Shane Life

I recently completed two books that I’ve been reading for a while, Mike Gayle’s Turning Thirty and Nick Hornby’s Slam.

I’ve long been a fan of Hornby’s. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that his book High Fidelity (yes, the same book that the movie starring John Cusack is based on) is one of my favorite ever, up there with Catcher in the Rye and The Lords of Discipline.

I’ve only been introduced to Gayle in the last couple years. He’s one of the many authors that emerged as a part of the Hornby movement, guys who write stories about guys who are relationship-phobic and completely flawed, but lovable. These authors are almost all British as well, although accents don’t really translate into print. I’ve read a couple of Gayle’s earlier novels…really enjoyed My Legendary Girlfriend but not so much Dinner for Two. Turning Thirty seemed an appropriate read for me (at least a couple years ago when I bought it) and I enjoyed it well enough, but not sure if I’d recommend it. Thirty-year-old unmarried males might find it a good read and it has some decent characters, but it’s just lacking somewhat.

As far as Slam goes…this book represents Nick Hornby’s first foray into the world of “young adult literature” as it centers around a 16-year-old kid who is interested in skateboarding and Tony Hawk and ends up getting a girl pregnant. I actually started reading Slam about 6 months ago and put it down with less than 75 pages left. It’s been sitting on my nightstand as a reminder for the past several months, but I’ve never been motivated enough to finish it until this week. If that’s not a condemnation of my feelings for the book, I don’t know what is.

I shouldn’t be that surprised. Slam was, afterall, written for the “young adult” set and I’m not really in that target demographic. However, I’ve always felt like Hornby’s ability to describe characters could supercede the genre and still manage to be compelling. Unfortunately, Slam really comes off more as a public service announcement against teenage pregnancy than anything else. I just want to junk-punch the main character Sam (another reason why I’m unlikely to be a dad) because all he does is make one bad decision after another. I suppose that’s the point, considering that is what most teenagers typically do, but at the same time, it just annoyed me.

My penchant for reading has really gone in the crapper lately, but I’m trying my best to get back into it. With a vacation coming up in July, it will be to my benefit to have some good stuff to read. I’ve got a stack of books about 2 feet high on my “to-read” table…now I just have to put them in order.

What are you reading?

(Author’s note: I realize that this “Every Day in May” post is a bit late, but you will have to forgive me, especially since the only person who really cares about the every day part is me.)

On Saturday, we headed out to see Angels & Demons with Alli’s folks. Even though I wasn’t a huge fan of The DaVinci Code, I’ve really liked Dan Brown’s books and I was hoping that they would make a better movie out of A&D since the actual source material is better than DaVinci Code. (It’s not that DaVinci Code is a bad book, it’s just that Angels & Demons is better.)

My issue with the movie adaptations had first and foremost to do with Tom Hanks. I never really bought him as symbologist Robert Langdon, so that was an issue that I had to come to terms with. Honestly, I still think that another actor would have done a better job with the role, but at least they cut his hair in A&D so that he didn’t look so ridiculous.

The plot of Angels & Demons centers around an age-old conflict between religion and science as played out by the Catholic Church vs. The Illuminati, a secret society of scientists led by Galileo that opposed the way the church was teaching the Earth as the center of the universe.

The movie runs two and a half hours long, but I could find very little stuff that I would have taken out of the movie. It’s intense and suspenseful and Ron Howard does a good job (although not as good as Dan Brown) of keeping secret the identity of the main villain behind it all.

I really thought that they did a great job of portraying Rome, considering there were only certain elements that they were able to shoot on location.

And as far as book adaptations go, I’m always hesitant to go see books that I like, but I really enjoyed this one. It’s enjoyable and it doesn’t taint the original source material too much. Also, the movie leaves out the absolutely ridiculous ending to the book (those who have read the book will know what I’m talking about) and I’m beginning to get on board with Hanks as Langdon.

I say go see it, even if you haven’t read the book. It’s a good, suspenseful action movie and the scenery is great.

Just as many did today, I went out and saw Zack Snyder’s movie adaptation of the crazy popular cult classic graphic novel  Watchmen. Prior to seeing the movie, I picked up the full graphic novel at Target and finished the tome an hour before Alli and I went to see it at the Fork & Screen over lunch.

