Movie Reviews

"A good film is when the price of the dinner, the theatre admission and the babysitter were worth it."

-Alfred Hitchcock

Miami Vice (07/30/2006)

Smack Down

First apologies for the lack of posting... it's been a long and hectic two weeks. But we're back!

So I usually don't take much notice or really care about celebrity news, whose dating/marrying/devoicing/ who (and in this town believe, ignoring this news is an active effort, celebrity news usually makes it into the 6 o'clock reports!) but this is damn funny.

If you don't know who Lindsay Lohan is you're living in a hole and shouldn't be reading this blog, so just stop reading and scurry away now, but apparently she's been partying a bit too much, and her bosses (this time Morgan Creek films) aren't buying the "I'm feeling sick excuses" any more.

The SmokingGun.com has posted a letter from the head of Morgan Creek Productions, James G. Robinson that is a serious smack down for her recent actions. Enjoy and revel in the hilarity of it all.

The Smack Down

The Lost News

Have you forgot.....

What's happening with H5N1 Avian Flu? There use to be daily reports on watches on the spread of avian flu, the latest number of people killed, when it was going to reach North American, and how much we humans really are at risk. Searches of CNN.com yielded nothing, BBC.com was still running a very detailed section, and receives topic marks. Time.com had a blog entire from July 13th. What appeared to be the latest search result from MSNBC (07/07/06) was actually written in October of last year. Reuters.com probably had the most current news informing us that today (07/19/2006) the 42nd human died from H5N1 avian flu in Indonesia. The Associated Press only had one hit for the last seven days. I even tried foxnews.com, just for kicks; their most current was from June 23rd informing us that H5N1 had mutated for human transmission.
*Searches performed with "H5N1 Avian Flu" for all agencies.

How about New Orleans and the reconstruction after hurricane Katrina? Here's what they had to offer:
CNN.com - focused article on health care staff accused of killing patients
BBC.com - again top marks extensive in depth coverage.
Time.com - excerpt address the estimated miss use of $2B in Katrina funds.
MSNBC - decent with a questionable top result (at time of writing reports on Emmy Nominations for coverage during the disaster)
Reuters.com - respectable
Associated Press - respectable
Foxnews.com - laughable (top New Orleans news story at time of writing, you have to read this)
* Searches performed with "New Orleans" for all agencies

What else has fallen by the wayside? Iraq (momentarily); Darfur conflict in Sudan (anyone even remember this?) Rebuilding after the 2004 Tsunami? (200k plus were killed, remember?) Iran? North Korea (they were firing missiles not more than 2 weeks ago)? I'm ashamed that I can' remember more... what have you been allowed to forget?

More important... what's the latest good piece of news you can remember? Someone please tell me they have something better than this.

Welcome To Texas

Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) Car Rental Terminal

Adding to the no Travel List

Well up until about a week ago, my no travel list was fairly short: Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Nigeria, Sudan, Afghanistan, Somalia, and the Congos (Democratic Republic, Republic). Considering there are 194 countries in the world, not too bad.

The events of the last week would have me adding Israel, Lebanon, and Syria to the list. Admittedly I didn't have any real plans to go to any of these places, and they were definitely towards the bottom of the list.

I don't know enough history to even begin to try and dissect this conflict, so I won't. What I've found interesting over the last week is the shift in media focus. If you picked up a paper today or cruised major media websites you'd find nary a hint of the nuclear issues with Iran, or escalating the missile/nuclear issues with North Korea. History will tell us which of these conflicts is the more important and where we should have focused our attention, but one does have to admire the medias ability to very quickly shift or divert our attention from one part of the world to another. And in reality there is very little that we can do about it. True, with the the Internet there is greater access to search out different points of view, or seek out news stories. The reality is that in general the media has the ability to saturate the market and shift our focus at will.

Will big media help me with two questions: 1) was this the plan all along? and more importantly 2) has anyone else in our governments noticed?

Neo-Green Defined

I was going to make this the Wikipedia definition of the day, but wasn't able to find it on Wikipedia... so instead I'm going to turn to a fellow blogger and let his blog do the talking.

Thanks a lot to Mark Caserta over at 3rblogging for putting it together so perfectly.

Read about Neo-green

Best to Start at the Beginning....

It's aways best to start at the beginning of any story, occasionally you'll start at the middle or the end, but it can be more confusing, and for this story it just doesn't plan work. Though this I guess really isn't so much a story as much it'll be a commentary, not formal enough to be a dissertation, and not to far from a pitch.

