Recently my girlfriend and I planned a trip to our nations capital. I was very excited to walk around the Mall and see the monuments and beautiful buildings. But as we were traveling toward DC on the Metro a funny thing happened. I started to think of Fallout 3 and all of the wonderful hours spent running through the digital version of those very subway tunnels. I started to get excited in a very different way. I was about to explore the Capital Wasteland in real life, but, you know, pre-nucular destruction (let’s hope that never actually happens).

My giddy nerdom really sank in upon reaching the L’Enfant Plaza Metro Station. Spending many hours sneaking through the massive hub while exploring the Wasteland, I couldn’t contain my excitement that it was actually real. I’m pretty sure my girlfriend discovered I was nuts as I tried to explain why I was intently studying the Metro map trying to find the ‘Presidential Metro’ (which doesn’t exist, at least not on public maps). When we reached our destination, Federal Station SW near the Capitol Complex, I had to take a picture. The arches were just as I had remembered it. I was slightly in awe of the detail that Bethesda put into the game but was more in awe that I was actually in the place I had spent so many hours. It was a very cool feeling.

As we took the escalator toward the surface, I half expected to see gore bags hanging from ceilings and stumble upon a group of Super Mutants. Obviously that didn’t happen and while exploring the beauty that is the actual Capitol Complex my dreams of seeing the Wasteland quickly disappeared, but it didn’t mean I quit looking. As we walked into the Museum of Natural History I was looking for the Underworld exhibit while my girlfriend looked for talking army men. Upon entering the small Lincoln Memorial visitors room at the bottom of the steps I was looking to take out the head Slaver while my girlfriend was looking for the bathroom.

In the some twenty years I’ve been playing games, I’ve never played one quite like Fallout 3. It was so immersive and so completely — and accurately — detailed, that visiting Washington DC invoked memories of actually having been there before, although in a slightly different manner. It was a very strange but satisfying feeling. Upon returning home I had to fire up the 360 and return to the Wasteland just to roam the deserted Mall and Capitol Building one more time. Considering my experience in DC, I can’t wait to again give myself to Bethesda and their immersive world of New Vegas.

I now want to play Sim City 2000 again...

A few years later my family got our first computer connected to the Internet. But instead of AOL, we went with a local provider that took us straight to the web without having to jump through any third party’s hoops. I had complete access to the information of the world without the need for silly keywords and could pull up anything that a 56kbps modem would allow. I was living the high life.

With this new found freedom came the desire to claim my own piece of cyber real estate. This desire grew until a Geocities account was procured and HTML became a second language. At this point I became able to bend the Internet to my very whim and developed a sense that the Internet was created to be used in any way I saw fit. The Internet was mine for the taking and no one could tell me how I was to use it.

But as the Internet continued to develop a funny thing happened, it became social. I can’t put my finger on when exactly this pivotal moment occurred, but I do remember being a junior in college when a little website sprung up that was only accessible by people with college email addresses and even then only to a small group of schools across the country. That’s right, I was on Facebook before Facebook was cool.

Facebook was this new and wondrous place where I could connect with friends as close as the room next door and as far as the other side of the country. I could interact with them, share pictures and even poke them if I felt so inclined — though I still have no idea what the purpose of poking really is. It was like the opening of the wild west for the digital age.

As Facebook grew and expanded so did the social web. Comment boxes showed up on everyone’s blog and even some mainstream websites. Message boards become more active and, at times, heated. The web became something demanding interaction and I dove in head first. The Internet became, and still is, all about bringing people together.

But in this new social web something was lost, at least initially. The glory days of bending the Internet to my whim was lost to writing on friends walls and commenting on their blogs. I became stuck in this construct of using the Internet the way it was presented to me. It was ten years ago looking at AOLs gateway access and keywords all over again. I was being tied down and I didn’t even realize it. That was until I started using the star.

