Review of Steve Jablonsky's GEARS OF WAR 3: THE SOUNDTRACK CD!

Ooh-boy, how am I going to handle this?! I mean, Gears of War 3 doesn't come out until September 20th, this coming Tuesday. And there ain't no way that I'm gonna get an advance copy of the game itself. Hey, I've got connections, sho 'nuff... but they don't penetrate into the inner sanctum of Epic Games (even if it is just a few miles away in Cary).

But a package arrived in the mail this week: a copy of the CD of Gears of War 3: The Soundtrack, composed by Steve Jablonsky.

Hmmmm. The score CD for the next Gears of War game. Composed by the dude who did the score for Gears of War 2, the Transformers movies and a bunch of other great stuff! Y'all think I'm not gonna review this bad boy?!

The thing is, I can listen to this abundawonderful score all I want... as I already have! But until I play the game itself, there's nothing to put this music in context with. I've done reviews of Jablonsky's Transformers scores and posted a review of Gears of War 2: The Soundtrack three years ago.

But writing a review of a Steve Jablonsky album without first experiencing the work that it's been composed for? That's a new one...

Okay so here's what I wound up doing. I set this CD a'playing and as each track ran, I composed my thoughts for it. So what you're about to see is something of a "running commentary" for the score.

I'll preface that stream of consciousness by saying this: that Gears of War 3: The Soundtrack is already one of my favorite scores for any medium! This album easily represents Steve Jablonsky's finest work to date. His Gears of War 2 score was already one of the most-played on my iPod (it's terrific listening for when you're in the chair at the dentist's office) and for Gears of War 3, the man has ratcheted up his game to intense new heights of instrumental emotion. Jablonsky's work on the previous game garnered great acclaim and some awards... but what he has turned in for Gears of War 3 will arguably set a whole new standard for the art of video game music. This is legendary accompaniment for a legendary saga.

Awright well, on with the tracks!

1. “Restless” – Some subdued strings building up to... something. Trailing off with a nice bit of piano.

2. “Gears Keep Turning” – This must be the “main” theme music of the game. The now-familiar Gears of War titles that Jablonsky so beautifully elaborated upon in Gears of War 2, given a drastically industrial tone. LOVE THIS TRACK!!

3. “Meanwhile Below Deck” – Lot of rising tension. About what, I haven’t a clue. Brief but wicked.

4. “Stalk City” – Having read all of Karen Traviss’ Gears of War novels (including Coalition’s End released last month) I’ve a pretty darned good idea what’s going on here. The Lambent are coming, people... and now we have proper music for it!

5. “High Seas Tension” – A bit sneaky and espionage-ish. Why am I thinking of Chairman Prescott when I listen to this?

6. “Infected Large and Hungry” – Hard, harsh, fast and riveting! Whatever this is music for, it sounds honkin’ big and pure angry. No doubt something that needs to be killed in the worst way...

7. “Marcus’ Rock” – More industrial with lots of heavy drums. Well, it’s a track named for a heavy guy, ain’t it?

8. “Calm before Chaos” – A quieter piece with underlying menace.

9. “Bridge Too Far Indeed” – Probably a track for an extended action sequence in the game with heaps of frantic. At 3:42 this is the longest track of the CD so far.

10. “Those Aren’t Stranded” – A piece with an urban edge to it. Can’t help but wonder if this might be used with Ice T’s character somehow...

11. “Forever Omen” – One word has come to best describe the Gears of War saga in my mind as this story has progressed over the past five years: “desperation”. This track, more than anything else on the CD thus far, evokes that sense of dread and increasing hopelessness. A beautiful and provocative piece.

12. “Hanover’s Favorite Son” – Didn’t Augustus Cole play thrashball for Hanover? Seem to recall that from the books. So I’m thinking this track has to do with Cole. Starts off surprisingly quiet then uplifts to a very patriotic-sounding crescendo. Another beautiful piece!

13. “Fence House Suicide Pills” – Something terrible is happening alongside this track, and I could write that even if it had been named “Happy Little Squirrels Dancing”.

14. “Ghost Town” – This brings to mind the journey to Mount Kadar and into Nexus from Gears of War 2. Maybe the fight through the ruins of Landown as well.

15. “A Fine Mess” – Most likely something for another crucial battle scene.

16. “Loss of a Leader” – Some mournful segments throughout this piece. But as for which leader (and who or what he/she/it is a leader of) I can’t clearly tell, though there is a COG-ish suggestion to it.

17. “Deadland Dance” – At 5 minutes and 17 seconds this is the longest track of the Gears of War 3 score. Somewhat bifurcated around the 2:20 mark, make of that what you will. The second part is fraught with increasing tension. Love how Jablonsky has worked the Gears of War main theme into this (as he is doing with much of the score already).

18. “Creeping Dread” – This has me thinking of the very first time that I played the original Gears of War, that first level where Dom breaks Marcus out of the Slab.

19. “Hammer Meets Anvil” – The title of this track alone has me giddy! The Hammer of Dawn being used at Anvil Gate perhaps? Hey, I’m stoked simply about the fact that Anvil Gate is reportedly a location in the game! A hard, brooding and threatening piece ending with what could be a countdown chanted by the Locust Horde’s Kantu priests.

20. “Corpser Ambush” – Another action-ish track. I’m guessing it has the player shooting at a Corpser. Maybe even more than one...

21. “Last Resort” – I have no idea what this is supposed to be music for. It’s beautiful, but... it could be set to anything.

22. “Full Circle” – Opens as if it’s written for a dramatic cutscene then quickly jumps to fast-paced action, before resolving into an even deeper and darkly brooding piece and ending with soft piano interlude. Something massively important is taking place here... I can feel it.

23. “Jumped Species Barrier” – That doesn’t sound good. If you’ve read the last two Gears of War novels, then you know that doesn’t sound good at all. This track echoes that.

24. “Ashes Fall Down” – The second-longest track of the CD (4:02). A wrathful piece of sound and fury.

25. “Fathoms Below” – If this is supposed to be “fathoms below” the surface of the ocean, there’s an awful lot of combat taking place down there. Or it could be fathoms below down in the Locust tunnels.

26. “Gasbag Airways” – Does this mean we’re gonna ride a torture barge again? Track continues the fast action pace of the previous few.

27. “Paradise Found” – There is a slightly alien sound to this track. Or at least exotic. And then it ramps up fast and crazy toward... what?!?

28. “Father and Son” – Another track whose title alone makes me eager with anticipation. Listening to it, I honestly can’t help but envision Marcus Fenix and his father Adam Fenix having their reunion. Gears of War has become a multi-generational epic on the same level as Star Wars and Harry Potter (not to mention The Godfather saga). This piece resonates that quality.

29. “Fury of the Tempest” – Stormy and apocalyptic. Full of rage.

30. “Live for Me” – A track of tragedy. Reminds me too much of “With Sympathy” from the Gears of War 2 score and if you played that game, you know what scene it was set to. Are we gonna cry just as when we get to this part of Gears of War 3? But no time to be tearful ‘cuz then it finishes on an action-suggestive tone.

31. “Finally a Tomorrow” - WOW!! The chorals alone set this track apart from darn nearly anything else we’ve heard from a Gears of War game. Could it be? Dare we hope that… there really will be a happy ending to this story after all?! Jablonsky is evoking an optimism that we just haven’t heard at ALL in this series. This is the flip side of the coin from the sinking of Jacinto at the end of Gears of War 2. And it sounds stunning!

Gears of War 3: The Soundtrack by Steve Jablonsky is published by Sumthing Else Music Works, and will be available on September 20th from Amazon.com and other fine retailers. But if you just can't wait, you'll be pleased to know that it's already available via Apple's iTunes Store! So you can buy it now and buy it next week too (hey, I wound up getting it from iTunes as well as the nice shiny physical media currently and legally in my grubby lil' paws).

However it is that you buy it, Gears of War 3: The Soundtrack gets this blogger's highest recommendation! Go get it. Or perish in flame. It's your choice. But, not really.

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The most heartbreaking post in The Knight Shift history

sigh...

For a week now, even during the trip to D.C., my mind has been in agony over how to approach this.

I've gone over it a thousand times and more. But, I suppose there's nothing left to do, but to go ahead and address this. And maybe... maybe... some of us can get up the courage to move on.

