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Superbowl XXXVII
So, if you're a good, patriotic American, you're certainly watching the Superbowl right about now. The dot-com ads should be pretty much absent this year, but perhaps there will be something more interesting than ads for recycled movies. Maybe even the game will be worth watching. :) Update: 01/27 17:02 GMT by T : Chardish writes "If you didn't catch the trailer for The Matrix: Reloaded on the Superbowl last night, it's now available for download."
...since when does watching the Super Bowl count as a patriotic activity? I thought it was just a game, a football game. I didn't hear Bush tell me to watch the game, I didn't see the U.N. pass a resolution, and I didn't hear an "Axis of Evil" tag attached to it.
...just a game, folks.
Tone down the crazyness, things that have been a part of American culture do not necessarily mean they are thru-and-thru patriotic.
SecondPageMedia - Wha
But what in the world is this doing on Slashdot? This is "News for Nerds," folks. I see more than enough Super Bowl coverage on CNN, MSNBC, and all the other commercial news sites.
The coolest voice ever.
If you don't believe me, check how much 10 seconds of superbowl publicity cost.
The Raven
Remember when this was "news for nerds, stuff that matters"? When we had an interesting and even compelling mix of science and technology news that we might not see elsewhere?
Recently we've had "SOHO", "Crop circles", and now this. All "posted by Michael", BTW. What next? "What happened on the last episode of 'Friends'"? "Crossing over, with Michael"? "Psychic hotlines - how they've helped me"? "Methods for selecting lottery numbers"? "Best use for that old washing machine in the back yard and the car up on blocks"? "Naming my 6th child - Lerleen, Billy-bob, Sue-anne or Scout"?
Anyway, it's lucky Michael told me about the Superbowl, I might not have heard about it otherwise. Sigh.
Anyway, nobody's forcing you to watch it all. Just work out when it starts and do something else the rest of the time.
BTW, Eric Idle is on Channel Five's coverage for some reason.
I happen to like (American)football. I'm not a jock per se, but I do play sports.
Christ, can we get a clue in here?
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
God forbid someone like football AND computers. Oh wait, I use linux therefore I must comply to all of the geek stereotypes. I guess I had better apologize for showering, knowing how to dress myself, not giggling like a retard if a female looks in my direction, and not eating a constant stream of pizza and doritos.
Geeks like to think they are so open minded and forward thinking. The reality is you will be hard pressed to find a more closed-minded group of people if you tried.
- Toby
Anyone else get that impression?
I only watched the half-time stuff, then turned back to Fear Factor.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
Didn't you guys see the NFL ad informing its 'licensees' (viewers) that the Superbowl is licensed for their own private use, and any descriptions, analysis, excerpts, pictures, etc. are stictly prohibited?
Seriously though, isn't there a law against providing inaccurate legal advice? I mean, they can't wish away Fair Use (in analog anyhow, but I digress) but they sure represent that it's illegal.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I had the same feeling a few years earlier watching the Brits go after Argentina when the military junta took the Falklands. Seemed kinda like a harmless game of capture the flag. Gooooo UK!
And then Argentina scored big against a British destroyer and people died who probably didn't need to, good cause or not.
If you are that gung-ho about another Iraqi war, then get your ass down to a recruiting station right the fuck now. With 8 weeks Basic + 8 weeks 11B training you might just finish in time to see this war up close and personal.
As for me, I've done time in Uncle Sam's Army. I've got friends in theater. Trust me, it ain't no national football game.
FreeSpeech.org
"I do not need to fight nor to die to "do" what I believe in."
Only because you live someplace where somebody did all the dirty work for you.
Using the example of Iraq you brought up earlier, the mere act of pissing and moaning about the actions of the local government (which you seem fond of) would get you thrown into a special prison built just for people like you. They may eventually let you out if it becomes politically expedient, but not until after they've had a chance to use you to discover new and interesting ways of causing pain (a favorite hobby of Uday's, I hear).
But, no, here you're perfectly allowed to wish death on people you don't even know while attempting to put on airs of intellectual superiority. You have the constitutionally gauranteed right to make a total fool of yourself.
