First, glance over the post about why i’m scared of cephalopods which was posted exactly 5 days ago. Then note the following sequence of various references since then, which combined are a classic example of Reference Burst Theory™.

1. My wife sent me this link she found on Yahoo news (she had not read my blog post at that time): http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080429/ap_on_sc/new_zealand_colossal_squid.

2. I was browsing Digg.com and saw this article on the front page: http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/04/30/colossal.squid/index.html

Here’s where it gets crazy.

3. I was on The Sixty One listening to some of my old favorites and noticed one of the songs had just changed its avatar to this:

4. Finally, I proceeded to go to the New section of The Sixty One and was shocked to see the following:

That’s right, two songs right next to each other, the first with an octopus as an avatar and the second mentioning tentacles (not to mention the guy in the picture sort of resembles an octopus).

I fully expect a giant squid to be sitting in my favorite chair when I get home.

*****EDIT*****

Another article on Digg’s front page today: 8 Supersize Sea Monsters. Here’s an image from the article:

The URL to my specific island on my Ikariam game has an ID of 1337. I don’t know why I haven’t noticed before today.

This is not a joke, I promise. I know I could have just changed the URL to reflect the 1337 for the ID attribute, but believe me I didn’t. I can’t believe the Reference Burst Theory™ that just happened. Check the comments of the previous post to see how the references are coming together precisely as predicted by RBT™.

Here’s the proof that I didn’t just change the URL. When hovering over the “Island” button in my Ikariam game, you can see the URL of the button in the status bar of my Firefox browser:

Anyone who has doubted my theory up until now has no reason to disbelieve any longer.

He came across a strangely familiar word with an even more strangely familiar word as a possible match, and he thought to himself, “wow this is strangely familiar”. When he told me the story, I was strangely astounded at how immediately familiar it all was.

I realize that’s not what gimcrack means, but it should be. I mean, how often do you see the word gimcrack? And for anyone who doesn’t know, this blog used to be titled “B” before it earned its current name. That’s why this is so significant.

Coincidence? I think… so.

On a side note: if you’re bored, repeat this phrase 10 times: “peculiarly familiarly peculiar and familiar”. I promise you will hate me.

*******************************************

Fun words used in this post:
peculiarly
familiar
coincidence
providence
vocabularical
dutifully
hate
me

Sorry about the bombardment of videos. Hey, I’m a child of the intarwebz.

– Edit –

Oh. My. Goodness.

Reference Burst Theory™ has just reared it’s magnificent head.

I’m writing this after I originally posted. Would you believe that my brother happened to post about Portal at the exact same time as me this morning? Neither of us saw the other’s blog post before writing our posts. There was no reason we were both inspired to post about Portal. There wasn’t a Digg article on Portal this morning or anything like that.

I just recently started playing WoW again and went to a site called WeGame (the best website since they started the intarwebs) to download screen capturing software so I could post my WoW gameplay videos online, and I happened to browse around and find some Portal videos. I have no idea why my brother happened to be on the same site at the same time and watch the same videos and then write a blog post about them.

This is insanity. What are the odds?!? ACK! GAH! UGH! BLECH! LOL!

A few weeks ago I saw a little film – don’t know if you’ve heard of it – called I Am Legend. It was good. Dang good. Yesterday I saw another movie called Cloverfield. It was better. Dang better. And that’s saying a lot because I Am Legend got at least a 2/10 Berating (soon to come).

Spoilers commencing…

I wanted to compare these films because they both take place in Manhattan, they both feature the destruction of the Brooklyn Bridge and evacuation of the island of Manhattan, and they both contain potential world-ending (or at least city-ending) events that take place in the heart of New York City. Plus I saw them two weeks apart and they’re both fresh in my mind.

What are the chances of me seeing two movies in a row with such events in common as the decimation of the Brooklyn Bridge? There are so many bridges in the world, why this one? Beginning to sound a little like Reference Burst Theory™.

My hopes and dreams for Cloverfield were actually exceeded. To recap my preview-style post on Cloverfield:

1) I saw a mysterious trailer for an unknown movie
2) I found out it was called Cloverfield and it looked like Godzilla meets Blair Witch
3) It reminded me of Half-Life 2 because of the type of storytelling
4) I crossed my fingers that it would be really good and not really bad

As it turns out, it was very much like Half-Life 2. My premonitions were spot on, because they used my favorite type of film/game storytelling: first-person narrative paired with first-person visual perspective.

