Man's $150 "toy poodles" really ferrets on steroids

A retiree in Argentina bought two toy poodles for about $150 (American) each.  When he brought them home it was discovered that the "dogs" were in reality two ferrets pumped-up with steroids and then had their fur styled to make them look like poodles!

From Mail Online's article about this very bizarre con...

"Beware of rodent"

Gullible bargain hunters at Argentina's largest bazaar are forking out hundreds of dollars for what they think are gorgeous toy poodles, only to discover that their cute pooch is in fact a ferret pumped up on steroids.

One retired man from Catamarca, duped by the knock-down price for a pedigree dog, became suspicious he had bought what Argentinians call a 'Brazilian rat' and when he returned home took the 'dogs' to a vet for their vaccinations.

Imagine his surprise when his suspicious were confirmed - he had in fact purchased two ferrets that had been given steroids at birth to increase their size and then had some extra grooming to make their coats resemble a fluffy toy poodle.

Previously considered an urban legend of the giant La Salada market, local television news in the capital, Buenos Aires, discovered that the unidentified man was not alone - another woman had been told that she was buying a Chiuhuahua, but ended up with a ferret.

It's still not as weird as that surgery which turned a goat into a unicorn for the circus, but pretty crazy all the same.

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The Iron Lady has left us...

Margaret Thatcher

October 13, 1925 - April 8, 2013

___________________

Prime Minister of Great Britain

1979 - 1990

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"The Rings of Akhaten": Chris gets moved to tears by the profound beauty and wonder of this season's best DOCTOR WHO yet!

"Come on then... Take mine.  Take my memories.  But I hope you've got a big appetite, because I've lived a long life and I've seen a few things.  I walked away from the Last Great Time War.  I marked the passing of the Time Lords.  I saw the birth of the universe and I watched as time ran out, moment by moment, until nothing remained.  No time.  No space.  Just me!  I've walked in universes where the laws of physics were devised by the mind of a MAD... MAN.  I've watched universes freeze and creations burn.  I have seen things you wouldn’t believe.  I have lost things you'll never understand!  And I know things.  Secrets that must never be told.  Knowledge that must never be spoken.  Knowledge that will make parasite gods BLAZE!  SO COME OOOOON THEN!  TAKE IT!  TAKE IT ALL, BABY!!  HAVE IT!!  YOU HAVE IT ALL!!!"

And if you weren't moved to tears also by Murray Gold's majestic orchestral score and Matt Smith's epic stand of daring in the final moments of "The Rings of Akhaten", then... well, you're a pathetically jaded person who needs a hug in the worst way.

The reviews of "The Rings of Akhaten" seem to be all over the place, with most saying that they felt "underwhelmed" by this newest episode of Doctor Who.

Me?  I thought it ranks as the best of this season by far... and so help me, I had to choke back from full-blown crying during the final few scenes! 

(Only twice has that ever happened to me from a Doctor Who story.  David Tennant's final bow has always choked me up: a LOT of people consider it to have been the finest and most moving regeneration scene ever.  That, and pretty much the entire episode of "The Girl in the Fireplace": an episode which never fails to break me down...)

 For the first half or so of "The Rings of Akhaten" we aren't getting to see much that we haven't already, although the marketplace scenes are among the most visually thriving we've beheld since the show was revived in 2005 (if there's a British equivalent to 5-Hour Energy then this show's costume department must have pushed themselves to exhaustion coming up with all those aliens' designs).  I think some strong comparisons could be made to "The Beast Below" during Matt Smith's first season (which was also Amy Pond's second episode as a companion, just as "The Rings of Akhaten" is for Clara).  And yeah there are some things which could have been better in terms of pacing and plotting...

...but that first half is rife with more legendary Doctor Who mythos than any episode we've seen lately.  C'mon: I couldn't have been the only one who noticed Matt Smith's Doctor take that defensive stance with the Venusian Aikido that the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) was known for.

The car which almost hits Clara's father is the same one that we saw crashing into Rose's dad in "Father's Day".  Coincidence?  Where Steven Moffat is concerned, there are no coincidences...

And then, there was The Doctor making an almost-glib reference to "my granddaughter".

There is setup going on here, people!  What is being set up, only Steven Moffat and a few others in the BBC's Doctor Who production offices know.  But in the name of all that's good and holy The Doctor just mentioned Susan!!  Not by name but that HAD to be Susan!!  When was the last time Susan got mentioned in anything Doctor Who-ish?!?

That very, very fleeting snippet of dialogue alone is going to make "The Rings of Akhaten" memorable.  And I think it's going to become even more memorable as this season continues to unfold on the way to the fiftieth anniversary in November.

In terms of performance, Matt Smith has perhaps never looked so dark, so dangerous, so defiant as The Doctor as he is now.  It's a trend that began with "The Snowmen" and I was hoping to see that grow in "The Bells of Saint John".  Last week's episode in retrospect missed the mark more than it hit... but having seen "The Rings of Akhaten" I'm feeling that groove again and it's getting deeper.  I'm also really digging his revamped costume: it's definitely more brooding and dashing (sorta like he's got a Sherlock motif going lately).  His "in-your-face" to what can only be described as a star god should go down as one of the most powerful scenes in Doctor Who history.  Nothing else comes to mind that has so conveyed the triumph and the tragedy that is the life of The Doctor.

Jenna-Louise Coleman is increasingly growing on me as new companion Clara, and I appreciated how her back-story was presented at the start of the episode.  And for a role that came to have such import, I thought that Emilia Jones handled Merry quite well: a frightened child, without being especially "childlike" about it.  And does that young lady have a lovely singing voice, or what??

But I thought the two biggest things that "The Rings of Akhaten" had going for it were its sense of scale and the episode's music.  C'mon: when was the last time The Doctor had to take on an opponent like that??  We're talking cosmic scope the likes of Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko here, folks!  I have to tip my hat to freshman Doctor Who scribe Neil Cross (creator of Luther) for cutting his teeth on such high-concept storytelling.  This was his first time out the gate... and I think he's going to only get better.

And so far as the music goes, Murray Gold was firing on all cylinders with "The Rings of Akhaten".  The score went from setting the atmosphere to an integral part of the story... and I think he handled it magnificently.  I want this season's soundtrack album right now, just to have the pieces he composed for this episode (along with Emilia Jones' choral accompaniment!).

It also must be said that "The Rings of Akhaten" is an absolute feast for the eyes.  One well-respected friend with cinematography experience remarked that he had "never seen a more beautifully filmed episode".  The camera work, the composition, the music... all orchestrated together in one epic harmony.

A very, very solid episode that gracefully overlooks whatever faults it may have.  "The Rings of Akhaten" gets Four and 1/2 Sonic Screwdrivers from this Whovian blogger!

Next week: The Doctor and Clara aboard a nuclear submarine amid tensions between the American Navy and the Soviet Union.  Six days from now brings us "Cold War"!

EDIT 11:20 p.m. EST: So what did it look like when The Doctor fought a god?

Somebody has kindly posted "the speech" scene.

Since writing this review I've watched "The Rings of Akhaten" once more. But I've watched this scene at least ten times now. This is what brought the tears. EVERYTHING about it is darn nearly too beautiful for words...

