Further Down the Rabbit Hole
Blogger and all-around good egg Mrs. P points out that there's more to the story about the whole "Mother of the Matrix" thing that I posted about a week or so ago.
Namely, it's not all cut and dry, and that's putting it nicely.
First, the story about the Sophia Stewart winning her case against the Wachowski Brothers for the boys allegedly stealing her ideas and turning it into the wildly profitable "Matrix" film trilogy.
Well, apparently, there was a correction ran that I missed.
In reference to the recent article entitled "Mother of the Matrix Victorious," some information has been deemed misleading. Ms. Sophia Stewart has not yet won her case against Joel Silver, Time Warner and the Wachowski Bros. The decision on October 4th enabled Ms. Stewart to proceed with her case, as all attempts to have it dismissed were unsuccessful. Ms. Stewart's case will proceed through the Central District Court of California.
That's the first thing that needs clearing up.
The second is this (which Mrs. P pointed out to me): Another take on the events, with links to the recent (as of Dec. 7, 2004) ruling.
The hardest part about reading through these links is the utter lack of coherent information on the case. Thanks to instantaneous content posting on the Web, the recessive genetics of blind faith take over and you're left bamboozled, suckered into thinking "Hey wow, that's wild. A woman sued the Matrix guys and won" and really, sadly, you should have done more homework. You look over on an adjoining wall and see your masters degree in journalism in its pretty frame and wonder just what you remembered from those halcyon days of studiousness.
So, here's my correction. I should have dug a little harder. I'm very sorry for misleading you.*
*At least it's more than what Fox News would do.
Friday, March 04, 2005
Thursday, March 03, 2005
Today's Word: Silk
The smoke rubbed against her eyes in soft waves, followed by an acrid sting. The room felt soft, everything was gentle corners and overstuffed tops. It was a safety room, her crying room, her rage room.
Hi.
Being busy and lazy can sure keep you away from blogging.
And having in-laws coming in from Arizona today shall put a crimp on one's time.
But it's not like I haven't forgotten about you, baby.
Next Tuesday will close down another term in the writing program. The last portion begins March 29 and I'm spending the dead zone between classes writing new scenes. I banged out a two-page scene (homework for the last class this term, can you imagine? Homework on the last day!) that I think I'll just keep as is. Opened up a new possibility of vignettes instead of plodding chapters. I'm also growing enamored with the idea of having the side characters reveal the details of how the end of civilization came about, with Rayelle and Patrick giving their version at the end. I'm imagining the revelations as an ongoing POV exercise with Rayelle providing the ending.
To help cut distraction from my life, I cut down my Gamefly status from having two games out at once to having one. I've pruned a lot of games from my list (especially the coming Conker's Bad Fur Day. I played the demo a couple weeks ago, and I can't believe people are going to pay another $50 for the same, exact game that Rare, the developer, put out SIX YEARS AGO!) and am starting to work harder on lurching into unknown territories. That said, I'm apprehensive about what the last term in the writing program will hold. I know nothing of the teacher, and everything I know about the class is that it will be more "literary," as if we we've been doodling with crayons since last fall.
And I finally got the iPod Shuffle. It's a wondrous little widget. One of the snarkier women at my office compared it to a tampon. I think she's jealous because my tiny, sleek piece of Cool makes her U2 iPod (the former Cool device in the office) look like an ungainly brick, akin to those putty-gray shoeboxes that were primitive cell phones in the 1980s. But Shuffle has taught me a valuable lesson: I need more music. Wifey and I are going to high-speed modem soon (working off cell phones, and cutting off our land line) and I have at least 20 free downloads to iTunes thanks to a promotional giveaway with Diet Pepsi. I may have ruined my kidneys drinking all that fizzy go-fuel, but I can get the new Massive Attack album for free.
A worthy trade off.
The smoke rubbed against her eyes in soft waves, followed by an acrid sting. The room felt soft, everything was gentle corners and overstuffed tops. It was a safety room, her crying room, her rage room.
Hi.
Being busy and lazy can sure keep you away from blogging.
And having in-laws coming in from Arizona today shall put a crimp on one's time.
But it's not like I haven't forgotten about you, baby.
