Monthly Archives: July 2012

Trolls

Original ending to The Return Of The Jedi

The original ending of the blockbuster 1983 film was much less popular with test audiences than the version that finally made it onto the big screen.

The final redemption of the film’s original unlikely protagonist was, it seems, thought to be insufficiently clear to film-going audiences of the day.  Today’s audiences, of course, would be able to appreciate the transformation of Salacious Crumb from slave-jester to dignified hero at the moment of his death at the Great Pit of Carkoon, accepting of his fate as he rode the flaming wreckage of Jabba’s sail barge down towards the unforgiving sands of Tatooine.

The studio was in a panic at the news.  At the last moment, the actor playing Darth Vader was brought in to hurriedly fill the spot.  The ‘Jedi Ghost’ effect was quite expensive and a deposit for the special ink had already been put down.  Somebody had to fill the spot, so the little known character of Anakin Skywalker was grudgingly chosen.

Rant

Facebook notifications

A friend of mine noticed something you probably have too:  Facebook is now putting up notifications when your friends update their status.  Not just statuses you’ve Liked or people you’ve added to your super stalking list, but straight up ‘Joe Schmoe has updated their status’ is showing up as a red badge notification.  “Why is this happening?” he asks.  I offer the following theory out of a misplaced sense of obligation and competency:
Facebook knows that there’s an endorphin release for many people when they see the red notification in their Facebook toolbar. By adding more events to cause those notifications (and subsequent chemical releases), Facebook is conspiring to addict you to those internally produced drugs and in doing so to cause you to seek them over and over by increasing your Facebook visits.

Ideally, each consumer would measure the interval between refreshes (and consequently ad views) in seconds. Think of the twitching, shaky fingers of a cigarette chain smoker as they prop that Marlboro up and stare sightlessly off into the distance, smoke curling around them like a visible wall. Now, as an ex-smoker, imagine harnessing that single-minded addiction to making a company money.

Yeah, they’re smart.

Stories

An unsettling coincidence

1 Comment

Something unsettling happened last night.  You may read this and think ‘Oh you, now you’re being silly’, but this really happened.

I left the shop around midnight after a long day working on our contest entry and turned from McKinley onto 7th/99 to head east towards home.  For anyone outside of town, this is the far west side of Eugene and I live in the far east side of Springfield.  There are two towns between where I was and where I live.

Due to massive road construction, the four lane road is currently a single lane with a one foot drop-off (~1/3 meter for my civilized friends) into rock on one side and a sidewalk on the other.  The street lights for this stretch were out, so this stretch was very dark.

As I accelerated, I noticed a dark shape on the road ahead of me.  I began to slow and as I did so, I picked up three more shapes next to it.  I rolled to a stop about 20 feet away from a group of four…   raccoons.  They had stopped in the road and were staring at me.

Raccoons.

After a moment, they backed off the road as if to say ‘move along, buddy’ so I took my foot off the brake and began inching forward.  As I neared them (watching from the sidewalk), I carefully reached out and locked the door.

“Thunderscreech”, I thought to myself, “you’re being silly.”  Then I looked over to my left as I passed the group and saw that the biggest one was standing up and facing directly at me.

I don’t know what I thought it could do, but…  I punched it.  I hit the gas and took off.

It’s a coincidence, right?  I mean, a hamburglar of raccoons (I assume that’s the proper collective noun for these animals) standing in the middle of a darkened construction zone that just happens to be a natural constriction point I’d travel through is something that happens to other people, right?