When I started podcasting about movies, I drew my inspiration from a few of my favorite gaming podcasts: The 1Up Your podcast hosted by Garnett Lee and the Hotspot podcast, which featured Jeff Gerstmann and Ryan Davis (who have since moved over to Giant Bomb). There were a also a few podcasts out there that set the gold standard for movie podcasts: Filmspotting, the Creative Screenwriting Podcast, and the Scene Unseen podcast.

This latter category helped to create the “market” for movie podcasts, paving the way for people like me, ever since iTunes first had a TV & Film podcast section. Their hosts are erudite, informed, and entertaining. Together, they offer a glimpse into the world of moviemaking and film criticism that is frequently unique to the podcasting format (although obviously, Filmspotting is broadcast on the radio on WBEZ in Chicago).

I was recently given the privilege of guest-hosting for Filmspotting, a task which I approached with awe and care. Filmspotting is one of the biggest movie podcasts on the internet, and in my opinion, they set the gold standard for movie podcasts. Granted, what we do on the /Filmcast is drastically different and our target audience isn’t the same either, but I always feel like I’m learning something new, either about movies or about the process of talking about them, whenever I listen to Filmspotting.

As much of a thrill as it was to actually record the episode, the things that I geeked out about the most were the incredibly mundane elements of the show, such as hearing my voice come on over the Filmspotting intro music, or thanking Torey Malatia at the end of the show (something I’ve heard countless times done by radio luminaries such as Ira Glass). In general, when tasks this big seek to overwhelm me, I try to take pleasure in the small things.

I am grateful to Adam Kempenaar for the chance to guest-host. Assuming the feedback isn’t bad, I hope to have the opportunity to do it again in the future.

You can download the episode here (right click and Save As) or listen to it in your browser below:

Sometimes, my boss Peter Sciretta lets me make blog posts over at his considerably more popular blog, slashfilm.com. Today is one of those times: I wrote about an amazing short film I recently saw, Skhizein. Read my thoughts by clicking here.

Skhizein (Jérémy Clapin,2008)

How is it that people come to be friends? What is that elusive process whereby complete strangers start caring for one another?

I have been blessed with some pretty amazing friends in my life, but despite my decades on this earth, the mechanics of friend-acquisition still elude me. We interact with strangers in our classes, we pass by them on the street, we see them at work. Somehow, some of them become our friends and some of them do not.

It can start with a simple invitation to a movie screening, extended and accepted. But one simple social outing cannot predict the course of a friendship. Ultimately, I think, it’s a convergence of compassion, selflessness, and luck that makes friendship in our lives possible.

This semester I started taking schools at a local Graduate School of Education and I had the privilege of meeting two wonderful people named Matt and Jen. They don’t know it but they have been beacons of light to me during a dark time in my life. To know that they are around to talk with, ask for help, or just hang around with has helped to sustain me this past semester.

I know they will do great things. They already have.

Update: Here’s me and Matt and Jen reading and sharing some poetry together:

[Update: Welcome MacSurfer readers to this little place in the internet I call home. I’m honored that you’ve chosen to visit! One thing I feel compelled to update about this post: User “Gopyvision” points out in the comments, correctly, that at the time I wrote this post, I didn’t understand how the “right-click” function on the mouse works. Essentially, if you have two fingers on the mouse surface, it does not matter where you press-down; the mouse will register it as a left-click, even if you are clicking on the right-most part of the mouse. I did not realize this before, but it definitely helps me to better use the mouse now. I do not, however, find this intuitive at all, and I find myself still longing for the solace of physical buttons….]

I started using my very first iMac about a month ago. There’s a lot to love about the slickness of Apple’s Snow Leopard operating system, not to mention the absolutely gorgeous, obnoxiously large 27″ screen. And while I have to use my PC to record my podcasts and do my work (my office Word template no longer functions on Macs), the iMac will be a good computer companion for quite some time to come.

