When I first posted about this Thanksgiving's deep-fried turkey earlier this evening, I forgot to mention that for this past holiday's music to fry to, I chose to use Steve Jablonsky's soundtrack for Gears of War 3. Should have made a note of that earlier 'cuz hey, that kind of thing is important to my personal ritual of deep-frying turkey. Kristen and my friends that I was frying for all thought that it was a terrific score and perfect for the...
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Pics of this year's Thanksgiving fried turkey!
As I have done (most) Thanksgivings since 2002, I deep-fried some turkey! Just now getting the pics up 'cuz my girlfriend Kristen stayed here for the holiday: our first Thanksgiving together! And she was the one taking the pics and I hadda wait until she got back home to pull them to her computer and send them to me. So for those who had wondered if I fried turkey this...
So last night I finally got to watch the mid-season finale of THE WALKING DEAD...
I didn't dare watch it until I went over to my girlfriend's place, 'cuz I've gotten her hooked onto this show and we've taken to enjoying it together. And since she was out of town when "Pretty Much Dead Already" - the last new episode until February - aired on Sunday night, we both held off on catching it until we could hook up again.So now that I've finally seen it, let me reiterate what I've said all since last night about The Walking Dead's...
Fan-made BIOSHOCK movie trailer channels all the right vibes!
Okay, I gotta ask: am I the only fan of BioShock who is not really all that jazzed about BioShock Infinite? Because unless that game solidly connects to classic BioShock, I just can't see counting this upcoming game as part of the canon (no offense to Ken Levine). To me BioShock is and always will be about Rapture: that mysterious city on the floor of the northern Atlantic, envisioned by Andrew Ryan to be the ultimate escape from a world surrendering...
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
The last Lauryn photo
Here it is: the post that I have somewhat dreaded having to make because it's going to plunge a lot of single guys out there into tears.Lauryn, my ravishingly beautiful cousin (okay, "second cousin" if we're going to be technical about it) who has served as The Knight Shift's official pin-up girl for the past few years, was married to her boyfriend Jason over the weekend!...
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Thanksgiving 2011: What I am thankful for
For the Thanksgiving last year, I did not make a post like this. That's because a year ago I was in the midst of what I've since realized was the longest, darkest and most spiritually trying period of my entire life. Last year at this time, feeling thankful seemed like the last thing that I could muster up.What a difference a year makes...If anybody had told me that twelve months from then, that I would be at a totally different place, I could...
Fortieth anniversary of Dan Cooper's skyjacking
Forty years ago tonight, a man calling himself Dan Cooper arrived at Portland International Airport and purchased a ticket for Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305: a short flight to Seattle.Shortly after taking off, "Cooper" passed a note to the stewardess: "I have a bomb in my briefcase. I will use it if necessary. I want you to sit next to me. You are being hijacked."So...
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Department of Homeland Security issues turkey fryer safety warning
Janet "Big Sister" Napolitano's Department of Homeland Security (okay let's be fair, it was George W. Bush's "brilliant" idea first) has decided that turkey fryers are a dire threat to national security. "Make sure the turkey is completely thawed before placing in a fryer", the DHS is warning in a new video.Hey, Janet Napolitano: I'm a hella lot safer with my turkey deep-fryer than anyone is with your X-ray body scanners! You know: the X-ran body...
Charlotte TV station reports "Man Killed To Death"
You mean there's another way to do it?!That's from WBTV-TV 3 in Charlotte, North Carolina.Tip o' the hat to Mark Childrey for finding this ...
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
48th anniversary of the JFK assassination
Here's a rare photo from happier times, when Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby and "White Hat" were still a band...Fifteen years after first seeing that and it's still about the gosh-darned funniest Photoshop job that I've ever beheld ...
Monday, November 21, 2011
Time for... THANKSGIVING WITH THE KRANZES!
I have reposted stuff on this blog twice in the past, on rare occasions. But never three times. This deserves it though (and no doubt will be posted again in years to come).It's been two years since the last time I shared this YouTube video. And since this is the week of Thanksgiving (yes I've already begun preparing to deep-fry a bunch of turkey) and there are perhaps still a lot of people who've never enjoyed this before, I thought it was well...