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Hell hath no fury! Turkish TV station neglects special effects mid-show

Television station STV in Turkey - an outfit apparently specializing in religious programming - recently produced a movie or series episode or something about a father and son and the father dies and goes to Hell and the son gets to watch him burn in tortured agony.

Yeah, I'd probably be screaming too if I were locked in a deep blue chromakey room being chained-up by guys covered head to toe in Hulk-green nude suits!

To STV's credit, the first part of the clip does do a decent job of portraying Hell... or at least the Hell that we saw in Michael Jai White's Spawn movie back in 1997. Looks like the graphics were drawn with a Sega Saturn. Anyhoo after the clergy dude shows up, the After Effects guy apparently fell asleep at the switch...


That's either really bass-ackwards, or STV was counting on everyone to ignore the scene and focus instead on the soccer score at the upper-right.

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33 most beautiful abandoned places in the world

Nothing of man lasts forever.  In the end, all crumbles to dust.

But some things sure do give us haunting beauty during the course of their long toil to entropy.

BuzzFeed has compiled photos of 33 places build by man throughout the world, left to ruin but gorgeous to behold.  There is quite a poignancy in these images.  I thought the one on the left - of the remains of the bobsled track from the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo (at the time in the now-disbanded country of Yugoslavia) - was especially moving.

That was one of the most well-remembered Olympiads of the past half-century.  And now, look at what remains  A long concrete chute, left to decay amid the foliage.  A few years after those games, Yugoslavia disintegrated into ethnic warfare and religious strife which cost the lives of countless thousands.

"All is vanity", as the Preacher at Jerusalem cried.

There are plenty more photos at the link above.  Some are of structures that will leave you wondering how the heck they were built at all and others... well, you'll be bugging your eyes out trying to figure out what the heck it is you're looking at (try staring at the one of the House of the Bulgarian Communist Party without getting a migraine).

Tip o' the hat to Danny de Gracia for a great find!

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"Senator" Feinstein wants violent video game control

Somebody educate me: how do people like Dianne Feinstein get elected to anything whatsoever? Feinstein shouldn't be trusted with city sanitation manager, much less United States Senator.

Having failed in her bid to ban "assault weapons" (there is no such thing, incidentally) Demented Dianne has now decided that violent video games must be controlled and regulated by act of Congress.

From the article at VentureBeat...

Speaking to an audience of 500 people in her hometown of San Francisco, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said that game publishers need to make voluntary actions to avoid glorifying guns and violence following the Newtown elementary school massacre in December.

She noted that Congress would take action if the industry didn’t do something, according to the Associated Press.

“If Sandy Hook doesn’t [make game publishers change] … then maybe we have to proceed, but that is in the future,” said Feinstein.

She went on to claim that video games play “a very negative role for young people, and the industry ought to take note of that.”

Uhhhhh... somebody should inform Senator Feinstein that ever since the introduction of first-person shooters and other violent video games in the early Nineties, mass killings HAVE BECOME MUCH LESS COMMON!  There is no correlation at all... none... between the pervasiveness of violent games and increase in crime.  If there is any relation between them at all, it could in fact be argued that such games have decreased crime, not intensified it.

For levity's sake, here is that pic of Feinstein in place of Doom's Marine guy from that Photoshop job I made of Obama two months ago...

 DOOM 2013: Where the insanest place is behind a Senator from California.

This is the same woman who last month claimed that all veterans of the United States military are "mentally ill" and thus should not be allowed to own firearms.

I would also be remiss in my duty as a blogger if it were not noted that earlier this year Feinstein expressed a desire to deprive the American citizenry of all their guns except for her own and those of other government officials (and yes, she owns a gun folks).

I am going to posit something: that the Founding Fathers had exceedingly prescient foresight when they wrote the Second Amendment.  If nothing else it is a last resort deterrent against the machinations of the power mad and the direly insane.  The latter of which is represented by Dianne Feinstein and too many others in the halls of Congress.

No, I'm not suggesting anything.  Just stating that We The People are our own best scare tactic that should give pause to the truly evil.

EDIT 11:35 p.m. EST:  It's not about Dianne Feinstein per se, but Kotaku has posted a terrific and timely piece by Christian Allen.  Allen has worked on the Ghost Recon franchise as well as Halo: Reach and many other successful video game projects.  Titled "I'm a Game Designer. I'm a Gun Owner. It's Time To End All This 'Us vs. Them'", his essay delves into his life-long experience with firearms and his involvement with producing many violent video games.  There's some harsh language so be warned.  Interestingly, much of it is aimed (no pun intended) at the National Rifle Association...

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Roger Ebert has passed away

Look, I didn't agree with all of his reviews and of his politics, far less.  But Roger Ebert was instrumental in introducing a lot of people to movies that they otherwise might never have gone to a theater to see.  Me included.

Roger Ebert passed away today after a long battle with cancer...

Thoughts and prayers going out to his family.

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It is snowing and sleeting right now...

It's the fourth day of April.  Spring has been here for over two weeks.  And in as north-central North Carolina as you can get, it is currently snowing and sleeting...

And it's confusing Tammy something fierce.  I let her out to do her "doggie business", she took one good look at the weather and promptly turned back to the doorsteps.

"Global warming"?  My a$$ there is!

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End of an era: Disney closes LucasArts

LucasArts is no more.

Disney laid off the entire staff and shuttered the studio this morning.  There had been speculation that LucasArts might be liquidated after Disney acquired Lucasfilm and the other companies beneath its umbrella five months ago.  The video game studio had been flailing in recent years despite moderate successes like LEGO Star Wars.  On the other hand there were turkeys like Kinect Star Wars.  It had been hoped that games like the upcoming Star Wars: 1313 would have increased its fortunes.

But now it's official: LucasArts has been closed down.  Disney has stated that future games will be licensed to other studios for development.  Some like Star Wars: 1313 may never get released at all.  The "LucasArts" name will continue to exist but the firm itself and its development staff has been disbanded.

I can see that as an appropriate measure.  The Star Wars: The Old Republic massive-multiplayer online game was practically developed entirely by BioWare anyway.  This is the way the wind had been blowing for some time...

Even so, a little bit of my youth died today.  Star Wars: X-Wing was the very first computer game that I bought, way back in winter of 1994.  The sequel TIE Fighter consumed most of my summer a few months later.  When I played Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (still one of THE BEST computer role-playing games ever) I obsessively went through all three of the "paths" that Indy could take.  To say nothing of the creatively offbeat games like Full Throttle and Sam and Max Hit the Road.

(I would be remiss if I didn't mention also Rescue on Fractalus: a game that some swear remains one of the most terrifying and fright-inducing more than a quarter century after its release.)

Well, the studio may be gone.  But the memories it evoked will ever burn bright.

Farewell, LucasArts.  And thank you for all the good times you gave us...

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North Carolina lawmakers want statewide official religion

Earlier this morning I first read about this and ever since I've been trying to find a measure of absurd purpose or mad brilliance in this legislation... but if it's there I can't find it.

Two members of this state's House of Representatives have filed House Bill 494, which if passed would allow for an official religion to be imposed upon North Carolina.

It's not a late April Fools joke.  Representatives Harry Warren and Carl Ford (each of Rowan County) want an official state religion which would circumvent judicial rulings on prayer at government functions within North Carolina.  Presumably this would be in response to courts which have struck down prayers at county commissioner meetings, school board hearings and the like.  Eleven other representatives so far have backed the proposal.

