Darn you Steve Jobs!

Catch me anywhere out and about, and chances are I've got my iPod classic hanging on my belt. It's the first iPod I've ever owned, the model that came out two years ago with the 80 gigabyte hard drive. And yesterday was the annual press event where Apple rolls out the newest iPod models. I was expecting to not update to anything new until sometime next year, when I figured that flash storage will finally catch up to the capacity I demand that's currently only on hard drive. And that might happen then, since the latest iPod touch now maxes out at 64 gigs of flash memory (I'd way love to see at least that much on an iPod classic design).

Then I saw the 5th generation of iPod nano.

And I am now lusting for one terribly.

FM radio (with Live Pause - sorta like audio DVR - and iTunes Tagging). Built-in voice recording capability. And... a video camera with 376 x 240 resolution.

I could literally not run out of neat ideas to try with this gimmick. All of them legal, of course!

(I can see it now: some pervert using an iPod nano to discreetly "look up" the skirts of unsuspecting ladies. Or even more likely: a certain cult that this blog has been monitoring and chronicling for awhile now that is already ambushing and hurting innocent people with hidden video cameras.)

The 16 GB iPod nano is going for only $179. Not a bad deal at all! So I'll probably be heading to that new Apple Store in Greensboro sometime soon: second visit ever, but first with a purchase in mind.

Darn you Steve Jobs!! I was going to wait until next year to get a new iPod! And you had to make go and make it too better already! :-)

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A more realistic political spectrum

One of the people that in the long run has most influenced and impacted my political beliefs is, without a doubt, Matt Mittan: host of the extremely popular show Take A Stand! on the radio and streaming on the Internet every Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. I count myself as a very fortunate person for getting to work under Matt when he was the editor of The Asheville Tribune. And I'll never forget the first time I came into his office and he showed me what his weekly newsmagazine was all about...

"Most people think of the political spectrum like this," he said, drawing a horizontal line on a dry erase board and labeling the ends "liberal" and "conservative". "But that's wrong," Matt went on. "It's really like this!" And he then drew another line: this one going up and down, with the state/government at the top and the individual at the bottom.

"It's really about the state having the power versus the one person having the power." And Matt continued to talk about how at one far end there is totalitarianism and fascism, and at the other wild extreme there is total anarchy.

And that's when I realized, for the very first time in my life, that the whole "conservative and liberal" thing is a con job. It's a fraud, that regardless of which "party" is in control of Washington or the states its only real purpose is to give more and more power to government. I don't want a totalitarian state and neither do I desire a completely lawless land. But in between, Matt suggested, there can indeed be a "happy medium" that upholds personal liberty while avoiding reckless abandon.

That's never going to be a cut-and-dried thing. But ever since then I have come to still believe in it enough to pursue it, with whatever talents and devices I might ever have on hand. Matt opened my eyes wider than he ever knew that day, and I've been praying since that others might come to realize it as well on their own.

Maybe that's starting to finally happen. David G. Muller Jr. has written an article for American Thinker called Rethinking the Political Spectrum, in which he also argues that the traditional "conservative versus liberal" paradigm is outdated and horribly flawed. And while he doesn't abandon the "left/right" model, Muller's model is quite similar to what Matt Mittan showed me in 2000...

Personally, I think this is a much greater and more accurate take on modern politics. It squarely places both liberalism and conservatism as less free mindsets than libertarianism: a school of thought which is enjoying considerable growth even if the party bearing its name has not of late. However, I would extend this range a bit further to the right and put "anarchy" on that fringe. In my mind, that is the ideal: personal liberty that stops short of all-out chaos. "Voluntary order", as V puts it in the graphic novel V for Vendetta.

Regardless of minor details, this is still a much better portrait of political reality than is the tired and obsolete version that most of our politicians and media and too many businesses (and more than a few religious folks) expect us to buy into.

But then: most of them have a vested interest in keeping the status quo going, aye?

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Motivation: A requisite for useful artificial intelligence?

Edward Boyden has a fascinating essay at MIT's Technology Review website in which he describes a problem that could possibly arise from super-smart artificial intelligence. The problem, Boyden notes, is motivation: even with all of that intelligence and computational, how does a possibly sentient computer become moved to utilize that power?

Indeed, a really advanced intelligence, improperly motivated, might realize the impermanence of all things, calculate that the sun will burn out in a few billion years, and decide to play video games for the remainder of its existence, concluding that inventing an even smarter machine is pointless. (A corollary of this thinking might explain why we haven't found extraterrestrial life yet: intelligences on the cusp of achieving interstellar travel might be prone to thinking that with the galaxies boiling away in just 1019 years, it might be better just to stay home and watch TV.) Thus, if one is trying to build an intelligent machine capable of devising more intelligent machines, it is important to find a way to build in not only motivation, but motivation amplification--the continued desire to build in self-sustaining motivation, as intelligence amplifies. If such motivation is to be possessed by future generations of intelligence--meta-motivation, as it were--then it's important to discover these principles now.

A second possibility that Boyden theorizes is that a strong AI might simply become overwhelmed by its own decision-making process and become locked-up from contemplating factors and uncertainties (which sounds a lot like the "rampancy" that eventually afflicts AIs in the Halo franchise).

It's a very deep and most intriguing read about what may or may not be waiting for us around the corner from the realm of computers and neuroscience. Click here and partake of the article... if you think your brains can handle it :-)

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Quinton "Rampage" Jackson will be B.A. Baracus in THE A-TEAM movie

For as long as there's been talk of a big-budget movie adaptation of The A-Team, there has been just as much if not more speculation about who it will be taking on the iconic role of B.A. Baracus: the character that shot Mr. T to worldwide fame and acclaim.

And now we know...

Former UFC light heavyweight champion Quinton "Rampage" Jackson will don the mohawk and gold chains and become B.A. Baracus in the film based on the Eighties television action/drama/comedy series. Jackson joins Liam Neeson (playing "Hannibal" Smith) and Bradley Cooper (as "Faceman" Peck). Casting is still being done for Murdoch.

Okay, so... what do y'all think? Jackson looks like he might could carry it. But this is one role that calls for attitude. As in BAD ATTITUDE!

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THE BEATLES: ROCK BAND launches today

Today finally sees the release of the much-anticipated The Beatles: Rock Band from Harmonix and MTV Games. The latest installment in the popular Rock Band music game series lets you and up to three friends re-live the career of the Fab Four from Liverpool right in your living room!

I don't have the game yet (it's available for all three major consoles) although I am looking forward to getting it at some point. However, for those of you who have bought it already, I've been wondering about something ever since this game was first announced...

Does The Beatles: Rock Band let you play the "John has a girlfriend" concert? Does a digital avatar of Yoko appear onscreen and break up the band all over again? Will your game data get erased when the Beatles go their separate ways?

(Probably not, but that would be so funny if it did :-)

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Study finds men lose minds around beautiful women

Maybe this should be filed in D for "Duh!": a new scientific study has confirmed that the mental capabilities of men drop precipitously in the presence of a pretty woman.

The research shows men who spend even a few minutes in the company of an attractive woman perform less well in tests designed to measure brain function than those who chat to someone they do not find attractive.

Researchers who carried out the study, published in the Journal of Experimental and Social Psychology, think the reason may be that men use up so much of their brain function or 'cognitive resources' trying to impress beautiful women, they have little left for other tasks.

