The film is just pointless, it raises loads of questions yet no answers. No suspense, it's not scary, just dumb. Really poor.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
People are different, so don't sell your soul trying to please everyone
It's amazing how two people can have complete opposite views. You can show them the same thing, and they may respond not slightly differently but COMPLETELY differently. It shows tastes differ, perceptions too, standards, appetites and the rest of it. Here's a short sample of comments on the movie Prometheus.
The film is just pointless, it raises loads of questions yet no answers. No suspense, it's not scary, just dumb. Really poor.
The film is just pointless, it raises loads of questions yet no answers. No suspense, it's not scary, just dumb. Really poor.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
For those who *GOT IT*, Prometheus Poses Eternal Questions About Science, Creationism
SHOOT:' It's shocking, but a lot of people who should have gotten this flick, didn't. I have an idea the reason is they went in thinking PREQUEL PREQUEL PREQUEL and then got stuck wondering why what they were seeing didn't fit properly into a prequelic structure. Instead it was a round peg in a square hole, leading to howls of protest and disappointment. Here's a Review I can live with though.
Prometheus does what all good science fiction should do: It uses scientific concepts currently out of the realm of possibility to provoke thoughts about philosophy and the future. It asks questions that get us thinking, and the gray areas are intentional — the lack of final answers is what kept us watching Lost until the end, constantly debating what happened in Inception and, ultimately, it’s what will lead us to multiple viewings of Prometheus and endless hypotheses about what really happened.
“I think Ridley’s instinct kept being to pull back, and I would say, ‘Ridley, I’m still eating shit a year after Lost is over for all the things we didn’t directly spell out,’” Lindelof told Bleeding Cool. “‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ And he said, ‘I would rather have people fighting about it and not know than spell it out.’”
In other words, Prometheus intentionally does not answer all the big questions it raises. It can’t — the answers have yet to be discovered.
Read the rest here.
Or if you'd prefer ranting, watch this:
Prometheus does what all good science fiction should do: It uses scientific concepts currently out of the realm of possibility to provoke thoughts about philosophy and the future. It asks questions that get us thinking, and the gray areas are intentional — the lack of final answers is what kept us watching Lost until the end, constantly debating what happened in Inception and, ultimately, it’s what will lead us to multiple viewings of Prometheus and endless hypotheses about what really happened.
“I think Ridley’s instinct kept being to pull back, and I would say, ‘Ridley, I’m still eating shit a year after Lost is over for all the things we didn’t directly spell out,’” Lindelof told Bleeding Cool. “‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ And he said, ‘I would rather have people fighting about it and not know than spell it out.’”
In other words, Prometheus intentionally does not answer all the big questions it raises. It can’t — the answers have yet to be discovered.
Read the rest here.
Or if you'd prefer ranting, watch this:
Interviews with George R.R. Martin - author of the Game Of Thrones series
Interesting that this dude is a comic book fan.
Remember this: "Power resides where men believe it resides..."
And: "Knowledge is power." "No, power is power."
Here's his background via Wikipedia.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
No it's not Froome vs Wiggins
Well, not yet, and certainly not in this year's tour.
Bradley Wiggins, and other riders in the peloton, resorted to throwing their water bottles in self defence as rowdy fans ran alongside them with burning flares towards the end of stage 12.
Number one: Wiggins remains the protected rider, despite the excellent form shown by Sky teammate Chris Froome (behind), who is second overall. Photo: GETTY IMAGES
Wiggins’ yellow jersey was singed as he and his Sky colleagues forced their way through fans brandishing the flares popular at French rugby and football grounds. The incident happened just outside Sarras, 25km from the finish, and is a timely reminder of the unexpected dangers that still lurk after what had been a quiet day for the leading contenders with the peloton travelling at a leisurely pace.
“I’m covered in yellow stuff at the moment,” admitted Wiggins afterwards. “I got hit on the arm with a flare at 25k to go. It burnt my arm a bit, but other than that it was all right. There were quite a few guys running up the hill with lit flares in the peloton. It was pretty dangerous and I’m sure those guys are nursing a few wounds tonight because there were quite a few bottles thrown in their direction from the peloton.”
The Tour has a long history of unruly crowd behaviour from the earliest years when spectators covered the road with nails or tick-tacks, and there have been actual physical assaults on riders – Alberto Contador had to punch his way clear of a protester on Alpe D’Huez last year when his assailant used a huge mock syringe to attack the rider.
Later Wiggins, appearing the most relaxed he has been for the last fortnight, admitted that a Tour de France win would mean nothing unless people truly believed he was riding clean and vowed to address such questions whenever quizzed in the future.
“What is the point in winning the Tour de France, or attempting to win the Tour, if it’s not going to be going down in history for the right reasons, with a slight amount of suspicion from certain parts of the media?,” said a reflective Wiggins.
Read the rest.
Read the rest.
