How do I define a competent applicant?

I have recently taken the opportunity to vent as regards new hires and technical/academic/creative job positions. A recent development is that humans are typically lacking the capacity to come off as genuine and/or caring. I don't give a sh*t if your resume includes the ability to see through walls if you lack the social capacity to convince me that you might actually give a damn about work outcomes. Yes, the suggestion that there is experience, talent, trainability... these are all key elements to creating a successful partnership, but without an acknowledgment of interest, how can you be trainable? Without the suggestion that you will make a point to work with existing structure, what good is any talent (real or imagined?)?
Needless to say, I'm pissed off at nothing tangible, and this too shall pass.
In other news, Paty got me a fantastic acoustic guitar. - jeb

The Sound Solution...

Greetings, Gang.
This is hopelessly premature, but I think I've stumbled upon THE recording solution of my dreams (est. some 20 years ago).
Digital recording has essentially been around that long, but devices have certainly been on the scene in the last 6 years that make most of my recent efforts redundant/rediculous. In my humble opinion, the following is THE ideal solution to 90% of needs I've encountered for sound:
1. PC running XP ~ 300
2. Alesis 8 channel direct USB mixer ~150
3. Decent mic (I'm using a Shure Beta') ~ 125
4. cables ~ 12
5. Adobe Audition (using an old, slimmed down version)... but wondering if (freeware) Audacity can do most of the reads... ~100
6. I run guitar sounds from my Ibanez ICX guitar through a Roland CUBE 30, and mike it (line-outs appear to be a conspiracy to drive people like me crazy... )
7. I use a freeware drum machine for placeholder percussion and other sounds.

I don't have it together yet, but it appears that multi-tracking is capable through the USB assignments in Audition. KFA.
AMAZING output... solutions I didn't think were possible... and very affordable. Don't know what else to say other than "wish I had this 5 years ago..." - k

Disc Ussions of TR2N

It's already out an about. The pop sequel they were never going to figure out how to pull off is going to happen. TRON 2 (or TR2N) hit the internet with a bamboozled celphone video that was both thrilling and interesting. The nostalgia about that film (for most fan-boys and girls I've chatted with) is tainted with what appears to be the subtext of "nobody gets this". The original TRON and the Broderick movie WARGAMES stand as the best elements of 80's compu-geekdom that reflect a culture that never really hit in the mainstream... and is almost as bizarre (dispite its recent setting) as ancient historical adaptations when realized on the silver screen for modern audiences. Fans of the original and/or this new effort need to track down a copy of the EXCELLENT donationware lightcycle game ARMAGETRON... and the original ROMS for DISCS OF TRON.

HERE's my knee-jerk scoresheet for this summers "blockbuster" fare:
HELLBOY 2, THE GOLDEN ARMY: 6 (Sweet-hearted, and amazing, but left the culture)
THE DARK KNIGHT: 9 (arguably the perfect comic adaptation... amazing cast...)
IRON MAN: 9 (the adaptation that couldn't go right... went right)
SPEED RACER: 4 (so many amazing victories on this one, and it still doesn't know WTF is up)
INDIANA JONES and the CRYSTAL SKULL: 7 (my favorite sequel to RAIDERS... though all my friends are sick)
JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH: 5 (I almost didn't like this, but it is very sweet-hearted)
X-FILES 2, I WANNA BELIEVE: N/A
THE INCREDIBLE HULK: N/A
THE WILL SMITH MOVIE: N/A

2009 Notables:
THE WATCHMEN
AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS

Of Iron and Wheels...

What a fantastic Summer for popcorn films...! This Summer 2008 is truly going to be heralded by someone as the ultimate for action fans.
Hellboy 2, The Dark Knight, X-Files 2, Speed Racer, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Indiana Jones 4, wow.

Before I rant, I should say that two of these properties, Iron Man, and Speed Racer, are rediculously near and dear to my childhood... so to be fair, I should lack anything resembling objectivity in the following lines of text...

I still can't get my mind around how excellent Iron Man is and how Stark (Downey jr.) nailed it. I was encouraged by the casting, but was beyond comfortable with what I took as the inevitable disappointment of another dud from a comic premise that the executives simply wouldn't get. Ghost Rider, Fantastic Four, yes Spider-Man (which I mostly consider the McDonalds of action movies), all grossly undershot the mark. Nobody could have seen Hellboy and The Incredibles and turned out a movie like Fantastic Flop.

In contrast to IM, and to drive my point home, look at Speed Racer. I absolutely HATE to parrot critics of these films, but did the Waschshsshowski Brothers even see the original 60's cartoon? Were they fans? This is a property that could have been brilliantly pulled off in no less than 3 completely different directions, and yet we got nada. It actually has a plot of sorts (and one consistent with the source material), it is well cast, it very excellently sets up Racer X, it provides a peculiar team race accross the elements (which should have been awesome), and I did enjoy some moments, but I can safely say that I won't see this movie ever again. (!) The action is bizarrely unwatchable and as pointless as watching your kid brother play slot cars with himself. Did the bros even see the cartoon???

Was that really supposed to be SNAKE OILER from the CAR ACROBATIC TEAM???

In short, there is no way that IM could have turned out as great as it is, and there is no way that SR could have turned out as lame as it is. I'm baffled, but optimistic... it certainly appears that some of our savvy generation are getting their elements plugged into current media.

A Rose by Any Other Name... Could be as Deadly...

