Longtime readers of this blog know that my favorite musical is Children of Eden. This past summer I was extremely blessed to have taken part in a production of it by the Theatre Guild of Rockingham County. Well, if you've never had the pleasure of beholding this amazing show and you live near Greensboro, North Carolina you're in luck this weekend and the next. Jay Smith, who played Cain in our production, is directing Children of Eden at The Sanctuary, located at 900 Sixteenth Street in Greensboro. The show begins Friday, February 20th at 7:30 p.m., and runs through February 28th. Many of the same faces from Theatre Guild of Rockingham County's production will be in this new show, including Neil Shepherd returning as Father. Click here for more information, and hope you can come check it out! :-)Thursday, February 19, 2009
CHILDREN OF EDEN at The Sanctuary in Greensboro starting this weekend!
Longtime readers of this blog know that my favorite musical is Children of Eden. This past summer I was extremely blessed to have taken part in a production of it by the Theatre Guild of Rockingham County. Well, if you've never had the pleasure of beholding this amazing show and you live near Greensboro, North Carolina you're in luck this weekend and the next. Jay Smith, who played Cain in our production, is directing Children of Eden at The Sanctuary, located at 900 Sixteenth Street in Greensboro. The show begins Friday, February 20th at 7:30 p.m., and runs through February 28th. Many of the same faces from Theatre Guild of Rockingham County's production will be in this new show, including Neil Shepherd returning as Father. Click here for more information, and hope you can come check it out! :-)Descendants of Geronimo sue to get his remains from Skull and Bones
Family members of Geronimo, the great Apache warrior, are suing the Skull and Bones secret society at Yale University. The purpose of the lawsuit: to compel Skull and Bones to hand over the skull and other remains of Geronimo that were allegedly stolen from his grave in Oklahoma in 1918. Supposedly, Skull and Bones (the membership of which includes many business leaders and politicians, including both presidents Bush) has been using Geronimo's noggin for weird sexual rituals deep within its headquarters known as "The Tomb". It has long been alleged that Geronimo's remains were in Skull and Bones' possession, but a letter unearthed a few years ago that detailed the grave robbery has lent new credence to the claim.All I gotta say is: any "fraternity" that makes its initiates masturbate inside a coffin, cannot possibly be of much good.
WATCHMEN coming in 3 crazy flavors of DVD and Blu-ray!
Collider.com is reporting that director Zack Snyder has confirmed that there are three cuts of Watchmen. The first will be the theatrical release that will come out two weeks from tomorrow, and will run for 2 hours 36 minutes.
The theatrical cut will be coming out on DVD probably "around Comic-Con of this year" (mid-July or thereabouts) and at the same time there will also be Snyder's "director's cut" clocking in at 3 hours and 10 minutes!
But that's still not all. Later this fall will be the "ultimate" cut of Watchmen coming to DVD and Blu-ray. That version will incorporate the animated Tales of the Black Freighter footage that is coming out as a separate home release next month. This version will be 3 hours 25 minutes long.
I must say: that is gonna be one strange day two weeks from now when Watchmen comes out. I've been writing about the attempts to make this movie for as long as this blog has been running. The thought had crossed my mind that maybe after writing the Watchmen review that I should just retire The Knight Shift blog. I mean, in its own way... how will I ever top this?
But I'm sure something else will come along :-)
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Post #3000 is reaction to tonight's LOST episode "316"!
Wow... three thousand articles (and other stuff) for this blog to date! Thatsa lotta writing over the past five years :-)
And "316", tonight's episode of Lost, had a lot of everything that makes this show, so unprecedented for the television medium.
That was probably more new mythology that got introduced - or revealed, however you wanna say it - in just the first few minutes of this week's installment than there has been in many entire stretches of episodes. There's a real sense of evolving story here. And "316" makes one appreciate that there is just more than a season and a half left of Lost: this is one show that knows where it's going, and is giving us one heckuva thrill ride along the way.
(So does anyone wanna build a big Focault pendulum so that we can really find where the Island is? :-P)
Loved the scene in the church where Ben talked about the apostle Thomas. Anyone else think that showed a new, spiritual side to Ben that we haven't seen before? It served to highlight one of the best running themes of the show: Jack, the "man of science", and his struggle with faith.
Great to see Frank Lapidus again. I loved his line: "We're not going to Guam, are we?" I just hope he and the rest of the plane are okay. Frank was one of my favorite new people from last season. 'Twould be great if he winds up on the Island again somehow.
