It’s no secret that I love to travel, especially by car. It’s only appropriate that I share some of my favorite roads, and I’m going to start with one of the most beautiful coastal highways in the United States.

California State Route 1, formed in 1934, is perhaps one of the ultimate scenic highways. While this incomparably photogenic road stretches nearly 550 miles from Leggett to San Juan Capistrano, there is one particular area that you shouldn’t miss. It is an area known as the Big Sur Coast Highway, and it offers stunning panoramic views of lush, rugged terrain running adjacent to the Pacific Ocean. If you own a cabriolet or a roadster, this is the place to be.

The journey begins just south of Monterey, near Carmel Highlands. Folklore has it that the area was originally settled by Scottish sailors, who would have certainly noticed the uncanny resemblance which the terrain bears to coastal Scotland. Today, real estate in Carmel Highlands is among the most expensive in the United States, and it won’t take you long to figure out why.

If your car takes diesel, you’ll want to refuel in Monterey before starting your trip, as you won’t find much in the 95 miles between Carmel Highlands and Cambria. And, unless you have a satellite phone, you will also want to make all of your calls beforehand. Decent reception is nearly impossible to find on the Big Sur Coast Highway.

Although you wouldn’t want to take any calls while staring at such beautiful scenery, anyway, you will want to keep your eyes on the road. This stretch of Route 1 is a serpentine drive, occasionally without any barriers that would normally prevent you from finding yourself exploring the Pacific Ocean in a leaky submarine. That said, plenty of areas exist where you can pull off of the road for a better look, and I would recommend doing so frequently.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with spending a day or two exploring this area, as it’s likely that few other places in the United States — perhaps even around the world — are quite like it. This memorable and surreal journey ends as Route 1 heads inland near San Luis Obispo, where signs of civilization serve as a stark contrast to the pristine, relatively untouched beauty of Big Sur Coast Highway.

If you’re unfamiliar with history, the following post may contain spoilers.

It made $70,000,000 last weekend and is now ranked as the 156th best film ever made at IMDb, but I found myself comparing 300 directly to Braveheart and Gladiator as I watched it. That’s usually a terrible sign, and could arguably underline how emulative 300 actually feels.

Ultimately, I found that it wasn’t even nearly equivalent to either of those films. Unlike the fictionalized Battle of Sterling that was depicted in Braveheart, there wasn’t anything emotional about it. Once the Battle of Thermopylae began and the bodies started to pile up, it felt completely like a video game. While it was obvious that these 300 Spartans enjoyed a very special bond, the director of the film never allowed the viewer to feel it. For a film whose very signature was gore, 300 was remarkably sterile.

Of course, the scenery was often very beautiful. On the other hand, seeing as the film was created almost exclusively in a virtual environment, how couldn’t it have been? The final scene, oddly enough, felt predictable and slightly ridiculous. I thought that the film should have ended with the arrows falling on the Spartans, as that particular scene was much more compelling than what followed it.

Despite those criticisms, 300 was a watchable film, and it would probably make a highly impressive video game. However, I didn’t love it, and I will be strongly disappointed if 300 is remembered as one of the best films of 2007. While it is full of stunning (and often grotesque) technical achievements, it simply doesn’t deliver as a genre piece.

I suppose this entry marks my first real post.

Despite having a love for writing, I never quite imagined myself having a personal blog. Sure, I’ve written for others, but it’s an entirely different experience when you find yourself with a kind of creative freedom to which you’re completely unaccustomed. Without a specific direction or prompt, it’s often unnervingly difficult to write. It’s an even greater challenge to write something that is coherent and insightful.

If you’re thinking about creating a blog, these quick tips might help point you in the right direction:

If you are technically capable, buy a domain name and host your own site.

I’ve had an account at LiveJournal for a long time. Out of the various hosted blog platforms, it’s definitely among the most capable and flexible. However, nothing compares to the creative freedom offered by your very own site, hosted on a platform of your choice. It’s also a good way to avoid the disconcerting content use policies that are becoming so ubiquitous around the Web.

If you don’t roll your own software, use WordPress.

I’ve experienced the alternatives, and they aren’t in the same league. Movable Type, while capable, doesn’t feature WordPress’s signature cleanliness. It’s also written in PERL, which can cause problems in some shared hosting environments. I will say, however, that it does hold one advantage over WordPress. It generates static files (i.e., .html) or very light dynamic files (i.e., .php) by default, and can therefore accommodate many more visitors. WordPress, meanwhile, relies on a sophisticated dynamic content engine written in PHP.

WordPress, despite a couple of recent security issues, is clean, easy to customize, and intuitive. If you’re experienced with MySQL and PHP, it takes about two minutes to install. It’s one of the very few software packages I wouldn’t change anything about.

Consider the adoption of a Creative Commons license.

In this regard, I suppose that I’m a total hypocrite. I haven’t adopted a license quite yet, primarily because I’m not exactly sure what to do with my photography, nor how I’m going to distinguish between license types. As far as my original blog content is concerned, however, it’s very likely that I will select the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license. It will allow other people to share my work in a non-commercial context, provided that they attribute the work to me and retain my original license on any work which is derived from my own.

If you like what you do, then respect your employer.

It is becoming increasingly common for employers to search the Web for information about their employees.

Facebook, LiveJournal, and MySpace provide business owners and human resources with an easy, quick, and reasonably accurate method by which to judge your character. Unless you’re writing with a very clever pseudonym, then your blog will also be subjected to the same type of intense scrutiny.

It’s also important to remember that certain posts may actually have legal ramifications, especially if you have signed a non-disclosure agreement with your employer. In other words, it’s a bad idea to reveal company secrets on a blog. Keep things professional.

Mind your presentation.

If your blog matures into a success, then it will be read by total strangers. They will not know you personally, and their only impression of you will stem from your blog. This rule is also true for corporate blogs, where complete professionalism is an absolute must.

If you expect to be taken seriously, then make sure that your posts are grammatically correct, and that you’ve run a spell checker against them prior to publication. A few common mistakes include the use of “you’re” and “your” in inappropriate contexts, as well as run-on sentences. I’ve also noticed some confusion regarding the appropriate placement of colons and semi-colons. These common errors have been known to undermine the credibility of even the most intelligent, well-educated people.

Update regularly.

If your blog stagnates, your readership will almost certainly decrease. You should make updates at least three times per week, if not on a daily basis. Succeed by keeping your most avid readers hooked!