Scott Bush

If lin­guis­tic rel­a­tivism is true, then we’re in for some trou­ble. I’ve found it’s becom­ing com­mon­place to use strange con­struc­tions or mul­ti­ple sim­ple words to name items for which per­fectly good names already exist. Why is that? Lazi­ness? Maybe at first… but I think it’s more than that. There seems to be a trend to “dumb it down” for peo­ple who “might not under­stand.” While it’s true that many peo­ple may not know a word, I don’t agree that they can’t use the oppor­tu­nity to learn. If they chose not to, they remain igno­rant. But if they do… then that’s a pos­i­tive expe­ri­ence and strength­ens the vibrancy of the Eng­lish language.

Two exam­ples will illus­trate my point. A few years back, McDon­alds valiantly tried to remake its image as pur­veyor of a healthy lifestyle by adding a pedome­ter to its “adult happy meals.” But they didn’t call it a pedome­ter. Instead they named it “stepome­ter.” Excuse me? Stepome­ter? Is that because they thought the typ­i­cal McDonald’s cus­tomer doesn’t know the word pedome­ter? I’m all for healthy lifestyles and walk­ing, but I’d eschew this thing on prin­ci­ple alone (that, and the fact I don’t eat at McDonalds).

At a recent back­yard BBQ, the dis­cus­sion turned to lawn care. “I use water from my rain bar­rel to water the lawn,” my friend told us. “Cool,” I exclaimed. “I wish more peo­ple used cis­terns,” I added, using the term for a con­tainer to hold rain water. “Hmm? What’re those?” My friend asked. I explained that his rain bar­rel is sup­posed to be called a cis­tern. “Won­der why they didn’t call it that at the store?” He asked. Me too.

Any­one have other exam­ples of names being omit­ted in favor of some silly con­struc­tion? Per­haps a “big ground watch” for a sundial?

This post may sound like the title of an Oprah or Dr. Phil episode. So be it. I just wanted to write about one great moment that my mind some­how man­aged to rec­og­nize as such, despite being in its midst.

My newly-married friend Jacob and I had met to toss the disc at a field near his house. We’d been out for nearly an hour so we were nice and warmed up. Jacob, about 50 yards away across the field, bal­anced the Fris­bee on his mid­dle and index fin­gers; he launched it. I watched it soar across the field, a175-gram white disc framed against a beau­ti­ful blue sky dot­ted with wisps of white clouds. Unseen birds chirped; a hot but not oppres­sive sun warmed my shirt­less chest. As the Fris­bee approached, I real­ized it would sail pass me unless I got mov­ing. My legs pumped under me as I chased it, drop­ping lower as I closed in. I jump, hand extended to snatch it from its gravity-mandated trajectory.

Life, for those few moments, is sim­ple: catch the Fris­bee. Every­thing was in place: weather, tem­per­a­ture, time, body, mind. Noth­ing obscured my thoughts… daily wor­ries, obsta­cles, work, family—they all faded away as I focused on my goal. A per­fect moment. Must be why dogs love to catch Fris­bees, though I imag­ine it’s eas­ier for them to for­get what doggy prob­lems occupy their minds.

We’ve all been known to exclaim “Geeze, this pizza tastes like card­board!” after bit­ing into a slice of cheap ‘za. Or per­haps com­plained about some over­cooked, sinewy flank steak (well, not me of course). That’s all hyper­bole of course… unless you’re in Bei­jing eat­ing a par­tic­u­lar of steam bun:

Squares of card­board picked from the ground are first soaked to a pulp in a plas­tic basin of caus­tic soda—a chem­i­cal base com­monly used in man­u­fac­tur­ing paper and soap—then chopped into tiny morsels with a cleaver. Fatty pork and pow­dered sea­son­ing are stirred in.

First it was melanine-tainted dog food , then poi­soned tooth­paste, and now pulpy steamed buns. Ouch. If China were a brand, they would def­i­nitely be expe­ri­enc­ing dam­age like Jack in the Box’s e-coli ham­burg­ers (1993), Exxon’s Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound (1989), or Firestone’s explod­ing tires (2000). With the 2008 Olympic Games com­ing up next year in Bei­jing, let’s hope they can turn their pub­lic image around—not to men­tion putting some­thing edi­ble in their steam buns.

