Man dies after roach-eating contest (but he won!)

Renfield had the right idea at least: if you're gonna eat bugs, give it some variety!

Edward Archbold, age 32, is dead after eating "dozens of roaches and worms" in a pet store's contest in Deerfield Beach, Florida.

From the article at The Smoking Gun...

Investigators reported that Archbold "wasn’t feeling well and began to regurgitate" shortly after the contest's conclusion. "He had consumed dozens of roaches and worms," a sheriff’s spokesman noted.

Archbold was pronounced dead after being transported to an area hospital. An autopsy was conducted, and the Broward County medical examiner is awaiting test results to determined Archbold's cause of death.

The roach eating contest was part of the reptile store's October 5 "Midnight Madness" sale. Contestants had four minutes to devour the most discoid roaches, which can grow up to three inches long. "Oh yeah, any vomiting is an automatic DQ," the store cautioned in a Facebook post prior to the revolting competition.The roach eating contest was part of the reptile store's October 5 "Midnight Madness" sale. Contestants had four minutes to devour the most discoid roaches, which can grow up to three inches long. "Oh yeah, any vomiting is an automatic DQ," the store cautioned in a Facebook post prior to the revolting competition.

However, Archbold did win the contest. The grand prize was a live python.

Wouldn't surprise me if this pet shop got hit with a lawsuit of some kind. And if it's not liable, well... I just can't see eating even one roach for anything, much less an exotic snake.

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Maine Republicans make WORLD OF WARCRAFT a political scandal

The Republican Party has for decades struggled with a public image - an inaccurate and even slanderous one, I will note - that it is an organization bent against the rights of minorities, women, pretty much anyone not Anglo-Saxon Protestant.

And then the Maine Republican Party messes it all up by coming out as anti-Orc Assassins.

Maine state Senate candidate Colleen Lachowicz is being accused by Maine Republicans in an official campaign release as leading a "bizarre double life" as Santiaga: a cutthroat with green skin, mohawk and fangs.

The thing is, "Santiaga" is Lachowicz's avatar in the crazy popular online game World of Warcraft.

Here is the mailing that the Maine GOP has sent out across the state:

So now attacking a candidate's hobbies is considered an acceptable political tactic? This is a whole new low, one that the Republican Party should not only be ashamed of but thoroughly ridiculed for.

Read more at Politico.com.

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"Attention all personnel, INCOMING WOUNDED!"

Last night the Rockingham Community College Foundation held its annual fundraising dinner at Reidsville Country Club. Every year it's a different theme and this time it was the television series M*A*S*H. It also serves as an acronym for More Academic and Scholarship Help. Anyway, they went totally all-out in doing a M*A*S*H theme: right down to having a real jeep, the signpost, Klinger's female wardrobe, the Swamp (complete with still) and "Rosie's Bar" (serving real booze!)...

To add further atmosphere, several members of the Theatre Guild of Rockingham County volunteered to be in costume as various characters from the show. We had Mike Davis as Hawkeye and Eric Smith as Trapper (each carrying around a martini glass), Tyler Walker as Klinger (who went through three costume changes including a wedding dress), and Tanya Rimmer Willis as Hotlips.

And as Corporal "Radar" O'Reilly, it's Yours Truly!

And they even set up Radar's desk complete with period typewriter and radio gear!

We all had a lot of fun helping with a great cause. Although it's now twenty-four hours later and my throat is still a tad sore from all that running around screaming "INCOMING WOUNDED!" :-)

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Lots of Christian music from my college days

In retrospect of the long and curious journey of my spiritual life, I can see now how my seeking after God has been a quest that has taken the majority of my years on this Earth. But it was only sixteen years ago when that seeking coalesced and crystallized into a choice to follow after Christ.

As with many things however, those first few years were, well... interesting, to put it mildly. Downright strange and bizarre in fact. Yeah bizarre even by my own standards...

But the Lord provides. And He sustains. Always. Sometimes in ways that we can't fully appreciate until a long time later, and that is certainly what I have found in recent years especially.

Something that was an encouragement for me during those first few years were the brothers and sisters at Elon College's InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Every Tuesday night was an evening of praise and worship and for some reason or another they even tolerated a fallen and frail guy like me. Helped me, even. A lot. Well, there was a bunch of singing those nights, and waaaay back in 1998 there was a whole night's "recording session" of those songs. Over the years the tapes were converted into MP3 files for digital dispersal among friends. I've been carrying them around on my iPod for more than six years now. When I went through an especially rough patch two years ago, these songs became one of the few things that helped me hold onto God's promise that the darkness would end. So, I can readily attest that there's some uplifting material here.

Geoff Gentry, not just a true brother in the Lord but an all-around kewl dude and techno-wunderkind, has made ALL of those recordings available on his website! There are two zipped-up files to download: one is the "main" body of 29 songs and then there's a "bonus" archive with 6 songs. My voice is somewhere in the larger collection but it's (thankfully) drowned out by those of much better singers. Anyhoo, these have been a blessing to me over the years and if you need something uplifting, maybe they can be a blessing to you too.

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It's the first clip ever from STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS!

Last night during Conan O'Brien's show on TBS, J.J. Abrams was a guest and he brought along the very first bit of footage from Star Trek Into Darkness that Paramount allowed him to show the public!

Want to see? Here it is!

Star Trek Into Darkness, the sequel to 2009's Star Trek, warps into theaters on May 17th 2013. Until then, this clip will have to tide us over for the next seven months.

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This winter brings the wrath of Khan

Ever breaking the boundaries of meteorology, The Weather Channel has announced that just as organized tropical storm systems have names, major winter storms will now be named too!

Here is the list of storm names for Winter 2012-2013:

What the...?!?

"Draco"? "Gandolf"? "Khan"? "Q"? "Rocky"?

"Orko"?!?!

To the left you see Orko, the Trollan magician/court jester from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. That is what people mostly think of when they hear "Orko". But according to The Weather Channel the name "Orko" was chosen because it's "the thunder god in Basque mythology". Yes, The Weather Channel went to a region of Spain to look for an obscure deity to be on their winter storm list. And they expect us to buh-leeeve that?

Jason Samenow writes some thoughts about this on the Washington Post's website. And make sure to stock up on plenty of bread and milk before we get slammed by Yogi.

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Popcorn Sutton: The Airplane!

That is the most awesome aircraft in history, and infinitely cooler than the Stealth Bomber.

(Okay, the SR-71 Blackbird will always be the greatest aircraft ever, but this is at least a very close second.)

I'm not sure if this is one person's private aircraft or something official with Popcorn Sutton's Tennessee White Whiskey, but it's got "93 Proof" printed on the fuselage and flies high and fast! 'Course it's been said that Popcorn's likker would make you fly high and fast without a plane, but anyhoo...

I wonder if we'll ever see a NASCAR driver sponsored by Popcorn Sutton's moonshine. Now that would be a beast of a hot-looking car!

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My girlfriend's performances at Spring Showcase 2012!

This is Kristen Bradford, the girl who I am more blessed than I possibly deserve to have in my life, along with her instructor Jay Henderson at this past weekend's Spring Showcase in Roanoke, Virginia...

(Photo credit goes to Ryan Kegel, who along with his wife Sarah were two of the many who came to cheer Kristen on :-)

Showcase is a twice-annual event hosted by the Arthur Murray Dance Studio in Roanoke, Virginia. It's a formal/gala event at the Hotel Roanoke where the students perform before a large audience. This was the third one that I have been at since we've been dating and it was easily the most electrifying one yet!

