D A L I F . C O M

Ok, it wasn't a subtle title for this post, but hell.. it's a nice and fitting title nonethesame. As you will have guessed, I've seen The Dark Knight at the movie theater. Actually, as of today, I've seen it twice. And I'm not sure I can say I've seen it for the last time during it's theater run. You see, I find that the movie pretty much rules everything I can think of. And there are numerous reasons for this. But it wasn't until I emerged from the theater today, that I realized just how to explain what made the movie so good to me. In short, it's the paradox of the tagline (why so serious) vs. how serious the movie actually is. Because it deals with issues that I can relate very closely to. Not great personal issues, for once, but issues I have with views of the world. I saw someplace, somebody wrote: there is a little joker in all of us. And rarely are truer words spoken. You see, that's exactly the point I've been trying to formulate in my head for years. And finally, Heath Ledger and Chris Nolan visualises it so supremely for me. Because that was exactly what made the movie so good for me. 

The Joker represents the insanity in all of us. The wish for anarchy and the wish to see just how far you can push people before they snap. The movie is a sociological study in my eyes. I've always thought that every living person on this earth was a psychopath in the clinical sense of the word, and the degree of manifestation was relative to how far they were pushed by society or other people. The movie does explore into this, and concludes that people are, when push comes to shove, inherently good. I'm not sure if I agree or not. I don't fully disagree, let me say that much at least. But that's besides the point. I enjoyed this movie, if for nothing else, then the fact that the joker was so spot on the purified version of every human being. Besides this, of course, the movie just simply kicks ass. Heath Ledger. Well, he shouldn't get sole credit, but he does an amazing job with the Joker. I've always been a big fan of the original Batman movie, with Jack Nicholson as the Joker. But whereas Jack did a spiffing job, his Joker was goofy. Not a negative Disney kind of goofy, but he was light hearted, and while he was a murderer and so on and so forth, he had a controlled madness about him. Heath Ledger on the other hand, takes that, and adds a whole new layer. The layer of uncontrolled chaos. He takes the wish for chaos to another level, by really inciting anarchy at every chance he gets. Pitting people against people, and turning honest men against their peers is his sport, and the character study is interesting, and cool. He's cool as the Joker, plain and simply. His uncontrolled chaos and mannerisms makes for smiles and breathtaking excitement at the same time. He has you wanting more. Wanting him to come up with new schemes and plans, so you can spend more time in his company. He appeals to the person in us who'd like to shout at people who annoy us in our day to day lives.

Ok, I won't go deeper into it all for now, since some of you might not have seen the movie, and don't want too much ruined. I will say briefly, that another really interesting character study is Harvey Dent. He's played very well in my opinion, and the turn in his persona is excellent. Very impressed by Aaron. I didn't like Maggie Gyllenhaal too much, but then again, I didn't like Katie Holmes too much either. Rachel Dawes wasn't an appealing character to me, so who plays her doesn't upset me too much. And finally, of course, Christian Bale returns as Bruce Wayne, and he's doing with the role what you could expect of him. Solid performance, that doesn't disappoint. Mostly though, the overall feeling of the movie is that while the Joker makes you smile, and Batman inspires awe in you, you can't help but feel the movie creep up under your skin. And I felt that was extremely different from what you'd expect from a superhero movie. It had a message other than Good vs. Evil. Other than evil scientist vs. human race or similar plots. It was very down to earth in a sense. That made a huge impact on me. And it made me take it very seriously. You should too.

You get asked all kinds of questions from all kinds of people working in the hotelling business. 90% of the questions have obvious answers that people could figure out in less time than it took them to ask it in the first place. If only they actually realized that just because you pay for a hotel room, doesn't mean you automatically have people doing ALL your thinking. 9% of the questions are the same as each other, and are what you can expect from people staying at a hotel. Tell me how to find my way to this and that, how much is your currency exchange rates and can I exchange here, is it possible, can I, would you etc. etc. It's standard, and you just set your brain on standby and let the conversation unfold by itself when these bright stars roll around. 

But once in a blue moon you get that rare breed of guests. That diamond in the ro... no not really a diamond. Just.. a rock in the rough. A guest that takes you by surprise by asking a question you hadn't anticipated in a million years. Today, one such guest visited my hotel, and I just so happened to be the lucky guy she asked. The question? Steady on now, friend. Let me give you some more back story first. Do read on!

Got this bad boy running for about 30 minutes, managed to make a new entry, and change one thing in the admin section before the database decided it had just about had enough. It cut me off, and closed down dalif.com effectively. Again, I contacted my old sysadmin, and once again we were able to restore the page to it's full glory. 

So back in black. Or orange as it were. Made a few changes to the page, as you probably won't notice. The footer (bottom part of the page) was updated with the Terms of Service. I also removed the syndication sidebar plugin and put an RSS link in the bottom line. Removed a few other plugins too, and, the largest change, finally I fixed it so only one entry will be displayed on the frontpage. Admittingly, I'm not a big fan of this, but I've been annoyed for quite some time with the way the sidebar was a lot shorter than the entries section. Granted, it is like that with most pages. But I just like it neat and clean looking. So for now, I'll have a minimum of sidebar plugins, and just one entry on the front page. It removes the pesky scrollbar in the side of the browser window too, which I enjoy immensely. Can't stand that bastard.

Ok. I think that's it for now. I'll try and do more work in the skin itself. I like the layout of this, but I'm not too happy about the colors. So I'll be customizing it. Since I'm only semi-adequate when it comes to css and php stuff, I can't guarantee anything. But at least the system is up to date, and looking somewhat swell atm, so with that as my basecamp, I'll work my way up. Oh, and also, I'll try to add entries once in a while. Mostly, I suspect, rants about the hotel life. But hey... can't get enough of those, now can we?