UPDATE!

Tara Kolden, an eagle-eyed and socially respon­si­ble reader of this blog, informed me that the cardboard-filled steamed buns are a hoax! But at least I am in good company—this story was all over the AP wire. Now it’ll be rel­e­gated to Snopes.com. Oh, and the Seat­tle Times. Thanks Tara. I’d go eat one, except they’re still filled with pork.

My read­ers may know that my mother’s side of the fam­ily is French Cana­dian, and that I love our north­ern neigh­bor. Trips “back home” to Que­bec are won­der­ful, and vis­its to B.C. are always enjoy­able. It’s with that back­ground that I spot­ted a sec­tion of our company’s “Diver­sity Board,” which this month fea­tures Amer­i­cans with disabilities.

Each month, the diver­sity board illu­mi­nates facts, accom­plish­ments, events, and note­wor­thy lumi­nar­ies of a par­tic­u­lar group. It’s quite a good dis­play, actu­ally. This month, the board dis­played the movie Mur­der­ball, info about the ADA, and a who’s-who of dis­abled Amer­i­cans. Then I noticed an incon­gruity that can only be explained as (a) a diver­sity topic that didn’t war­rant its own dis­play, yet wor­thy of men­tion; or (b) a bit­ing com­men­tary on America’s view of Cana­di­ans. Though I’m sure it’s the for­mer, I couldn’t help but snap this photo for my Cana­dian brethren to judge for themselves.

Keep your heads up, Cana­di­ans! I know it’s been a tough year, with the Ottowa Sen­a­tors los­ing the Stan­ley Cup to an Amer­i­can team (with a wimpy name, too: the “ducks,” and from the west coast, no less!). Take solace in the fact that the Amer­i­can dol­lar is nearly on par with the Luni. So, enjoy a double-double and know that not all of us think of you merely as dis­abled ver­sions of our­selves. (But we do know that your for­mer prime min­is­ter Steven Harper eats babies.)

Bear in mind I grew up in the 80s, so of course I had both He-Men and Trans­form­ers. Until some direc­tor steps for­ward to put muscle-bound men with swords fight­ing myth­i­cal ene­mies (Oh, wait: Zack Sny­der already did that; it was called 300), I’ll have to con­tent myself with Michael Bay’s Trans­form­ers.

And con­tent I am! I’ve just seen an early show­ing and I am very impressed. I knew noth­ing of the sto­ry­line and fully expected a special-effect bore of a film stag­ger­ing under the weight of its own hype (cough, cough, Pirates 3, cough). Instead I, along with a the­atre full of my 30-something peers, were treated to a truly excel­lent film. Here’s what I thought:

Story

There really are two threads here: the human ele­ment, dis­tilled into an awk­ward teenager’s crush on a (impossibly-hot-unlike-any-real-high-school) girl. That, and his need for a car to impress said girl. The sec­ond thread, of course, is the bat­tle between the Auto­bots (the good guys) and Decep­ti­cons (the bad guys). To sum it up very suc­cinctly, there’s an impor­tant thing both the Auto­bots and Decip­ti­cons want that the US gov­ern­ment has; once its loca­tion is known, there’s an all-out race/fight to obtain it.

Spe­cial effects and filming

How the dig­i­tal effects team pulled of this mas­ter­piece is beyond me. Many scenes suf­fer from exces­sive cam­era move­ment and overly-close zoom (what I deri­sively call the Bourne Effect after ter­ri­ble fight-scene cam­era work in those movies). Bay’s unique approach to film­ing, though, gives cre­dence to how these fights and action are por­trayed. It’s hard to describe, but when you see the action from the ground, sweep­ing from behind, above, and in front of a human char­ac­ter, you’ll see what I mean. Besides, there are plenty of excel­lently detailed, slow-motion scenes to counter bal­ance. I had goose­bumps watch­ing Jazz, an Auto­bot, cart­wheel­ing over mis­siles in slow-mo to jump atop Dev­as­ta­tor (a tank) and twist his barrel.

