Living in the Future

Sometimes technology scares me. Or rather, the pace of advance. Today I received delivery of a replacement memory card for my phone. It was a 16GB Micro SDHC card. Now I know these have been kicking about for a couple of years now, but this was my first time handling one myself. These things are smaller than my thumbnail but can hold a pretty large amount of music or photos. Or if I felt like it, a few full HD movies.

I've realised over the past few days, that I know absolutely nothing about the Balcans. I don't think there's anywhere in the whole world I know less about than the Balcans. However, I'm learning about at least one of the Balcan states. As I've already said, I'm visiting Croatia next month. It'll only be a few days, but trying to figure out the best way to spend those short few days hasn't been easy. It's a mixture of being spoiled for choice with options and not knowing anything about the country to judge how much each option is worth seeing. Whatever we end up choosing, it should be a great trip.

I've been hearing surprising things about Machete. A ridiculous over the top gorey action movie based on a fake trailer made as a joke by Robert Rodriguez and starring Danny Trejo in the same role he plays in every movie; Danny Trejo. It never sounded like it was going to win any awards, but it had promise to be entertaining.

Turns out, however that the movie is good. I'm hearing it described as a less than subtle and somewhat scathing attack on some attitudes in the US related to immigration, racism and corporate sponsorship of politics. I haven't seen the film, and don't know a whole lot about the political climate in southwestern US states, so I can't really comment on whether any of that is true. Though the fact that the writers and directors took the time to work in a subtext gives me hope that it's more than just an hour and a half of blood and severed limbs.