I enjoyed the book. It’s heavy and dark, but it’s extremely well-written. Alan Moore’s words and Dave Gibbons illustrations create the alternate-history 1985 in which Richard Nixon is entering his 5th term as President and the Cold War is at the height of madness, enough for there to be a Doomsday Clock, which scientists use to count down the annihilation of the world via nuclear weapons.

The movie follows the same basic plot, but lacks much of the depth that makes the graphic novel a classic. Zack Snyder is a good filmmaker, but the source material that he was provided with does most of the work for him here. Snyder recreates some scenes frame-for-frame identically to Gibbons’ original drawings.

That’s not a bad thing, but there are parts of the movie that got cut over others that I felt shouldn’t have. Snyder manages to find five minutes for a 5-minute long softcore porn scene, but other more critical plot points are glazed over (I would have liked to have seen more development of the New Frontiersman vs. the Nova Express part of the story, which is absent entirely from the movie until the last 5 minutes when it doesn’t even make sense).

Unfortunately, our experience with the movie was not great. The movie started and stopped 5 times before it finally continuously began and even then, we still missed the first few minutes. That was unfortunate because I felt it would have set the stage of impending doom better than what we saw.

The other thing that bothered me was something that bothered another reviewer (that I can’t remember now) regarding the ending. I won’t reveal what happens, but here’s what I’ll say: the ending is really one of the only major plot changes the movie makes to the book. And if you’re going to make a shot-for-shot recreation of a graphic novel, you should go all the way. By changing the end, it alters the story enough that it is noticeable.

The casting hits about as much as it misses. Jackie Earl Haley is perfect as Rorschach but I thought that Matthew Goode was the wrong choice for Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias. I also was totally impressed by Patrick Wilson’s Nite Owl, especially after reading the book. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is a good Comedian, but I could take or leave Malin Ackerman’s Laurie/Silk Spectre.

Like I said before, the movie version really lacked the layers that make the graphic novel so good. I imagine that most fans of the book will nitpick the movie to death. Others will be turned off by the extreme violence, while others will say it’s not violent enough based on the source material. But there are a lot of people who will appreciate the movie a lot. I liked it. I probably would have liked it even more had I not read it. It has really interesting things to say about human nature and what it truly means to be heroic. Sure, those messages come straight from the source material, but at least they didn’t get muddled.

I’m not sure if I’d recommend this movie. If you’re interested, you might think about taking a look at the Wikipedia page for the comic just to get a plot overview.

I don’t know if Jerry Bruckheimer will ever win a Best Picture Oscar, but he’s one of those guys who will get a Lifetime Achievement Award at the end of his career. He’s got Emmys galore for The Amazing Race, but he makes movies that sell tickets, not ones that necessarily win awards.

He’s been responsible for so many blockbusters, from Top Gun to Con Air to Bad Boys to Pirates of the Caribbean, effects-laden movies about air force pilots and cops and pirates and other dudes who like to blow stuff up. But people often forget that he makes movies for women too. (See: Flashdance, Coyote Ugly, Confessions of a Shopaholic.) He and his former producing partner Don Simpson are responsible for movies who make people buy tickets, but what they also do is recognize really great stories and put it together with the talent that fits.

Confessions of a Shopaholic is just another example of a long line of successes where Bruckheimer has managed to put exactly the right person for a movie in the role at the exact right time. No one can deny Isla Fisher is on the rise. She’s bubbly and cute and she certainly doesn’t take herself too seriously (she is, after all, with Sasha Baron Cohen). But up until now, she’s been in supporting roles, most memorably in Wedding Crashers where she played the certifiably nuts Gloria to Vince Vaughn’s screwball Jeremy. The fact that you remember her at all is an accomplishment in itself since Vaughn chews screen wherever he goes.

I have actually read both of the books that Confessions of a Shopaholic is based on, considered ‘chick lit’ by many. Sophie Kinsella wrote them (as well as a couple others) surrounding Rebecca Bloomwood, the extremely likable heroine of the movie who just makes really bad decisions. And often. I always thought when reading the books that they would transfer well to the screen. Turns out I was right.

Isla Fisher is a perfect Rebecca, although they’ve made her American (in the books, she’s British). She’s funny and charming and yet clumsy at the same time. And while the movie can be predictable at times, it makes you laugh. More specifically, Fisher makes you laugh. It’s a fun movie. Sure, it’s a chick flick and it might make you or your wife want to go shopping in Manhattan after it’s over, but it’s also entertaining.