“Since the narrator is within the story, he or she may not have knowledge of all the events. For this reason, first-person narrative is often used… so that the reader and narrator uncover the case together.”

While the combination of these two storytelling devices exists frequently in video games, it is very rare in film, and that’s what makes Cloverfield so unique.

I Am Legend, on the other hand, is told in a much different fashion. It is not first-person perspective obviously, and since I’m not a literary expert (or even novice), I have no idea what type of narrative is used. Third-person limited, maybe? Who cares, that is not the point of this post. It is a fundamentally different type of movie, but it has many similarities to Cloverfield, and it is very good. Like Cloverfield, I Am Legend far exceeded my expectations, and hopefully I’ll get a chance to talk about it in a separate Berating post.

But I’m way more excited about Cloverfield right now, so on with the Berating.

The Good

This movie was a breath of fresh air amidst a sea of movies filled with computer generated special effects. Picture those old Playstation commercials where a Handycam captures some dudes in the back yard messing with a rocket launcher, or the Toyota commercials where an amateur camera records extraordinary things happening to a guy and his truck. Now picture an hour and 24 minutes of it in the context of a truly frightening plot. That’s what the CGI is akin to in Cloverfield. It was so well done, in fact, that I challenge someone to make a film that more accurately captures the essence of what it would really be like if you were in the same situation.

I’m not getting through to you. What would it be like if you were having a going away party with your friends and a horrible, gigantic monster came out of nowhere and began knocking over skyscrapers on the other side of the city at 3 o’clock in the morning, and then it started coming closer and you and your friends had to flee amidst wreckage, flying debris, and a bunch of shocked people who are all in survival-mode?

No, I’m not asking you what it was like in other movies like War of the Worlds and Independance Day. I’m asking you if you can really imagine what it would be like to actually be involved in a situation like that.

Just watch Cloverfield and you’ll know.

I loved this movie. I never thought I could love a monster movie completely devoid of a soundtrack filled with no-name actors with a fairly simple plot, but those are the elements that made Cloverfield a film worth watching. It was really scary and realistic. There was blood, but not excessive gore. For instance, when a piece of rebar is protruding through the shoulder of a female protagonist, pinning her to the floor, the camera is haphazardly tossed aside showing only her legs as her friends free her from her affliction.

We are constantly left wanting more. Since we are seeing the events as they happened through the lens of an amateur videographer instead of a full camera crew able to capture every angle of every scene, we only sort of glimpse a lot of the horrific things that are going on. We half-see a building being knocked down at a weird angle behind other spectators. Only our peripheral vision captures military RPGs striking the side of a giant unknown horror. We swivel around and barely witness an infected friend being scurried away by medical personal only to become, um, how shall I put it… “decontaminated”.

It’s ground-breaking storytelling and it’s a ride you won’t forget. It’s one of those films that affected me and it is a joy for me to replay over and over in my mind.

The Bad

Some people may get, and have definitely gotten, very frustrated by this film. I can see three possible reasons for this. First, I can see frustration in the fact that we never really know what’s going on and we’re left with a cliff-hanger ending. As I have stated, I love that, but it might not be your personal cup of tea. If not, I feel bad for you, son. Next, I can see frustration in the fact that you never really get to feast your eyes upon the special effects. As the viewer, I was always moving my head to try to see different vantage points – like if I was at the back row of a concert trying to see the stage – only to remember that I am watching from a fixed point of view no matter how much I tilt and pivot my neck. A little frustrating, but overall necessary for the success of the film. Finally, some will definitely be frustrated – sickened actually – by the motion of the camera used in this film. Lots of people have gotten sick from the motion of the film, but don’t judge it by the first 5 minutes, because it actually gets a lot better for the rest of the movie (with small pockets of a lot worse here and there).

The review over at CNN.com says it much better than I can:

“Some viewers will find the style a mixed blessing at best — it’s not the smooth ride we’re used to, certainly, but then maybe this genre could use a good jolt. It’s easy to grow blase when computer graphics do all the work for you. Here we spend Act II straining to see whatever it is that’s laying waste to the city, and Act III recoiling from glimpses of something unspeakable.”

