Salvation: (noun) That which can not be earned, can not be achieved, but nonetheless must be desired in order to acquire.Comments, as always, are more than welcome.
(Meh. Don't particularly care for that one just yet. I don't really see what the problem is with Flash, other than it won't work on iPhone and other mobile devices but that's an issue of Flash's interactivity colliding with touch-screens.)
Anyhoo, Neil McAllister has an in-depth essay about HTML 5 and what we can expect from it at the InfoWorld site. Well worth reading even if you're just a casual tinkerer with HTML.
The Crazies was a movie that wasn't quite what I was expecting, but was far better than I had anticipated. I haven't seen the 1973 original directed by George Romero (who also produced this remake) but from what I understand the premise is the same: a military cargo plane crashes near a small town and begins leaking something into the water supply. The "something" in question happens to be a virus engineered for biological warfare. Needless to say, this can't end well for the people of Ogden Marsh, Iowa. Usually decent-minded folks begin going mad with homicidal tendencies. And then like what usually happens in tales like this, the military comes in to mop-up the mess and try to contain the infection before it spreads out into the wider world.
I think what makes The Crazies stand out most to me in terms of modern-day cinematic retelling is that this is a film that doesn't use the opportunity to pour on the extra gory. Director Breck Eisner took the road less traveled and made The Crazies a story about survival against the odds, instead of focusing too much time on the nastier things that the virus is causing these people to do. I liked that. It's not something that is often seen in modern horror movies but I appreciated it greatly.
By the way, don't leave just yet as the movie ends. There's one more bit of The Crazies that plays during the credits that you won't wanna miss.
I mean, that's what we do here in the United States, ain't it?!
Seriously though: nice to see some fiscal sanity in this world. Maybe our Icelandic friends could consider exporting some of that here.
Mash down here for more of the story. Worth keeping an eye on as no doubt the European Community is going to be looking to retaliate against Iceland for its gumption.
Look, I'm not all that much of a sports fanatic, but something is seriously off-kilter in this state so far as basketball goes.
As one friend put it a few weeks ago, it's pretty sad when the best team in North Carolina right now is the Bobcats :-P
Allston, Stackpole and Zahn did a panel discussion for an hour and a half this morning that we got to attend, and Steven and I both came away very thankful and appreciative of what these three writers shared with everyone.
Okay Steven, feel free to put that pic on your blog. Or do something to update it, bro! :-P
Cartoonist Paul O'Connell has created this OUTRAGEOUSLY smart mash-up of animated felt and pagan ritual: a homage to both the Muppets and the classic 1973 horror movie The Wicker Man. I honked out loud with laughter at Kermit playing Sergeant Howie, but it's Gonzo taking Christopher Lee's place as Lord Summerisle that really fixes this spoof into your gray matter.
Click on the above link for more.
The Transportation Security Administration, and the Department of Homeland Security over it, claims that the images created by these machines are not stored in any way.
Does anybody possessing more than the minimum neurons for a working ganglia honestly believe anything that this asshat excuse for a government tells us anymore?
This is simply more "security theatre": measures that make it look like our government is sincerely doing something to deter "the terrists" but in reality is just a multi-billion dollar puppet show.
If the government was serious about both stopping terrorism and serving its people, domestic airports would adopt the tactics of those in Israel. I'm told by many people that the average time between arriving at the terminal at Ben Gurion International Airport and then coming to the gate for departure is around 15 to 25 minutes... with no shoes being removed and certainly no full-body scans! And Israel has a helluva lot fewer problems with airborne terrorism as a result (like, none at all).
What are the Israelis doing that we Americans aren't? From the moment a passenger arrives at the ticket counter onward, he or she is being observed by airport staff. That pretty lady behind the counter who's pleasantly asking you about your trip and your business? She's actually watching how you react to her questions. Israeli airport personnel are fully trained to watch for nervousness, hesitancy, and a lot of other indications that I could only speculate about. If there's enough reason to deem a person to be of interest as a potential threat, that person is discreetly taken aside and questioned without disrupting service to any other passengers.
It's a very simple system and it works brilliantly! And if the United States government had any sense it would adopt a similar plan for our own air travel.
I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for that to happen though. Nor do I plan on partaking in any air travel if it can at all be avoided.
But in the even that do have to travel by plane, I intend to purchase several packs of these things. Allegedly they're supposed to really work in defeating the peculiar wavelengths of the full-body scanners. So my scheme is to get several of them and assemble some makeshift undergarments that will not only shield me from the radiation of the scanners, but will also display the letters "F U" across what would otherwise be my bare behind.
