The World Net Daily site is getting slammed right now but here's part of the story that I was able to pull. Amazing... if true. The Ark has been "found" in about a dozen places stretching from Turkey to Afghanistan over the years, so I'm going to remain healthily skeptical until we know more for sure. But it's still fascinating to consider this might be the real thing:A 14-man crew that included evangelical apologist Josh McDowell says it returned...
Friday, June 30, 2006
Thursday, June 29, 2006
TRANSFORMERS teaser unfolds online
In 2003,the Beagle 2 Mars Roverwas launchedWe were told it crashedIts final transmissionwas classified top secretIt was the only warningwe would ever getThe Official Transformers movie website has the first "teaser" for next summer's movie. It's very slow to download (and it's in Flash video format which I would have much preferred it be Quicktime) but it looks great when...
Want to watch this week's MONDAY NIGHT LIVE that I produced?
Click here to watch this week's Monday Night Live (in Windows Media format), the first that I produced... featuring Yours Truly as the voice of "Greta" from the Bulgarian Institute of Standards and Technology. Thanks to Richard Moore (AKA "BillyBobMan") for hosting ...
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Tonight's serving from Netflix: MOTHER, JUGS & SPEED
I've seen this movie a few times already (and first wrote about it several months ago) but it's so darned funny I just had to put it on the Netflix queue. So tonight Lisa and I watched Mother, Jugs & Speed, the 1976 flick starring Bill Cosby, Raquel Welch and Harvey Keitel as staff members of a private ambulance company that breaks all the rules ("Everything in this place...
Darth Larry reviews SUPERMAN RETURNS
Haven't seen it yet (wish I could have caught the 10 o'clock showings last night 'cept I had a shift at the station) but Darth Larry - my oftentimes filmgoing companion and all-around nice guy - has a great review of Superman Returns up on his blog, in a style that can only be called his own. Makes me want to see this movie that much more. I'm probably going to see it sometime in the next few days, with Lisa and maybe a few other friends. I got...
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
SPIDER-MAN 3 teaser swings online
And we even get to see the symbiote (the black blob that becomes the black costume). Mash down here to watch this amazing trailer in Quicktime form...
Monday, June 26, 2006
This will be a night long remembered...
I guess I've come full circle now. Or maybe just call it "karmic retribution" for all the calls that I used to make to this show. Years ago in high school a lot of us used to watch Monday Night Live on the local TV station. Some of us liked to call up and see if we could get away with prank calls (like the forever-infamous "laughing box" caller). I loved to call this show up and talk about serious stuff, but I will admit now to making a few joke...
Sunday, June 25, 2006
New study: Adult immaturity is on the rise
An article on the Discovery Channel's website talks about a recent study which indicates that today's adults are increasingly loath to grow up...Serious Study: Immaturity Levels RisingJennifer Viegas, Discovery NewsJune 23, 2006 —The adage "like a kid at heart" may be truer than we think, since new research is showing that grown-ups are more immature than ever.Specifically, it seems a growing number of people are retaining the behaviors and attitudes...
Friday, June 23, 2006
WATCHMEN prepares to chew up and spit out another one
Zach Snyder is the latest filmmaker to be tapped to direct Watchmen, it's being announced today. He follows Terry Gilliam, Darren Aranofsky, Paul Greengrass and several others over the past two decades who've attempted to bring the Alan Moore graphic novel to the big screen. And like them, I'll wager it's only a matter of time before he throws his hands in the air in total surrender. I've already posted before (here and a longer rant here) that...
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Christian film flap shows farce of movie rating system
Facing The Giants, a film made by Baptist pastors in Georgia, is getting a PG rating from the Motion Pictures Association of America. That's not good enough, the filmmakers and others are saying: they want a more "family-friendly" G rating. The MPAA has received around 15,000 complaints so far about their decision to make Facing The Giants PG. Opponents say the movie is being unfairly targetted because of its religious themes.There's two problems...
More thoughts on last week's visit from the Westboro Baptist mob
Adam Feldman posts some good thoughts about last week's picket of the Southern Baptist Convention by the Westboro Baptist Church (here's the link to my earlier report on their visit to our TV station). I like this part of Adam's essay especially...For the record: What you see is what happens when truth is presented half-way. For instance, Scripture (Old and New Testaments) clearly teach that homosexuality is a sin--along with gluttony, pride, anger,...
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
The mighty Amiga 2000 and Video Toaster 3.1 combo
Last night our TV station had a telethon to raise money for a local charity. As the evening progressed a graphic on the screen kept a running score on how much money had been raised. And so it was that I got my first up-close look at a Commodore Amiga 2000 loaded with a Video Toaster board. This morning during a slow period I let myself play around with it some. And all...
