So I came across this today:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U&feature=player_embedded
Which led me to this:
http://sirkenrobinson.com/skr/all-new-edition-of-out-of-our-minds
And this:
http://www.facebook.com/SirKenRobinson?sk=app_6009294086, http://twitter.com/#!/SirKenRobinson
For those of you who are twitterly and facebook inclined.
Also please ignore the fact that toggling over the navigation buttons on his official website have cumstain splotches, I'm sure that's just an unfortunate byproduct of how awesome this guy is.

Of course I don't actually know that yet. I've only listened to eleven minutes and sixteen seconds of an audio excerpt from one of his talks, so for all I know he could be a raging prick. I'll have to wait and find out.
For now though, I think he's great. He makes sense in regards to modern education.
It sucks!
I'm a victim, and I'm sure you are too. There is just so much focus on shipping the kids through their grades and shoving them off to whatever future may come, whether they actually retained the information or not.
Whether it's actually even useful or not, for that matter.
I was never great shakes at Math, and I excelled at pretty much everything that didn't involve it, HOWEVER ultimately my overall average suffered because of this and I was just accordingly for the rest of my days until I graduated. What you accomplish in the public school systems isn't given nearly as much focus as what you don't. It's pretty terrible.

Take a look at the above videos, comment wherever you like.
Happy Friday, folks.

I've never watched Annie Hall

About two years ago at the suggestion of good friend and chronically perceptive cinephile Pat Allen, I bought Annie Hall. I love myself some good Woody Allen as much as the next 90s kid who grew up in a household that loved Star Wars, Steven Seagal, Star Trek, and Steven Spielberg Affairs- ie: it wasn't until watching K-Pax in 2001 that I finally clued in that there was more to movies than Stevens and Stars, so I had a lot of catching up to do when it came to pop culture and film. Good film, at least.

I started with the contemporary classics first though, kicking off with Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring on a particularly wintry December evening with my sister, her boyfriend, and my sister in law. This was the first real epic I think I was exposed to, and solidified my love for movies in general. After becoming hooked I just kept going forward; I can tell you almost anything about great movies form the (late) late 90s to today, but about anything before my birth I am almost ignorant- my Buster Keaton is Johnny Depp's physicality, my Charlie Chaplin looks a lot like Robert Downey Jr., and Groucho Marx lives in a small youtube frame. I've realized this is pretty unfortunate considering the mass amounts of great movies there are before the 80s decided to happen, and within the last two years alone I've spent a lot of time catching up: The Godfather Trilogy, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Pulp Fiction, Terminator 2, Aliens: just to name a few and scratch the surface of an infinitely larger mountain.

Thank god for Torrent Downloading, and more recently: iTunes.

So what I mean to say in more words than I needed, is that I love Woody Allen as much as someone who seems to be stuck in purely contemporary media can, and that is to say further: "He's alright I guess.". I know he's a comedic genius, though. I don't doubt his legend nor his legacy, but his latest fares haven't been spectacular save for Vicky Christina Barcelona (I guess? It's the only one I've recently seen). But I've been brought up on Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell, and in some cases clever Woody Allen parodies. I'm a boy of slapstick, overacting and celebrity cameos.

So I'm afraid I might not even get Annie Hall. It's a superb film that won 1977's best picture Oscar along with Best Actress for Diane Keaton, Best Director for Allen, and Best Screenplay for Allen and Marshall Brickman. What if I don't like it? I don't want to be that guy.

This is, of course, fodder in the face of a much deeper and sillier issue in that I don't want to watch it alone.

Here's the story:

I bought the movie, while in a relationship, with the intention of watching it as a part of a romantic movie night of some kind (Don't worry, I know the conclusion and am well aware of the... not ironies, but perhaps the 'contradictions' involved is a good way of putting it?).

This never happened, and we broke up.

It has since sat in my DVD library, unopened, waiting for me to find the perfect watching-mate. That sounds a little shallow and silly, but it makes sense in my brain. After two years of owning a movie I have yet to see it because I want to share the experience with someone special.

I could just plug it in now, as a Woody Allen fan who needs to catch up on his classics, but somehow I feel it'd be an injustice to the time, effort and cause that I've put in to not watching it.

My logic is whacked, so whoever you are please show up soon and save me from my strange form of martyrdom before it's too late (I'm not exactly clear on when 'too late' is.)

Or maybe I just need to open my eyes, and realize you've been around for a while?

I wish this stuff made sense.

An Experiment In Blogging- The beginning

I've had about a billion blogs since they first poked their heads out the internet's vast womb a couple years back and have yet to properly sustain one. Lets see if this lasts, since I've been able to hold my own on Twitter for a while. Cheers.

RdB