Tour de France 2012: domestique bliss for Team Sky's Chris Froome
Chris Froome, a climbing domestique for Team Sky, riding in the 2012 Tour de France. Photograph: Lionel Bonaventure/AFP/Getty Images
More than a century ago, the domestique was a description given to a rider whose self-sacrifice allowed his team leader to focus on personal glory. As a domestique (literally "servant" in French) a rider would sometimes stop at a stream to fill his captain's water bottle. If a team leader had been dropped by the pack because of a puncture his domestique rode in front of him, shielding him from the wind, so he could return to the front. The job description hasn't changed much.
Read the rest.
How the Guardian has reported on the unsung role of cycling's domestiques down the years
When Chris Froome was asked about challenging his team leader, Bradley Wiggins, for the yellow jersey in this year's Tour de France, the talented British rider, currently in second place behind Wiggins, said exactly what every domestique should say: "I'll follow orders at all costs. I'm part of a team and I have to do what the team asks me to do". It was a statement that reinforced cycling's reputation as being a feudal sport.More than a century ago, the domestique was a description given to a rider whose self-sacrifice allowed his team leader to focus on personal glory. As a domestique (literally "servant" in French) a rider would sometimes stop at a stream to fill his captain's water bottle. If a team leader had been dropped by the pack because of a puncture his domestique rode in front of him, shielding him from the wind, so he could return to the front. The job description hasn't changed much.
Read the rest.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Friday, July 13, 2012
Climate Change Wipes Out US Corn Crop
From FT.com:
The worst drought in the US in 25 years has wrought havoc on the country’s most important crops, putting the global economy at risk of its third food inflation shock in five years.
The US Department of Agriculture on Wednesday slashed its forecast for the corn crop by the most since the drought of 1988, cutting its 2012-13 production estimate by 12 per cent and its season-end inventory estimate by a hefty 37 per cent.
Richard Feltes, vice-president at broker RJ O’Brien in Chicago, said the lower crop “ups the risks of reintroducing food inflation as an issue affecting global recovery”.
“The drop reflects sharply declining crop conditions resulting from limited rainfall since early April, coupled with excessive heat across much of the producing area in late June and early July,” the agency said in its report.
Temperatures of about 40C in top farming areas of the US, including Illinois and Indiana, have had a devastating effect on grain and oilseed production, said agronomists and meteorologists. Joel Widenor, director of agriculture at consultants Commodity Weather Group, said June was the driest month for the corn belt since the same month in 1988.
The worst drought in the US in 25 years has wrought havoc on the country’s most important crops, putting the global economy at risk of its third food inflation shock in five years.
The US Department of Agriculture on Wednesday slashed its forecast for the corn crop by the most since the drought of 1988, cutting its 2012-13 production estimate by 12 per cent and its season-end inventory estimate by a hefty 37 per cent.
Richard Feltes, vice-president at broker RJ O’Brien in Chicago, said the lower crop “ups the risks of reintroducing food inflation as an issue affecting global recovery”.
“The drop reflects sharply declining crop conditions resulting from limited rainfall since early April, coupled with excessive heat across much of the producing area in late June and early July,” the agency said in its report.
Temperatures of about 40C in top farming areas of the US, including Illinois and Indiana, have had a devastating effect on grain and oilseed production, said agronomists and meteorologists. Joel Widenor, director of agriculture at consultants Commodity Weather Group, said June was the driest month for the corn belt since the same month in 1988.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Dr. John Berardi's best workout tip
Livestrong: What's your best workout tip?
Berardi: I've got a few, actually. First, every week, mix in some strength exercise, some high intensity interval exercise, and some lower intensity cardio exercise. If you prefer one type to the other, of course, do more of that. But make sure to get all three. The combination is what helps to boost strength and lean body mass, improve health, increase metabolism, and burn fat.
The second tip is to adopt a "no problem" attitude when it comes to exercise. I've been working out regularly for almost 25 years. And, while I like to put in 4-6 total hours of exercise each week, I don't always get that much time.
Busy day? No problem. At lunchtime I'll run up and jog down the hill outside my office for 15 minutes.
No equipment? No problem. I'll just do high rep body weight squats and pushups for 20 minutes.
No change of clothes? No problem. I'll just do 10 pushups every hour throughout the day so I don't get sweaty.
Wife wants to spend quality time together during a scheduled workout? No problem, we'll go for a long fast-paced walk together.
Most of my workouts are done at the gym or at the local track. But if life presents a challenge, it's no problem. There's always something I can do to get a great workout.
Berardi: I've got a few, actually. First, every week, mix in some strength exercise, some high intensity interval exercise, and some lower intensity cardio exercise. If you prefer one type to the other, of course, do more of that. But make sure to get all three. The combination is what helps to boost strength and lean body mass, improve health, increase metabolism, and burn fat.
The second tip is to adopt a "no problem" attitude when it comes to exercise. I've been working out regularly for almost 25 years. And, while I like to put in 4-6 total hours of exercise each week, I don't always get that much time.
Busy day? No problem. At lunchtime I'll run up and jog down the hill outside my office for 15 minutes.
No equipment? No problem. I'll just do high rep body weight squats and pushups for 20 minutes.
