The Death of Pownce

So, yesterday (12/15/08), Pownce shut down. Pownce was a micro-blogging site, like Twitter. But, Pownce was a much better service.
First off, there was no 140 character limit to your posts. Your posts could be as lengthy as they needed to be. The idea was not to make a long blog post, but you could if you liked.
Second, the site was more built around sharing things with your followers and friends. You could upload an mp3 that you wanted everyone to hear, or upload a picture, or a video. Actually, you could upload any file up to 100mb with the free service (250mb for the $20/month service). And when you shared a YouTube link (or various other video sites), the video would automatically embed into your message.
It was a huge upgrade to the Twitter service created by Kevin Rose, Leah Culver, and Daniel Burka (all part of either the Digg or Revision3 crew). With the economy being what it was, Pownce wasn't able to remain open and free. Now, the technology is part of the SixApart system - which handles famous blogging tools like Vox and TypePad.
I was using the site from the beginning and had a Pownce way before I had a Twitter. It was a brilliant service that never got the word out too well and Twitter already had the crowd with them. Pownce was to Twitter what Facebook is to MySpace: a more technologically advanced and more Web 2.0 service that does what it predecessor/rival does, but does it much better and with more flair.
I will miss Pownce and I hope that someone else comes along and takes Twitter's userbase with them to a much better place of more usability and a much more stable environment. I like using Twitter, but I feel that I liked Pownce much more. But, again, Twitter just has all the users.

MY [Late] QUICK UPDATE (12/16/08)

These posts are supposed to be written on Saturday. The last one I wrote was on a Sunday and last Saturday, I was out the entire day and forgot to write one up. Hopefully, I'll get back to doing this thing right.

Got to see Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York on Friday! Probably may be my #1 film of the year. At least out of the films I've seen thus far. As much as I love seeing his scripts through the eyes of other visual directors, Charlie Kaufman should continue to direct his own scripts.

Been working on a list of my Top 10 Films of 2008 lately. What I found interesting is that the list of movies that I need to see is almost as long as the list of movies I have seen that I feel might belong on my Top 10. This is going to be much harder than I thought.



On Saturday, I had a cookout with a few friends over at a friend's apartment complex. It was an event I had come up with and planned for the film club that I am in, FUF, and it was a blast. I called it the "FUF End-of-the-Year Potluck/Cookout".
At first, it took us about 45 minutes to actually get the charcoal on the grill to stay lit. But, in that time, we had quite a few very large fires. I find that nothing impresses men more than more fire. THe more fire, the more we grunt, drink beer, scratch ourselves, and abuse women make sexual jokes at the expense of women.
I made a rockin' potato salad - inless all my friends were lying to me to protect my feelings - and made a few hot dog rollups. If you are unaware of the hot dog rollup, click the link. It will change your life forever, but not necessarily in a good way. There were pictures taken of me making the hot dog rollup, but I am not in possession of these photographs. Hopefully, I will get them later and post them as an update to the post.
My friend, Adam "A-Train" Isaacs, made some surf-n-turf (shrimps and steak) that were unbelievably amazing. And Todd Jurgess' wife, Stephanie, made some great cheese dip that we were all devouering throughout the night.
Great night!

Trying to trooper through Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander. I've gotten through the first two episodes, of four. The second episode made up for the first one quite a bit. The first episode mainly dealt with all of the adults in the story rather than the child characters whom the film is named after, Fanny and Alexander. I believe each of them had around 5 words each throughout the 90 minute first episode. But, the second episode really developed Alexander's character a lot. This episode was still mainly about the adults, but how their situations were seen throughout the children's eyes.
So far, it is growing into something great. I cannot wait to finish it!

Alternate Teaser Trailer for WATCHMEN

As anyone who knows me knows, I am NOT looking forward to Watchmen at all. I will most likely see it on opening night - maybe even at midnight - but I'm planning on it being pretty awful.
I do not think that Zack Snyder will succeed where Terry Gilliam, Darren Aronofsky, and Paul Greengrass (three of the best living directors ever) failed.
Anyway, here is the alternate teaser trailer for Zack Snyder's Watchmen. I personally think that it is better than the first. Less Snyder slo-mo shots. They are still present, but there are less. Also, a few more interesting shots, in general.
So, here goes...