Okay, 'nuff from me. Y'all want to see Kristen dance. And I'm gonna happily oblige ya!

First up was a "graduation ceremony" of sorts. Ballroom dancing has different levels of skill and competition. At this Showcase, Kristen is moving up from Bronze III to IV. Here are the routines that she performed...

Then followed a series of "mini-matches": four couples on the floor at the same time, with the crowd calling out the numbers pinned to the male partner's backs when that couple does something especially good. Here are the first three mini-matches Kristen did...

Kristen Bradford Mini-Match #1

Kristen Bradford Mini-Match #2

Kristen Bradford Mini-Match #3

Following the first half of Showcase there was a thirty-minute break. And during this time I had a little fun with the trusty iPad. Here is Kristen and Jay starring in "The Dancing Damsel!"

Following the break, Kristen returned to solo with a Samba...

Kristen had two more mini-matches for the evening...

Kristen Bradford Mini-Match #4

Kristen Bradford Mini-Match #5

And then, later on during Showcase, came a performance that I heard many say was perhaps the finest of the event. I certainly loved it!

Accompanying the song "Lady in Red", here is Kristen and Jay dancing Bolero...

Someday, I pray that I might be able to dance even half as good as Jay... because I would seriously love to be a serious enough a partner for Kristen :-)

After Showcase finished up, there was the fine dinner and night of dancing ahead of us. And yes, Yours Truly did hit the floor with mostly some Waltz and Rumba. I even did a fancy turn somewhere in there.

But I definitely gotta show y'all these guys. Nick Manzo and Laura Cotton came to Showcase all the way from the Arthur Murray studio in Arrowhead, Arizona! They are two of the top-ranked dance instructors anywhere in the world... and here you'll see why:

By this point the evening was getting long, and after all that dancing Kristen was feeling a bit exhausted.

And then Nick asked her for a dance! Here they are, having fun with a Hustle along with Sister Sledge's "We Are Family":

That was more than enough to put a few more times on the dance floor into her :-)

Everyone from the Arthur Murray Dance Studio in Roanoke did a remarkable job! I'm looking at taking classes there sometime in the near future. Hey, maybe there's hope yet for a guy with two left feet :-)

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"The Angels Take Manhattan": Chris is increasingly conflicted about Amy and Rory's departure from DOCTOR WHO

"Spoilers"? I doubt it. By the night it aired everyone and their tin dog knew all too well that "The Angels Take Manhattan" would be the episode that saw wife-and-husband companions Amy and Rory (Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill) taking their bows from Doctor Who.

So what did this blogger think of the second Doctor Who story that the BBC has filmed in the United States?

I think that writer and showrunner Steven Moffat gave Amy and Rory a fine and fitting close to their part in the Doctor's epic mythology, with as much happiness as two people in love with each other could possibly have. At the same time, with more and more time passing since watching it I can't help but think that this story felt too fast-paced and blurring, especially toward an event which by every measure should be forever burned into the gestalt consciousness of the Whoniverse.

And then there is the point which will probably have people jumping flunky on me from all quarters: I honestly think that of the stories to date featuring the Weeping Angels, this was certainly the weakest.

Look folks, I am madly in love with the Weeping Angels so far as Doctor Who enemies are concerned! In a television show that has become as famous for its monsters as it has for its hero, the Weeping Angels stand as the most original and absolutely the most horrifying of the lot. Far more so than the Daleks and the Cybermen, even. In fact, I'd dare say that the Weeping Angels are the most frightening creatures in any modern fiction, period. They're such a terrifying and unique concept that I'm even attempting to write a fan-fiction story about them, so don't anybody say that I don't appreciate them!

But in "The Angels Take Manhattan", well... the Weeping Angels also came across as rushed, to the point of being - dare I say it - underwhelming.

Maybe it's a consequence of how this season is being structured. Moffat has stated a few times that Season 7 (or 33 depending on what you're incrementing from) would be a solid slate of one-episode stories. Based on the season so far, I'm beginning to suspect that wasn't a wise decision. "Asylum of the Daleks" and "A Town Called Mercy" definitely worked without having to span multiple chapters. But then there have been "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship" and last week's "The Power of Three": stories that perhaps had potential but were shoehorned into less space than they deserved (okay, I don't know if anything could have helped "The Power of Three"). "The Angels Take Manhattan" is now the most glaring example of this problem, especially when one considers how last year's amazing "The Impossible Astronaut"/"The Day of the Moon" worked as the first Doctor Who story made on American soil. In retrospect it seems that selling-point was the biggest thing "The Angels Take Manhattan" had going for it... and gimmicks like that, however well intended, should never trump plot or pacing.

I'm not even going to begin to touch upon this episode's inordinately considerable amount of plotholes and inconsistencies. And just how does the Statue of Liberty go missing without anyone noticing it? Did illusionist David Copperfield have an uncredited cameo where his swimsuit-clad assistants hoisted a black curtain to hide the Statue from observation so it could go stomping off to Winter Quay? And how does a copper and steel colossus with hollow innards become a Weeping Angel, anyway?

River Song, with the ever-enjoyable Alex Kingston in the role, seems like a tacked-on addition to the episode. For someone who is the Doctor's wife and with such a major change-up at hand, River Song deserved better.

I'm gonna have to say that "The Angels Take Manhattan" fulfilled its mission of giving Amy and Rory a proper send-off. But the lead-up to that moment could have been immensely more memorable... and far less confusing.

"The Angels Take Manhattan" gets Three Sonic Screwdrivers from this blogger: not a bad episode, but not overwhelmingly "great" either.

And with that, Doctor Who returns with the now-traditional Christmas special airing December 25th!

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Bad Moon Rising: British cop's call for backup leads to luna-tickling mistake

A police officer in Great Britain is weathering international ribbing after calling in for reinforcements to help with a potentially dangerous situation... that turned out to be nothing more than the light of the silvery moon!

From the story at The Inquisitr:

According to Independent Online News, the story was originally picked up by Police magazine, which brought the cop’s startling encounter with the moon to the masses. In the article, the officer in question didn’t realize his mistake until after he’d told his co-workers that he might require backup.

“While single-crewed on night duty in Worcestershire a PC called up his sergeant letting him know that he was going up into the Clent Hills to investigate a ‘suspicious bright light’ that he could see shining from the other side of the hills,” the magazine revealed. “The call was for safety reasons as he might need back-up once he found the source. Twenty minutes later the PC called his sergeant back to reassure him that everything was ok and that he had found the source of the light.”

Fortunately, the mysterious light was nothing more than the moon hanging out in the heavens. All kidding aside, at least the cop was doing his job. Had the light turned out to be some sort of threat to the fine residents of Worcestershire, the poor guy would have been a hero. Sadly, he’s just the butt of a joke.

Personally, I don't think this guy should be ridiculed at all. Astral phenomenon has a long, long history of playing tricks with light on human visual acuity. I mean, the planet Venus has been mistaken for everything from distant volcanic eruptions to flying saucers. It's not the first time that somebody has been fooled by natural lights in the sky, and it won't be the last.