For a while now I've been posting photos on this blog of my incredibly sweet and ravishingly beautiful cousin, Lauryn. And they've become something of a hit. In fact, I've even received numerous e-mails from single guys asking, sometimes begging, me to get them in touch with Lauryn.

Here she is from a few days ago, as a bridesmaid for my cousin Angela's wedding. That's Lauryn on the right (with Angela's sister Rachael on the left)...

Lauryn is a beautiful bridesmaid.

And she's going to be even more beautiful as a bride.

It is my great pleasure to announce that as of a few days ago, Lauryn is engaged! She'll be taking the vows with her boyfriend Jason later this year.

Congrats to Lauryn and Jason! Y'all are an incredibly lovely couple and I'm really looking forward to seeing the two of you embark on this journey that God has set you upon.

As for this blog's single male readership, be of good cheer: there are lots of young lasses in my family that probably won't mind becoming The Knight Shift's new pinup girl!

(But for the time being, I'm taking a rest from wielding that big heavy stick. To say nothing of Lauryn's dad Bob finally able to put the shotgun down...)

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Pat Robertson sez: Alzheimer's is grounds for divorce (Pat, shut up sir!)

I'm looking at this one of two ways: that Pat Robertson sincerely believes what he is saying here. Either that, or as I have heard it said a number of times in my life: "Whom God would destroy, He first makes mad."

During a broadcast of his 700 Club this week, Christian Broadcasting Network founder and "evangelist" Pat Robertson said that it was perfectly justifiable to divorce a spouse with Alzheimer's disease, on the basis that the illness is "a kind of death".

What. The. Hell. ?!?!?

In all honesty, I can't see how Pat Robertson - if this is his genuine belief - is any different from those who support abortion and the "right to choose". You know: the things that his Christian Coalition was alleged to be standing against for all those years?

(Well, as a follower of Christ, I always thought that the Christian Coalition was a bullsh-t organization anyway, which was only concerned with accruing political power. It had nothing to do with earnestly seeking after Christ and what He would have us to do in this world.)

Yeah, how is this different from aborting a child? The rationale that Robertsin is offering is the same as that for killing an unborn within the womb: that it is a life too "inconvenient" for those who would rather live life to their own ends.

Marriage is something that a man and woman enter into "in sickness and in health". When a person enters into marriage he or she is publicly declaring that it will be to the end, enduring all trial and hardship. Alzheimer's is not a "kind of death". It is a disease that gradually robs a person of precious memory and identity...

...and Pat Robertson says that if the other spouse cannot take it, then he or she is free to abandon his or her husband and wife and go after another?!

My God.

Whatever the hell it is that Robertson is espousing, it is NOT a love that is scriptural or suggested at all in the Bible. Love between a husband and wife is something meant to be patient, kind, and longsuffering. If a spouse falls victim to Alzheimer's or any other illness, the other spouse will never abandon and leave them. That is, if there was truly any real love at all.

To say this sort of thing is beyond the pale. I have been saying for years that if Pat Robertson was serious about making the Bible the pattern to follow in this land, then he should have long ago been taken outside the Virginia Beach city limits and stoned to death for all of his nutty false prophecies (made in the name of God). But now, there is no question: his family should take him off the air. And lock him down in the basement for good measure.

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Pssst... Hey, iTunes Store not opening for ya?

So for the past several weeks my iTunes hasn't been up to snuff. iTunes starts up okay... but when it comes to the iTunes Store it did nothing but show a blank white page with "iTunes Store" printed in the center. And whatever has been the problem with that, it also has kept iTunes from properly updating my iPad. I'm still using Windows Vista (no jokes, please :-P)

I tried everything but nothing worked to make iTunes Store functioning on my computer. I even uninstalled and re-installed iTunes... three times! And still the iTunes Store wouldn't come up. When I ran the Diagnostics tool it gave me some crap about how iTunes Store couldn't make a secure connection.

Well, as of about an hour ago it's finally working again! It took me the better part of three days of actively addressing the issue and a whole wazooload of Google searches. Lo and behold the solution came from a YouTube user named audsmithl15, who posted it as a comment on a video demonstrating the exact same problem.

Here is what audsmithl15 came up with. I'm re-posting it here, for sake of anyone else who might be searching for the fix...

1. Go to C:\ProgramData\Apple\Installer­Cache\AppleApplicationSupport 2.0.1

2. Right click

3. UNinstall

4. Go to C:\ProgramData\Apple\Installer­Cache\AppleApplicationSupport 1.5.2

5. Right click

6. INstall

7. Restart PC

Took less than 10 minutes to apply the fix and after that, iTunes Store comes up fine!

Bigtime props to audsmithl15 on YouTube for hitting on the solution :-)

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"Dust to Dust": GEARS OF WAR 3 trailer continues a grand tradition

From the very beginning of the franchise, Gears of War has been as acclaimed for its mesmerizing advertising campaign as it has for its intense and engaging gameplay, its story and its so-very-endearing characters who we couldn't help but to feel for, to sympathize with, to cry for. The first game's "Mad World" commercial is considered by many to be the best ad for a video game in history. Three years ago Gears of War 2 brought us "Last Day": an ad that yanked our heartstrings hard. It also introduced me to the music of Devotchka ("How It Ends" subsequently became one of my favorite songs, for a lot of reasons). Then April of 2010 we got the announcement of Gears of War 3 with the "Ashes to Ashes" trailer, which had me looking for more music by Sun Kil Moon.

And then there was "What Have I Become?", a fan-made trailer for Gears of War 3 that used Johnny Cash's immortal cover of "Hurt". It was an effort so impressive and haunting that Gears of War creator Cliff Blezinski even acknowledged how stunning it was.

Well, it's been out for over a week already but I'd be remiss in my duties as a devoted Gears of War fan if I didn't also point y'all's attention to the final trailer for Gears of War 3. And it proves to evoke no less lingering emotions than the spots that have come before. Accompanied by "Into Dust" by Mazzy Star, here is "Dust to Dust"...

The saga of Marcus Fenix, Dom Santiago, Augustus Cole, Damon Baird, Anya Stroud and the rest of Delta Squad comes to its conclusion a week from today.

"Brothers to the end."

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"We'll never be caught..."

"We're on a mission from God."

The New Blues Brothers! Chris (AKA me) and Ken (AKA my girlfriend's dad) hanging out before a wedding reception this past weekend.

It was pretty cool: the reception was in the ballroom of a hotel across the Potomac River from Washington D.C., so in the background we could see the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, the top of the Capitol off in the distance, and on the other side of the room it looked across Georgetown to the National Cathedral.

But I have to admit: ever since playing Fallout 3 I just couldn't look over that landscape without seeing the Capital Wasteland strewn out before me. Too bad my car radio couldn't pick up Three Dog...

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Interesting things are beginning to happen

And, I am feeling much better than where I was the last time I posted.

So it's time to return to blogging, right now...

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Awright, here's what's REALLY been going on lately...

Apparently some quarters are rumormongerin' that this blog has been hacked, that I'm in the hospital, that I'm really missing, stuff like that. Which makes me giggle quite a bit, that my blogging is so closely watched that when I'm absent from it, it becomes cause for alarm :-P

Okay well, as much as the mischievous little "id" creature deep within my nature loves that sort of thing, I'm gonna come clean and be honest about what's really been going on behind the scenes here. It's the sort of business that in recent past I would have kept to myself, but since in the past year I've gone so much on record about it...

The truth is, that for the past few weeks I have been experiencing an episode of bipolar depression. And it has sucked darn nearly all of the passion and motivation out of me.

I've been writing for almost a year now about what it means to have bipolar disorder. And if this was "regular" depression I might yet be able to make something in spite of that, because I've had clinical depression and know what that's like. Bipolar depression however is an entirely different beast. This latest episode struck a little less than a month ago (so far as I can tell) and I'm still fighting it. Not much that can be done except that like a hurricane, to just ride it out.

(But even with it, I can at least write about that if I can't write about anything else... because that's how I roll :-)

When you're going through a bipolar depressive episode, you lose your passion and feeling for everything. You can function outwardly, if you absolutely must. But it is a tremendous struggle to do that and it sucks out what little drive and determination you have left to you. You aren't left with a life: you are made to endure anti-life. Existence in the negative range. Sometimes the only feeling you have is feeling like you want God to just let you die and not have to go through this hell for any moment longer.

