Dave Kean

The have been a lot of movies full of CGI creatures, aliens and monsters. Lots of directors want you to know they spent a lot of money on them, spend way too much time showing them off and leave little to the imagination.

I’m someone who can happily sit through badly dubbed dialogue of just about any Godzilla movie to get a glimpse of the big guy fighting clouds of smog or giant moths. It’s the journey that makes it so special, put the monster front and center and the suspense and magic is lost.

First up, this isn’t a rant against CGI. Computers have given us some monsters or aliens for the ages. Top of the list was the guy with the eyes on his hands from Pans Labyrinth, I caught it on TV recently and had forgotten how good it was. Also making my non-exhaustive list are the mindless bugs from Starship Troopers, the tentacle faced guy from Pirates of the Caribbean, Mummies, Megalodon and the Kraken from the otherwise horrible remake of Clash of the titans are all wonderful.

My problem comes from lack of imagination, in an industry that’s history is built on the stuff. Just because teen-vampires are cool right now, doesn’t mean we can’t have the occasional Bram Stoker type vampire to switch it up.

Lets look back to the classic monsters of pre-CGI. As cool as CGI can be, does anything really compare to Giger’s xenomorph from Alien? Has there ever been a monster that had made an impression on you like that? And I mean from the first movie, perhaps the ultimate thriller in outer space. I saw it when I was about 12, and it still scares me today.

Runner up on my old-school monster list is the Shark from Jaws. The limitations of the technology forced Spielberg to be creative in his camerawork and editing. And arguably made a better, more original movie as a result of working around the limitations, rather than with in them.

I love the low budget movie Darkstar, it’s great sci-fi. The captain preserved in a block of ice, intelligent nuclear bombs and a crew gone partially mad after decades in space. Of course there is the monster, and it’s a painted beach ball. Clearly director John Carpenters money had run out by this point, but everyone remembers it, and it’s impossible to argue its originality.

Which is most of what makes a monster cool.

I’ve been trying to work out the last movie monster that really left an impression on me. I think it’s the creature from Cloverfield. And that worked in part because we never really saw everything.

So much was left to the imagination, and that’s way scarier than anything Hollywood can throw at us.
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Related articles

• Monsters (lacer.wordpress.com)
• Cloverfield (mhbd.blogspot.com)
• Cloverfield (jmountswritteninblood.com)

Today was expansion draft day. Montreal got to pick 10 players from the rest of the clubs around the league. First pick was Brian Ching (former USL sounder), who said he’d retire rather than play for Montreal. We’ll see where that goes.

We lost James Riles in the draft proper, then a few minutes later Tyson Wahl was sold to Montreal (MLS calls it “allocation money“, but it’s the same thing). Riley was then traded to Chivas for Justin Braun and Gerson Mayen.

Braun is the big pick up there for Montreal, a very good looking forward on the fringe of the US national team.

OK, Riley was unprotected, that was just a numbers game as the Sounders could not protect everyone. Wahl on the other hand was a trade that happened after the team knew about Riley leaving, and indicates they have plans underway for those positions.

On the bright side hey cleared over $150K in cap space, but they lost both outside backs. With a new keeper and both outside backs potentially being new (Evans as right back maybe?) it’s going to be a very different looking defense next year. I think that might be good as there were time’s it was an issue this year.

I’m sorry to see Riley go, he’s been a big part of the clubs success since being picked by Seattle in the expansion draft prior to the 2009 season. It’s not just his runs down the right that will be missed, off the field he contributed through his support of Renton Boys & Girls Club.

Related articles

• Riley Selected by Montreal. Wahl Traded There. (gosounders.com)
• 2011 MLS Expansion Draft: Impact Selects 10 Including Brian Ching (wvhooligan.com)
• Montreal take Riley, ship him to Chivas for Braun, Mayen (mlssoccer.com)
• Impact ignore retirement threat, make Ching first pick in expansion draft (soccerbyives.net)

For the second year running we are approaching the expansion draft. Next week Montreal get to pick 10 players for their new MLS squad. Each existing team get to protect 11 players; those left off the list are fair game for selection. Teams can only loose one player to the expansion draft, last year they could loose two.

As before Generation Adidas and home grown players don’t count against the 11. For Seattle only Michael Tetteh is automatically protected.

So the big question is who do the Sounders protect? There are a numbers of things that have to be taken into account when creating this list.

• Where the Sounders have depth (midfield)
• Is anyone going to be lost to free agency/transfer (Alonso? Montero?)
• Who do we have coming in during the transfer window (goalkeeper)
• What do Montreal need/want
• Is there anyone Montreal does not want

Who will be gracing RBP next year?

So it’s time for the list and my reasons.

There the people I think are the automatics:

• Alonso
• Rosales
• Fernandez
• Montero.

Rosales is out of contract, but both sides are making noises that it’s a done deal so he stays on the automatic list for me.

• Zakuani

Coming back from a massive injury, but you can’t expose him as he’d be snapped up in a second. OK, that’s the obvious ones accounted for, lets fill out the rest… Read more…

This month got away from me with work, some stuff getting done around the house and travel, it’s been good. Today I finally got a little time and it was not raining to get the monthly picture from the back window.

