Yes, this is for real. Here's a story from the BBC about it, which is part of the exercise regimen that a security consultant came up with for the prisoners.
Thanks to Marc at Bmovies - who never fails to amaze me at the stuff he locates on the Internets - for finding this :-)
My sister Anita and I went to the Brassfield Cinema to see Speed during its first week in theaters. It so happened that we saw it on June 17, 1994.
Does that date ring a bell?
So we went to Greensboro and saw Speed and we got back later that night a little before 10 p.m. local time. Anita was telling Mom and Dad how great a movie it was. I thought it was terrific too. While Anita was talking about it I turned on the TV in our living room to see what was on.
Not ten minutes after we got back home, CBS interrupted regular programming with a breaking news report. The very next thing we saw was a closeup shot from a helicopter of a white Ford Bronco driving down some highway in California.
That's always made me laugh: that we went right from watching Speed at the theater, to watching the O.J. Simpson slow-moving car chase on television.
I wonder if I'll get a "cease and desist" from the U.S. government for posting this amazingly detailed cutaway diagram of the Saturn V rocket. Slashdot is reporting that NASA is censoring information about the Saturn V launch vehicle.How much information? Well, there are reports that NASA is ordering the confiscation and destruction of Saturn V posters that were purchased at gift shops at Kennedy Space Center and other NASA facilities. And now UpShip.com, a website that's loaded with technical specs and blueprints of various air and spacecraft, has been sent a warning from officials at NASA's Export Control Office that files pertaining to the Saturn V the site has on this page are in violation of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). That's the list of things that the federal government doesn't allow to be disseminated because it classifies them as "weapons".
So of course, I couldn't resist posting the biggest, most detailed picture of the Saturn V's internal structure that I could find.
Some are wondering if the appointment of one of Karl Rove's cronies to the position of White House liaison to NASA has anything to do with this ridiculous move to ban images of the Saturn V.
I'm expecting jack-booted thugs to bust through the door at any moment now to confiscate my 10th Anniversary Edition DVD of Apollo 13.
Does this mean that the Bush Administration will soon move to ban the sale or purchase of Estes model rocket engines because they could conceivably be used by "terrists" to deliver armed payloads? Seriously, I have to wonder if this government would actually consider doing that.
This is one of the loonier things that I've seen the federal government do in the past several years. If it sends me a sternly-worded e-mail or some other communique about the placing of the above image, I'll make sure to share it with y'all.
So I thought it was a good a time as any to call Sony Music, since everything is indicating that they are the ones who would be releasing this thing. And my intention was only to ask about when approximately we could be seeing this in stores. My e-mail box has been flooded with inquiries in the past several days from people about this: there was the feeling that I owed them some kind of substantive update with info straight from the source.
Well, I called up Sony BMG Music at (212)833-8000. A woman's recorded voice gave me a list of options to choose from. I hit "4", to speak to an operator at Sony BMG Music.
That put me through to a fella who asked me "how may I direct your call". I told him that I was calling to ask about the status of the Transformers score CD. He told me in a rather tired voice that there is no plan to release it at this time and that "I believe that I've spoken to you before about this." Now this was the very first time in my life that I've called Sony Music, and so far as I know it's only the second call I've ever made to any recording label (the first was several years ago when I was working to set up an interview with a musical artist). I told this guy that it couldn't have been me that he had spoken to, that this was my first time calling Sony Music. I don't know who it was but I can't help but have the sense that they have been contacted quite a bit about this.
Like I said, I only called to try and get an estimated release date. I wasn't expected to hear, again, that there are "no plans at this time" to release the orchestral score from the Transformers movie.
In the past week we've heard from a number of sources that an album is coming and "soon", and then we've heard from the music studio itself that an album is not coming anytime soon. So which is right?
If I hear anything else about this, I'll let y'all know.
Sports Illustrated has a feature on its website showing athletes who have been on The Simpsons and comparing their cartoon caricatures with their real-life photos. Among those from the world of sports who have made their way to Springfield at some point are Tony Hawk, LeBron James and Wade Boggs (pictured above from the legendary 1992 episode "Homer at the Bat").