I first saw the star on Twitter some two years ago. It was this funny thing that sat next to every post waiting for me to click it. There was a list of “Favorites” that corresponded with the star but no instruction or explanation was given. The star could be anything I wanted it to be. I started staring posts that were funny, overly pointed, or that I agreed with spot on so that I could return to them whenever I desired. The star was the start of my social web awaking.

@ebertchicago

Before long I started using Google Reader to manage my extensive RSS collection and it too had a star feature. Instead of “Favorites,” Google collected the stars as “Stared Items” and again came with no explanation. So I used it in much the same way, collecting stuff I might want to read again or things that I didn’t have time to read while going through all the feeds. The star allowed me to break the construct of using the social web as it was provided. It gave me another option, one that was open ended and unique to me. My staring philosophy is probably different from yours but that’s ok, in fact, that’s what makes the star such a wonderful addition to the social web.

But it didn’t end with the star. I went through a brief period with Tumblr awhile back which allowed me to discover the heart. Like the star, Tumblr allowed marking posts that I found interesting or enjoyed or just wanted to save with a nice little heart. However Tumblr merged the open ended nature that I loved about the star with the closed construct that I didn’t like about the social web: it referred to the heart as “Likes” and also notified the poster that I “liked” their post. I was again being thrown into a box of sorts. But Tumblr’s heart wasn’t the only box a “Like” system would attempt to throw me into as Facebook’s thumbs up would be much worse.

Facebook, the pioneer of the digital frontier, created a “Like” system that gave no control over the information to me and instead only notified the poster that I “Liked” their contribution to the Internet. Ironically Facebook’s “Like” system reminded me of everything I disliked (pun intended) about the social web. I could like it but once that was done I couldn’t ever do anything about it again. Once again, Facebook was forcing me to use the web the way they wanted me to do so.

I don't like this.

And that seems to be their mantra. Their “Like” system is showing up all over the Internet now in an effort to force use of the web in the way they see fit. No stars, no hearts, just arbitrary thumbs ups that ultimately connect everything back to Facebook. I simply have to hold onto hope that, just as Facebook’s creation marked the first major Internet renaissance so too will it’s “Like” system. Though instead of a renaissance that gears my Internet usage in the direction they see fit, I hope the next major revival is driven by a refusal to adapt to Facebook’s will and returns open ended control back to you and me.

Why would you do this and why is it popular?

I asked the question on Twitter last night and received this response:

Agreed. Why do people give up their privacy so easily?

I don't want to be this chick.

Interesting question. It got me thinking.

My web domain, twitter username, and Facebook all use my full name, but I don’t feel I’ve given up too much in the way of my privacy. There are only six people who can see my full facebook profile and while I share some details of my life in 140 characters or less, I’d wager to bet it’d be difficult for anyone to put together a complete picture of my life.

So why, then, are people so apt to post details of their sex life, job history, and other very personal details online without thinking twice? And what is our obsession with knowing these intimate details?

I don’t have a solution but it’s worth thinking about, at least for continuing to protect my own privacy.

Anybody?

If you are reading this then that means you’re still subscribed to the RSS feed after, oh, three and a half months of nothingness. Either that or you’re me in which case I’m basically talking to myself. But that’s cool too, everybody does it weather they admit it or not. Anyway, if you are still out there I guess this is a hello but really, don’t flatter yourself because I’m not writing this post to say hello. I’m writing this post because I need to write. I don’t really care if you read it or not. In fact, that’s going to be the way things go around here from now on. If I write something it’s because I had something to say and if someone other than myself reads it, so be it, if not, well that’s cool too.

So there it is. The new blog manifesto if you will. I’ll update it when I have something to say. Could be tomorrow, could be next year. If you want to stick around and say hi, be my guest.