Entertainment is something I always look for in movies. I can deal with serious character pieces and off-kilter indie flicks and epic dramas. I don’t like horror movies and I can tolerate Woody Allen, but I almost NEVER would choose to go see one of his films. Honestly, the movies that make me keep coming back to the theater are the ones like Confessions of a Shopaholic. They are the movies that Jerry Bruckheimer makes. And I’m OK with that.

It’s no secret that I love my wife, but the truth is, I love the concept of relationships. This was originally intended as a post in honor of Valentine’s Day 2007…better late than never. I thought it would be good to write about my favorite all-time fictional couples. These are couples from movies, books, or television, but they have to be fictional and there has to be romance of some sort (that rules out Jay and Silent Bob). So here goes:

Jesse and Celine from Before Sunrise and Before Sunset

Effortlessly played by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, these lovers meet on a train to Vienna first in Richard Linklater’s film, Before Sunrise, originally released in 1995. Fast-forward 9 years (both in real-time and in movie-time) and you get the sequel, Before Sunset, a movie that eclipses the first.
 

Chandler and Monica from Friends

Sure, it’s predictable and cheesy, but I don’t care. Chandler and Monica are the perfect example of how important friendship and understanding is in a relationship.

Viola and Will from Shakespeare in Love

This is such a genius flick. The fictional telling of how Shakespeare came up with one of the most famous love stories of all-time is such a wonderful interpretation and is so brilliantly played by Gwyneth Paltrow and Joseph Fiennes.

Lily and Marshall from How I Met Your Mother

Alli and I were thinking about starting a marriage and relationship blog called Lily and Marshall dot com (if you buy it, I’ll be annoyed). 

Jim Big Tuna Halpert and Pam Beesley from The Office

A relatively new couple, but when you watch The Office, you know just how perfect they are for each other. The writers of the show just try to indicate tension (see the episode with Pam’s parents’ recent problems), but it never works and they know it.

Now, I want to hear yours. But I’d better not see Annie Hall and Alvy Singer. I thought that movie was good, but Woody Allen does not equal a good romantic lead. Leave your own list in the comments. But remember…Woody Allen is banned.

I stayed up until 1:00 a.m. last night finishing Dan Pink’s fantastic book, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the World.

I’ve had this book since I won it at the 2006 HOW Conference (along with Chip Kidd’s book, The Cheese Monkeys). I’d heard lots of great things about it, but for whatever reason, I never got around to reading it. Since I’ve got some reading time on my hands, I thought I’d give it a shot.

The basis for Pink’s book is that we are no longer in the Information Age, but have moved on to the Conceptual Age, where information-based work can be replaced by computers and cheap laborers. The challenge for this age is “high-touch” and “high-concept” thinking, also known as “right-brained thinking.”

Pink states that the new crop of workers need to develop six essential skills in order to succeed in the new Conceptual Age – Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play, and Meaning. (To understand what each of those mean, you’ll have to pick up the book.)

I was really fascinated by the book because I found that my own personal skills and abilities really lined up with Dan’s essential skills. That doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t continue to develop them, but it means that I’ve developed skills over the course of my career that will be useful in this next age.

Now if I could just find a job that would recognize those talents instead of ruling me out the instant that I try to apply for something that I’m qualified for…

I was a little hesitant to follow up reading The Shack by reading Velvet Elvis, Rob Bell’s manifesto on “Repainting the Christian Faith”.

I’ve been following Rob Bell’s work since I first saw one of his NOOMA videos, which really do a great job of making Christian ideas accessible to a wide swath of the public. Even his sample videos on the site do a great job of getting across the messages of the videos.

I had a decent idea of what the book might be, but I was still really looking forward to reading Bell’s thoughts on Christianity in long form, rather than in 10-minute video consumption. Even despite what I thought the book might be, I was so thrilled when I read it.

Sometimes, it’s tough to be a Christian. There are people and organizations that don’t exactly give Christianity the best face. However, when reading through Rob Bell’s book, I got a glimpse of what Christianity could be.

Through the pages of Velvet Elvis, I took copious notes in the margins, underlined passages and phrases that I loved, and overall just soaked in the ideas that I appreciated most.

Now, this book will not be for everyone. It treats Christianity and Scripture as a flexible, living, breathing organism rather than a rigid set of rules. This form of Christianity is not for everyone. But I found a lot to agree with and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The Shack has been sitting atop the bestseller list for much of the past year. William P. Young’s book has been lauded by many around me and after Alli finished it, I thought I would give it a shot. 