Com­edy and dialog

Now, here’s some­thing I wouldn’t have expected from this film: great humor. Make no mis­take, this is an action flick. But you’ll find your­self laugh­ing quite often–and really laugh­ing. John Tur­turro and Anthony Ander­son are both hilar­i­ous and per­form excel­lently in their roles. Sur­pris­ingly, the Auto­bots bring an ele­ment of under­stated phys­i­cal humor; when they’re not blast­ing and fight­ing, that is.

There’s also a few excel­lent lines that deserve men­tion. The female hero­ine, Mikaela, is intro­duced with the line “Her? She’s an evil jock con­cu­bine, man.” Clas­sic. Another good one is “I bought a car. Turn out to be an alien robot… who knew?” Corny, but Shia LaBeouf’s deliv­ery makes up for it.

Nods to the Trans­form­ers legacy

Any­time a movie is trans­lated from a car­toon, comic, or video game, there needs to be some sort of con­nec­tion that speaks to the orig­i­nal fan­base; a lit­tle some­thing for the peo­ple for whom the movie is an event, not just a movie. Trans­form­ers has some good ones.

1. Peter Cullen voices Opti­mus Prime. He’s the voice actor from the orig­i­nal car­toon and, I’m told, some of the later incar­na­tions. (Strangely, Frank Welker doesn’t voice Mega­tron in the film, but does in an upcom­ing video game.) It’s great the first time he says “Auto­bots, roll out!”
2. Sam tells Mikaela that “there’s more to you than meets the eye.”
3. The scene I describe above where an Auto­bot (don’t recall which one) col­lars Devastator’s tank bar­rel is lifted right from the 1986 ani­mated Trans­form­ers movie. (Thanks Sean for explain­ing this one to me.)
4. Dur­ing Optimus’s fight with Mega­tron, he intones: “One shall stand, one shall fall,” a clas­sic line from the orig­i­nal movie.
5. The sub­tle, yet unmis­tak­able sound of the trans­for­ma­tion. It’s more elec­tric sound­ing than the orig­i­nal, but it’s there.

GMC, any­one?

Not only are Trans­form­ers inter­stel­lar sol­diers, they appar­ently are quite selec­tive about the forms they take and pre­fer American-made vehi­cles. This movie is a ver­i­ta­ble show­room floor for GMC cars and trucks. Let’s see what I can remem­ber off the top of my head: Chevy Camaro and Sub­ur­ban, Pon­tiac Sun­fire, Cadil­lac Escalade and CTS. Adver­tis­ing is mov­ing toward prod­uct place­ment and this movie is the poster child. Apple prod­ucts fea­ture promi­nently, as does a Nokia phone, an xbox360, eBay, and oth­ers that are prob­a­bly too sub­tle for me to recall, but I’m sure I want to buy one. Oh, and one other ad: the mil­i­tary. If watch­ing this film didn’t make you want to sign up, noth­ing will.

Over­all

In a word, this film is superb. You don’t need Trans­former knowl­edge to enjoy it. It has the per­fect mix of com­edy, intense action, spe­cial effects, and char­ac­ters that are devel­oped just enough for you to care about them. I under­stand there’s a sequel planned in 2009 (hmmm… let me guess: Uni­cron reju­ve­nates Mega­tron to become Gal­va­tron?). I hope this fran­chise doesn’t suf­fer from the same fate that X-Men and Pirates do, which is too much crap piled into sequels just to sell more tick­ets and action figures.

If you’re a Word­Press blog­ger (as you should be) then you may already know about some of the great fea­tures WP offers. Cool peo­ple with time and some PHP knowl­edge have made WP even bet­ter by writ­ing plug-ins. I just read an excel­lent arti­cle over at Smash­ing­Magazine that com­piled an amaz­ing list of must-have WP plug-ins. You’d bet­ter get over there and start down­load­ing plug ins if you’re a WP user! (I found one that dis­plays WP’s admin­is­tra­tion sub-options with­out hav­ing to click. Seems like a small thing but over time that saved click adds up to some seri­ous time!)

I also came across a font resource that no designer should be with­out. It’s called Urban­Fonts, and has tons of free fonts (both Mac and PC for­mat, though I had trou­ble with a few on the Mac side) all cat­e­go­rized. Good stuff!