No change of clothes? No problem. I'll just do 10 pushups every hour throughout the day so I don't get sweaty.
Wife wants to spend quality time together during a scheduled workout? No problem, we'll go for a long fast-paced walk together.
Most of my workouts are done at the gym or at the local track. But if life presents a challenge, it's no problem. There's always something I can do to get a great workout.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Monday, July 09, 2012
Electric Vehicles: market full of "spark"
2012-07-08 22:36 
Detroit - The US market for all-electric cars is charging up, with plug-in vehicles rolling off US dealer lots despite much higher costs, battery fire scares and falling fuel prices.
Plug-in cars racked up strong sales in the first six months of the year, car makers said, even with their tall sticker prices and lifetime operating costs up to $6 000 more than conventional fuel-run vehicles.
General Motors reported it sold more of its $39 000 Chevrolet Volts in the first six months than it did in all of last year, with 1 760 of the cars delivered to buyers in June.
Toyota said it has sold over 4 300 of its all-electric version of the popular Prius hybrid since it launched the model in March - even though the plug-in Prius costs, at the $32 000 base price, a third more than the cheapest hybrid Prius.
Sales of Nissan's $35 000 Leaf, one of the first to plumb American drivers' desire for plug-ins, eased slightly amid higher competition and a change in distribution strategy, but still hit more than 3 148 units. Read more.
Tesla Model S
Plug-in cars racked up strong sales in the first six months of the year, car makers said, even with their tall sticker prices and lifetime operating costs up to $6 000 more than conventional fuel-run vehicles.
General Motors reported it sold more of its $39 000 Chevrolet Volts in the first six months than it did in all of last year, with 1 760 of the cars delivered to buyers in June.
Toyota said it has sold over 4 300 of its all-electric version of the popular Prius hybrid since it launched the model in March - even though the plug-in Prius costs, at the $32 000 base price, a third more than the cheapest hybrid Prius.
Sales of Nissan's $35 000 Leaf, one of the first to plumb American drivers' desire for plug-ins, eased slightly amid higher competition and a change in distribution strategy, but still hit more than 3 148 units. Read more.
Material Gains: South African Cinema gets stitched up, in a good way, but where to from here?
by Nick van der Leek
“I get nervous when I hear that a new ‘South African’ movie is being made,” Cerebra’s CEO Mike Stopforth blogged recently. “[Y]ears of ‘Mr. Bones’ sequels have left me sceptical about the ability of the SA film industry to produce world class stories.” In this, Stopforth – a communications and social media strategist – echoes the feelings of the average South African moviegoer. But Material, the film directed by Craig Freimond, and produced and written by the multi-talented millionaire founder of Internet Solutions Ronnie Apteker, is different. “From the very first shot,” Stopforth enthuses, “the movie is sincere and absorbing in its attempt to tell an ancient story of the struggle between tradition, culture, religion and modernism.”
Johannesburg based journalist Laurice Taitz calls Material “the movie that made Barry Ronge cry” and “a local film with the potential to rival a Leon Schuster blockbuster at the box office.” In fact, while Material has been on circuit, its box office competitors included Courageous (rated 6.2/10 on the Internet Movie Database), The Lorax (6.6 on IMDB), Wrath of the Titans (6.6 on IMDB), This Means War (6.7/10), Semi-Soet – another South African film – (7.3/10) and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (7.5/10). With an astonishing 8.7/10 on IMDB (albeit from only a few hundred voters), Material is already trouncing its Hollywood rivals.
“When you shoot like this the big issue is data storage and data backup.” – Craig Freimond, Director
Barriers and Benefits
Above: The filmmakers credit Vincent Ebrahim’s (seated right) role in character development and his performance opposite Moosa as crucial to the success of Material.
“When you shoot like this the big issue is data storage and data backup.” – Craig Freimond, Director
A solid, authentic story is without doubt the critical ingredient in Freimond’s flick. “We took a very long time to get the script right,” Freimond says, “[and] we were adamant that we would not make the film if the script was not right. This is the biggest single problem with 99% of films that don't work... [once] the monies [are] in place, [and]the actors are in place etc,” Freimond warns, “people get impatient. But if the script is not right the film will not be right, simple as that.”
Inspired
According to Apteker, the “long time” Freimond refers to was all of 8 years. “Material has been an inspired affair... a journey... and the film turned out magical. Working with Craig, our director/writer partner, has been a great privilege – he is talented, focused, and humble. The rest of the team too was of this mould, which made things worthwhile. And of course, there is Riaad (Moosa, a qualified medical doctor and award-winning comedian) – that guy is just too good to be true!” The message behind Material, that the world will conspire to reward you if you follow what is in your heart, has obviously inspired Apteker and Moosa – both are living proof of this – and their team.
Describing the technology behind the filmmaking process, Freimond says, “The latest HD cameras are beautiful things, they give you the ease of shooting on digital while getting closer to the look of film. We shot on the Ari Alexa probably the best digital HD camera in the world. It takes 35 mm film camera lenses so you can really get that filmic look, and shoots on very high resolution.”