Happily though... and I know this more than ever before... these times do pass. This episode will pass. I know that I'm not really wanting to die. Heck, this is the first time in my life that I've had a chance to enjoy a normal life like most people get to have! I am not going to take that for granted and I am not going to let it slip because of a temporary relapse of a medical condition!

So that's where I've been: working through this episode, trusting God to bring me through this just as He has brought me through all the others.

But while I have brought myself to the browser (which has been acting wonky lately, enough that it has made blogging unreliable until just the past few days), I'll also address some things which have piled up. First thing is: I thought last week's Doctor Who episode, "Let's Kill Hitler", was the most brain-warping single episode in the show's entire history (I watched it with my girlfriend and we were screaming in stunned disbelief the entire time). I'm keeping a wary eye out on Hurricane Katia: at this point it could go anywhere but my gut is that it might blow on out to sea (though I've been wrong before). Oh yeah, and in the past few days I've had an epiphanous thought about the nature of the church, and when I'm finished mulling it over I'll post something about that.

(And I might have had an idea or two for a new film, which would be my first in awhile... and I'm extremely looking forward to getting back into that saddle again :-)

Anyhoo, there y'all go. I'm good. Just having a bipolar depressive episode that I felt led to write a report about and submit it into the pile of material already accumulating on this blog about it. As always, parse it as you will.

And Lord willing, I shall be back to full bloggin' strength soon :-)

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Technical difficulties...

...please stand by?

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Is it just me...

...or does this photo on the Drudge Report right now of Manhattan getting drenched by Hurricane Irene tonight seriously look like a scene from Blade Runner?

Hope y'all are safe and dry tonight.

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The Gray Man of Hatteras: Hurricane warning system from the Great Beyond

Hurricane Irene should be thrashing the coast pretty hard come this time tomorrow. As of this writing it's a Category 2 storm: weaker than it had been a day ago but still capable of tremendous devastation. Thoughts and prayers going out to those in the eastern part of North Carolina and the rest of Irene's projected path.

A hurricane is never something to take lightly. But given the current situation, I thought it might be neat to all the same share with this blog's readers something that I've always thought was an intriguing story from the already rich culture of North Carolina's Outer Banks. And it is perhaps the most unusual (some say the most accurate) hurricane warning system anywhere...

The Gray Man of Hatteras is a ghost reputed to haunt the beaches in the vicinity of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. If beaches are haunted then I suppose there are few pieces of coastal real estate with as much merit as Cape Hatteras: more than a thousand shipwrecks litter the waters of "the Graveyard of the Atlantic". Over the past few hundreds of years about as many people have lost their lives to hurricanes that Hatteras - jutting out into the Atlantic like a brawler's jaw daring to be hit - seems to draw unto itself.

One of those who are said to have perished was a sailor named Gray, who died in a hurricane off Cape Hatteras sometime in the early 1900s. And ever since, every time that a hurricane takes aim at the Outer Banks, Gray's ghost comes out of nowhere to warn residents and visitors to leave the island... and then abruptly vanishes right before their eyes.

I heard that the Gray Man of Hatteras was last seen before Floyd, one of the most destructive hurricanes in recent history, struck in 1999. He is said to have been witnessed before the arrival of every hurricane. Dunno if the Gray Man has been spotted ahead of Irene this week but somehow, I wouldn't doubt it.

CreepyNC.com has more about the Gray Man of Hatteras. And if you have met him lately, do the right thing and head for the hills: the dude does apparently have some experience with this sort of thing... even if he is dead :-P

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And now Hurricane Irene is bearing down on us...

In the past week or so I've had, in no particular order: food poisoning, a sick family member, me getting sick (again), earthquake, extended travel, technical problems which kept me away from this blog, and various metaphysical crises...

...so here comes Irene.

Getting a bad vibe about this one, folks. A lot like the one I had back in '96 when Fran came roaring ashore. Even as far inland as Elon it kicked the slats out of everyone bigtime.

Got to have a healthy respect for a hurricane. Admiration, even. A hurricane really is an amazing mechanism: a heat and thermal dispersal engine of ginormous magnitude. Without hurricanes, the oceans - and the Earth in general - would become much too warm. So in a sense, hurricanes are an asset.

But even so, to be in the path of one truly is like looking down the barrel of God's shotgun.

Longtime readers know how much of a hurricane nut I am, soooo I'll be blogging about it as best I can while also catching up on all this other stuff. In the meantime, especially to our friends at the coast: y'all stay safe!!

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5.9 earthquake rocked this house!!!

Looks like I picked the wrong day to start blogging again...

The 5.9 magnitude earthquake epicentered near Richmond, Virginia shook my house west of Reidsville, North Carolina for... darn nearly 30 seconds! Okay, probably not that long but it sure as hell felt long enough. I was working on some stuff on my iPad while sitting up on my bed when I felt the bed shake and heard the windows creaking. First thing I thought was "wow, that wind sure is strong..." Then I looked outside and saw that there was no wind.

Getting reports from friends all over: my girlfriend's apartment shook a few hours north of here. Good friend Chad in Cary felt it there. Folks as far away as Cleveland, Ohio and southwest North Carolina are saying it shook them too.

Wow.

Okay, I know there are lots of you who are like "Chris, this is no big deal." Maybe for good people in California or so but we are not used to this. I have never experienced an earthquake before and all my life I've heard about how unsettling it is. How treacherous an emotion it is, to have the ground beneath you start shaking without warning.

I had never known what it must be to have that feeling. This afternoon, I know.

Okay, gonna try to blog about more... stuff... now. Had some technical difficulties during most of the past week and then was trapped out of town last night. Back in the saddle now. And I didn't even have to resort to posting funny pictures of my girlfriend's cats either... :-P

Y'all stay safe out there!

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"WILMAAAAA!" Driver tries to brake truck... with his feet

"This guy ain't no rocket scientist", said a deputy police chief about a dude in Michigan who tried to pull a Fred Flintstone... by attempting to stop his pickup truck with his feet! He caused two collisions before he was finally stopped (turns out the brakes on the truck weren't working).

Story and video here.

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Paul Jr. Designs rolls out a GEARS OF WAR 3 chopper

It ain't hard envisioning Marcus Fenix riding this lil' baby around while blasting grubs (hey CliffyB, is it too late to put that into the game?)...

Paul Jr. from the hit show American Chopper created this custom trike inspired by Gears of War 3 (coming out next month). Looks gnarly! Dad loves to watch American Chopper whenever it's on so I'll be looking forward to watching it with him when we see how Paul Jr. and his crew assembled this one :-)

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Look! It's a new blog post!

So this past week didn't go as planned. I blame that pesky thing called "real life" (as reliable an excuse as anything :-P)

And last night my girlfriend said that she's missed me posting anything this past week. I told her before I left that I'd be sure to put up something for her to read. Maybe even quite a few things today.

Awright then... Hey Kristen! Hope you're having a great morning honey! I'll do my best to keep you at least moderately entertained until you get off work this afternoon ;-)

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Take the weekend off!

For y'all who have e-mailed wondering where I've been: just been busy with stuff on this end.

Come back Monday. There'll start to be plenty more bloggin' then, including (at last) pics and video of the Popcorn Sutton Acoustic Jam last week.

Until then, it's a nice weekend. Go out and play :-)

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Gary Ceres: Tellin' it like it is about thinking for ourselves!

Gary Ceres is one of the coolest most awesomest cats that I've ever known. He and I met during our very first week at Elon (when it was still Elon College) and... well I can put it no plainer than this: I've learned lots of good stuff from him about making mischief for the publick good! Like that poster of Hillary Clinton that we put up all over campus on the night before the 1996 election, but I digress...

Anyhoo, Gary has written an excellent op-ed piece that has been published in the Washington Times News (out of Washington, North Carolina). In it he takes an incident that happened while he was recently traveling across the state, and develops it into an essay about how it is that we no longer think for ourselves... but rather let politicians and dumb machines do the "thinking" for us. Here's an excerpt:

t’s not just the annoying shift of a light from a flashing red hand to a white pedestrian walking that we have willingly chosen to surrender our common sense to, but also the bureaucracy, particularly city-wide, that seeks not to govern us but to dictate to us on a daily basis the most inane decisions of everyday life. Why make such a statement? Well, firstly, of course, because it’s true. Secondly, maybe because we actually shouldn’t.