Thanks to Chad "Ironman" Austin for passing along the link!
But ever since reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, my mind has been reeling with wonder. J.K. Rowling tied up all the threads throughout seven novels by the end of that book. But whether she wanted to or not, she also sowed the seeds for a lot of further stories from the Potter-verse. She's been doing that from the very beginning but Deathly Hallows somehow maddened the lust to know more about the world that Harry lives in.
Well, Rowling has said something about eventually writing a comprehensive Harry Potter "encyclopedia" that will go a long way to fleshing-out the Wizarding world and its history. And maybe a book about Neville Longbottom that would be sold for charitable causes. But I think there are some fascinating possibilities for more narrative fiction from the world of Harry Potter, with stories that are begging to be told at some point...
- The First War: We've always heard about how bad it was, but we know hardly anything about what happened in the Wizarding world between 1970 and 1981, when Voldemort and his army was tearing everything apart. It's been said that World War II was just a continuation of World War I, with a period of time in between to rest and reload. That's partly why this would be a fascinating read because it was while reading the third Harry Potter book, Prisoner of Azkaban, that I realized that Harry and his generation were being used to fight a proxy war by those that came before, until the young ones grew into their own. Maybe with a rich account of the First War, we can finally get to see a place that I've always wanted to see depicted in the Harry Potter books: the wizard prison of Azkaban. This book should end just when Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone begins: in the aftermath of October 31st, 1981.
- Full-length novel about Dumbledore and Grindelwald: The "Obi-Wan Versus Anakin Duel" of the Harry Potter saga, that until we get to "see" it is going to become just as legendary an exercise in imagination. This story deserves a book all to itself as much as the First War does. We know from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows that Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald were once friends in youth, who came to share (for the Dumbledore we came to know and love anyway) some very disturbing dreams. The two eventually split, before Grindelwald was defeated by Dumbledore in 1945 (ever since this was mentioned in the first book, some have wondered if this date implies that Grindelwald had something to do with Nazi Germany). A book about Dumbledore and Grindelwald might not only give us a close look at the early years between the two wizards, but also what happened in the World War II years at Hogwarts when Dumbledore was at first reluctant to confront his former friend.
- Hogwarts: The Early Years: Sometime in the late 900s A.D., four of the greatest sorcerers of that age established an academy of magic somewhere north on the isle of Britain. The alliance between Godric Gryffindor, Rowena Ravenclaw, Helga Hufflepuff, and Salazar Slytherin – and their eventual falling-out – would carry ramifications that would rock the Wizarding world for the next one thousand years. I'd love to see this story laid out somehow, especially how Slytherin ended up creating the Chamber of Secrets.
- How the magic and non-magic worlds separated: At some point, those who could work real magic decided the time had come to live apart from the Muggles (non-magic folk in the Harry Potter books). The result, in my mind anyway, was that there were two very real realms that grew and evolved in parallel to each other, but with radically different underpinnings: the Muggles rely on technology and science, while the Wizarding people use magic and other forces of nature that mystify us Muggles as much as Arthur Weasley is captivated by ordinary batteries and electrical plugs. This splitting-away might be a fun thing to see, especially with how the Wizarding community ended up with a government so much like Muggle bureaucracy.
- The story of Dean Thomas: J.K. Rowling has hinted a number of times that Harry's fellow Gryffindor classmate Dean Thomas has a much more interesting background than we've yet be let in on. I will admit that he hasn't felt to be much more than a secondary character but his role in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows did pique my curiosity about him quite a bit.
- A Marvels-style glimpse of the Wizard world from the viewpoint of a Muggle: In 1993, Kurt Busiek wrote a graphic novel for Marvel Comics called Marvels. Beautifully and realistically illustrated by Alex Ross, it was the story of the events of the Marvel Universe as witnessed by an average "man on the street". Well, what if a British Muggle had managed to witness every major event of the Wizarding world that had happened between World War II and 1998 – from Grindelwald's possible involvement with the Nazis to the destruction wrecked by Voldemort's forces throughout England. And what if that Muggle had somehow been "missed" by the Ministry of Magic's squad of Obliviators, so that he/she not only saw these things... but remembered it all as well?