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
TERRIBLE new episode of DOCTOR WHO this past weekend
No, not talking about the Christopher Eccleston season that's been running on Sci-Fi Channel. I'm referring to the new series that's been airing on the BBC in Great Britain, which is getting bootlegged to this side of the pond over the Internet by those jolly good English chaps.Saturday night I downloaded and watched "Love & Monsters" a few hours after it premiered there. And ever since it's been like a splinter in my mind, driving me mad....
Why Brando in SUPERMAN RETURNS will be remembered
Ain't It Cool News has a terrific exclusive about how special-effects house Rhythm & Hues was able to take footage of Marlon Brando that was shot for 1978's Superman: The Movie and incorporate it into Superman Returns, which'll be out next week. You can watch the rather hypnotic video of how they dunnit in either Quicktime or Windows Media format at the link. For some...
Monday, June 19, 2006
My wife, the song parodist!
As another year of being a music teacher at her school was wrapping up, Lisa began undertaking something she's never done before: writing a song parody. And I must say, she did a pretty darned funny job with it! Click here for "Teacher's Favorite Thing...
Want to save videos from YouTube and Google Video?
Then KeepVid is the site you need. Simply paste in the URL of the page at YouTube, Google Video or wherever else that your desired video is on, select which site it is from the drop-down menu and hit the "Download" button. In a few seconds KeepVid generates a clickable "save as..." link, which in the case of YouTube you'll need to add the .FLV extension to it and have a Flash video player like this one installed in order to watch it from your hard...
Saturday, June 17, 2006
Pigs R Us takes the checkered flag in race for excellent barbecue
Last month when Lisa and I were in Charleston for "Weird" Ed and Olivia's wedding, we were watching some TV in our hotel room one night and happened to catch a special on the Food Network about the Best of the West Rib Cook-Off that's held every year in Reno, Nevada. The program was filmed during the 2004 competition, and our mouths watered at the sight of all those beautiful...
Biggest mistake ever in comic book history
Or, it could wind up being one of the best and boldest ever. You might have heard the news already that Spider-Man "outs" himself as Peter Parker before a stunned press conference (and an even more stunned J. Jonah Jameson) in Times Square. It all takes place in issue #2 of the Civil War saga going on right now from Marvel Comics. In a story that's playing out across several...
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Westboro Baptist members will die sooner or later
On November 3rd, 1979, the Communist Workers Party staged a rally not far away from here in Greensboro, North Carolina. Party members were trying to organize local workers to oppose the Ku Klux Klan. During the rally the protestors chanted "Death to the Klan!", especially as a group of Klansmen and neo-Nazis drove past. A few minutes later the Nazi-Klan people parked their...
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
When "God Hates Fags" comes to town: My night with the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas
I reported yesterday about Shirley Phelps Roper, spokeswoman for the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas and the notorious "God Hates Fags" website, coming to our studio later in the evening to talk about her group's demonstrating at the Southern Baptist Convention going on in Greensboro. They're especially miffed at a ten-foot statue of evangelist Billy Graham that...
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
"God Hates Fags" spokeswoman in our studio tonight
Shirley Phelps Roper (shown at right) will be in our station's studio tonight from 7 until approximately 9 P.M. Phelps Roper is the daughter of Fred Phelps, founder of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas. Maybe you've heard of their website GodHatesFags.com. You've probably also heard about how they've been picketing at the funerals of fallen U.S. soldiers who...
Monday, June 12, 2006
Darth Plagueis the subject of upcoming Star Wars novel
The news has been out for a few days now but I'm just getting word from the official Star Wars website that James Luceno will be writing a new Star Wars novel that delves into the mystery of Darth Plagueis. I am tremendously looking forward to this book, for two reasons. The first is that it's being written by James Luceno (his most recent entry into the Star Wars mythos, Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader is a rollickin' good read about the early...
Sunday, June 11, 2006
CARS review
Cars is a movie that with each passing hour since we came out of seeing it (at 2:30 this afternoon and it's four hours later now), I'm finding myself loving it more and more. I definitely believe it's a far better movie than anything I went in expecting to see. Once I got over the initial shock of realizing that this entire little computer-animated universe was populated...
Saturday, June 10, 2006
New job
I started a new job this past week. But rather than say exactly what it is that I'm doing, I thought it would be more fun to let my readers try and figure out what it is that I've wound up doing this time. So here's the hint: I'm basically doing what this guy does, in very much the exact same kind of place...