The findings have implications for the performance of men who flirt with women in the workplace, or even exam results in mixed-sex schools.

Women, however, were not affected by chatting to a handsome man.

This may be simply because men are programmed by evolution to think more about mating opportunities.

I think there might be something to this. F'rinstance, if I were to post a photo of Rita Hayworth...

...then the odds are high that useful work among most males looking at this blog at this moment would probably drop by 50% if not more :-P

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It's the trailer for the remake of PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE

It was inevitable: a remake of Ed Wood's masterpiece Plan 9 from Outer Space. Here's the just-released trailer for Plan 9...

And here's the official website for the movie.

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The United States Federal Government: Worse than useless

In this afternoon's mail I received some correspondence from the federal government. It was a follow-up to something I had mailed to it previously.

Said original mailing being early last November.

It's early September now. Ten months.

And we're supposed to believe this same bunch of bureaucrats should be trusted to run our health care?

Feh!

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Crooks clean out Apple Store... in 31 seconds!

Last Wednesday the Apple Store in Marlton, New Jersey was heisted by five men who shattered the plate glass windows at 2:05 in the morning and proceeded to rob the place. The truly astonishing thing is how fast they did it: they ran off with all the iPods, iPhones and MacBooks in 31 seconds.

Here's the surveillance footage. It's like Ocean's 11 with a NASCAR pit crew...

Read more about the caper here.

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"Jerry Lewis as a clown in a Nazi concentration camp!"

Ahhh, Labor Day. The holiday consecrated to the common working stiff. The traditional end of another summer. The start of the final stretch of the year. And as most people know it's also the occasion of the annual Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon for the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

Two things I'm compelled to say from the getgo: first, Jerry Lewis is one of the all-time greatest performers of stage and screen. And second, the Muscular Dystrophy Association is one of the finest charitable groups in the land. All of the money that's raised locally remains local and helps people in your own area. MDA has some of the least overhead of any organization of its kind. I've had a number of friends over the years that MDA has been there for, and has allowed them to know opportunities that they otherwise might never have enjoyed. So if you've some coin to spare, I'd like to urge y'all to donate to the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

Okay well with that said, let me take advantage of this Labor Day to enlighten you, Dear Reader, of an aspect of Jerry Lewis' career that you might have never known... until now. Because for good or ill that's the sort of thing we do here at The Knight Shift.

I had thought myself fairly well educated on the subject of the Holocaust in cinema. And my breadth of knowledge has not only covered Schindler's List, Europa Europa and the like but also the very real propaganda films of the Nazi government. I have seen Triumph of the Will. And I have also seen Jud Süß ("Jew Suss"): one of the most evil things ever committed to film. Along with very nearly every other movie and documentary pertaining to the Holocaust.

But it wasn't until about two and a half years ago that I first heard about The Day the Clown Cried.

It is a film that you have never seen and probably never will (unless you happen to be Jerry Lewis himself or one of those among his closest circle of friends and associates). The past few years has brought word that legendary "lost" movies like London After Midnight and the original cut of Metropolis may have been re-discovered and could soon see the flicker of light once again.

But that is not likely to be the fate of The Day the Clown Cried. Produced in 1972 and since mired in international litigation regarding ownership issues, it will perhaps forevermore remain the most legendary movie never seen by a public audience.

Maybe it's for the best. I'll let you be the judge. So what's The Day the Clown Cried a movie about?

It's the synopsis that I'll never forget as long as I live: "Jerry Lewis as a clown in a Nazi concentration camp!"

(Feel free to clean the coffee or Coca-Cola or tea from your screen after reading that.)

The Day the Clown Cried is about a washed-up circus clown named Helmut Dork (I swear, this is not a joke people) living in Germany at the height of the Nazi regime. One night while drunk in a bar he begins railing aloud against Hitler and the Nazis, and Dork is promptly arrested by the Gestapo. Poor Dork spends the next few years languishing in a camp for political prisoners, until he winds up making some Jewish children laugh with his antics. The prison commandant eventually puts Dork to work loading children onto train cars headed out of the camp. And then one day Dork accidentally gets locked inside one such car headed to Auschwitz. Upon his arrival Dork is employed by the Nazis as a "Judas goat"/"Pied Piper": entertaining the Jewish children even as he leads them straight into the gas chamber. At the end of the movie, overwhelmed with guilt and grief, Dork accompanies a group of children into the chamber and does his best to make them laugh. Their final moments are as happy as could be expected, before the Zyklon B lulls them into quiet death.

(Again, I swear, I am not making any of this up.)

This was supposed to have been Lewis' first "serious" movie. The script was first written by Joan O'Brien and Charles Denton in the early 1960s. Lewis was approached with the project and initially turned it down, believing it was beyond his abilities: "My bag is comedy... and you're asking me if I'm prepared to deliver helpless kids into a gas chamber? Ho-ho. Some laugh... how do I pull it off?"

In the end Lewis fully committed himself to the production, winding up not only portraying Helmut Dork (as Jerry Lew-ish a character name as there's ever been) but also directing the film and co-writing the script. And then just before filming wrapped the money ran out and a very vicious fight over ownership arose (turns out that Lewis hadn't fully secured the rights to produce The Day the Clown Cried in the first place). And so it is that the movie has been tied in up legal limbo for almost forty years.

As for how good a movie The Day the Clown Cried is supposed to be, there is obviously little to go on since so few have seen it. One of them is Lewis' friend and fellow comedian Harry Shearer, who watched a cut of it in 1979. As Shearer put it...

"With most of these kinds of things, you find that the anticipation, or the concept, is better than the thing itself. But seeing this film was really awe-inspiring, in that you are rarely in the presence of a perfect object. This was a perfect object. This movie is so drastically wrong, its pathos and its comedy are so wildly misplaced, that you could not, in your fantasy of what it might be like, improve on what it really is. "Oh My God!" — that's all you can say."

But of course, as with such things, there is no dearth of information to be found about it on the Internet. So if you are interested in learning more about The Day the Clown Cried I would recommend checking out Subterranean Cinema's VERY thorough collection of resources about the film (including an exhaustively researched article from Spy Magazine in 1992), as well as FilmBuffOnline's review of the script (which can be found quite easily across the Intertubes).

Personally, having read the script: I don't see how The Day the Clown Cried would have been anything but a box office calamity. The screenplay is a very tired and tedious read, and the best editing isn't apt to salvage an outstanding product from the material. It's all just... irredeemably... wrong.

But in spite of how taken aback and even a bit horrified I was after reading this, I do also believe that there might be a unique place for The Day the Clown Cried in the chronicles of cinema. Having been produced barely a quarter-century after the Holocaust, it's very obvious from the script that the arts and entertainment industry was still struggling to understand how to approach this most delicate of subjects. It would be several more years - many would say that 1978's television miniseries Holocaust began the trend - before Hollywood would start to fully grasp with sensitivity the scope of the Shoah.

All films should be judged according to the period in which they were produced. So it is that for all the problems apparent with it, The Day the Clown Cried... regardless of lack of release... deserves to endure as a noteworthy entry in Holocaust literature and cinema. As much as for how not to make such a film as it is a benchmark of artistic courage to have even considered producing it at all.