Echoeing Freimond’s camera love, Apteker praises the Hollywood specification ARRI digital camera, calling its image quality “extraordinary.” “Soon,” says Apteker, “all movies will be shot on digital.”
Below: On set, shooting Material in Fordsburg, Johannesburg.
Backup
According to Freimond his DOP (Director of Photography) Trevor Calverly also “loved this camera. It was much easier than its predecessor because it shot on digital cards as opposed to tapes. Film is always the ultimate in terms of look but it is pretty expensive because of all the developing and transfer costs. So I think we are almost there in terms of the digital/ film debate. More big movies are now being shot on HD that would have been shot on film. When you shoot like this the big issue is data storage and data backup.”
In modern movies, data backup is a vital but expensive process. “We have a guy called a DIT (Digital Image Technician) who literally spends all day managing data as you shoot; taking cards, backing them up and erasing them so you can shoot again on them. This is a crucial job in the same ways as a film loader used to be.” Freimond describes their editing suite – using Apple’s Final Cut Pro software – as “user friendly and pretty nifty.” Says Freimond, “[I]f you have the data storage facilities you can edit anywhere, even on a laptop. ...[But] one thing I do find interesting about technology is that it does not matter how user friendly and accessible technology gets you still need the content and that is still as hard as ever to get right.”
Barriers and Benefits
Coming back to Fordsburg, Material’s urban setting within Johannesburg, producer and writer Ronnie Apteker weighs in on the power of the internet to streamline the filmmaking process. “Technology played a very big role on the Material shoot and edit, as well as in the research and scripting. For starters,” says Apteker, “we could email drafts and notes of the script between Riaad in Cape Town, Vincent (Ebrahim, who plays a domineering father to Riaad Moosa’s Cassim) in London, and Craig and I in Johannesburg, at the click of a mouse. A decade ago the norm was to courier these things around, which takes time, and costs money.”
Apteker believes “ barriers to entry are definitely coming down because of all this digital technology – anyone can make a film with even the smallest amount of money … but, that doesn’t mean it will be a good film – the script, the actors, the director, the music, etc., all need to be great !”
Above: Oscar-winning SA director Gavin Hood directing Hugh Jackman in Wolverine.
While the main benefit technology seems to have brought to filmmaking is lower cost, what has not changed is what South Africa’s Oscar winning director, Gavin Hood (Tsotsi, Rendition, Wolverine) calls “the universal language of emotion.” Capturing this in a story takes time. While cameras may be better at capturing imagined scenes, the effort of conjuring up authentic stories is still a painstaking one. Freimond offers a useful tip in this regard: “I think what I've learnt from this is you have to take as many people along with you as possible in terms of accessibility of story.”
“Anyone can make a film with even the smallest amount of money.” – Ronnie Apteker, Writer and Producer
“I totally believe we are on the right track,” says Apteker. “The industry is growing every year, there are great government incentives for films, we are making a greater diversity of film and hopefully we are all getting better at what we do.”
Going forward, Apteker is looking to release Material “in a mainstream country, like the UK, or France, or India. If we achieve that, then we have pushed the envelope – the last time a South African film did this was back in 1980 with The Gods Must be Crazy. Ultimately,” Apteker concludes,” film making is a serious team effort, and the team was a dream team – like the team at IS – this bunch of people in Material were totally aligned, inspired, committed, and humble. That is what made all the difference.”
Top 5 International Hits filmed in South Africa
1. District 9 (2009)
Directed by Neill Blomkamp
Budget $30 million (Gross $115 million)
IMDB rating: 8.1/10
2. Blood Diamond (2006)
Directed by Edward Zwick
Budget $100 million
IMDB Rating: 8/10
3. Invictus (2009)
Directed by Clint Eastwood
Budget $60 million (USA gross: $37 million)
IMDB Rating: 7.3/10
4. Safe House
Directed by Daniel Espinosa
Budget $85 million (Gross $122 million)
IMDB Rating 7.3/10
5. Sarafina
Directed by Darrell Roodt
Gross $7.3 million (Budget unknown)
IMDB Rating: 5.7/10
Top 5 Misses
1. Footskating 101 (2007) 3.4/10
2. Mr. Bones (2001) 3.7/10
3. Mr Bones 2 (2008) 3.8/10
4. Hansie (2008) 4.4/10
5. Night Drive (2010) 4.4/10
South Africa’s 10 highest rated films made since 1992
1.Eternal Enemies (1992 Documentary Series)
Produced and written by Dereck and Beverley Joubert for National Geographic
Viewership: 1 Billion
IMDB Rating: 9.3/10
2.Material (2012)
Directed by Craig Freimond
Budget $2 million
IMDB Rating: 8.7/10
3.Jerusalema (2008)
Directed by Ralph Ziman
IMDB Rating: 7.5/10
4.Tsotsi (2005)
Directed by Gavin Hood
IMDB Rating: 7.3/10
Budget: $3 million (Gross: $9.8 million)
Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film
5.Stander (2003)
Directed by Bronwyn Hughes
IMDB Rating: 7.3/10
6.Gums and Noses (2004)
Directed by Craig Freimond
Budget: R1.2 million
IMDB Rating: 7.2/10
7.Skeem (2011)
Directed by Tim Greene
Budget: R2.8 million
IMDB Rating: 6.6/10
8.Disgrace (2008)
Directed by Steve Jacobs
Budget: $10 million
IMDB Rating: 6.6/10
9.Spud (2010)
Directed by Donovan Marsh
Budget: $4 million
IMDB Rating: 6.3/10
10.Faith Like Potatoes (2006)
Directed by Regardt van den Bergh
IMDB Rating: 6.3/10
Saturday, July 07, 2012
Diary of a Sub 40 10K #7
Fortunately the injury seemed to have settled down slightly, so I was even able to run on Sunday, which I took very easily, so did Craig. In order to make up for my poor show I thought I'd do another hard run on Tuesday evening, as part of an Adidas sponsored series of night runs. I started fairly well, avaeraging just over 5 min/km but through Gascony my legs blew up and at around 4km I stopped, limping, my left calf feeling like someone had knifed it. Somehow I was able to run again, and managed to finish the last 3km at a steady pace. But I've been limping since then and haven't run since then either.