"The Constitution of the United States does not grant the federal government and does not grant the federal courts the power to determine what is or is not constitutional; therefore, by virtue of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the power to determine constitutionality and the proper interpretation and proper application of the Constitution is reserved to the states and to the people... Each state in the union is sovereign and may independently determine how that state may make laws respecting an establishment of religion."

Here's the real meat of HB 494...

SECTION 1. The North Carolina General Assembly asserts that the Constitution of the United States of America does not prohibit states or their subsidiaries from making laws respecting an establishment of religion.

SECTION 2. The North Carolina General Assembly does not recognize federal court rulings which prohibit and otherwise regulate the State of North Carolina, its public schools or any political subdivisions of the State from making laws respecting an establishment of religion.

To be fair, the bill does not specify any particular religion.

If this is about localities getting to choose on their own whether or not they will have prayers to open their meetings, then I understand that frustration: the courts have been interfering beyond the scope of their rational interests in regard to prayers which have had a ceremonial role with no bearing on official policy or writing of legislation.

But this is the wrong way to address that concern.  In fact, it's incredibly, insanely irresponsible.  Unethical.  Immoral.  And this is un-Constitutional: in spirit of the law if not in letter of the law.

Warren and Ford consider themselves to be "conservatives".  But there is nothing conservative whatsoever about HB 494.  And faith enforced is no faith at all.

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The day the music dies: "American Pie" is final DLC for ROCK BAND

Today is a bittersweet occasion in the annals of video game history: Harmonix is releasing the final downloadable content for its Rock Band series.

Since the first Rock Band came out in late 2007 the studio had promised new songs weekly for downloadable purchase and play.  It kept that promise for 281 consecutive weeks: far, far longer than most players probably expected.  Maybe even longer than it has been profitable.  Hard to find that kind of reliability in any modern industry, much less the video game one.

Fittingly, the last tune that players can get for Rock Band is Don McLean's 1971 classic "American Pie".  And were I the sort I'd be drinking whiskey and rye...

I only played Rock Band and Rock Band 2, and I have to agree with what Brett Makedonski has beautifully written on Destructoid: this series had an immense impact on my life.  Not just for the fun I had playing it but also because it exposed me to a spectrum of music that until then, I had not experienced and might never have.  Indeed, because of Rock Band my wallet dropped dollars not just for the DLC but for the songs themselves on iTunes.  I am a far more musically educated and enlightened individual today for Rock Band... and that's something that'll never be forgotten or unappreciated.

Seeing as how this will be the final post that this blog is likely to see about Rock Band, let's have it go out in true style.  Here once again is that amazing opening title cinematic from the first game: "Highway Star" by Deep Purple!

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Looking up at this week's Tammy Tuesday

Whenever anyone goes down the basement stairs, Tammy has to come to the door and look down.  I think it's in the hopes that we might bring something yummy up from the freezer (which she might or might not get a tasty morsel of)...

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April Fools 'Fess-Up 2013 Edition!

Yes the rumors are true!  They were absent for a few years but 2013 saw the return of the April Fools pranks to The Knight Shift.  The story about CBS producing a pilot for a modern-era reboot of The Andy Griffith Show was my own humble entry in this year's festivities.  It seems to have been moderately successful 'cuz a few friends were taken in by it (one of whom had some rather colorful remarks about it) and a few hours after I posted it some news site in France had picked it up!  It's in some weird font though: apparently something like Iranian or Pakistani, so I don't know if they thought it was real or they were saying "look at what this American idiot is doing!"

As always, I gotta note what the "clincher" was.  Every time I do a prank like this, I try to give some indication that it's just a gag.  Also as a way of putting my "signature" upon the work.  In this year's case there were two of them.  The first is the TMZ reporter: "Istvan Teleky" was the name of the eighteenth-century European count whose spirit supposedly haunted those tarot cards in the "Three Wishes for Opie" episode of The Andy Griffith Show (one of my favorites, incidentally).  The second was the child actor who would be playing Opie in the Mayberry reboot: "Ralf Paydosilo" is an anagram for "April Fools Day".  Right clever, aye?

The joke went through a few iterations before I posted it.  Originally it was going to be Charlie Sheen as Ernest T. Bass, but he's been doing too much other stuff lately, and he would have been way too obvious a choice to play Ernest T. anyway...

Special thanks to girlfriend Kristen who helped me brainstorm some ideas for this year's prank :-)

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CBS produces pilot for reboot of THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW! Modern MAYBERRY to star Kevin Sorbo as Sheriff Taylor, Aunt Bea as closet lesbian!

Keep in mind that what you're about to read is as of right now a pilot episode and maybe not even that much.  I thought it noteworthy that the CBS execs are describing this not as a pilot but as a "proof of concept".  Meaning the idea is being explored but it may not go any further and I doubt it will.  But hey, stranger things have happened in Hollyweird...

MAYBERRY pilot episode title card.  Copyright CBS Television

Entertainment and celebrity gossip website TMZ.com is reporting this morning that CBS Television head honchos have sanctioned and produced a pilot for Mayberry: a modern-age remake of the network's classic Sixties comedy The Andy Griffith Show.  Seems that when star Andy Griffith passed away last summer his last will and testament stipulated that CBS would enjoy uncontested rights to do with the show - along with spinoff Mayberry RFD - as it saw fit.  With CBS seeing success in its reboot of Hawaii Five-0, execs thought that the time was ripe for a return to Mayberry.  The pilot itself was shot in early January.

So what's Mayberry like? From the article by TMZ reporter Istvan Teleky...

The 22-minute "proof of concept" has Kevin Sorbo (Hercules: The Legendary Journeys) as Andy Taylor: Sheriff of a Mayberry for the new millennium. Sorbo's Taylor served two years in Iraq before PTSD sent him back home. No longer willing to carry a gun, Taylor returns to find his wife tragically killed and left to be a single father to son Opie (child actor newcomer Ralf Paydosilo). Barney Fife - voted by Entertainment Weekly as the greatest sitcom character of all time - now has borderline personality disorder and is played by Dominic Monaghan. The "pilot" also sees Steve Buscemi in a brief appearance as Ernest T. Bass and lovable town drunk Otis Campbell portrayed by Dennis Franz. Mayberry's most startling departure is The Carol Burnett Show sweetheart Vicki Lawrence as Aunt Bea: a closet lesbian whose feelings for Clara Edwards provide much of the pilot's laugh fodder. Some CBS officials expressed concern in one scene where Opie asks "Pa, what does 'masturbate' mean?"  However Sorbo is adamant about keeping Mayberry "clean and family friendly" and is demanding an executive producer role as well.

TMZ reports that several scripts are already prepared should the pilot go to series. One is a retelling of the legendary "The Loaded Goat" episode, which true to "modern sensibilities" finds the Town of Mayberry sued by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals after dynamite-gorged Jimmy the Goat explodes outside the town's only Planned Parenthood clinic. But despite such liberties, CBS execs are determined that the time is ripe for "a return to cornpone hayseed humor the likes of which hasn't been seen since Fred Silverman's 1970 'Rural Purge'."