All in all, this was more of a character-driven episode than one really rife with action (except for that startling final scene)... but that's what makes Lost so powerful anyway: the characters, and how they cope and change and grow over time. I'll chalk "316" up, along with everything else we've seen of Season 5 thus far, as one of the best of the show to date.
And next week's episode has a title that outta have every Lost-aholic tuning in: "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham". What happened to Locke between the time he left the Island and his winding up in a coffin in a butcher shop's 'fridge? We'll find out in seven days! Until then... "Namaste".
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
President Obama signs "stimulus" into law
The $787 BILLION package is now enacted legislation, as President Barack Obama signed the bill at a ceremony in Denver.
There might be another "stimulus" coming soon, believe it or not.
And on the day of this esteemed occasion, the Dow dropped 297.81 points, -3.79%, to close at 7,552.60.
And on a somewhat related note, I've been hearing some curious rumblings about stuff going down in the Eastern Europe markets, that might bear watching for the time being.
Travis the Chimp, on Xanax, goes bananas and mauls woman before being shot dead by Connecticut cops
So help me, my eyes are tearing up with laughter after reading that headline, even though this really is a horrible story...Travis, a 200 pound, 15-year old chimpanzee who had appeared in TV commercials and "was toilet trained, dressed himself, took his own bath, ate at the table and drank wine from a glass", went berzerk last night in a Stamford, Connecticut neighborhood after breaking loose from his owners' custody, and then severely mauled Charla Nash with "life-changing, if not life-threatening injuries" to her face and hands. Travis' owner Sandra Herold had to beat the ape off her friend with a butcher knife and a shovel.
Travis had earlier been given tea laced with the anti-depressant Xanax. He proceeded to terrorize the streets before being shot dead by Stamford cops, after Travis opened the door of a police cruiser and attempted to enter the vehicle. According to one report, Travis may have intended to drive away from the scene.
Feel free to post the obligatory Planet of the Apes comments as you see fit...
Ramos and Compean finally free (they never should have been in prison to begin with!)
This morning, former Border Patrol agents Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos were freed from the federal prisons they had been in, and rejoined their families.
About time. But then, their imprisonment was a travesty of justice from the beginning. Regardless of their sentences being commuted, a whole lot of people in this country will never forgive George W. Bush and his lackey Johnny Sutton for taking sides with a known drug smuggler against two men who were trying to protect their country's safety and sovereignty.
No, I won't be one to forgive Bush for that, either.
That said: it's good that Ramos and Compean are back home.
Trailer for TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN
Giant transforming sentient robotic organisms and lots of Michael Bay-hem signature carnage and 'splosions (with a soundtrack by Steve Jablonsky). What more could you ask for?!
Trailer for INGLORIOUS BASTERDS
I must regretfully confess that I have never seen a Quentin Tarantino movie during a first run in the theaters...
...but I am already sold on Inglorious Basterds, due for release this summer.
"Each man under my command owes me one hundred Nazi scalps. And I want my scalps."
See Brad Pitt pour out unbridled Jewish rage on Fortress Europe below...
PRIDE AND PREDATOR?! Are you kidding me?!?
Elton John's Rocket Pictures has begun production on Pride and Predator: a cinematic adaptation of a Jane Austen novel that deviates wildly "from the traditional period costume drama when an alien crash lands and begins to butcher the mannered protags, who suddenly have more than marriage and inheritance to worry about."This is, apparently, not a joke.
One of the producers has also said that "It felt like a fresh and funny way to blow apart the done-to-death Jane Austen genre by literally dropping this alien into the middle of a costume drama, where he stalks and slashes to horrific effect."
Jane Austen books must be a hot sci-fi genre these days. Cinema Blend is also reporting that Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is in the works, with involvement from Natalie Portman.
Words fail...
Monday, February 16, 2009
Kansas and California have run out of money
The state government of Kansas is no longer issuing tax refunds and may be unable to pay its employees.
Meanwhile, California is $40 billion in the red and may have to lay off thousands of workers soon.
Dare I mention that "Hell Époque" thing that I first wrote about last year?
BIOSHOCK bringing moral chaos to mobile phones
BioShock, 2K Games' smash hit first-person shooter that tries your personal ethics as much as it tests your aim, is now coming to mobile phones courtesy of Indiagames. The reveal came at the 2009 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. Indiagames is working on two versions of BioShock for mobile devices: a straightforward 3-D port of the original game, and... a 2-D rendition, believe it or not.(Can't help but wonder if the 2-D version will resemble this NES-style "demake" or perhaps this Game Boy mock-up.)
