The Social Network. We’re all in one.

Thanks of a very generous twitterer I was given the chance to see The Social Network on Monday night.

Quick Synopsis:

Nerd from Harvard wants to be popular.

Nerd makes popular website.

Nerd gets into trouble.

Nerd makes even more popular website.

Nerd gets into even more trouble.

Nerd makes a billion dollars.

Nerd is popular….but still a Nerd.

The End.

Yes, it’s the story of that little website that rose from obscurity in the mid 2000’s to become the No.2 website in the world (after Google). It has also made Mark Zuckerberg, the founder/creator/nerd the youngest billionaire in the world with a worth of around 6.9 billion dollars. (click here to see what that could buy)

The film is essentially about the court cases surrounding the inital boom of the website, but we are taken back in time to see what occured during the pivotal moments of Zuckerberg’s rapid rise to riches.

You wouldn’t think this would make an especially enthralling film….but that is where you’re wrong. This film is exceptionally made in almost every way. First, you have David Fincher directing it. I’ve loved this guy since Se7en, which was also beautifully shot in almost every way. (also Fight Club, The Game, Panic Room, Zodiac, Benjamin Button and the new Dragon Tattoo US version). He gives this film an almost gritty edge to it. Surprising seeing as though the majority of it is filmed on a campus location (actually at Johns Hopkins Uni, not Harvard).

Secondly, you have Aaron Sorkin writing the screenplay. He wrote the 90’s hit, ‘A Few Good Men’, but is better known for his work on ‘The West Wing’. This would explain the incredible wordy opening sequence (which took 99 takes), in which Zuckerberg and his gf discuss their relationship.

The film itself just works. It’s fast paced, it has excellent performances from Jesse Eisenberg and particularly Justin Timberlake, who should definitely pursue acting a lot more. He plays the inventor of Napster, Sean Parker, and portrays him brilliantly, assuming that the actual person is paranoid, boisterous and charismatic.

When I walked out of the cinema I couldn’t help feeling that this is a movie for our generation. I specifically mean, for Gen X and Y. The Internet generations. We’ve all grown up with the Internet. We use it every single day and many have since the mid 90’s, but it wasn’t until Facebook appeared that we all joined together so whole-heartedly to create an online community that consumed so many.

My first experience of Facebook was early in 2006 when I was living and working in the US. I befriended a girl from Georgetown University who showed me the site. Of course at the time it was restricted to Universities and High Schools. It was until September of that year that anyone could create their profile.

The film goes a long way to show how the ideas for the site originated. Primarily the idea was taken and massaged from other students into what would become the original ‘TheFacebook.com’. The addition of personal information, relationship status and the infamous wall made it similar to MySpace, but it was the clean interface, speed and unique ability for added applications that helped it grow.

Whether you’re Gen X, Y, Baby Boomer or old fart you should enjoy this movie. If you’re like me you’ll also enjoy the awesome soundtrack provided by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails fame. Does industrial themed music work with this movie? Yes and suprisingly well. It adds that layer of depth to the scenes that Fincher would have loved and makes this more than a movie about a court case or a web site.

Well, stop reading this tripe and go see it already!

(funny)

Right. So Where Was I?

Fuck. It’s nearly the end of March already.

You realise that when the 1st of April hits, we are 1/4 of the way through 2009 already?

And THEN, we will hit a new decade. The Naughties will be gone. We’ll be into the Ten’s. That just sounds weird.

And THEN we’ll be into the 20’s, and when people refer to the 20’s, how will we know if they’re talking about the 1920’s or the 2020’s?

….

Life is like a snowball.

It rolls, and rolls and rolls, accumulating more snow, sticks, shit and stuff on it’s way, but then eventually it hits the bottom of the hill, or a tree, or just melts cause of the friction (or change of season) and then what? You have a massive broken snowball.

Great analogy, I know.

As you may have noticed, blogging has taken a back seat in my life lately. Firstly, my motiviation for posting has been non existent, but also I have been busy with that snowball of life and…..

… I have discovered Twitter. I mean, yeah, I’ve known about for ages, but I just thought it was a poor substitute for facebook. (which ironically now looks very much like twitter)

As it turns out it is a marvellous way to stalk celebrities and personalities that seem to have a need to ‘tweet’ everything they are doing.

This has particularly been useful with Stephen Fry, Jimmy Fallon, Lily Allen, Drew Barrymore,  Steve Buscemi, Gina Riley, John Cleese,  Chris Cornell, The Grates and Kevin Smith. Not to mention that the whole Triple J clan has joined up as well.

There’s a feeling of harmonious warmth when you see celebrities ‘tweeting’ each other, but also tweeting back to you like you were best mates or something.

I mean, just today, Steve Buscemi sent me a direct message telling me to “kick the shit out of a public bathroom for St. Patricks Day”. I mean how fucking cool is that?

The funny thing is, I think that everyone on Twitter realises that this is a fad. It will not last forever. Something bigger, faster and more exciting will come along and just like Myspace and just like blogs and just like Facebook, the participation rate will slide into oblivion and everyone will start using the ‘new’ thing.

But hey, it’s fun to jump on these bandwagons at the height of popularity, otherwise what else can you brag about with friends (I have 5000 friends. How many do you have??)

