Link-a-Rama Sunday Let Your Panties do the Talkin' Where Will You Spend Eternity? On your knees begging God for forgiveness? Well if he's close enough to read your 100% cotton Evange - lingerie (tm), he's already on his knees - so start spreading, the Gospel, that is!...WWJD? When faced with hard situations, sometimes you don't have the strength of will to just say "no." When the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, let these 100% cotton panties do the talking for you, "What Would Jesus Do?" These words will put a damper on a young man's ardor faster than a bedroom full of stuffed animals....see for yourself... THE UNREAL THING by ADAM GOPNIK What�s wrong with the Matrix? ....The first �Matrix��for anyone who has been living in Antarctica for the past four years�depended on a neatly knotted marriage between a spectacle and a speculation. The spectacle has by now become part of the common language of action movies: the amazing �balletic� fight scenes and the slow-motion aerial display of destruction. The speculation, more peculiar, and even, in its way, esoteric, is that reality is a fiction, programmed into the heads of sleeping millions by evil computers...What made the spectacle work was the ingenuity and the attention to detail with which it was rendered. The faintly greenish cast and the curious sterility of life within the Matrix; the reddish grungy reality of Morpheus�s ship; the bizarre and convincing interlude with the elderly Oracle; and, of course, those action sequences, the weightless midair battles�few movies have had so much faith in their own mythology...Even Keanu Reeves, bless him, played his part with a stolidity that made him the only possible hero of the film, so slow in his reactions that he seemed perfect for virtual reality, his expressions changing with the finger-drumming time lag of a digital image loading online. .... If it was the spectacle that made the movie work, though, it was the speculations that made it last in people�s heads. It spoke to an old nightmare. The basic conceit of �The Matrix��the notion that the material world is a malevolent delusion, designed by the forces of evil with the purpose of keeping people in a state of slavery, has a history. It is most famous as the belief for which the medieval Christian sect known as the Cathars fought and died, and in great numbers, too. The Cathars were sure that the material world was a phantasm created by Satan, and that Jesus of Nazareth�their Neo�had shown mankind a way beyond that matrix by standing outside it and seeing through it. The Cathars were fighting a losing battle, but the interesting thing was that they were fighting at all. It is not unusual to take up a sword and die for a belief. It is unusual to take up a sword to die for the belief that swords do not exist....read all of it... The Matrix Essays The Matrix2 Script pages?

This last week has been brought to you by the word kick-ass. Not getting into a Kick-Ass Graphic Design course because I'm about 8 weeks late and, even though it's a two year course, 8 weeks is just *too* late they said. I would have caught up, too - but my life would have been frantic. Kyle said it was one of the hardest most rewarding things he's done. He's in his second year. If I'm still at the stage of wanting to know this stuff come March 2004 I will join in goodly fashion. I am happy with the way the Media Design School handled my call and that they replied, albeit with a 'no', I thought they did a good job of considering. Getting a Kick-Ass cover done for Marshall's book was good too, even though I lost my focus alone [interesting typo] the way - I really do so much better when he's closer at hand and he *was* closer at hand had I just turned my MSN on. He was happy with the cover and I can't wait to see how it all looks when it comes back from the printers. That's the thing about being a graphic designer in the computing world, rather than the print world. Sometimes, people don't realise how different they are. I would love to have the set of print skills needed to be sure of everything before i send stuff to the printers - especially as some of them are going to be A2 size so my mistakes are going to be exaggerated - but there's nothing nicer than seeing the crisp clean edge of printed lettering on paper. The above course would have helped so much, but nevermind... I'll find out on my own. Last night I went to see X2 and it kicked ass!!. Right from the beginning, and it didn't stop. It was beautiful and funny and kick effing ASS. I squealed and clapped and horray'd my way through it. It was streets ahead of the first movie (which was beautiful and technically wonderful but was pretty nothinghappening the rest of the time) and I can't *wait* to see the next one. There *has* to be a next one - hell, they're just warming up! Today is a perfect Kick Ass Winter Auckland Saturday. It's a perfect day for a picnic. I hope, if that's what you're doing, you have a really nice time.

Earth Probe Plan Would Blast a Path to the Core A scientist proposes sending a grapefruit-size communication device into the heart of the Earth by blasting a crack in the surface and pouring in a huge quantity of molten iron. ..."When we fly to other worlds, we are often surprised by what we find, and I think the same will be the case if we go down." ...more... oh.. after $10billion dollars and 3000kms we've discovered a) its really hot down there and b) it melted our probe! hehe.. you said "probe"