An explosive waste of time...

Akmal says:

I just got back from watching Transformers 3.

I wasn't prepared for what I realized later was a failure of cinema. Priming myself with low expectations and hoping to enjoy a little mindless robot on robot beating did not prevent Michael Bay from disappointing me. Now don't get me wrong, the special effects, the robots and the cars were really cool, but I just couldn't ignore how haphazard this film seemed to be.

A friend described the film as a "collection of cut scenes" and I do have to agree. Michael Bay seems to enjoy ignoring time lines and have everything happen all at once, keeping the viewer from knowing what is going on or whether what they're seeing even matters. Whole chunks of this film could be thrown out and the plot wouldn't change.

Even the final battle scene, which I had patiently sat through the beginning drivel for, was disappointing. The battle consisted of a constant dance of the good guys and bad guys getting the upper-hand against each other. During this mess I could not tell what the characters were trying to do and it seemed like there was just a whole lot of aimless running and shooting around, all while Shia Labeouf screamed his over-acting head off.

The only way to describe Transformers 3 is that it seems like Michael Bay took the plot and put it in a blender, and then randomly spread the gooey mess around 2 and 1/2 hours of film time.

Save your money people.

Praising the frying pan, not the chef...

Akmal says:

I've just realized something.

The iPhone and iPad are awesome devices, but people give Apple too much credit for that awesomeness, because these are not original concepts. Tablet PCs, PDAs; touch screen mobile technology has been around since 1994. No, what makes these things awesome is apps. And for that we have to give credit to the app developers, not Apple. Would you praise Gibson or Fender (guitar manufacturers) for the music Eric Clapton has played over the years? (right now he uses a custom Martin guitar but I digress).

It's not only the Apple fans, I feel like it's always "look what my phone/tablet etc. can do!" rather than "look at this app this guy made!". Most phones, tablets can be compared to each other technology and price wise, but it's the software they use that makes them useful.

I feel Apple product users tend to do this more often than others, but for that you probably have to thank Apple's clever marketing strategies. But what product you use may not really matter. There are usually a few competing products with similar capabilities. Whether it is the iPhone vs. Android, iPad vs. HP's touchbook etc. there are talented programmers and designers out there who bust their asses off making awesome programs and, as evidenced by Rovio's delightfully addictive Angry Birds, the hardware does not make too much of a difference (you can even play it on your Google Chrome browser.) Programmers always seem to be able to code their way around hardware limitations to make electronics more useful than they are.

So the next time you download that "cool new app" everyone is talking about, take a moment and pry your lips off of Steve Jobs' butt cheeks (yes, I have a bias towards non-apple products) to appreciate the code-monkeys who made it.

Well, at least they make us think they're busting their asses off. (image:xkcd.com)