"Pushing Daisies" to be Brought Back to Life by the Touch of Other Mediums

"Pushing Daisies" was canceled. I am personally distraught (but not surprised) by the news. Bryan Fuller has since signed a writing deal with Universal. First, he will return to NBC's now-failing "Heroes" to finish up the third season. After that, it is not said whether he will continue with "Heroes" or if NBC will set him up with his own new show...that will be canceled most likely in its first season.
"Pushing Daisies" will, however, live on. First, in a comic book published by either DC Comics or DC's imprint, Wildstorm. Then, if all goes according to plan, Bryan Fuller will bring "Pushing Daisies" to the silver screen. I'm glad that one of Bryan Fuller's works will live on beyond cancellation. I loved "Dead Like Me" and "Wonderfalls" a lot and hope that they, or at least "Wonderfalls", gets a second chance on another medium.
Joss Whedon's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 8" and "Angel" comics have given new hope to continuing television shows. I see this becoming a new way for television show creators to continue their storylines and universes. After all, comic books are to literature what television is to film. Comic books are the best way to continue a serialized story.
The unfortunate thing is that actors Lee Pace, Anna Friel, Kristen Chenoweth, and Chi McBride cannot continue their characters in the comic. So, hopefully, a studio picks up the "Pushing Daisies" movie.
As the show's tagline goes, "life. death. and life again."

MY QUICK UPDATE (12/07/08)

Haven't written a post in a while. Mainly, because I've been 75% complete with the latter half of my "90210" review for 3 months and have yet to finish it. But, I feel the need to keep this damn thing up-to-date and the best way to do that is to continue the weekly "MY QUICK UPDATE" posts. Hopefully, this will spark me to finish that damned review (which would be good because I said I would not continue the series until I finished said review). I'll try and cover these last 3 months very succinctly.
So, here goes...

HOLIDAYS:
Halloween - Watched some horror movies with friends. No parties this year. Kind of regret that.
Thanksgiving - Went to Miami for the break. Spent the better part of the holiday hanging out at my friends' Starbucks drinking free drinks and receiving a large amount of free food that my family ate. On the way back to Gainesville, I got in a bit of a car accident ruining my transmission which now needs to be replaced.

Have not had a car for a week and have been forced to take the bus wherever I need to go. Luckily, I have some friends that are willing to give me rides to certain destinations.

I saw Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon at a free screening playing on campus. It was genuinely a good film. With some of Howard's latest, I was a gladly surprised.

I also got a chance to see David Fincher's newest film, based on the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, at a free advanced unadvertised screening put on by Paramount Pictures and FilmMetro. A GREAT film! Review to come (?).

Went to the of Montreal concert last Friday (12/5) with a friend. One of the best concerts I've been to! I've always heard of Montreal concerts to be very theatrical and they definitely lived up to the hype. I would recommend that, if you have the chance, you should go see one of their concerts. You wouldn't regret it.

Currently trying to convince my father to get me this car. Isn't taking too much convincing because, like me, my dad loves sports cars. He just wishes to see and test drive the car before buying. Now, if the seller would just e-mail me back...

My Newest Guilty Pleasure: "90210" [Part I]

Yes, that's right! This is going to be "Part I" of my review of The CW's re-vamp/spin-off of popular '90s primetime soap, "Beverly Hills, 90210": "90210". "Part I" will essentially be my reasons for actually watching "90210". I tell, not to make a justification for why, but to help me understand why I did. "Part II" will actually be my review of the 2-hour premiere of the show.
Shockingly, it isn't as bad as I assumed it would be...


