For Dr. Who fans this will make sense, for the rest of you, feel free to skip this post. I came across an item for sale, a Tardis Clock. The only problem is, since Dr. Who is a Timelord, and pops all over the place/space/time continuum, what kind of time would it keep? Does the year move all over, due the hands instantly move to another time? Do they move both directions, pause, then move again at random?
Filed under Humor and Observations, Uncategorized
American Olympic vaulter McKayla Maroney won a silver medal and missed the gold after falling on her dismount. She agrees that was fair and so do I. However, in an earlier vault, she did a maximum difficulty vault and perfectly stuck the landing, leaving the judges looking like this:
And…the judges did not give her a 10? I would like to see someone ask the judges what they deducted points for. Seriously!
Filed under Humor and Observations, Uncategorized
Digging into NaNoWriMo? Working on something much shorter? Either way, Kurt Vonnegut has a few tips for your characters, your sentences, and how you treat your readers. It’s and oldie but goodie, shared by reader Zan.
In his book Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction, Vonnegut listed eight rules for writing a short story:
Vonnegut qualifies the list by adding that Flannery O’Connor broke all these rules except the first, and that great writers tend to do that.
reposted.
I must admit that I had a crush on Yvonne Craig when I was a little kid. Out of all of them, not counting their acting ability, the quality of the film or TV series, or in the last case, a cosplayer model for the Stan Winston School of Character Arts, which would you pick as your favorite?
Halle Berry
Michelle Pfeiffer
Julie Newmar
Eartha Kitt
Anne Hathaway
Yvonne Craig
Alicia Silverstone
Model from Stan Winston School of Character Arts
Filed under Humor and Observations
My wife and I were cheering on Gabby Douglas and so glad to see her win. Oddly enough, just after she won, my wife asked, “Do you think she is the first African-American to win gymnastics?” I thought about it, but didn’t know. I seriously don’t look at people and think about their race. Especially not Americans, we are all such a mixed lot anyway. The American Kennel Club would classify us as mixed or mutts, not one race or another. I know I have people of all colors in my family.
Sure enough, Bob Costas comes on a few minutes later and says, “She is the first African-American to win gold in gymnastics. Hopefully, she will encourage other African-American girls to get involved in gymnastics.”
I was glad in a way, and upset in another. For instance, though I disagree with Obama’s politics, I am glad America voted in a black President. I voted for a black President eight years before that – Alan Keyes, he just didn’t win the primary despite my very important support. 🙂 I am also glad that someone so cool, perky and Christian as Gabby Douglas will inspire others.
The downside is that we still look at people and talk about their color. I wish no one noticed. I wish they were just people. Here is my hope for a future in which no one ever has to say this is the first time a “insert race” has done “insert anything.” Martin Luther King, Jr. is a hero of mine for wanting us to examine people for the content of their character not the color of their skin. I hope we can get to that point. I know people like to make themselves feel better by claiming superiority over others, but one day I hope we can grown up.
I could not be happier that Gabby Douglas won the gold medal after all her hard work and the long support and sacrifice of her family to get her there. She was a class act. No ugly tweets, no unsportsmanlike behavior, no doping with performance drugs. She has a wonderful smile, personality and outlook. As a Christian I was very happy to see her give thanks to God in front of the world, unashamed to be a believer. Increasingly, believers are portrayed as out of touch and stupid. I think Gabby Douglas not only represented the United States, not only represented young girls of all races, but also represented a person of faith admirably.
I hope she has a long, prosperous and happy life ahead of her. Congratulations Gabby Douglas!
Filed under Humor and Observations, Uncategorized
Nikola Tesla, who suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder and anxiety before those conditions were understood, is in my opinion, the smartest man ever. He was recommended to Thomas Edison by a colleague as a young Serbian scientist. Asked by Edison to fix his theory of direct current so it would be more useful, Tesla did so, being promised $50,000. Thomas Edison paid him $8 instead, saying welcome to America and our sense of humor.
