Super 8 - My Take

Okay, this is my no means a review of the new JJ Abrams film Super 8; just consider these some casual observations.  There won't be any major spoilers in this blog post either so if you haven't seen the movie yet, don't worry, you can keep reading.

First of all, I loved this movie, for many, many reasons but most of all for the fact that it took me back to that era; not only to films that came out around 1979 but to that time period itself.  I remember playing the handheld electronic football game they showed in the film.  I remember the cassette Walkman and other technology that was featured in Super 8 too.

It wasn't just the gadgets that took me back to the late 70's/early 80's either; but also because of the way the characters lived.  For example, how those kids in Super 8 wandered around their neighborhood and beyond without a care in the world and that their parents didn't seem to worry too much either.  That's how things were done back then; we grabbed our walkie talkies and headed out into the great unknown, a.k.a. "the weeds" and spent the day exploring, not sitting in front of the computer or a video game system.

The soundtrack to Super 8 helped take the viewer back to that era as well with songs from The Knack, ELO, the Cars and many more.  By the way, if you want to find out which songs played when, here's the link to a really informational blog about it.

Finally, after watching the film I looked up director JJ Abrams on Wikipedia and found how that he was born in 1966, a year before I was so this movie was probably a way of paying tribute to his childhood.

If you grew up in the late 70's/early 80's and want to re-live that era then you definitely must watch this film!

Oh, and for the Lost fans, there are plenty of "Easter Eggs" to look for as well.

No, Duh!

According to a recent article at Poynter.org the New York Times decided to turn the auto pilot off of their main Twitter feed, for a week and put actual people in charge of Tweeting!

Social media editors Liz Heron and Lexi Mainland were taking turns running the@nytimes account during weekday business hours, writing Twitter updates and engaging with readers.  


Engaging with readers!  Wow, what a novel concept!!  Actually it's quite the change from how they usually do it, which has traditionally been a combination of automated headline-and-a-link feed of homepage stories with occasional contributions from staff. That approach has created a bad perception: “that it’s mostly an RSS feed of auto headlines,” Heron said.


Well, I say it's about time that an entity such as the New York Times "gets it."  Social Media is just that, designed to be SOCIAL and the point is to be a person interacting with other people, a.k.a. your followers.


The Poynter.org article went on to say that the @WSJ account has been run by people since January 2010, and that the metrics went up considerably and almost immediately after switching from automated to personal.


To that I say No, Duh!!


The truth is the New York Times has wanted to do this for a while but hasn't had the staff in place.  From the looks of it though, the experiment is over but hopefully they'll look at the metrics and decide that a human behind all of those tweets is the best way to go, all the time.  But don't you think that's something they should have figured out a long time ago?


Read more here


Dave.

Rules To Live By - Part 1

I've never had a personal set of rules to live by but as I grow older I'm beginning to think I should so, here's my first attempt.  Feel free to use these as your own, if you dare.

1)  Have a backup plan.

I thought of this one at of all places, the video store a few days ago when realizing that they might not have the movie I was looking for.  They didn't and I left empty handed.

2)  Change course in Mid-Stream

It's okay to admit your plan was the wrong one and start from scratch.  Even better, ask for help in coming up with a new one!

3)  Don't Take Yourself Too Seriously

Go ahead, laugh at your mistakes; it will show that you're human. (I've actually struggled with this my whole life.)

That's it for now but come back for part 2, coming soon.