MyFace and SpaceBook

I don't care what anyone says, I still prefer MySpace to Facebook....
I'm almost ashamed to admit that I mess with any of those social networking sites, but I got roped into them last year. It all started when I met my girlfriend/fiance. As we were getting to know each other, she mentioned at one point that she was having a great time interacting with old friends on MySpace. Naturally, my first action when I got away from her that night was to dial up the site so I could spy on her page. Of course, I did have an old MySpace account of my own, but it had been set up a few years back by a friend of mine, largely against my will, and I wasn't even able to sign into it anymore. SO, I set up a new (what I SWORE would be), strictly bare-bones, profile so I could start snooping around my new lady friend's digital domain.



Even though I had insisted to myself that this new MySpace endeavor would be solely for the purpose of scoping out the accounts of others and that I would keep my page as no-frills as possible, I quickly got hooked on sprucing it up with pictures, funny blog postings, and even a playlist. I was like one of those guys who swears for years that he'll never own a cell phone, but finally breaks down one day and gets one. Still scoffing at those who obsess over the technology, he tells himself that he'll get the cheapest phone possible, and that it will be strictly for emergencies. "I'll keep it shut off all of the time," he tells his friends. Maybe he resents it at first....but then he plays with it a little. "OK, I GUESS I'll use it for work," he comes to say. Then, a few weeks later, he's carrying around the slickest model on his belt, downloading obnoxious ringtones, and taking pictures of EVERYTHING. That's what happened to me with MySpace.

The problem, though, is that I came pretty late to the MySpace party. By the time I had set up an acceptable page, just about everyone else had already moved on to the shinier, more exciting land of Facebook. MySpace is now a digital ghetto of neglected accounts and spambots. The only advantage it REALLY has over Facebook is the music. Yes -- I actually like those annoying playlists people can put on their pages. At first, I regarded the playlists as MySpace's worst feature. They made every page take much longer to load (especially for those still on dial-up), and (let's face it) lots of people have CRAPTASTIC taste in music. Why should I have to listen to even a few seconds of the Thong Song when going to check out someone's pictures? It irritated the crap out of me.

But when I started to peruse the music on MySpace myself, I found that the service actually has an impressive amount of content. Seriously -- it's got to rival even ITunes in terms of what's available. Search any song -- ANYTHING -- and it's probably somewhere on MySpace. I 've spent entire afternoons just looking up old bands I haven't heard in 15 years on MySpace, just like I used to with YouTube before it started to suck, and rarely does it disappoint.


For example, many of us may remember the band, Marcy Playground. Yeah, you know -- the the one-hit wonder who had the song, Sex and Candy, back in the late 90s??? Well, MP has actually remained one of my favorite bands over the years. I bought their album back in '98 when Sex and Candy was all over the radio, and found it to be surprisingly good (something about frontman John Wozniak's songwriting struck me as similar to what I would do if I ever had the talent or initiative to start a real band). Well, I stuck with Marcy Playground through their second album, but when it failed to sell, MP got dropped from their record label, and pretty much disappeared from my radar.

Thanks to MySpace, however, I found them again not too long ago, and it turns out the band is still chugging along. I learned they've released two albums in the last few years (both of which I was able to hear on MySpace), and still touring. I ordered their latest records, and the most recent one, Leaving Wonderland..., is one of the best purchases I've made in years. This whole MySpace music thing has enabled artists to promote their music on the cheap, reaching hundreds of thousands of fans. No need for scum-sucking, brain dead major label promotion teams anymore. Power to the people!


There are countless other examples of MySpace's ability to get good music to the masses. Personally, I've been able to connect with an AWESOME punk band from San Fransisco, called The Nads, through the site. Yeah, that's right -- The Nads. I found them when I was thinking back to my own days playing in rock bands. See, when I was about 15, I was briefly in a band with my friends, also called The Nads (we later changed our name to "The Worthless Idiots", and ultimately, "Melissa's Padded Bra"). I was on MySpace one afternoon, and I thought, "Hey. I'll see what comes up for my old band in the search bar." Of course, my group wasn't on there, but the SAN FRANSICO Nads were, and I immediately friended them. Then I bought their album off E-Bay, and THEY RULE!!! If not for MySpace, I never would have been exposed to such high quality art. Would the RADIO ever play something as good as The Nads? I think not.