This policeman wasn't wrong to call for help if he thought there was legitimate reason for it. But still, all in all... it is a rather funny story :-)

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Just watched the first episode of LAST RESORT

This blog's regular readers know that I do not keep up with television very well. The number of series that I've watched on a routine basis can be counted on one hand. And until last year there were never two that I watched concurrently during a season: those being Doctor Who and The Walking Dead.

But I might have to make a lot more room on my DVR, if last night's premiere of Last Resort was any indication.

ABC's new series follows the crew of a (fictional) United States Navy intercontinental ballistic missile submarine, the U.S.S. Colorado. Minutes into the pilot episode and amidst a ship-wide celebratory tradition for crossing the Equator, the Colorado receives orders to fire its nuclear warheads at Pakistan. The thing is, the orders did not come through official channels, but through a secondary channel. When Captain Chaplin (Andre Braugher) demands hardcore confirmation of the launch order, all hell breaks loose: the Colorado is fired upon by another U.S. Navy vessel and believed destroyed. The United States government blames Pakistan for attacking the Colorado and promptly launches its nukes. With World War III dawning, Captain Chaplin surfaces his ship off the beaches of Sainte Marina in the Indian Ocean and promptly takes over the island (which includes a handy-dandy NATO communications station). Chaplin then puts out an ultimatum to the world: Sainte Marina is an independent state under his command and anyone coming within 200 miles of the place will get fired upon.

He isn't bluffing. And to prove it he launches one of the sub's missiles at the United States.

There are moments which stretched credulity: I mean, could a submarine surface with such surgical precision beneath a rubber raft? To say nothing of a sub sitting on ocean rock bottom. But even so, I found myself surprisingly immersed and captivated by the premise and execution of Last Resort's first episode. With the crew of the Colorado on their own and trying to prove their innocence while figuring out who sent the launch order, it's like The Fugitive as envisioned by Tom Clancy. The ensemble casting also reminds me somewhat of Lost (look for Robert Patrick as one of the Colorado's officers), along with the narrative split between the outside world and an island locality which threatens to bring out the worst (and best) of its inhabitants.

All in all, I found it a satisfying episode. One that will warrant me keeping an eye on Last Resort for at least the next few weeks to see if it merits regular watching.

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The statue of Buddha made from a meteorite and acquired by Nazis

That's not the most weird headline I've ever made for a blog post, but I must say: that it's certainly among the most interesting! It's not often that the worlds of archaeology, astronomy, chemistry and history come together so boldly.

The statue on the left, dubbed "the Iron Man", was found in Tibet sometime around 1938, by Nazi scientist Ernst Schäfer. It's thought that it represents the Buddhist god Vaisravana. The statue isn't terribly large but given its all-metal composition it is rather heavy. Schäfer thought it would be of particular interest to his superiors because of the swastika symbol carved upon its chest (Schäfer's expedition was to research the origins of the Aryan race). So the statue was packed up and sent to Germany and eventually found its way into the possession of a private collector.

The statue was likely carved in the tenth century, at most. But it's what it was carved from that makes it really neat: an iron-nickel meteorite that probably crashed to Earth sometime around 10,000 years ago along the border of present-day Siberia and Mongolia!

Furthermore, this is the only known statue carved in human likeness to have been made from a meteorite.

And incidentally, the swastika symbol found on the statue is - or was anyway - a very common symbol in many Asian cultures, as it was thought to represent good fortune. The swastika can be found on statues, in embroidery and many other works of art. It was only when the Nazis arose that Hitler and his followers twisted it into the symbol now sadly synonymous with evil.

LiveScience has a more in-depth article about the Nazi-found meteorite Buddha statue.

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What good is the United Nations, anyway?

I always thought that the purpose of the United Nations was for countries which recognize each other to come together for the furtherance of peace. That it was meant to be a platform for raw hate and threats of violence seemed anathema to that purpose.

But this week Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - head of a government which has done more to sponsor terrorism than any other during the past thirty years and which has consistently threatened the safety of the United States - has addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations. And once again Ahmadinnerjacket or whatever the heck his name is, has vowed to wipe the country of Israel off the map.

There are two questions that I can neither find suitable answer to or rid my gray matter of. First: Why the hell are we letting Ahmadinejad/Ahmadinnerjacket into the United States? I don't buy into the notion that the United Nations is "neutral international ground". Ahmadinejad is not only the head of a government which has sworn itself as an enemy of the United States, but there has been substantial evidence in recent years that he was involved in the taking of hostages from the American embassy in 1979.

Imadinnerjacket should have been arrested the moment he landed. He certainly should not have been given free parking for his Air Iran jet at Andrews Air Force Base: the same place where Air Force One is kept and maintained.

Second: Why does the United Nations tolerate and even invite the presence of such a man and the government he represents, when neither have demonstrated that they have any intent of civilized and peaceful co-existence with their neighbors?

I understand that in the history of mankind, and no doubt for all the millenea to come, nation will disagree with nation. Sometimes those disagreements come to martial clash of arms. I've never been so foolish as to believe the United Nations could ever bring about total peace on Earth: that would be a miracle left to God Himself, so fallen and inept is the nature of man.

Even so, that whole "swords into plowshares" thing, I thought the United Nations took that seriously. And cheering the mad ravings of a genocidal lunatic is the furthest thing from diplomatic civility in the pursuit of peace!

It's like this: either the United Nations demands that its member states acknowledge and respect the right of each other to exist and to utterly strive to avoid war, or the United Nations stands for nothing more than being a colossal joke sitting on the East River in Manhattan.

One of the bigger criticisms of the League of Nations was that it was too weak to have prevented World War II. Might future history books record that the United Nations was incapable of reigning-in one of its members from igniting World War III?

If not, and if the United Nations is tolerating such behavior even now... then what good is the United Nations at all?

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Ostrich Pillow power-nap accessory

This project was asking for $70,000 on Kickstarter in order to become a reality. As of this writing it has raised $76,272.

So coming soon from design firm Kawamura-Ganjavian, it is the Ostrich Pillow!

Here's the product's description...

OSTRICH PILLOW is a revolutionary new product to enable easy power naps anytime, everywhere, OSTRICH PILLOW ‘s unique design offers a micro environment in which to take a cosy and comfortable power nap at ease. OSTRICH PILLOW has been designed to allow you to create a little private space within a public one, to relax and unwind. Its soothing soft interior shelters and isolates your head and hands (mind and body) for a short break, without needing to leave your desk, chair, bench or wherever you may be.

And if you put it on backwards it makes an excellent snore-suppressor!

Thanks to Kristen for finding this :-)

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Ma Chalmers lives, and she's destroying school lunch

Please tell me that isn't a soybean that Michelle Obama is extolling the virtues of in that photo.

The current First Lady has somehow become the nation's Food Czar, with a capacity of recommending, implementing and apparently enforcing her own policies on the country. No other First Lady has enjoyed such power. Not even the much-beloved Nancy Reagan, who channeled the massive respect given her toward no less a gesture than encouraging America's children to steer clear of drug abuse, was granted such authority to wield.

Michelle Obama, however, is hellbent on imposing her own whacked nutritional vision upon the children of those who "just said no".

Michelle Obama has directed the United States Department of Agriculture to mandate school lunches that can best be described as "skimpy" and "lacking". Not to mention downright unpalatable. The government is determined to limit elementary kids to 650 calories and high schoolers to 850 calories.