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INSANELY incredible HALO 3: ODST live-action commecial!

This is the closest I've ever seen anything to a bona-fide Halo movie. It's not only live-action, but... tonally this is just hitting on all the right cylinders.

Halo 3: ODST continues the legend on September 22nd.

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The promise of Matthew 7 (Or: Why Christians shouldn't condemn atheists and agnostics)

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened."

-- Matthew 7:7-8 (NIV)

I've never shared much on this blog about how I came to be a follower of Christ. Lately I've wondered if perhaps it's time to elucidate a bit on how I arrived at that, now nearly thirteen years ago. Which in looking back, really does seem like the starting point of not just a phase in my life, but the beginning of true life itself. Perhaps you've heard the saying "Don't forget in the darkness what you've learned in the light." In retrospect there has been more darkness than light in my own time on Earth and considerably greater periods in the valley than on the mountaintop since I became a Christian.

And yet, the good times and people and opportunities, and most of all the veritable growth that I've experienced since first turning to Him in 1996 have served to encourage me, to uplift me, and to ever remind me that in defiance of all that this temporal realm insists is reality: the thing WORKS!

But how did I come to that place to begin with?

It was the culmination of a very long and difficult process, that at times I found myself confessing to be anything from a hardcore atheist, to a questioning agnostic, to what I found out later was a deist, and ultimately to believing in a personal God yet also holding myself as one who could never be reconciled with Him.

And then I wound up going to college at Elon, where God put some of the most amazing people that I've ever met into my life. I made so many new friends there who had this light in their eyes and in their lives, this sheer joy that to this day I can't describe how magnificent it was to see, to really see that, for the first time. And it wasn't long before I admitted to myself that I wanted to have that same joy in my own life. So now today I am a Christian... or as I much more prefer to be known, as a follower of Christ.

But even so, I do not now regret or feel ashamed at that long period in which I could not find faith in God at all. And neither can I think any less of those who do consider themselves to be agnostic or atheist.

(There's a marked difference however between atheism and "Big-A Atheism", but that's a topic for another day...)

In retrospect, I see now that even though I may have not been a "Christian" as most people understand it, that despite lacking a singular "salvation experience" that many Christians insist upon, I was yet already on the path that would take me there... and I cannot help but believe that God was going to see me through to it.

Why? Because Jesus promised as much in Matthew 7 when He taught us that "Ask... seek and you will find." He didn't say "you might find it". He said "you WILL find"! I was already searching out the truth, whatever that was going to irrevocably be. And in His own time, Christ led me to the discovery that He was the Truth. So He will do... and does do... for all who seek Him whether they realize it or not.

What does this mean for those of us who have at last found the Truth? I believe that even though "our quest is at an end!" (to quote from Monty Python and the Holy Grail) that our seeking for Christ yields to that which will never be completed in our time on this world: a seeking after Christ. Finding Christ is just the beginning. From then on in this life there comes the ongoing process of sanctification. We are not perfect in our time in this world and we're not meant to be perfect here either. But it is in our failings that His grace is made manifest as a testimony of Christ to those who are yet seeking for Him...

And trust me: there are many more people than we as Christians realize, who are looking for that Truth in one way or another. Maybe not to our own satisfaction... but God knows who they are, and He will not forsake them for their earnest seeking of Him.

All the more reason then for those of us who have found Him to abandon the pretense that merely finding Christ is the "be all and end all" of our spiritual growth. It's one of the saddest things I can think of when a person boasts of his or her own salvation and then sneers at the merest thought of having a life of change and growth - more painful than we often admit, it must be noted - that won't stop until their dying breath.

What's wrong with that though? We who claim to have found Christ and then deny Him so much opportunity to work in our lives and our hearts and our minds. There should be no shame in acknowledging that we have fallen but that He Who is within us has yet overcome.

That is not just a denial of Christ. That is a denial of the very Truth that we allegedly had been seeking out in the first place!

And if those around us are still seeking after Truth cannot see that we have faith in that Truth, then we have made their search only that much harder. Again, I don't doubt that God recognizes those who are looking for Him and that He will lead them to Him in His timing... but all too often we certainly don't make it any easier for Him.

And then there are those of us professing Christ who hasten to damn those who not only haven't found God on "our" terms already but seem to insist to one degree or another that they can't accept His being there at all.

Let me share something that some of y'all might find downright shocking: it is not a sin to be an agnostic. I don't know if it can even be said that it's a sin to be an atheist. And in my experience there is a huge difference between a person who humbly cannot believe in God and that person who harbors bitterness and hatred toward the very idea of God (but again, that's something for another post).

What else can I say? I know what I'm talking about because I've been there. And in hindsight my own atheism and agnosticism were just the first steps toward my eventual discovery of Christ.

Is there anything wrong with that? Is there anything inherently wrong with anyone who cannot help but find himself as an agnostic, provided he is yearning to see and seek the truth of the matter? Because truth is adamant and absolute. And for those of us in Christ already we should understand: He is Truth. We should put a lot more faith in Him in that regard... and we should have more faith in our fellows that they also can find that Truth. But it will be to God's credit and not ours that they find it.

Am I suggesting that the way to salvation is broad and wide open and that "anything goes"? Not at all. I am openly positing however that for those who desire salvation for the right reasons, that they will seek for it and that God will be faithful to bring them at last to Christ, for His sake and not that of any man, and that as always we have a choice to follow Him. Just as we who have chosen Him already have a lifetime of choice... which thankfully He will gladly forgive us for when we err and choose wrong.

So to my fellow believers in Christ who may be all too quick to condemn they who are deemed "agnostic" or "atheist": please, don't.

Because none of us have any real inkling at all about what the other person is going through in this life, and the search that he or she is likely on for the truth and the Truth.

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

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STAR WARS: KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC now available on Steam

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, LucasArts and BioWare's 2003 role-playing game, has just become available for purchase on Steam. For $9.99 you can download and play what many deem is not only the greatest Star Wars game ever, but has been wildly praised as one of the finest computer games of all time.

Set four thousand years before the rise of the Empire in the film series, Knights of the Old Republic depicts a "more civilized age" for the galaxy. Unfortunately a Sith Lord named Darth Malak is leading a vast army of Sith against the Republic and especially any Jedi that happen to get in the way of his conquest. The game begins with the player's character waking up on a Republic ship that has fallen under attack by the Sith. And what happens from that moment on is entirely up to you: the choices you make during the game affects pretty much everything else that follows afterward, right up to which ending you get. Play the straight and narrow and you'll wind up a hero of the Republic, while yielding to temptation will lead to the Dark Side and all the power and glory and pleasures befitting the fallen.

Long story short: it's a very good game that's more than worth the purchase price. And hopefully LucasArts will also have Knights of the Old Republic II for sale on Steam sooner than later. So what are you waiting for? Buy it today, ya meatbags!

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Rockingham County getz a Sheetz!

Sheetz opened its first (and hopefully not last) location in Rockingham County this past week, located in Eden at Van Buren Road and Stadium Drive (it's right next door to King's Inn Pizza for those of y'all familiar with local geography). I paid my first visit to the new place today and was delighted to get another of their scrumptious Italian sandwiches. Up 'til now I've had to go to Greensboro or High Point for the nearest Sheetz. Now there's one just 20 minutes away! And like all the other Sheetz stores it's open 24 hours, 365 days a year.