- Hagrid's biography: Hagrid is, shall we say, one of the more interesting characters in the Harry Potter saga. I'd love to see more about him, especially his life after getting expelled from Hogwarts.
Those are just the ones that came most immediately to mind during the past week. What else could we see turned into more stories from the world of Harry Potter? :-)
The Blade Runner 5-Disc Ultimate Collector's Edition. Comes out on December 18th. Suggested retail price of $78.92. It will include director Ridley Scott's 2007 "final cut" of Blade Runner, plus the 1982 original theatrical version and the 1992 "director's cut". Plus another DVD packed with bonus material. That's stuff that's coming with the 4-disc set but this set also includes the ultra rare "workprint" version of Blade Runner ...
This rare version of the film is considered by some to be the most radically different of all the Blade Runner cuts. It includes an altered opening scene, no Deckard narration until the final scenes, no "unicorn" sequence, no Deckard/Rachel "happy ending," altered lines between Batty (Rutger Hauer) and his creator Tyrell (Joe Turkell), alternate music and much more.The set comes in an individually numbered stylized briefcase like the one Deckard carries in the movie. Also packed in with the DVDs are a lenticular motion film clip from the original feature, miniature origami unicorn figurine, miniature replica spinner car, collector's photographs as well as a signed personal letter from Sir Ridley Scott.
Find loads more info about the Blade Runner DVD releases at The Digital Bits.
I'm putting this on my Christmas wish list pronto!
You won't buh-leeeve what it took an army of geeks - both online and in the real world at Comic-Con in San Diego - to find that image. Read this article and the associated talkback on Ain't It Cool News for an idea of what went down in the last little while.Other than the fact that it looks like the whiteface is painted on instead of his skin being bleached white, I really like this look for Heath Ledger as the Joker. So far, it's looking good for next summer's The Dark Knight.
Oh and I might be able to post a link to a Quicktime teaser for the movie soon too ... if I can find the right link.
EDIT 12:36 a.m. 07-28-2007: The teaser is up at whysoserious.com, the link that started this twisted scavenger hunt. Thanks to Phillip Arthur for spotting it!
Greatest. Line. In a children's book. Ever.
If that line is not in the movie, I will walk out of the theater.
Seriously though: it's a great university. Even though I'll always be proud of my alma mater Elon, you can often find me wearing a Georgia Bulldogs t-shirt whenever I'm out. So I was especially glad to find that this very good article about presidential candidate Ron Paul was written by J. Patrick Rhamey for The Red and Black, the student newspaper at UGA ...
What are our traditional values? Looking across history, they are most certainly not wire-tapping, secret prisons, and preemptive wars. The Republican Party gained power with Newt Gingrich to minimize the size of government, lower taxes, encourage free trade, and get government out of our lives.I've been thinking for awhile: even though I'm no longer a believer in political parties, I cannot help but think that if the Republican party does not steer toward the direction that Ron Paul represents, it will no longer be able to claim to be a party of principle after this next presidential election. Unfortunately I'm seeing most, if not all, of the party leadership putting their support behind the usual "contenders" of shallow character.Unfortunately, they did the opposite and have paid the price.
It is time to elect someone who represents the political views of Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater and Dwight Eisenhower. A patriot who will not put our brave fighting men and women needlessly into harm's way. A candidate who supports policies of economic growth for the middle class such as lower taxes and minimizing government. A man of outstanding character who has been married to the same woman for fifty years and opposes abortion. A veteran who will secure our borders. This is the type of Reagan Republican we need back in the White House.
I encourage Georgians of all parties to take a moment to investigate Paul as a candidate on his website, www.ronpaul2008.com. In this great struggle against terror, amidst the many successes and setbacks, I fear we may be losing sight of that which our fighting men and women are dying to protect: individual freedom. If we lose sight of that, the terrorists have most surely accomplished their goals.
We must elect a candidate who will pursue a humble, defensive foreign policy. One who will bring our fighting men and women home to protect us here, not in Iraq, Afghanistan or Iran.
