Superman Returns… in 2009

After the disappointing box office performance of the recent Superman flick released last June, I had some concerns that Warner Bros. May back out of their commitment to produce more sequels. It turn out that they will be able to turn a profit but it won’t be a big one. However, they are still confident that they will be able to generate a bigger profit if they were to make more sequels. Variety, a newspaper in Hollywood has confirmed that Warner Bros. And Bryan Singer has made a deal.

Superman is coming back in 2009. It seems like a long wait but it’ll be here before you know it. They have to keep the budget under a couple hundred million dollars; the last one was too expensive. Still not official, but it was estimated at $270 million. Titanic cost Paramount and Fox $200 million to produce. Brandon Routh, the actor who portrayed Superman in the recent movie, it’s likely he’ll be back.

Since we’re talking about sequels, ‘Saw IV’ is coming next October. Why am I not surprised? If these movies continue to be big moneymakers, they will keep on producing a new Saw movie on an annual basis. These movies where people are getting tortured, I just don’t see why people enjoy that. They are not scary, just disgusting. ‘Hostel’ was one of the most disgusting movies I’ve ever seen in my entire life and I definitely don’t plan on seeing the sequel. Horror movies aren’t what they used to be.

Back to the subject, here’s to hoping they come up with a strong storyline for the upcoming ‘Superman’ sequel, which will be produced and released in the year of 2009. I will be the first to admit that I was somewhere disappointed with the recent Superman movie, but it wasn’t a piece of crap like some made it out to be. Yes, it was too long and the storyline was weak but I still enjoyed it on some levels. I imagine that the upcoming sequel will be better; after all he did make a big improvement with ‘X-Men 2’.

I hope they’ll select a great villain, I can understand why they picked Lex Luthor since he was the most recognizable villain to the public but we’ve seen too much of him in the movies. Which villain do you hope to see make an appearance in the upcoming sequel?

Would you rather be deaf or blind?

Ottawa: An Experience

As some of you know, I attended a school for the deaf from grade seven to grade twelve in 2002, the year I graduated. I hold a lot of good memories from these years at the school along with some not-so-great memories. It’s just how life balances it out. Ernest C. Drury, a school for the deaf in Milton, Ontario of Canada. It’s a provincial school and they did have some major problems with how they handled the deaf education. That’s another story.

As you can see, that’s a truckload of chickens. It’s safe to assume the place they’re going to isn’t going to be a paradise. Maybe that was in bad taste, but you know it’s true. Nothing we can do about that. At least they taste good. This truck passed our bus on the way to Ottawa. What a year that was. It was back in 2000 when I was in the tenth grade. Wow, 6 years has passed by, has it really been that long? Time fly by quite fast, life is short. Especially when you hold these memories as if you experienced them the day before.

The person “mediating” is Kevin Small, a former classmate of mine. I’m not sure if I recall where I took this picture but I believe it was at a park we stopped at to have lunch. It was quite a long trip. It took us around six hours to reach Ottawa from Milton. Ottawa is the capital city of Canada and they have a lot of beautiful buildings and a rich history. They also have an awesome war museum. We stayed at a university dorm building for 4 nights; we had a blast over there even though we had some faculty members keeping their eyes on us. Some students got to perform pranks onto each other that week including one particular incident during a shower. Somebody nearly lost a liver as a result.

The blue-tongued girl is Katie Fisher, another former classmate of mine. She was on a sugar high at the time I took her picture. She was quite a bright girl; she had a talent for writing, something we shared in common. We’re still keeping in contact after these years; I do that with a lot of my former classmates. If it wasn’t for the Internet, I wouldn’t have been able to keep in contact with a lot of ex-classmates. Just one of the many reasons why to not take the Internet for granted.