So since this is about Sheetz, like the other two times I've posted on this blog about this company here's that "Feel The Love" commercial that's been running all summer...

And then there's this other commercial from a few years ago for the chain, that shamelessly apes televangelism...

Anyhoo, if you're in the area there's a new place for great food whenever you get the munchies. Check 'em out!

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Chess grandmaster loses match after passing out drunk

Vladislav Tkachiev, a leading French chess grandmaster, was scheduled to play Praveen Kumar in Kolkata, India. But unfortunately Tkachiev turned up at the match, as they say in French, "pees droonk".

He was so intoxicated that he could barely sit in his chair and soon fell asleep after only 11 moves.

His inebriated state cost Tkachiev the match after tournament officials decided he was in no condition to play and after Tkachiev had run afoul of the hour and thirty minutes time limit.

(Maybe Tkachiev should consider taking up chess boxing instead? :-)

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LEGO sets of Dune and Tron

Today GeekTyrant shares some pics of a homemade Tron LEGO set...

And yesterday the site showcased the stunning work of some folks who took LEGO and rendered some classic images from the Dune saga...

I'm now tempted to break out my own LEGOs and see if I can build Leto II or a Guild Navigator :-)

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Fire chief shot by angry cops... inside courtroom!

If you're traveling through Arkansas anytime soon, you might wanna detour around the little burg of Jericho. The town of 174 residents has a government run amok: Jericho has a budget crisis and its police officers are spending darn nearly all of their time writing out traffic citations. Some citizens are complaining that the cops are so obsessed with writing tickets that it's become almost impossible to get police help for more serious matters.

Now comes word that the fire chief of the town has been shot at by Jericho police officers when he got into an argument with them about their out-of-control ticketing practices. Don Payne had to go to court twice in one day, and it was during his second trip that the altercation took place and Payne took a bullet to the hip.

Oh yeah, this was in the middle of the courtroom.

And according to the story, the town's prosecutor doesn't plan to file felony charges against the officer. Payne however might face a misdemeanor charge for the fracas (what the...?!). No word at all on whether the cop who shot him will be punished in any way whatsoever.

(Anyone else thinking that the "internal investigation" will come back and say that this cop did nothing wrong?)

Meanwhile, Jericho's police force has been disbanded for the time being and a judge has voided all the outstanding traffic tickets until the town's mess gets straightened out.

Considering that so many towns across the country are now short on cash, I wonder how many more times we'll be hearing about stories like this...

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How did we ever get by?

A friend of mine named Jason French had this to say on Facebok...

"Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn't work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards or FAQ's. We just figured it out."

I remember my Nintendo Entertainment system, and after a couple years' use something messed up inside that kept the cartridges' contacts from meeting those of the console when you pushed it down. I put in some cartridges and noticed that after inserting them fully they were coming back up very slightly. Just enough, I figured, to keep the console and cartridge from connecting with each other.

So I took some springy wire from a spiral notebook, and duct-taped the ends of it to the console cover and the cartridge-holding thingy. It provided the needed pressure to get the game's contacts touching those of the console. And I never had anything go wrong with it again.

It was a problem that I took some pride in figuring out on my own, by observation and deduction. Could kids today figure it out as well? I've no doubt that they can, but they'd probably run to Google first for a quick fix. Not quite as satisfying as conjuring it up with your own gray matter :-)

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New trailer for THE ROAD

About a month and a half ago I read The Road by Cormac McArthy (who also wrote No Country for Old Men). The Road was easily one of the most engaging, empathetic and sympathetic works of literature that I have read in quite a long time. The film version opens on October 16th and stars Charlize Theron, Viggo Mortenson, Garret Dillahunt, Guy Pearce and Robert Duvall.

Here's the latest trailer for The Road...

There are five more clips from The Road up The Movie Rambler.

And if you haven't read it already, I cannot say enough how good a novel The Road is. You should be able to find it at most bookstores, on Amazon.com 'course and maybe even at your local "big box" store.

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The thus-unheralded virtues of the sci-fi corridor

Martin Anderson at Den of Geek has written an essay about the corridor in science fiction, praising it as an effective tool for establishing setting, emotion and plot. Such an overlooked design and yet as Anderson notes, the sci-fi corridor has become as inspiring as it is ubiquitous. Quite a good lil' read :-)

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THE ESSENTIAL "WEIRD AL" YANKOVIC on October 27th!

This isn't the cover of the CD set. Just something I came across awhiles back that seemed appropriate for the occasion :-)

"Weird Al" Yankovic just announced on his blog (yes Al has a blog now, in addition to his website, his Twitter account and his YouTube channel and his Facebook page... quite a technophile this guy is) that The Essential "Weird Al" Yankovic will hit the streets and online retailers on October 27th.

What is The Essential "Weird Al" Yankovic? Two glorious CDs (yes: actual physical media!) of choice goodness from Weird Al's first twelve studio albums. Check out this track listing!

DISC 1
1. "Another One Rides The Bus"
2. "Polkas On 45"
3. "Eat It"
4. "I Lost On Jeopardy"
5. "Yoda"
6. "One More Minute"
7. "Like A Surgeon"
8. "Dare To Be Stupid"
9. "Dog Eat Dog"
10. "Lasagna"
11. "Melanie"
12. "Fat"
13. "UHF" (single version)
14. "The Biggest Ball Of Twine In Minnesota"
15. "Trigger Happy"
16. "Smells Like Nirvana"
17. "You Don't Love Me Anymore"
18. "Bedrock Anthem"
19. "Frank's 2000" TV"
20. "Jurassic Park"

DISC 2
1. "Since You've Been Gone"
2. "Amish Paradise"
3. "Gump"
4. "Everything You Know Is Wrong"
5. "The Night Santa Went Crazy" (extra gory version)
6. "Your Horoscope For Today"
7. "It's All About The Pentiums"
8. "The Saga Begins"
9. "Albuquerque"
10. "eBay"
11. "Bob"
12. "Hardware Store"
13. "I'll Sue Ya"
14. "Canadian Idiot"
15. "Pancreas"
16. "Don't Download This Song"
17. "White & Nerdy"
18. "Trapped In The Drive-Thru"

All of that Al goodness for only $15.98! And I must say, this is quite a smart assortment from across Weird Al's career: both parodies and originals (and there's even the extra gory version of "The Night Santa Went Crazy"!). If you've yet to discover the musical genius of "Weird Al" Yankovic (where the heck have you been?!) then this set is going to be a very good starting-off point. And if you're a longtime fan like me, well you and I are gonna buy this anyway... right?!?

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STAR WARS: THE ESSENTIAL ATLAS an achievement in fantasy cartography

Years ago I bought a copy of The Atlas of Middle-Earth, Karen Wynn Fonstad's classic and exhaustively-researched tome dedicated to the geography of J.R.R. Tolkien's legendarium. More than a decade and a half later it remains one of the favorite pieces of my fantasy/science fiction library. And almost immediately afterward I began thinking that the Star Wars saga needed some cartographic love too.

There have been a number of attempts - both official and fan-driven - over the years to accomplish such a task, and now Daniel Wallace and Jason Fry have produced what is by far the definitive volume of maps from that galaxy far, far away.

