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I woke up early on Saturday hoping to get a head start on the weekend. There was much to do this weekend, including visiting my parents and downloading New Moon. Yes, it’s probably only available in shaky camcorder TeleSync, but there are times that you might crave a Tim Horton’s double-double coffee and even though you know fully well that you are lactose intolerant, you still just have to have it. The aftermath of these decisions are altogether rather similar.

Imagine my surprise when I went to mininova.org and all I saw were globally available and legal torrents. Boring! But of course, I wasn’t that surprised. How surprised can you be when yet another popular torrent indexing site goes down. In fact, I was usually surprised when I would go to the site and see that it was still up. And profitable, despite its .org designation. I never did find out which charity it was supporting.

They didn’t even bother being discreet, since they based their domain name on suprnova.org — its original predecessor. You can’t run a bit torrent indexing site and expect it to be kept a secret for very long (I tried to keep it to myself for as long as possible). Even oink.me.uk, a referral only and registration-based music distribution site couldn’t remain hidden for more than a week. Of course, there’s also the golden rule of the Internet: If you want to keep something a secret on the Internet, don’t tell Google.

Mother BREIN

I’ve actually been following the ongoing saga on Torrent Freak for the past year or so. I started following these cases since oink went down. These legal battles interest me, more because I am continually amazed at the blatant idiocy of these giant lobby groups like BREIN.EU, the most recent public enemy since the RIAA stopped suing dead grandmothers. Once all the torrent sites moved to Europe, BREIN revealed itself to the public and joined in the whack-a-mole game, that these recording industry lobby groups love so much, of trying to take down every single web site that even mentions torrents.

File sharing and torrents have instantly capitalized on the distributed nature of the Internet and suddenly you have a global distribution network overnight. Why don’t recording industry executives like this? They can’t figure out how to make money from it and they can’t control it. The fear of not being able to control the distribution has caused them to deny its very existence and they will destroy what they don’t understand.

The irony is that the typical person that purchases CDs probably wouldn’t know how to use Bit Torrent anyway. Its not like Mininova had a user manual or a tutorial or even a 1-800 call center.

Try explaining how Bit Torrent works to your mother, and by the time you’re done, she’s already at Zellers buying Season 2 of Quantum Leap for you for Christmas. “Stop wasting your time, you need to get me a bag of rice,” she says. She’s right though. Trying to download Season 2 of Quantum Leap when there are only 3 seeders (and they’re all in Sweden) is a daunting task.

So now what? Am I to watch G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra TS camcorder edition for the 10th time? I can barely make out Sienna Miller with all this pixelation and I missed a tight-spandex moment when someone’s head bobbed up and blocked the projector. What kind of shoddy video recording workmanship is this?

How should we rally to go against giant lobby groups like BREIN? The more I read about these legal cases, the more discouraged I am at the disorganized nature of my fellow revolutionists; a group of dissidents that can’t even agree on how to pronounce “warez” (is it two syllables or one?); a group of rebels who take great pleasures in typos that are ruining the English language. To think that some day, “pwned” or “noob” could be added to the English dictionary. That would be ‘teh suck’.

As much as I would hope for an end to the BREINs of the world, I can’t help but wonder  how this particular group could ever become organized enough to make a real stand, let alone be capable of withstanding a cross-examination without reverting to anxiety attacks, several games of Halo and consequently bad-mouthing their enemies on mIRC. After all, I use to be –and still am to some extent (but I suck at Halo)– one of them.

I’ve seen many movies that I’d care not share with my friends. Mostly, terrible movies and some were just plain embarrassing. I’d often regret seeing it, and think, how can I wrest those two precious hours of my life back from these movie usher thieves. Indeed, the trailer for In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale was so deceivingly good, that it was just enough to extract $12.50 out of my pocket (this is where you could imagine my dollar bills having white fluffy wings, flapping its way out of my wallet into thin air).

I don’t regret a few movies I’ve seen that were critically dismissed as self-serving tripe, such as AVP: Alien vs. Predator which was decent, if not the greatest SciFi flick ever made by man. Or even, Mean Girls which was a masterful tale woven together by Tina Fey (screenplay). I enjoy those types of movies, if not to relieve this compelling obsession with aliens tearing shit up and high school drama in general.

The backstabbing, gossip, childish meandering and simple lives of these characters allows us (yes, you’re coming with me) to escape to a time where we could be carefree and hate and attack each other with inconsequential reprisals.

It was with great anxiety that I knew of Twilight long before the trailers hit, and long before people were buzzing about Cedric Diggory playing the role of Edward Cullen. Cedric who’s casting can only be explained by the singular requirement for an actor playing Edward Cullen: less talent, more dreamy.

