I was reading a little more about the Matrix Reloaded and having seen it on Friday, thought I might throw my opinion your way. No spoilers, I promise.

There were a lot of little things I liked about the movie. It was pretty good as comic book action goes, though some of the action sequences -- like some of the dialogue -- seemed to belabor the point a bit. I also liked all the sexuality and the idea that in the future black people are in a lot of leadership roles. I really like all the strong style choices, the different color schemes for different parts of the universe, the mix of high tech and low life. But the plot was a bit thin for 150 minutes of screen time, and without any of the great surprises of the first. The "intellectual" aspects of the film felt forced at times, even redundant, the whole ball of wax perhaps a bit too stridently zen at the expense of story.

Still, I think it's an interesting step in film-making, and it was entertaining. Also, if it makes a lot of money, it might open the door for other pop-culture artifacts about Big Ideas. That could be cool.

Blogging gets more mainstream press all the time. Two articles today in the NYT on blogging. Thanks to my mom for sending them both my way.

One, "As Google Goes, So Goes The Nation," by Geoffrey Nunberg, is a rehash of the googlewashing debate, and a general continuation of the antagonistic journalism-blogging confrontation that's been going on for the past few months. Doc Searls has a nice rundown of the whole situation, so I'll spare you my $0.02 other than to say that it seems that there are a lot of entrenched powers within the realm of culture, media and journalism who feel very threatened by the blogging phenomena, sometimes rightly, but more often highly irrationally.

The second piece is a little more juicy, a "style and fashion" article on blogs by Warren St. John, focused around people revealing personal details and private opinions on the web and having parents/lovers/friends unexpectedly find them. While not quite as factually debatable as the Nunberg piece, this saucy little missive also substantially fails to get it.

While it's clear that the whole realtime autobio endeavour can put you in sticky situations -- outing views and experiences you may have otherwise kept to yourself for the sake of decorum -- this is hardly news. I just had a taste of that with Sasha and this page. Justin Hall took this to the extreme way back in '98 with his exploration of how posting nude images of himself online cost him a few jobs. It's something that requres a certain amount of fortitude and sensativity. Sometimes we make mistakes.

However, the generally cautionary tone of St. John's article ignores the fact the personal-publishing revolution is leading to a more fully disclosed, transparent and diverse society. Putting your shit online cuts both ways. As I've noted before, having a blog proves that you're in some ways "for real" in the virtual world. Further, while there will always be the question of what should be public vs. private, for many people it seems that blogging provides an outlet for suppressed ideas, feelings and emotions. That's important. The truth always feels better.

When I read about a 27-year old woman from Utah publishing a scathing indictment of her Mormon upbringing and then having to explain herself to her parents, I think, "that's fucking great! What a huge step forward for everyone involved, and all because of blogging." She could have gone her whole life without ever talking to her family about the problems she had with her childhood, taken that resentment all the way to her parents' funerals.

Here's something I'm convinced of: secrets and silence are the seeds of madness. All dischord, disconnect and dissonance in interpersonal relations have at their root something hidden away and secret inside someone's mind, something malignant and perhaps even shameful. If these dark spots are not brought out and shared, they will grow, poisoning anything that touches. Things that relate will become attached, memories colored with secret unspoken meanings, until finally the one doing the hiding is more or less unable to meaningfully interact with other humans because so many actions, words, thoughts, feelings and memories have the clandestine taint upon them. If it actually gets this bad most people can't handle it and they break down. I've seen it happen. Secrets and silence.

Anyway, I think publicly blogging can help avert that sort of thing, and more generally help people fully become and express themselves. People need to talk about shit, and posting online is a good exercise in this. There's a certain amount of egocentricity involved, but this doesn't need to exceed the bounds of a healthy self-esteem -- and really it's about sharing when you get down to it. This doesn't excuse people who insult others or blog with malicious intent, but that's a maturity problem (c.f. most high school website forums). Still, much better the bad apples publish their juvenile sniping on a blog than talk behind people's backs. Get it out in the open. Deal with it. Be accountable. Grow.

