze all day that was probably for the best. I give the movie 3 and a half out of 5 cups of coffee. It’s worth seeing if you can catch it at a matinee or at a cheap-seats movie theater.

1 Though I have to admit, I did admire Bourne’s character for locating the girl and apologizing to her for what he’d done in the past.

Today we went to Kyoto. We’d been warned that it was one of the hottest places in Japan, but I hadn’t paid too much attention to the warnings thinking that I wouldn’t really notice the difference after the heat I’d already been dealing with. Boy was I ever wrong! It was the single most brutal day of heat and misery that I’ve ever experienced. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I’d been wearing shorts, but AWelkin had mentioned prior to the trip that it was one of the more conservative areas of Japan and we shouldn’t wear shorts there because it’s just not done1. I have to say that if I’d known in advance how brutal the heat would be there; I would have ignored that cultural advice and worn shorts. It was horrific and it make matters worse, the main temple we’d come to see was more than just a little ways from the train station and all the walking was uphill. Before we got there though, we rode the local bus system which wasn’t too bad, except when it got crowded2. Once the bus desposited us at the base of the hill to the temple; we started the climb, ignoring all the shops on the way up. When we finally made it to the top of the hill; we found we had to go up a set of steep stairs to get to the actual temple area. I think we’d already visited another temple that day (I’ll have to go through all the tickets and scraps I saved from the trip to double-check) and so AWelkin allowed those students who wanted to; to rest at the base of the temples. Only about 5 of us (3, if you didn’t count AWelkin & Bryon) actually went in. It was the most beautiful temple we’d seen yet and had a view of the valley area below which rivalled (but didn’t quite beat) the view of the ocean at the one previous temple. Again, words fail me here so I’ll have to hurry up and see about posting some pictures.
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Today, we went to see the animation exhibit at Museum of Contempary Art Tokyo (MOT). It was a good exhibit but our translator was using a quiet voice while there were animated bits blasting out their music and voices, making her hard to hear. The exhibit covered Japanese animation from it’s very beginnings1 to the present day. Again for the most part, cameras were forbidden but towards the end of the exhibit they had a mock up of Lupin’s car from Castle of Cagliostro which they did allow you to take pictures of (but no flash allowed). In that same area, they also had some of the pre-production art and key-frame art from Porco Rosso, which was so damn cool! 😀
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I didn’t sleep so good last night, not quite sure why. I went to bed late and was completely exhausted but partially woke up a couple of hours before the alarm clock went off. My wrist braces1 were bothering my hands, so I took them off and tried going back to sleep. That sort of worked but it wasn’t really good sleep, as I was still somewhat awake. Though that did allow me to somewhat realize that I was dreaming while I was doing so. Unfortunately, I either had no control over the dream or I did and just never cared to change it. Also, I had the distinct impression that this was not the first time I’ve had this particular dream, though I cannot recall any other time that I’ve woken from this dream.

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Before this horrid bit of legislation got passed; I was against it because I knew it was only a matter of time until the government was going to abuse it. Then like many people, I got distracted by my own life and forgot about it for a while because nothing was happening with it that affected me. Today, I happened across a link to Ian Spiers’ Brown Equal Terrorist website. The crap that Mr. Spiers had to go through is unfortunately all too believable and to me just proves that the USA PATRIOT Act should have never been passed.

The USA PATRIOT Act is an abusive law that gives the government excessive powers and as should have been expected by our representatives it was abused to harass an innocent U.S. citizen. Why was he harassed? Because there are still petty & shallow minded [insert explictive of your choice here] out there that think if you’re not a good, clean white-boy then you must be up to no-good.

Oh and for the record:

  • I am a white guy (part Scottish even).
  • I like to think of myself as an amatuer photographer and have taken courses at my local community college.
  • I carry a camera with me everywhere I go, but don’t take as many pictures as I’d like because I have nasty suspicions that somebody’s going to get the wrong idea of what I’m doing.