Don't think that I wouldn't do it, either!
Here is Michael Emerson as prison counselor "Mr. Andrews". And I think you'll agree: even at this early stage in his career, we can see Ben Linus peeking out from behind those eyes of Emerson...
I'm sure that with some clever editing Mr. Higgins could be replaced with Michael screaming and ranting "WAAAAAAALT!!!" :-P
...no thanks to researchers conducting experiments with the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory.
According to this article at The Register (which reads disturbingly too much like a quantum physics essay written by Alex DeLarge from A Clockwork Orange) the "topflight international reverse-alchemy boffins say they have managed to transmute gold into an entirely new form of 'negatively strange' antihypernucleic antimatter, ultra-bizarre stuff which cannot possibly occur naturally - except perhaps inside the cores of collapsed stars."
In layman's terms it's a new form of matter whose strangeness is less than zero but probably not too boring.
I'm currently hopped-up on allergy medicine, and I still have no idea what the hell all of that means.
Well if you also appreciate Gaiman's work, you'll be pleased to know that according to his Twitter page, Neil Gaiman will be the focus of a segment this weekend on CBS Sunday Morning...
Looks like the CBS Sunday Morning profile of me goes out this Sunday. In the morning. Barring natural disasters or breaking news of course.Very cool! I'm a way longtime viewer of CBS Sunday Morning and have always enjoyed its stories and unique pace. Somehow, a feature on Neil Gaiman seems just perfect.
(By the way, have I ever told y'all that I can do a spot-on impersonation of late creator of CBS Sunday Morning Charles Kuralt? Maybe I should post that as a YouTube clip sometime :-)
CBS Sunday Morning comes on at 9 a.m. EST, but check yer local listings to be sure and set those DVRs!
The Meaning of Life Explained On the first day, God created the dog and said, "Sit all day by the door of your house and bark at anyone who comes in or walks past. For this, I will give you a life span of twenty years." The dog said, "That's a long time to be barking. How about only ten years and I'll give you back the other ten?" So God agreed...
On the second day, God created the monkey and said, "Entertain people, do tricks, and make them laugh. For this, I'll give you a twenty-year life span." The monkey said, "Monkey tricks for twenty years? That's a pretty long time to perform. How about I give you back ten like the dog did?" And God agreed...
On the third day, God created the cow and said, "You must go into the field with the farmer all day long and suffer under the sun, have calves and give milk to support the farmer's family. For this, I will give you a life span of sixty years." The cow said, "That's kind of a tough life you want me to live for sixty years. How about twenty and I'll give back the other forty?" And God agreed again...
On the fourth day, God created humans and said, "Eat, sleep, play, marry and enjoy your life. For this, I'll give you twenty years." But the human said, "Only twenty years? Could you possibly give me my twenty, the forty the cow gave back, the ten the monkey gave back, and the ten the dog gave back? That makes eighty, okay?"
"Okay," said God. "You asked for it."
So that is why for our first twenty years, we eat, sleep, play and enjoy ourselves. For the next forty years, we slave in the sun to support our family. For the next ten years, we do monkey tricks to entertain the grandchildren. And for the last ten years, we sit on the front porch and bark at everyone.
Life has now been explained to you.
The Honorable Representative Dr. Paul has been spotted wearing this tie quite often lately. And my good friend Danny de Garcia II has become obsessed with finding that particular necktie! As Danny puts it...
"There it is again. Notice how sharp his tie looks with the light blue, silver blue, blue pinstripe and white. I'm looking for that tie."So let's help Danny find Ron Paul's necktie, boys and girls!! If you know where to find this thing, e-mail me at theknightshift@gmail.com and I'll pass the info along to Danny A.S.A.P.!
Here's how Star Trek should have ended...
But did anyone else feel a little let down about the "answers" that had been promised all this past week for "Sundown"? What questions got answered? The one about Dogen's baseball? Or what the Man in Black is? Not really blown away in that department...
...but this was still a solid episode of Lost and the final moments were a heart-pounding ramp-up to... WHAT?!? I got the sense that payoff for the past five years is going to begin in earnest next week. Producers Cuse and Lindelof have no choice. This is near the top of the ninth inning. And they've been pulling white rabbits out of their hat for too long.
Now it's time for them to pull out an alligator.
I'll give "Sundown" a 9 out of 10.