Oh yes, this is priceless. The group of faculty members you see here were victims of a plan we had came up with to get our curfew extended. We bought this particular flag representing the city of Ottawa to honour the faculty members for their dedication and hard work on organizing our Ottawa trip. Or that was what we wanted them to believe and hope that they’ll extend our curfew by a couple hours. We were only able to get it extended by a half-hour or a bit longer. At least we got something out of it and the teacher holding the flag mounted it onto a wall in his classroom. Every single time I looked at that flag for two grades after that year, I thought of how we had came up with such a plan to extend the curfew by using the faculty members. I don’t condone using people to your advantage because it’s plainly wrong. It’s true, I was involved and I did regret it to a certain degree because we were deceiving a few people in order to gain from it. Well, we learn from our mistakes.

Yes, that is a car that once belonged to the evil dictator, Adolf Hitler. This was at a war museum that I went to in Ottawa. It was quite an amazing museum with an extraordinary exhibit on several wars Canadians were involved with. The car had a smashed window; I suspect it was done decades before it was brought to Ottawa. I can understand why somebody would smash Hitler’s car. To me, it was a piece of history and I have no respect for Hitler, but I do believe that some objects should be preserved and well protected and put onto display for people to look at. For me, it meant something to see Hitler’s car in person because it was a way of connecting with the past. People often find that by seeing or touching an object linked to an important event in history to be enlightening and an experience never to be forgotten.

I wouldn’t mind visiting Ottawa again someday; it is quite a beautiful city to visit. The city has a rich history and the federal parliament building is quite a beauty. Looking at the pictures isn’t enough, you have to be there to believe and be in awe. There are a large amount of historical buildings in Ottawa and they are nothing to scoff at. If you were to make a trip to Ottawa, you will never believe your eyes once you set your eyes on some of the buildings. If you think the exteriors are quite something, wait till you see the interiors of some of these buildings.

I’m glad that I live in a great country, which is Canada.

The Impossible Has Happened

Out of the Blue - No. 014

Bonjour! The Benefits of Zeroconf

Not too sure about what I’m referring to? Don’t worry about it; you’re not the only one. It’s still relatively unknown to the public. It’s a feature included with the software, ‘iChat’. It’s an instant messaging application developed by Apple.

I see it as a great benefit to the deaf and hard-of-hearing. The purpose of ‘Bonjour’ is to take advantage of the network within a small range like a building where all the computers are networked. Instead of using AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) servers, you use your own server to make your own instant messaging network. It will show all of the people connected to your network on the list.

I’m currently employed at a regional division of a media corporation. Naturally, we use Mac computers. When I started working, I did get to communicate with my co-worker but not on the level that I was hoping for. I went over some ideas on how to eliminate the communication issues from the workplace then that’s where ‘Bonjour’ came in. At first, I wasn’t sure if it was what I was hoping for since I’ve never used it. Once I turned it on and asked a co-worker to turn it on. My face was lit up like a child on Christmas because it was exactly what I was hoping for. My co-worker and everybody else were excited to learn of the feature. Now, everybody use it with each other. Even though they don’t need to, but they do. I’m very fortunate to be in an environment where people are willing to go the extra mile for each other.

Now, I know not everybody work with a Mac computer in his or her offices. There are applications for the PC that uses the same concept. I believe the concept is known as ‘Zero Configuration Network’ or ‘Zeroconf’ for short. There’s one PC freeware named ‘Hamachi’. This is available for downloads on all platforms including Linux and OS X which would be a great benefit to workplaces with both Mac and PC computers.

I hope this will be a big help to some readers of mine, especially these who work with a reasonable number of co-workers in the same room. I would know because I benefited from it in a big way.

Au revoir!

C'mon Hollywood!

In this vlog entry, I decided bring up the subject of how most of the major film studios caption/subtitle only the movies instead of the whole contents (special features) on the DVDs. I hope it'll spread awareness of how serious this problem is.

Overanalyzing the Hedge

A while ago, I watched a movie titled ‘Over the Hedge’. I really enjoyed the movie; it’s a computer-animated movie from DreamWorks. It’s about a raccoon that cons a group of friendly animals into helping him steal food to repay a bear that he ripped off at the beginning of the movie. Even for these without children, I still strongly recommend it due to the hilarious moments in it.