But there’s one thing that I have to vent about: Apple’s Magic Mouse. I’ve never used anything other than a 2-button mouse until now, but I since the Magic Mouse came with the computer, I’ve been giving it a shot for the past month. Initially, I was a fan. But several weeks of usage later, I’ve concluded that while I love the idea of zooming in instantaneously and advancing through webpages without having to click on “Back” in my browsers, there are a number of places this thing falls short:

Ergonomics – Sure, it looks gorgeous from a photo on a computer screen, but put your hand down on one of these things and you’ll realize instantly that it does not conform to your hand, unlike virtually every other mouse designed by anyone. Moreover, you’ll find that the hand position necessary to do the swipe (i.e. hold down the mouse with your thumb and ring, swipe with middle and index) is incredibly unnatural.

I have personally found that due to the awkward positioning required to do the gestures, this mouse is developing bad habits in my general mouse hand positioning. It is very hard to move the mouse around with your thumb and ring finger pinching it, since the mouse itself has very low clearance (your thumb and ring finger often scrape the mousepad underneath). Thus, after a few weeks of using this thing, I’ve started pivoting my hand around my wrist on occasion, rather than moving the entire mouse. Experts will tell you, this is a terrible thing to do and it will eventually destroy my wrist if left unchecked.

False clicks – Steve Jobs notoriously has a hatred of buttons (note the button-less shirts he wears when he delivers keynotes, or the new iPod shuffles complete lack of any buttons whatsoever). One of the biggest issues with this mouse is the fact that the top one-piece casing actually hides two buttons (or at least, two virtual buttons). Unfortunately, because the piece of plastic is a huge, single piece, you can often have false left-clicks. In other words, I’ll be going to right-click on a link to copy it, or open it a new tab, or whatever, and find that since i’m pressing down on the mouse’s topside, it doesn’t register the right click and instead left-clicks on the actual link, taking me to someplace I never wanted to be. I hate you, Magic Mouse, for your lack of obedience, sophistication, and understanding.

Battery Life – I have been using this thing for the past three weeks and the included batteries crapped out today. Three weeks! So either they included some weak sauce batteries (I already spent $1000+ on the computer, so why shaft me there?) or this mouse eats up batteries faster than a mofo. Either way, I have to track down new or rechargeable batteries for this thing, a timesuck for a device that has already taken so, so much from me.

***

Conclusion: I’m going to try to sell this thing and pick up a Logitech. But enough about me, what have been your experiences with the Magic Mouse?

At a performance of Handel’s “Messiah” tonight at Boston’s Symphony Hall, I got to meet singer/soprano Suzie LeBlanc. This was a big deal for me. In fact, I traveled an hour on the T to see the Messiah specifically just to hear Suzie sing. It was worth it.

I bought Suzie’s Portrait album awhile back, which, at the ridiculously low price of $6, I absolutely insist you buy right now. Suzie’s voice is so beautiful that it is one of the few voices in the world that actually provokes physical reactions within me when I listen; I feel my chest shrinking and my heart melting when her dulcet tones dance over the notes of an Aria. I’ve embedded a couple of her pieces below. Take a listen and let me know what you think, but please, buy her album to get the high-fidelity experience. You will not regret it.

[I started writing this post early on the day on Thanksgiving. I never stopped writing it. By half past midnight, Thanksgiving was already over I knew I had to hit publish or else I’d be here forever. If you believe you have been an important part of my life and find yourself left off of this list, please assume that it’s because I’m a bad, negligent friend, and not that you haven’t meant anything to me or something dumb like that. Thank you.]

There’s been a whole lot more sadness than joy in my life during the past year or so, but I suppose that means that I just have to appreciate and hold closer to the remaining joys that I have. In no particular order, here is a list of things that I’m thankful for today:

For Peter Sciretta and slashfilm.com – As we’re becoming more aware of every single day, making a living by writing about movies is a pretty freaking difficult task. I can’t say that I make a living this way quite yet, but slashfilm.com has become an ever-growing part of my life, and has afforded me opportunities I could never have fathomed a few years ago. In the past few months alone, I’ve gotten to hear Rian Johnson read pornographic fan fiction about us on the air, chatted with the guy who wrote X2, and confronted director Richard Kelly with one interpretation of Donnie Darko. I also got to talk about 2012 with one of the people responsible for this. There’s even the possibility that in a few weeks, I’ll get to guest host for a great show on Chicago Public Radio. None of this would have ever been possible without slashfilm.com.

