Ever been held up in a bank?

No-- not the kind involving guys in rubber masks with guns vs. yourself/other patrons, but the kind where; say you're on your lunch break and you pop in to do some quick business--deposit a check, withdraw cash for instance and you end up waiting in long lines to see a clerk and, God forbid! after all that waiting, you have to wait some more for instance, when the bank's computer system breaks down or the ATM malfunctions or when you're told you can't get access to your money for a few days via the check you deposited into your account, because it will be placed on hold--I'm talking about the legal hold ups...

On the other hand, sometimes it's not the bank's fault. It's not that the bank hadn't issued you its policy (in small print of course) or warned you when you opened your account 13 years ago or however long ago you've been doing business with your bank about it's check-holding rules, it's just that, you may have been doing business with your bank for so long and have formed a comfortable relationship that sometimes it's taken for granted until that one day when you're desperate; you need fast access to your cash via a check deposit and you learn that the bank will sit on your check for a few days--3, 5, 15, 25-35 days or so until it clears (meanwhile the bank profits from it)--I dare say it has happened to us all at one time or another.

In anycase, I brought this up because I've just come from reading the personal account of XDude vs. The Royal Bank of Canada and his attempt at trying to deposit his Warner Brother's US Check into his bank account. XDude presents his account via an interesting medium. At times you may want to laugh at the hillarious way in which he tells it but it's enough to make you kinda think twice about just what your bank's policies are.

As if things hadn't already been bad enough for Mr. Dude, check out the letter he previously received from Lucasfilm.

* To update the previous post, I just had to mention that in the realm of visual communication by way of the art of Flash, my favorite artist is Swedish multimedia artist, { Magnus Karlsson.} Though only 22 years old, he has created some very inspirational flash pieces. He is firstly inspired by music from which he then envisions and is able to create his work. I've been an observer of his work for quite a long time. He's made quite a few flash movies from those paying tribute to "flashers" and their ability to defy the limitations and/or constricting rules of traditional web design, to that which celebrates the spirit of Africa. The following are my favorites:

  Africa
  The Revelation
  The Gathering
 The Divinity of Flashers
  Avelon
  A Lifetime of Success

An interesting website I recently came across is { DFILM } which is hailed as "one of the first major showcases of digital filmmaking. " Founded in 1997, the founders have the distinction of "organizing" as its mission statement states, "the first ever screening of digital filmmaking at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival in 1999.

According to The Wall Street Journal review of DFILM: "The computer has made us all publishers and broadcasters, so why not filmmakers? As this traveling festival shows, the technology is out there, and it's growing higher in quality and lower in cost every day." The New York Times says "The core of D.FILM's mission is inspiration and empowerment" -

Most interesting is the feature enabled at the Website to allow visitors to create their own movies. You get to choose characters, music, background etc. and enter dialogue to create your film which you can also send as email. I checked it out earlier and found it a lot of fun. If you care to look, { Here } is my own short "small screen epic" as NYT calls it.