Steve Buscemi as Ernest T. Bass.  Good Lord, I must see that someday!  But with that said: this thing sounds horrible.  It should be given a burial at sea courtesy of the bathroom toilet.  Putting jokes about masturbation into The Andy Griffith Show?  Whoever came up with that oughtta be burned at the stake for blasphemy...

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THE WALKING DEAD: Forty-five minutes after "Welcome to the Tombs"...

Okay.  Okay.  Okay.

Okay.  Oh-kaaaaay...

That was NOT what I was anticipating.  The first few minutes after tonight's season finale of The Walking Dead I was feeling... well, a bit let down.

But then I remembered that Season 3 didn't end any better or worse than the previous two have.  In fact, with each passing moment I'm finding myself thinking that this season finale was as well as it could have been.  Perhaps, even with the stakes raised for Rick and his group.  Maybe higher than they have ever been before.

The all-out war with Woodbury?  It didn't happen.  But I'm unable to escape the feeling that it hasn't happened yet. Woodbury has been liberated... but The Governor is still alive.  We don't know where the hell he has gone to.  But I'll posit a guess:

The Governor will not, can not, give up his obsession with destroying Rick, with destroying Michonne, with destroying everyone at the prison.  With being seen in any way at all as being a weak and helpless man.  The Governor is soulless survival-at-all-costs personified.  He is relentless.  He is utterly incapable of bargaining or being reasoned with.  He is also unfortunately bestowed with uncommon charisma.

So where has The Governor gone?

The Governor is the uber hardcase.  And he is now set loose to gather all the other hardcases to him.

Somewhere in the post-apocalyptic Georgia wilderness and beyond, a one-eyed megalomaniac has gone out to seek the lonely, the lunatic, the desperate leaderless...

We haven't seen the war with Woodbury, because we haven't seen the REAL Army of Woodbury yet.

But it's coming.  Chekov (the Russian playwright not the Star Trek character) had a rule of drama: if the gun is to be fired in Act III, it must be shown on the wall in Act I.  If the gun is shown on the wall in Act I, it must be fired by Act III.

That is what The Governor is.  Season 3 was us getting to look at him.  Getting to watch his veneer peeled back and the madman within leering out of that one hateful eye.  But for all that we saw in Season 3, we still haven't seen him fully unleashed.  We haven't...

But in Season 4, we will.

Rick has saved more people than he has ever been able to do before now.  He has also perhaps found redemption for his mistakes.  Carl is on the verge of losing his own sense of humanity.  A major character has died.

And The Governor is still out there somewhere...

No, this was not a letdown of a season finale.  It ended as well as "Beside the Dying Fire" did last season.  "Welcome to the Tombs" gave Rick and his ad hoc family a sense of accomplishment and a glimmer of hope that they haven't enjoyed in a long, long time.

But the powderkeg has been loaded.  The charge has been set.  They just don't know it yet.

And in Season 4, The Governor is going to light the fuse.

Congrats on another season of The Walking Dead well done, AMC!  Looking forward to Season 4 this coming fall!

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"He's Alive" by singer/songwriter Bethany Myers

Hey gang, hope y'all are having a Happy Easter!  It's also my birthday, muhahahahaha!!  So along with my girlfriend Kristen being here to celebrate, we had the return of Doctor Who last night, and then tonight it's the season finale of The Walking Dead and the season premiere of Game of Thrones.  Have the stars aligned for this geek, or what?! :-)

(And then there's the positvalutely ginormous hollow chocolate Easter bunny that she got from me this morning.  Still can't compare to the Doctor Who Yahtzee she gave me: at last a TARDIS toy of my very own!!)

Anyhoo, this being Easter, the day which we remember the life of Jesus Christ and the sacrifice He made to set us free from the bondages of this fallen realm so that we may have the life abundant, I felt led to share something special with y'all...

I have been very thankful and blessed to have Bethany Myers as a dear friend and sister in Christ.  Bethany is an amazingly gifted young woman who has been bestowed with remarkable talent as a choralist, instrumentalist and songwriter.  A few days ago Bethany began uploading some of her performances on audio hosting site SoundCloud.  The first of her songs that I was asked to check out is "He's Alive".  I thought it was a very beautiful composition and well worth passing along on this blog!  So I wanna invite my readers to click on over and enjoy "He's Alive" by Bethany Myers.

And if you want to listen to more of Bethany's work, here is her main page on SoundCloud.  Discover her now... before she lands a major recording contract! :-)

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"The Bells of Saint John" chime the return of DOCTOR WHO!

It took me an hour and a half after the episode aired on BBC America before I could turn in a blog post about "The Bells of Saint John"...

So along with statues, shadows, clocks, gas masks, cracks in the walls and Lord knows what else, now we have to be afraid of our Wi-Fi networks.  Damn you Steven Moffat!  DAMN YOU!!

(But he sure knows how to run Doctor Who like nobody's business, doesn't he?)

Three months after we last saw The Doctor (Matt Smith) in the 2012 Christmas special "The Snowmen", our hero is again sulking in solitude: this time at a monastery in England circa 1207.  Considered mad by his fellow monks (not the first no doubt), we find the last Time Lord contemplating, perhaps obsessing, with the newest enigma of his long life: Clara Oswin (Jenna Louise-Coleman, in her first regular Doctor Who episode as a companion).  When the telephone on the TARDIS's exterior starts ringing - by itself something which should not be happening - it isn't long before The Doctor is flying off again into time and space.

I'm not going to say anything else about "The Bells of Saint John", except that I thought it was a fairly strong return of both Doctor Who as a series as well as the start of an entirely new period of The Doctor's life.  Jenna Louise-Coleman came to the show in this season's premiere episode "Asylum of the Daleks".  "The Snowmen" made it clear in no uncertain terms that her character... or characters... is going to become a significant part of the series' mythology for the foreseeable future.  "The Bells of Saint John" begins that next era in earnest.  And judging by the myriad of sly references to previous material (hint: look at the author of that book) this promises... or threatens... to be a hella wild and scary ride in the lead-up to the big fiftieth anniversary of Doctor Who this fall.

A pretty solid episode, and one that continues the fine Moffat tradition of giving us something new to keep a watchful eye on.  What's he gonna frighten us with next... vacuum cleaners?  Fish and chips?  Toilets?

(Hey, it'd still be better than "Love & Monsters" was... :-P)

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Planned Parenthood official sez: there is a right to POST-BIRTH abortion

God have mercy on us.

Alisa LaPolt Snow, a lobbyist representing Planned Parenthood in Florida ("Planned Parenthood"?  Now there's a contradiction in terms...) testified before that state's legislators this week that babies who are born after an attempted abortion should be killed at the discretion of the mother and her doctor.

Killing a baby.  After it has been born.

Back in the old days, we used to call that "infanticide".  Something that King Herod and certain pharaohs were fond of.  Y'know: murdering infants.

The Weekly Standard has more of the story and here's the actual video of Snow advocating putting to death babies who have taken their first real breath of life...


Folks, this blog's longtime readers know something about me: I am really, really careful about the language I use.  There is a certain word which has appeared on The Knight Shift but only as part of quotations from other sources.  It has been used only ONE time by my own volition.  It happened four years ago and it was the first time in my entire life that I had ever used it in publication.  At the time it was about a man being driven to suicide by hostile agents of the government.