However, some people have a tendency to overanalyze a movie and make up conspiracy theories these days. Recently, I went to a website to browse at some movie reviews. This website is for Christian readers. Often, I tend to find the “negative” reviews by the readers to be amusing as they often seem to be misguided when it come to being Christians.

For instance, a reader reviewed the movie, ‘Over the Hedge’ and found it to be extremely offensive. Some people overanalyze everything they read or watch. That’s when you know they are terribly blinded by their faith to the point where they start manipulating it. That’s when they become extremists. The excerpt below is the review I mentioned.

Negative - This movie is subtle seed planting by anti-Christians. Go to the official site for the movie and watch the clips you may have missed at the theatre. Did you all miss the following?

#1) the turtle “Vern” says “It’s not like he (RJ) can walk on water or anything!” RJ proceeds to walk over the water in the pool. I take offense to Jesus being mocked in a children’s film.

#2) Catholics may take great offense to RJ’s comment “the altar where they worship the food.”

#3) The Steve scene is an abomination — one animal bows down in worship to “the hedge”…

In addition to this, there is a place on the site to see what is in RJ’s golf bag, and there is a VooDoo doll in it. Isaiah 45:23 - for every knee shall be bowed to me. This is an offensive movie; get the cute fuzzy animal stuff out of your heads and judge this movie by it’s content.

My Ratings: Extremely Offensive / 1
—Constantine, age 20

Here’s one that I found to be amusing due to her fear that their children will be desensitized as a result of the bear’s death threat toward the raccoon.

Negative - I took my 2 sons to see this movie and was disappointed. The bear was pretty fierce and threatened repeatedly to kill the racoon, using that word several times. Desensitization begins early! The humans were portrayed as stupid and mean, while the animals were smart and lovable. God defines family as a husband, wife and children. This movie reinforces the current cultural propaganda that a family is made up of whoever moves into the house. There were several mild expletives, but then, curse words are curse words, no matter how mild. It could have been a good movie, but was ruined by pushing the line too far. We won’t see it again.

My Ratings: Offensive / 3
—Melinda, age 41

Source: ChristianAnswers.net

Some people are just too paranoid these days. In fact, I would say the cartoons from the old days were more violent. Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck were always in danger because of Elmer Fudd kept on hunting them for dinner. Tom and Jerry, they weren’t exactly angels either. I enjoyed these animated shorts a lot and yet I’m not violent or desensitized toward the society. I believe it’s how you raise your children and how people behave around them.

The Internet has all types of people including perverts, prudes, extremists and some are just plainly out of their minds. I don’t mean to attack Christianity, but I do believe that a large number of Christians are misguided and don’t stay true to the principles and teaching of the religion. Instead, they abuse the living daylight out of it. No, I didn’t say the majority; I said a large number, which could be in the millions. It seems like a lot of religions are having problems with their followers not practicing their religions as they have committed to.

Some people go too far with their faith.

To the Board of Trustees...

Educationally Flawed

In this vlog entry, the quality of deaf education, the problems surrounding it and the ideas of what can be done to bring a solution to these problems are discussed. Feel free to share your ideas and opinions on the subject.

Banjo's Recommendations: No. 014

'Beyond Silence' DVD Packaging

@1998 Miramax/Buena Vista Home Entertainment All Right Reserved

My Identity: Misunderstood

To this day, I find myself astonished that the deaf community continues to be one of the most misunderstood minorities. I believe it’s one of the most misunderstood minorities in North America and around the world. It’s due to the lack of awareness among the society.

Yes, the Internet has brought so many deaf and hard-of-hearing people together. It has done us a lot of good. Yesterday, I witnessed something amazing on the Internet. It wouldn’t have been possible to achieve ten years ago. Some of the deaf bloggers communicated with each other using their computers, laptops, and mobile devices and doing a live report on the Gallaudet arrests. The live report was being published in Los Angeles while the reports were being submitted by several bloggers via their mobile phones or laptops from the Gallaudet campus in Washington, D.C. That’s on two entirely different coasts with a range of 2,700 miles between them, yet all of them were communicating with each other and publishing new information from every few seconds to a couple minutes.