Now I am not advocating any type of civil disobedience or anarchy or any thing of the sort. As John Locke wrote of in his “Second Treatise on Government,” the social contract is necessary to preserve individual liberties. But when we allow ourselves to be ruled by the absurdity governing how many feet from a curb we have to place a sign, or whether we need someone’s permission to replace a door knob, or whether we have to beg for an extension on an absurdly high utility bill before a government worker, well, something is rotten in Denmark.

Click here for the rest of Gary's article.

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Chris declares RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES is THE best movie of Summer 2011!

So after a generally satisfying summer of comic book heroes and villains, transmorphing mechanical organisms, horrible bosses, aliens and then cowboys and aliens at the box office, was this blogger ready to go ape?

Let's put it this way: I left the theater thinking that Rise of the Planet of the Apes was the biggest and most pleasant surprise of a movie that I had seen this entire year! And in many ways this movie's grasp and execution of concept exorbitantly surpasses that of the 1968 original film.

Now, I love the original film with Charlton Heston like all get out. The '68-vintage Planet of the Apes will forever be a classic movie. But y'know, for audiences forty-some years on, the notion of an Earth taken over by simians could be... a bit more "boss", as they used to put it. As an example of filmmaking of its own time (a criteria that I judge all movies with) it will always stand tall. But you tell me if a new vision of an ape-dominated world could be focused on long oral diatribes of philosophical platitude and still be taken seriously by a 2011 audience.

That ain't what moviegoers want. And we didn't get it with Tim Burton's, ahem, "remake" in 2001 either: a film that was fun eye candy in the theater but has proven itself a frustrating movie in the decade since.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes, directed by Rupert Wyatt, is the Apes movie that I didn't realize until yesterday that I had always wanted to see. At last we get absofrigginlutely real apes violently revolting against humanity in a bid to overturn the tables on the established order...

...and it is one hella fun ride that grabs you from the first moment and refuses to let go. But this movie is also the first time that the franchise has ever had a "hard science fiction" entry. By "hard science fiction" I'm thinking of films like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Moon. Movies that use science in all its brutally cold possibilities to explore the human condition.

Yeah, that's the ticket: if you want a day's double feature of hard sci-fi, watch Duncan Jones' brilliant movie Moon before going to see Rise of the Planet of the Apes. That oughtta give your gray matter plenty of rough sussin' afterwards to endure (in a good way).

Rise of the Planet of the Apes opens with a troop of chimpanzees on the move through the jungles of Africa. Several of them are captured by native hunters and shipped to the United States, to be sold to pharmaceutical research firm Gen Sys for animal experimentation of new drugs. Enter one Will Rodman (James Franco): Gen Sys's most hotshot researcher, hellbent on finding a cure for Alzheimer's so that his suffering father (wonderfully played by the all-too-rarely-seen-these-days John Lithgow) might overcome the neuro-degenerative disease and have a new lease on life. Will has been playing around with a compound called ALZ-112 and his main test subject - a female chimp nicknamed "Bright-Eyes" - begins to exhibit incredibly accelerated cognitive abilities. Unfortunately Bright-Eyes for no apparent reason (at first) goes nuts just as Will and his boss Jacobs (David Oyelowo) are presenting their research to the Gen Sys board of directors. Bright Eyes is put down, and the remaining chimps soon thereafter are killed... but not before Will and his staff discover that Bright-Eyes has given birth to a male baby that she was trying to protect.

Will takes the baby chimp home, and it's his father who, recollecting the works of Shakespeare, dubs the newborn "Caesar". During the next several minutes we are treated to a series of segments that follow Caesar's life from his arrival in the Rodman home until eight years later.

But it's not just Caesar's stature which has grown. Will realizes that the ALZ-112 given to Caesar's mother has horizontally transferred itself to Caesar, giving the chimp even greater mental capability than his mother possessed. Unfortunately Caesar's growing intellect is also coinciding with his increasing awareness that in a world controlled by humans, that he will never be anything more than a chimp on a leash (literally). Soon afterward there is an incident that gets Caesar court-ordered into a primatological compound run by John Landon (Brian Cox, who also shines in anything that he's in) and his sadistic son Dodge (Tom Felton, more cruel here than he ever was as Draco Malfoy). Meanwhile Will reveals to Jacobs what the ALZ-112 formula has done to his father and Caesar, and Gen Sys's research is on again... except that it soon becomes apparent that a different viral agent is needed to deliver the gene therapy to the brain.

So we wind up with Caesar: smarter than the average ape, and paddocked-in with dozens of maltreated simians. And a team of humans messin' around with things that in hindsight should not be meddled with. See the inevitable conflagration coming and you get a banana. But it's how the conflict erupts which is so beautifully orchestrated and totally unlike anything we've ever seen in an Apes movie before, that will leave you astounded and wanting more (and there'd better be more Apes movies after this one!).

Rupert Wyatt is a brand-new director to me, but after seeing this sophomore film (his first was The Escapist) I can only see good things to come from this guy. The script by Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver flies at a brisk pace, and I was thrilled by all the references to the original movie: none of them pretentious but neither are they too subtle for Ape-ficianados (among others, look for a nod to the Statue of Liberty, and a very nice tribute to Maurice Evans, the actor who played Zaius in the first two films). In terms of special effects, this might be at once the most impressive work and also the most low-key that Weta Digital has pulled off yet. The rampaging apes fit so fluidly into the setting of modern-day San Francisco, you might think that you're watching a Discovery Channel special... until the apes begin their brutal exodus to freedom. And I thought that this was an excellent cast, which also includes Freida Pinto.

But if there is one element that makes Rise of the Planet of the Apes work more than anything else, it must be Andy Serkis. And it is positively fascinating to consider how his career has developed since his portrayal of Gollum in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings ten years ago. Serkis has four - count 'em, four - spoken words of dialogue in Rise of the Planet of the Apes... but he is easily the one pouring most of his strength and heart and soul into acting in this movie. Serkis's Caesar is the Gollum technique played to a whole 'nother level: the motion-capture stuff alone is beautiful to behold, but Serkis conveys entire paragraphs of exposition with only his eyes in this movie. And when the credits begin to roll and we see how humanity's days are soon numbered, it only leaves us hungering for more of Serkis as Caesar. A lot of people are saying that Serkis deserves a nomination for Best Supporting Actor in the next Academy Awards. Having seen Rise of the Planet of the Apes, you can notch me down as one of those folks.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is the best movie that I have seen in this summer of the year of our Lord Two Thousand and Eleven. Had it come out a few months later it would have had no problem fitting itself among the slew of fall "Oscar contender" movies. But as it is, catch it at the theaters now for a midsummer night's healthy dose of serious science-fiction, highballin' fast action and morality tale about playing God with nature all rolled into one. Rise of the Planet of the Apes is the best relaunch of a film series that I've seen since Batman Begins... and I for one hope these wacky apes keep raiding the box office for years to come. Absolutely highly recommended!

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I know how to fix the American economy

It's all really quite simple.

Eliminate the personal income tax.

Slash corporate taxes.

Implement the national retail sales tax.

Give corporate tax cuts for each time a company hires a certain number of employees domestically (to encourage the trend away from outsourcing).

Impose higher trade tariffs.

No more "most favored nation" trade status for anyone.

Eliminate a lot of burdensome regulation that stifles businesses.

Cut government spending!

Do those things, and just watch the United States heal itself financially. Get back our AAA rating from Standard & Poor's? Heck, we'd be the first country ever to get quadruple-A rating!

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One hundred years ago today...

...the First Lady of Television was born.

Six decades later, and we are still cracking up with laughter over Lucy's crazy shenanigans!

Happy One Hundredth Birthday to Lucille Ball. Gone from us, but never forgotten :-)

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My girlfriend dances a wicked Mambo!

Let's finish this day's blogging with a little culture, shall we?

Kristen, my girlfriend, is an absolute fiend for ballroom dancing. That is something that I've known since the very beginning of our relationship. She's already begun teaching me a few things like Rumba, Waltz etc. though it's gonna be awhile before I'm anywhere close to how good she is :-)

But this past weekend was the first time that I really got to see her practice her chosen art... and she completely astounded me with her ability! It's something that was just screaming to be shared on this blog.

So here's Kristen dancing Mambo. And I also recorded her doing a Waltz but my stupid finger was over the iPad's microphone during that performance (d'oh!)...

If y'all are good, maybe next time it'll be a clip of her and me doing a Waltz together ;-)

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First pic of Henry Cavill as Superman!