The story centers around a man named Mack who has lost his faith in a lot of ways. His family has encountered a huge tragedy (of which I won’t reveal) that he refers to as The Great Sadness. He receives a note in the mail from what seems to be God, inviting him to spend a weekend at the site of his greatest tragedy.

The result of this is a fascinating encounter with God — perhaps the greatest depiction of God that I’ve ever read.

I don’t really want to reveal more. What I’ll say is that The Shack is a very rare book. It is a well-told story of fiction that contains more truth than you expect. You’ll find yourself nodding in agreement, smiling and weeping as you journey alongside Mack.

This was a good book for me to read right now. I’ve had some issues lately that have caused me to question my own spirituality. It’s never been about doubting God’s presence, but more about what my own purpose is as a child of God…what am I called to do?

I’d recommend this book to believers and seekers alike. Each person will gain something different from it, but each person will find whatever they need. If you’re someone who has trouble describing or depicting God, I’d suggest you read The Shack. It might help you on your own journey.

This morning — at the invitation of my friend, Steve — I attended a KU Professional Edge Breakfast Seminar at the Edwards Campus called, Blogging Down to Business: When/Where Mass Communication Gets Personal presented by this guy, Dr. David D. Perlmutter (his blog), a so-called expert on the subject. After all, he did write a book with the word “blog” in the title…

The problem is that Perlmutter’s book was about political blogging, while I actually attended the seminar to hear about business blogging. And Perlmutter spent the first 40 minutes of the hour introducing the group to the history of blogging (heavily focused on its basis in the political realm) rather than spending any extended period of time discussing the practical application of blogging in business.

Now, it’s true, I probably know more about the subject than Perlmutter, I know that many in the audience did not. I attended the seminar because of the invite from Steve as well as out of curiosity. However, Perlmutter’s presentation was littered with self-aggrandizement (he showed video of himself on the Daily Show) and just plain WHA? moments where I failed miserably to see how what he was talking about had ANYTHING to do with the subject. I couldn’t ignore it.

The worst part was that in his attempts at impressing us, he went over his time and left out 8 slides at the end that actually might have saved the presentation — case studies on uses of blogging in different industries. TIME MANAGEMENT FAIL.

So here’s what I’m offering…my simple 9-point plan to blogging for business:

1. Have a purpose. It can be as simple as “to increase the keyword-rich content on our site”, but just make sure that you know what your purpose is and always refer to it when writing.
2. Be compelling and write well. If your content sucks, there’s no point in having a corporate blog. Have something compelling to say or don’t say it at all. And when you do say it, make sure it’s run through a spell-checker. Some browsers have built-in spellcheckers, but they don’t catch everything. It’s not hard to proofread and it’s worth the extra step.
3. Host it yourself. For the love of God, don’t pretend a Blogger or Wordpress.com account is actually hosted by your company. People who consume news this way on a regular basis (read: nerds like me) will see right through it. Not only that, but it’s lazy and cheap, two things you typically don’t want to be associated with unless you are Walmart.
4. Integrate it into your overall site. Link to it from the home page. Make it fit. This may require the use of a Web designer, but it’s worth it. Ahem.
5. Encourage dialogue. The format of blogging encourages dialogue (for more on that dialogue and how it relates to design, read Jason Santa Maria’s excellent article). Make sure your customers have the ability to comment. It allows them to feel invested in the conversation. If you are doing a good job with your customer service, your comments shouldn’t be too negative.
6. Do your research. There’s nothing worse than a company that blatantly lies on its official blog. Slightly less bad is being easily proven wrong with a simple Google search. That means you should always cite your sources.
7. Link liberally. And don’t launch a new window. That’s what the back button is for. If your writing is compelling and your information useful, readers will return.
8. Test before launching. If there’s one thing that really grinds my gears, it’s people who only test their sites in their browser of choice. I hate Internet Explorer as much as the next guy, but I always test in it. Internet Explorer still accounts for over 70% of browser usage, so you cannot discount it yet.
9. Stick to the schedule. You don’t have to post daily (although that would be great), but you should post at least once or twice a week. Schedule your posts so your customers know when new content will appear. (Side note: if you don’t publish an RSS feed for your readers to subscribe to, don’t even bother with a blog.)

These are all suggestions. I’d like to hear yours.