Quote from yesterday evening
"It's Shake 'n Bake and I helped!"Said aloud by me, at the end of the prologue from last night's The Walking Dead.Go watch it from your DVR or from iTunes or whatever if you wanna "get" that joke ...
Sunday, November 20, 2011
A ponderance on the Church, Christ and Christian liberty
There are some who throughout the history of Christianity have claimed to be the "one true church": the only legitimate body of Christ that came into being at Pentecost in the days following the ascension of our Lord. I speak not of those who acknowledge parity with brethren of however peculiar perspective who yet profess Christ as Lord, but instead of those who deign to be the exclusive institution established by divine mandate. Such are the ones...
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Some classic listening for a Saturday night
From a time of much better music. Here is "November Rain" by Guns N' Roses...Yes, I have posted this before. Since it's November again and we're looking at a lot more rain in the next few days, it seemed appropriate.And also because this is one of the greatest songs in the history of anything, to say nothing about the masterpiece of its accompanying vid...
Friday, November 18, 2011
First poster for THE EXPENDABLES 2
2010's The Expendables was twelve scoops of action insanity with sprinkles on top! Saw it at the theater with my good friend Steven and, it just all-out assaulted our eyedrums and earballs with high octane metal mayhem and madness. In short it was exactly the kind of movie that we used to dream of seeing happen back in the Eighties and Nineties... and then some!So if putting...
World's lightest solid material
Crazy buff for wild engineering that I be, this lil' news item just blows my mind...A team of researchers from the University of California at Irvine, HRL Laboratories and the California Institute of Technology have come up with a metal lattice material that is the lightest solid yet discovered. As you can see in the photo above, a sample of it can be perched atop a dandelion...
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
An open letter to Ron Price, member of the Rockingham County Board of Education
Dear Ron,Five years ago last week, on the night before the election that included the names of you, me and fourteen other individuals on the ballot for Board of Education, you were involved in an incident that continued to make headlines long after the polls had closed.In the many months following that incident, there were individuals who attempted to extract a measure of accountability from someone who was by that time a duly elected public official....
Government redefined reality: Pizza is vegetable, Brillo pads are illegal gun silencers
What is it about food that brings out more than the usual looniness from government? Remember when California tried to impose the "snack tax"? And before that it was President Reagan who sought to have ketchup officially deemed a vegetable.Now the squabbling between the Obama Administration and the Republican-held Congress has made it so that pizza is to be classified as a vegetable. The article is nigh worth reading, if only because it is the...
William Shatner and State Farm make weird Thanksgiving safety video
One week from today I'm gonna be up to my elbows in marinade, Cajun seasoning and all kinds of other good stuff as I prepare three... count 'em, three... turkeys for a hot fryin' bath in cottonseed oil. Yes it's that time of the year again, when Yours Truly goes bonkers for the deep-fried turkey! As has been done in years before, expect photos chronicling the art, and perhaps even a video or two.However I cannot emphasize it nearly enough: deep-frying...
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Occupy Wall Street finally ends as police clear park
Two months after it began with no clear mission, Occupy Wall Street was brought to a conclusion as New York's finest cleared out Zuccotti Park in the wee hours of the morning.Now all that's left is a "campsite" ridden with disease, drugs, rape and Lord knows what else.Might I make a suggestion for cleanup, courtesy of a certain Corporal Hicks...
"Nuke the site from orbit.It's...
Monday, November 14, 2011
HALO: COMBAT EVOLVED for the Atari 2600
Tomorrow is the tenth anniversary of the release of Halo: Combat Evolved. Arguably the most influential video game of the past decade, the first installment of the Halo series drew in millions of loyal players with its combination of breathtaking beauty, tactical ability and mythology on a vast scale.Fittingly, tomorrow will herald the arrival of Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary...
Strange things are afoot in the deserts of China...
Bunches of e-mails, tweets and Facebook discussions today about some downright mystifying patterns that users of Google Earth have spotted carved into the floor of the Chinese desert.Gizmodo has been on top of this story since it first came to light and you can find pics of many more odd structures. Some readers have also pointed me toward SlashGear's discussion of the patterns....
Sunday, November 13, 2011
THE WALKING DEAD tonight: They grow 'em ripe on Hershel's Farm, don't they?