Now this is what the Man of Steel should look like!

Click the above image to embiggenize our first look at Henry Cavill as Superman in the Zack Snyder-directed Man of Steel (now due out for 2013). Check out Supes' getup! Now that is a Superman that I would believe can not only fly but also kick the tails of Darkseid and Brainiac.

I am beginning to have a positive vibe about this film. Yesterday it was announced that Laurence Fishburne would be playing Perry White, and then there's Kevin Costner as Jonathan Kent, Russell Crowe as Jor-El, Amy Adams as Lois Lane, and Michael Shannon as General Zod (among others who have been cast for the film). And Zack Snyder had already pulled off the impossible when he adapted Watchmen (the Ultimate Cut, incorporating the animated pirate story into the main film, is by far the best of the three versions). Not to mention that overseeing this new Superman movie effort will be Christopher Nolan. Now all that's gotta be a recipe for pure awesome!

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Dow Jones drops 513 points today

Read all about it here.

As for my comment about it, well...

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Raoul Wallenberg and Dan Cooper: New clues in two massive mysteries

Sixty-six years after he disappeared into the prisons of the Soviet Union, new information has been discovered about the fate of Raoul Wallenberg.

Raoul Wallenberg was a Swedish diplomat who became one of the most revered heroes of World War II. At the height of the Holocaust, Wallenberg was able to rescue and shelter tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews who would have otherwise been dispatched to the concentration camps. When the Soviets liberated Budapest early in 1945, Wallenberg was taken into custody by the Russians on suspicion of being a spy for the United States. His fate remains unknown to this day. The Soviets reported two years later that Wallenberg had died in his cell... but there are reports that he was seen alive as late as 1987.

Now two researchers who have studied the case for decades have announced that they have discovered old Soviet files pertaining to Raoul Wallenberg: files which the Russian government has long claimed did not exist.

Meanwhile, there may (or may not) be new developments in the mystery of one of the most celebrated criminals in American history...

It was Thanksgiving eve
Back in 1971
He had on a pair of sunglasses
There wasn't any sun
He used the name Dan Cooper
When he paid for the flight
That was going to Seattle
On that cold and nasty night

-- from "The Ballad of D.B. Cooper"
by Chuck Brodsky

This coming November will mark the fortieth anniversary of Dan Cooper's daring skyjacking of that Boeing 727 between Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington. It was on the night before Thanksgiving in 1971 that a man calling himself "Dan Cooper" (often erroneously reported to be "D.B. Cooper") boarded the Northwest Orient Airlines flight, then claimed in mid-flight to have had a bomb. Upon landing Cooper demanded several parachutes and $200,000 in unmarked bills. The plane took off again and somewhere over the northwestern wilderness Cooper, laden with a parachute and the cash, jumped out of the plane into freezing rain and American legend. He was never seen again.

And now a woman has come forward with apparent evidence that Dan Cooper was her uncle. Federal investigators are looking into it.

The Dan Cooper mystery is something that I have been following since I was nine years old. Every few years it seems that there is a new development in the case. Personally, this is one mystery that I'd just as well prefer to see forever unsolved. Cooper never actually hurt anyone and his stunt... well, that took some serious brass ones to even conceive the plan for, never mind that he actually pulled it off, seemingly. Yeah he broke the law bigtime, but there aren't too many scoundrels that it can honestly be said were "heroic" in their misdeeds.

Dan Cooper... or whatever his real name might be... is one of them :-)

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Swedish dude gets arrested for attempting nuclear reactions... in his apartment kitchen!

There's a chap named Richard Handl in southern Sweden who is right curious about things like physics and nuclear chemistry. So he, ummmm... attempted to build a nuclear breeder reactor in his flat's kitchen.

But it can't honestly be said that he had any nefarious motives, because Richard has a blog set up chronicling all the steps that he's taken on his lil' adventure into the world of fissionable atoms. He even documented a nuclear meltdown in his kitchen's oven.

Turns out though that splitting atoms at home is the sort of thing that the local constabulary (not to mention the Swedish Radiation Authority) tends to frown upon. Richard Handl was arrested several days ago. He's since been released from jail but his reactor equipment has been confiscated (and probably buried under several tons of concrete by now), but Handl is determined to continue his research at "the theoretical level".

Maybe Richard should hook up with David Hahn, AKA the infamous "Radioactive Boy Scout". I bet they'd have TONS of stuff to talk shop about! :-P

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Bane and the bridesmaids

Photographer Jason Wickerham took some terrific photos over the weekend of filming of The Dark Knight Rises currently taking place in Pittsburgh. Near the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute Building, there was a wedding going on at a church across the street and Jason caught this image of Tom Hardy, in full costume as mega-villain Bane, waving to the bridesmaids...

Click here to see more of Jason's photos, including some of the first shots anywhere of the Bane costume, more of the wedding party including the bride and groom being allowed to pose with the un-blackened Tumbler, Marion Cotillard in her costume, and some killer pics of Batman and Bane fighting it out... in broad daylight and falling snow?

The Dark Knight Rises next summer.

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The 2nd Annual Popcorn Sutton Acoustic Jam is getting BIGGER!

There have been some developments (to put it mildly) since I first posted two weeks ago about the 2nd Annual Popcorn Sutton Acoustic Jam happening August 6th. I've been in regular contact with the event organizers and folks, this lil' celebration of the life and legend of Marvin "Popcorn" Sutton is literally seeing good stuff happen with each passing day!

First thing that everyone should know about is that the event has moved! There's been so MUCH interest and plenty enough people saying that they're gonna be attending, that the 2nd Annual Popcorn Sutton Acoustic Jam is now being held at the Maggie Valley Festival Grounds in astonishingly beautiful Maggie Valley, North Carolina (which is right next door to Waynesville, where it was going to be originally held). Set your GPS units accordingly! There should be plenty of parking for everyone.

You should also plan to be there for awhile, 'cuz the tribute is now scheduled to last from noon until 10 p.m.

And as of this writing, the list of musical acts scheduled to appear is growing. Michelle Leigh, Tennessee Jed, the Josh Fields Band, Ali Randolph & Outta Luck Band, and Maggie Valley's very own "Man in Black", Charlie Duke have all confirmed to be there! Probably be lots more performers announced during this next week as the event draws closer.

And then there's this lil' item...

ATTENTION!!!! For all who will be attending the Popcorn Sutton Acoustic Jam in Maggie Valley,NC on August 6th, there will be a Popcorn Sutton look-alike contest at the event. Come in your best Popcorn get-up! There will be a wonderful prize for the 1st place winner and the judge will be the one and only Mrs. Popcorn!!!

D'oh!! I had the idea months ago to make a Popcorn Sutton costume for this Halloween, only to choose another one that I'll be doing along with a friend. Now I'm kicking myself in the tail 'cuz a Popcorn Sutton getup would have positivalutely rocked! Oh well, maybe next time :-)

There is a Facebook event listing and a Craigslist page for the 2nd Annual Popcorn Sutton Acoustic Jam. Keep checking both of them as next Saturday gets nearer. I'm planning to drive from Reidsville on the day before so I can commit all of next weekend to honoring the memory of Popcorn Sutton: a man who I never got to meet, but had already long respected and appreciated. And I'm extremely looking forward to meeting many more of his fans and admirers this coming Saturday!

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"...and a cat was thrown in the minister's face."

Yet another classic illustration from the archives of the National Police Gazette...

That's from the February 8th, 1889 issue of the magazine. That's still not as wild as some revival meetings that I've witnessed...

Props again to William A. Mays, the proprietor of The National Police Gazette, for keeping alive the spirit of this historic American publication!

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"Weird Al" Yankovic's book WHEN I GROW UP now an awesome app for your iOS gadget!

This past winter master musical parody artist "Weird" Al Yankovic published his first-ever book, When I Grow Up. Yankovic's children's book resonated with audiences of all ages and fast found itself on the bestseller lists. If you've read it (and even if you haven't yet, you hooligan!) and you happen to have an iOS gizmo like an iPad or an iPhone, you'll be sure to want to check out the When I Grow Up interactive book on Apple's App Store. The entire book with all its artwork is here, along with at least 27 (quite possibly many more) hidden surprises, all accompanied by Yankovic's voice! There are also a few mini-games that will have you honking with laughter. Not kidding: "Gorilla Masseuse" for a few days recently was the most-played game on my iPad! I think it took me the better part of the week to keep that poor ape from going on a GORILLA RAMPAGE!