Unfortunately, the news media outlets often get their stories all mixed up. I see it in nearly every deafness-related article they publish in newspapers. They often lump all of us into one category, which send the readers the wrong impression. Journalists often try to put themselves into our shoes and walk in them, then come to a conclusion. Usually it’s the wrong one. I don’t often believe the news stories I read to be completely accurate. There’s always more to a story that they print. They often leave out the details that I would consider important. They just keep on using clichés in their articles. Just like I said, it’s the lack of awareness. There are 30 million Americans and 3 million Canadians with a degree of hearing loss. For most, it’s not a big issue as they are often minimal and weren’t born with it. The severe deafness occurs at a far lower rate in comparison. These who were born with hearing loss or became deaf during their first 5 years are more likely to hold deafness as an identity.

I do believe that we are often misunderstood as a minority. People unfamiliar with people who have a cultural identity associated with their deafness tend to assume that they represent the whole “hearing impaired” community. It’s one of the worst misconceptions around. We do not represent every single living deaf and hard-of-hearing individual living on the soil of North America. Nor do we share all the same interests, beliefs, faiths, opinions and more. It’s an identity that we hold close to our hearts because of our language, ASL (American Sign Language) and that we understand each other, especially when it come to the frustrating experiences of being in families that doesn’t sign. I must say that I’m grateful that my family believes that communication is the key to keeping a family together and that includes signing. Not many families are willing to adapt to a child’s disability. As you may remember, I had written a blog entry a few months ago, it was titled “The Importance of Communication”. It’s one of my personal favourites.

I have to admit that I’ve had some resistance to the concept of Deaf Culture, which would had been shortly after I graduated from the school for the deaf. I had my reasons for having issues with the concept as I had a very difficult year as a senior due to a big change in the administration and how they were handling all of the educational programs and the problems surrounding it. That year nearly made me lose all of my faith, and it wasn’t helping that I was going to college. Mind you, I did love college on so many different levels in comparison to high school due to the advantages of acquiring a better education. However, I did miss having deaf friends in my classes because we all understood each other and we would always have a good laugh. It was a big change for me to adapt to, and I would talk with some hearing students, but it wasn’t the same.

Having a deaf friend is incredibly different from having a hearing friend. I’m not saying that they are better at being friends; I’m just saying it’s different. I have hearing friends, but I don’t often discuss deaf-related topics with them. For instance, it’s like a graphic designer discussing the difference between process and spot colours with a tax accountant. You cannot expect a tax accountant to understand the concept because they don’t deal with it on a daily basis. Having deaf friends add more to your character and your life experience.

I don’t expect everybody to understand why some of us choose to remain deaf. We are given choices, and we made them. I’ve already adapted to being a deaf person, and I don’t plan on changing that. If there’s a pill that cures deafness, I would be hesitant to take it because I’ve already been deaf my whole life. To think of not being deaf is just hard for me to imagine. It is a life-changing experience and it may radically change my personality and my identity. There is a movie that makes a good example of what I’m saying here, it’s called ‘At First Sight’ starring Val Klimer. He portrays a blind man who is operated on to have his eyesight restored. Later into the movie, he begins to resent his ability to see and went back to being blind as a comfort. Mainly, because blindness is what he identifies with. Just like I identify myself with deafness.

It’s a concept that I don’t expect most people to understand. That is why I believe we are one of the most misunderstood minorities. Remember, we don’t represent every single deaf and hard-of-hearing individual. We are all individuals and we have our identities, not all of us share the same identity. In my experience, it has been a wonderful experience despite a few years of hard times in between. I don’t believe in criticizing people for their choices, that’s the best part about living in a free country, you get to be who you want to be.

I consider my deafness to be part of who I am. I don’t know what I would become of if I were to lose that part. For you, it may be different. Not everybody are the same, everybody’s different in their own ways. We are often forced to adapt to the world instead of the other way around. I believe it builds character. I was at a crossroad a couple years ago, and I chosen to stay true to myself and I believe it was the right path to go on. I just can’t go the other direction pretending it’s not there. It’s a part of me.