I have been to the phsyio to have the calf and some of my movement assessed. After having a pretty painful rub down, and a few needles literally stuck into the muscle, it's feeling a bit better today. The assessment was less rosy, with the physio informing me that my glutes (bum muscle) are "weak and lack endurance". Yep, I got that on the trail run. I've since bought a stretchy rubber material to do some specific exercise to strengthen the glutes, and then there are two more exercises that are supposed to improve my form as well.
I reckon I'll be strong enough for a very easy run tomorrow morning.
Here are some graphs and stats in no particular order.
Friday, July 06, 2012
There and back again – how to go back to where we come from
by Nick van der Leek
We are not alone. For some this is a good thing. For others, it’s sheer terror. In line with the latter the recent Nando’s Diversity ad shows all of South Africa’s foreigners disappearing in puffs of what looks like pastry flour. There’s another way to send foreigners home. Just turn back time. I’m not talking about flowers folding up, curling into green tendrils and sinking into the Earth. No, faster than that! Imagine if you could get the clocks whirring backwards like propellers, so that for a few seconds we can see tar roads curling back on themselves (wait, they’re already doing that), or South Africans flooding back into London (oh no, we’ve been seeing that too) ... If we rewind even faster – think 4 seasons in 4 seconds, perhaps we’ll see some real results.
Right, ignore the flicker of a thousand sunrises and sets, there’s Johannesburg, shrinking like so many mustard colored mushrooms, growing backwards into the ground. Concrete structures fumbling inwards, bricks unmaking houses. That black strip of tar with so many moving dots gets fewer and fewer dots until there’s no longer a black ribbon but a brown one. And then it’s gone. Now wagons are racing around backwards with so many backwards galloping oxen. Zulus are running amok, their spears zapping backwards from foes back into their hands. Ships are sailing to and froe but mostly back to Europe. Now even the Zulus are running backwards through Africa towards the equator. Stars and clouds spin, the summer and winter fabric around the world dances between green and grey. A blanket of ice jumps back and forth.
Speed up time even more, and the continents themselves seem to become unstuck and start shifting around. North and South America, holding hands, surfs across the Atlantic, the Antarctic swivels off its southerly perch and grows progressively dark and green and my, my, it’s quite a rich, mountainous continent. Australia starts staggering towards us too, and India races south. Here’s the weird thing. A lot of these continents seem to be heading to Africa. The only continent that seems more or less locked in place is Africa. Let’s stop here.
A closer look, between the herds of Bison and an island covered in Dodo’s, reveals a few people slowly but surely finding their way back into Africa. The swarms of the 21st century though have dwindled to a mere trickle of hunter gatherers eeking it out in vast mantle of sand; an African desert. There’s something faintly familiar about them – the trace of Asian eyes, the sparkle of ironic humour in their smile, their oh so African penchant for music and dance. There’s hardly anyone left when we find the lot of us whittled down to ten thousand, heading to present day Johannesburg, but obviously not a Montecasino, a minedump or metal of any kind in sight. Most of these few members of the human race clinging to life are living inside and around a series of caves in a place known today as Maropeng. It’s also called the Cradle of Mankind. It looks pretty cold out there, but I suppose those caves provide decent protection. But damn, if we all go back to where we come from we end up where we started, together. In a cave. Going stir crazy.
Now imagine if inside those caves we happened to find our great, great, great (multiplied by the unknown ‘x’) grandfather, who is painting a rather peculiar image. It looks like an alien pointing to the stars. One person might say the alien’s saying, “Come and check this out once you’ve learned math and graduated fossil fuels.” Another interpretation might be, “Shit happens everywhere. Stay where you are and grow chickens.”