To quote another great Republican president, Dwight Eisenhower, "Preventive war was an invention of Hitler. Frankly, I would not even listen to anyone seriously that came and talked about such a thing."
As the only Republican candidate who took that advice seriously and opposed the war in Iraq, let's give Ron Paul a chance.
It's like this: the Republicans must decide that they either want reality, or illusion. It's time for them to take the proverbial red pill and put their money where their mouth is.
And if most people in the GOP seriously believe that Fred Thompson is going to be anything better than George W. Bush, then that party can kiss whatever respect they still have goodbye. It's almost gone anyway, after the fiasco of our border situation.
Then Darth Larry spotted another site, this one a promotional one run by Burger King called Simpsonize Me, also a tie-in with the new movie. But with this "you as a Simpsons character" thingy, you upload an actual photograph of yourself and the website does most of the work for you. Then all you have to do is fine-tune it with a variety of mouths, noses etc.
(Is it just me or is Burger King running some of the best movie promo sites lately? Their gimmick for Revenge of the Sith a few years ago was downright ... spooky.)
So I uploaded the photo I used for the newspaper ad from my school board campaign and after "tweaking" it a bit, the pic on the right is what I came up with. Personally, I think this looks a lot like me: right down to the part on the right side of the hair and the ears that are more or less standard gauge for guys in the Knight lineage. Compared to how I looked in my TV commercials, I can't imagine Matt Groening himself drawing a more accurate caricature.
So if you want to see what would look like as a resident of Springfield, point your browser to SimpsonizeMe.com and upload a nice-sized closeup of your mug. Anyone who's a friend of mine might as well go ahead and do it, 'cuz I'm prolly going to run your pics through this just for the heck of it :-P
Then there is Comic-Con in San Diego, running from Thursday to Sunday this week, and on Thursday night Lost producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof gave a presentation about the direction the show is headed. You can read reports from the panel here and here. Among the tidbits from Cuse and Lindelof ...
- Season Four will use both flashbacks and flash-forwards.One last tantalizing bit of info from Comic-Con is a new DHARMA video that was shown to the crowd attending the panel, and it's probably best to go with The Tail Section's description of the footage 'cuz nothing I can do on this end would have this making a lick of sense:- Lost might be moving to Friday nights (my wife will be happy if that happens :-).
- Jack and Claire will come to know what we the viewers already know about them this coming season.
- We will see how Benjamin wound up in Danielle's net: Cuse says that it was an accident and that Ben was on his way somewhere when he was snagged.
- Getting off the island may not necessarily mean escaping the island: it's not "the end" by any stretch, the producers said.
- Michael will be returning as a regular character, not just a cameo or an appearance in a flashback.
- The enigmatic Richard Alpert, played by Nestor Carbonnel, may not see much screen time or any at all this coming season because of Carbonnel's upcoming CBS show Cane (not to mention that Carbonnel is also playing the mayor of Gotham City in a certain lil' film due out next summer) but I'm hearing a number of people saying that if Cane is cancelled early on, that we may yet see plenty of Richard. I sure hope so: by the end of Season Three, Richard was one of the most intriguing mysteries of this show.
- We haven't heard the last of Libby. We will get to find out her story.
- Ditto with Danielle, apparently.
- We will find out more about "the monster", which has been called Cerberus but might have other names also. We're going to find out who made it and what it's purpose is.
The final item of the night was the video clip from Norvick, Norway. In this film we see the actor formerly known as Marvin Candle getting hair and makeup done on him in a new testing facility. Soon after he begins a speech for a new DHARMA station: The Orchid. He goes by the name Edward Hourwax and says that the Orchid is Station 6. It is not a botanical garden as they were told to tell their families when they left them to come work for DHARMA. Instead, it is another location on the island where unusual properties (this time from I believe I heard him say a volcano) were being used to form a kashmir effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashmir_effect).It's actually spelled "Casimir effect" and it has to do with forces tied to quantum physics between objects at extremely close distances from each other. Though how a gorilla riding a bicycle figures into this, I haven't a clue.He proceeded to hold out a bunny which has a black 15 inscribed on his side (similar to the numbered bunnies of Ben's owning). From here things get weird. First the film jumps twice during the entirety, the first time the Jacob loves you line from the Karl video is seen for a split second and on the second jump a gorilla riding a bicycle is shown upside for a split second. During this time we hear the alarm noises usually associated with the 4 minute warning with the hatch. We then pan to another area of the room and see another bunny magically appeared on a high shelf... the thing is, this bunny has a number 15 on his side as well. Hence why I mentioned early the cloning properties of the hatch).