The Beratings

Acting – no beratings
Surprisingly good acting from a bunch of nobodies. I believed these people were going through this trauma, for the most part.

Plot – no beratings
Simple and potent.

Inconsistencies – no beratings

Unbelievable Events – no beratings
Sure, no one in their right mind would’ve been able to keep documenting the way our camera operator did, but I get the feeling our camera operator wasn’t exactly in his right mind.

Schematics – no beratings
When there’s no soundtrack, the soundtrack can’t be bad. That’s one way to do it.

Recommended Investment = Stand in line for the very first showing

0/10 Stand in line for the very first showing
1/10 See it the first weekend
2/10 See it at full price
3/10 See it at the Five-Buck-Club
4/10 See it at the dollar-fifty
5/10 See it OnDemand
6/10 Rent it from Blockbuster
7/10 Watch it on TV
8/10 Watch it purely for spousal points
9/10 Never watch it
10/10 Buy it and publicly destroy it

Ladies and gentlemen, we have our very first 0/10 Berating. I might buy it and publicly destroy it just to have the pleasure of buying it again.

For instance, all of a sudden you’ll hear an obscure 20 year old song on the radio that you haven’t heard in a long time, and then you’ll be flipping through an old magazine the next day and come across the name of that artist. If it’s a true Reference Burst (notice how the term is now capitalized), you’ll then proceed to see an old sitcom on TV where one of the characters makes a reference to that very song, or something along those lines.

It happened to me with Mexican Radio by Wall of Voodoo a couple years ago when it was referenced on an episode of Seinfeld shortly after I had heard it on the radio and seen it in print (I can’t remember where). That’s just one example – it happens pretty often.

Could it have something to do with the butterfly effect? One event causes a chain reaction, so the first reference somehow prompts the other two, not by chance, but by some complex chain of cause and effect. Could it be that Reference Bursts™ exist everywhere all the time and we only notice them when our minds are open to them? Could it be that I am a telepathic robotic bionic mutant-ic machine? My name is Brian, which is close to Brain, so maybe.

What does this have to do with cats dying? I’ll tell you – you just have to come on a short journey with me first. I’ll have you back to your cubical in no time. Refill your coffee mug, you closet caffeine addict, and let’s go.

A Short Journey

Yesterday I witnessed video of a team of lion hunters flirting with death. About halfway through it contains 5 seconds of some of the most amazing and terrifying footage mine eyes have ever seen. The video is work appropriate, 2 minutes long, and, although not required, is best viewed with sound. I probably built it up way too much. Sorry, but here it is anyway.

I want to go off topic for a second and point something out. Despite what you may be thinking about how terrible it is that they’re hunting lions, that guy drinks Milwaukee’s Best for sure. He got right back up and shot that lion. I would be burrowing into the ground like a little Hobbit creature of some sort. And stop judging that guy too. Maybe that lion killed his African wife and their 17 mixed-children. Ok, back to the subject.

You’re thinking “Man, I’ve got a lot more blogs to read today at work instead of finishing my project that’s due on Friday, and I wish he’d get to the point so I can just move on to Perez-Hilton.” I’ve got the cure for what ales you, my friend. Here’s where it gets interesting. Friday, not two days prior to Sunday’s video-tastic-ness, I happened upon a nugget of YouTube video involving a tiger, a stick-wielding Indian man, and a mostly uninvolved elephant. This one has about 3 seconds of sheer heaven towards the end. It’s work appropriate and 35 seconds long (with no audio).

You’re thinking “If this honky ever wants me to visit his blog again, he better have one more video clip that’s even better than the first two and conclude his post with a profound summarizing statement.” Today’s your lucky day, chief. A few weeks ago I witnessed the most amazing video I have ever seen. I know it sounds fake, but the video is entitled the Battle at Kruger and it contains footage of an epic three-way fight over an innocent little calf between a pride of lions, a crocodile, and a herd of angry buffalo. It is 8:30 in length and is worth every second, so watch it when you actually have a solid 20 minutes of time (I gave you an extra 11 minutes to rewind and re-watch the best parts).