Lost in Translation
This is a fantastic movie about two people who find each other while both are more or less lost in Tokyo. It’s the movie that re-introduced us to Bill Murray’s hilarity and introduced us to the beauty of Scarlett Johansson’s butt. It’s sweet, it’s well written and directed by Sofia Coppola, it’s a great movie.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Azumi
According to Netflix I enjoy movies that feature a strong female lead, revenge movies, and Japanese movies. Azumi meets all three categories in one film so it’s no wonder that Netflix recommended it. It’s the story of a girl, Azumi, who is orphaned and adopted by a Samurai master and raised, along with a group of other kids, to become the strongest assassins in Japan’s history. The reason? Kill the warlords who are hellbent on taking power and forcing the nation into constant war. Obviously the warlords don’t like this idea and do everything they can to stop Azumi and her fellow assassins. It’s pretty great, especially if you like foreign films featuring stylistic violence. And really, who doesn’t?
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

The International
This is a “suspense thriller” about a bank that does very bad things. Strangely, a New York District Attorney and an INTERPOL agent are working together on an international investigation. It doesn’t make any sense to me, but maybe it does to you. The movie tries to be way more suspenseful than it is, even uses the cliché piano music to do so. There is a pretty sweet shootout in the Guggenheim, but really, that’s about all this movie has going for it. The plot is convoluted and silly and the suspense is added by the bucket — if this were a comedy there would have been an old fashioned laugh tracked added. It just comes off silly.
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

When Harry Met Sally
Apparently this is a classic movie that everyone’s seen, at least a certain scene from, but I had never seen. It’s cute, it’s got some pretty funny lines, and overall it’s pretty good.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Avatar
The mega-hyped, mega-budgeted James Cameron flick about a completely invented world of giant human-like blue people certainly lives up to the special effects and action hype. Surprisingly, unlike all of the reviews, the storyline is very engrossing and solid as well. It’s nothing new and the major themes are all taken from just about everything else out there, but it’s still a really good movie and a really fun ride. I didn’t see it in IMAX or Digital 3D (what the hell is that anyway?) and am glad I didn’t as I’m almost certain it would have given me a headache.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Sherlock Holmes
I submit that Robert Downey Jr. is the best actor working in Hollywood today — especially when it comes to rich, eccentric, recluses. While the storyline for Sherlock Holmes is, at times, a little hard to follow Downey’s portrayal is amazing. It was fun and the directing was pretty awesome. The only thing I didn’t really like was the blatant sequel setup at the end of the movie. Can we have quality movies in Hollywood anymore without thinking about a sequel, at least until a few days after the movie comes out?
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

The Incredibles
The Pixar story about a family of super heros who must actually get along in order to stop an evil mastermind is fun and silly and simply enjoyable. The first bit of the movie, explaining the super hero exile from public life, is basically a kid-friendly version of Watchmen. I found that interesting.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Sky High
I like movies about super heroes and usually don’t care for things on the Disney Channel, but this is a movie that I actually enjoyed. It’s unique and cleaver and just plain fun. It’s about a high school for super hero kids that are trying to figure out how to use their powers. There’s a class war between the heroes and sidekicks hero support and, well, a real war. It’s fun. Watch it.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Elf
See November
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Sunshine Cleaning
This is about two sisters who aren’t really do much with their lives and decide to start a crime scene cleanup business. It’s a quarky movie with some laughs but takes a brief, but very unexpected turn. Wonder what I’m talking about? Just follow the storyline of the youngest sister. There isn’t a lot of character development, or depth for that matter, but it’s entertaining.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Objectified
This is a documentary on industrial design by the same group that created Helvetica. It’s a fascinating look at what makes up good design and why and a conversation with those who are doing it, including Jonathan Ive who is the lead designer at Apple. If you’re a design nerd, you’ll enjoy this.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Space Camp
This is one of the best bad movies to come out of the 80′s. It stars a bunch of people, like Kate Capshaw, Kelly Preston, Lea Thompson and a very young Joaquin Phoenix. The premiss is that a group of kids attending space camp end up being launched into space, for real. Why? Well, basically Phoenix’s character, Max, falls in love with a robot, Jinx, who talks to the NASA computers and figures a way to get him on a real launch. I kid you not. But it’s great. Check it out! It has some pretty great 80′s music as well, including a song that landed on my celebrity playlist last year.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