One of the main reasons I started this blog was get myself to start engaging in a discussion on sustainability, specifically sustainability in the built environment, but sustainability at large. Hopefully, I won't have to discuss this with myself but if I do, so be it. There will still be posts on passing interests, noteworthy, or just plain amusing stories, and then the nonsensical. This blog is after all about Reaching Ix.

Before we even start, it's best to understand what I mean when I say sustainable or sustainability. The June 25th Wikipedia of the day was Sustainability. I don't think this is the be all and end all of what sustainable is, but I also don'’t think I'’m far off and it's definitely a good starting point.

I'’ve presented here what in my view is the definition of sustainability. It will likely be refined with time, as I am introduced and explore new ideas and modes of thinking. It is a fluid process, a work continually in progress.

Wikipedia defines sustainability as:

a systemic concept, relating to the continuity of economic, social, institutional and environmental aspects of human society. It is intended to be a means of configuring civilization and human activity so that society, its members and its economies are able to meet their needs and express their greatest potential in the present, while preserving biodiversity and natural ecosystems, and planning and acting for the ability to maintain these ideals indefinitely. Sustainability affects every level of organization, from the local neighborhood to the entire planet.

The definition of sustainability offered up in the now famous Brundtland Report (full text of report found here) of 1987: "“Meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs."” is more succinct than the Wikipedia definition but I think it provides little to no frame of reference.

The Brundltand definition doesn'’t identify any of the major participates, it doesn'’t address the nature or scope of sustainability. There are several key phrases in the Wikipedia definition that I think are integral to an understanding of sustainability.

The Wikipedia definition identifies sustainability is a systemic concept; all parts are related and are affected by one another. You cannot change one part of the system without considering the affect it will have on the whole. This is important because thinking systemically or holistically is not built into our modes of thinking. As a result, a new mode of thinking, a new set of skills, in fact an entirely new thought process is required to think systemically and integrate sustainability into our society. For a few, this comes naturally, developed through interactions with the people and the world around us. For the vast majority of us it is learnt well after other modes of thinking have been developed, requiring us to unlearn our old practices before we can study to integrate the new.

Sustainability affects every level of organization; this really only reinforces the first point but emphasizes the impact regional events can have on a nation or global scale and visa versa. The most important part of this point is the impact it has on the human psyche: what they are doing over there affects me sitting over here so I should care about what they are doing over there.

Both definitions are in agreement that at the core sustainability is about providing for the needs of today without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. This is all very well and good, but it is a very open ended task. Those of us sitting in the present are able to grasp the concept of future generations, but largely lack the perception to comprehend and understand those future generations. The task needs to be framed, and importantly the Wikipedia definition provides one: our society, its members and its economies.

The needs of these three items must be not only meet their current needs, but must have the capacity to “express their greatest potential”. At the same time the items to be preserved are clearly identified: biodiversity and natural ecosystems. It is in fact a very tall order but frames the magnitude of the task well, permitting few short cuts or simply solutions. For example, banning all unnecessary travel would be unacceptable, because it would compromise the ability of the members of todayÂ’s society to express their greatest potential.

Hopefully you're starting to get the idea here that I'm not talking about going back into the caves, or that we should all go and hug a tree. If I had to use a term to describe myself I'd use neo-green: I believe that the environmental threats we face today are very real, serious and require our immediate attention, however I also believe that extreme tractics are not only ineffective, but are an unreasonable burden for our society to bare.

Linked

Last month it was Al Gore starting out from the cover of Wired Magazine, this month, Rupert Murdoch, multimedia mogul (think Tomorrow never Dies and you get the picture) looks down at you from what is clearly a dominant position.

Even if you've never heard the name Rupert Murdoch, you'd have to be living in a cave not to have heard from his empire, News Corp, it's holdings include any company with Fox attached to it (20th Century Fox, Fox Television, Fox News) newspapers including the Times and the New York Post (click here for more) Needless to say he's a media giant controlling almost 1/3 of the company. If you want to read the Wired Article you can find it here.

What really caught my eye was not so much that Rupert has further strengthened his media ambitions with the recent acquisition of MySpace.com, but rather the theme running through the article: audience driven content, audience produced content. It made me think back to the August 2005 issue of Wired which looked back at 10 years of internet boom and bust. One article in particular looked at how wrong the experts had been about how the web would form and be used. The number one point they failed to take into consideration was the amount and content driven by the users, not big business.