Hasn't Michelle ever paid attention to her own children? I mean, elementary kids are supposed to run around and be energetic and that burns up calories. To say nothing of high school students engaged in sports like football and basketball. I was on our high school's swim team and I ate a lot to have fuel for practice and meets: I don't think I could have gotten fat if if I tried during a season.

The students are starving, they know it and they also know who's responsible for it. Some enterprising youngsters have even begun operating black markets for such federally-verboten items as chocolate syrup and potato chips. The kids just don't want to be commanded by the government about what they can and cannot eat when their parents are supposed to be in charge of their nutritional needs. One of the obvious consequences? Vast amounts of food getting wasted and thrown away.

And yet in spite of it, the government is blaming the children for apparently lacking enough wisdom to enjoy federal oversight of their lives! From Kyle Olson's article at TownHall.com...

Nancy Carvalho, director of food services for New Bedford Public Schools, was quoted as saying that hummus and black bean salads have been tough sells in elementary cafeterias. That means even smaller children are going through the day fighting hunger pains, which can never be considered a good thing.

One government official tried to put the blame on the students.

"One thing I think we need to keep in mind as kids say they're still hungry is that many children aren't used to eating fruits and vegetables at home, much less at school. So it's a change in what they are eating. If they are still hungry, it's that they are not eating all the food that's being offered," USDA Deputy Undersecretary Janey Thornton was quoted as saying.

I know of no other way to put it than this: Michelle Obama has become Emma "Ma" Chalmers.

If you've never read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, Ma Chalmers (mother of Kip Chalmers: he who instigated the chain of events that led to the horrific Winston Tunnel disaster) comes in fairly late in the novel. With the national economy imploding under the weight of looters and moochers and as the transportation infrastructure is collapsing, Ma Chalmers comes on the scene with her national mandate for soybeans...

But thirty million dollars of subsidy money from Washington had been plowed into Project Soybean -- an enormous acreage in Louisiana, where a harvest of soybeans was ripening, as advocated and organized by Emma Chalmers, for the purpose of reconditioning the dietary habits of the nation. Emma Chalmers, better known as Kip's Ma, was an old sociologist who had hung about Washington for years, as other women of her age and type hang about barrooms. For some reason which nobody could define, the death of her son in the tunnel catastrophe had given her in Washington an aura of martyrdom, heightened by her recent conversion to Buddhism. "The soybean is a much more sturdy, nutritious and economical plant than all the extravagant foods which our wasteful, self-indulgent diet has conditioned us to expect," Kip's Ma had said over the radio; her voice always sounded as if it were falling in drops, not of water, but of mayonnaise. "Soybeans make an excellent substitute for bread, meat, cereals and coffee--and if all of us were compelled to adopt soybeans as our staple diet, it would solve the national food crisis and make it possible to feed more people. The greatest food for the greatest number--that's my slogan. At a time of desperate public need, it's our duty to sacrifice our luxurious tastes and eat our way back to prosperity by adapting ourselves to the simple, wholesome foodstuff on which the peoples of the Orient have so nobly subsisted for centuries. There's a great deal that we could learn from the peoples of the Orient."

Ma Chalmers exploits her "friendships" and political pull to bring the bulk of the country's available railroad cars to her soybean collective in Louisiana, while at the same time a record harvest of corn and wheat - more than enough to feed the country - is bulging at the seams in Minnesota... and the farmers have no way of moving it.

It does not end well.

In Minnesota, farmers were setting fire to their own farms, they were demolishing grain elevators and the homes of county officials, they were fighting along the track of the railroad, some to tear it up, some to defend it with their lives--and, with no goal to reach save violence, they were dying in the streets of gutted towns and in the silent gullies of a roadless night.

Then there was only the acrid stench of grain rotting in half-smouldering piles -- a few columns of smoke rising from the plains, standing still in the air over blackened ruins -- and, in an office in Pennsylvania, Hank Rearden sitting at his desk, looking at a list of men who had gone bankrupt: they were the manufacturers of farm equipment, who could not be paid and would not be able to pay him.

As for the government-mandated soybeans...

The harvest of soybeans did not reach the markets of the country: it had been reaped prematurely, it was moldy and unfit for consumption.

"Unfit for consumption." That's a good a description as any for darn near everything coming from our "brilliant" leaders in Washington D.C.

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I don't even keep up with football...

...and even I can't believe what happened during last night's Seattle/Green Bay game.

I was wondering late last night why my Facebook and Twitter pages were going crazy. Now I know.

Can't say it any better than how one friend put it: "The NFL has become the WWE."

If you're still trying to figure out this mess, Mash here for ESPN's report.

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Secret to male longevity: CASTRATION!

Hey guys: wanna live longer? Lose the family jewels.

(I tried to find an accompanying image for this, but the only ones readily available pertained to barnyard procedures, "shock" websites and full-color medical techniques...)

Discovery.com is reporting a new study about castrated men which finds that eunuchs live quite a bit longer than, errrr... "normally equipped" males. The researchers delved into records of Chinese dynasties, including the last of the court eunuchs from a century ago. From the article...

The researchers found that the eunuchs lived 14 to 19 years longer than other men did. Three even lived to 100 or more, a feat of longevity that remains relatively rare among men even today.

The effect wasn't just due to fine palace living either, since kings and other male members of the court had the shortest lifespans of all. The eunuchs also spent time both inside the palace and out.

"Since castration extends lifespan by reducing male sex hormones, we still believe that the effect would be the same today," Min told Discovery News. "In fact, castration was also performed in the early 1900s in a Kansas mental hospital. Castrated patients lived 13 years longer than intact patients, which is similar to (the results) of our study."

However...

The possible negative consequences of castration include "decreased libido, depression and loss of physical strength," according to coauthor Kyung-Jin Min of Inha University.

No doubt.

I bet asking for grant money to fund this research took balls!

(I'll stop while I'm still ahead. Oops...)

Tip of the hat to Erik Yaple for coming across this article.

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Guilty as charged

What had been a terrific and fun-filled Saturday night with my girlfriend and two close friends ended up crashing hard with an e-mail I received shortly after returning home...

Chris, just wanted to let you know that I am de-friending you because basically you are not a friend. Like most other "christians" I know, you seem to be two-faced and unreliable... my "christian" friends seem to be about the most worthless and unreliable of any that I have. I have atheist and agnostic friends who I trust implicitly. At least you've shown me that "christians" truly are a lying, two-face bunch of hypocrits.

That was written by someone who I have known for over thirty years. I cannot be responsible for the choice that this person has made in severing our relationship.

But it is true: I am a hypocrite.

So is every other Christian. Every Christian who sincerely lives and strives to put God first and foremost in his or her life will admit to it, at least. And I would dare say that every Christian who ever lived has been a hypocrite in one way or another. Sometimes in plenty of ways... and I'll admit to being more guilty than most on that charge, too.

Yes, Christians are hypocrites. We are sometimes two-faced and we can be especially unreliable! We even lie sometimes. In short: we are every bit as stupid, scurillous and scoundrelous as any other human being. That we dare to be so ridden with faults while yet claiming to follow One who lived perfectly makes us out in the eyes of many as being the worst of low-life scum.

I know that I am a hypocrite. In more ways than I want to share here.

But neither am I afraid to admit that I am a hypocrite. And so long as I find myself convicted of hypocrisy... which will be until the final breath leaves my lungs in this fallen world... I will continue to confess that flaw in my character.