I am extremely grateful to Peter Sciretta for his partnership and for his patience with me. Most of you probably don’t/can’t know it, but Peter not only owns/runs one hell of a movie website, he’s also a pretty terrific guy too. Daily, I wonder how out of all the people on the internet I could have ended up working for, I get the opportunity to collaborate with someone that also happens to be a great human being. Truly, I have won the lottery of life, or at least, of online writing.

Gratitude also goes out to all the people on /Film’s staff; together, I hope we’ve created content that people have found interesting and valuable, and that we’ve had fun doing so. But I believe our best days are ahead…

For my /Filmcast Co-hosts, Devindra and Adam – No, we don’t always agree. Occasionally, we disagree violently. But given that our personalities are so strong, and given our wildly disparate backgrounds, I’m shocked that we get along WAY more often than we don’t. These guys have stood with me since the beginning and I’m so grateful for having gone through this crazy adventure with both them.

To all of the /Filmcast guests and listeners – The reason why I use audioboo, the reason why I podcast, is because on some level, I feel like when we are privy to the unadulterated conversations of others, it makes us feel a little bit less alone in the world. For everyone that has joined us on the show and everyone that has given us a chance and tuned in, you have helped us to create something that keeps thousand of people company on a weekly basis, whether they’re spending eight hours in a projectionist booth, or driving a truck all night, or falling asleep in an army barracks in Iraq (All of which are actual professions that listeners have written in about, btw). Thanks for tuning in and keeping us on the air.

For Stephen Tobolowsky – I still remember watching Groundhog Day in theaters when I was just a wee little one. Even back then, I remember wanting to punch Ned Ryerson in the throat, so effectively did Stephen Tobolowsky portray that immortal character. What a hilarious guy he was, and still is!

If you had told me back then that I’d one day be hosting a podcast with Stephen Tobolowsky, I’d probably say, “What the hell is a podcast?” And if podcasts had existed back then, I’d probably say “Get the hell outta here!”

The fortuitous circumstances of our partnership have been mind-boggling, but what’s important is that they’ve actually transpired. You see, I love a well-told story. Stories can be riveting, funny, profound, all at once. And to hear a well-told story is to inhabit a shared space with both the teller and the listener, and to partake in the creation in a special world that is particular to the oral tradition.

That’s why I loved a small movie called Stephen Tobolowsky’s Birthday Party, in which Stephen tells a group of his friends some stories about his interesting life. Deep in my heart, I knew that Stephen had a ton of more interesting, profound stories locked away in the recesses of his brain. But without some venue or some project to get him to write about them or perform them, how would they ever be shared with the world? So I pitched him the idea to do a storytelling podcast with me. To my shock and awe and eternal delight, he agreed to do it.

In the past few weeks, Stephen and I have been rapidly recording and putting out episodes of a new podcast, The Tobolowsky Files. Recently, we put out episode 4 of the podcast, The Alchemist. More than most things I’ve ever done online, I am so incredibly proud of this episode and the response that it’s produced in our listenership (if you haven’t heard it yet and you’re reading this, please do me a favor and listen to it now).

People have already written in (here’s an example of a letter) saying that the show has changed their lives, that it’s caused them to rethink their relationships with their family. Most importantly, people have told us that the show has caused them to recognize the importance of stories, and of writing down and telling stories.

The /Filmcast has been, and always will be, a blast and a joy. But with The Tobolowsky Files, I feel as though I’m helping to create something of lasting value…something that has and will continue to enrich people’s lives in ways we can’t even yet predict. I know that without Stephen, without me, and without our partnership together, it never would have happened in a million years. And I will forever be grateful that we’ve had the opportunity to create this thing, and that people have seen fit to give it a listen.

This new podcast has taken up more of my time and my life than I possibly could have predicted. But if we can’t make major sacrifices for things that we truly believe to be worthwhile, then what exactly is left to make sacrifices for?

A big thanks to Stephen for all of his time, and for sharing himself with the world in the way he has. I can’t wait to see what stories he comes up with next.

For Boston movie people – From all the amazing folks who run Independent Film Festival Boston, to the lovely and talented publicists from Allied and Terry Hines, to the film critics who give me their time and attention when I harass them about their opinion at press screenings: You guys have helped me to feel more at home, in a city that I’ve lived in for more than 20 years. If I ever leave Boston, the moviegoing experience will be the one thing that I will miss the most.