Next Tuesday will close down another term in the writing program. The last portion begins March 29 and I'm spending the dead zone between classes writing new scenes. I banged out a two-page scene (homework for the last class this term, can you imagine? Homework on the last day!) that I think I'll just keep as is. Opened up a new possibility of vignettes instead of plodding chapters. I'm also growing enamored with the idea of having the side characters reveal the details of how the end of civilization came about, with Rayelle and Patrick giving their version at the end. I'm imagining the revelations as an ongoing POV exercise with Rayelle providing the ending.
To help cut distraction from my life, I cut down my Gamefly status from having two games out at once to having one. I've pruned a lot of games from my list (especially the coming Conker's Bad Fur Day. I played the demo a couple weeks ago, and I can't believe people are going to pay another $50 for the same, exact game that Rare, the developer, put out SIX YEARS AGO!) and am starting to work harder on lurching into unknown territories. That said, I'm apprehensive about what the last term in the writing program will hold. I know nothing of the teacher, and everything I know about the class is that it will be more "literary," as if we we've been doodling with crayons since last fall.
And I finally got the iPod Shuffle. It's a wondrous little widget. One of the snarkier women at my office compared it to a tampon. I think she's jealous because my tiny, sleek piece of Cool makes her U2 iPod (the former Cool device in the office) look like an ungainly brick, akin to those putty-gray shoeboxes that were primitive cell phones in the 1980s. But Shuffle has taught me a valuable lesson: I need more music. Wifey and I are going to high-speed modem soon (working off cell phones, and cutting off our land line) and I have at least 20 free downloads to iTunes thanks to a promotional giveaway with Diet Pepsi. I may have ruined my kidneys drinking all that fizzy go-fuel, but I can get the new Massive Attack album for free.
A worthy trade off.
Thursday, February 24, 2005
Today's Word: Personal
I absorb it, what you said. I know when you stood up in the middle of my friends and said you loved me, that it was the cruelest thing you could say, considering what I did to you. You ripped me open, you make me hate myself even more.
Holy crap.
Story here I dunno how I missed this.
Monday, October 4th 2004 ended a six-year dispute involving Sophia Stewart, the Wachowski Brothers, Joel Silver and Warner Brothers. Stewart's allegations, involving copyright infringement and racketeering, were received and acknowledged by the Central District of California, Judge Margaret Morrow residing.
Stewart, a New Yorker who has resided in Salt Lake City for the past five years, will recover damages from the films, The Matrix I, II and III, as well as The Terminator and its sequels. She will soon receive one of the biggest payoffs in the history of Hollywood, as the gross receipts of both films and their sequels total over 2.5 billion dollars.
Stewart filed her case in 1999, after viewing the Matrix, which she felt had been based on her manuscript, "The Third Eye," copyrighted in 1981. In the mid-eighties Stewart had submitted her manuscript to an ad placed by the Wachowski Brothers, requesting new sci-fi works.
According to court documentation, an FBI investigation discovered that more than thirty minutes had been edited from the original film, in attempt to avoid penalties for copyright infringement. The investigation also stated that "credible witnesses employed at Warner Brothers came forward, claiming that the executives and lawyers had full knowledge that the work in question did not belong to the Wachowski Brothers." These witnesses claimed to have seen Stewart's original work and that it had been "often used during preparation of the motion pictures." The defendants tried, on several occasions, to have Stewart's case dismissed, without success.
Her novel was the basis of two of the most successful sci-fi film trilogies not involving lightsabers ever. That's just astounding. Congratulations to her. And it sorta makes sense with everything I heard about how the first Matrix was so amazing, and the other two were lackluster. Stewart gave them enough juice for one film, the Wachowskis had to rely on their own devices for the last two. The differences are night and day. Or, if you prefer, red and blue.
P.S.
My iPod Shuffle is being delivered today. As the kids on the street say, woot!
I absorb it, what you said. I know when you stood up in the middle of my friends and said you loved me, that it was the cruelest thing you could say, considering what I did to you. You ripped me open, you make me hate myself even more.
Holy crap.
Story here I dunno how I missed this.
Monday, October 4th 2004 ended a six-year dispute involving Sophia Stewart, the Wachowski Brothers, Joel Silver and Warner Brothers. Stewart's allegations, involving copyright infringement and racketeering, were received and acknowledged by the Central District of California, Judge Margaret Morrow residing.
