Main:
First, we'll start with the blog post title. "All is full of love" is a song by the artist known as Björk. A sweet song it is, but it's the music video (pictured above) that really made the song special and something I really enjoy. From what I gather, it's a rather simple message; that of love being everywhere, even in the world of synthetics. It's rather calming as well. You can check out the HD video here as the HD video pops much more than the SD version, really gives your eyes a treat with the detail. Fun tidbit of info, as I listened to the song, it reminded me of the songs "May it be" and "Gollums song" by Enya and Emiliana Torrini from the lord of the rings soundtrack. When I checked in on wikipedia to look up some info on Björk I found out that she was offered the song of "Gollums Song" but turned it down. Interesting how the connections are made, hmm? Check out all three songs, they're all beautiful.
I've realized for quite some time that I enjoy the idea of cyberpunk very much and lately have come to understand that I like the idea a lot. Whether it be movies, shows (anime or otherwise), books, video games or what have you, if it deals with cyberpunk like ideas then there's a good chance I'll end up liking it. I'm not exactly sure what exactly started my lure to the genre, perhaps it was ghost in the shell? Maybe some Matrix? or maybe it was something that was triggered much earlier in my life? Any way it goes, I'm glad I did latch on to the idea, as it is infinitely interesting to both look into and to see the world slowly evolve into one that is leading towards the idea of cyberpunk ideals becoming the norm. In short, a world where technology has become transparent in our every day lives, where Artificial Intelligence can be on par with humans and everyone has at least some augmentation if not entire cybernetic bodies is a world I would love to live in.
I've recently finished a book titled "The Age of Spiritual Machines" by Ray Kurzweil which outlines his view of where technology is going if it grows as rapidly as it appears to be growing. Beyond interesting, he explains how technology will evolve through out the decades and how eventually we'll more or less have the ability to copy our beings to data and live basically as software, able to compute much faster with the medium of machines rather than the neurological method we use right now. Written in the 90s, he offers up bold predictions to the very decade of how technology will progress (tho, admittedly he says that the years may be off a bit) and some of it sounds spot on, while other bits seem like we're a bit behind his vision. He predicts that by 2099, what it means to be human will be so far spread that it would be hard to grasp, that most of the population is either insanely heavily augmented with technology that's able to greatly extend their lives or have already ditched their organic bodies in favor of machine made ones or spend their existence in massive electronic nets (think a Super-Internet) as code/data and only take a physical machine body when necessary. Granted, this idea pretty much throws our the idea of souls and religion and such, as we're able to "port" ourselves into data without trouble, but who knows eh?
Just randomly, as I listed to some songs like the ones above I mentioned, I think of "Be Human" by Yoko Kanno (vocals by Scott Matthew), another beautiful song that has some meaning to me. It's sung in the perspective of a robot who yearns to be human, to experience all that there is, from love to riding a bike, to wind on his face and so on, it always make me think about life.
Thoughts, Avatar:
So! I think I have a new fav movie of all time. Ha, that's quite a bold statement indeed, but honestly, it might not be far from the truth. I waited almost a month from the day it came out in theatres to actually get my butt into a theater to see the movie... but I am SO glad I did. It's a visual tour-de-force, a world unique to any other I've seen with an established back story, strong characters, great acting, high action, intense emotion and an over all sense of something huge that can be a total escape for anyone watching it. I absolutely love the design of the Na'vi and the tech used on the human side, which is backed by strong holds to realism, rather than just being pulled out of the air.
My experience, while watching it in theaters (in 3D too :)) was an awe inspiring one that I'll never forget. I was just so caught up in the whole thing and felt like I was in that world for the 2.5 hours (or how ever long it is). I did manage to get my hands on a copy of the film, so I've been able to experience the story again a few times and every time I just fall more in love with it. That said, I'm strongly considering going back to the theater to see it again in 3D and I can not wait for the Blu-Ray to come along :D *Hopefully that doesn't take forever!
Gaming Now:
Mass Effect 2 has come out, so I replayed ME1, to refresh myself on the experience and oh boy it was spectacular. I loved it just as much as the first time I played through. I've got a few hours in ME2 but think I may give it a small break, either play something a little less story heavy for a few days, or just stay away from gaming.
I'm also near the end of Dragon Age: Origins (I take my time and do every quest I can find) which is another superb game from Bioshock. When I first got into it I didn't see anything special about the system, then when I really sunk my teeth into it and began to peel back the layers each character had... it became very special. Without the character development... I don't know if Bioware's products would be that special... but with it, it just throws every thing over the top and makes it special. The have a fan in me.
Also picked up the Avatar game for my PS3 (as I LOVED the movie) and I'm enjoying it. It's rather beautiful to look at and has enough to keep me interested, which is odd because of all the mediocre reviews it got from critics... then again, I've formed the view that critics can eat my ass when it comes to reviews. More often than not they're calling down good games and praising generic sequel 4.
Gaming Later:
Bioshock 2 is out this week, already got confirmation from amazon that my copy is on it's way. I've also got Heavy Rain and Final Fantasy XIII pre-ordered, can't wait for those suckers. There are just so many incredible games coming out this year... I dunno when I'll have time for them all.
Thanks for reading, peace.