For all of you online peeps who I’ve chatted with and gotten to know – You are too countless to name (although several prominent ones spring to mind) but I’ve deeply valued all of our interactions. I look forward to many of them to come.

For my bosses at my day job – They probably aren’t reading this, but in the event they are, their support and willingness to employ me has meant more to me than they could possibly imagine. I can only hope that at the end of our run together, they’ll be pleased with the works that we’ve been able to create.

***

Now, time for a few personal ones….

For my brother, Michael – If there’s one thing the past year has shown me, it’s that my brother and I are more similar than probably either of us would like. But in commonality, there is strength and unity. It’s been a lot easier struggling through life knowing that there’s someone out there who shares in my experiences, who knows what I’m feeling, and who helps to get me through the most difficult times.

For my friend, Chi – Nobody understands me like you do. Your advice is always both useful and profound. And even though an ocean separates us, there is more that brings us together than keeps us apart.

For my friend, Sara – Your words of support and encouragement have meant more to me than you will know. Years later, I will look back on this time and know that you were one of the people that helped to get me through it.

For my friend, Wayne – One of the few people who has stood by me through thick and thin, who I know that I’ll always be able to count on, no matter how much of a dickhole I become.

For Matt and Jennifer, two of my new friends at my new school – These guys are so ridiculously cool that they have actually earned a separate blog post by me, to be written at a later point in time. Look forward to it.

For Terri Schwartz – Terri doesn’t know this but her simple acts of friendship have gone a long way towards keeping me sane. I don’t think she knows or understands how much her friendship has meant to me, but I’m okay with that. Above, one of many audioboos I’ve recorded with her.

For my family’s continued survival during harsh economic times – When my father sold off the restaurant a few years ago, it was a bittersweet move. The future was unclear and, to a large extent, it still is. But there are four people in my immediate family: My mother, my father, my brother, and I. Each one of us still has a job, at least temporarily. On this measure, we are far more fortunate than many others. I can never forget this blessing.

And, of course, to you – It’s a difficult thing to drop words into the abyss of the internet, to speak into a vacuum. I am given the privilege of having a small audience, enough to keep my creative juices flowing, enough to keep me putting myself out there.

However you got to this blog post, it most likely means you’re following my work in some form, whether on Twitter, Facebook, or at slashfilm.com. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be here. And for now at least, I am grateful to still be here.

It was a simple assignment, theoretically.

I’m currently taking an Education class on new technologies and their potential use in classroom. This past week, we were broken up into groups of five and tasked with working on a wiki. The final product of the wiki was supposed to be a 500-word editorial about the downsides of certain Web 2.0 tech (in our case, it was Twitter). Our professor only gave us one condition: You cannot divide the work into different sections and assign it to different people.

The purpose of this assignment, as I understood it, was to confront us with the benefits and challenges of using wikis. Many magazines and news publications write breathlessly of the promise that these types of emerging technologies hold, but once you try using these things in the real world, it usually results in a cold, hard, splash of reality to the face. If this was indeed the purpose of the assignment, then mission accomplished.

Before I proceed, let me just say that I have nothing but the deepest and utmost respect for all of the members who worked in my group with me. They are each incredibly intelligent and considerate, and nothing that this post says should in any way be taken as a slight against any of them. In short, they are awesome! Rather, my area of interest is in how assigning a wiki to a group of students is inherently maddening, frustrating, and therefore, genius.

There’s a lot of appeal to using a wiki. Allowing everyone to contribute theoretically generates a better product than any one person could create by herself. The asynchronous nature of a wiki also permits people to work on it at several different times. But as one starts using a wiki, especially in the context of a class assignment, its limitations quickly become apparent.

Formatting – It is quite easy for people to disagree over what format the final product should take, and what structure the article should be in. Moreover, group members can disagree over the appropriate approach to the assignment itself. Typically, when group projects stretch out over the course of months and involve weekly meetings, these details tend to resolve themselves. But for an assignment such as this, where the primary interactions took place over e-mail or within the wiki itself over the course of one week, there was simply not enough time for these issues to be worked out. Thus, often disagreements and conflicts remained unresolved, or were resolved by whoever happened to have edited the wiki last.

