Blade Runner

My favorite film. I can watch it over an over just for the cinematography and soundtrack. I've seen it 7 times in theaters, plus countless times on video. The Original release twice, two times watching the non authorized Directors cut when it was only released in Santa Monica back in the late 80's .. once in Milan in Italian.. no English subtitles. Twice in Paris for the Director's Cut - french subtitles. Once a friend and I couldn't afford to go home for Thanksgiving when we were living in LA. We couldn't find anyplace open around our place so we got Hot Dogs at the 7-11 down the street and watched Blade Runner. Not the worst Thanksgiving I ever had!

2010 doesn't seem all that futuristic to me and the movie time period of 2019 is not that far off. I don't think we'll be flying around in those cars unfortunately.

The one thing that seems so different is communication. I routinely talk to people all over the world in real time. Email,text message, Skype, this blog. Knowing and sharing common interests with people from all over is one of the best things to come from technology in my opinion.

Remember how long it took to dial a rotary phone? Watch a movie from even the 70's and someone goes to dial a phone.. and it's a 1 minute lull in the film waiting for them to watch the dial spin back and forth. Compare that to your cell phone.
Which brings me to why I am so drawn to old things .. like motorcycles. Part of it must be that you can see the machine in them. With technology things are getting smaller and you can't see how they function anymore. Looking at a cell phone or a computer it's just some plastic and a screen. Nothing too remarkable. No gears turning .. oil dripping. Things can't be torn apart and rebuilt that easy. They're not made for user maintenance, they're just made to be replaced. There is always something on the horizon that's faster, smaller, has more bells and whistles. With the early motorcycles any mechanic or farmer with tractor knowledge could tear the whole thing apart and rebuild every single piece of it. It's become a rare thing to have things that last like that, that can be rebuilt and maintained. My granparents have things in their house that they've been using for 50yrs. My friend Bill uses a 110 yr old lathe that belonged to his father everyday. I wonder how many of the machines and everyday things around us now will be there in 10 yrs let alone 50. I'm sure the old bikes that have made it this long will still be being rebuilt in the future. What about the ones being made now.. will they?