Timothy Callahan

Movie Review: I am Number 4. Yeah, on a scale from 1-10, that sounds about right

I really don't want to say the I am number 4 is a bad movie cause it's not. I can say with all honesty I was pretty entertained but, I kept asking myself, was I entertained because the whole movie was good or because the last 20 minutes or so was just so darn awesome that I made the movie that came before it seem that much better? It's a hard question to answer. When I used to do improv one of my teachers told me something like, 'you can bomb the first two scenes but if that last scene is a killer then all anyone will remember is the killer scene and they'll forget the bad ones.' That's what this movie felt like.

The set up was pretty interesting. John Smith (not his real name of course) is an alien on the run. He and his keeper, Henri, are trying to stay one step ahead of the alien race which wants to wipe them out for reasons I didn't understand. (The only explanation is when Henri said, "cause it just what they do." Or something like that.) Anyway, John was number four of nine who were saved from this planet because he and the other have special powers, or something. Anyway, the first three were killed and now they're after him, cause he is number 4!

John and Henri go to this small town where John goes to school and meets this girl and they fall in love, it doesn't take long for John's power to develop and even shorter time for the aliens to find him and attack.

That's pretty much the set up. I had to sit through an hour of the boring highschool stuff before stuff got real, then I was in love! The final battle was breathtaking, I always love a good superhero fight and this was one of the better ones I've seen in the movies. Things blew up, aliens died, people get flung all over the place, special effects budgets burst at the seams. Yeah, it was that good and kind of made me forget what came before.

Not sure if they're going to make another one, they set it up where they could and if they did I'd probably see it hoping they could bring more kick ass superhero battles to the screen.

End of a project: The Arwen

The Arwen first made it's appearance at Podiobooks.com on March 11, 2007. Almost four years and six seasons later the Arwen series will be over. . .for now anyway, it's time to move on to other projects and stories. I've been thinking about, writing about, podcasting Arwen stories for much, much longer than I ever imagined and I've loved every second of it.

It seems a bittersweet in a way. When I first started the four part series that I'm working on now I knew this would be the last set of stories I wrote but I had no idea how I was going to end it. It took a flash of inspiration to finally find the ending I liked, the ending that made the most sense. I was playing with ideas of destroying the Earth and having the Arwen lead a fleet of stragglers to a new home while being persued by the bad guys. . .needless to say I had this idea while watching Battlestar Galagtica so yeah, that idea was scrapped.

I had an idea where Marjorie and the Arwen got thrown into Wormhole space and were lost for a thousand years. It would have ended with them returning to the Earth to find (Dum dum dummm!) the system has been turned into a Dyson sphere system! Thought that was too sad of an ending and it would force me to write another Arwen story explaining everything so yeah, decided to scrap that idea.

Was also going to destroy the Arwen, have it sacrifice itself to save Earth and the Corps but, I almost did that in Arwen 3 and it's never good to repeat yourself. *cough* Second Death Star *cough*

I was nearing the end of the story and worried cause I didn't have anything, no idea how I was going to end it but, while writing the second to last chapter Captain Cook told me what she wanted to do and it made total sense. Can't wait for those who've stuck with me since 2007 to read it, hopefully it'll meet or exceed their expectations.

So, where am I at now? Well, Arwen VI: The final days of peace has been recorded and, as of today, edited up to Chapter five.

Arwen VII: Battlesphere (that title might change, haven't decided yet) has been written and now I'm going through and revising it. I should start recording sometime soon, hopefully by the end of February. It would be nice to have it ready by fourth anniversary of my first Arwen but I don't think that'll happen, I'm shooting for April, May at the very, very latest then, the Arwen will completed!

If you have no idea what the Arwen here is what I'm talking about.

The Arwen

Arwen seson 2

Arwen 3

Arwen 4

Arwen 5

 

Found things in the digital age

While going through an old box I found about two hundred old photographs dating back about 10 years or so. Now, most of them were of nothing really special, I took a trip to Disney World in 2000 and I'd say about 80% of the photos were from that trip, and mostly consisted of shots that I could take the next time I go back. So, those were gone. About 2% were of old girlfriends who I no longer speak to (or really want to speak to) and, since I have wonderful girlfriend now we decided to remove those as well.

It was the other 12% that were special. Photos of my Mom and Dad, photos of me and my sister, old photos of my two cats (the first pets I picked out on my own!) when they were kittens. One of those cats was given away to someone I don't know, the other my sister still has, he's almost 13 years old and still going strong but, seeing him as a kitten, in one of my old apartments was kind of neat. Also, seeing the old apartment was really neat too. Photos of dogs long since passed, photos of trips to the mountains with people I'm still friends with, and with people whose names I don't remember. Photos of me with hair, although you can see the slow progression from nice hair to baldness. It was a fun and unexpected surprise, and it got me to thinking if this will ever happen to me again.

As of, I guess 2003, every photo I've taken has been with a digital camera and each photo has followed me from computer to computer thanks to portable hard drives, backup software, and burned CD's. Before today the last time I found a large group of photos was when I found a CD from a backup I had made 4 years prior.

I am very careful to make sure I never lose any old photos so it doesn't look like I'm ever going to be without all the photos I've taken since I had a digital camera and, that's good. I one time accidently formatted a portable drive with some un-backed up photos and I lost them all, I wished I still had today.

In 50 years will we hear stories about how someone looking at an old computer and found parts of an unmade Kevin Smith movie? Will someone looking through a pile of old CD's only to find old photographs from the set of Avatar? Or, will the things that might have been rare be common place in the age of the digital media where it's hard to lose anything? Will photos or old movies ever actually be lost only to be found again?

My biggest worry about the new digital age is formatting. Right now if I were to save this blog using Word 2010 then the world ends in some way will the aliens who find it be able to read it? I don't think Glaxor from planet Xeon will have a Word 2010 converted for whatever operating system his ship uses.

It seems that throughout time the better the technology is the less likely it'll be preserved for the future. We've gone from stone tablets, to parchment, to paper, to computers. You tell me what will still be around in 1,000 years.