There were no words in polite language that could have possibly conveyed my rage, my frustration and my lust for justice in that situation.  I'll never use that word unless it's absolutely, positively necessary.  When all other linguistical tools have failed.

For only the second time in my life, it has come to that again.

I don't care if my language here offends people.  At this point, I cannot find any other words that could telegraph my disbelief and horror at what we've come to:

We are fucked.  We are literally God-damned, for letting things come to this.  And damn if we don't deserve it.

One friend has noted that Mizz Snow's argument will never be allowed to pass into law or regulation.  Perhaps so.  But that it has even been seriously suggested at all screams volumes about how far we have fallen as a society.

We are on a very slippery slope down.  This will not end well.

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The Shroud of Turin? There's an app for that!

Before I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark in the theater (yeah I was that young: it was a weird weird childhood) and got hooked on archaeology, the Shroud of Turin had grasped my fascination.  All I knew at the time was that it might have been the cloth that Jesus was wrapped in after His death and that somehow, His picture got transferred into the material.  I've been reading every serious article and journal paper about the Shroud for most of my life and my curiosity about it has grown more and more.  Especially at this time of year.

What do I think of the Shroud of Turin?  Well, despite many attempts to reproduce it, those have always failed.  And then there is the forensic analysis: just this week scientists announced that the Shroud is almost certainly a product of the First Century.  When you figure in that pollen grains from plants found only in the region around Jerusalem have been extracted from the Shroud and well... if nothing else it is a historical relic of the utmost intrigue.

This being Holy Week, for the second time in history (the first was 1973) the Shroud of Turin is going to be televised live, beginning tomorrow.  And if you want a REALLY up-close look at the Shroud, you should check out The Shroud of Turin 2.0 for iPad and iPhone.

Haltadefinizione is the studio that did the high-definition photography of the Shroud five years ago.  It was the best photo documentation of the Shroud to date and now courtesy of those same folks it's all in the palm of your hand (or your lap). The Shroud of Turin 2.0 takes the 1,649 pics of the Shroud, combines them into a 12 billion pixel image weighing in at 72 gigabytes and streams it to your device (be still your heart: the actual app is only 50 MB in size).  You can download a free version, or pay $4 that gives you the option for even higher-resolution images.  If you want it, mash down here to find it on Apple's App Store!

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The thirtieth anniversary of Strategic Defense Initiative

It was thirty years ago this week that President Ronald Reagan gave a historic speech proposing, for the first time, a space-based anti-ballistic missile system for the United States.  The plan, once developed, would utilize ground and space-based weaponry to blast apart incoming nuclear missiles.  The basic premise was an array of missile-launching satellites around the Earth.  A far more radical design called for the deployment of platforms in orbit: either carrying anti-missile lasers or particle beams, or as part of an adaptive-optics system which would focus a surface-generated laser onto a moving target anywhere around the world (see illustration).

The official name for the concept was Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI.  But for reasons apparent to everyone it was quickly labeled "Star Wars" by the mainstream press and the name stuck.

SDI gained notoriety overnight, as much from many people in the United States as from the government of the Soviet Union.  Reagan's political enemies swore and declared that "Star Wars" was a ridiculous fantasy that would never work.  Soviet officials were outraged: among other things, claiming that SDI was a violation of the SALT II treaty.

The thing is, Strategic Defense Initiative did work.  But not at all in the way that it was advertised.  And out of all of Reagan's accomplishments, it is SDI that stands as the most genius.  Because SDI didn't have to function at all as Reagan had proposed.  Instead, it was the very idea of SDI that compelled the Soviet government to pour an insane amount of money into its military budget in an effort to "catch up" with the United States.  It was money that the Russians didn't really have to begin with and the rush to build up that country's military and technology took a severe toll on an economy that was severe enough already.

In short: SDI was one of the biggest reasons for the fall of the Soviet Union.  It drastically accelerated the Russian's bankruptcy and inability to contain its own people as it had for many decades.

I'll put it in even shorter terms: Ronald Reagan is the man most responsible for ending the Cold War.  He did it with SDI.  And he did it without a single shot being fired by either side.

Like I said: genius.

There are a number of retrospectives about the thirtieth anniversary of Strategic Defense Initiative, but one of the better ones I've found is a series by Jay Nordlinger running all this week on National Review's website.  It's recommended reading for anyone interested in the very rare crossing of politics, technology and history that is SDI.

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This week's Tammy Tuesday's got some pearly whites

I've had Tammy for ten months now. That's plenty of time to chronicle a lot of her but one thing that keeps eluding me is a perfect shot of this baby's teeth. She had those needle-like daggers that pups always have at first but ever since she lost her puppy teeth she's grown in some positivalutely gnarly chompers.

Well, it's not ideal by far, but this really is the best pic I've been able to take of not just her teeth but that psycho look in her eye when she's showing them off :-)

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"This Sorrowful Life": Thoughts on THE WALKING DEAD penultimate Season 3 ep

For the record, I wanna state that I just knew what Glenn was doing when he went walking along the fence!  Let's hope he thought well enough to sanitize that thing...

(Guess we're gonna see a spate of The Walking Dead-inspired weddings now, huh?)

There's been a pattern this late in Season 3: seems that AMC's The Walking Dead has been oscillating between "unbelievably greater television than we possibly deserve" and "better than much else".  The latter isn't where The Walking Dead should be: not after everything else that has happened this season.  Last week's "Prey" was an example.  It ended on a great shot but c'mon: forty minutes of The Governor stalking Andrea coulda, shoulda been much more fun.

But "This Sorrowful Life", this week's episode and the final before next Sunday's season finale, brought the pendulum swinging back... before making us watch it break completely off the chain and flying through the window...

I've thought from the getgo that The Walking Dead's biggest strength is how this is a story about human strengths and weaknesses and what any of us are capable of doing in the very worst of situations.  We saw that out the wazoo in "This Sorrowful Life": from Rick's inner turmoil about The Governor's ultimatum to that very touching - even uncommonly encouraging from television - scene between Glenn and Hershel in regard to Maggie.  The part where Hershel is having Bible study and prayer with his family was also a nice touch.  And then there was the scene where Rick called the group together.  He owned up to his mistakes, and I got the sense that we've now seen closure to his arc that began with declaring the "Rick-tatorship" at the end of Season 2.

But more than anything else, "This Sorrowful Life" was the long-coming payoff for Merle Dixon (Michael Rooker).

Merle has come a long way from the borderline neo-Nazi we saw chained to the roof in Season 1.  The racist aspect seemed to have vanished entirely, or at least covered with a practical veneer (sorta) during his time in the quasi-civilized society of Woodbury.  But even so, from the moment he re-appeared as one of The Governor's henchmen we saw the same ol' despicable Merle was still in there.  That he's had a bayonet in place of his right hand didn't help matters much...

So for most of Season 3 we've come to have a grudging tolerance for Merle Dixon.  But in the wake of "This Sorrowful Life" I expect him to become a character we'll be spending a lot more time studying as we re-watch this series in the years to come.  I think that in the end, Merle wound up his personal story as well as anyone can be expected.  Maybe he'll never be remembered by anybody else, but he had the conscience to do his best to make things right.  Not for himself as much as for others.