To get even, Tesla created alternating current, which powers nearly everything in the world now. Tesla said that Edison would try 1,000 different things when simple math would have eliminated them in minutes. Edison actually despised formal education and the scientific method, but he hired a team of scientists as the Wizards of Menlo Park, and took credit for all their inventions.
Tesla was able to see new inventions in his head, then draw them in great detail as a sketch. Most people then could not even comprehend his ideas, even when shown the diagrams. As he aged, the battle between his backers – Westinghouse, and the Edison Company, backed by JP Morgan became brutal, and were publicly known as the current wars. Thomas Edison electrocuted an elephant in public to show Tesla’s AC power was too dangerous.
Tesla buckled under the strain and became reclusive. He had to have three napkins at a table and walk around the table three times to eat. However, he went on to invent things that even now are revolutionary. He built a large Tesla coil that powered a town of 30,000 people, with no wires, for free. He had plans for death rays. He even said he had developed a Tesla tower that could provide power for free to the entire world, as well as video and radio, but if set to the Earth’s frequency, it could destroy the planet.
The mad genius had accomplished so much magic, that upon his death, the US Government confiscated his paperwork and ideas, and to this day, no kidding, they are still locked in Top Secret vaults. Many feared that Tesla truly had discovered a way to destroy the planet. He invented radio years before Marconi, but never got the credit. Oddly enough, his one true friend was Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain.
The following is a YouTube video that goes through some of his inventions, but far from all of them:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q83LL3FsiGo
As a tribute, Nikola Tesla will play a key role in The Travelers’ Club series, in Book 2, 3 and 4, of the five book series.
Filed under Humor and Observations, Writing
I had my doubts about the tweet sent out by the Greek triple jumper, but this tweet is obviously racist hate speech.
Less than a week into the 2012 London Olympics and already two athletes have been expelled for racially charged messages. Monday, the Swiss Olympic Committee bounced soccer player Michel Morganella, 23, after his offensive comment following Switzerland’s 2-1 loss to South Korea a day earlier.
Translated from French, Morganella’s tweet said he wanted to beat up South Koreans, that they should “burn” and that they were a “bunch of mongoloids.”
I couldn’t agree more that should not be tolerated.
Eight more badminton players, of all sports, were banned for intentionally losing their match so they could get a more favorable seed.
More and more, it seems each Olympics has its own controversies.
Filed under Humor and Observations
Trying to break the cycle, but the shoe fits…
Filed under Humor and Observations
It is only at the end of a shoot that you finally get the chance to sit down and have a look at the film you have made. Recently Fran, Phil and I did just this when we watched for the first time an early cut of the first movie – and a large chunk of the second. We were really pleased with the way the story was coming together, in particular, the strength of the characters and the cast who have brought them to life. All of which gave rise to a simple question: do we take this chance to tell more of the tale? And the answer from our perspective as the filmmakers, and as fans, was an unreserved ‘yes.’
We know how much of the story of Bilbo Baggins, the Wizard Gandalf, the Dwarves of Erebor, the rise of the Necromancer, and the Battle of Dol Guldur will remain untold if we do not take this chance. The richness of the story of The Hobbit, as well as some of the related material in the appendices of The Lord of the Rings, allows us to tell the full story of the adventures of Bilbo Baggins and the part he played in the sometimes dangerous, but at all times exciting, history of Middle-earth.
So, without further ado and on behalf of New Line Cinema, Warner Bros. Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Wingnut Films, and the entire cast and crew of “The Hobbit” films, I’d like to announce that two films will become three.
It has been an unexpected journey indeed, and in the words of Professor Tolkien himself, “a tale that grew in the telling.”
Cheers,
Peter J
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey hits screenins worldwide on December 14, 2012, while The Hobbit: There and Back Again arrives December 13, 2013. And while there’s no news as to when Jackson will shoot part three, we’re guessing it’ll hit December 2014
reposted from Chris Tilly.
Filed under Humor and Observations