If we leap backwards from here it gets even worse. We start to see the continents congeal and birds and mammals change into lizards, then crawl back into the sea (although tortoises can’t seem to make up their minds where to come out or go back) and eventually every living thing reduced to what looks like large turds (also known as stromatolites) growing in seawater. For 3 billion years nothing goes on anywhere. Oh wait, stop, what’s that? It’s fuzzy but it looks like it could be an alien – who seems to consider himself a galactic gardener – and has come down to our God-forsaken planet and tossed some DNA fertiliser into a waterfall. And then, going forward, the stromatolites have started shapeshifting into amoebas, brachiopods, trilobites, worms, and - you get the picture.
It feels like, from here, the answer is to go forwards, so we’ll use hyperspace to get back to the world as it is, and then hit fast forward. Seems like a lot of spaceships built by a South African chap, Elon Musk, are flying off to Mars, and checking the topsoil...and before you know it a Bloemfontein-sized city has formed in Gale Crater on the red planet. More ships are whizzing to various moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Finally one errant rocket ship (looks like it’s called Pretorius, but it could also be Polokwane) has landed on a rock somewhere further out in space.
The astronauts seem to think they’ll find the answers here to where we all came from. And they do. They find their way into an underground chamber and wake up a large gentlemen(he’s white, very white), and their humanoid robot introduces them. “Hi, these bozos reckon you’re God, and they’ve come to say nice to meet you and want some answers, and whatever else you can give them. “ The still half asleep and obviously grumpy alien, (who might also be God), rips off the humanoids head, smashes around the earthlings and yells (I think): “Go back to where you came from.” So there you have it. Forwards, backwards – you can’t keep anyone happy. Maybe those stromatolites were onto something after all.
We are not alone. For some this is a good thing. For others, it’s sheer terror. In line with the latter the recent Nando’s Diversity ad shows all of South Africa’s foreigners disappearing in puffs of what looks like pastry flour. There’s another way to send foreigners home. Just turn back time. I’m not talking about flowers folding up, curling into green tendrils and sinking into the Earth. No, faster than that! Imagine if you could get the clocks whirring backwards like propellers, so that for a few seconds we can see tar roads curling back on themselves (wait, they’re already doing that), or South Africans flooding back into London (oh no, we’ve been seeing that too) ... If we rewind even faster – think 4 seasons in 4 seconds, perhaps we’ll see some real results.
Right, ignore the flicker of a thousand sunrises and sets, there’s Johannesburg, shrinking like so many mustard colored mushrooms, growing backwards into the ground. Concrete structures fumbling inwards, bricks unmaking houses. That black strip of tar with so many moving dots gets fewer and fewer dots until there’s no longer a black ribbon but a brown one. And then it’s gone. Now wagons are racing around backwards with so many backwards galloping oxen. Zulus are running amok, their spears zapping backwards from foes back into their hands. Ships are sailing to and froe but mostly back to Europe. Now even the Zulus are running backwards through Africa towards the equator. Stars and clouds spin, the summer and winter fabric around the world dances between green and grey. A blanket of ice jumps back and forth.
Speed up time even more, and the continents themselves seem to become unstuck and start shifting around. North and South America, holding hands, surfs across the Atlantic, the Antarctic swivels off its southerly perch and grows progressively dark and green and my, my, it’s quite a rich, mountainous continent. Australia starts staggering towards us too, and India races south. Here’s the weird thing. A lot of these continents seem to be heading to Africa. The only continent that seems more or less locked in place is Africa. Let’s stop here.
A closer look, between the herds of Bison and an island covered in Dodo’s, reveals a few people slowly but surely finding their way back into Africa. The swarms of the 21st century though have dwindled to a mere trickle of hunter gatherers eeking it out in vast mantle of sand; an African desert. There’s something faintly familiar about them – the trace of Asian eyes, the sparkle of ironic humour in their smile, their oh so African penchant for music and dance. There’s hardly anyone left when we find the lot of us whittled down to ten thousand, heading to present day Johannesburg, but obviously not a Montecasino, a minedump or metal of any kind in sight. Most of these few members of the human race clinging to life are living inside and around a series of caves in a place known today as Maropeng. It’s also called the Cradle of Mankind. It looks pretty cold out there, but I suppose those caves provide decent protection. But damn, if we all go back to where we come from we end up where we started, together. In a cave. Going stir crazy.
Now imagine if inside those caves we happened to find our great, great, great (multiplied by the unknown ‘x’) grandfather, who is painting a rather peculiar image. It looks like an alien pointing to the stars. One person might say the alien’s saying, “Come and check this out once you’ve learned math and graduated fossil fuels.” Another interpretation might be, “Shit happens everywhere. Stay where you are and grow chickens.”
If we leap backwards from here it gets even worse. We start to see the continents congeal and birds and mammals change into lizards, then crawl back into the sea (although tortoises can’t seem to make up their minds where to come out or go back) and eventually every living thing reduced to what looks like large turds (also known as stromatolites) growing in seawater. For 3 billion years nothing goes on anywhere. Oh wait, stop, what’s that? It’s fuzzy but it looks like it could be an alien – who seems to consider himself a galactic gardener – and has come down to our God-forsaken planet and tossed some DNA fertiliser into a waterfall. And then, going forward, the stromatolites have started shapeshifting into amoebas, brachiopods, trilobites, worms, and - you get the picture.
