District 9

District 9 is an upcoming science fiction film produced by Peter Jackson and directed by Neill Blomkamp. The film is set for an August 14, 2009 release date. It takes place in Johannesburg, South Africa.

District 9 is based on Alive in Joburg, a short film directed by Neill Blomkamp, Sharlto Copley, Simon Hansen and Shanon Worley. Copley also portrayed one of the interviewed policemen. The short film is about aliens landing in South Africa and becoming confined to a specific area and forced to work. In the movie these aliens are called “Non-Humans” and are overseen by Multi-National United (MNU), a company which is utilizing alien technology. In the movie, Dirk Michaels(William Allen Young) is a soldier working for the MNU when he goes into District 9 and finds a tube. He activates the tube and is sprayed by some sort of chemical that makes him change into a Non-Human and makes him a wanted man on both sides.

Viral marketing is used to promote District 9. Among the techniques used: an immersive website and, most recently, posters in various cities on bus stops.

The official website for the film, D-9.com, is “run” by Multinational United (MNU), a fictitious company from the film. After a 32-second MNU “safety alert” promoting the site and a phone number, the website presents the viewer with a short instructional video and two options: enter the site as human or “non-human” (the film’s cultural reference for “alien”).

Both versions of the site have obvious differences. The narrative tone of the human version of the website is calm and appealing. The narrative tone for the non-human is forceful and commanding. The map provided for the human version is mostly blue with very few restricted zones. The map provided for the non-human version, however, shows the majority of the map as restricted. The non-human site is written in an alien script, providing an option to “translate to English.” The human website does not provide a link to translate English to the alien script.

MNUSpreadsLies.com is a fictional blog run by a non-human equal rights advocate (“Christopher”), arguing that Multinational United is oppressing the non-human race. The website shows an uncensored version of the film’s trailer originally seen upon navigation to D-9.com. In it, the alien’s face is not pixellated. A translation of the alien’s responses to his interrogator are provided (blog entry 05-06-2009 “See The Real Me”). The blog is written in an alien script, providing an option to “translate to English.”

Advertising on the side of a building in Toronto, Canada.

Starting in June 2009, signs on bus benches reading “BUS BENCHES FOR HUMANS ONLY” began appearing in major cities. Similarly, posters reading “BUS STOP FOR HUMANS ONLY” began appearing at bus shelters. Other “no aliens” posters have appeared in businesses and comic shops. Posters encourage “reports” of “non-human activity” by calling a toll-free number: 1-866-666-6001. The call connects to the fictitious MNU company. The caller is offered a number of options, such as the ability to “report non-human activity” or explore “career” opportunities for humans or “labor” opportunities for non-humans available at MNU.

The Adventures of Craig and Hillary : Part 1

This weekend is set to be one full of thrills and celebrations. What are these amazing plans, well let me tell you.

We start Friday off with the weekly ‘Bagel Friday’, ‘Bagel Friday’ is a tradition between the two of us. Every Friday morning we start off the weekend with a breakfast consisting of Bagels. Hillary’s vary from week to week whilst I usually have a tuna bagel.

The top secret location of Bagel Friday's

Next on the list is to do a bit of shopping, you know pick up the supplies that we might be needing in order to survive this weekends adventure.

After having dropped off the groceries at home we will be off to the Jerusalem mall to do a bit of shopping before heading off to see Transformers 2. Blessed be my woman who loves Sci-Fi movies almost as much as I do.

And then on Saturday we will be celebrating Americas Independence days, ye you heard me, this Saturday is the 4th of July and what will we be doing…we’ll be eating hot-dogs.

And those are the adventures of Craig and Hillary for this weekend…

Brace yourselves for the up and coming Adventures of Craig and Hillary : Craigs move to Rananna

Its Official, I am ENGAGED!!!

Brace yourselves people, you heard me, I am ENGAGED. Thats right I took the final step and declared my undying eternal love to the love of my life, Hillary. I also happened to  ask her whether she would be interested in spending the rest of her life with me, and she said yes!!!