You’re thinking “He’s doing it! He’s actually doing it! I hope he doesn’t screw it up so close to the end.” Don’t worry fake condescending guy, I won’t. It all comes full-circle because today, would you believe it, I happened to come across this article about the popularity of the battle at kruger video. I wasn’t searching for it, and I wasn’t even thinking about the crazy cat videos I had recently seen. In fact, I found it in the related articles section of an article on Digg about the godfather of the Internet predicting the end of TV as we know it.

Conclusion

Is there truth to my © Reference Burst Theory™? Have you had any crazy coincidences recently that would fall into this category? If so, you owe me $12 for stealing my idea that has been © Copyrighted and Trademarked™ and now contains the word “theory” in the official term too, just FYI in case you missed that. I know you can do that, I’ve seen it done. No one just says Pythagorean, do they? Who would give you any credit if you said “I used Pythagorean to figure out the third side of that triangle”? People need to hear that “theory” in there.

Here, I’ll type it again just to clear it up, this is how you have to refer to it without having to owe me $15: © Reference Burst Theory ™ ®. Yes, it has to be underlined and bolded, and just one last thing, notice how it’s Registered® too. I’m just covering my own butt here, ok.

Not five minutes after I published this post in which I go into some detail about amusement park accidents, a girl’s feet were both severed above the ankle by the Superman Tower of Power (formerly known as The Hellivator) at Kentucky Kingdom. These kinds of things do not happen very often. To have something like this happen at one of the closest amusement parks in proximity to me literally five minutes after I published my post is a little scary.

A couple days ago I was discussing this accident with someone who replied, “yeah, but she’ll be rich for the rest of her life.” True, she will be rich, but she will have no legs! If someone asked you if you would trade both of your legs at the age of 13 for a couple million bucks, what would you do? Especially if it involved having them ripped off by a thrill ride whose purpose was already to scare the living hellivator out of you. You would say no. Shut up, yes you wou-yes you-shut up dude-shut-yes you would.

What I’m really upset about is that they closed all similar rides at other amusement parks, including one of my personal favorites (and one I’m due to be riding in exactly a week from today), the Drop Zone at King’s Island. According to this article the Drop Zone is a much bigger and faster ride:

The Superman ride takes passengers up 177 feet and then drops them nearly 154 feet at 54 mph before stopping. Drop Zone takes riders up 264 feet and drops them at 67 mph.

I can attest to that, as I’ve been on the Drop Zone many times and it never EVER lets me down.

You know what this reminds me of? I had a dream about 2 747s crashing into government buildings in Washingdon D.C. the night before September 11th. When I was awakened by my mom to find out about the actual terrorist attacks, I remember telling her that I was just having a dream about that. No, there weren’t any TVs or radios on anywhere near me while I was sleeping, and yes, I was actually having the dreams before it happened. What does that mean? Do my sick fantasies actually cause real-life events? If so, I will cease and desist immediately.

»Article about the other rides closing
»News clip about the accident

Since I wrote parts I and II our parish has conducted two “vision” meetings. These meetings were geared towards the 18 – 40 age range and they were originally planned in order to gather the thoughts of people who otherwise might not be compelled to give their opinions – whether out of fear, laziness, or simply that they don’t think it’s right to complain whenever something doesn’t go exactly how they want it to. I fall into all three of these categories, which is why I was so grateful that the vision meetings took place.

Amazingly, the second meeting had as many attendees that I thought didn’t fit the meeting’s demographic as those who did. I’m obviously not going to name names (with the exception of my own and possibly my parish’s rector), but there were two people in particular who I thought sabotaged the meeting.

Saboteur 1

Let me preface with a little history of our parish. About 25 to 30 years ago a bunch of people wanted to live in the same community and worship together, so they did it in a place they could afford: West Indianapolis. Today, most of these people have long since moved away, and their offspring are making the decision either to stay in the neighborhood (henceforth “the Hood”) or to leave it. This means that our church is now a mixture of people living in the community around the church and people commuting from other areas of town.