I'm of the opinion that BioShock is a game that needs to be played at night, or at least a way darkened room with all the lights out, on a fairly large screen and the sound turned way up. The ruined underwater city of Rapture with all its 1950s trappings is easily the most sinister setting of a video game that I've ever encountered. Putting it on a tiny device to play anywhere... sounds like it's gonna take away from that kind of atmosphere. But hey, the more BioShock the better, right? :-)
Here's some footage of the 3-D version, including the deranged Splicers and of course a Big Daddy in action...
Banker gives $60 million of own money to his employees
Lately it seems like the "feel good" stories have become even more few and far between. So when one is found, I feel more than a little compelled to give it a shout-out.
Take, f'rinstance, what Leonard Abess Jr. did. Back in November he sold a majority share of his holdings in Miami-based City National Bancshares.
And then, Abess gave away $60 million of the profits to EVERYONE that was on his bank's payroll. He even went so far as to find 72 former employees so that he could give them a share of the money, too. More than 400 people got the "bonuses", and depending on how long they had been employed some got more than $100,000
This is an awesome story of capitalism and corporate responsibility, folks. And when I say "responsibility", what I mean by that is a company or business owner going above and beyond in rewarding its employees - who have already shown loyalty to the company - without it being mandated by some decree of government. Nobody made Abess give up his own money. In my opinion, Leonard Abess Jr. made a smart investment in his own company. And I'd be willing to wager an RC Cola and a Moon Pie that City National Bancshares might be among the better managed banks in this day and age.
Abess didn't publicize his good deed, but it was inevitable that news of it would get out. When asked about his motivation...
Abess said he had long dreamed of a way to reward employees. He had been thinking of creating an employee stock option plan before he decided to sell the bank.Leonard Abess Jr., you're a good man. And you deserve a tip o' the hat for your good deed :-)"Those people who joined me and stayed with me at the bank with no promise of equity -- I always thought some day I'm going to surprise them," he said. "I sure as heck don't need [the money]."
Creepy and kooky: 5 months in jail for man who whistled THE ADDAMS FAMILY theme
Leopold Wrobel of Wingerforth, England has been remanded to gaol by the constabulary for a period of twenty weeks after being found guilty of harassment and violating an "antisocial behavior order" that was sought against him by his neighbors.
Apparently, what Michael and Kathleen Sharpe found so offensive is that Wrobel would constantly whistle the theme music from The Addams Family whenever he saw them.
In his defense, Wrobel claimed that he was only whistling at his dog. But "closed-circuit TV footage shown to the court depicted him repeatedly whistling when the couple left their house or arrived home."
I don't know what's more disturbing: this guy's whistling fetish, or the fact that England now has so many surveillance cameras that one was looking out for Wrobel's performance.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Apollo astronaut Schmitt sez: Humans not causing global warming
Harrison Schmitt - geologist, former senator from New Mexico and one of the last men to walk on Moon during the Apollo 17 mission - has voiced his strong belief that global warming is not happening... or at least that it is not being caused by human activity.
And what's more, Schmitt also states that "global warming" is being used as a political tool to increase the presence of government in people's lives...
Schmitt contends that scientists "are being intimidated" if they disagree with the idea that burning fossil fuels has increased carbon dioxide levels, temperatures and sea levels.Schmitt is a real scientist, and a former elected official. I'm far more inclined to trust his take on the "global warming" situation than many of the more current crop of either researchers or politicians. Sad to say: over the past few decades the trend has been that the science has increasingly become driven more by policy than it has been by empirical evidence. And in that regard, we simply do not have enough long-range climate data to satisfactorily proclaim that global warming is or isn't happening."They've seen too many of their colleagues lose grant funding when they haven’t gone along with the so-called political consensus that we’re in a human-caused global warming," Schmitt said.
Dan Williams, publisher with the Chicago-based Heartland Institute, which is hosting the climate change conference, said he invited Schmitt after reading about his resignation from The Planetary Society, a nonprofit dedicated to space exploration.
Schmitt resigned after the group blamed global warming on human activity. In his resignation letter, the 74-year-old geologist argued that the "global warming scare is being used as a political tool to increase government control over American lives, incomes and decision making."