I just can’t live my life with a lie.

Deconstructing the Truth at Gallaudet University

Over the last couple weeks, there has been a wave after wave, well… more like a series of tsunamis surrounding the situation at Gallaudet University. It’s the only university for the deaf in the whole wide world and it’s in Washington, D.C., the capital of America. I’ve chosen to stay quiet on the subject since it started back in May when they made the announcement on selecting Dr. Jane K. Fernandes as the new president of the university in January 2007. Though there have been some rumours that she’s supposed to be inducted into the presidency position within a few weeks. At first, a lot of people in the deaf community quickly dismissed at the students’ complaints of the selection only to make a sharp U-turn. Now, it has resulted in a massive protest and is gathering a lot of support from all over the country.

My reasons for staying quiet on this were because I wanted to learn more about it before sharing my opinion. Second, I’m not a student or alumni of Gallaudet University. So, it made sense to me that I was to avoid discussing the subject till now. I consider myself to be a Deaf person, and people I know consider me to be one too, even though I don’t often use the capitalized D when I refer to myself. It’s just a habit of mine, and I do have an open mind on many controversies surrounding deafness; for instance, cochlear implants. The thing I love about living in a free country is the right to make a choice. I made the choice to be myself, nothing else. I don’t lie, I don’t manipulate the truth, and I don’t twist the truth to satisfy the others or myself. I know when I see a person with a political agenda, and I find it repulsive when a person will do anything including manipulating the truth to satisfy one’s agenda. That’s a major flaw I found in a lot of political pundits, politicians, government parties and more.

There have been a lot of misconceptions floating around the blogosphere surrounding the controversy. Especially the one where they say she isn’t Deaf enough. I believe this one was taken out of context and twisted around to reflect the students badly. Deaf community continues to be one of the most misunderstood minorities in North America. Yes, there is diversity among the deaf; nearly all of the deaf children are raised differently from each other. Some grow up orally, some grow up taught in ASL (American Sign Language), some use SEE (SEE1, SEE2), PSE (Pidgin Signed English), SimCom (Simultaneous Communication, also known as Total Communication), Cued Speech and many more. People had come up with hundreds of methods in educating a deaf child.

I’ve been able to make some direct contact with a few students over the last few months regarding the controversy. I even had a video conversation with a friend staying in the Hall Memorial Building (HMB) shortly after it was taken over and went into a lockdown. I did obtain some interesting information and speculation from that video conversation alone. Some that may have not even gotten reported at all. This already has made the news all over the USA. Yesterday, the Gallaudet football team came together and aggressively expanded the lockdown’s status from a building to the whole campus. This move attracted a lot of media attention as a result, it’s not everyday that you hear about a university being taken over by the students as a part of a protest.

People’s education are being interfered with, I have no doubt in that part. It is true that the students, faculty members may have committed civil disobedience. However, as in many historical events that took place in the past, people felt they had no choice but to disobey a civil law. In fact, the bible even advocates for civil disobedience in order to obey God’s laws. I don’t condone these actions, but I’m not going to condemn them either. If you find this confusing, wait till you read all of the reports by the deaf bloggers. There are so many different perceptions and contradictions. It can be quite confusing when you read all of them. It’s not easy to choose to what to believe in when you aren’t there in person. I don’t believe everything these people say including the bloggers opposed to the protest. They are mostly speculations and opinions. But they are valid to start with; they show how people feel about the situation.

It should be obvious that I don’t personally know the incoming president, Dr. Jane K. Fernandes. Though, that hasn’t stopped me from reading many of her statements, video interviews and more. There are a lot of people who learned ASL at her age; she didn’t learn ASL till she was in her early 20s’ and yet are far more proficient. While that’s not a valid reason why she shouldn’t be the president. There are other factors to take in consideration too. Judging by the video interviews and candid video footage with Fernandes featured in it; it appears quite clear to me that she has a stutter in her signing. A strong leader should be charismatic and be well liked, be viewed as a leader. It is important that a leader possesses people skill. If you don’t have that skill, you are dead in the water. Despite some people claiming that she did a lot of good for some places she was once employed at in the past, it doesn’t mean she’s going to cut it as a president at the university.