I am a hypocrite. But it is not what I want to be. And the only hope I have of being sanctified is to continually surrender that frailty to God.

Yes, those who seek mercy from God will be granted mercy. I have no reason to doubt that those who are secured in Him will remain secure forevermore. But rather than being reason to rest from our nature, to orient one's heart toward Christ entails the life-long process of sanctification... and as I have discovered during my own faith journey, that becomes the most difficult and painful part of all in this path we have chosen.

Why must it be so? I have thought about that much over the years. And nothing else makes as much sense as this:

That knowing how frail and fallen we are, we as Christians are not to persuade others to become Christians. We are however meant to persuade others of Christ. And there is no greater way than to show His work - that which is finished and that which He is still accomplishing - in our lives.

If evidence is demanded for conviction, then I will gladly plead guilty every time.

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Last night we watched HUGO

I cannot remember the last time that a movie has so captivated me, that the next day I am still overwhelmingly enchanted by its beauty, its grandeur, and its sense of humanity.

 Hugo came out late last year, but until last night I knew precious little about it save for some of its cast and that it was directed by Martin Scorsese. And that it was based on a book. And that it was in 3-D. Maybe that was one reason why I didn't see it in theaters earlier, because truth be told I have become exhausted with the 3-D fad. Too much use of it in places where it shouldn't be used at all.

After watching Hugo for the first time however, I am kicking myself for not catching it during its theatrical run. I would pay good money just to watch that very first shot of the train station in 3-D, because even on a 2-D high-def television screen it was jaw-droppingly gorgeous!

So neither Kristen or I had ever seen this movie before. A friend of ours let her borrow it, so yesterday evening we settled in for a Sunday evening's enjoyment of some cinema. By the time the film's title is shown to us, several minutes had gone by but so entranced were we by the story and the visuals that we hadn't even noticed it was missing until it finally turned up. And it just kept getting better from there...

Good readers, I'm gonna choose to not go into a terrible amount of detail about Hugo. This really is a movie that you owe it to yourself to go into as unaware as possible. I mean, there are so darned few surprises in this world these days. Especially, it sadly seems, in the movies. And if you genuinely want to experience the movie the way they once were and could still be again, then you can not possibly go wrong with Hugo. Boasting the finest-assembled cast in recent memory - with Ben Kingsley, Chloë Grace Moretz, Sacha Baron Cohen, Christopher Lee, and Asa Butterfield turning in a wondrous performance as Hugo - this movie is an epic triumph in every sense.

Hugo gets this blogger's absolutely highest possible recommendation! I'll be getting the Blu-ray of this for my library for sure... and Lord willing I ever have children, this is one movie that I'm exceedingly looking forward to watching with them.

Now if that ain't praise for a movie, I don't know what is :-)

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Musing on mere religion

I will not make being a Christian more important than being in Christ.

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Burger King hassles customers at McDonald's in Rome, Georgia

Police in Rome, Georgia (a town that I have some firsthand knowledge of) are on the lookout for none other than the Burger King himself, who allegedly stood outside the McDonald's restaurant there and commenced to handing out free hamburgers.

From the CBS News story...

Police were called to a local McDonald’s in relation to a disturbance caused by a man dressed as the Burger King.

In a police report provided to the Rome News-Tribune, officers indicated that they were summoned to the fast-food restaurant around 1 p.m. on Monday, in response to a call about a suspicious person on the premises.

The person was allegedly resplendent in full Burger King regalia.

Police stated that, upon his arrival, the Burger King mascot reportedly began to hand out free hamburgers to customers, and stopped to take pictures with several children.

Officers were additionally told that one child ran away from the man in fear, the paper learned.

Only ONE child ran away?! I'm a grown dude and the King wigs even me out.

Might as well have some fun with these pics that I collected last year when Burger King retired their creepy mascot, but haven't used yet...

And even though it's not about King Creepy, this is still too good not to share...

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Trailer for THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY

And high-def Quicktime versions of the trailer are up at trailers.apple.com. We wants it my Precious, yesssss...

I made Kristen promise me something late last year: that we will see The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey together at its midnight premiere, Lord willing, no matter what. Seeing this trailer has stoked my longing for this movie that much more. December 14th cannot get here fast enough! Okay yeah it can, but you know what I mean...

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Obama Administration brings back Bush-era "free speech zones"

Students at Wright State University who were protesting against Joseph Biden when he visited the campus last week were quarantined a quarter-mile away from the Vice President by the Secret Service. This happened not once, but twice. The rationale given by the Secret Service: they "didn't want the protesters to be too close to the motorcade."

Before any Republicans or Romney supporters cry "foul" about this, it would be well to remember that this exact same thing was routine policy during the presidency of George W. Bush! But that fact hasn't deterred a number of people on "conservative" websites from claiming that the Secret Service is violating the First Amendment, that Obama is violating the Constitution ad nauseum... when Obama's predecessor, a Republican president, was also insulating himself from public dissent with the very same methods, and on a much more chronic basis. Very many of Bush's following at the time had no problem whatsoever with the First Amendment rights of protestors being quashed. But now that the shoe's on the other foot...

"Free speech for me, but not for thee." I guess depending on who has the power, more animals really are more equal than others.

I don't want to hear any whining about Obama or Biden's use of "free speech zones" from past or present supporters of George W. Bush. As far as I'm concerned, come January we'll have had at least twelve years of regime by successive egomaniacs with narcissistic disorder. And I don't give a flying rat's butt which party either one belongs to.

So people: what's it going to take for us to quit supporting this sham?

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This is the greatest Star Wars thing I've seen in YEARS

A seriously talented dude on YouTube with the username "otaking77077" has created what is by every possible measure the most astounding work of Star Wars art that has been produced in a very, very long time. Fellow YouTuber "JPL4185" added some music and sound effects from pre-existing sources. But it's the animation that will drop your jaw and have you begging for more...

Mr. George Lucas, THIS is the Star Wars that we the fans desperately want to see!! No more of that CGI stuff. otaking7077 has taken Star Wars and animated it in the style of Robotech and it is in this blogger's opinion the purest Star Wars sequence that I have seen since... dare I say it... the original trilogy. I especially loved the details inside the TIE Fighters that were liberally taken from the LucasArts X-Wing computer game series.

You know what watching this makes me feel like? What it was to be a Star Wars fan in the early to mid Nineties. That magical, mystical time after Timothy Zahn's Heir to the Empire reignited our love for the saga. That near-decade before the prequel trilogy when all we had were the novels and the comics and each other across the Internet. It was the Golden Age of Star Wars fandom and this animated work by otaking77077 took me totally back to that.

THIS is what Star Wars once was, and what Star Wars could be again.

And in a sane world, this dude will get hired by Lucasfilm immediately so he can give us a traditional animated Star Wars epic. Make this a television series, and the ratings would shatter the roof.

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"A Town Called Mercy": Spaghetti western, DOCTOR WHO style!

Before getting into the review, I wanna say from the getgo that I thought this week's episode further demonstrates a theory I've had for the past few years: that the Doctor is an unconscious agent of God. Last year's "The Doctor's Wife" might have supported that notion, but I mean, c'mon: how is it that the TARDIS is always landing in a time and place that the Doctor is needed? How else... unless there is a Higher Power guiding the Doctor, whether he is aware of it or not?

Anyway...

