Saw “Pulse” at the Camera 12. A surprisingly good movie of a ghostly computer virus that takes away a person’s will to live and traps them into committing suicide over the Internet. As the movie demonstrates, we are surprisingly well-connected to each other by our electronic devices and would be vulnerable if such a disaster was to happen. I missed seeing the original Japanese version by the same name when it played at the Camera 12 earlier this year. Now I can’t find the DVD in local stores since the American version came out in the theaters.
After I got back from my brother’s birthday party in Morgan Hill on Sunday evening, I noticed smoke pouring out of a kitchen air vent on the apartment building across the way from my own. The smoke alternated in color: white smoke for five minutes, black smoke for five minutes, and white smoke for another five minutes. Almost as if a new pope got elected at the Vatican. All the neighbors were rubbernecking from their balconies as they pointed at the commotion without doing anything about it.
One of those moments where you debate calling 911, see if someone else calls 911, or do nothing and hope for the best. The fire department sent three trucks from the station down the street. One firefighter inspected the roof. The fire trucks went away without the building burning to the ground. The warped hood and air vent got tossed out on the sidewalk a few days later, as repairs were made inside the apartment. Looks like serious grease fire that caused that much damage.
The lazy dog days of summer is coming to a close.