The Blind Side
Going in I thought this was going to be a sappy, tearjerker style movie; I was wrong. It was funny, poignant and an amazing story. If you haven’t seen this yet, go do so. It’s worth the cost to see it in the theater.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Kind of hard to not like a Charlie Kaufman story and this is no exception. What happens when people in a relationship decide to forget each other? A wicked trip to Jim Carrey’s mind is what. Did I mention Charlie Kaufman wrote it? What more do you need to know?
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Star Trek
I was never a Star Trek fan growing up, though I did enjoy watching episodes of The Next Generation. But that doesn’t really count I guess. Either way, I didn’t really know the difference between a Romulan and a Vulcan before putting in JJ Abrams Star Trek reboot. This was probably a good thing as all of the characters are re-introduced in a very cool story involving time travel and evil aliens. I really liked this movie and it’s well worth checking out.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Elf
I’m no Will Ferrell fan, but this was actually a funny movie. It’s silly and quirky and has Zooey Deschanel and, get this, was directed by Jon Favreau — yeah, Swingers‘ Jon Favreau. Crazy, right?
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Angels & Demons
While The Da Vinci Code was a horrible adaptation of the book, this was a much better movie. Imagine that, considering this was the better of the two books as well.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Dogma
Kevin Smith and the story of two renegade angels trying to get back into heaven. Need I say more?
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Couples Retreat
Four couples go on a trip to an all inclusive resort for fun in the sun but instead find they have to attend couples therapy sessions. If they didn’t sense a problem before the trip, they do once the therapy begins. Typical Vince Vaughn hijinks ensue. Not bad, but not what I was expecting at all.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Love Actually
A number of different love stories are told at the same time and they all intertwine somehow. Some are simple, some are complicated, most are pretty cute. Pretty good film.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Where the Wild Things Are
While the book is for children, the movie is not. It’s more intense than I remember the book being and, well, pretty dark. And someone needs to get Max to therapy because the boy is clearly autistic.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

So Say We All

The destroyed planet Earth that was found at the end of 4.0 really was Earth, the home of the 13th tribe of Cobol and guess what? That thirteenth tribe were Cylons. At least their DNA signature matched that of the Cylon skin jobs. Apparently it’s where the real Final Five came from, some 2000 years ago.

Long story short, the Final Five developed the Cylon race and ended up creating Resurrection technology. So they were the creators of the race… sort of. Anyway, the identity of the final Cylon? Helen Tigh. That’s right, Tigh’s wife has been a Cylon all along. You might be thinking that Tigh killed Helen on New Caprica for helping the Cylons. Well guess what, she woke up on a Cylon Basestar — apparently before Resurrection was destroyed. Anyway, Tigh figures this out through unlocking memories while being on Earth, as do the rest of the Final Five.

Fast forward until the end of the series. Basically the whole thing hinges on Athena and Helo’s baby — remember the whole opera house thing? Anyway, apparently their baby is the key to the future of humanity, but no one really knows why. So Boomer — the bad Number 8 — brings Helen Tigh from the Cylons to the Rebel Cylons in an attempt to make amends for going against her units in the split. The whole thing was basically a sham to steal Athena and Helo’s baby so that they could run tests on it to see how to recreate Resurrection.

Fast forward a bit more and Adama decides to take a volunteer suicide mission to jump Galactica into the Cylon home in a recuse mission for the baby. An epic battle happens that ends with a truce that is broken by Chief Tyrol. In the end Galactica jumps out as the Cylon home blows up. But where did they jump?

Athena and Helo’s baby had been drawing pictures — small dots on a page — for awhile. Starbuck (who by the way found her crashed Viper and her body on Earth so has no idea who she really is) discovered that the pictures she was drawing were really musical notes that just so happened to be the notes for the song that activated the Final Five at the end of season 3.0 (which is an awesome song by the way). Anyway, not knowing what that meant she assigned numbers to the notes trying to see if there was some deeper meaning in them. Well, turns out it was the jump coordinates to… well, Earth. But Earth as we know it, not the destroyed one they found at the end of season 4.0.

They found Earth and then spread out severing all ties with each other. Makes sense.