"Think about that one..."
If you don't want to do anything at all, most communist regimes have ways of convincing you to put away your selfish attitudes and get to work on the collectivized farms. A worker's paradise has no room for non-workers.
I don't know what he meant, but it looks to me like they're doing stuff for the hell of it now, kinda like the prequels.
The first movie had creative shots that looked cool, and they came up with a brilliant, cheap way to get them. Now they're doing fucked-up shit for the sole reason of making the effects so overblown and expensive that nobody can reproduce them. Crazy-flips with guns: good. Agent Smith buckling the front-end of a speeding car into the ground as if he weighed about 6 tons: bad. I liked the first movie because they kept the CGI unobtrusive. Now they've got Neo with this pole thing flipping around like a rubber doll tied to a power drill. I'm hoping that's just going to be an effect of the TV, or an unfinished shot they spit out for the ad, but I was hoping that with Spiderman too. (the rest was pretty good though, I'll admit, that and the flying thing were the only two that looked generated, and I don't know how you make flying look realistic anyway.)
I'm getting pissed off about CGI these days. I watch Jurassic Park and the CG effects are better than Spiderman. They're better than SW2, they're better than the fucking Hulk by about a century. How the hell did they get dinosaurs to work fabulously, but Titanic can manage to make a frikkin' flat piece of metal look computerized for about 4 times the budget? I'm thinking that a lot of the stuff recently is just about trying to computer-generate people, and that I'm a lot less forgiving about wierdness in familiar objects, but if that's the case then they shouldn't be doing it when it's unecessary.
Maybe, no, definately I'm a little too critical here, but I'm sure there's other people out there who are irritated when they can tell it's CGI. CG lets directors do basically anything, and it only looks a little off, but I'm still waiting for either myself to get used to it, the technology to get better, or the directors to get over the coolness and use it a little less liberally.
Alright, I'm done, feel free to point out the errors of my angst.
I have served in the armed forces. I fly a flag for July 4th. I love Mom's apple pie. My children are scouts.
I do not enjoy football. I think your statement about patriotism is misplaced.
Patriotism is voting not only on big election days, but on primarys as well.
Patriotism is not littering.
Patriotism is volunteering for Habitat for Humanity.
Lots of things are patriotic, football is just a professional sport, like many other professional sports, It does not show Love of country; devotion to the welfare of one's country; the virtues and actions of a patriot; the passion which inspires one to serve one's country.
Get a free ipod.
Thanks fenix down, that's exactly how I feel too. If a movie is an anime or cartoon, then I accept that it's gonna be all animation. If a movie is based in reality, I expect to be able to escape into it. With all this CGI, you can't escape into it because you know the scenes could never have happened in the first place. But today's generation just doesn't seem to give a fuck.
:)
Glad to know I'm not the only one who thinks this. Hollywood has gone too fucking far. Less is more, dumbasses. Jurassic Park got it right, so did Forrest Gump and of course Blade Runner and Aliens. CGI complemented their stories. Now I'm looking at The Hulk teaser and it's been too fucked up by computers to enjoy. Bill Bixby is already rolling in his grave. George Lucas is the ultimate lazy filmmaker. Noone cares if you use state-of-the-art visual effects to make those shots! In five years, CGI may be advanced enough to convince an audience without a doubt that a generated object looks real. Then everyone will be laughing at your retarded Yoda fight.
In a documentary on the making of Gangs of New York, Lucas said to Martin Scorcese on the set, "You know, you can generate all this with CG now." Thankfully Scorcese didn't agree with him.
The Matrix teaser was great; the one they released in Japan was fantastic. This commercial killed my expectations by 3/4. The scene with an Agent crushing a car on a highway, that looked stupid and unbelievable even if the storyboard called for it. I can live with it as long as it's only one of a few.
</rant>
My hopes are down but I'll still see it anyway.
At least there is a growing sentiment against these things. Most recently, FOX News, AdAge, and college papers came to the rescue. What a waste of $4 million. One of the people in AdAge points out the irony of this running at the same time as so many pro-drinking ads.