I'm not sure what all of those things in the video mean, but that's all I can remember from it.
Finally, a Quicktime trailer for the upcoming Lost: The Game has been released. Here's a still I pulled from it showing Hurley standing around the camp's "pantry" ...
This may be another reason to possibly invest in an Xbox 360 in the near future (or if they release it for the Wii, maybe you can use the controller to beat people up with Eko's "Jesus stick" :-P ).
Tonight, via satellite hookup, Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford revealed to those attending Comic-Con in San Diego that Karen Allen would be returning as Marion Ravenwood in the as-yet-not-properly-titled Indiana Jones 4. There's more pics at the link. Doesn't Allen look simply amazing?! I can't tell any difference between her in 2007 and how she looked circa 1981 in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Now, the return of Marion Ravenwood, well ... adds considerably to the melange of mystery that I'm seeing coming out of this project. I've heard all kinds of things about what the next Indiana Jones movie entails. One rumor I heard a few weeks ago, when I first came across it I thought "that's the STUPIDEST thing I've ever heard about an Indiana Jones movie", and now I can't help but think "that's the most BRILLIANTLY CLEVER thing that I've ever heard about an Indiana Jones movie!" Basically the rumor has it that Indy is going after the Ark of the Covenant again, 'cuz it's been stolen by the Soviets. Dunno how that notion is going to pan out but the presence of Marion (and the story that John Hurt will be playing the long-presumed dead Abner Ravenwood) does make one wonder.
However it turns out, it's great to know that Marion return. Of all of Indy's girls, she was my favorite. Maybe we'll get to see that she and Indy got together after all :-)
In an interview for NBC, J.K. Rowling has revealed a LOT about what happens to many of the characters after the events of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Some of the details are wonderful, others are heartbreaking. I'm not going to post what she said here, you're going to have to click the link to find out.
Thanks to Phillip Arthur for the heads-up!
It does kinda make sense, I suppose. I mean, there is at least one "front-runner" candidate for President who hasn't filed the official paperwork, and this could be why that hasn't happened yet. Because while he's an undeclared candidate, he can spend money on whatever and not have to report it. After he becomes an official candidate, if it turned out that he was paying a firm to hire "professional bloggers" to set up bogus blogs and otherwise shill for him across the Internet without it being legitimate "grassroots" at all, then there would become something of a public image issue.
When Fala jumped up on Franklin Roosevelt's lap and started yapping into the microphone during FDR's "fireside chat" that time, Americans knew it was unrehearsed and sincere. When Nixon tried to get his dog to do the same thing, people saw it for what it was: a sham. So it is here, also.
There's at least one company (and probably others) that will actually rent you an army of professional "blogger mercenaries" so that you can make it look as though you have a lot more people on the Internet backing you than you really do. Sort of a combination political consulting firm, website design team and escort service.
This shouldn't have been unexpected. I mean, the Bush Administration has already been caught in the act of paying journalists to spin op-ed material in its favor. And I've heard loads of stories about how a lot of the "military personnel" blogs on the web are actually creations of agencies hired to give the Iraq war a more upbeat reputation than it actually has.
I've seen enough of these supposed sites to believe that they really do exist: they have too much of a "manufactured" feel to them, without any real sense of passion.
It was just a short step from that, to individual candidates beginning to do the same thing with their political campaigns. And I suppose that we are going to be seeing a lot more of this in the future, if we aren't indeed seeing it already.