Articles like this really make you realize that the internet and the information age have changed our lives, society and planet in ways we couldn't have possibly imagined. You also start to realize that we still haven't even started to tap the internet's full potential.

Albert-Laslo Barabasi's book Linked: How Everything is Connected to Everything Else and What it Means for Business, Science and Everyday Life. looks at how networks form and the interactions that occur within a web, with particular attention paid to the internet itself. I have admittedly not finished the book, it's a bit labored and repetitive dragging on without raising many new points.

The internet is young, very young, 10 years ago it didn't really exist for the average consumer. In some ways we'd like to thing we've got it all figured out, but I'm excited to see what's going to happen over the next 20-30 years.

This is history; during our life times is when the internet started. Just as the printing press revolutionized the world beyond print, the internet has and will change the world in ways we can't even imagine. The switch for the largest machine in the world was turned on, and nothing short of global annihilation will turn it off.

The power of the internet is that it further reduces the ability of multinationals and governments to control people. It allows for the free flow of information and thought; while the recent terror related arrests in Canada and Florida have shown that this free flow allows the circulation of evil ideas as well as good, I think overall the net affect is positive. Any platform allowing the communication of thoughts, the sharing of experiences, especially across borders and cultures will only increase our ability to realize that all in all we're not all that different. This isn't some "let's all get along" shtick it's the simple fact that distrust, misunderstand and poor communication are the common thread running through any conflict regardless of whether it is a dispute across the street or on the other side of the world.

San Francisco

Bit of a break in the posts, sorry about that, but was up having some fun in San Francisco. Great city and definitely recommend making the trip to anyone, and as an added bonus take the 1 up or down the coast from San Luis Obispo. No the photo is not a postcard or a web pix, I took it while I was there!

I'm gonna tell mom.....

Four short words that can bring an aggressor to heel, be used to taunt, or incite a wrath beyond belief. For those of us whose parents felt that one child wasn't enough, or just plain forgot how to use birth control, we all know that this short statement can mean.

In fact, if you look on this blog you'll see that I've recently had this said to me, and I'm in my late twenties. I'd venture to say that within every blood brood, it takes on different meanings.

It's interesting really, but you don't hear in many families (and certainly not mine) "I'm gonna tell dad." Maybe it's because dad isn't around, or isn't interested, but I think (not being a father myself) that it has more to do with the male mentality of letting people (mostly guys) sort it out for themselves. It's the 'don't cry to me attitude'. Don't get me wrong, I think fathers are compassionate, caring and willing to correct a wrong or settle a dispute, but I also think (at least in my experience, that you're also more likely to get in trouble yourself if you go to dad.

It's our instinctual nature as children that we know we're going to get more support, and sympathy from good old mom by telling on big sister for disturbing our calm. I know in my family, whenever my brothers and I get into arguments or "discussions" and mother is around, (and it seems more true now that we've all moved out of her house), that she steps in to settle the dispute.

Invoking the I'm gonna tell mom card requires some very careful consideration. The fact of the matter is that at some point in our lives our siblings with get some dirt on us that can be used against us. Really, when it gets down to it, you're giving up your rights to a cleaner. What incentive does big brother have not to blow your cover or reveal your secrets to the 'rents when you're willing to sell them out on a moments notice?

Now I know, that in my family I'm holding all the cards. Sure I have eight years on my next brother, which gives me a significantly longer time to start collecting dirt to put in my back pocket, but it also means I'm way ahead of the game with them on deception. They'd be working our tricks I had figured out eight years ago, and only sometimes would I be willing to share trade secrets. They were after all hard earned, and it seems I was so easily sold out.

That's not to say that older siblings are always ahead, in fact I'd bet that in most families the cards are more evenly dealt. Parents are routine, they go to bed at certain times, but little brothers and sisters could be roaming the house or trying to watch a little more TV late at night, and catch you in the act. I'd say that being younger they're all the more happy to have caught big brother out on a limb, and often a high, irrational price must be paid for their silence.

I'm actually reminded of the series finale for Malcolm in the Middle, where the three brothers, Malcolm, Reese and Dewey, stand around and prepare to destroy "the nuclear option". should its existence be revealed, the consequences visited upon them by their mother, Lois, would destroy them all.

So to those siblings who are still willing to lay it all on the line. Just remember who knows where all the skeletons are buried.

oh, and this:

is my brother.

I didn't have to "tell mom" about this one.
It made national news.

