And the Winner Is ...

SEE HERE If you saw Avatar you know that fantasy and reality were mixed pretty thoroughly. The technology that made that possible brings an academy award to Paul E. Debevec later this month. Given how effective the technology is, it's only a matter of time before you won't be able to tell if the actors in your movies are real people at all.

Cars Cars Cars

SEE HERE This is a really really fun site ... it's hard to believe these are all models they are so realistic and the sets are so good. But seeing is believing.

The Snowstorm of February 5th 2010

C.S. Lewis on Charles Williams

Heroism: Some Heroes Are Those Who Empower Others

Stunning: Sets the Bar to a New Level

I've seen Avatar twice now and each time I was blown away by the sheer creative energy that went into the movie. I think the story line is trite and somewhat predictable, especially the mean nasty techo-soldiers from earth against the noble savages and the rain-forest, super-green eco-nonsense which passes for wisdom these days. But those disadvantages pale into insignificance beside the sheer creative beauty, realism, and vigor of the visuals, the imagined future, and the 3D computer graphics which create a planet so powerfully beautiful and inspiring and a native population entirely computer generated that is convincing and characterizations that seem authentic from the seasoned former recon colonel to the Hispanic helicopter pilot who does what she thinks is right, to the avatars themselves and the natives. Wow! What an accomplishment. This movie is easily the best science fiction movie for a long time and should win a lot of Oscars.

NaNoWriMo Winner: A little late reporting this.

I probably should mention how NaNoWriMo came out ... I won! Of course all that means is that I wrote 50,000 words in November on a novel and reported it to NaNoWriMo and got my name listed as one of the NaNo winner. I also got the image posted here.

I now have about half a novel which was jammed out in 30 days. Since then I've been contemplating my navel instead of working on polishing or continuing the novel. On the other hand I did just finish grading all my student's work for the Fall semester and I'm now languishing in the glorious fact that I can schedule my own work for a while until school starts again.