Thinking a lot about culture today after hanging out with Andrew last night and seeing The Matrix sequil. The more I'm exposed to mainstream culture, the more I realize how foreign and alien it is to me. So here are a few things on that note.

There's an interesting and unsettling article in todays NYT about the impact of mass retailers like Wal-Mart, Kmart and Costco on popular culture in this country. Since stores like Wal-Mart regularly account for 20% or more (much more) of a best-selling album, DVD, book or CDs sales, the buyers for these stores have an incredible amount of influence over what publishing houses choose to promote. Most of these buyers -- most likely as a result of the corporate culture and upper management within these companies -- are either conservative or christian, and often both. More of my thoughts on that here.

While thinking of culture wars, I did a little search for counterculture resources, and stumbled across this: ChristianCounterCulture.com, which is pretty fascinating and interesting.

Finally, back to the NY Times, the style section officially declares foam hats (they call them trucker hats, I've know them since my youth as "meshbacks") to be over. I think I called this about a month ago. On a similar note, I've been noticing more and more the silver and white earbuds that signify the owner is listening to an iPod. Apple was smart to make them so distinctive: I see them all over as of late. Wonder how long before some knockoff electronics maker like Coby starts making look-alike earbuds for $10. Something appealing to me about having those iPod-signifiers hooked up to a walkman.

Shit, this thing is making me paranoid:

Can anyone explain it. I mean, really, explain this? Fascinating social networking data: click on a few successive favorites, one profile's favorite to another's to another's. What kind of stuff comes up? How long to two mirror one another?

Apparently, my friends Frank and Wes can't visit facethejury.com because their employer blocks the site. They were also blocking the picture (which I was linking directly to), so I'm mirroring it locally. So please, give it another look.

Craigslist strikes again. This is some genius shit. So is this and this. A whole list of it here. God bless the unemployed.

Also, it seems that one of the blogs I like to buzz through periodically, diannaparrington.com is actually her thesis project. I liked the site for the clear images and little zen entries, but I had no idea there was academic intent behind it. Fascinating.

Well, I emailed everyone I know my Howard Dean Endorsement, then I bought a ticket to Burning Man (which should cap my West Coast summer nicely), and now I'm cramming in a little more work before going to watch a taping of the Daily Show and then paint some opera sets into the night. Just another Outlandish Tuesday.

I need to sublet my apartment for July and August. Here's the relavent Craigslisting. Drop me a line if you have any questions.

I'm an old man now. What a great party last night. We had booze, we had music, we drew on a giant map. My sister gave me a haircut so I look boyish once more. Many friends were there, and I'll post some pictures soon. I got a little cranky at the end -- still a bit sick -- when I felt it was time to go to bed and there were still dertermined beer-drinkers about. In any case, it was a grand old time, and I felt the birthday love.

Happy birthday to me. Today I'm 24, and I'm having a party.

Also, here's Billbo Baggens' photo tribute.

About a year ago when we were living at the old pad with Christina and Miranda, Miranda introduced Frank and I to makeoutclub.com, the premere place to meet indy rockers and emo people online. I got a kick out of it and Miranda -- I think -- made some friends. We kind of equated the whole thing with the parts of Bilzburg we were less than enthusiastic about. When we made the move to the Meek, the guys thought the whole thing was hillarious. We even made ourselves a profile for kicks.

Well, now I'm doing a couple of related jobs for money, constructing community/social sites. I've been seeing what's out there, and there's this: face the jury .com, which is kind of... shocking. It's everything makeoutclub.com is (and more) except seemingly aimed square at the c-students. Your odd cute gothy chick from Australia aside, it seems to be the domain of trixies and rock-hard-abs.

Anyway, it was kind of startling. Most of the people on this site are 2 or more years my junior, and I suppose this is what happened to all those teenagers I used to see who would use email and IM like second-nature, whereas in my day it was somewhat less integrated into mainstream living. The internet is now officially for everything, baby; even popularity contests and flirting. Kind of exciting, too.