That doesn't make things easier for little brother Daryl (Norman Reedus, who has become the biggest breakout television sensation in many a moon).  That final scene of "This Sorrowful Life", where we had to witness Daryl's breaking down as he has never before, was sincerely heart-rending to watch.  I'll say it again: Reedus deserves an Emmy nomination for his work on this show (along with Chandler Riggs).

"This Sorrowful Life" featured some of the most brutal scenes in The Walking Dead's three years thus far, especially the ambush at the motel where Michonne makes creative use of that wire.  And did anyone else notice that The Governor (David Morrissey) had one line of dialogue in this episode?  Just one... but it certainly got his point across.

An extremely solid episode.  Here's hoping that it will keep it up going into the season finale next week: presumably the long-awaited war with Woodbury!

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Awright, raise your hands...

...how many of y'all didn't have your NCAA Basketball Tournament brackets thoroughly broken after this weekend?

I'm not much up to speed on sports of late. But watching the agony from brackets getting busted in full gory on my Facebook front page has been pure comedy gold!

Even though I don't have a dog in this hunt (I would have rooted for my alma mater Elon if it had gotten into the Big Dance for the first time) I have to say: from the getgo this has been a weird weird tourney. Probably the most topsy-turvy one in recent memory.

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Angry Wife Billboard Update: Is it a restaurant publicity stunt?

The talk of the area since yesterday morning has been this billboard on Battleground Avenue in Greensboro (North Carolina). In big bold letters on a wrathful red field it reads thusly: "Michael- GPS Tracker - $250, Nikon Camera with zoom lens - $1600, Catching my LYING HUSBAND and buying this billboard with our investment account - Priceless. Tell Jessica you're moving in! - Jennifer".

That LED billboard has caused at least one car wreck (was his name Michael?!).  Some have said the photos are fake but it's really been on display.

(Photo credit: Fox 8 WGHP)

Now there is evidence that the entire thing has perhaps been, rather than a jilted wife airing her husband's dirty laundry on Battleground Avenue, a marketing ploy by a restaurant instead.

At right you see the new message that showed up on the same billboard today.  It's now alternating with the original note from "Jennifer".  The new one references "Yodaddy's".  Incidentally, there is a local restaurant called Yo Daddy's.

Mash down here for what the good folks at Fox 8 WGHP have discovered about the billboard since yesterday.  Feel free to draw your own conclusions.

Ehhhhhh... okay.  If it's some kind of stunt, I don't get it.  In retrospect it's not the cleverest thing that I've heard of.  Maybe they could have stretched this whole thing out into an ongoing drama or something...

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STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS has a new trailer!

Less than two months before this baby erupts across our peepers and I can't wait!

Whether he turns out to be Khan or not, Benedict Cumberbatch has already sold me as being a classic Trek villain.

Does anyone else think that the Starfleet war room looks a lot like the one in Dr. Strangelove? Here's praying that Star Trek Into Darkness doesn't end with Kirk riding a torpedo while whooping and hollerin'...

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Do you think Jennifer is angry at Michael?

An actual LED billboard this afternoon on Battleground Avenue in Greensboro, North Carolina...

Tip o' the hat and credit due to journalist Chad Tucker of Fox 8 WGHP, who posted this on Facebook a short while ago!

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Frank Thornton - AKA Captain Peacock - has passed away

Found out some sad news yesterday: Frank Thornton, an amazing British actor who shone in every part he played but will forever be most remembered as the unflappable Captain Stephen Peacock on the BBC's legendary comedy series Are You Being Served?, has passed away at the age of 92.

(Does this mean that Peacock is now spending an eternity listening to Mrs. Slocombe prattling on about her pussy...?)

I know that 92 is a good run but still: Thornton made millions laugh during the very long run of Are You Being Served? (along with its sequel series Grace & Favour) and he will be sorely missed.  Of the original cast, only Nicholas Smith - who played Mr. Rumbold - is still with us.

Frank Thornton leaves behind his wife of 67 years.  I found that to be pretty dang remarkable in this day and age.

So in honoring his memory, as well as that of the rest of the wacky crew at Grace Brothers Department Store who have taken the elevator up, here is one of the many classic episodes of Are You Being Served? From March 13th 1975 it's "Up Captain Peacock"...

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It's double the dachshund on this Tammy Tuesday!

Want more wiener dog?!?  Tammy is a more fortunate pup than many.  Ya see, my cousin nearby wound up with Tammy's litter-mate Sassy.  And because of that they've had plenty of occasion to romp and play together.

So here is Tammy (with the red collar) and her sister Sassy, along with my cousin's two children.  Hey, it's two cute dachshunds and two cute kids: what could possibly be cute-sier? :-)

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The Iraq War is ten years old today

George W. Bush is the worst President in American history.  In less lucid moments (mostly when hopped-up on allergy medicine) I would write that Barack Obama has been far far worse.  But there would have not been Barack Obama in the White House had Bush the Lesser been a competent leader.

I spent more time than I cared to during the Bush years chronicling and commenting upon that maladministration's screw-ups, and I sure don't want to spend any more time on it than I absolutely must (some readers of this blog have commented that I'm too hard on Obama, even "hateful".  Where were they during this site's first several years?!).  All I will say for now is this: in regards to the Department of Homeland Security: I told y'all so.  Way back in 2001 even, I wrote in a few places that Bush was giving us something in Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Agency that we would soon come to regret and that in time it would become a tool of harassment by our own government.  Clearly when an active-duty Marine serving in spite of losing both legs to an IED gets humiliated by TSA agents, something is very very wrong.

I also thought that launching a war in Iraq would be unwise and inconsiderate of the larger ramifications.  Saddam Hussein was a grade-A asshole, no doubt about it.  But however evil the man was, the Hussein regime did keep Iraq - a nation cobbled together from remnants of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of World War I - from tearing itself apart through internecine strife and tribal quarrels.  We can blame many of the western leaders, including Winston Churchill,  for setting up that particular board and its inevitable consequences, but I digress...

The country that we insisted be Iraq could - and can - only function when there is a "strongman" figure to keep the ethnicities and sects within its borders from killing each other.  That is the role that Marshal Tito had in Yugoslavia and that is the role that Saddam Hussein had in Iraq.  Just as Yugoslavia imploded into civil war a decade after Tito's death, so would Iraq in the absence of Hussein or a successor just as brutal.  As it is, the United States sought - and claimed - the mantle of strongman over that distant land.

The war itself has cost $1.7 trillion and climbing.  Medical and veterans' benefits will have it costing over $6 trillion across the next forty years.  $490 billion is already owed to veterans.  More than 134,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed.  More than four thousand American service personnel have died in Iraq.

Ten years ago we were told that Saddam Hussein was harboring chemical and biological weapons.  There were none.  Ten years ago we were told that Saddam Hussein had conspired with the 9/11 terrorists.  He had not (a theological improbability, that was: Hussein's Iraq was a largely secular state fully at odds with the goal of sharia law which Al-Qaida has sought).  Ten years ago we were told that a democratic Iraq would be the wellspring from which freedom and liberty would burst across the Middle East.

It did not do that either.  Ten years later and as the much-ballyhooed Arab Spring has demonstrated, the Mid-East has far less freedom than before.  Making matters worse is that following the departure of American forces from Iraq, that land will almost certainly become a territory of Iran.  In some ways it already is.