Inconvenient Reality Update:

Scientific reviews on "An Inconvenient Truth" - point and counterpoint.

Neo-Green

In response to articles in last months Wired Magazine one featuring Al Gore and another discussing the next green revolution, I sent in the following to Rants and Raves. Alas, it was not published.

• In the recent issue on Climate Crisis it was invigorating and inspiring to see social leaders in Al Gore’s position addressing what is a very real, persistent and often ignored crisis. As a member of the green (or should it be neo-green?) building industry it was refreshing to hear that there are world leaders out there who get it. That said, the articles could have discuss how some of our environmental woes can be solved with present day technologies, but companies, organizations and people are hesitant to embrace change, even when the economic benefits, let alone the sustainable benefits are obvious (Technologies, methods and materials exist to reduce building energy consumption, but are often overlooked or ignored; residential and commercial buildings account for nearly 40% of the annual energy consumption in the US, ref. DOE 2004 Annual Energy Report). The Climate Crisis is about more than technology it is about sustainable living and involves a different way of thinking, finding new ways to conduct business, measure value and develop economic growth; we’ll need a lot more Al Gores and a few paradigm shifts to get us all the way there.

The End of an Era: a Canadian Icon Turns 30

It's been deleted from movies to turn Toronto into Detroit, it sways 6 m side to side in high winds, and considers getting struck by lighting as part of the job.

On June 26th, 2006 the CN Tower in Toronto celebrated what will like be it's last major anniversary as the world's Tallest free standing structure on land. (a complete listing of structures broken down by category can be found here.)

For the last three decades at 553 m (1814 ft) the CN Tower on Front street has reigned supreme over the competition. But f all goes according to plan, in 2008 the CN Tower will be dwarfed by the Burj Dubai Tower in Dubai, UAE designed to stretch to reach a lofty 705 m (2312 ft). The Burj Dubai tower will not only claim the mantle as the world's tallest freestanding structure, but also the tallest skyscraper, and the all round tallest structure ever constructed by humans, on land or in the water, free standing or not.

The age of the skyscraper was thought to have come and gone, with the September 11th terrorist attacks being the last nail in the coffin. Born in the US, the love of skyscrapers has since found a new home in the likes of Dubai, Tai Pei, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and China. Improved materials and a better understanding of structural performance have allowed for buildings to reach for the stars. There are no less than six buildings underconstruction slated to beat out the CN tower before the end of the decade. In the short span of 4 years, the tower stands to see its 30 year 1st place ranking slip to 7th.

Of the top 10 tallest skyscrapers in the world, only 2 are in the United States and the tallest of those was constructed in 1974 (Sears Towers). The youngest major US skyscrapers in the top 30 were completed in 1989. China comparison has seen a considerable boom in skyscrapers over the last decade containing 30% of the 30 tallest.

Some of the towers are landmark achievements driven by a desire for recognition and a shot a the title (the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lampur come to mind.) Other's develop out of necessity of space, such as to deal with the burgeoning urban population in China.

From a sustainable point of view, towers can have considerably lower environmental impact given the relatively small footprint required for a high population density, or so the theory goes. By combining building systems into a larger system sustainable systems start to make sense, from cogeneration plants on the more conservative spectrum to living machines on the more ambitous.

The CN tower wasn't sustainable, in truth it doesn't even look very nice sitting as it is next to the white elephant. It was and still is used as a vital link the communications network across southern Ontario. For an entire summer I walked past the base of this giant needle without giving it a second thought. I haven't been up since before I can really remember. Maybe I'll make one last trek to the base of the tower and ride the lifts up to enjoy the view before this giant is dethroned.

Inconvenient Reality Update

US Supreme Court to hear EPA CO Emissions Case:
Read the article at cbc.ca
Read the article at reuters.com

I'll have a Venti decaf non-fat soy Chi Latte please....

I finally get it, it's taken years of careful study, intense observation but I've finally figured out why people order these crazy drinks at Starbucks.

They're trying to improve their vocabulary across multiple language.

Unfortunately, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) came to different conclusion, which leads me to believe that I may have erroneous results...

CSPI is currently waging war on Kentucky Fried Chicken (or should I say KFC, as it's been known ever since all Fried food became evil) for the high level of saturated and transfat that their products contain, and in general for the poor nutritional value of their food. Fine, fried food = bad I get it. But now, the center has set it's sights on your local Starbucks. Yes, Starbucks.