Saboteur 1 apparently did not realize that. She went on for 30 minutes about topics involving the Hood, such as reaching out and lending a helping hand, what we were going to do with land around the building, and how we can team up with local organizations to further the development of the Hood. This would have been a good idea if the meeting was about that, and I can hear her now: “Of course it’s about that – that’s part of our church vision as a whole!” It may be, but we’ve been talking about that for years, and this is the first time people in my age group with my mindset have had a chance to talk about the things we want to talk about (hence the 18-40 age limit), which does not involve the Hood. Let’s have a meeting tomorrow to talk about the Hood, but let’s leave it out of today’s meeting.

One more point regarding the Hood and then I’ll move on to Saboteur 2. During the meeting someone made a point that if a house was burning down in the Hood he knew that we would all lend a helping hand and do everything in our power to help the victims. I’ve also heard time and time again how we need to reach out to our neighbors and help them, because they need our help more than anyone, and just being there helps them, and the Hood wouldn’t be what it is without us, etc. What if someone’s apartment in my complex burned down? Would we lend the same helping hand to them? I realize that our church can’t help every single person and can only focus on one neighborhood at a time, but it’s the principal of the thing.

I agree with all the reasons people have for being in the Hood, I just want them to agree with all the reasons I am not. Just because someone is poor doesn’t mean they need God’s help more than someone who is doing just fine in the suburbs. In fact, if you cleverly used some Bible verses about rich vs. poor (which I’m not prone to do as I really need to read it more before I can make statements about it), you could argue the point that the people in the Hood are already closer to God than people in the suburbs who are preoccupied with their 3-car garages and 24′ in-ground pools. I would also argue that I am much more effective in witnessing to someone that I have a lot in common with, and those kinds of people just don’t live in the Hood. In summary, all people need help, poor simply does not equal bad, and our church is made up of people from all over the city, including a good amount of people that are too concerned with helping out their neighbors and the struggles in their daily lives to notice what’s going on in the Hood.

Saboteur 2

This is a long post, so I’ll try to refrain from going into great detail (although I probably will anyway) about saboteur 2, except to say that she should learn to control her emotions if she wants to get through to people in a public forum. I was greatly offended by her outbursts, especially since she was completely stifling the one meeting that we’ve ever had where we have been able to talk directly to our parish priests about what we want to change.

As soon as we finally got into a great discussion about the particulars of our lengthy, abrasive services, saboteur 2 had to go and ruin it by doing the following things (in chronological order):

• 1. Stop the flow of the meeting by interrupting my wife
• 2. Sit there for 15 seconds trying to figure out what she was going to say
• 3. Cry
• 4. Tell an irrelevant story about her life
• 5. Yell, and I really do mean holler at the top of her lungs

A few things about saboteur 2: She is very close to the age limit for the meeting, she has been a member of our church for a maximum of 2 years, shows up halfway through the service (and that’s every other week when she actually comes), and doesn’t live anywhere near the Hood. Now, before you go getting angry about how judgmental that sounded, realize that I am only stating those observations to express how little she is involved with the history of our church. I’m sure during the times she’s not at our church she is attending the other Orthodox church she came from (St. George’s maybe?), so that is not an attack on her character.

Why would someone with such a limited understanding of our parish come to a vision meeting, hijack it, and stifle all the creative visioning we were accomplishing? I don’t know the answer to that, but I know it has something to do with the greater Orthodox Paradox theory that I have been discussing.

Having a problem with people who have different viewpoints? Don’t like to use logic? Hate change and think it’s unhealthy? Tired of using that pesky brain God gave you? Hide behind spirituality! You don’t have to worry about making points to backup your ideas, just cry and talk about the Lord’s mercy in your life and everything works out!

My solution is for the parish rectors in the Orthodox churches across America to listen to the future of their churches (the 18-40 crowd) just as much as they listen to the history of their churches (the over 40 crowd) and use the discernment God gives them to find the balance that causes their church to grow. We can blindly accept and follow the guidelines given to us all the way down to what melody we use to sing “Lord, Have Mercy”, but if our church isn’t growing it’s all for naught.

If you can tell me which movie I quoted in this post, I’ll give you a dollar next time I see you, if I have a dollar on my person at that point in time, and if you are the first one to tell me. No purchase necessary, valid only for US residents, limited time offer. Hint: it’s somewhere in the first three paragraphs.