Star Wars: The Essential Atlas (LucasBooks) is a whopping 256 pages packed with full-color maps, illustrations, diagrams and loads of fluff from the entire thirty-plus decades of Star Wars storytelling. I bought my copy a few days ago and since then I've spent quite a bit of time enjoying the overwhelming sense of place and history that Wallace and Fry have captured and conveyed from George Lucas' beloved space opera. All the eras that have been chronicled so far of Star Wars lore are covered: from the pre-Republic days and the founding of the Jedi Order, to the tumultuous millennia wracked by the Sith, on through the fall of the Republic and the rise of the Empire... and beyond. I caught a few minor errors in the book, but nothing substantially wrong. But then, I can only imagine that the biggest of Star Wars geeks (like me :-) would have caught them, they're so tiny. Indeed: a work as grand in scope as Star Wars: The Essential Atlas would normally contain many more and even bigger mistakes. As it is, the book stands tall as both a testament to Wallace and Fry's outstanding work, and the spirit of both Star Wars and its devotees in general.

There seems to be a good upswing lately so far as Star Wars literature goes. Star Wars: The Essential Atlas is certainly one of its finest, and well worth investing some coin toward if you're at all a fan of the saga. It definitely should not be missed from your Star Wars bookshelf.

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Les Misérables: Woman steals 12-pack of beer between her legs

What a year for weird crime. Back in February it was a robber armed with a Klingon sword holding up 7-Elevens in Denver. But the story out of Zachary, Louisiana is even more bizarre...

Lisa Newsome (shown in the surveillance camera still on the right) has been arrested for theft. The crime she has confessed to police: stealing a 12-pack case of Miller Lite beer from Crossroads Grocery and attempting to leave the store with it... by carrying the beer between her legs and hidden under her oversized house coat!

If you look carefully at the photo you can clearly see the crate of Miller Lite protruding from... well, under her attire.

Police in Zachary are reporting that Newsome "attempted to show us how she did it, but we told her not to pull her pants down."

I wonder how far she got walking away with that thing?

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New Nigerian scam: "Finance my movie!"

This just landed in my e-mail and it's too hilarious not to share. Those pesky Nigerian scammers are definitely trying a new tactic!

(I've made some edits on the profanity and the phone number at the end, which according to the country code is based in Nigeria.)

RANKLE Jones The Golfer "Film Production"

Dear Sir,
I have a full length tragedy movie script title: RANKLE Jones The Golfer. It is a new idea, full of suspense and thrill. I need a production company and financial investment into this movie production as it will make a block buster.
Jones enjoys golf playing, hoping to be a professional golfer like Tiger Woods. Professional golfers play in golf field, ours play at home. No f***ing son of a b**ch will accept correction. The pride of what is yet to be is a destroyer. Jones: Everyone in life have a dream and aspiration to fulfill, so I am too. My life, my all will go to a sport I love and cherish most. Golf is my dream game, a sport I love. Let’s go golfing.
Rudolf drug life flashes of wealth caught Jones napping as he was convinced to take part in one of the most bloody drug cartel deal.
Shelly is a desire of every men but her stinking lifestyle of prostitution can’t let her settle for a man.
Jones fought Elvis in the night club all because of a fames sex machine Shelly with Rudolf, Alex and others watch with no one allow to separate until someone quit for the other.
There are a lot of happenings at the night club.
Gangsters and Police combat force.
Why is Jeff called the master by Rudolf, Elvis, Jimmy and others?
It is traumatic to live with nutty breed of human, all in the name of family-hood. Traumatic experiences of Ray of hatred, alienation by all his family members, his emotional disgust and good moral negligence on the part of his parent on the family.
His erratic brother Jones gave him a blood bath, living his life-less body after which he was in oblivious state. Ray is cast away and also an object of mimic.
Hilda gave Ray a taste of love life which has been missing for years. I love you mum because you hate me. Cassandra my sister is no different from my mum Vera. Ray’s love life with Hilda left nothing to be admiring as it is an ocean of perfect love for both of them.
Jones finally golfed out daddy’s ''Kenny'' breath, as he was left to his pool of blood. Jones life turns sour of no savvy as he committed suicide. Those that bury mines indiscriminately will one day fall victim to mine explosion.
There are golf scenes, fist fighting, snake scenes, club scenes, sex scenes, drug scenes, Police shoot out, gangster, hovercraft, Apache helicopters and Belgian attack dogs.
The script is over 120 pages.
This production has good advert spaces that will be integrated into the movie without it interfering, as the production is purely commercial. This is a viable promotional vehicle to boost your products and services across the globe considering the much success this movie will achieve.
Thanks for finding time to read through. Only get back to me if you are ready for us to proceed with this viable movie production.
Best Regards.
PRODUCER
Onyema Emmanuel.
+234**********

If this is meant to be parody, it's brilliantly written. And if it's legit well... maybe we should forward it to Hollywood? :-P

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Way wrong Christianity: Pastor prays for Obama's death

Maybe you've heard already about Pastor Steven Anderson of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona. He's the nutcase (I'm choosing my words carefully dear readers) who has made headlines with his public sermon calling for God to smite President Barack Obama with brain cancer "so he can die like Ted Kennedy".

And then Anderson told his congregation this...

"I'm gonna pray that he (Obama) dies and goes to hell when I go to bed tonight. That's what I'm gonna pray."

(By the way, it's now being reported that Anderson has been visited by the Secret Service, parse that as you will.)

I know that Steven Anderson doesn't represent the vast majority of Christians in America. Just as I know that media sensationalism is likely to spin him as something more than what he really is... which in my opinion is just a petty thug who believes God has given him a mandate of hate.

But even so, I will be the first to admit that for too many Christians in this country, there is a very unhealthy and even un-biblical obsession with worldly politics.

Longtime readers of this blog know that I don't think much of what Barack Obama has done as President. And a lot of you know that I hold and still contend that George W. Bush was the worst President in American history (so far anyway).

Have either of these two meant anything to me - either negative or positive - as a follower of Christ? Not in the slightest.

Oh, I'll pray for Obama, just as I did for Bush, and just as I did for Clinton before them. But those prayers aren't significantly more or less than my prayers for anyone else in this country and in this world.

Because for good or ill, the office of President and every other institution of government is part of a world that we may have to live with, but as Christians we aren't meant to be living for. Those of us who follow Christ have been sent out into this realm as ambassadors for His kingdom, not to wage bitter battle for a carnal realm that is consigned to ultimate fire.

And then someone like Steven Anderson comes along, who demonstrates that obsession to the degree that he is willing to pray for Obama's death and damnation as opposed to Obama's salvation.

What does that speak of Christians and the faith we profess to have in God? Honestly, it's like Anderson doesn't have faith that God is capable of anything at all.

I know of too many Christians who rejoiced wrongly when Bush was President, and lament with equal or greater wrath about Obama being in the Oval Office. But in truth, it's not either of these men that have created or destroyed anything that might remain of virtue in America.

That is something that inevitably is the product of her people. And if the Christians of this land are incapable or unwilling to show forth the Christ that calls us to "love one another" and to pray for our enemies, then it is only ourselves as Christians whom God will hold accountable for the condition of this nation.