Stewart, a New Yorker who has resided in Salt Lake City for the past five years, will recover damages from the films, The Matrix I, II and III, as well as The Terminator and its sequels. She will soon receive one of the biggest payoffs in the history of Hollywood, as the gross receipts of both films and their sequels total over 2.5 billion dollars.
Stewart filed her case in 1999, after viewing the Matrix, which she felt had been based on her manuscript, "The Third Eye," copyrighted in 1981. In the mid-eighties Stewart had submitted her manuscript to an ad placed by the Wachowski Brothers, requesting new sci-fi works.
According to court documentation, an FBI investigation discovered that more than thirty minutes had been edited from the original film, in attempt to avoid penalties for copyright infringement. The investigation also stated that "credible witnesses employed at Warner Brothers came forward, claiming that the executives and lawyers had full knowledge that the work in question did not belong to the Wachowski Brothers." These witnesses claimed to have seen Stewart's original work and that it had been "often used during preparation of the motion pictures." The defendants tried, on several occasions, to have Stewart's case dismissed, without success.
Her novel was the basis of two of the most successful sci-fi film trilogies not involving lightsabers ever. That's just astounding. Congratulations to her. And it sorta makes sense with everything I heard about how the first Matrix was so amazing, and the other two were lackluster. Stewart gave them enough juice for one film, the Wachowskis had to rely on their own devices for the last two. The differences are night and day. Or, if you prefer, red and blue.
P.S.
My iPod Shuffle is being delivered today. As the kids on the street say, woot!
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Today's Word: Spice
The admittance that whatever you have right in front of you, it's boring.
Two classes left until the end of this term, then a few weeks off until the last semester begins. A final dash down a dark corridor to freedom and the completed certificate. The classmate next to me was visibly shocked, saying "this term went way too quickly." The teacher patted my arm and told me I didn't need to write anything else for the rest of class, but we all know that's a feint. Of course she knows I'm going to write. You don't give me a "report card" saying I have "the talent to be a published writer, along with the passion and perseverance" and expect me to be dry, do you? You can't have me walk out of class on a cloud and think, "yeah, be in neutral." You can't zap me with the Positive Vibe gun, encouraging me in all sorts of emotional brightness, and expect me to just bottle it up and put it in a dusty attic of the soul.
Oh yeah, just you wait, lady. You asked for it.
P.S.
According to the obsessive-compulsive package tracking feature at FedEx.com, my iPod Shuffle is currently lounging in Sacramento. Damnit.
The admittance that whatever you have right in front of you, it's boring.
Two classes left until the end of this term, then a few weeks off until the last semester begins. A final dash down a dark corridor to freedom and the completed certificate. The classmate next to me was visibly shocked, saying "this term went way too quickly." The teacher patted my arm and told me I didn't need to write anything else for the rest of class, but we all know that's a feint. Of course she knows I'm going to write. You don't give me a "report card" saying I have "the talent to be a published writer, along with the passion and perseverance" and expect me to be dry, do you? You can't have me walk out of class on a cloud and think, "yeah, be in neutral." You can't zap me with the Positive Vibe gun, encouraging me in all sorts of emotional brightness, and expect me to just bottle it up and put it in a dusty attic of the soul.
Oh yeah, just you wait, lady. You asked for it.
P.S.
According to the obsessive-compulsive package tracking feature at FedEx.com, my iPod Shuffle is currently lounging in Sacramento. Damnit.
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Today's Word: Trend
The circle of life with inanimate objects, making the created and invented live and die in order to make us feel less scared, that everything ends.
Hello. Been offline for a few days after the Great and Almighty Push to submit for contest. And how rude of me. This is the contest I've been referring to, that mistress that makes me cheat on my wife and the rest of my existence. Although, before it was all done, my wife did a remarkable job helping me edit and put everything all together. She and I took a 24-page draft and lean it down to a mean 17 pages, although with melting a bulky five-page synopsis down to just over three. Saturday, I wrapped up everything in an envelope, checked the contents about 3.4 million times and got it to the post office, affixed it with the Saturday post mark (deadline was today, but I'm not chancing it), and walked out with the lead weight vanishing from my chest and shoulders.