So, in the end, the fleet found Earth after all. But here’s the kicker: it was earth 150,000 years ago at the dawn of civilization. So they all decided to spread out around the world and create population centers. They got rid of their technology and decided to start from scratch. But here’s what I don’t get: after spending a few years trying to build a new community when they finally get a place to call home they split up and live in seclusion? I mean, Adama took the president off to bury her and then lived on a hill by himself. His son decided to go off and explore the planet alone. Tyrol wanted to be alone. Helo, Athena and their child presumably went off by themselves. Even stranger, Dr. Cottle volunteers for the suicide mission, but Adama won’t let him participate because “the fleet can’t afford to loose a doctor.” Um, they why spread people all over the world once the mission is complete? Why the sudden break in community? I didn’t get it.

Fast forward another 150,000 years to present day Earth. Apparently the vision of 6 that Giaus had been seeing the whole time — and the vision of Giaus 6 had been seeing — were really angels sent to help guide their way. The remains of Helo and Athena’s baby were just discovered and she was being called the mother of civilization. But why? It never explained why she was important. And speaking of angels, apparently that’s what Starbuck has been since returning from Earth, seemingly out of nowhere.

After offloading everyone on Earth, the ships were sent to fly into the sun. See ya' Galactica!

Overall the series was pretty great, but it seemed to be pretty downhill from the amazing finale to season 3.0. After the shocking discovery of Earth at the end of 4.0, everything seemed very forced — almost as if the writers had written themselves into a corner they couldn’t quite figure out how to get out of. There were a lot of leaps made in season 4.5 that, given the pace of the series to that point, seemed to be very out of place. Don’t get me wrong, I like it, but how could they not end with some sort of awesome Adama led “so say we all” speech about creating the new humanity? Again, spreading out all over the world? Come on…

Watchmen
Having read the book this film was almost identical to every frame in the pages. It takes a cue from Sin City in that regard. But Watchmen was pretty great and the musical selections were awesome. The only oddity: the ending was changed. I didn’t care for that too much.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Up
This movie is fantastic. Sad in the right places, hilarious in others. Best movie I’ve seen in a while. If you haven’t seen it, you need to go do so right now. Do it. Go.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
This movie is so messed up it’s not even funny. It’s part one in Chan-wook Park’s ‘revenge trilogy’ where Old Boy is part two. Given that Old Boy is amazing — all but extremely twisted — I should have known what I was getting myself into. Unlike part two in his series, Park waited about 100 minutes to get to the exciting part and instead focused on building the story and making everyone want to tear their eyes out. That’s all I got.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Ong-Bak
Brutally violent muay Tai action yet somewhat comical dialogue. Worth your time.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Valkyrie
Pretty good story about how some Nazi’s tried to kill Hitler. Tom Cruise was still Tom Cruise though.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

9
Pretty cool little story about creatures created to save the world, after mankind destroys it. I liked the twins the best.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Across the Universe
Someone made a movie based on the music of the Beatles. How amazing is that? And to top it off, the movie is awesome.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

After three calls into AT&T I finally got to talk to a technical support specialist who figured out the problem. Apparently if you had an original 1st Gen iPhone on an original 2G plan and have since upgraded to a 3G or 3GS, like I did, then AT&T (most likely) didn’t actually update your account. In my case, the original IMEI settings for the first iPhone were still listed in my account. So on AT&T’s end it figured I wasn’t capable of handling MMS and shut everything down before it passed to/from my phone. Once he corrected that setting for the 3GS, everything sent to me so far today started flying through. Looks like if you’re having issues, you have to call AT&T and have them fix the IMEI settings on your account.

Note that the customer service representative who first answers the call will not have the ability to correct these settings. You’ll need to ask for a Technical Support Specialist who can make these correction. It’s also advised that you call from a different phone then the iPhone in question as my agent had me reset the phone to make sure the new settings took and then sent me a message to make sure it was actually working.

It was a bit of a hassle, but now it’s working. Hopefully this saves some people some frustration.