The app is $2.99 and is well worth the price, whether you want it for your children or for that kid in each of us :-)

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Americans Elect: Worth some cautious consideration

A few days ago I heard about Americans Elect. And the notion of it intrigued me enough that I spent some time this afternoon visiting its website, signing up and doing the "political colors" app.

So here's what Americans Elect is: an Internet-based political party, committed to nominating a candidate for President of the United States in the 2012 election. To that end Americans Elect is working to get on the ballot in every state of the union. So far they've met the qualifications to have ballot access in Arizona, Nevada, Kansas and Alaska... and they've just turned in enough to be listed in California, too. If Americans Elect has its way, a candidate meeting all the requirements to be President (and Vice-President) according to the United States Constitution will be up for election alongside the Republican and Democrat candidates. Supposedly, all of this is an effort to bust up the stranglehold that the two major parties have on American politics.

I gotta say: I love this idea a lot. But having visited the Americans Elect site and gone through all 64 questions determining where I am politically, I can't help but think that Americans Elect is being determined too much by the two-party duopoly. The questions given seem too centrist between the Left and Right... and I long ago abandoned that paradigm when I saw at last just how false it really is. Also, there are some questions as to how open Americans Elect is so far as its operations and policies are concerned.

Very few people will doubt that there is too much that is very, very wrong with our political process. The unaffiliated and those who try to challenge the system on their own have long been shut out by laws and procedures that both the Democrat and Republican parties have put in place to ensure that they are the only game in town. And that's wrong... damned wrong!

I don't know if Americans Elect is going to have much of an impact. The concept is right. And the time is fast becoming ripe for an overthrow of what is in effect a one-party rule of America.

I'm gonna say: check out Americans Elect if you feel so led, and investigate and feel free to arrive at your own conclusions. Personally I wish the organization well, and I sincerely mean that. But it shouldn't be afraid to not play by the rules of the Republicans and Democrats. Those two parties have wrecked the United States and the sooner their kleptocratic reign is toppled, the better!

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Tomb of Philip, one of the Twelve Disciples, found in Turkey

A team of Italian archaeologists reported yesterday that the tomb of Philip the Apostle, one of the original Twelve Disciples that followed Jesus Christ, has been located in Turkey's southwestern province of Denizli.

Philip is mentioned in all four Gospels as being among the disciples closest to Christ. He is often associated with that Philip who preached to the Ethiopian eunuch (recorded in Acts, chapter 8), however there is plenty of reason to suspect that there were two Philips who each played a prominent role in the history of the early church. Philip the Apostle is said by tradition to have been martyred at Hierapolis (located in the present-day Turkish province of Denizli). Philip is reported, like his friend and fellow apostle Peter, to have been crucified upside-down.

From the article at World Bulletin...

The tomb of St. Philip the Apostle, one of the original 12 disciples of Christianity's central figure Jesus Christ, has been discovered during the ongoing excavations in Turkey's south-western province of Denizli.

Italian professor Francesco D'Andria, the head of the excavation team at the Hierapolis ancient city in Denizli, told reporters on Tuesday that experts had reached the tomb of St. Philip whose name is mentioned in the Bible as one of the 12 Apostles of Jesus.

Professor D'Andria said archeologists had been working for years to find the tomb of the Biblical figure, and finally, they had managed to reach the monument while working on the ruins of a newly-unearthed church in Hierapolis.

D'Andria said the structure of the tomb and the writings on it proved that it belonged to St. Philip the Apostle, who is recognized as a martyr in the history of Christianity.

This is turning into a very exciting time for Biblical archaeology. In the past few years we have found the tombs and other remnants of many people associated with Christ: from the ossuaries of James and Caiphas, and now the resting place of Philip. We also now have ancient documentation of Pilate, and significant evidence of Joseph's time in Egypt (not to mention what can only be described as an "advertisement" for the services of one Balaam the Prophet).

Hey, who knows: maybe someday we'll get really lucky and finally locate pieces of Noah's Ark :-)

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DONKEY.BAS: Bill Gates tries to create Xbox twenty years too early...

Good friend and fellow blogger Scott Bradford pointed out that today is the 30th anniversary of Microsoft giving MS-DOS its name. That was the main operating system for the vast majority of personal computers for many years, until it came to be supplanted in the mid-Nineties by Microsoft's own DOS-less Windows software (even though every version of Windows since Win95 has had the original style DOS window available to open, just like the old days).

Well, 1981 was another landmark year for Microsoft, though it's the kind of history that Bill Gates would no doubt just as well wish nobody would remember! It was in 1981 that Gates and fellow programmer Neil Konzen wrote DONKEY.BAS. This was the very first video game that Microsoft would ever produce for commercial retail. It was packed in the early versions of MS-DOS, as a way to sorta "show off" the IBM PC architecture's power along with that of the BASIC programming language. Legend has it that Gates and Konzen were working in a hot, sweaty room one Sunday afternoon at Microsoft HQ when they came up with this thing.

So here is the game they produced: Donkey. It's a rudimentary driving game, so named because the "cow" that the driver had to avoid hitting ended up looking more like a donkey. So it became Donkey...

I've read numerous accounts over the years about how Apple's staff broke out into hysterical laughter when they saw DONKEY.BAS in action. And it's not hard to understand why. But in retrospect, DONKEY.BAS is pretty neat in the sense that twenty years later, Microsoft would be rolling out the Xbox and come to dominate home video gaming (a trend that continues with the Xbox 360).

Aim here to read more about DONKEY.BAS at Wikipedia.

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Atlas is shrugging: Alabama mine owner goes Galt

Back in late February through early March I wound up reading Atlas Shrugged for the first time in my life. That revelation shocked many of those closest to me, who had assumed that bibliojunkie that I've always been, that I would have long ago devoured Ayn Rand's classic novel.

Can't help but wonder what my life would have developed into had I read the book when I was in high school or college. Atlas Shrugged didn't add much substantially "new" to my belief system, but it did clarify and crystallize it as nothing else had before. I'm thinking of re-reading it again sometime soon (but I've re-read the part about Kip Chalmers' train at least forty times since winter and laughed every time it goes into the tunnel: yes, I'm perverse that way :-P)

So now in a page right out of Atlas Shrugged, a coal mine owner in Alabama has metaphorically taken the Ellis Wyatt route: abandoning his business and leaving the sign saying "I'm leaving it as I found it. Take over. It's yours."

Here is Ronnie Bryant's statement that he made at a public hearing in Birmingham, as being reported on David McElroy's website...

"My name’s Ronnie Bryant, and I’m a mine operator…. I’ve been issued a [state] permit in the recent past for [waste water] discharge, and after standing in this room today listening to the comments being made by the people…. [pause] Nearly every day without fail — I have a different perspective — men stream to these [mining] operations looking for work in Walker County. They can’t pay their mortgage. They can’t pay their car note. They can’t feed their families. They don’t have health insurance. And as I stand here today, I just … you know … what’s the use? I got a permit to open up an underground coal mine that would employ probably 125 people. They’d be paid wages from $50,000 to $150,000 a year. We would consume probably $50 million to $60 million in consumables a year, putting more men to work. And my only idea today is to go home. What’s the use? I don’t know. I mean, I see these guys — I see them with tears in their eyes — looking for work. And if there’s so much opposition to these guys making a living, I feel like there’s no need in me putting out the effort to provide work for them. So as I stood against the wall here today, basically what I’ve decided is not to open the mine. I’m just quitting. Thank you."

Well, I can't say that I blame him. Earlier today I learned that a dear friend in California was having to apply for a business license just to tutor kids after school. When I read that, I was like "What the...?!?"

Business owners, and especially small business owners, are the source of all industry and productivity in this country. Hell, in any country. They do not need or deserve to be overly burdened with ridiculous amounts of government oversight, legislation and regulation. When I read the story of Ronnie Bryant, and how he has given up out of frustration... it pisses me off!! This was a man who created and maintained jobs that people need and want.

Much more of this, and there won't be a United States as we have come to know it.

Sometimes, I wonder if that's the conscientious purpose of too many in our government.

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Twentieth anniversary of Pee-wee's big adventure

Awright, I'm gonna try to keep this as decent and family-friendly as I can. Meaning that I'm refraining from re-telling any of the corny jokes that we were all sharing with each other back when this happened.