Besides, I am now officially a cripple and my Indoor Soccer career is over, so what else am I supposed to do?

Oh yeah, I broke my foot on Sunday afternoon.

Picture this.

I’m running to get the ball, with the usual vigour that I reserve for team sports, and I get my foot around the ball just as somewhere else reaches for it from another direction.

My ankle gives way and I roll onto the outside of my foot.

Suddenly a distinct sound permeates through the air;

“CRACK!”

I proceed to collapse onto the floor in pain, wondering why my (often) rolled ankle made that noise.

As I hobble off the court, I notice what appears to be a golf ball slowly rising up from the little toe side of my right foot.

I poke it. OUCH! Hmm. That can’t be good.

Although I would normally just hobble my way through a week with a sprained ankle, I have never seen swelling in my foot from a sprain!

It didn’t take too much convincing from LaLa to get me down to the ER to check it out.

The doctors were even excited enough to show me the X-Ray (all on computer now by the way. No x-ray boxes, although the nurse still referred to the monitor as an ‘X-Ray Box’).

There we go. An avulsion fracture of the 5th metatarsal. Awesome.

For those who don’t follow the link, imagine a tendon pulling away a section of the bone. That’s what an avulsion fracture is.

The doctor asked me, “Are you an elite athlete?”.

Well, it was flattering to be asked, but after LaLa and I chortled heartily, I replied “No.”

I shouldn’t require a pin put in it. Probably just a cast and a walking boot (classy!) for 4-6 weeks.

….

So here I am. At home. Blogging, facebooking, twittering, watching Entourage, playing Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, practicing songs for my band and trying to keep myself busy as my foot starts to heal.

So, where was I?

Facebook Spam. Tne End of Things as We Know It.

Bloody Hell.

For some reason I have been sending out Facebook Spam Links to all of my friends’ walls today, and I’m not even logged into it!

Around every 3 – 5 minutes it sends it out again.

I have only added Word Twist as an app recently, and I don’t think that’s what caused it anyway.

I have no idea how it is sending. Anyone have an idea?

Sorry to all of my friends. Just delete the Wall Post.

Gah…..bloody spam.

UPDATE: Looks like I stopped it. Changing my password seems to have done it. Sorry Fiona 🙂

The Friday Fuckwit

One of the best segments on Triple J’s Breakfast Show has always been The Friday Fuckwit. It’s where people call in with nominations for who was the biggest fuckwit of the week.

Nominations often include politicians, sports people, entertainment and TV personalities, or just random idiots that exist in this world.

This week I have my own nominations….

• To the dickhead streaker at the cricket the other night. Here’s wishing that Symonds had actually hit you harder. He’s apparently made $6000 profit after Ch. 9 has reportedly paid him $7,500 to appear on ACA, after he’s paid the courts $1,500. Maybe Ch. 9 paid him to streak before he did it. I mean, Australia’s cricketing performance was that crap it wasn’t worth watching!

And if you’re interested, check out this link which has an American TV report on it. Apparently they call our stories, ‘Only in Australia’ stories. Don’t we have the same for them?

• To George W Bush and Dick Cheney who could be arrested in the state of Vermont after residents in 2 small towns voted in favour of impeaching them for breaches of the constitution. Seeing those 2 in shackles would be damn funny. Could you imagine seeing them getting pushed into the back of a cop car and driven to the town limits? Yeah right. It’s good to see that it’s possible for these things to happen though.

• To the SCG Trust, who have double-booked the SCG for next Sunday. If the NSW Blues win against the Redbacks in the Pura Cup match this weekend, the final would take place there, whilst the Wests Tigers and St. George-Illawarra are also scheduled to play their season opener on the historic ground. What a screw-up. I mean, fair enough it’s a big deal should NSW win and be able to play at home, but shouldn’t this has been considered when giving the same ground to the NRL?

• To the Banks. Such an easy target, but you’re all a pack of fuckwits. The NAB has decided to raise it’s interest rates by 0.29% of a percent even though the official rate was raised by 0.25% This is despite the warnings from the Treasurer and a number of recent rises. Apparently there are also more to come. When will it stop??

• Some Fuckwit in Canada decided to volunteer to be the first person to get a tattoo ON HIS EYEBALL!! Click here for details and pictures that I am refusing to look at!

• To the people that join the group on Facebook called ‘Stop forcing me to “Invite 20 Friends” and then proceed to invite 20 people to join it. Fuckwits!!

But with all these nominations, there is one bunch of Fuckwits that wins todays Friday Fuckwit award.

• To the ‘New Idea’ magazine, who could also be called the ‘No Idea’ magazine. Prince Harry was nobly serving his country and fighting on the front line in Afghanistan. A job that not many people would choose to do or have the balls to carry out. After New Idea exposed the story in January, it took a few weeks for the news to spread, but apparently Taliban forces were searching for him from Mid January once the news was further reveals on a US Web Site until he arrived back home last Monday. There were rumours that the leak came from the Royal Family itself as they wanted him to return home, but I can’t see how risking his life on purpose is very smart.

So, to all the Friday Fuckwits, congratulations! If you missed out, maybe you can get nominated next week 🙂