Spent the three-day weekend gaming and slowly having my brain turn to mush, only getting my recommended daily literary hit from compendiums of "Y:The Last Man" and "The Walking Dead." Last night, my wife poked me back into writing mode, and I sat, writing a lot of stuff about Divine (the ongoing graphic novel series I'm working on). Kept away from the Web, and I only learned yesterday that Hunter S. Thompson is now filing his gonzo reports from the Great Beyond after shooting himself fatally. Reading the tributes online, I'm relegated with by-stander status. I arrived too late to the party to understand Thompson's impact on the scene of Journalism. I was caught, deer-in-headlight fashion, by the bedazzling sound/wordage of Tom Wolfe more than that three-day-bender verb assault of Thompson, and I suppose it's my loss I didn't appreciate him when he was still around. Cursor (at right) has a couple great links on the late writer, including his eerily prescient last column for ESPN about using shotguns for golf. For me, for someone who never got on the Hunter bandwagon, I suppose I'm more a freeway-accident gawker, looking at the scene and wondering why. Hunter was a power writer, full of rage and honesty, and why he would snuff himself is sadly the real story, something that will unbury itself from the horrible lede soon enough.
In other, less-important news, I'm getting bored with video games (A bit of a switch after my Feb. 14 post, practically gushing for a new Diablo game). I'll probably write more later, but this weekend I was getting set to sell my collection of games and just stick to playing whatever I rent from Gamefly. I can't put my finger on all of it, but I'm getting a little tired of simulations, especially when I'm getting in tune with my own internal reality generator called Writing. I recently pruned a lot of games (including the more violent horror/shooter ones) from my Gamefly rental list. Don't get me wrong, I like the recreational pixel fest, but I'm not the avid gamer I was, say, five years ago.
As Mick sang, what a drag it is getting old.
The circle of life with inanimate objects, making the created and invented live and die in order to make us feel less scared, that everything ends.
Hello. Been offline for a few days after the Great and Almighty Push to submit for contest. And how rude of me. This is the contest I've been referring to, that mistress that makes me cheat on my wife and the rest of my existence. Although, before it was all done, my wife did a remarkable job helping me edit and put everything all together. She and I took a 24-page draft and lean it down to a mean 17 pages, although with melting a bulky five-page synopsis down to just over three. Saturday, I wrapped up everything in an envelope, checked the contents about 3.4 million times and got it to the post office, affixed it with the Saturday post mark (deadline was today, but I'm not chancing it), and walked out with the lead weight vanishing from my chest and shoulders.
Spent the three-day weekend gaming and slowly having my brain turn to mush, only getting my recommended daily literary hit from compendiums of "Y:The Last Man" and "The Walking Dead." Last night, my wife poked me back into writing mode, and I sat, writing a lot of stuff about Divine (the ongoing graphic novel series I'm working on). Kept away from the Web, and I only learned yesterday that Hunter S. Thompson is now filing his gonzo reports from the Great Beyond after shooting himself fatally. Reading the tributes online, I'm relegated with by-stander status. I arrived too late to the party to understand Thompson's impact on the scene of Journalism. I was caught, deer-in-headlight fashion, by the bedazzling sound/wordage of Tom Wolfe more than that three-day-bender verb assault of Thompson, and I suppose it's my loss I didn't appreciate him when he was still around. Cursor (at right) has a couple great links on the late writer, including his eerily prescient last column for ESPN about using shotguns for golf. For me, for someone who never got on the Hunter bandwagon, I suppose I'm more a freeway-accident gawker, looking at the scene and wondering why. Hunter was a power writer, full of rage and honesty, and why he would snuff himself is sadly the real story, something that will unbury itself from the horrible lede soon enough.
In other, less-important news, I'm getting bored with video games (A bit of a switch after my Feb. 14 post, practically gushing for a new Diablo game). I'll probably write more later, but this weekend I was getting set to sell my collection of games and just stick to playing whatever I rent from Gamefly. I can't put my finger on all of it, but I'm getting a little tired of simulations, especially when I'm getting in tune with my own internal reality generator called Writing. I recently pruned a lot of games (including the more violent horror/shooter ones) from my Gamefly rental list. Don't get me wrong, I like the recreational pixel fest, but I'm not the avid gamer I was, say, five years ago.
As Mick sang, what a drag it is getting old.
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