It was twenty years ago today that one of the most darkly comical incidents in pop culture history occurred...

Ahhh yes, Pee-wee Herman. By the end of the Eighties Pee-wee had conquered the world. From an HBO special that is still considered one of the best ever, to star of one of the funniest movies of all time, to the long-running CBS Saturday morning children's show Pee-wee's Playhouse. There were Pee-wee Herman dolls and toys in all the major retail outlets. Yes, Pee-wee had it all.

To have climbed so high. And then, to only fall so hard.

It was on July 26th, 1991 that Pee-wee's real-life alter-ego Paul Reubens was arrested for publicly masturbating at an adult movie theater in Sarasota, Florida. Detectives who had stationed themselves in the theater had witnessed Reubens exhibiting "Pee-wee's wee-wee" (okay, I tried, honest!!). Reubens attempted to get out of trouble by offering to do a "children's benefit" event with the sheriff's office "to take care of this", an offer that he also made to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune so that they would sit on the story. But it was to no avail. A few days later the mugshot photo of Reubens - with long hair, unshaven and looking totally disheveled - was all over the news.

Pee-wee Herman was done. Reubens made two more appearances as Pee-wee Herman, at the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards (he received a standing ovation after taking to the stage and asking "Heard any good jokes lately?!") and then when he appeared at a Grand Ole Opry tribute to Minnie Pearl. And then, he went into apparent self-exile.

Pee-wee Herman, it seemed, was dead and buried.

And then in 2007, Paul Reubens brought Pee-wee Herman back. Following that year's Spike TV's Guys' Choice Awards, Pee-wee has since become the star of a successful Broadway show, and apparently a new movie is in the works.

But today, we remember that very strange situation two decades ago that had children all over America asking "Mommy, what does 'masturbate' mean?"

Seriously though, glad to see that Paul Reubens has enjoyed a career rebound. Pee-wee Herman seems to be bigger today than ever. Here's hoping that he'll be around for a long time to come :-)

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Trailer for the next batch of DOCTOR WHO episodes!

Last month this year's series of Doctor Who arrived at one hum-dinger of a mid-season cliffhanger.

So you wanna see some of where the rest of the season is going? Check this out, courtesy of the BBC...

Doctor Who returns on August 27th. And I can't wait!! Well, I guess I'll have to but, you know... :-P

Speaking of the Whoniverse, I haven't watched the rest of them yet but I did catch the first episode of Torchwood: Miracle Day. Am waiting for my girlfriend to come over some weekend so we can watch the rest together (no, not gonna take a peek at them without her to share it with :-). But I have watched that first episode a number of times now and, it's some of the best Who-ish material that Russell T. Davies has done since he was the revived series' first showrunner in 2005. Looking forward to seeing the rest and discovering how this story goes :-)

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A "Super Congress"?! What the...?! Here come the Politburo, and Congress AIN'T suppose to establish a religion!

When the hell do the people of this country once again get representatives who know what "un-constitutional" means enough to not come up with bullsh-t like this?

The Huffington Post was the first place where I found the "Super Congress" referenced. So in case (like me until late last night) you didn't know what the politicians in Washington are now up to: there is a proposal to create a 12-member body comprised of six members from both the House and the Senate... and composed of six members from both major political parties. This "Super Congress" would be capable of over-riding the normal legislative process, all in the name of fixing the United States' monstrous debt problem.

Click here and here to read what others have been arguing about how anti-Constitution and insane this scheme is.

But here is what disturbs me most about this proposal...

THE "SUPER CONGRESS" WOULD OFFICIALLY ESTABLISH THAT TWO POLITICAL PARTIES AND ONLY TWO PARTIES ARE LEGITIMATE, TO THE DETRIMENT OF ALL OTHERS.

Think about it. The "Super Congress" plan gives seats to the Democrats, seats to the Republicans... and ummm... nothing to the unaffiliated or those who have chosen not to align themselves with either of the two major parties.

What is a political party, really? Is it any different from a body of religion? I mean, a political party and a religious denomination share many similarities. They each have their adherents. They each have their beliefs and ideas. But according to the Constitution, Congress cannot endorse any body of belief and faith.

And now there are some who are conspiring to make Congress controlled by a body of belief. Namely, a body of ideologies. Oh yeah, you get to, ahem, "choose" which one of the two that you wanna affiliate yourself with... but how the hell is that really a choice at all?

How the hell is it that the United States government - something which is supposed to derive from a mandate of the people, by the people and for the people - is now poised to be legally controlled NOT by the people, but by two political parties to the exclusion of ALL others?!?

This, is wrong.

And President Barack Obama and the "leaders" in Congress are taking us all on a road that is too damn much like what Russia found itself on about a hundred years ago.

I've said it before and I'll say it again now: the United States now owes the old Soviet Union an apology. At least the Soviets had one-party rule and were honest about it.

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"Hold still, dumb-ass!" It's the first new BEAVIS AND BUTT-HEAD since November 28th 1997!

I choose to take this as a sign that there is hope yet for our culture.

At Comic-Con 2011 going on this weekend in San Diego, Mike Judge announced that Beavis and Butt-head - one of the most classic and beloved shows of the Nineties - is coming back with new episodes this fall!

'Course, things have changed for MTV since the boys last graced (?) that network with their presence in the autumn of 1997. For one thing, MTV doesn't do the music videos thing like they did back in the day. Based on the following clip, looks like Beavis and Butt-head are gonna now be ragging on things like reality television and such.

So look! New Beavis and Butt-head footage!

Looks fresh as ever! Now I'll just have to clear some space on my DVR for when the show begins running :-)

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Photo of a ghost at Annie Penn Hospital?

Annie Penn Hospital is the main medical facility in my hometown of Reidsville, North Carolina. It was founded in 1930. There's the original building and then a few additions that have been constructed over the years. Today it is part of the Moses Cone Health System based in nearby Greensboro.

And it was at Annie Penn Hospital where this photo was recently taken...

The photo comes courtesy of James Hodges, a good friend, writer and pastor of Burton Memorial Missionary Baptist Church in Reidsville. The photo did not originate with James but it was made by someone that he knows.

Feel free to leave whatever comment you are led to make about this image. Could it be that this is photo documentation of a ghost at Annie Penn Hospital: a place that has a long history of reputedly being haunted?

EDIT 3:35 p.m. EST: Okay, the mystery has been solved! And turns out... it is a Photoshop job. But quite a neat one! Dwayne Corum who also hails from this burg submits this...

"It was a Photoshop...sorry to let you guys down. I know the guy who took the pic and put the "ghost" in the pic...sorry to let your supernatural heart down..lol"

Nah, it's all good Dwayne. This probably gave a lot of people a good thing to catch on a Friday when nothing else is going on but the heat around here! Just shows that even us small-town folk can have some high-tech fun just as well as everyone else ;-)

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CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER is darn nearly the Captain America movie that Chris always dreamed of seeing!

So being old enough to (very barely) remember those dopey Captain America TV movies from the late Seventies (starring Reb Brown, forever known best as Yor: Hunter From The Future) and then years later the 1990 film with J.D. Salinger's son Matt as the star-spangled Avenger, I have waited long enough for Cap to get the respect he rightfully deserves as a live-action adaptation of the legendary comic book superhero.

What sayest then this blogger about Captain America: The First Avenger?

This is almost the Captain America movie that I have always wanted to see happen. I mean, it's dang nearly perfect... as a film about a Marvel Comics hero. Chris Evans nails it as both the frail Steve Rogers and the super-soldier that he eventually becomes courtesy of cutting edge (for the early 1940s anyway) science. I sincerely thrilled to the production design and the distinctly World War II tone that director Joe Johnston (who has some experience with this sort of thing, having directed 1991's The Rocketeer) and his crew have evoked. I love all the little Marvel nuances that made their way into this movie, like how Cap's shield is made of Vibranium (quite a lot of applause during our screening when that got mentioned) and the sly nods to the mythology of Thor (both the comic and the movie that came out a few months ago) and the Cosmic Cube and all that jazz. That Howard Stark (the father of Tony Stark, the future Iron Man, played by Dominic Cooper) has such a substantial role in the story is something that I especially dug. This might be Alan Silvestri's finest score for a film since Back To The Future. I even liked Stan Lee's cameo (does that guy know how to crash every Marvel party, or what?). For those reasons and more, I liked the movie immensely.