Anyway, I maintain that Facebook is inferior to MySpace, partly because it lacks the above-described features. Another thing that annoys me about it is that you almost always have to actually FRIEND someone before you can view his or her profile. On MySpace, most users will let you see their content without having to apply, but on Facebook, there's this stupid approval process, which means that spying on people is nearly impossible. Many times, I'll find an old friend (or girlfriend) and, although I'm curious to learn what they've been up to since we last spoke, I don't necessarily want to talk with them, or even let them know I've been looking them up. I certaintly don't want to friggin FRIEND them. There's a reason I left these people in the past (especially ex-girlfriends). I want to SPY; not interact! Facebook will not allow one to do this.



Oh, and don't get me started on Twitter. It's completely stupid. I actually did set up a Twitter account, but only as a joke. See, I'll post the dumbest, most inane updates imaginable every few hours -- most of them vulgar -- just for the purpose of dragging down the service's class factor. I like to think that someone may actually stumble across one of my indecent musings. Perhaps it will make that person pause for a moment to reflect on the fact that a few seconds of his or her life has just been wasted by a moron. Then, MAYBE that person will decide to never visit Twitter again. I like to imagine that I could make a difference in that way, if even just once....


Anyway, here's my review for a little film called The Invasion. I actually posted it here a few months ago, but deleted it some days later for reasons I won't go into at this time. It's back.

The Invasion (2007)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427392/



Netflix description:
"In the process of researching a mysterious alien epidemic that's changing the nature of human behavior, a Washington, D.C., psychiatrist (Nicole Kidman) learns that her son (Jackson Bond) may be the planet's only hope for survival. Daniel Craig, Jeremy Northam and Veronica Cartwright are among the supporting cast in director Oliver Hirschbiegel's supernatural thriller tinged with political undercurrents."

(--This is basically a remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but I see no reason to let that affect my review--)

I sort of assumed that The Invasion would be a hum-drum experience and happily, I was wrong. This film is, for the most part, surprisingly entertaining and even somewhat thought-provoking. An alien virus hitches a ride to Earth on a returning space shuttle, and quickly spreads across North America, turning its victims into zombie-like slaves. Nicole Kidman plays a psychiatrist who figures out what's going on, and must escape to a rescue station with her son. It's an intense movie with plenty of thrills, and a handful of scares. While it's certainly not destined to be a classic (not even close), I can honestly say that at no point during The Invasion did I find myself uninterested.

What I really enjoyed about The Invasion were issues raised by the nature of our heroine. See, before the infection, she was your typical pill-pushing psychiatrist -- quick to write mind-altering prescriptions for anyone who may be a little different. She even drugs her own son because he has nightmares. She's the kind of person who wants everyone to be the same; unpleasant personality characteristics are clearly disorders, and some form of a diagnosis is in the cards for just about anyone who meets her.

SO, it's only fitting that one of the infected later asks her to explain, exactly, the difference between what she does every day, and what the alien virus is doing. "It makes everyone the same; work with one mind," he says. "Isn't that what you WANT?" A world with no war, hatred, or violence is certainly not something that I would want; but I have my own reasons for that. In the case of this movie, however, the good doctor rejects such a notion mostly to save the life of her son (see, he's immune to the alien virus, so the infected will have to kill him). I wonder what she would have done without that emotional issue clouding her judgment....

By the way, I forgot to say SPOILER ALERT. Sorry.

The Invasion is ALMOST a great movie. Sadly, though, it suffers from the same fate as most other major studio horror films: it has a nice, convenient, happy ending (groan). Everything wraps up nicely in a matter of minutes, and we're treated to a reassuring "Six Months Later" scene in which everyone is OK, and the problem has been solved with little fuss (I believe the word "cheesy" could describe its final 120 seconds). This nearly derailed the whole experience for me.

Still, I enjoyed The Invasion. It's intense, fairly interesting and, at a reasonable 99 minutes, it doesn't overstay its welcome. Take your pills, and have fun with this baby.

4 out of 5.

b.