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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President Obama sez he can't do "Jedi mind-meld"

I wonder if he can do a Sith neck-pinch.

During his press conference earlier today about the "sequester" mess, President Barack Obama said the following...

"I know that this has been some of the conventional wisdom that's been floating around Washington: That somehow, even though most people agree that I'm being reasonable, that most people agree that I'm presenting a fair deal -- the fact that they don't take it, means that I should somehow do a Jedi mindmeld with these folks and convince them to do what's right," he said. "Well, they're elected. We have a constitutional system of government."

Errrr... Vulcans like Mr. Spock do the mind-meld. In the Star Trek franchise. Jedi don't do mind-melds. And Jedi are only found in Star Wars.

'Course, now that J.J. Abrams is directing the new Star Trek movies and at least Star Wars Episode VII, I suppose anything is possible...

"Live long and prosper, you shall."

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"It wasn't us Protestants, honest!"

This evening I had the opportunity to do something that I've wanted to do for most of my life: attend the Christmas Eve Mass at a Roman Catholic Church.

I am very happy to report that it was as beautiful as I had long expected it to be. Although I am not Catholic, nonetheless I came away from the experience feeling that God had ministered to my spirit in a way that I have needed Him to these past few days especially.

That, and it was a pleasure to celebrate the birth of Christ with my Catholic brethren. Turns out that just about all the Christmas hymns were those that I had already grown up with :-)

Here's a photo I shot just before the Eucharist tonight at St. Veronica's...


The church was packed solid! We had to sit in one of these three adjoining hallways that had been furnished with extra chairs. St. Veronica's has, I think four Christmas Eve services in order to accommodate everyone.

And then there's what happened later, which at least one person described as the "most thrilling Mass ever!"

As the Eucharist was nearing its end (this one little kid gave me a REALLY crazy look when he saw that I was still sitting down and not getting up at all to take part in the Eucharist)... that is when the fire alarms went on all over the church!! So the priests had to administer the Host to the last few parishioners with loud noise and flashing lights all over the sanctuary. The alarm could be delayed for a few seconds before going full-blast again, so some poor deacon was in the back of the building frantically deactivating the fire alarm every few seconds, trying hard to not miss a beat.

A group of parishioners were coming back to where we were sitting after having the Eucharist. And... I tried, Lord knows I tried to hold back folks, but I just couldn't help myself...

I blurted out "It wasn't us Protestants, honest!"

Turns out that in the narthex at the entrance of the church, where some of the overflow crowd was sitting, a baby accidentally pulled a fire alarm lever.

So this is how my first Christmas Eve Mass at a Roman Catholic Church ended: with two fire engines arriving at the scene...





Not quite how I always envisioned a Christmas Eve Mass to wind down, but exciting all the same :-)

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

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

From the story at The Inquisitr:

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

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

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

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

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

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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 :-)

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Report: U.S. Navy sub crashed 'cuz navigator was listening to iPod

Awright, let's be clear about something: the navigator was not listening to his iPod while at his station. But he was in his cabin listening to his iPod when he was supposed to have been at his station. Which in some ways is indicative of plenty more that was wrong on this sub.

"iPranged a submarine" screams the The Sun in the United Kingdom (gotta love those wacky British headlines). It's now come to light that the collision between the United States Navy's nuclear submarine USS Hartford and the transport ship USS New Orleans in the Persian Gulf a year ago was caused by the Hartford's navigational officer off on his own "revising for an exam" while listening to tunes from his iPod when he should have been uhhh... navigating.

But wait, that's not all! Crewmen had also set up loudspeakers so that they could listen to music (presumably from their iPods) while on duty! Which as anyone who has even seen The Hunt for Red October (or better yet read the original novel) could tell you, is an act of insanity aboard a submarine dependent on multi-million dollar sonar arrays that can pick out opera singing from clear across the Pacific Ocean. The report also said that "sonar operators and radio men were missing from their posts. Others drove the attack sub while 'with one hand on the controls and their shoes off'". The Hartford's captain, Commander Ryan Brookhart, has now been relieved of duty after investigators cited more than 30 infractions which led to "an informal atmosphere" and "a weak command".

Anyone else hearing the Village People singing "In The Navy" after reading this story?

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GEARS OF WAR 3: Video gaming's worst-kept secret EVER!

If you can't hear the hair-rending going on right now at Epic Games' studios in Cary not far away from here, I'd bet good money that Cliff Bleszinski's Twitter feed is about to go pure apoplectic.

For more than a week Bleszinski - the creator of Epic's Gears of War series - had been hinting heavily that his appearance on Jimmy Fallon's show on NBC late night would herald the announcement of Gears of War 3. That was supposed to have been last night, but something got messed up behind the scenes and Bleszinski's appearance was postponed.