As a casual, one cup of decaf java a day kinda guy, this peaked my curiosity: what was so evil about Starbucks? wait don't answer that. I'm talking about health here, not how they're taking over the world, suppressing farmers, blah blah blah, et cetera ad infinitum.

So I took a trip over to starbucks.com to check out their nutritional information.

HOLY CRAP!

I was in for a shocker. So that nice Green Tea Frappacino you've been enjoying each and every morning (or perhaps it was just on weekends) contains a whopping 550 calories, 50 g of fat and 60 mg of cholesterol. That's 100% of your daily recommended fat intake, the calorie equivalent of a meal, and nearly 50% of your cholesterol allotment, and lets remember that not meeting your cholesterol requirements isn't the end of the world.

So I thought to myself, well that's all right, I only have decaf coffee, and that's only 10 cal without cream.... so if I switch to whole milk (non-fat just doesn't cut the coffee) I'm ok. I mean I only have the occasional coffee cake, and they say reduced fat, so I mean how bad can it be....

Scrolling down the PDF to marble loaf coffee cake I was getting a little worried.... I was seeing numbers in 300 calorie range but it was reduced fat right?

Marble coffee cake: 470 calories, 290 from fat, 28 g of fat, 5 g of those evil sat. fats, 100 mg cholesterol, and 440 g of sodium.

That innocent weekly (sometimes semiweekly) indulgence in a marble coffee cake was clogging my arteries faster than a Quarter pounder with cheese. My only thought was: what the hell are they putting in this thing? Lard?!

The truth is most of us are or at least should be aware of what were are putting into our bodies. I for one refuse to eat fast food simply because its nutritional value with a whole ton of shit you don't need anyways. besides did you see what it did to that guy in Super size me? .... and here the local Starbucks is serving up the same goods on a different platter.

Don't get me wrong, I love my chocolate cheesecake, pizza, and pint of stout as much as the next guy, but the reality is that it has to be taken in moderation...

I'd rather down a few extra pints than have my marble coffee cake. So to the Center for Science in the Public Interest I say this: keep on trucking, I have yet another reason not to like Starbucks... but stay away from the beer.

Before I go could someone please get me a grande decaf drip? one equal packet and whole milk. I'm dying over here!

The Inconvenient Reality

The debate on Global Warming and whether Al Gore will run in 2008 has been re-energized ever since the release of the documentary An Inconvenient Truth (trailer). Debate has ranged from whether Global Warming exists to whether this is actually a documentary (some have made the argument that it does not provide a balanced view from both sides and as such should not be considered a documentary).

Global warming has and still is one of the hot button environmental issues of the last 20+ years, but it has been brought more recently into the main stream American media, but not only by this documentary but also from the extremely wicked 2005 hurricane season which saw the destruction of New Orleans.

My interest is not just in global warming, but in the environment as a whole. That said, I don't want to turn this into a long discourse on my environmental views, but to focus on one of the principal arguments revolving around global warming.

There are basically two dominant camps in the global warming debate:

those who think global warming is occurring as a result of human activity,

those who think that global warming is occurring as part of a natural planetary cycle.

Those who don't believe global warming isn't happening have more or less disappeared from the scientific community. Given the evidence on record, it's pretty hard to dispute.

Al Gore belongs to the group who consider the influence humans have had on global warming to be a truth. Most of the scientific community seems to agree that there hasn't been sufficient debate to state that this is necessarily an absolute truth, but it is safe to say that those in the human influence sphere agree that immediate action should be taken.

My thoughts are this:

I agree there has not been sufficient scientific debate to determine with absolute certainty that global warming is being cause by humans; the planet is after all basically the most complicated system we know; just look to the inaccuracy of weather reports for a queue or our inability to
predict with any certainty when an earthquake will occur (a topic foremost on my mind when I read articles like this).

So let's assume for just a few minutes that we do have a good and true scientific debate on this subject; when is it likely to be resolved? 1 year? 5 years? 15 years? And what if it turns out that human activity is blame for the rising global temperature in our environment. How much damage will have been done, and how much of it will be irreversible? Once we reach a conclusion, we'll then need to determine how best to counteract these actions, and with a system as complicated as this how long will that take?