It feels like, from here, the answer is to go forwards, so we’ll use hyperspace to get back to the world as it is, and then hit fast forward. Seems like a lot of spaceships built by a South African chap, Elon Musk, are flying off to Mars, and checking the topsoil...and before you know it a Bloemfontein-sized city has formed in Gale Crater on the red planet. More ships are whizzing to various moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Finally one errant rocket ship (looks like it’s called Pretorius, but it could also be Polokwane) has landed on a rock somewhere further out in space.
The astronauts seem to think they’ll find the answers here to where we all came from. And they do. They find their way into an underground chamber and wake up a large gentlemen(he’s white, very white), and their humanoid robot introduces them. “Hi, these bozos reckon you’re God, and they’ve come to say nice to meet you and want some answers, and whatever else you can give them. “ The still half asleep and obviously grumpy alien, (who might also be God), rips off the humanoids head, smashes around the earthlings and yells (I think): “Go back to where you came from.” So there you have it. Forwards, backwards – you can’t keep anyone happy. Maybe those stromatolites were onto something after all.
Thursday, July 05, 2012
Wednesday, July 04, 2012
Bagger Vance: Put your eyes on Bobby Jones...
Bagger Vance: Put your eyes on Bobby Jones... Look at his practice swing, almost like he's searchin for something... Then he finds it... Watch how he settle hisself right into th emiddle of it, feel that focus... He got a lot of shots he could choose from... Duffs and tops and skulls, there's only ONE shot that's in perfect harmony with the feild... One shot that's his, authentic shot, and that shot is gonna choose him... There's a perfect shot out there tryin' to find each and every one of us... All we got to do is get ourselves out of its way, to let it choose us... Can't see that flag as some dragon you got to slay... You got to look with soft eyes... See the place where the tides and the seasons and the turnin' of the Earth, all come together... where everything that is, becomes one... You got to seek that place with your soul Junuh... Seek it with your hands don't think about it... Feel it... Your hands is wiser than your head ever gonna be... Now I can't take you there Junuh... Just hopes I can help you find a way... Just you... that ball... that flag... and all you are...
Tuesday, July 03, 2012
Monday, July 02, 2012
Nick van der Leek CV
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Nick van der Leek Photo of applicant→
084 411 44 91
Writer/Photographer
· Interesting fact #1: Over 50 narratives published including four #1 Amazon bestsellers
· Interesting fact #2: Offered a publishing contract from a US-based publisher for Bloodline, a dystopian epic. Due out in 2017.
· Interesting fact #3: In May 2017 DOUBT [covering the Madeleine McCann mystery] went to #2 on Amazon UK's true crime charts.
· Writing has been published in the following newspapers: Sowetan, City Press, Sunday Times, Sunday Independent, Saturday Argus, Cape Times, Weekend Post, Free State Times and Rapport
· Magazines featuring my photojournalism: GQ, Travel Ideas, Ironman Magazine, Tour de France magazine, Bicycling [UK], Sawubona, Afropolitan, Finweek, True Love, Bicycling, Shape, Car, Getaway, go!, Country Life, Leisure Wheels, TriathleteSA, AbouTime, Financial Mail, Brainstorm
· Websites with my content: Shakedowntitle.com, Moneyweb, Gotravel24, Channel24, CountryLife.co.za. Ohmynews International, Reporter.co.za
Current Experience and Capacity
1) Currently working on a freelance basis, with regular work appearing in Country Life, Car and AboutTime. Recent commissions include work for Blue Train magazine and GQ.
2) Clients in 2011/2012 include Harmony Gold Mine, the Free State Provincial Government (Premiere’s office), Mercedes Benz, SKA (Square Kilometre Array), The Blue Train, Specialized etc.
3) Interviews with Morgan Freeman, Gavin Hood (director of Wolverine), Professor Tim Noakes, and numerous world class sportsmen and women, leaders in business etc.
4) My blog, www.nickvanderleek.com has been rated one of the top 20 News & Politics blogs in South Africa (although not necessarily a News or Politics blog). Currently the site averages over 600 page impressions a day, and totaling more than 910 000 page impressions.
5) I personally have over 13 700 followers on Twitter (@shoot_hirezlife, and almost 1500 on Facebook.
6) Press Tour May 2017 – Visit to Mauritius at the behest of Mauritius Tourism.
Experience
A) Full time author with over 50 narratives published on Amazon between 2014 and 2017.
