If you expected great drama and a serious plot line from ‘Transformers (2007)‘ then you must have been sorely disappointed. Though, of course, you would have been an idiot to have gone into the movie with that in mind. Dude, Michael Bay of the highly enjoyable ‘Pearl Harbour’, ‘Armageddon’, ‘The Rock’, and ‘Bad Boys’ fame produced and directed it…what did you expect? It was — and was supposed to be — a fun, big budget, special effects extravaganza. And boy did it deliver on those fronts.

On the other hand, if you watched the movie specifically for the special effects, Optimus Prime’s voice, and Megan Fox (or Shia LaBeouf, whatever), then you must have been pretty happy with it. As was Jeremy Slater who says in his ‘Big! Fucking! Robots!‘ review:

Bay knows he’s making a movie about action figures, and this is how action figures behave: you set them up, then you make them fight. We don’t need to know why the Police Car Robot is evil; he just fucking is. That’s enough for me, and I’m guessing it will be enough for most audiences.

That’s an awesome review, by the way. Make sure you read it.

Other people have had fun with the movie, too. Phil Plait (bless him) from the Bad Astronomy blog took the the time to talk about the differences between Hollywood physics and real physics in his review of the movie (”Still, there were a few things I want to point out, because they’re fun to think about.”). Fortunately, he’s enough of a fan of movies to conclude:

Surprisingly, that’s about it. There were lots of other little things, but nothing I remember worth noting. Despite my science review, I really do recommend seeing this movie since it was a lot of fun and the special effects were truly awesome. It’s a dumb movie, don’t get me wrong, but there is room in the world for dumb movies sometimes.

Nadia, of course, loved it as well. While General Motor’s marketing team must have had…well, let’s just say a very happy week.

Imagine you’re a huge automobile manufacturing company. (Imagine harder! You’re a complex of buildings, factories, offices and… Oh, never mind. Bad metaphor.)

OK, specifically: Imagine you’re a marketing exec at GM. Now imagine the ginormous year-end bonus you’re going to get as a result of your collaboration with Paramount Pictures and toy-maker Hasbro on this summer’s Transformers movie. Are you imagining swimming in cash? Good job.

[Source: ‘GM, Transformers’ product placement marketing match‘ from CNET’s Crave blog]

My conclusion, on the other hand, can be summed up into one word: damn!

There is a lot that I want to blog about.

For example, I have recently watched the following movies:

• Transformers
• The Bridge to Terabithia
• Breach
• 300
• The Transporter

Read the following interesting articles:

• 10 Articles All Bloggers Should Read (at least once)
• 30 random ways to a happier life

Read or re-read the following awesome books:

• Frank Herbert’s first Dune trilogy: “Dune”, “Dune Messiah”, and “Children of Dune”
• JK Rowling’s “Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows”

Started listening to some really good netcasts on TWiT, including:

• this WEEK in TECH
• The Tech Guy
• Windows Weekly
• net@nite

Discovered a couple of really good musicians:

• Terra Naomi
• Brad Sucks

Bought tickets to a couple of great concerts:

• The Cure: 12 August, 2007 at the Rod Laver Arena
• The Police: 26 January, 2008 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground

All of which are blog-worthy items. I have also recently started extensively using the moste excellent Google Reader which is something that I really want to blog about.

Finally, aside from everything already listed above, I am now formally declaring the following topics as future postings of mine for this here blog:

• Facebook (and social networking in general)
• Living in Australia
• Why blog?
• The problem with this blog

All of which I will about write soon. I hope.

Huh?

Why have I just written all of this? Well, all this is thanks to first item on Web Worker Daily’s ‘10 Ways to be Productive with Your Blog‘ which is: “Post goals“. Tthat’s step one done with. Let’s see how the others go :)

Oh, and I have also recently added a new page to my website called ‘(Much) More About Me‘, the title of which is rather self explanatory.

This is going around the blogsphere these days and I, too, have been tagged. So here goes.

First, the rules:

• Each player lists 8 facts about himself/herself.
• The rules of the game appear before the facts do.
• The player ends by tagging 8 people, which means (a) listing their names in your blog, (b) going to their blogs to tell them that they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog for details, and (c) going back and commenting on their lists.

There are various versions of the “rules” going around and most bloggers (myself included) have changed the rules’ wording to better reflect their writing style. I guess that’s only fair. There biggest difference among various postings of this, however, is in the third rule. In one variation you’re supposed to tag 4 people while in another you’re supposed to tag 8. More on that later.

Next, the facts:

1. I was given four other first names (Ameer, Sameer, Adeem, and Aleem…I think) before they finally settled on ‘Ameel’, about a month after I was born.
2. I was named Ameel because my grandmother really liked the name Emile (after Emile Zola, one of her favourite authors) but they couldn’t exactly give a Pakistani boy a French name so they found a similar-sounding Turkish substitute. Ameel, in Turkish, means “full of hope”.
3. I am a drummer and I own a drumkit (1 snare, 3 toms, 1 kick, 1 pair of hi-hats, 2 crashes, 2 rides, 1 tambourine), a set of conga drums, a pair of bongo drums, a darbouka, a dhol, a dholki, a couple of tambourines, a couple of shakers, and a whole bunch of drum sticks and brushes. I also have access to a dumbelek that belongs to Nadia. When we moved to Australia, I brought with me only one pair of drumsticks and one pair of shakers. I haven’t played the drums — of any kind — in over a year.
4. If I had enough money, I would quit my day job to work as a record producer and session drummer/percussionist.
5. I have been using computers for 23 years now (starting with an Apple IIc). I wrote my first computer programme 17 years ago (in BASIC) and made my first web page 11 years ago (using notepad, in pure HTML).
6. I am obsessed with (convertible laptop/slate) tablet PCs these days and would love to own one. I would specifically love to own the Lenovo X61t though I would settle for the Fujitsu Lifebook T4220 as well. Of course, I won’t be able to afford either one for at least another year and a half.
7. I find all kinds of wordplay to be a lot of pun.
8. When (not if!) I can afford to do so, I intend to build a home cinema (or, more likely, model my TV room) in the style of USS Enterprise’s main bridge. I already have it all planned out. (Yes, I know. Yes, I am.)

Finally, the tagging: 

Er, I can’t think of anyone I can tag. Maybe I’ll just add this bit later.

Guess what? Nadia is now, not only an official member of Heartless Bitches International (HBI), she’s also May 28th’s Exemplary Heartless Bitch! :) 

Exemplary Heartless Bitchitude: Nadia - “The sexiest parts of my body? My brain, my spine, and my guts.”

Cool, no?

[Note: I’ve been meaning to post this for quite a while but have just kept forgetting to do so. Till now, of course. Apologies for my tardiness.]