Unfortunately nobody got around to telling the management of Microsoft's Xbox Live service about it. Here's what greeted Xbox 360 players this morning when their consoles logged in...

Personally, I'd be sweating bullets right now. I mean, it can't possibly pay to honk off a man who's wedded a chainsaw to an assault rifle.

Still, good to know that Gears of War 3 is on its way (as if we already weren't expecting it :-)

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Burglar caught after logging into Facebook at victim's house

No wonder it's often called "Crackbook": some folks are addicted to it! Consider one Jonathan G. Parker, age 19, of Fort Loudoun, Pennsylvania. Police in the town responded to a call from a home on August 28th in which the resident reported a breaking and entering, and the theft of two diamond rings valued at more than $3,500.

The cops didn't have far to look for a suspect, however: Parker used the victim's computer to log into his Facebook account and forgot to log out.

Jonathan Parker was arrested, and is currently in jail on $10,000 bond. He's facing one to ten years in the slammer if convicted.

Dumb, dumb, dumb. But also very funny :-)

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Building does somersault during demolition attempt

From Turkey comes this awesome footage of a flour factory, built in 1928, being imploded. Or it was supposed to implode anyway. Instead the support on one side of the base was destroyed, causing the entire building to tumble over "like a toy house".

Watch it below folks. This simply must be seen to be believed...

Look on the bright side: those wacky Turks have brought a whole new unprecedented scale to the old game of dominoes! :-P

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Man charged $23,148,855,308,184,500.00 for pack of cigarettes

Josh Muszynski of Manchester, New Hampshire went to the local convenience store and bought a pack of Camel cigarettes. He put the purchase on his debit card. And then when he got home found out that he had been charged more than TWENTY THREE QUADRILLION DOLLARS for his smokes.

Turns out to have been a programming error on the part of Visa, and apparently it's hit a number of its cardholders. Visa and his bank quickly resolved the issue for Muszynski, and he was no longer stuck with a tab that was more than 2007 times the current national debt.

But hey, as bad as inflation is getting, it's just a matter of time before all our purchases are this astronomical! :-P

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Two satellites collide in space over Siberia

At least 600 pieces of spaceborne shrapnel are now plaguing the sky, no thanks to an unprecedented collision between two satellites in low-Earth orbit.

Early yesterday, 790 kilometers (490 miles) above Siberia, an inoperative Russian satellite called Cosmos 2251 smashed into Iridium33, a communications satellite. Ground radar is now tracking the hundreds of resulting bits of debris, hoping that none of it will smash into any other satellites or the International Space Station.

When asked which satellite was at fault, NASA scientist Nicholas Johnson said, "they ran into each other. Nothing has the right of way up there. We don't have an air traffic controller in space. There is no universal way of knowing what's coming in your direction."

The good news, if there is any, is that Iridium Satellite LLC still has 64 satellites in unusually low orbit, relaying calls between special satellite phones (the U.S. Department of Defense is one of its biggest customers).

I wonder if one of them was trying to speed through an intersection...

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And to think that I sometimes loose a screwdriver in the kitchen drawer...

A few days ago during a spacewalk at the International Space Station, astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper accidentally lost her bag of tools and it went floating away.

But don't worry: Kevin Fetter of Brockville, Ontario found it last night! He was in his backyard with his satellite-observing gear, which was also armed with a good video camera. And Fetter not only spotted Stefanyshyn-Piper's bag as it scooted past the star eta Pisces, he filmed it too...

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RED DAWN? Google reports Russians attacking Savannah, Georgia

"WOLVERINES!"

(Look, somebody had to say it... :-)

In a very wonky case of mistaken identity, Google News has been reporting that the Russian Army is invading Georgia... as in, Georgia in the southeastern United States! The mix-up stems from the trouble going on with Russia and Georgia, the country in the Caucasus between the Black Sea and the Caspian.

Don't worry folks. Even if the Russians take Savannah, there'll be hell to pay when they get to Athens. GO DAWGS!

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Darvaz: "The Door to Hell"

That's one helluva carbon footprint ...

Near the small town of Darvaz in Uzbekistan is a place that the locals call "The Door to Hell". Thirty-five years ago some geologists were drilling for natural gas there and hit upon a cavern. Poisonous gas was detected down in the hole, so the excavators ignited it in the hopes that it would "burn off" and clear out the air so that they could explore further.

It's been burning ever since, non-stop, for more than three decades.

Mash down here for more photos and one scary video clip of "The Door to Hell".

EDIT 2:28 pm 03/30/2008: Someone noted in the comments that Darvaz is actually located in Turkmenistan, not Uzbekistan. So I stand corrected. But in my own defense, I just took the original website at its word that this was Uzbekistan :-)

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