In spite of the beautiful special effects work (along with the reunion of Harry Potter alums Mark Williams and David Bradley, each of whom turned in fine work) I found last week's "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship" to be somewhat lacking. Maybe that's because it came on the heels of this season's Doctor Who premiere "Asylum of the Daleks", which was a hard episode for any chapter to follow.

But I was thoroughly pleased with this week's episode, "A Town Called Mercy"...

It's 1870, somewhere in the American west. In the years following the Civil War, the town of Mercy welcomes any and all who are looking for a second chance from their past. Including those who may not be from Earth at all. But the quality of Mercy is threatened: a cyborg gunslinger stalks the outskirts of town. Anyone passing (or who gets exiled) beyond the wooden plank-defined border finds himself prey for a high-tech kill.

Of course, the Doctor (with Amy and Rory in tow) finds himself in the midst of it all.

I've always thought that the best Doctor Who stories were those which examined and tested the Doctor's morality and ethics. "A Town Called Mercy" is one of those stories. Some might even be reminded of "Genesis of the Daleks", which had Tom Baker's Doctor weighing whether he had the right to commit genocide on the Dalek race before it had a chance to become a threat.

"A Town Called Mercy" is a far smaller, more intimate setting, but just as powerful nonetheless. The strength of Matt Smith's performance as the Doctor has consistently been when he's compelled toward the last Time Lord's darker, more guilt-ridden nature, and we see that in spades here. Indeed, the scenes of the Doctor wielding an honest-to-goodness pistol are sincerely striking. Disturbing, even.

Look for Farscape's Ben Browder as Isaac, the sheriff of Mercy. And Murray Gold composes a score that truly recollects the westerns of decades gone by. All in all, a very satisfying episode.

"A Town Called Mercy" gets 3 and 1/2 Sonic Screwdrivers. And dang nearly 4.

Next week: "The Power of Three".

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Unintentionally hilarious children's test answers

WARNING: This might be the most gut-bustingly funny link that I have ever directed this blog's readers to! Kristen and I enjoyed looking at these last night and we literally could not stop laughing! One of them in particular (feel free to guess which one) had me so hysterical that I was nearly keeled-over on the floor. If you are sitting at a desk with a drink, it is HIGHLY advised that you set the beverage safely down before clicking on to this page at HappyPlace featuring inadvertently hilarious test answers from children. And if you're a teacher or otherwise involved in education you'll especially get a giggle out of these :-)

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At #5 on Cracked.com's list of The 6 Most Baffling Political Ads Ever Aired...

...it's... me!

That was almost six years ago. I really am never gonna live this down, am I?

Well, it was a lot of fun running for school board. The entire experience, I mean! One that I would never trade for anything. I learned a great deal more about election laws and running for office than I had ever known before. I didn't win a seat but that's okay: it was a great run, I campaigned my own way and kept it positive, upbeat, and I wanted to present my beliefs in an enlightening and entertaining fashion. I wanted just ten people to vote for me, and wound up getting nearly forty-seven hundred.

But I didn't for once believe that this commercial was going to grab any attention beyond Rockingham County... and much less still be going strong more than half a decade later!

Well anyhoo, Cracked.com has my Star Wars-ish school board campaign ad at #5 on their list of The 6 Most Baffling Political Ads Ever Aired.

And if you haven't seen it for yourself yet, here's the link to "Christopher Knight for School Board TV Commercial #1".

Now, it would be really nice if the video that I spent most of the afternoon shooting got even a tiny amount of that kind of attention...

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Warhammer 40K wildly popular among U.S. military personnel

Warhammer 40,000 Sixth Edition came out over two months ago and I still haven't gotten to play with the new rules! Just been busy on multiple fronts. Which makes me look positivalutely pathetic compared to what these dedicated players go through...

Slate Magazine has a terrific article about how the futuristic tabletop war game is incredibly popular among the men and women (okay, mostly men) of the United States armed forces, and especially with many who are serving overseas in places like Afghanistan (including players such as Army Sgt. Steffan McBee, pictured). Warhammer 40K's publisher Games Workshop estimates that perhaps 25 percent of its very large American player base are active-duty personnel: some of whom go to great lengths to have their stockpiles of miniatures shipped safely to their duty posts around the globe.

What's the appeal of a war game played on tabletops with plastic and metal models? Members of the armed forces enjoy the tactical thinking and execution critical to carrying out a 40K battle. But there is also the more hobby-ish aspect of assembling, painting and oftentimes customizing the models. One Marine comments that the strenuous regimented lifestyle of the Corps obligates an attention to detail that carries over well into the grim darkness of the far future that is Warhammer 40K.

It's a most excellent write-up by Alan Siegel, and one that'll have you appreciating anew what our armed service folks do to keep themselves entertained far from home. And hey, as a devout Ork player it makes me proud to be in good company with United States Marines who also enjoy a fine WAAAGH! :-)

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A-maize-ing: World's biggest QR code

On the fertile green plains of Alberta, Canada, the Kraay Family has engineered the world's largest QR code into a cornfield.

And yes, the code works! Hold your smartphone outside the window of a hovering helicopter and when you point it at the code you'll be directed straight to the Kraay Family Farm website.

The QR code takes up about 1.1 square miles of land and has just been verified by Guinness as being officially the world's largest functioning QR code. It's just the latest in a tradition going back more than a decade for the Kraay family: every year they do a "maize maze" featuring wildly intricate designs in their cornfield.

Mash on over to Engadget for more about the Kraay family's techno-agricultural art!

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Behold the world's oldest known color motion picture!

In 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became President after the assassination of William McKinley. The Wright Brothers were still experimenting with gliders and motorized propellers. Tsar Nicholas II reigned in Russia and the British Empire mourned the passing of Queen Victoria. A child named Walt Disney was born in Chicago. Guglielmo Marconi used his newly-invented radio to send the first trans-Atlantic signal.

Meanwhile in England, a photographer named Edward Turner was experimenting with color negatives and the recent advent of motion pictures. Among other things Turner recorded footage of his three children, Hyde Park, and traffic in London.

More than a century later and after exhaustive research, it is now being reported that Edward Turner's film is the oldest color motion picture that has ever been found.

Wanna see it? Of course ya do!

The palette of the macaw is particularly striking. But after watching the soldiers marching and the Union Jack flittering, I can't help but wonder what might have been had Turner's process and Kinemacolor later on become more widely available. I mean, just imagine the color footage that could have been made of World War I a few years later.

Edward Turner himself passed away at the much-too-young age of 29 in 1903. But it's great to see him and his work getting appreciated today.

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Federal Reserve begins QE3

This can't end well...

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In-vitro adoptions rising among evangelical Christians

Krista Kapralos writes a most fascinating piece in The Washington Post this week: about how evangelical Christians are coming to the forefront of adopting frozen embryos that have been fertilized in-vitro. The article cites that there could be approximately 600,000 embryos being stored in liquid nitrogen around the United States. And that in keeping with their pro-life values, many who identify themselves as conservative Christians are choosing to legally adopt children... and then carrying them to term on their own.

From the article...

The embryo was frozen in liquid nitrogen when Gabriel and Callie Fluhrer found it. They didn’t know whether that embryo would grow to be a boy or a girl, or whether it would even grow at all.

But to the Fluhrers, it was worth the risk. That tiny collection of cells was a baby, they believed. And if they didn’t pluck it from the warehouse where it had been stored since its biological parents decided they didn’t need or want it any longer, it was likely to die.