Y'know, I grew up on a farm. Saw a lot of sicko stuff, like that time the vet came to work on one of Dad's cows. He made an incision in its side and for some reason, Dad had to stick his arm into it, right up to his elbow, to do something with its stomach. One of its stomachs anyway, 'cuz a cow has four, but anyhoo...NOTHING I saw living and working on that farm however, compared to what the kindly good Christian veterinarian Hershel Green was...
See BS: Tiffany Network caught discriminating against Paul, Bachmann
If CBS or any other "major media outlet" alleges that this is a matter of time constraint, then I'm gonna have to call it that I see B.S.Look, five years ago I was one of sixteen candidates for school board in my home county, and in the final week before the election we all took part (well, one of us declined to participate, but that's another story) in a public candidates forum. A "debate", if you will. And each of us got ample time to state our...
Friday, November 11, 2011
Veterans Day is today
Do you want to know why Veterans Day is on this date?It was November the 11th, 1918, at the 11th hour, that the armistice took effect and the guns of the Western Front fell silent.World War I, the Great War, the "war to end all wars", had drawn to a close.Veterans Day - a day which has come to honor all American veterans - was originally a day set aside to honor the service...
Thursday, November 10, 2011
First track from THE GREATEST MIRACLE score
Good friend of this blog Mike Casteel sent this to me. It's from a movie called The Greatest Miracle, that I had not heard of until a short while ago and I had to do more than the usual amount of Google-ing to find its official website. From its synopsis...The Great Miracle is an inspiring story which illustrates hope and faith. The story revolves around the lives of three characters which are in crisis:Monica, a widow and the mother of a nine...
iOS 5.0.1 has been released
If you've an Apple iOS device that's been plagued by battery problems from iOS 5, be of good cheer: iOS 5.0.1 is now available, and it's said to put those high-drain issues to bed!This is also the first time that iOS can be updated "over the air" via a Wi-Fi connection, which is what I just did with my iPad 2. It's by far the most straightforward process I've ever experienced in upgrading any operating system. Just go into Settings and tell your...
Wednesday, November 09, 2011
Darren Aronofsky's four horrifying anti-meth PSAs
Anti-drug ads have sure come a long way from an egg dropped into a frying pan...Darren Aronofsky, the filmmaker behind Pi and Requiem for a Dream, has produced four public service announcements for the Meth Project, warning against meth abuse.Here's one of them...And that's not even the most disturbing example of Aronofsky's latest work.GeekTyrant has collected all four of them for your convenience. But be mindful: these are all pretty harsh. One...
Bil Keane, creator of FAMILY CIRCUS, has passed away
The very sad news today is that Bil Keane, creator of the long-running comic strip Family Circus that has entertained readers for more than half a century, has died at the age of 89.Family Circus was one of the best examples of what comic strips could be in their finest form: entertainment for people of all ages. As Keane once said in an interview..."We are, in the comics,...
Grinch Obama's heart grows three sizes in a hurry as "Christmas Tree Tax" is called off
Late last night this blog joined numerous other outlets in reporting that the Obama Administration was set to impose a 15-cent tax on all freshly cut Christmas trees. You can read that initial post for more information, including some stuff I came across during a bit o' investigatin' (I'm still curious as to who the heck the people behind "Christmas Tree Promotion Now" are...)Looks like Obama and gang got the message: the tax is being put on hold....
Tuesday, November 08, 2011
You're a mean one Mister Obama! President to impose "Christmas Tree Tax"
This is not satire and it's not from The Onion. I already checked and it's true...
President Barack Obama's administration is trying to impose a 15-cent "Christmas Tree tax" on all freshly-cut trees intended for Yuletide celebration. Fifteen cents on the sale of every tree to... get this now... "enhance the image of Christmas trees and the Christmas tree industry in the...
85-year old grandma reels in 849 pounds of marlin!
Very cool story from Down Under today...An 85-year-old Australian woman said she "didn't feel 85" when she reeled in a 849-pound marlin off the north coast of Queensland.Connie Laurie, a grandmother who said she has been fishing all her life, said she was on a fishing charter trip during the weekend off the coast of Cooktown when she caught, and then released, the hefty marlin, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported Monday."I certainly didn't...
"Smokin' Joe" Frazier has passed away
Former heavyweight boxing champion Joe Frazier, better known to his many fans as "Smokin' Joe" Frazier, has passed away at the age of 67. His death comes just days after publicly disclosing that he was fighting liver cancer.Frazier will always be remembered as one of the greatest - some say the greatest - boxers in the sport. His 1971 bout with Mohammed Ali that saw Frazier...