B) 2 years working for AVUSA media as a communications specialist across multiple platforms (Sowetan, Sunday World, Times). Editing, content management and statistical analysis were implicit in the role, along with a certain amount of content creation (writing, photography, slideshows, photo editing). – June 2007 – September 2009
B) 2 years working for AVUSA media as a communications specialist across multiple platforms (Sowetan, Sunday World, Times). Editing, content management and statistical analysis were implicit in the role, along with a certain amount of content creation (writing, photography, slideshows, photo editing). – June 2007 – September 2009
C) June 2007: Photo Exhibition in Bloemfontein
D) Worked for 6 months at Brebner High School teaching Economics and Business Management to grade 10 and 11’s, then worked a further 6 months as Data Team Lead for a pharmaceutical firm (Quintiles, Bloemfontein branch) May 2006 – May 2007
E) 4 Years teaching ESL (English as a Second Language) at Kang’s Language School in Ilsan South Korea (January 2002 – November 2005)
Qualifications
· B.Economics degree but also a B.Sc (3 years) and Law (1 Year)
· English (up to 3rd year level)
· Integrated Marketing Communication Diploma (Postgraduate) from AAA School of Advertising (Cape Town), specializing in Brand Management.
· Excellent English acumen (contact Dr. Susan Brokensha at the Free State University for a reference: 0829241282, or Dr Ruth Ulyatt 0834514270)
Personal Philosophy
Anything is possible.
Restrospective:
1) 2000/2001 Earned Degree in Economics, postgraduate diploma in Integrated Marketing Communications at AAA Advertising School and completed an Internship at The Jupiter Drawing Room Cape Town.
2) 1991-2000 Studies at the UFS including B-Iuris and a B.Sc in Quantity Surveying. Also traveled for 2 years to the United Kingdom where I worked for asset management companies like Hargreaves Lansdowne, and in insurance (AXXA Sunlife).
3) 1990 South African Air Force: Mobile Communications Unit – taught radio and digital communications, licensed to drive several military vehicles and also put on a typing course.
4) Matriculated at Grey College Secondary School with Full University Exemption.
5) Free State Provincial Colors in swimming, biathlon, triathlon and soccer.
References:
1) Dr. Susan Brokensha, Department of English, tel: 082 924 1282
2) Ms. Jenny Lake, Editor at the UFS, tel: 083 265 2654 or email: jennylake@fastmail.fm
3) Ms. Louise McAuliffe at AVUSA; supervisor 083 444 2500
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...stomping out of the theatre angry, wondering why none of these movies can get it right. Incoherent.
A masterpiece from the master himself. Best movie of 2012 so far. My sympathies to those who don't 'get it'.
It's garbage.
This isnt trying to be better than Alien its a thing on its own so haters gon' Hate. Seriously dumb people.
Utterly atrocious. The story is laughable, the character development is non-existent, the pseudo-science claptrap is intolerable. A hateful pastiche of the Alien films with other elements stolen from any recent sci fi you can think of. The dialogue is cringe-worthy in the extreme - just embarrassing. There is exposition delivered at every possible opportunity.
it was amazing and the sequel could quite possibly be even better.
Hated it.
I know the expression "on the edge of my seat" is a cliche, but this is the first time since Se7en came out that I've been tense and uncomfortable, but in a good way, throughout the entirety of a movie. With the possible exception of Chronicle, this is the coolest sci-fi movie I've seen in years, and the H.R. Giger visual style, combined with the fact that a lot is left unanswered, lets the viewer develop real curiosity about everything that happens. While still scaring your @$$ off, of course.
After two and a half hours, I still didnt really have any emotional attachment to any of the characters. Actually, it lacked many of the emotional elements that I was looking for in this film. I didnt get scared, I didnt feel sadness, I didnt feel happiness, and I didnt really get grossed out either.
It does raise questions....but in the end its up to you to make the answers. thats what FILMS do.
What a waste.
Intelligent movie. Not another bug hunt - thank God.
This movie reminds me of people who only look at the pictures of Playboy magazine, forgetting to read the very informative articles. Hollywood mocks us!
I was engrossed from beginning to end. Beautiful cinematography and storytelling.
Unfourtunately, after it's first hour, the film grows tiresome and relentless and then, through the final sequences, when it needs to be electric and filled with adrenaline, it instead boring and non-climactic.
This was really good.
Alien prequel or not, this is one of the better movies of the year. It's been 30 years since his last sci-fic movie Blade Runner (still my favorite), and Ridley Scott proves he is a master at creating a believable world that you could live in with his visuals. It's hauntingly beautiful and scary as hell and will absolutely spark discussions about its meaning. As for Michael Fassbender, is it too early to consider him for an Oscar nomination?
That low hum is the sound of Ridley Scott coasting.
Delivers not because it harkens back to previous films, but because it slows down to tell a story.
No way is this a great movie. Sure the effects and visuals are stunning, but the movie drags and nothing really ever becomes of anything from beginning to end. Space man come... Space man go... Monster created. And in the end a suicide mission for the Prometheus ship and crew? What a big disappointment. Too much existential mumbo jumbo.
Great script, acting, lavish production. Loved the back story created for the Alien universe, in what is a superb reboot of a franchise.
A good script is vital to good film-making, whether its complex or simple, and this film just doesn't have it.
Expected more. Yuck
It was so epic...and yet it wasn't.... it feels more like an old man's philosophical diatribe than an Alien movie.
I was really impressed.... especially since I felt the most compassion for my least favorite actor in the film!
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/prometheus-20120607#ixzz20w4dHEcz