The autumn is certainly here and I do need to sweep the leaves from the deck. That will be followed by probably do my least favorite job getting onto the roof to clean the gutters. But the view is beautiful.

I was talking with my leadership at work about BWE and of the questions that got repeated time and time again was exactly what is social media? What does it really do? And perhaps most often, why is it important?

I’ll try to answer the final one of those, and why I see a problem.

At it’s most basic; Social Media is a tool for bringing people together, sharing ideas and thoughts. Now a lot of that (including, I suspect, what I write) is background noise, but there are some really spectacular gems out there.

It’s been given credit for many things; from grand ideals like enabling the protests of Arab spring to allowing us to share rambling thoughts, as long as it’s less than 140 characters.

The Internet really has changed the world we live in, it allows us to connect with people we would be unlikely to find offline. This can be a huge force for good, it brings unlikely communities together, or has the power to lead us down dark little paths, some of which are very well trodden.

It all starts with a small conversation; this builds and builds into something potentially very cool. We all like to belong to groups, we like to feel we belong and that’s a very natural human trait. The Internet allows us to engage in ways unknown 10 years ago, it allows us to follow, to connect for the sake of connection and that is a very, very powerful force.

Anyone can produce content, and this is the power of Social Media. It is an incredible tool to engage and provides a place for everyone that has something to say, to say it.

Lets be clear there are some brilliant, creative people in the blogging and writing business, and until the last decade never had an accessible platform to show their talent.

And this is what social media does, it creates that platform for people to share, educate and connect. Read more…

What is there to say about BlogWorld 2011?

So much and this is just my first thoughts, I’ve got a lot of notes, audio and interviews to go through yet. There are a few more posts to come.

This is my second BlogWorld Expo, last year it was in Las Vegas and was a really entertaining three days. And while LA may be the center of the media universe, Vegas really was a blast last year so this has a lot to live up to.

OK, so what’s BlogWorld? Simply put, it’s largest new-media conference in the world. It’s a massive coming together of social and new media types for three days of meetings, sessions and parties. It’s about meeting people (good god I hate to call it “networking”), spending time with friends and understanding where we are as a group, what’s changed and finally a little crystal ball glazing as to what’s next.

I came away with a huge long list of things I want to try; both here and on another couple of projects I’ve ben working on.

For me it’s the learning and meeting people, I do this for fun and don’t want to be a blogging superstar. I just don’t have the energy or creative talent that those people do, but it’s always interesting to talk to them and see their take on the world. It’s quite frightening how much energy people like Ewan Spence, Kevin Pollak, Cecily Kellogg, Kelby Karr or Srinivas Rao have.

Friday night I ended up drinking with some people from my new favorite publisher. It’s a long time since I’ve been up that late drinking, Peter and Shannon from Wiley came close to drinking me under the table, I missed a lot of the Saturday sessions dealing with a hangover. Thanks to Wiley publishing for the pile of books, the advise and encouragement. It was an awesome night, but either you guys can drink, or I am a total lightweight.

The best session was probably the Friday night keynote by Ford CMO Jim Farley. He started talking about his role in leading Ford into the world of new media, how a company has to give up control and let the consumer’s message become the companies’ message. That’s the big-company issue, to engage people in an authentic way means the same people, both inside and outside the company, get to be part of the telling of story of Ford and their products. Read more…

I’ve finally got to the point where I admit I have a problem, I’m an addict and now the Sounders year is done I’m not sure what I’m going to do about it.

Lets take baseball as an example; I’ve watched maybe 3 or 4 baseball games all year. Then all of a sudden twitter went crazy with people talking about game 6 of the World Series. I put down the paintbrush, switched on the TV and spent the next couple of hours watching one of the most astounding games I’ve ever seen.

Sports are a big part of my life. Other than a little rallying I don’t take part in organized sport anymore. In the past I’ve played a rugby and football, never to a particularly high standard, but I’ve always had fun and certainly enjoyed the social side of the games.

I’ve been wondering what about sport that draws us in in such a way. First up is the drama, the whole on any given Saturday thing, any team can have a bad day, a little tough luck or a bad decision or two and loose.

There was a huge miss-match last week, Aldershot (League-2) hosting Manchester United (current Premier League champions). On paper The Shots have no chance, and indeed United efficiently dispatched them 3-0, but before kickoff there were thousands of Aldershot fans thinking, “Just maybe it’s our night.”

That thought is what makes sports so special. We get to watch the story unfold knowing that no director or writer has predetermined the outcome, and that uncertainty draws us in and can give us the rush that brings us back.

Read more…

It all came to a halt last night and no one should have been surprised, after Saturday the odds of playing in the conference final Sunday were long.  And that’s no ones fault other than the players that put on the atrocious display in Salt Lake Saturday night.

In the past I’ve been impressed by Salt Lake, but after the last couple of games I think they have been shown to be typical MLS thugs. That’s not their problem, they play a style that works for MLS. It’s a league problem and Seattle has not built a team that’s equipped to play physical play-off football in that way.

The front office and coaching staff somewhere decided that they would build a team that played in the right way. They invested in young, talented players and put together a team that, when they are on, play about the prettiest football in the MLS. And that is something I can get behind. Read more…

I’ve no idea why, but this makes me smile.

Via Sounder at Heart