Sunday, November 06, 2011
THE WALKING DEAD tonight made Chris go freaking bonkers!!!
For the record, that was the MOST intense scene that I have personally witnessed from any television drama. If you saw it then you know what I'm talking about even if I don't say it: the walker down the well at Hershel's farm and how the gang uses Glenn as, ummm... bait.No kidding: I was screaming HARD and grabbing the sides of my head during that part. Kristen was hollerin' loud too! That was definitely one of the best filmed and edited sequences...
Saturday, November 05, 2011
THE DARK KNIGHT RISES orchestral score needs YOUR voice!
In what has to be one of the coolest efforts at crowdsourcing ever, composer Hans Zimmer has put the word out that he needs our vocal talents for next summer's The Dark Knight Rises: Christopher Nolan's third and final Batman film.Want to contribute? All you gotta do is record yourself repeating the same crazy chant that's been heard in the teaser that came out a few months...
Andy Rooney has passed away
Only a month after his final appearance on 60 Minutes, the sad news is coming out this morning that commentator/curmudgeon Andy Rooney has passed away at the age of 92.Whether you enjoyed his segments or not (and there were more than a few which were downright infuriating) it can't be denied that Rooney was one of the most accomplished performers of the very fine art of satire....
Friday, November 04, 2011
German public TV airing "Patterns of Force" - AKA the Nazi episode of STAR TREK - for first time tonight
Forty-three years after it first aired on American television in 1968 as part of Star Trek's second season, "Patterns of Force", the episode that had Kirk, Spock and the crew of the Enterprise looking for a Starfleet historian and finding an alien civilization modeled after Nazi Germany instead, will be broadcast for the first time tonight on public television in Germany.Why...
Thursday, November 03, 2011
Airline "security" costs: $85 billion and 900,000 lost jobs
It can safely be said ten years after the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration that the federal government's efforts to make air travel "safer" constitute one ginormous cluster%#@&.Now we have an idea of the economic impact: $85 billion wasted and 900,000 jobs destroyed. From e-Travel Blackboard...
After a decade...
Fifteen years ago today, I found God
I'd wondered throughout today if I should make a note of it on the blog. Finally I remembered what The Knight Shift is here for: to chronicle my thoughts and reflections, to document the occasional odd adventure (or misadventure), and more or less journal my growth through life's journey... including (more often than not) the mis-steps.Well, today is a big deal to me. Especially looking back on those first few years, and then this past year which...
Tuesday, November 01, 2011
Meeting Addy Miller AKA the little girl zombie from THE WALKING DEAD
Just over a year ago AMC's hit series The Walking Dead premiered. And in its very first minutes it introduced us to what has since become one of television's most iconic images of horror ever...The "little girl zombie" that Rick Grimes comes across during his early traipsing across a post-apocalyptic Georgia. A few months ago when the Blu-ray set came out I wrote about how...
Classic SESAME STREET: It's not HDTV, it's H-TV!
The bloggin' might be sparse the next few days as I am going out of town on a mission of considerable import. So in the meantime...It occurred to me this afternoon that I haven't posted a vintage Sesame Street clip in a good long while. The ones with Bert and Ernie seem to be especially popular. So here's one from the 1970s (way before the advent of 1080P) which finds Bert plagued with "H" all over his television screen...I remember this sketch...
J.R. Hafer delves into aviation history with new blog
Good friend of this blog J.R. Hafer has a keen mind for a vast array of topics: everything from real estate to our mutual admiration of the late Popcorn Sutton! And now J.R. has turned our attention toward another one of his interests: the history of manned aircraft. J.R. Hafer Aviation Blog went live a short time ago and it promises to educate, illuminate and entertain...
Gotta love cocker spaniels!
Every so often... okay very often, I find myself on YouTube looking at videos of dogs and puppies. And after seeing this one, I couldn't resist sharing. I've had two cocker spaniels in my time and... well my heart just melts at the sight of them.Anyhoo, this is a clip from a puppy breeder up in Canada, and it has to be one of the sweetest and cutest videos that I've ever found on YouTube. I couldn't resist sharing it ...