Friday, June 09, 2006
DOCTOR WHO on Sci-Fi tonight: "The Parting of the Ways" as Eccleston bows out in style
"The extrapolator's working, we've got a fully functioning force-field. Try saying that when you’re drunk.""Worship him! Worship him! Worship him!""I'm dead or about to die any second with no chance of escape. And that's okay, hope it's a good death... Have a good life.""He's fighting for us, this whole planet, and I'm just sitting here eating chips!""You are the weakest...
First official piece of TRANSFORMERS art
At this point, I'll remain cautiously optimistic about this movie. But this first teaser poster really has me hoping for good things come next July...Click image for larger v...
Thursday, June 08, 2006
YOU'RE PITIFUL: "Weird Al" Yankovic releases new song as free download!
"Weird Al" Yankovic is supposed to have a new album coming out sometime soon (what he calls "record label politics" kept it from having a June release). But in the meantime, Al is whetting everyone's appetite for what's to come with "You're Pitiful", a parody of the James Blunt song "You're Beautiful". And... Weird Al has made "You're Pitiful" an absolutely FREE MP3 that...
Al-Zarqawi is dead... so now what?
You've probably heard already Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the real top dog in the Al-Quaeda organization, was killed earlier today in an air raid. This was the guy who was apparently planning and coordinating a lot of the attacks on Iraqi civilians and U.S. soldiers.Great, we nailed a bad guy. One of the biggest terrorist ringleaders even.So... when does the "War on Terror" stop?When do we go back to the America we had before 9-11, when our government...
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Alan Keyes tells George W. Bush: "We don't trust you!"
I voted for Alan Keyes in two primary elections when I was registered Republican. Keyes was the only person in a presidential race that I felt completely comfortable with giving my support to. Somewhere on my hard disks I've still got a picture I made in early 2000 of Keyes as a Jedi Master: it wound up getting shown to him and it got reported back to me that he got a big...
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
6-6-6
Today is 62nd anniversary of the D-Day landings. Today is also, by a quirk of the calendar, abbreviated as 06-06-06: six-six-six, the number of the beast according to the Book of Revelation. The number that is supposed to identify the Anti-christ that will arise in the end times.In my junior year of high school I was assigned locker #666. I opened it several times a day and there were no scenes of Dante's Inferno lurking in there that I ever saw...
Monday, June 05, 2006
Long live EVERWOOD (while 7th HEAVEN begs for merciful death)
Our TV was tuned in to the final episode of Everwood this evening. Which I never watched as an avid viewer but Lisa's always loved this show, so I watched it with her. One of the classier shows on television, from what I've come to know of it. It's been on the WB Network and was supposed to be carried over next season when that network and UPN combine into the CW... but then the "series finale" of 7th Heaven got big ratings so the suits decide...
King James Onlyism is a Gnostic heresy
I've been meaning to state that for a while.Some people may not know what I'm talking about. It's this: the belief among a lot of Christians that we are only supposed to use the Authorized Version of 1611 – more commonly known as the King James Version – of the Bible as our text. They further believe that it's a dire sin to use any version of the Bible other than King James.(For the record, I use the New International Version in my personal study,...
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Bush's illegals blind man's dog with pepper spray
Awright, THIS is the kind of story that gives me no compassion at all for the illegals entering this country over the Mexican border. Some of them crossed into a guy's land and permanently blinded his dog with pepper spray.These are the same ones that President Bush is telling us to have compassion toward, the ones he's pushing to grant amnesty for.This country is being invaded from the south. Hell, 10% of the entire Mexican population is in the...
Friday, June 02, 2006
It's the big "Bad Wolf": Penultimate Eccleston episode of DOCTOR WHO tonight on Sci-Fi
"You have GOT to be kidding."-- The Doctor, "Bad Wolf"Just a reminder for American fans of Doctor Who that the Sci-Fi Channel tonight will be running "Bad Wolf", the next-to-last episode of Christopher Eccleston's all-too-short run as the Doctor.The less said about this episode to the uninitiated, the better. Definitely one of the best of the Eccleston episodes. From the...
Thursday, June 01, 2006
"Chipping" immigrants? Don't go there...
To say that I'm against this runaway illegal immigration is to put it all too mildly. Nonetheless, I find this proposal to be something beyond the scary: the head of VeriChip wants to implant his company's RFID tracking microchips into all incoming immigrants and foreign workers.No doubt he sees a lucrative market here: putting VeriChips into all those people will make the company billions of dollars.Here's the real danger from where I sit: how...