“If we’re going to stand against abortion, it’s not simply picketing a clinic,” said Gabriel Fluhrer, a public relations and publishing coordinator for the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. “It’s doing the hard work of adopting the orphans around the world, whether embryos or orphans living in China.”

Anna Fluhrer was born in December 2010: from a frozen embryo to a healthy baby girl.

For some reason or another, I found myself studying human embryology last week, particularly the first few days and weeks of the zygote. Something that keeps fascinating me: how the heck does a little ball of cells like that know how and where to achieve bilateral symmetry? That seems like such a tiny detail but for the life of me, I can't figure it out.

Pondering about that reinforced something that I was told years ago by someone in the medical profession: that a baby truly is a miracle. There are a thousand things that could go wrong in a pregnancy, but more often than not a healthy human being is born. We don't appreciate that nearly enough.

So back to this story: as a person who strongly believes that human life begins at conception, I have to applaud that there are many people who are willing to demonstrate their ethics in this fashion. I'm also of the mind that medical knowledge is a wonderful gift from God and that it absolutely can be a blessing for those who need it, including for those who on their own cannot conceive a child.

But I'm also now seeing how my friends among the Catholic persuasion are onto something as well with their church's position that in-vitro fertilization is wrong. Because of all those hundreds of thousands of lab-fertilized embryos, many of them won't be implanted at all. Quite a number of them are fertilized but otherwise not viable for coming to full term. And therein is the ethical problem: that the in-vitro procedure, in an effort to bring about new human life, must also acknowledge that human lives will be lost as an unavoidable consequence.

I'm not coming down one way or another about this. Just wondering aloud if, perhaps, in some ways the miracle of medical technology exceeds our moral grasp.

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Two sequels to INDEPENDENCE DAY being produced

"Welcome to Urf"... again.

(Hah-hah-hah, did you see what I did there? Did you?!)

Word breaking this afternoon is that TWO sequels to the 1996 sci-fi blockbuster Independence Day are in the works. Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich are trying to get everyone from the original back on board. Right now the follow-ups are titled ID Forever Part One and ID Forever Part Two. How clever...

I have extremely mixed feelings about this. Yeah, even considering how much of a fan I was - and always will be - of the original. 1996's Independence Day was a unique product of its era. It should remain as much. At the same time it was such a great concept now tied down to being so dated a film that it's one of the few movies that I could see a reboot/remake being in order. Just as long as those eyeball-goggling practical effects make a return.

Oh yeah, it's also been announced that the sequels will be filmed in 2-D and then converted to 3-D in post-production...

"AWWW HELL NAW!!!"

A tip o' the hat to this blog's good friend Drew McOmber for passing along news of this... thing.

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Why the hell do we even have embassies in Egypt and Libya?

Civility is a chosen virtue. It cannot be imposed or expected from those who refuse to accept it and its responsibilities.

Time to get out of the Mid-East until "countries" like Egypt and Libya learn to behave. Pull EVERYTHING out, including all those billions of dollars of aid they get from us one way or another.

If they want to return to barbarism that bad enough, who are we to stop them?

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Fire the striking Chicago teachers... and ban them from the classroom for life

More than 400,000 schoolchildren in Chicago are without educators today after the teachers union there went on strike. I say "educators" lightly because by some accounts nearly 80% of eighth graders in Chicago public schools don't have adequate reading skills.

So these "teachers", who are already paid on average between $71,000 and $76,000 before benefits, and are only working nine months out of the year anyway, are going on strike because a 16% pay raise apparently isn't enough. These people's starting salary is $50,000.

Chicago is paying an insane amount of money out of the public treasury and getting some piss-poor results from it. So who the hell are these "educators" to demand more pay?

Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel should take some real leadership initiative and order every teacher back into the classroom within 48 hours, under penalty of being banned for life from teaching in the city's public schools. Just as President Reagan fired thousands of air traffic controllers who went on strike in 1981. I don't doubt that there are many sincere and dedicated teachers out there looking for work and who would be exceedingly satisfied to take those positions... and for a far more sane rate of pay, at that.

Would Mayor Emanuel have the courage to defy the teachers union like that?

Never mind answering that question. I was being facetious.

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Hound of the Baskervilles?

It is seriously foggy this morning. Like, the kind of fog that Arthur Conan Doyle used to vividly describe as covering the moors of Britain in his Sherlock Holmes stories.

So after letting Tammy out to do her "doggie business", the notion struck that there might be a photo opportunity.

And here she is, bounding out of the mists like a ferocious creature in murderous pursuit of prey...

Okay, granted: a four-month old miniature dachshund puppy is not that ferocious. But please don't tell her that :-)

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"Asylum of the Daleks": Season premiere of DOCTOR WHO is certifiably insanely good!

Is it just me, or has Doctor Who suddenly become a bigger presence in American pop culture than ever before? Every Barnes & Noble I've been into lately has an entire table devoted to Doctor Who books and other merchandise. Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor was on the cover of Entertainment Weekly earlier this summer. A friend in Roanoke spotted a comic book store this past week: the marquee outside said "TALKING ABOUT REGENERATION" to advertise Doctor Who stuff inside.

I've been watching Doctor Who since the winter of 1981. But in more than thirty years I've never seen the Doctor and his mythology as wildly popular on this side of the pond as it is now.

It's been almost a year since last season's finale "The Wedding of River Song" and more than eight months since "The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe". However you figure it, this is the longest respite we've had since the BBC brought Doctor Who back in 2005. But showrunner Steven Moffat sure knows how to make the wait worth it...

I wasn't able to see "Asylum of the Daleks" until the morning after it premiered this past Saturday night. And I didn't get to write about it sooner but I have watched it twice more... and I'm still not getting enough of it! This is by far the strongest premiere of Doctor Who that we've seen yet and if this is any indication of what Moffat and his crew have in store for us the rest of this season, we are in for a hella dark and scary ride. Maybe even darker than last year's series...

"Asylum of the Daleks" opens with a sweeping and frightening vista of a place we haven't seen in a very long time: Skaro, the original home world of the Daleks. In quick fashion we witness the Doctor (Matt Smith) - still believed dead by the universe at large - along with Amy and Rory (Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill) abducted by human agents of the Daleks and brought to what might be the most horrifying place we've seen yet in Doctor Who history: the Parliament of the Daleks. Yes folks, seems that even the Daleks have politicians. And right when you'd think that they are ready to at last exterminate their oldest and greatest nemesis, they screech out a frantic plea: "Save us."

It's a prelude to what is doubtless an even more horrifying location: the Asylum. A cordoned-off planet containing millions of insane Daleks: the absolute worst and most uncontrollable of the most evil alien race in all the universe. And now it looks like the inmates are going to break loose.

It's a terrific story, and in finest Moffat-scribed fashion one replete with twists and surprises. It is also a hoot to see every Dalek variant since the show's beginning represented in the Asylum, including the Special Weapons Dalek first (and last) seen in the 1988 story Remembrance of the Daleks. My one beef with the episode is that I was extremely looking forward to seeing all of those insane Daleks going full-tilt whacko, when for the most part we see them inert and passive. Well, except for the ones in the intensive care ward... but you'll just have to watch to see what makes them such a special case. All in all though, this was a rollickin' wild and fun opening for the season. Showing the Daleks madder than usual was quite an innovative way to re-emphasize their evil nature. And by the end of the episode we get fairly good confirmation of what will be this season's motif: the question that was mentioned in "The Wedding of River Song". The first question. The oldest question in the universe. Hidden in plain sight. The question that the Doctor has been running from all his life...