Greetings.
I just heard a spiel on N.P.R. regarding an apparently lauded-as-genius modification of E. coli to include pleasant wintergreen and bannana smells (the latter to serve as a cue that the colony growth cycle has been completed. Over the course of the superficial interview, the experimenters acknowledge that, to their knowledge, these smells have never been associated with these organisms. A bunch of carnival music later, and the story is over.
I make no secret that my enthusiasm for genetic manipulation is only in very specific pursuit areas. I have also openly acknowledged that N.P.R. treatments are often hopelessly superficial to the point of making commentary unacceptable. That having been said, I'd like to make the following points anyway:
1. The response the "scientists" who were asked about their impression of their own work was that they don't feel omnipotent but see themselves as "engineers".
2. The "scientists" don't seem to care about the awesome responsibility of keeping under-wraps a sweet-smelling E. coli strain. A huge implicit reason mammals come equiped with sniffers is to undo and avoid the presence of bacterial strains... what now?
3. Manipulation for the sake of manipulation or cleverness is (continues to be) a pretty hateful stroke in the face of a dividing line that is keeping patients away from stem-cell research. Is anybody even watching the $#%%%# movie? These flippant tasks make those concerned about scientific morality and ethics circle their wagons.
In short, after all the pointlessly glowing bunnies and the pointless articles attempting to justify the existence of glowing bunnies, and the reality that all these high-profile hijinks are using what essentially constitutes ancient methodologies (in the molecular scheme of things) by the point of these gimmicky actions (and thus are pointlessly pointless in terms of anything but the ramifications of what could come if the experimental organisms aren't kept under lock and key), nothing has changed. I hope somebody got a masters project out of the stale methodology recap., but I'm not impressed. Should I be?

Thundercrackers and Page Turners...

http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/529442 is a link to my friend, Dizzy Dean's readings checklist. I like the layout and manageability of those pages - the kind of clean that only comes with focused service - but like MYSPACEFACEBOOK, I don't like having to have an account to see full content, etc. Sharp nonetheless. It's the kind of thing LeRoy should do with himself... as the expanse of books he's read is getting a might hefty.

I'm currently all about Lovecraft, and am dealing with a fine short story anthology punctuated by THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS that I picked up from the library... of course when my new DEE arrives, I'll drop everything and probably finish the first book I've started since THE FENCING MASTER (Arturo Perez Reverte). So many good books, so little time...

K

A Pencil by Another Name...

Ready for a bizarre post?

Although getting considerable attention for their "liquid pencil" technology (and resulting "ever-sharp" leads), I wanted to toot about the SYNTECH product (JAKKS PACIFIC). Metal barrels, .7mm lead, cool colors, excellent heft (for me anyway), soft grip, point protector (another big plus for me), and CHEAP (~2.70 @ evil Wal-Mart). VERY cool.

For pens, I'm a HUGE fan of ZIG archival pens - excellent flo rate and footprint and simply one of the best freeform line drawing pens I've ever had the pleasure using... and about the same price at evil Wal-Mart!!!???

While I'm on the rant, is it just me, or is the pressure from Target (pronounced, Tar sjey') and Costco actually affecting what evil Wal-Mart puts on the shelves? I'm starting to see duplicated focus on the products I buy for the first time in well over 6 years. Its a facinating conundrum: were I not poor, I would not buy things from Wal-Mart (and no- its not because they employ so many people). ;)

Target and Costco get props for the kind of suggested sale old-concept department stores used to give (from my dim recollection). They actually put smarter products in front of you and say "wouldn't this work better, and wouldn't it actually save you some time/money in the long haul?" I'll actually browse some items in those stores and think "that's a cool idea, but doesn't make sense for me" or something like that. Not since my last visit to Wal-Mart have I thought they were actually trying to sell something that wasn't crappy... making it the first time in over 5 years. Did I mention I saw some items made in the US?

There Will Be Blood...

Greetings, Blogtastic Ones...

I've yet to see the thrilling account adapted from Upton Sinclare's "Oil" (by P. T. Anderson as "There Will Be Blood"). So many things are going down, it is a little hard to track even important "signal events" like this one.

And yet... the general timbre has enough volition to give me pause and re-evaluate my own dramatic work on (working title) The Wooden Mask, as well as several other "shelved" creative efforts.

I'm not really sure why this is up, beyond being really cool, but here is a workup from P3 Design for the cover.

Klypus wuz here...

Best Mysteries List...

Okey Doke... after my disappointment at the hands of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (2007), I thought I should prepare some sound offs of note. My general philosophy on film is that it is much more subjective than, say, asynchronous media like written stories, so discrepancies abound. Also note that I try to hold to relativity: for example, in my fave sci-fi & period mysteries of all time, you won't see The Name of the Rose rank as high as this list might suggest, as in such categorization, experimental efforts are much more important to me.

These represent my FAVORITE MYSTERIES OF ALL TIME:

1. The Big Sleep (1946)

2. Murder on the Orient Express (1974)

3. L.A. Confidential (1997)

4. Murder by Decree (1979)

5. Thunderheart (1992)

6. Castle in the Desert (1942)

7. The Name of the Rose (1986)

8. Rear Window (1954)

9. The Big Fix (1978)

10. Brick (2005)

Incidentally, BRICK gets on this list by innovation alone (but is also a decent mystery film). MVP/Honorable mentions include (but are not necessarily limited to): THE MALTESE FALCON (which suffers for replayability IMHO), ANGEL HEART, BLADE RUNNER, THE NINTH GATE, AND THEN THERE WERE NONE.

New Judge Dee!

I'm very pleased that a new adventure/whodunnit/period mystery with my favorite sleuth is (and apparently has been) on the shelves!

Zhu Xiao Di has penned a well-recieved homage to the great Tang (reads as Ming) period shamus and judge. The pleasure I've had reading these novels has no less caused me to draft my own plot outlines (though more than that hasn't taken shape). Very good!