I understand that in this fallen realm of our temporal life that war is going to happen.  It is, after all, a product of human nature: something which beyond the mercy of higher authority is a vile and loathsome thing absent of all virtue.  My friends of more pacifist leanings are blessed with a grace to turn the cheek and look away from the strife of the realm completely.  I however do not have such grace.  Indeed, I am a historian by training: I gave up that grace a long time ago.

So it is that I am not ignorant of war and its place in this world.  But neither is war something which should be entered into on the most flimsy of rationales.  There is nothing glorious or magnificent about war.  Regardless of its cause, war is always... always... a failure on the part of those involved.  War means that a person or persons or even an entire nation can not or will not be persuaded that their actions are wrong and must be made to cease.  That the cost of their failure must now be either surrender or death.

More than 134,000 non-combatants in Iraq, men and women and children, who have died since we first attacked that country ten years ago tonight.  Perhaps it is easy for some to see the numbers and not think much about them. But every one of them was created by God and precious to Him.  Whether they perished at the hands of their own country's soldiers or inadvertently on our part, they deserve better than to be swept away as "collateral damage".

If that doesn't impinge on the conscience, consider the more than four thousand families across America who have lost a loved one in Iraq.  Those men and women, as all who serve in the armed forces of the United States, took a solemn oath to protect and defend this country and her people.  They chose to surrender years of their lives - years which could have been spent in school or starting careers or getting married and having children - to the service of others.

They did so fully aware that the possibility existed that they might be called upon to enter the theaters of war.  That doing so would place their lives in peril.  And yet they volunteered.

Maybe it's just me, but it seems that this kind of personal sacrifice demands a lot more respect and even sanctity from our alleged leaders.  A man or woman who puts on the uniform and swears to serve this country is expecting that their time and effort and if need be their very lives will be utilized with deepest wisdom and utmost restraint.

That has not happened in the war with Iraq, ten years old today.  Four thousand of our best and brightest have perished halfway around the world and we've nothing to show for it.  Four thousand brilliant souls, extinguished forever from the Earth.

They deserved better.  We deserve better.

I've only heard one cause for war with Iraq that has had any scrap of fact-based rationale behind it.  It was when President George W. Bush told a crowd that Saddam Hussein "tried to kill my dad."  And yes, Hussein did attempt to do so when the elder Bush visited Kuwait in 1993.  But was that enough reason to commit billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars and hundreds of thousands of U.S. service personnel toward removing from power?

A few months after the invasion of Iraq, Bush the Lesser told the militants in Iraq that U.S. forces would not be dislodged.  That they were welcome to try though.  George W. Bush told them to "Bring 'em on."

This is what "Bring 'em on" looks like...

Again, maybe it's just me, but a war is too horrific a thing to justify with a personal vendetta or a temper tantrum.

The Iraq War is ten years old today.  We haven't gained a thing from it.  Lord only knows if we'll have learned anything from it either...

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Could a Cyprus-style banks robbery happen in the U.S.?

This past weekend was spent semi-unplugged.  Heck I didn't know that Miami had beaten UNC for the ACC Basketball Tournament title until late last night!  Since all that mess was happening in Greensboro I drove a hunnerd miles the opposite direction on 220 to do ballroom dancing and general geek-ery with my girlfriend.

But even so, I have been following the mess in Cyprus, where the government is poisoned to confiscate 10% of everyone's bank accounts in an attempt to get bailed out of the monetary mess of its own manufacture.  So much commentary could be made of this: the failure of socialism, the complete failure of the Eurozone as anything remotely a feasible concept, the failure of policies that can only lead to hyper-inflation, the failure to rein-in the "banksters" (i.e. those who see banking as not a sacred trust but an exploitable resource), the failure to hold those most responsible accountable for their own mistakes and misdeeds...

Right now banks across Cyprus are closed until Thursday (at least).  The ATMs are empty or damn near it: an old-fashioned bank run for the 21st Century.  There is now concern that Italy and other countries are considering similar measures.

It was two years ago that I read Atlas Shrugged for the first time.  A book some consider to be semi-science-fiction.  It's now clear to me that what Ayn Rand had written was in fact a horror novel, and not nearly scary enough.  For all the madness that Directive 10-289 embodied, Wesley Mouch knew better than to raid the private bank accounts.  The same cannot be said of too many politicians in Europe and now, little Cyprus could set off financial disaster throughout Europe and around the world.  It might well be the camel that breaks the straw's back.

(Witless warble of words or cryptic commentary with cliche?  I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader...)

Could a Cyprus-ish raid on our bank accounts happen here in the good ole' Yoo-Ess of Aye?  Neil Boortz thinks so.  Writing at Townhall.com, Boortz suggests that not only could it happen but that it has been incrementally building up toward such for two decades (at least).  From his essay...

Oddly enough, the people of Cyprus weren’t particularly elated over this move, nor were investors and citizens throughout the Eurozone. Imagine that! Cypriots immediately grabbed their ATM cards and started to withdraw as much money as they could from their accounts. Cash in their hands wouldn’t be hit for 10%. It was clear there would be a run on the banks as soon as they reopened. Now the plan to simply seize individual wealth is being delayed, though not abandoned.

Could it happen here? Well certainly it could. Congress could pass and the President could sign legislation calling for the seizure of 10% of every checking and savings account in every bank in America. This might finally be enough to cause a resurrection, but they could do it. So in America the wealth seizure has to be just a bit more selective and subtle. And that brings us to the warning I’ve been voicing for 20 years.

There's plenty more at the Townhall.com link, including mention of something that has not been remembered nearly enough: the 1993 budget battle in Congress that saw retroactive taxation: something which according to the Constitution should never have happened.  I phoned the office of Steve Neal, my representative at the time.  His lackey listened to me rant about how wrong this was and then told me "well sir that's for the courts to decide."

The courts didn't stop it from happening then.  Anyone wanna bet that a raid on the banks by the government could be stopped now?

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Americans according to North Korea: "Buying guns to kill each other" and drinking coffee made from snow...

There is some question about whether or not this is real. Having watched numerous propaganda films made behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War, my gut tells me that it's legit. That, and because this video does have that "Dear Leader/all others are inferior" tone which is a hallmark of North Korea's regime.

It's allegedly a propaganda video made by the North Korean government depicting life of the downtrodden proles in the United States.  Here in America we drink coffee made from snow (which is said to be in "abundance"), there are few birds because the starving masses living in tents have caught and eaten nearly all of them, dead bodies are piled up all over the place, Potemkin-ish cities disguised to look like those of Eastern Europe, unsuccessful Republican candidates are reduced to scrounging in the garbage, and it's only because of aid from North Korea that we're able to survive at all.

This is one of the most hysterically funny "real" videos that I've ever seen!  I hope y'all aren't drinking anything that could get snorted onto your monitor as you watch it...


Tip o' the hat to the inimitably awesome Erik Yaple for finding this!

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Towns Without Pity: Modder proves EA is LYING about SIMCITY always-online!

So... that whole thing about Electronic Arts' new SimCity requiring a constant Internet connection to play?  EA told us that it was needed because most of the game's processing takes place on EA's own servers.  In other words: the official company line is that it is not possible at all to play SimCity locally on your PC or laptop.  And despite the horde of connection problems that players were made to endure throughout the past week, EA has insisted that they can't remove the always-online obligation and that doing so would require coding up a whole new game.

