Because I woke up and went to work an hour early yesterday, destroyed a few plates of half-price sushi at Ra, downed a couple glasses of Kirin, and ended up passing out for two hours after I got home, I kinda just feel like posting some eye candy this morning instead of, you know, actually writing anything. Push play and enjoy.
A catchy and melodic track by The Hundred In The Hands. It doesn't hurt that Eleanore Everdell has such a sweetly resonant voice. Pair the track with some refreshingly high-contrast visuals and you've got a slick, engaging video.
Stop-motion macro photography (think Robot Chicken) set to a jazzy, rolling groove. I especially like how all the little details added realism to the scene, from small pieces of litter blowing around in the street to the parallel-parking cars.
Like the retro-ish atmosphere, simple scenes of nature and poignant piano score in this short film, languages are beautiful.
Hopefully these videos give you a little boost to your day! As for me, I think a Red Bull might do the trick. *burp*
Vimeo served up this awesome short film to my inbox today. Take the sixteen minutes out of your day to watch; it's well worth it [NSFW].
Whoa. (c)Keanu
I was really impressed by the sharp editing and stark, fluorescent cinematography. The cast, a nice little Benetton coalition of actors displaying a wide range of emotions, was on point too. Additionally, the atmosphere of the film -- equal parts desperation, hope, and greed -- drew me in almost immediately. I liked the juxtaposition of various visions of pleasure/paradise broadcast by the television screens against the greasy, bloody recordings of the convenience store security camera. The resolution for the two characters bookending the film made me chuckle, too; at least something went right for somebody.
Your Lucky Day [larger version here] asks us what we would do in a similar situation. How would you weigh a share of $156 million against witnessing two murders you had nothing to do with? What would your price be, knowing that your death would likely be the consequence if you didn't agree to the terms?
Are your morals worth your life?
I think that at the moment, my self-preservation instinct would kick in. True, refusing to acquiesce to the robber's demands wouldn't bring the dead back to life. Not really having much of a choice, I would probably have acted in a similar way to the couple. However, I think the guilt would eat me alive. Admittedly, whether or not I'd eventually turn myself in is up in the air.
That I'd even hesitate to do "the right thing" is probably some kind of moral failure. I suspect, however, that I'm not alone.
Okay. So I've been meaning to post about this for a while now. Somehow, I stumbled upon across Jake Lodwick's (one of the co-creators of Vimeo) tumblr blog a few months ago and read a series of posts he dedicated to what he calls Standards. It was a so-called "self-management experiment" over the course of a few weeks in which he tracked his daily activities and, using time-management tools and some self-discipline, changed his habits and made his routine more efficient, productive and ultimately rewarding.
I found the blog entries fairly interesting reading, enough to want to explore this myself. However, I wanted to wait until the new year to begin formulating some kind of plan to adhere to -- basically New Year's Resolutions tracked on an Excel spreadsheet and some online time-management websites. True to form, however, I hadn't gotten around to actually doing anything about it. Hence I had to get off my ass and get started by at least posting about it.
Lame, I know, but you know what they say: A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step -- or something like that. But yes, I've begun to swirl the concept around a bit more, and will come back in the upcoming days with something a little more concrete than "just thinking about doing it."
This coincides well with the fact that my final school semester is starting in about a week and a half, so that's a pretty good deadline to have if I'm going to set some time-management goals up. Box Project will be the tentative name for my experiment, as I'm going to attempt to "box" my activities into neat bundles, organized into coherent schedules that will hopefully improve my life.