The Pareto Principle – We’ve learned, time and time again, that most sites that rely on some utopian vision of crowdsourcing rarely end up succeeding in the way they’d originally imagined. On Wikipedia, we’ve seen that 74% of all edits are made by only 2% of the users. Or check out the social bookmarking site Digg, where a few years ago, the top 100 community members were responsible for over 40% of the stories that made the front page.

It’s a fact of life: Whenever you get a bunch of people together in one place and assign them to do a task, some people are going to do more work than others. This can happen for a myriad of reasons, many of them legitimate: Some people may have more expertise than others in the specific topic. Some people may not have time enough time to contribute due to external factors. Some people just might not enjoy the process of contributing. An assignment like this lends itself to seeing this principle in action.

As I reflect on the possibilities of how things could have gone, I can conjure up a number of ways the assigned editorial could be constructed. Here are a few potential workflows:

1) The work could be divided evenly into different sections. This option was forbidden by the constraints of the assignment.

2) One person could write out most of the editorial and lay the groundwork, while the others could all chip in and refine the initial person’s work.

3) The article could be constructed very piecemeal, where each person contributes a sentence or a paragraph to build the final product.

Option 1 was forbidden, and I’d argue that options #2 and #3 both have pretty significant flaws. For Option #2, you have one person clearly doing more work than the others (This is particularly salient, given that on some level we were evaluated for our contributions as part of our grade), while for Option #3, you end up producing a piece that might not be as coherent or unified as you might otherwise have. I would argue that these difficulties, while they do exist, are not as pronounced in a setting such as Wikipedia, where articles are constructed over the course of years, and not seven days. In any case, given the relatively few options to create the final product, this assignment almost inherently leads to a suboptimal outcome.

No Regard for Expertise – I once went to a leadership conference where as an icebreaker, I was told to stand side-by-side with someone else, but facing in opposite directions (along with everyone else in the room). I was then told to grasp the hand of the person next to me and then, in the span of 30 seconds, touch his hand to my hip as many times as possible. I quickly negotiated a deal with my partner: If he let me rapidly move our hands quickly between our hips, we would achieve the more touches than if we just tried to fight against each other. We won the game handily and learned a valuable object lesson in the process.

One of the most liberating things about Web 2.0 is that it is the great equalizer. Everyone on Twitter and on Wikipedia has a voice, and the same status as the next person. But this obviously has its downsides too; without any respect or regard for expertise, you can end up with a final product that might not reflect the best qualities of your cohort. Oftentimes in reality, you can achieve a superior outcome by letting people just do their thing. I’m sure we’ve all experienced that this happens all the time for any type of school project. When you value the act of contributing itself more than the quality of the contribution, you can end up, again, with a suboptimal outcome.

Typically, when people end up doing more work than others, this results in a few bitter behind-the-back conversations and maybe a smidgen of resentment, but that’s where it ends. This sort of tension is amplified, however, in a wiki assignment for the simple reason that group member contributions are easily trackable. Thus, the professor will always know how much you’ve contributed, a fact that might compel you to contribute more than you otherwise would/should.

The Neverending Story – Wiki assignments are like Will Wright games: They never end. Like that paper that you finished last week but haven’t handed in yet, the final product can always be bettered. But even in that situation, you are ultimately the arbiter of what you end up handing in. In our situation, since nobody is specifically assigned to have the “final cut,” this led to everyone having ownership of the project, which, of course, led to no one having ownership of the project. For us, as I’m sure for many other groups, the final 12 hours of the project saw a flurry of edits on the wiki. Thus, the final product ends up not a result of deliberation and intention, but of the vagaries of the assignment due date.

**

Wikis are ideal for aggregating the expertise of dozens, hundreds, or thousands of people from disparate places, and creating a baseline of their collective knowledge on a specific topic. Applying them to a situation where all the wiki members knew each other and communicated regularly seemed like an interesting gambit.

In the end, I’m truly grateful for the illuminating experience of having worked on a wiki for class. But the time constraints of the project, coupled by the restriction that everyone contributes equally to each section, augmented the artificial elements of an already-artificial situation (i.e. working on wikis in general). In short, it heightened the positive and negative elements (mostly the negative) of working on wikis rather expertly. But it also raises the question: Is it possible to assign the same thing the next time around, without making it quite as maddening to participate in?