Reasons I Checked Out "90210":
The pilot for the spin-off was written by three writers - two writing teams - whom I have come to really like in the last few years.
The first team, the executive producers and head writers of "90210", are Jeff Judah and Gabe Sachs. This team held supervising producer credits and wrote two episodes - "I'm With the Band" and "The Garage Door" - of the geek-loved, cult TV show "Freaks and Geeks". They also developed the 2004 teen drama series, "Life As We Know It" - which started off well, but floundered in the latter half of the series' only, 13-episode season.
The third writer of the pilot, entitled "We're Not in Kansas Anymore" (will explain later), is none other than the creator of one of my all-time favorite series and favorite teen drama, "Veronica Mars", writer Rob Thomas (not of band, Matchbox 20). Most likely, since Rob Thomas is working on so many other television projects - including a re-vamp of his first created series, "Cupid" - he will not be returning to write anymore episodes of the series. At least, not this season.
In addition to the series' writing staff, what got me to tune in at 8pm on Tuesday was childhood memories. "Beverly Hills, 90210" was one of my mother's favorite television shows when I was first discovering the world that is primetime television. One of the things I always liked about my parents' view on first-time child rearing (I was the first child, a.k.a. the test subject) was that they did not like a lot of the public broadcasting children's shows. My parents hated "Barney", and so did I. They liked "Sesame Street", though. So, I ended up growing up on primetime television shows. Shows like "Seinfeld" (anyone who knows me knows that), "The Cosby Show", "A Different World", "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air", "Cheers", "Fraiser", "Full House", "Murphy Brown", "NYPD Blue", "Law & Order", etcetera, etcetera. Now, I also watched a lot of Saturday morning cartoons of the early-to-mid-1990s, but those shows are meant for another post. One of such shows was "Beverly Hills, 90210". Unlike most of the shows on the list, I didn't complete the show to its final airing. It started when I was just two-years-old, but I watched whatever was on TV at the time. That theme song is as grained into my memory, as was the "Seinfeld" theme and Where Everybody Knows Your Name from "Cheers".
And, while I watched "Beverly Hills, 90210", I ended up becoming increasingly attracted to Shannen Doherty. Why? I don't know. Besides the fact that Brenda was hot as hell, Doherty was also a bitch. One of the many reasons why she was written off. So, when I heard that she would be making a short episode-arc return on "90210", I had to tune in! I mean, I watched "Charmed" for 3 seasons. You know, until she was written off for being a bitch...


Surprises That Came While Watching "90210":
Many shocking revelations came to me while watching "90210". And not a one of them came from the plot.
I did not know that Jessica Walter - Lucille Bluth, or Gangy, of "Arrested Development"- and Lori Loughlin - Rebecca "Becky" of "Full House" - would show up on the show!
Also, Shenae Grimes - who played Darcy from my summertime guilty pleasure, "Degrassi: The Next Generation" (Danny showed me that Canadian melodrama is fucking hilarious) - plays the main character, Annie Wilson (more on her later).

"Part II" to come soon...

MY QUICK UPDATE (8/30/08)

The point of the "MY QUICK UPDATE" posts were to be a weekly Page 2 for the blog. The Page 1 stories being the long posts that have their own titles and the Page 2 posts being random things throughout the week that I want to write a quick blurb about, but not a full post.
Also, they're supposed to make me write at least ONE post per week. The point is to have a couple posts in between, but I now realize the last post I wrote was last Saturday's "MY QUICK UPDATE". Hopefully, next week will be different.

Went to see Tarsem's The Fall earlier today at the Hippodrome. Had to see it alone since everyone that I knew that would want to see it had seen it already.

Re-watched Michael Haneke's 2007 remake of Funny Games. I think I liked it more this time around. Which is odd, because I really liked it a lot when I first saw it.

Bought "Tiny Toon Adventures", season 1, volume 1, at Best Buy ealier this week since they're having a 25% off TV DVDs sale. After I finish watching it, I plan to write a post on the cartoon revolution of the 1990s vs the cartoons of today.

Started a post on one of my favorite underrated films, Galaxy Quest, but still need to finish it.

I realize that I talk more about writing posts than actually writing posts for this blog.

Barack Obama's DNC acceptance speech was phenomenal! The first Democrat I've seen that actually responds to the Republican smear campaign rather than play ostrich to it.