"Doctor who?"

Like I said, if "Asylum of the Daleks" is any indication, this season is going to be in-tense.

I'm going to give "Asylum of the Daleks" Four and 1/2 Sonic Screwdrivers out of a possible five. And next time on Doctor Who: "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship"!

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Kristen's Korner: "My Bipolar Boyfriend"

Yesterday evening the lovely and effervescent Kristen told me that she had composed a lil' something for this blog. I had no idea she was working on this, but after reading it I couldn't help but think that she expressed some things about bipolar disorder better than I have and maybe ever could. And she wants to write more stuff for this site, too! So expect more out of Kristen's Korner from here on out.

So without further ado...

"My Bipolar Boyfriend"

First, I’d like to thank Chris for letting me borrow his blog. I don’t have the time nor the patience to keep up a blog of my own, but I do (on occasion) feel led to write, and requested a venue to share my thoughts.

Second, I’ll introduce myself. My name is Kristen Bradford. You’ve perhaps seen my name referenced in Chris’ entries, or even seen pictures of me on here in the past year. I am proud to have earned the role of “Chris Knight’s girlfriend.” He is my first boyfriend - the only serious relationship I’ve ever had in my 27 years of life, and I can honestly say I have never been so happy before.

Now that I’ve gotten the housekeeping things out of the way, it’s time to delve into what I want to talk about... bipolar disorder.

Those of you who have been reading The Knight Shift for some time will know that Chris has not kept his mental condition a secret. In fact, he wants you to know about it. We were barely in the “open communication” stage on eHarmony when he revealed his condition to me. At the time, although I had heard of it, I didn’t really know much about it. Fourteen months later, I am still struggling to understand what bipolar is... although I never truly will, since I don’t have it.

***
I am one of those people that likes to help others. Whether it’s a friend who needs someone to listen, or a veteran’s disability case I’m working at my job, I want to do whatever I can for others. So it’s been difficult for me this past year, because although Chris has become the person I am the closest to, I can’t always fix things. Sometimes he calls me in the midst of a bipolar episode. All I want to do is comfort him and help him feel better, yet I may fail in doing so. Those are the times that I feel inadequate as a girlfriend, wishing I could do more.

But I am slowly learning that I can’t just fix bipolar. Chris is always going to have it (unless, God-willing, a cure is discovered). Nothing I say or do will make it go away. Chris may be a person of reason, but bipolar doesn’t deal with reason. He has to battle his mind, a mind that wants to trap him in either a state of depression or mania. I cannot fully comprehend what that must be like, and honestly I don’t think I want to know.

All I can do is be there for him. If he needs to talk - even at 3 in the morning - he knows I’ll be there to answer the phone. I’m not going to fix his condition, but I am someone he can lean on when he needs it.

What makes this difficult on the loved ones surrounding someone with bipolar? First, you never know when an episode will strike. Although medicine does wonders, it isn’t a cure. Episodes still happen (but luckily, they do pass). It’s especially hard for me, though, when Chris is at his home and I’m at mine - about an hour and half away - and I can’t physically be there for him during an episode. Sometimes episodes will put a monkey wrench in plans that have been made. But that can happen with any type of illness - even the common cold or a stomach flu. I am trying to remind myself that although there may not be much projected outward (since it’s a purely internal disorder), that doesn’t negate the fact that it is a medical condition that may require time apart until Chris feels better.

I’m also learning that bipolar is nobody’s fault. It’s not my fault if he gets depressed or recalls a bad memory - I just may happen to be there when it happens. It doesn’t mean I caused it (which is taking me a while to understand). And it’s certainly not Chris’ fault. Chris is a genuine, decent, and honest person that I am thankful to have in my life. He is one of the kindest people I have ever met. But because of bipolar, he has done things in his past - and even a few things since we started dating - that can be attributed to the bipolar, not him. I cannot blame him for a mind he can’t always control. He is always apologetic, regretting what has happened, but I know the true Chris inside is not the person that bipolar may portray him to be.

That’s what I want people to recognize - bipolar doesn’t define a person. It is, unfortunately, a part of the person that has it. It’s like Bruce Banner and the Hulk. The Hulk is inside Bruce, but Bruce can’t control when he turns green or what havoc he may cause afterward. But the Hulk doesn’t define Bruce Banner - Bruce is an intelligent scientist who uses his talents to help others (anyone watch “The Avengers” this summer?). But there are times he gets angry, and the Hulk emerges - ready to smash! Can Bruce Banner be blamed for what the Hulk does?

***
What do I want readers to take away from this?

-Remember that bipolar disorder isn’t an easy thing to deal with - for the person suffering OR the loved ones surrounding.


-You have to learn patience. It may take a while to find the right medicine to manage the condition, and episodes can be difficult but do pass.


-Don’t give up. If you have bipolar (or any mental condition, for that matter), remind yourself that it can’t keep you down forever. Rely on your support system, your counselor, your medicine. You are not alone. And to those who know someone with a mental condition - please don’t give up either. Don’t give up on that loved one. It’s not going to be an easy road to walk, but you may be the only support they have.

I know that life has its ups and downs, and may be moreso with Chris and I, as he goes through life managing his disorder. But I wouldn’t take any other road than the one I’m on. We all have our burdens to bear - Chris just has one that is more difficult (yet less visual to others) than most people. Despite the bipolar, he can still have a normal life. And I’m honored to be part of it, and know we will get through whatever challenges may arise down the road.

Bipolar may not be easy to live with or have a cure... but it is controllable, and doesn't have to stop those affected by it from enjoying life. Chris and I are certainly enjoying ours.

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About the Republican National Convention...

Since three readers have asked me this afternoon what I think about the Republican National Convention going on right now in Tampa... and about the crazy rules changes that the Romney camp seems to be hellbent on implementing... maybe that means I'm supposed to post something.

So here it is:

It wouldn't surprise me at all if the Republican party were to split apart after this election, and maybe even before then.

If so, I can't see how that would be anything but a good thing.

I've seen this coming for a long time. So have a lot of other observers. Those among the Republicans who genuinely desire less government, slashed taxes and cut spending believe - with no small amount of evidence supporting their claim - that they have been incrementally squeezed out of having influence within their own party. The "old boys network" of party elites can't have the grassroots gettin' too uppity, ya see. The rank and file have to be clamped down on. Punished, even. But I can't remember it ever being so blatant as it is become this week down Tampa way.

I'm not active in the Republican party. But I do know plenty of good folks who are (along with good people in the Democrat party). And a lot of them are getting mighty peeved at what the "GOP-e" are doing to their sincere efforts toward reducing the size of government.

The Republican bigwigs have become like an abusive spouse: the kind that beats the poor wife and then says "Where else are you gonna go bay-bee?" It's been that way for awhile now. And the Republican leaders are choosing to be ignorant of the fact that the ordinary citizens making up the party are getting up the nerve to at long last retaliate.

Like I said, I can't see how this could be a bad thing at all. If the Republicans split, it could give this country something it hasn't had in a long, long time...

A real honest-to-gosh second major party.

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