To people who are calling for more debate before action I say this: What is the harm of taking action how? We know that pumping millions of tons of green house gases (most notability CO2) isn't good for human health, it's dirtying our cities and changing plant life and habitats. Why do we need to wait until we know with absolute truth what is the cause of global warming? Asthma, and respiratory problems are on the rise, increasing the burden on an already over taxed health care system, pushing up insurance rates, cutting employer and employee spending money. If it turns out that global warming is due to a natural planetary cycle we'll be all the more thankful, breath a sign of relief with cleaner air, and improved health conditions.

Humanity is not somehow decoupled from the environment, as the species with the greatest influence and impact on our surroundings it is our responsibility as care takers to ensure that the environment will continue to support the speices of the world, if not for there sake, then for ours; they are all an integral part of our survival. If we do not maintain the balance of the system, it will readjust to reach a new equalibrium that may or may not include us.

Sexual Baking?!

I shit you not this was in my fortune cookie from lunch:

"Our first and last love is...self-love"

You don't even have to add "in bed" to make that funny.

Mark Cuban vs. The NBA

For those who don't keep up with the NBA, or the rich and famous. Mark Cuban is the billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks. He bought the team back in 2000, and has seen it rise to competitive success over the last few years.

Since he bought the team in 2000, Cuban has paid no less than $1,600,000 in fines to the NBA, the two most recent being a $200K fine during the San Antonio series, and then another $250K fine more recently during the playoff championship with the Heat.

I wish I could shrug off those kinds of fines, I'm pissed when I get a $50 parking ticket.

Cuban is a harsh critic of the NBA, and increasingly so over the last few years. The fines have been earned not so much because of the criticism, but the method of delivery. The most recent for telling a reporter to ask "A real fucking question." among other things.

So needless to say, after his latest appearance in the headlines for his $250k fine, I thought it was worth while to check out this blog at blogmaverick.com and it was well worth a laugh. A commentary from an unrepentant, unyielding critic of professional sport who speaks his mind and has the ability to put his money where his mouth is and on top of that doesn't really give a crap what management has to say about it. His case is reasoned, and at the same time entertaining showing that he's the same as guy as the sports nut at the end of the bar shouting down the ref through the TV.

To his credit, for those who don't share his views and/or this methods, it has been reported that Mark Cuban has matched his NBA fines dollar for dollar with a contribution to charity. Basically paying for the parking ticket and handing the guy on the corner another $50. Some might say that he's masking his guilt for inappropriate behavior by donating money, personally I see it as upping the ante and thumbing his nose at the NBA establishment. Basically saying "So you think money is gonna silence me?, ya well watch this."

Not a Poet

Let's get is straight right from the start:
I'm not a poet, screen writer, journalist, editor, or author.
My spelling stinks and my grammer is shakey at best so please if you're looking for Pulitzer Prize winning material, look somewhere else, and save the comments for someone who is interested. Heck, I won't be surprised if 1 in 10 posts barely makes sense due to left out words etc.

Done with the formalities, now on with the show!

Exordium!

Ah the inaugural post. (the truth be told, I can't preview the site until I post something, but then I guess what else is a blog for?)

A bit about the name first I guess... Reach Ix.... I've spent the better part of the night trying to come up with something original, catchy, short, succinct and distinctly me. I'll let you all decide if I failed or not, but frankly at this point: Frankly dear... I don't give a damn.

It all comes down to history...Mayan history or mythology I guess. I was always fascinated with one fact about Mayan history that for reasons that have not been fully explained the Mayan civilization more or less just disappeared. True it was likely due to some drought, famine, war or the such, but what I found interesting as a young kid was that the Mayan calendar more or less predicted this.

The Mayan calendar comes to an abrupt end on December 22, 2012, when they believed the fourth world we live in now will end and the fifth and final world would begin. They thought of it as more of a renaissance rebirth rather than total destruction; and according to one site, the end of the age of Materialism and a return to a more natural state of living. All of which I finding interesting, in a mythological way.

So next task: how to express December 22, 2012. This date in the Julian calendar is December 9, 2012 and expressed in Latin: Dies Saturni IX December 2012. So we got the Ix... thought Dies Saturni might be interesting... but too long. I also found the the letters Ix figure predominately in Mayan mythology, so the search was for a shorter expression.

Ix is also tied into Frank Herbert's Dune my favourite Sci-fi series, but for another time.

A buddy of mine has a website called "pushstudio" simple straightforward and to the point (check out the site too... good stuff!). So I thought Reach... trying to reach for more, reach back, reach forward, reach for.....whatever you're looking for, desire, want.

So Reach Ix was born.
love it. hate it. be indifferent. It is what it is.