Sir GHC Think: August 2007

The San Francisco Renaissance Faire (video)

I Thought Macs Were Supposed to "Just Work"

Well, I was going to post a little video blog entry today about the San Francisco Renaissance Faire that I attended today.

However, apparently the mpeg-1 videos that my digital camera takes aren't compatible with iMovie! They have no sound!

So I tried converting them with QuicktimePro, which can play them fine, sound and all.

No dice.

Do I really care enough to pull the pictures and video off the Mac and onto my PC to make a 4 minute video for my blog?

Probably.

But I'm really disappointed that I couldn't do it on my Mac.

The King of Kong

I just saw the movie The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. It opened today in the Bay Area.

The easiest way to sum this movie up is in the word, "Epic."

When the film starts, it seems like it's going to be a playful, geeky romp through classic gaming; niche city. But after Steve Wiebe, a science teacher from Redmond is introduced, and you see the battles that he has to go through to finally be acknowledged for achieving the world record Donkey Kong score, it becomes an intensely human story.

And that's why this movie succeeds. Steve Wiebe is the definition of a sympathetic hero. We want him to succeed as much as he does; when he is slighted by Twin Galaxies, the Guinness recognized organization that keeps track of champion video game scores, and snubbed by Billy Mitchell, the incumbent in the Donkey Kong records, it hurts the audience as much as it hurt Steve.

Of course, what use is a sympathetic character if he doesn't have antagonists? As I've already mentioned, Billy Mitchell, world renowned for his prowess at a myriad of games, serves as Steve's foil. Billy is, to put it simply, a huge fucking douchenozzle. If Steve is the source of joy and heart in this movie, Billy Mitchell serves as the asshole. You will be astounded by his gall, his ego, and his asshattery (and also his trophy wife; the size of her head!) Granted, he is the best of the best, and he deserves his share of the spotlight; but his pure desire for power and attention leads him to do rather unscrupulous things in order to thwart his new nemesis.

All in all, this is a must see film.