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World War II began 70 years ago today

Early on the morning of September 1st, 1939, a squadron of Nazi German Luftwaffe attacked the Polish town of Wieluń. More than twelve hundred people were killed. Minutes later a German battleship opened fire on the military depot at Danzig. In the hours that followed dozens of motorized German divisions stormed into Poland along three fronts.

World War II had begun.

Nothing more to say here, other than to remember history... and a prayer that we may be mindful of lessons that are all too often only paid for at the highest of cost.

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Disney to buy Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion

Click on over to ComingSoon.net for the story that I thought had to have been a joke when I first heard about it this morning.

But it's true: Disney is purchasing Marvel Entertainment and everything that comes with it - comics, characters, movies, the whole shebang - for $4 billion in cash and stock transaction.

All that I can think of at the moment is that this will probably become the entertainment industry's equivalent to Ted Turner's Time Warner purchasing of America Online.

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V declares Vendetta for Johnny Robertson!

Look folks: honestly, that isn't MY blog at all! And I have no idea whatsoever who it might be who created it. Heck, lately I haven't had much time to devote to this one, much less start and maintain a new one. Especially one as slick and polished and inspired as what I'm about to show you.

But that doesn't mean that I'm not flat-out stunned at whoever it is out there who has assumed the guise of V and decided to take on Johnny Robertson...

Vendetta For Johnny Robertson popped up out of nowhere this morning and a reader passed it along to me. Yes folks, V - the masked protagonist from V for Vendetta - has arrived on the streets of Martinsville, Danville and Reidsville to take on the cult leader/convicted felon who has been trying to "defeat destroy" in the name of God everyone he hates...

Johnny Roberston a "pastor" residing and terrifying the WGSR viewing area. His supposed Church of Christ in Martinsville Va., the only ones not damned to hell.

Spewing vitriol at his enemies and any and all who disagree; in this vast sea of hate is where we find dear lost Johnny.

Here and now is the victory. A vying of his virtues, our dear lost Johnny.

Judgment shall ran down upon he, and a judgment ruled impartially.

The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V.

By the way, whoever this "V" is, he/she/it went to the expense of registering a top-level domain name for the site: head on over to vendettaforjr.com to see more of Vendetta For Johnny Robertson.

"People should not be afraid of Johnny Robertson." Darn right! :-)

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Ancient musical instruments getting resurrected

Scientific Blogging has an intriguing story up about how one group of scientists is working to reproduce musical instruments that had previously been lost to antiquity... along with the the unique sounds that they produced. One such instrument is the barbiton (right), an early type of bass guitar.

Do you long to hear the dulcet sounds of the salpinx, barbiton, aulos or the syrinx? Of course not, because no one has heard them in centuries. Most people have never even heard of them.

But you will soon have the chance to experience musical instruments familiar to ancient civilizations but long since forgotten.

Ancient instruments probably got lost because they were too difficult to build or too difficult to play. The ASTRA (Ancient instruments Sound/Timbre Reconstruction Application) team is tasked with bringing them back to life and already have successfully reconstructed the sound of an earlier instrument called the 'epigonion'.

The team has been so successful at reconstructing these instruments that they plan to have a concert with their own "Lost Sounds Orchestra" later this summer.

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Another hilarious DILBERT strip

Methinks that Scott Adams is veering perilously close to real life in today's Dilbert cartoon...

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A shot across the bow

To a certain few reading this blog...

"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."

-- Ephesians 6:12

I don't have to win. I only have to fight.

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Meet "The Dude Who Took Down Viacom" at SPARKcon in Raleigh!

That commercial is going to haunt me for the rest of my life, isn't it? :-P

SPARKcon is a grassroots-organized four-day festival in Raleigh celebrating individual creativity around the Triangle area and throughout North Carolina. This will be the fourth annual event and this year SPARKcon will be held September 17-20. And I've been invited to speak that Friday night about the very crazy situation that happened between Yours Truly and Viacom two years ago.

Look! Event announcement!

The Dude Who Took Down Viacom: One Filmmaker's StoryEVENT LOCATION
Artspace

EVENT DESCRIPTION
Meet North Carolina filmmaker Chris Knight, a.k.a. "The Dude Who Took Down Viacom". In 2006, Knight made a campaign advertisement to help promote his running for a seat on Rockingham County's Board of Education. Knight did not win a seat on the board, but he did win some internet and media fame as his commercial was featured in The New York Times, on the Fox News Channel, every major newspaper in the state, on National Public Radio, the Canadian Broadcasting Company, by the Heritage Foundation, VH1's show "Web Junk 2.0", and E! Entertainment Television's show "The Soup". The major attraction of Knight's commercial was his creative use of Star Wars as an allegory for his strong commitment to reforming education practice. Life was good for Knight, until he loaded a few clips of his infamous commercial's featurette on "Web Junk 2.0" onto Youtube and was slammed with a copyright infringement claim. Come here the details of Knight's battle tonight as the filmmaker recounts his battle with Youtube and VH1's parent company Viacom firsthand.

SPONSOR
Artspace

And look again! There's even a Facebook page for "The Dude Who Took Down Viacom"!

I'm really exciting about doing this, and I'm very much thankful to Nene Kalu, Kathy Justice and the rest of the good folks organizing the filmSPARK track for inviting me to take part in SPARKcon. Check out the SPARKcon website for more information and hey, if you're gonna be around that evening I'd love to meet ya! :-)

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Trailer for THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS

A film starring George Clooney, Ewan McGregor and Kevin Spacey based on the real-life experiments that the United States military conducted in psychic warfare. I didn't know anything about this one but judging by the trailer, The Men Who Stare At Goats looks rather promising...

It's due to open in theaters this November 6th.

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This has been the craziest day that I've had in awhile...

...and it's not even 6 a.m. yet.

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Bev Perdue giving lottery money back to North Carolina schools

Bev Perdue - who for as long as she is Governor of North Carolina will be referred to on this blog as "WORST GOVERNOR EVER!" - is returning $38 million to the school construction proceeds from the North Carolina Education Lottery, which she raided back in February

(However there's still $50 million from the lottery's reserve funds that Perdue isn't paying back yet).

Does Bev Perdue have any clue at all about the mess she has caused for this state's public schools? Probably not. Here in Rockingham County plans to build four much-needed new schools were thrown into turmoil because the construction funds earmarked from the lottery were swiped by Perdue so that she could play games with the state's budget problems. Many other school systems across North Carolina were also hit by Perdue's monetary mayhem.

I would imagine that in the greater scheme of things, Perdue's unwise fiscal planning has cost the state more than whatever financial pain North Carolina may have eluded in the short term. And it will likely as not fall to the local governments and school systems to deal with the ramifications of the fault of state officials in Raleigh.

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Damon Lindelof Twitter-ed me about LOST!

We're about four and a half months away from the return of Lost. What many have called the best scripted television drama ever is heading into its sixth and final season, with plenty of mysteries still abounding. Like, f'rinstance, the statue of the Egyptian goddess Taweret that we saw in last season's finale.

Well, this might or might not mean anything but hey, it's my own lil' claim to having what might be a viable theory of Lost, so... why not share it with everyone? :-)

Damon Lindelof, one of the Lost showrunners, asked this via his Twitter account on August 13th...

"QUESTION: What is the significance of the statue of Taweret? (Creativity + ingenuity will win over ridiculous humor or familiar theories.)"

