John August

Rant

Podcasting is for babies

Rant

iPodNow undeniably in my mid-30’s, I’ve come to accept that there are certain trends that I’m just not going to bother giving a shit about. Just as my Mom will never really understand the internet, there are now cultural innovations that are completely lost on me. Call it Generational Giving-Up.

For example, custom ringtones. Thanks to technology, my cell phone can now chirp out 50 Cent’s “Candy Shop.” But why would I ever want it to do that? If I really liked that song, why not just buy the real thing on iTunes? Do I hate my fellow humans enough that I feel they should be forced to listen to my musical obsession du jour every time a random friend calls?

(And don’t tell me that Top-40 ringtones help you tell that your phone is ringing, rather than someone else’s. It’s called vibrate, people. I never wonder if someone else’s phone is shaking in my pocket.)

Other things I’ve officially given up on:

1. SMS abbreviation.
2. Decyphering hacker-codez.
3. Screensavers.
4. Custom skins, icons and cursors.

One item that had been circling the rim of my mental wastebasket was podcasting. I admired the technology, if not the user interface. I just didn’t see a need for it. I can barely keep up with contents of my TiVo. Having additional stuff banked just didn’t make sense.

Then two things changed.

First, iTunes added podcast support. It’s not perfect, but for a 1.0 version it feels pretty intuitive. Most importantly, it keeps another application off my dock.

Second, I had a kid. And with her, came a revelation: podcasting is for babies.

Or more specifically, podcasting is for parents who have both hands full feeding an infant.

In our house, we’ve set a rule that the baby doesn’t see any TV until she’s at least two, which means no television while feeding. Since it’s almost impossible to read while holding a squirming infant in your lap, mealtime gets a bit dull. But through the magic of podcasting, I can easily catch up on all the back episodes of all the NPR shows I’ve missed.

My favorites include:

[The Business with Variety’s Claude Brodesser](http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=73330606)
[The Treatment with Elvis Mitchell](http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=73330616)
[iTunes New Music Tuesday](http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/com.apple.jingle.app.store.DirectAction/viewPodcast?id=73663807)

So consider me a convert. At least until my daughter progresses to solid food.

From FD to MMS

Formatting, Rant, Software

Craig Mazin of [Artful Writer](http://artfulwriter.com) has had enough headaches (and heartaches) with Final Draft. He’s switched over to Movie Magic Screenwriter. You can read about his reasons why [here](http://artfulwriter.com/archives/2005/05/dear_final_draf.html), followed by a lot of opinions from fellow screenwriters.

Me, I’m still using Final Draft, though as often as I [complain about it](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2004/survey-up-for-screenwriting-software), I should probably give MMS another look.

English isn’t Latin

Rant

In an email a few weeks ago, my former assistant (and alarmingly successful writer/director) [Rawson Thurber](http://imdb.com/name/nm1098493/maindetails) apologized for ending a sentence with a preposition. I insisted that he was well within his rights to dangle a preposition, split an infinitive, or break pretty much any rule he’d been taught about English — especially the seemingly-arbitrary ones.

Grammarians come in two flavors. A [descriptivist](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descriptive_linguistics) studies the way people use a language, while a [prescriptivist](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_prescription) tries to lay down the rules of a language.

Prescriptivists are assholes. Ignore them.

Or better yet, try to make them explain why you’re not supposed to dangle a preposition. After all, there’s not a Bible of the English language, in which a certified deity listed his or her commandments. Backed into a corner, the prescriptivist will probably say, “because English comes from Latin, and that’s not allowed in Latin.”

Well, I studied Latin. It’s cool in a geeky way, sort of like computer programming. Many English words come from Latin, so it can be fascinating to play linguistic C.S.I. to figure out how “abscission” came from “away” and “to cut.” But here’s the most interesting and challenging thing about Latin:

It’s nothing like English.

Most notably, it has [cases](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_grammatical_cases) and [declensions](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declension), which have pretty much disappeared in our happy language, replaced by word order and, you guessed it, prepositions.

But don’t just take my word for it. Here’s [another article](http://www.alphadictionary.com/articles/drgw001.html) that does a good job explaining why the grammar Nazis are wrong.

See also:

[‘Data’ is singular](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2004/data-is-singular)

Mongolian characters speaking Chinese

Charlie's Angels, Rant

full throttlerantI’ve been thinking to write you this letter for a while. I saw the movie [Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle](http://imdb.com/title/tt0305357/combined) on a movie channel recently. As a Mongolian, I’m deeply offended by your knowledge about my country.

In the beginning of the movie you show a scene that something is happening in Northern Mongolia and the people in the movie were speaking in Chinese. If you know a little bit about the country you would’ve known that Mongolia has its own, unique language, Mongolian. If you wanted to use Chinese people with their language you should’ve called that place Northern China.

I’m pretty sure that you’re a young and talented writer, but if you don’t know much about other cultures then don’t use them. I’m glad I didn’t pay to see your movie.

— Toshka

The sequence you’re talking about was written in English, with Russian subtitles, because the bad guys were supposed to be Russo-Mongolian. However, when it came time to shoot the sequence, they ended up casting Chinese actors. From a production standpoint, this makes sense: the martial arts team for the movie was largely Chinese, and these are the people who would end up doing the fight sequence anyway.

This is an example of why it’s frustrating being a screenwriter. You get blamed for a lot of things that are completely out of your control: plot holes that arise from editing, crappy dialogue improvised on the set, and supposedly Mongolian actors speaking Chinese.

I’m sorry, Toshka, that the five or six lines spoken in Chinese during the sequence offended you, but I think you’re expecting way too much cultural accuracy from a movie which ignores gravity, plausibility and narrative logic with alarming consistency.

Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle isn’t my favorite movie either, but I can easily think of five better reasons to be frustrated by it:

1. Too many villains. (Four, if you’re counting.)
2. The wrong kind of sexy. Flirtatious, meet slutty. Oh, you’ve met.
3. The whole ring McGuffin. Where’s Frodo Baggins when you need him?
4. It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s — huh? Demi Moore can fly?!
5. Bernie Mac? Funny! I just wish I could understand what he’s saying.

I was complicit in at least three of these faults (#1, #3, and #4, begrudgingly), so I’ll gladly accept my share of the blame. But as for the Mongolian problem, nope. Can’t help you there.