Lies!  Lies!  All damnable lies!!

Electronic Arts, you got some 'splainin' to do.

The video gaming realm is reeling tonight after word surfaced that a hacker/modder calling himself "UKAzzer" has made SimCity completely playable in the total absence of Internet, for however long you want!

UKAzzer was able to enter the game's demo mode and from there he turned off the disconnection timer.  A few tiny changes of code and the game kept going, and going, and going... and going.  Not only that but he's also discovered that cities can be made much larger than the limits "officially" imposed by the game.

And he's proven it too.  Look!  YouTube clip!



So it looks like the "always-online" component was only slapped-on for digital rights management.  One anonymous developer at Maxis (now owned by EA and the studio that created the first SimCity game nearly 25 years ago) has come out and said as much, adding that it was very easy to make the new SimCity a single-player experience without needing to be online at all.

This situation is really quite unprecedented so far as the video/computer game industry goes. EA practically made it a litany about always-online being needed and how SimCity absolutely, positively could not be made to function without it.  That assertion is now, without any uncertainty, a false one.

I'll wager an RC Cola and a Moon Pie that the next few days at Electronic Arts are going to be a PR nightmare.  But since they've been caught, they should go ahead and do the right thing and rip out the always-online DRM from SimCity.  Doing so would go a LONG way toward re-establishing good relations with its customers and player-base.  Ever since word (and those horrid reviews on Amazon.com) hit the street about how crap-tacular SimCity is because of the DRM, would-be players have been avoiding this game like the plague.  EA needs to come clean and fix this, STAT!

(And if Blizzard is wise, that company will do the same with Diablo III.  If the upcoming PlayStation 3 port of that game won't need always-online, there is no reason whatsoever why the original PC version would require it either.)

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North Carolina Beers: A good blog about Tarheel brew

Please note: I am not a beer drinker.  In fact, it's very rare that I'll drink alcohol at all.  There's nothing I hold against those who enjoy it (in moderation 'course).  And I know next to nothing about what makes a good beer.  The first time I tried drinking any, it was in Belgium in 1993.  To this day I still cannot adequately describe how dark that stuff was...

Even so, lacking knowledge and experience hasn't been an impediment toward enjoying Eric Smith's new blog North Carolina Beers!  A home-brewer for well over a decade, Eric's new site is "dedicated to North Carolina Beers and Breweries. Over the next year or two I plan on visiting every brewery in NC and writing a review on each of them. I will write about as many beers as I can and there may be some beer specific post as well."  In less than a week he's already got four stories up: the latest is a review of Natty Greene's Greensboro.

It's this kind of spotlight on local culture along with the history behind it that I've always enjoyed finding.  There's plenty of it already on North Carolina Beers.  Go check it out and tell 'em that Chris sent ya :-)

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Happy Birthday to Michael Caine!

The Knight Shift and its proprietor would like to wish a very wonderful Happy Birthday today to Michael Caine - one of the finest and most versatile actors ever - on the occasion of his turning 80 years young!

The above image is from Caine's 2009 film Harry Brown.  If you have not seen it yet, I heartily recommend it.  It's definitely one of the better movies I've seen made in recent years.

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Words all Christians would be wise to ponder...

From the homily that Pope Francis delivered this morning in his first Mass as the newly-elected Bishop of Rome:

"We must always walk in the presence of the Lord, in the light of the Lord, always trying to live in an irreprehensible way. We can walk all we want, we can build many things, but if we don't proclaim Jesus Christ, something is wrong... When we walk without the cross, when we build without the cross and when we proclaim Christ without the cross, we are not disciples of the Lord. We are worldly. We may be bishops, priests, cardinals, popes, all of this, but we are not disciples of the Lord."

Francis also spoke about returning to the Gospels. That without building upon spiritual values and instead trusting in worldly values, all is like a sandcastle before "everything comes crashing down".

I am not Catholic, but in less than a day on the job Pope Francis is saying a lot that this fellow believer can't help but say "Amen" to.

It's also being widely reported how earlier this morning Francis rode the minibus with many of his previously fellow cardinals, bypassing the usual Vatican sedan.  How at breakfast he sat among them as their equal and joked "May God have mercy for what you have done!"  And there is how Francis stopped by the hotel where he was staying prior to Conclave, went to his room to get his bags, then stopped by the front desk to pay his bill!  I can only imagine the look on that desk clerk's face...

To my Catholic brethren: as one outside of the Roman Catholic Church, I have to believe that y'all are in for some very interesting, very exciting and very terrific times with Pope Francis.  He's already demonstrating something that has been woefully missing and direly needed among the princes and politicians of this world:

Humbleness.

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GAME OF THRONES as a mid-Nineties TV series

What if Game of Thrones came out a decade and a half earlier, in 1995?  Back when the style of fantasy television was dictated by shows like Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess.  What would it have been like?

Very likely, something like this...


So if Sam Raimi had made Game of Thrones back in the day, who would Kevin Sorbo have played? My guess is Eddard Stark.  Maybe a shaven-headed Bruce Campbell as Varys, or at least Petyr Baelish.

And Lucy Lawless?  No doubt about it: Cersei.

Kudos to YouTube user "hunterlsanders" for such a great piece of work!

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POPE SMOKE WATCH 2013 #3: It's WHITE!

Either those cardinals are taking one heckuva break for Camels, or they have just elected the next pope!

Watching it right now.  Awesome scene at Saint Peter's Square.  Now we just gotta learn who it is that's been voted on.

Whoever it is, may God's wisdom and grace be upon him.  I'm not Catholic, but I appreciate my Catholic brethren's enthusiasm and I absolutely have to wish them and their new leader well :-)

"Habemus Papam!"

UPDATE 2:26 p.m. EST: Here's a pic of that white smoke going up!

UPDATE 2:44 p.m. EST: Lots of humor about this on Twitter right now.  Thankfully none or very little of it seems to be vulgar :-)

UPDATE 3:15 p.m. EST: Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio from Argentina is the new pope! A Jesuit from Argentina.  I think that makes him the first "New World" pope.

UPDATE 3:20 p.m. EST:  So his papal name will be "Pope Francis".  Is that the first, second etc.?

UPDATE 3:36 p.m. EST:  This will indeed be Pope Francis, first of his name.  By all accounts an incredibly humble, compassionate and quiet man.

And here he is from a few moments ago, his first appearance as pope and giving the traditional "Urbi et Orbi" blessing to the crowd...

Update 4:15 p.m. EST:  Lots of people are noting that Pope Francis' first words were to ask the people for their blessing, rather than bestow his blessing upon them.  It was a gesture of remarkable humility.

I'm also hearing that before this Conclave, Cardinal Bergoglio refused to reside in the mansion reserved for the overseer of the Church in Argentina.  Instead he chose to live in a quite modest apartment in Buenos Aires.  He rode the public bus every day.  Bergoglio even cooked dinner for himself.

A pope who does his own cooking?  Now that is pretty cool :-)

Well, this is the second Conclave that this blog has tried to cover "as it happens", and Lord willing it will be quite a long time before I have to do it again.  Congratulations to Pope Francis.  Though I be not a Catholic, my prayers absolutely go out to him as he begins the task entrusted him.

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