Re-reading "Watchmen" while reading "DC Universe: The Stories of Alan Moore". I feel an Alan Moore discussion coming on.

Is it odd that I was excited to see Shannen Doherty on the cover of my "Entertainment Weekly" this week? I realize that this season, the new "90210" series may become my new primetime guilty pleasure, i.e. "The OC" in 2004 and "Gossip Girl" last season.

Fishnet stockings! Man, I love Shannen Doherty...

MY QUICK UPDATE (8/23/08)

Party went well on Wednesday night...to an extent.

Been playing "Galaga Legions" on Xbox Live Arcade (Possible review coming soon?).

Savannah College of Art and Design still refuses to put up the schedule for the 2008 Savannah Film Festival and that makes it a harder event to plan early.

Can't stop watching Eddie Murphy Raw. Apparently, I'm 13 again.

Watched Steven Shainberg's Secretary and loved it.

Bought "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" on iTunes, put it on my iPod, and cannot stop listening to it and singing along in my car. There's just something about that Neil Patrick Harris that makes me want to sing. So now, I'll end up buying it twice when it comes out on DVD. Worth it.

I should find a good therapist.

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Listening to: Madvillain - Accordion
via FoxyTunes

My Party to Plan...

So, for the last few days, I've been convincing my good friend, Ying, to come up to Gainesville - before her move-in day at her new apartment - and spend some time up here hanging out. I did actually want her to come up and even offered to house her in one of the three currently empty rooms in my apartment until Wednesday the 20th, move-in day for Lexington Crossing. The crazy thing is, I had just assumed she would never accept.

And then, I get a call...

The call was Ying saying that she'd love to and will show up at my door some time on Sunday.
Now, I don't regret or even mind her staying here, at my place, until Wednesday. After all, I did offer. What I also said in these random conversations over the last few days was that if she came up, we'll throw a party for her birthday on Wednesday. Then it hit me: I now have to get a party ready for my friend's birthday. Not only that, it has to be good!
She was telling me of how her birthdays are never really what she wants out of them. Which is a pretty common story for most. Most - if not, all - of my birthdays have felt like every other day. The best one I can think of was the one that was thrown for me be some friends this year. It was pretty great and a few of my friends chipped in and got me a handle of Southern Comfort.
Now, what I need to do is plan a party that will be a) a party that she will not only enjoy, but change her birthday history and b) a party that other people will enjoy before the Fall semester starts.
So far, I have the location: my friend, Jim Colee's house. Ample parking, not too far from where most people live, large enough to house a crowd, and plenty of spacing far enough from other homes to muffle drunken, loud dialogue from said crowd. Now, all I need is...well, everything else. I need to invite people, find some people that would not mind chipping in for drinks, find someone to pay for said drinks (the whole under 21 thing stops me from doing such things), and do it not completely under Ying's nose, because she does know that the party's happening, but keep her as uninvolved as possible to not make it seem like she is planning her own shindig.
I have quite a weekend ahead of me.

Honestly, any and all ideas would be well appreciated...


Later days.

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Listening to: The Decemberists - Billy Liar
via FoxyTunes

My Welcome Post

So, I have decided to start up a new Blogger blog. I used to have an old one and had considered just continuing that one - which hasn't had a new post since October 2006 - but figured that I should just "start anew" as it were. Plus, I enjoy the title of this blog much, much more!

So, welcome to "The Nick B-Log" (said THE "NICK B" LOG)! Eventually, I'll post about whatever tickles my fancy or whatever I may be doing at such a time or random mentions of things that happened to me that day. Some posts may be angry (such as if I talk about Frank Miller's softcore porn adaptation of Will Eisner's The Spirit...I mean, feature film adaptation), some may be nostalgic, some may be geeky and fanboy-ish (a lot of those may be included in the angry ones), and some - or most - may be about things that you don't even care enough to hear about. But, they'll be here.
So please enjoy (or don't) the random writings of a geek that was given way too much power when the internet was created. I hope that you do enjoy it, but, if not, it'll still be here if you leave.