Unfortunately, I did get to watch her analyze the situation and compare it to the movie, ‘The Perfect Storm” back in May. It was somewhere baffling, especially when she didn’t know half of what she was saying in that video clip. A leader should know what s/he is talking about and with a strong confidence, rather than looking all shaken up and nervous. I don’t see how it’s possible to defend this woman, she may be a good woman at heart, but she isn’t a firm leader. Not only that, the leader has to be a good listener. Both Fernandes and the current president, I. King Jordan hasn’t been listening. Instead, they’ve been attacking the protesters, even with lies. The public relations representatives have spread a good number of lies regarding a few incidents that took place. I even have a few high-resolution images of these incidents.

Yes, pepper-spray was used on some people. I know because it was used on somebody I happen to know, they didn’t use a powerful type, but it was enough to make some back off. From what I know, a lot of security guards are often untrained in dealing with a protest. This applies to pretty much every college and university. As far I know, no students have gotten violent with the guards. Though, they did resort to passive-aggressive tactics at times. Especially when they were taking over the Hall Memorial Building. Though it still didn’t call for some people to get pepper-sprayed. It is the responsibility of the guards to remain unprovoked when they are confronted in this manner. The only time the guards should take action against a protester is when one makes the attempt to cause physical harm.

Like usual, there’s always a few bad seeds on both sides. On the side of the protesters, a few went somewhere a bit too far. For instance, one protester took the liberty of pouring apple juice on a stage getting some onto the president and the others. I condemn these for taking it too far. Throwing liquids that can stain a person’s clothing is just plainly wrong and provoking. Yes, some did scream at the president and disturbing some events. Though you must remember that this was a protest, and they felt they had to send a message. This was one they chose to use. Still, nobody laid a finger on him. That’s what everybody has to remember here. As always, there’ll be some choices they make that we won’t agree with.

Now, what is the real reason why Fernandes refuse to resign? This reason should be obvious to everyone; it’s the money. It always is. Of course, she isn’t going to admit that as being the reason because that’ll make her look like a greedy leader. The job also comes with a lucrative retirement income. The current president of Galluadet University is one of the highest paid presidents in the USA. From what I recall, it was at least $800,000 a few years ago. I wouldn’t be surprised if it has already passed a few more hundred thousand dollars by now.

This protest has proven to be no small fest. The last time I counted, there were 17 tent cities in the USA, excluding the tent cities in Washington D.C. There is one in Canada and one in Denmark. For these unfamiliar with the tent cities, they set up tents and stay there to support the protest at the university. This is not a small protest-taking place at a university; this is a nation-wide protest taking in several states. It is their right to protest. Right now, they are interfering with the students’ education by having a campus lockdown. The protesters are not willing to back down till their demands are met. Two simple demands and everybody can go back to their daily routines. One being that Fernandes resigns from her position and other being that there are no reprisals for the protesters.

Truthfully, I believe that the only way to resolve this situation is to have the incoming president surrender her position. Sometimes, you have to make sacrifices to achieve peace on the campus. There should be no reprisals for the students, faculty members and everybody involved. Hundreds, maybe thousands have been to the campus to protest along with many more protesting in their own cities all over the country. Personally, I don’t believe the university can afford to terminate all protesters’ education and there would be a shortage of educators if the faculty members involved were all fired. There are a large number of students involved, and the amount of tuition fees they could lose from terminating the protesters’ education.

They are loud and clear on what they want from the Gallaudet University administration and Board of Directors.They are loud and clear on what they want from the Gallaudet University administration and Board of Trustees. They should try to resolve this situation before people start getting hurt.

Too loud and clear that one cannot pretend to not hear. Even the deaf can hear.