I'm sure that Lindelof got hit with a slew of responses. So I figured I'd posit my own rumination on the subject. Here's my tweet to Lindelof...

"@DamonLindelof Re: Tawaret statue: because giant alligator-headed women are a honkin' lot scarier than a "Beware of Dog" sign?"

And then like a lot of things on Twitter I completely forgot about it. Until a week later when Lindelof Twitter-ed my answer for all the world to see...

"@theknightshift Because giant alligator-headed women are much scarier than a "Beware Of Dog" sign?"

Whoa! Did I inadvertently stumble on something here? That was the only response that Lindelof conveyed via his own Twitter. Could it be that this really is the purpose of the Tawaret statue (which is estimated to be as tall as a 30-story office building)? Kinda would make sense, given that it looks out toward the sea. In times of yore that would certainly be quite a visual deterrent against approaching the Island.

Guess we'll just have to find out together in a few months' time!

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Been playing BATMAN: ARKHAM ASYLUM

It came out this past Tuesday and I bought it then from the nearby Gamestop. I'll post a full review when I finish the game.

But until then, believe the hype: Batman: Arkham Asylum is very, very, VERY good. I'll even say that without completing it yet, it's already my personal choice for best video game of 2009.

Don't even think about whether you want this game. Because you do. You really do. The inmates are running the asylum... and you're trapped with them. And when said inmates include the Joker, Riddler and Killer Croc among many others, there can be no doubt that you are in for a hella scary (and thrilling fun) stay.

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Obama to control the Internet? Not likely...

The Intertubes are burning out today with reaction to news of a bill introduced into the United States Senate by Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia that would give the President the power "to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency."

In other words: Obama would take over the Internet. That's the chatter about it anyway.

Is such a thing even possible? Plausible? I'll suggest that it's more than okay to raise hell about the civil liberties aspect of such a notion, but in terms of technical capability I don't see how we should be anything more than cautiously alarmed about this. For one thing, the Internet was designed from the getgo to take a lickin' and keep on tickin' in the event of a catastrophic systemwide loss of communication (namely, nuclear war). It's too decentralized, far too distributed a network. I'm not saying that there wouldn't be a loss of some data traffic in the event that the occupant of the White House (whoever that might be) goes mad with power, but more likely than not, to paraphrase Princess Leia "the more they tighten their grip, the more systems will slip through their fingers."

Then there is what we have just seen happen in Iran: one of the most tightly-controlled regimes in the world. Even when that country's government tried to shut down all Internet traffic, people on the outside were busy setting up proxy servers and the like to keep the news, e-mails, photos and Twitter tweets of the post-election violence coming out to the rest of us. I'm apt to think that those of us in the United States would enjoy similar assistance should our own government try to put up the twenty-first century's version of the Berlin Wall.

Might anyone dare to purposefully halt the United States' Internet traffic and somehow manage to pull it off, they would subsequently be bringing down a huge chunk of the world's commercial economy in one fell swoop. Which I'm all too aware that some will claim that this would be one of the primary motives of such an act anyway...

But the biggest reason why I doubt Obama or any other President would seize overwhelming and absolute control of the Internet: it would most likely be the one thing that stirs the vast majority of Americans to storm Washington D.C. with torches, pitchforks, ropes and blistering-hot tar and proceed to break bad on damn near every elected official and bureaucrat in town. Threaten to take away people's Facebook and YouTube and Twitter and blogging and iTunes and online video gaming (the Gears of War players alone would raze D.C. into the ground) and porn and pirated music and movies and sports coverage and news and porn and political discussion and porn and everything else...

Who doesn't think that this would be the most politically suicidal act of modern American history?

If you wanna call your Congress-critter and tell him/her/it "hell no!" on this, then definitely do it. In fact, a call or written letter would be much better than an overly-convenient e-mail (trust me on this). Barrage the Capitol switchboard with angry but polite phone calls.

But in the meantime, be of good cheer: the Internet shouldn't be going away anytime soon :-)

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YouTube video: Police officer says "It ain't (America) no more"

From August 25th, 2009 at a public meeting between Rep. Jim Moran and his constituents at South Lakes High School in Reston, Virginia. As is happening a lot lately, the meeting was to discuss President Obama's health care "reform".

And outside the school, this exchange was taking place between a private citizen and polie officer Wesley Cheeks, Jr. During which Officer Cheeks is told that this is America and replies "It ain't no more"...

The only comment I'll make is that I've seen this sort of thing happening for a long time already. It certainly didn't start with Barack Obama (I saw much of the same happening on George W. Bush's watch). And I like to think that now that the shoe's on the other foot, that some Americans who had been too dense before will start paying attention.

I like to think that, anyway.

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It's a pentacene molecule

Pentacene, chemical formula C₂₂H₁₄ and the above image is such a big deal because it's the first time ever that photographs of actual molecules have been obtained.

Mash here for the story on how IBM's scientists conquered a decades-long technical challenge.

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Elon dorms plagued by bats!

I just had to post about this 'cuz I'm an Elon alum and have friends from there who read this blog: Virginia, West and Sloan dormitories at Elon University have been invaded by bats.

Fourteen students already moved in but had to evacuate for two days while the bats (mostly in Virginia) were removed. Elon's fine maintenance crew (you know, the ones who have to paint the grass green whenever the school's honchos come to visit) installed a gadget that emitted sonic frequencies which drove the chiropterae to flee the premises. Then various holes in the dorms were patched up with caulking so that the bats couldn't get back in.

If Virginia has problems with bats, then Lord only knows what is lurking inside Smith...

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Yes Johnny Robertson, by all means let's talk about "honesty"

Say what one might about Bob Lawson, to the very best of my knowledge there was only one person in that "debate" on WGSR this past Tuesday night who has lied boldly and publicly when he accused not one but two churches, with no evidence whatsoever, of what can only be called child pornography.

And Bob Lawson wasn't that person.

More than a few people have told me that Johnny Robertson is "scum", "a dirty-minded individual", "a sick man", "a complete bastard", and numerous other epithets that I won't share here for sake of polity, for making those unfounded accusations against First Christian Church in Kernersville and Osborne Baptist Church in Danville. Interestingly, Robertson hasn't dared bring those accusations up any more since they have been chronicled by this and other bloggers in the area.

Based on the footage I have seen from Tuesday night's "debate" and now tonight, Robertson is certainly becoming increasingly unhinged from reality. Already tonight he has said that he has "loathing" for Baptists, that a full-blown war is going to be needed to get rid of "denominationalism", has called Bob Lawson a "whoremonger" because Lawson is divorced, has claimed that he is the only defender and upholder of "the truth in this area", has declared himself superior to everyone else in this area, and that the First Amendment somehow gives him the right to harass whoever he wants to.

(Robertson must have missed civics during what was likely his two or three trips through ninth grade: the First Amendment of the Constitution only guarantees that the government cannot stifle free speech. It says nothing about churches exercising their right to protect themselves against disrupters like Johnny Robertson and his cult.)

There's way more that I could comment about the extraordinary nuttiness that Robertson is descending into, but for now I'll just note that tonight I took a look for the first time at WGSR's streaming video feed. There's been one for the Reidsville station and from what I understand the one for the Martinsville station went live Tuesday night (just for the "debate" apparently). Bear in mind then that the Reidsville one has been established the longer of the two.