The thing is, real blogging can't be bought. In fact, I don't know if there really is such a thing as "professional blogging" in the sense that it can be hired and wielded like Blackwater USA or some other privatized military outfit. The whole notion of the so-called "Web 2.0" is that it is the empowerment of the individual, who finally gets to enjoy a level playing field with the rest of the media. I'm sure that those who hire these "pro bloggers" think that they are over-riding that facet of the blogosphere's nature with a brute-force attack, but when the motivation for posting thoughts becomes profit rather than for sake of the thought itself, then there is no true individuality at all. There can't be. It's been bought for a buck, instead of being an expression of one's soul.
"This above all: to thine ownself be true,By the way, neither The Knight Shift blog or its peculiar author has ever been approached to be a mercenary in a "blog army". I've never been a "pro blogger" ... and I never will be, either. What I've written and otherwise posed on this blog, is only there because I personally believed it should be there, for whatever reason at the time. I've never been paid a cent in exchange for writing for one cause or another. If it's on here, it's only because I believed it should be here. The only exception to that rule is the Google banner ads ... and I do my best to control what content appears on those if I believe they run against the philosophy of this blog.
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."-- Lord Polonius
Hamlet Act I, Scene III
by William Shakespeare
I'll close with this thought: if anyone - be they a political candidate or some other interest - decides that "pro bloggers" must be employed to get out its message, then neither the message or its sponsors deserve the least ounce of respect. I sure would never vote for a candidate - declared or otherwise - who is found to be using blog mercenaries.
Sometime between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, someone stole my bicycle. I'd only had it for just less than a year.
That's probably the last I'll ever see of it. When I found that it was missing I called the Reidsville Police Department and they sent an officer over promptly to look into it. He said they'd keep an eye out for it and I don't doubt that they will ... but all the same, by this evening I'm fairly accepting that it's gone for good.
Whatever happened to the thing called "honor"? You know: the concept that you are supposed to do what's right even when there's nobody around to see you doing it. Or does such a thing even matter anymore?
Geez, can you believe how naïve I sound now? I mean, I live in a county where school board members demonstrate to children that it's okay to steal things that don't belong to them. And that's the kind of example that's set all over this country, from small offices to the Oval Office. This sort of thing should not only be expected, it's practically a rule of modern life.
Losing my bicycle bothered me most of this past day. But I realized that there are worse things that could happen. There are people I know who are going through much worse than the loss of a $130 bicycle. A bicycle can always be replaced ... but there are some things in life that can't be.
My friend Johnny helped me remember that tonight on our way to see Transformers: my fourth time seeing it and his very first (he liked it a lot by the way :-).
As for whoever stole the original, I hope that they are happy with it. They probably think themselves as pretty smart for pulling it off, but that is most likely the limit of the satisfaction that they'll ever find in this world. People who steal things from other people like that not only lack honor, they lack conscience. I would even argue that they lack a full and complete soul. They'll probably never demonstrate that they can be fully what God intended them to be.
I'm going to get another bicycle: a better one, even. And I'll be using it as if nothing had happened with the first. I mean, it's just a bicycle: it's not like I'm going to go on some insane cross-country quest to the basement of the Alamo, is it?
First, the petition showing support for Steve Jablonsky's Transformers score has gone from 438 signatures on Monday afternoon, to 787 right now on Wednesday evening. I realize that some are saying that "online petitions don't work" but all the same, this is a pretty strong barometer of how much demand there is to see this album released.
The second bit of news is even more heartening. I sent an e-mail to Chandra Cogburn, who was one of the composers who worked on Transformers. I told her that the work she and the others did on this score was amazing and that there is a very large demand for an album of it. This is what Miss Cogburn said when she wrote back:
Hello Chris,This is also what Chris Barry was told this week when he also asked about a Transformers score.There will be an album of Transformers score coming out soon. I do not know the details, as I am not working on it. Thanks so much for appreciating the music, and all our hard work!
Best,
Chandra Cogburn
My gut feeling is that we are going to see this score released, and probably before the DVD of Transformers comes out around late fall. I can only assume that once the DVD is out that there will be an even larger demand for this score.
Anyway, there's the latest from the "give us that great Transformers score" front! Will report more as it happens.