What can I say, when you know that you have met the one that you want to spend the rest of your life with, you simply know. Its is a feeling that can not describe, its a feeling stronger than love, for it is true love. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that she is the one that i was destined to seek out, the missing half of my soul that i am to spend the rest of my life with. And i have found her. So this is basically how it went down… Sometime last week, I got a friend of mine (lets call her “D”) to call up Hillary and tell her that she is having a fancy dress up  dinner and that when she comes to Craig, she should bring something fancy to wear. As the week went by Hillary would constantly ask me why “D” was having this fancy dinner and my responses would always be very short and i would then immediately change the topic of conversation to something else. Finally the weekend arrived, on the Friday when running around town with Hillary we ran into “D”. Girls being girls, Hillary asked her what she would be wearing and “D” hesitated!!! And answered ‘earrings and a dress’, immediately i saw the expression on Hillary’s face and knew that she knew that something might be up. But wait!!! It gets worse, so we are at home, we get all dressed up for our ‘Fancy Dinner Party’, catch a taxi to the centre of town and who do we run into, but another friend of mine, lets call him “J” whom is also meant to be attending the dinner. Now keep in mind that it is 15 minutes before ‘every one’ is meant to meet up at the restaurant. So “J” comes up to us says hi and proceeds to tell us how he is now going home to cook him self dinner!!! Cook him self dinner!!! What was he thinking, so I quickly dragged Hillary away from him and headed off in the direction of the restaurant. On the way she proceeded to ask, how come “J” was not dressed up for the dinner, my answer; I dont know he must be going home to change, which was followed by, how come he is going home to eat, my response; he is on special hi carb diet. It was now definitely starting to look a bit suspicious but this did not get me down. We eventually reached the restaurant. I had a reserved a table for us at Villandry in Jerusalem. As soon as we walked in, I greeted the waiter by saying, ‘Hi I have a reservation for two’. From then on Hillary was full of smiles as she knew something was happening. Once the waiter had taken our orders, I got up from my chair, walked over to her, got down on one knee, took her had and proposed my love for her and asked her for her hand in marriage, to which she replied yes. The joy and excitement that was running through my veins was simply indescribable.

The manager of the restaurant also saw the proposal and as soon as he did ordered the waiter to bring us champagne on the house.

So we already have a wedding date set for August the 19th 2010 in Israel. What can I say but I love her more than anything in this world and cant wait to spend the rest of my life with her.

Cool Moves

When I was young, I remember that my parents sent me to gymnastics ( amoungst other sports ), I even remember doing it for a few years and actually being decent at it, why I quite I have no idea. Maybe if I would of continued with it I would of been able to like Damien Walters.

Who is Damien Walters, Damien Walters is a LEGEND. Take a peak at the clips below:

All I can say is that my children will being doing gymnastics ( and some form of martial arts, they just go so well together ), not only is it an amazing physical sport but it also provides opportunities in the film industry as stunt men. Lets not forget that they’ll also learn to dance like kings!!!

Johnny Clegg in Jerusalem

Johnny Clegg – the well known South African artist – described as “the energetic, passionate human being who has become one of South Africa’s greatest musical exports” is coming to Israel !!!

Johnny Clegg is one of South Africa’s most celebrated sons. He is a singer, a songwriter, a dancer, anthropologist and a musical activist whose infectious crossover music, a vibrant blend of Western pop and African Zulu rhythms, has exploded onto the international scene and broken through all the barriers in his own country. In France, where he enjoys a massive following, he is fondly called Le Zulu Blanc – the white Zulu.

Over three decades, Johnny Clegg has sold over five million albums of his brand of crossover music worldwide. He has wowed vast audiences with his audacious live shows and won a number of national and international awards for his music and for his outspoken views on apartheid, his perspectives on migrant workers in South Africa and the general situation in the world today. Johnny Clegg’s history is as bold, colourful and dashing as the rainbow country which he has called home for more than 40 years.

All I can tell you, is that Hillary and I will be there. She has no choice in the matter. She keeps thinking she can Americanize me, HA HA I will Africanize her!!

Sparky

I dont know how this happened but I forgot to include Sparky in my introductory post.

So here he is, the one the only Sparky:

And here is his story. Hillary volunteers with an animal welfare organization that requires that during the week, its volunteers provide a home for a animal and on the weekend the animal attends an adoption fare.