Anxious to not tell my friends that I’d been waiting to see it, nor to tell them that in fact, I would probably be waiting in line with the other 18 year olds at the box office, I feigned much disinterest. Quoting reviews that read, “Twilight is a disappointingly anemic tale of forbidden love that should satiate the pre-converted but will bewilder and underwhelm viewers,” I hoped to throw them off the scent. No, this movie was definitely not for me. Much like Edward Cullen, I held my reservations in check and hid in the darkness so as to not reveal my true identity. I only came out when it was cloudy.

But tonight! I saw it, and Catherine Hardwicke did not disappoint. I am notoriously known for favouring so-called “bad” movies, but in this instance I would like to draw your attention to movies such as Lords of Dogtown, Tank Girl and even I’m Gonna Git You Sucka. Great movies that she either directed or was involved in some way or another.

This story unfolded like a giant origami masterpiece. Maybe even a giant origami crane. Each fold and crease blatantly narrated and wonderfully extricated to the audience as though we were all in their heads. Or at least, over their shoulder. I suppose it was more like piggy-backing.

A forbidden love story emulating the Romeo and Juliet tale, with classic lines like, “I don’t have the strength to stay away from you,” or “I’m afraid I might eat you, and you might taste like bacon.” I studiously noted these lines in my own notebook, saving them for later. You see, gentle vampires don’t drink human blood, because it will cause them to ravage all humans in a rabid state of inhumanity. These docile vampires prefer to live amongst us, and refer to themselves as “vegetarians” who secretly feast on deer blood while humbly trying to become another valuable member of society.

How wonderful and fresh to see them comparing drinking animal blood as being a vegetarian. As he remarked, “Its like eating tofu all your life, but never being satisfied.” Someone get this boy a steak! He’s been craving one all his 200 years of existence, and now there she is. A delicious young girl to devour if he so chooses. And then I began to wonder, have I ever fallen in love with a nice fat, ribeye steak before? Oh yes, I had one yesterday. It helped me to relate to his pain, of seeing a walking steak and not being able to pour some peppercorn gravy on it. How terrible!

Despite his failing will power, he is able to keep his distance, only to visit her while she sleeps. I also noted this down for future relationship advice: if you cannot be with a girl due to stupid species violation rules, quietly creep into her room and watch her sleep. She’ll wake up, see you then think she was dreaming about you. You’ll be like a vision of beauty at the foot of her bed, so long as you jump out the window before she reaches over for the pepper spray. And if you need to convince yourself that this is right, just remember — all you are really doing, is nothing so different than viral marketing.

So eventually, she becomes weak and tastes the forbidden fruit from Edward’s ice cold hands (at least, I think it was from his hands). Falling down the rabbit hole into an Eden-like paradise of generous, intellectual vampires who love Debussy and can play many musical instruments, she is hooked and wants in. She wants to be let into this exclusive country club of high society vampires. This fantasy played out over the span of 2 short hours, and resonated within the audience of 7 people in the theatre as we clapped our applause, thunderously echoing and reverberating against the walls when they finally did kiss and end up at prom together. After seeing enough of these movies, you’ll soon realize that all roads lead to prom.

Of course, there could not have been a more complete package if they had forgotten to include the set up for the sequel. The prerequisite setup was made for the sequel, as the tale of wolves from the forest (First Nations tribe) wove a backstory of a peace treaty between the vampires. One of those wolves, Jacob, has a tiny little crush on our heroine hottie whom she was too quickly brushed off as just another gay best friend. Get in line, chump. Too bad, Jacob, you’re just not as dreamy as Edward, and considering you’re probably a werewolf, you might want to look into getting an electric personal groomer. P.S. You’re ugly.

The love triangle is brewing, and looks like the sequel will provide more juice. Certainly these movies need to be made faster if they are still going to use the same cast. The problem with teen movies is that you can only get 2 or 3 out of them before they start getting old. Unless you’re the Harry Potter franchise, in which case you’ll see those movies until Harry’s a ripe old age of 52 playing a 20 year old Potter, still trying to escape his past, and still scratching his forehead at his, now sagging and droopy, lightning bolt scar. Someone please tell Mr. Potter that, yes, we get it. You’re an orphan. Some orphans do something good with their lives like become President of United States, so stop dragging your feet and get on with it.

They say twilight is the magical hour for photography, but they never realized how true this statement would be for film too until this one came along.

This article is ghost-written for the person who did see it, but is afraid to tell the world. I on the other hand, have no such shame.

It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, and as is the case on most Sundays, I was nowhere near a church. I’ve spent many, many years of my life avoiding Church, especially ones that concern latter day saints. Living my life as a guilt-free sinner, I made a pact with myself to keep my true faith secret, and away from religious fanatics and telemarketers alike. Read the rest of this entry »