What I can't help but keep thinking about though is how Captain America, for a hero created during and for the World War II era, doesn't really do in this film what he's meant to do best: beat the snot out of Nazis! In fact, the Nazi stuff is downplayed so far as to be practically non-existent. And there is nothing that is more short-changed as a result of it than Hugo Weaving's otherwise chilling portrayal of the Red Skull.

That is the one glaring major failing of Captain America: The First Avenger, at least in my opinion. Ya see, I wanted the Red Skull to be what he is in the comics: a thoroughly dedicated living embodiment of everything that his mentor Adolf Hitler made him to be. And that's sorta the point of the classic Red Skull character: as the counterpart to Captain America he is at once everything against but also identical to Steve Rogers. Johann Schmidt was a frail weakling German who was picked out of nowhere by Hitler to be his top henchman and as the Red Skull, he became the symbol of all the evil that the Nazis were perpetrating. So the Allies go and create their own symbol: Captain America. Who thrashes the snot out of the Nazis! Instead in this film we get Red Skull (with an origin way too much like the 1990 Captain America movie) as the leader of HYDRA: a splinter sect from Nazism.

You tell me which you want to hear chanted most by the enemies of liberty before they get their asses whupped: "Heil Hitler" or "Heil HYDRA"? I know which one works for me... and that ain't what we get in this movie.

Okay well... other than that, Captain America: The First Avenger is a barn-burnin' toad-stranglin' hella fun ride! And it tracks well with the story from the long-running comics: how Steve Rogers wants to enlist in the Army following America's entry into World War II. Unfortunately this kid has a list of maladies as long as a grocery list, any one of which would (and does) get him categorized as "4F". But Rogers is persistent (to the point that he tries enlisting in five different cities). It's at the World of Tomorrow exhibit in New York City that Rogers elicits the attention of Dr. Erskine (Stanley Tucci), a German scientist who fled to the United States so that Hitler could not exploit his research. Though derided as a joke of an enlistee by Colonel Phillips (a terrific performance by Tommy Lee Jones) and to some extent by British officer Peggy Carter (Haylee Atwell), Rogers is soon brought to the secret lab where his fragile body will be doused with the serum that will transform him into the massive, agile powerhouse. And the experiment works! Unfortunately Rogers winds up the only super-soldier when Erskine is assassinated. What follows is a frustrating tenure for Rogers as a mascot for war bonds sales, and then a fateful USO tour of Europe that ends up catapulting him into the action that he has desired for so long.

Awright, as I said Captain America: The First Avenger is a great Marvel Comics movie, and maybe one of the best yet. It just lacks some substance in my book as a World War II-era film, when it coulda and shoulda gone balls-to-the-walls full-tilt wacko as a movie about that conflict. But that's not gonna stop me from wanting to see it again at least once more during its run in the theaters, and from buying the Blu-ray when it becomes available.

In wrapping up, I'll say that Captain America: The First Avenger is a movie that might disappoint somewhat for those who love the character and the historical period that he springs from. But if you can get past that, it's not a bad way to spend a mid-summer's evening at all. Just don't be so hasty to leave the theater: there is quite a bit more to see after the credits end. And based on what I saw following Captain America's own movie, all I know to say is: bring on 2012 and The Avengers!

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Review of BIOSHOCK: RAPTURE

2007's BioShock is on my short list of all time greatest video games ever. Okay, scratch that: BioShock is not a "video game" at all. It is an entirely new style of storytelling narrative. BioShock is high-brow literature all its own. And like the very best of books, you come away from it more enlightened and driven to ponder than you were before you encountered it. In the mind of Chris Knight, BioShock stands on the same level as George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Seriously.

And like those and other classic novels, BioShock is something that many people finish with many different perspectives to wrestle over. My own personal take is that BioShock... and with a theme that continued into its sequel BioShock 2... is a morality tale about what man invariably becomes in the complete and conscious absence of God. Andrew Ryan's sub-Atlantic metropolis of Rapture was meant to be a Utopia where individual capability would be unfettered from the binds of government, religion and "petty morality". Instead it became a fallen ruin: an ultimate monument to man's corrupted nature.

We already knew about the city of Rapture from playing BioShock and BioShock 2. But we never got the full story of how Andrew Ryan built his underwater society... and how it collapsed.

But now we get to find out, because the tale of Rapture's rise and fall has just been published as a novel. And fitting for BioShock, it stands on a higher plane than most other video game-derivative books!

BioShock: Rapture is written by John Shirley, with plenty of input from BioShock creator Ken Levine. And having read it, I cannot recommend it enough for BioShock fans. BioShock: Rapture is a masterful working of the bits and pieces of Rapture's history that we learned throughout the two games, with a healthy dose of real-life history and politics thrown in. The result is a magnificent epic that in truest BioShock fashion leaves it to the reader to arrive at his or her own conclusions about morality.

The novel begins in 1945. Immediately after the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, billionaire industrialist Andrew Ryan has at last become disillusioned with a modern world hellbent on suicide. Ryan - who fled from the Communist revolution in Russia as a child - has also grown disgusted to the point of pathological hatred with the socialistic programs of Roosevelt's New Deal. With apparently no nation on Earth that he can feel at home, Andrew Ryan resolves to make a nation for himself and others who want to live at the discretion of no government or religion.

No doubt everyone who's played a BioShock game has wondered: "How the heck did Ryan build a city on the floor of the North Atlantic?" We find out how in BioShock: Rapture. Yeah there's some "deus ex mechanics" involved (particularly in regard to how Rapture isn't crushed to bits by the intense water pressure) but I found that such concerns were adequately addressed for what is admittedly a work of retro-historical science-fiction. And we also discover how Rapture was populated, per Ryan's peculiar standards. All the characters from the two games that we've come to know and love and all too often hate are there: from Andrew Ryan himself to master plumber Bill McDonagh (who gets quite a fulfilling backstory), on through to Sofia Lamb and the lunatic artist Sander Cohen, who will soon give entirely whole new meaning to the phrase "flaming homosexual".

But there are two factors in particular that come to play a part in the larger tale of Rapture. The first is the man who is known as Frank Fontaine (which is all I'm going to say if you haven't played the game yet). The second is the discovery of ADAM: the substance that makes the gene-changing plasmids possible. It is the plasmids which will eventually intoxicate with power most of the population of Rapture. A population that is growing increasingly restless and frustrated with utopian promises that fail to deliver. So it is that a series of circumstances come into being that lead up to the explosive events of December 31st, 1958: the day that Rapture erupted into civil war.

BioShock: Rapture not only answered questions stemming from my own curiosity about Rapture, it also cleared up quite a lot of material that I was a bit cloudy about. The part about how Fontaine Futuristics was taken over by Ryan was intriguing and illuminating, and that Andrew Ryan - a self-styled champion of capitalism - would become that which he hates most and nationalize an entire industry is an irony that is not lost upon the reader. We also get a better picture of how the Little Sisters came into being... along with their horrifying wardens, the Big Daddies.

BioShock: Rapture is by far one of the more satisfying novels to have sprung from a video game franchise that I have found. John Shirley has performed an elegant job at taking the enormously rich environment of the BioShock games and not only revealing more of the tapestry of Rapture but also reconciling details where such was needed. And just as much as I hope and pray that there will eventually be a true BioShock 3, I find myself very much desiring that this will be but the first of more novels that delve into that beckoning city deep beneath the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Highly recommended, even if you haven't played BioShock yet!

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End of the Space Shuttle program

The orbiter Atlantis landed at Kennedy Space Center in Florida this morning, at 5:57 a.m.

And so, after 135 missions that began on April 12th 1981, the Space Shuttle program - a system that began to be engineered in the late Sixties - has come to an end. So too apparently has the United States' manned space endeavors: NASA has no crew-capable vehicles anywhere close to near-future use (the Orion system has been scrapped because of budgetary cutbacks). For now the International Space Station is going to have to be serviced by Soviet-era Soyuz craft: a design that has been flying into space since our own Apollo program.

Well, at least private enterprise is beginning to seriously engage in spaceflight. That is where there's going to be a future in manned space exploration. There is still a passion for space: it just needs to be matched with equal zeal and funding capability... and government can't do that anymore like it could in the days of Mercury, Gemini and Apollo.

But today, I don't wish to lament what many others have already done so and with greater eloquence. The Atlantis has come home. The Space Shuttle has accomplished its mission.

And that is worth honoring no matter how one looks at it.

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