When Hillary received sparky he was in terrible condition, he had been living on the street for who knows how long and from his general behaviour towards people we assume that he was beaten as well. But thats not all, he had also been hit by a car and was missing a chunk of his forehead and had received stitches on his leg as well from the vet.

Both Hillary and her flatmate nursed Sparky back to health, this involved constant cleaning of his pussing and oozing head wound and helping him get used to having people around and not living the life of a street dog.

During his recovery process, Sparky’s true personality blossemed. He is a complete attention whore!!! Demanding that he constantly be played with and shown the light of day and these were the reasons that we actually fell in love with him and thus adopted him.

P.S: We are still training him to sleep on his blanket, for some reason he seems to prefer the couch or the huge bean bag…?

Reviving Forgotten Hobbies

Many years ago when I was younger I was passionate about photography. I had my self my own SLR camera, telescopic and wide angle lenses and a decent tripod. But as with most young passions, they simply seem to dissipate.

Just before I made Aliyah, digital cameras  were all the craze, and me being me, loving all forms of gadgetry, sold all of my camera equipment and decided to go digital. I bought my self a Samsung 1.3 mega pixel camera. (which I actually still have sitting in a box under my bed). I was beyond stoked with my purchase for the simple reason that no longer did I have to run off to have all of my photos developed before i could see what they looked like, now I could simply plug into into the computer, choose which ones I preferred and wham bam I have my pictures.

Then I made Aliyah and priorities changed, A LOT of focus and effort went into setting my self up in a new country, and I forgot about my little 1.3 mega pixel camera. (Which was actually replaced by a Olympus 7.1 Mega pixel camera)

Towards the end of my army service, I had collected hundreds of photos mainly of my soldiers and our tough/good times together. I put all of these photos into a slide show. But this turned out to be more than a slide show, whilst doing this, i discovered that i really enjoyed editing. Needless to say, the movie that I created turned out to be something of note, something that no other had ever done in my battalion and was widely respected.

Below is one of the versions of the video that I made, for some reason I am unable to locate the fancy version with all of the special effects and hyped motion cuts.

So for a while I have been thinking how I can get back into all of this, until one day it hit me (that sounds so cliche but it really did just come out of no where). I have decided to get into videography.

So this is now the plan, I have already invested in professional video editing software and have been creating many quirky clips here and there but my main problem is a lack of raw footage. The solution being investing in a digital video camera.

I shall cut you the whole babble of why I have set my heart on the camera that i have, but i have fallen upon the Canon FS 100.

Without a doubt this is the camera that I shall be getting, just need to get it when the price and wallet are in agreement (All donations are welcome, checks are also accepted).

So stay posted as i will be posting a lot of my works and experiments right here and all feedback will be more than appreciated.

Till the next post, live long and prosper. (Sorry I am still completely overwhelmed with the latest Star Trek Movie)

My Birthday

Well a few days ago it was my birthday. Yay for me!!!

For many years, I have not celebrated my birthday simply because for the last 3 years I have celebrated all of my birthdays in the army. But this year was differant and far more special. My special love planned many not one, but two amazing celebrations.

On the day of my birthday, Wednesday the 13th she came all the way to Jerusalem and planned a special surprise dinner for me with my friends. Never before have I had any one plan a surprise birthday for me. To my love, thank you!!

Then this weekend she did the exact same with all of my friends in Rananna, she planned a surprise dinner for me with all of my friends…now tell me, how many people can ask for two surprise birthdays.

Below are some pictures of what ‘my special’ got me for my birthday.

The Ring

Model Cars

The Beginning

Well lets put it simply, this is the beginning!

I have no idea whether or not this is blog will actually be used but there is only one way to find out. So lets begin…

Well I guess some form of an introduction is in order.

I entered this world on the 13th of May 1984 and have been attempting to dominate it with my midget ninjas ever since.

I was born in Johannesburg South Africa but made Aliya to Israel in 2004 where I have been living ever since.

I served in the IDF (Israel Defense Force) for 30 months and loved every day of. I served as a NCO within the Combat Engineers.

And most important of all, this is the love of my life, the one that I plan to cherish for all eternity and never let go, for when you know that have found the one, you know.

My love

I think that this is enough for the moment….until the next post. Live long and prosper.