So how big an Internet audience does Johnny Robertson and his so-called "Church of Christ" cult have?

Eleven viewers. Only ELEVEN! So that's me, and at least three other friends of mine who are watching Robertson and his cult from across the country just to laugh at him.

How many "serious" viewers does Robertson have then?

I'll wager an RC Cola and a Moon Pie that this blog gets many more regular readers than Robertson does.

And I don't think any less of you, Dear Readers, either. Hell, I know that y'all - well most of you anyway - are smart enough to think for yourselves. And I will be the first to admit that I don't understand enough about God than to harass people with it.

I sure as frak won't ever accuse a church of pornography like Johnny Robertson has done.

(And Charles Roark raised eyebrows in some places with his comment that said church is filled with "perverts", but that's all I'll say about that.)

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A Transformers costume that REALLY transforms!

What happens when some double-jointed guy with a knack for engineering decides to draw inspiration from the Transformers franchise and make a Bumblebee costume? EPIC AWESOMENESS!

I bet if Hasbro gave him a license to do it, this dude would make a fortune mass-producing this getup.

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1,000 banks to fail across America?

That's what John Kanas of BankUnited is now saying. Kanas believes that a thousand banks - mostly small, privately-run institutions - will go belly-up during the next two years.

Ordinarily I'm automatically inclined to disregard this kind of statement as extreme alarmism (like how I never take any "climate experts" from the United Nations seriously). But given the number of banks and more than a few of those being larger ones that have gone down in just the past year, I do have to think this is something that merits serious credence.

But hey: if worse comes to worst, I guess the Federal Reserve only has to inject another five trillion dollars or so into the economy and thinks will be fixed. Right? Right?!?

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THE HOBBIT will be THREE movies... and in 3-D!?

Is it 1998 again? 'Cuz I'm getting the same feeling now that I did when word first broke all those many moons ago that Peter Jackson would be making a film trilogy of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.

Well, ever since the third and final installment The Return of the King came out more than a half-decade ago, there've been whispers on the wind about Jackson adapting The Hobbit as well, as a prequel film. And for those of us who've been paying attention, it's been a very crazy ride toward no assurance that this would be happening at all (conflicts with the Tolkien estate, Jackson's dispute with New Line, etc.)... which makes me hope all the more that it's gonna go down this way.

GeekTyrant reported last week that The Hobbit will be THREE movies, with Guillermo del Toro directing the first two chapters and Peter Jackson helming the third. In and of itself that's hella kewl... though I have to wonder how there could possibly be enough material from The Hobbit novel to justify three films (and it might be stretching it too much across two, but in Jackson and del Toro will I trust).

And now GeekTyrant is also passing along word that all three movies will be shot in stereoscopic 3-D.

Whoa.

Smaug the Dragon. In 3-D.

That fries my retinas just thinking about how utterly insanely overwhelmingly spectacular that might be.If the report is true, dare we also hope for IMAX?

(Nah, that would be way too much more crazy eye candy than we possibly deserve.)

Throw in Howard Shore returning to score this, and this might be the definitive movie trilogy of the next decade, just as The Lord of the Rings has been for this one. Now all we need is for Peter Jackson to do a six-film movie adaptation of The Silmarillion and the trifecta will be complete! :-)

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Man tricks Apple into giving him 9,000 new iPods

As you can guess however, he didn't get away with it. Nicholas Woodhams of Kalamazoo, Michigan has pleaded guilty to mail fraud and money laundering and has been sentenced to a year in prison and made to pay $650,000 restitution for his scheme that tricked Apple into sending him nearly ten thousand brand new iPods...

Prosecutors say he took advantage of a warranty program by guessing the serial numbers of iPods still under warranty and claiming they were broken.

The company sent him 9,000 new ones over a year and a half.

Investigators say he turned around and sold those on the Internet.

Actually rather clever. I have to admire him for coming up with such a plan, even though it was obviously the wrong direction to direct such creativity toward.

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Papa John's founder reunited with cherished Camaro

In 1983, John Schnatter had a gold and black 1971 Chevrolet Camaro Z28. It was one of his most beloved possessions. And then he had to sell it to help pay the bills for his father's tavern. The Camaro was bought for $2,800 and there was some money left over after his dad's business got out of hock.

Schnatter used the leftover dough to start up Papa John's Pizza. Everyone knows how huge a success that turned out to be, how John Schnatter has become a multi-millionaire from that initial investment.

And yet, John Schnatter still needed something to be happy. He wanted to be reunited with his favorite muscle car. So Schnatter went on a nationwide quest to hunt it down.

Last week, with some help from car enthusiast website Jalopnik.com, Schnatter's dream came true. The Camaro was in the ownership of Jeff Robinson of Flatwoods, Kentucky (not far from the headquarters of Papa John's in Louisville). And Robinson is now $250,000 richer after transferring the title of the car over to Schnatter.

Here's John Schnatter with the Camaro in 1983, and Schnatter with it today...

After getting his Camaro back, Schnatter said...

"The Camaro represents what I gave up to start Papa John's. Words cannot capture the emotions I am feeling in getting back that part of my history. I didn't have much back then, but for my business dreams to come true, I had to part with the one true asset I had to my name, and even then, there were no promises of success. I never gave up hope that someday I would get that car back. The foundation of Papa John's was built on my decision to sell the Camaro, and while it may not appear to be a huge sacrifice to some, it represents my roots in this business. And, perhaps it can serve as proof to others that hard decisions today can pay off for you later, if you're willing to believe in what you are doing. I'm extremely grateful for the success of Papa John's, and really wanted this critical piece of our history back."

What an awesome story! And methinks there's a lot of good lesson here about success, having faith in one's self and having hope that no matter how hard the sacrifice, it will be worth it in the end. It certainly did for John Schnatter. So it can be for anybody.

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I'm FINALLY watching STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS

I'm either losing my interest in Star Wars (probably not) or just incredibly lazy when it comes to checking out new television (more likely). Whatever it is, at long last I'm getting to see Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the CGI-animated series on Cartoon Network set between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.

And against what I assumed would be my reaction, I must profess that I am very pleasantly surprised and delighted at this show. Star Wars: The Clone Wars is some of the saga's finest storytelling. The action and dialogue is vintage classic Star Wars, and in many ways hearkens back to the tone of the original trilogy. I've only watched a few episodes so far, and I'm told that what I've seen isn't even the best of the series: that better yet is still coming for me to behold.

So if you're a Star Wars fan too and have been wondering about The Clone Wars series: I'll stake my reputation as a true fan (maybe too true, LOL!) on telling y'all that this is something that you should look into. And I'll definitely be buying the complete Season 1 DVD set when it comes out soon.

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Thoughts on Ted Kennedy

I try not to speak ill of the dearly departed. Regardless of that, some things demand saying...

If it were not for his last name and his family, Ted Kennedy would have gone nowhere. The choices that he made as a person and that he continued to make would have been too grave a taint.

And then, to have held the same elected position since 1962 is way too much. I've known of some people who had been in office for just as long and even longer, but I'm hard pressed to think of any that came to think of their post as something they were entitled to. Ted Kennedy did however, and it thoroughly corrupted his character as a supposed public servant.

The only other thing that I can add is that I sincerely hope he made peace with God before passing away. I don't think that's impossible for anyone.

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