Right now History Channel is showing Apollo 13: one of the best movies ever made in my book. Still remember seeing this at the theater on the Fourth of July in 1995.Watching it now reminds me of some illustration I used to do when I was teaching website design to middle-schoolers. On the first day of each term I started the lessons off with what we can do with computers now, and how far along they've developed in so short a time. Like, in 2002...
Saturday, August 27, 2005
Katrina eying the Big Easy?
From NOAA a little while ago...Remember last season when New Orleans was threatened a few times, and it kept coming up how that town would get destroyed if a major hurricane hit? Right now they're projecting Katrina might be a Category 4 by the time it makes a second landfall.Just wanted to post about this 'cuz I'm fascinated by hurricanes, and this is one I'll be watching...
What OTHER reason do I have for blogging this early on Saturday morning?
Yup, it's another piece of brilliance from young master Kyle Williams...The problem with trusting too much in reason, I believe, is twofold: First, Christianity is not reasonable. Paul himself declared the things of God to be foolish. To attempt to make the doctrines of Christianity reasonable from a human perspective and seek to "prove" things like creationism, Adam and Eve, and Christ's resurrection have more to do with a man-centered ego-trip...
Friday, August 26, 2005
Looks like Chavez took Robertson at his word...
Venezuela is suspending permits for foreign missionaries after Pat Robertson called for that country's president's assassination earlier this week.So Pat, which was more worth it: building up the kingdom of God or pushing a pro-American agenda?Who am I kidding? It's pretty obvious which side of things Robertson is really on, unfortunate...
This one's for Doc: DVD review of Follow Me, Boys!
I'm gonna lay some things to heart with this one. It all started Sunday evening with a movie that until then I’d never really watched before...One of the greatest heroes of all time, for me personally anyways, was Jim Valvano. About two months before he succumbed to bone cancer in 1993 Valvano spoke at the ESPY Awards and said something beautiful..."To me, there are three...
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Is Xbox game a vision of our Shattered Union?
This one got on my short list of upcoming video games to look forward to a few days ago when I first heard about it: Shattered Union from PopTop Software, arriving on the Xbox (and Playstation 2 and PC) on October 4th.It's a turn-based strategy game set in the year 2014, following the break-up of the once-great United States of America. This write-up from Business Week does...
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Brock Peters passes away
Maybe you didn't know the name, but you certainly remember his face... and especially his voice: Brock Peters has passed away at the age of 78.He was the actor who played Tom Robinson in the movie version of To Kill a Mockingbird (with Gregory Peck playing defense attorney Atticus Finch). That's gonna be the role he'll be remembered for most, but he did tons of other things...
How gullible are you?
Take the Gullibility Factor Test and find out. I only missed one question, rating me as a "Free thinker" in the top 5% among people. Admittedly, a few of the answers I gave were just good guesses (like the gas hydrates one, which I'd never heard of before) but otherwise I'm pleased to hear that if this were The Matrix "you would have taken the red pill, completed the combat training, and started fighting (and beating) agents from day one." ...
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Tonight we're gonna party like it's 1629!
A group of historians in Great Britain spent a year living the life of Welsh farmers from the 1620s. They did the same farmwork, wore the same kind of clothing, ate the same food, and practiced the same hygiene as a typical family in Wales would have during the time of the Stuarts. They made a few interesting discoveries along the way that could be applied to our life today. Well worth a re...
Monday, August 22, 2005
Pat Robertson is a Christian?
On his 700 Club teevee show today he called for the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez by the United States government.No further comme...
New Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire trailer hits the 'net!!!!!
The Beauxbatons carriage. Mad-Eye. Fleur. The Yule Ball. Gillyweed. Ron in a tux. The World Cup attack. Cho. Dragons. Krum. The Goblet of Fire. Fred and George. Durmstrung students. The maze. Dumbledore. Mer-people. Tombstones. Cedric. Harry Potter.Starting with Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling takes everything you know about children's books out into the street and shoots it in the head. Looks like the movies are going to keep pace...
Happy Birthday to Ray Bradbury!
The author of Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, Something Wicked This Way Comes and a bazillion other good stories hits 85 today and alongside Isaac Asimov probably ranks as the worst ecological disaster of the past hundred years: ever think about how many trees died for the wood pulp to make paper for all this guy's book...
The News & Record printed my letter to the editor...
You can read it here on the News & Record's website. Since it's something about their blogs, it seems only right to mention it on my own :-) It's evoked quite a lively debate too, from the looks of it. I just posted a response of my own, something that was a little longer than the paper's policy on editorial letters would allow. Ahhh the wonders of electronic publishing...Anyway, I'm proud that they saw it fit for publication. And if anyone...
Sunday, August 21, 2005
Gonzo send-off for the master of the artform
It could only have happened at a funeral for Hunter S. Thompson...About 350 friends of the late writer - including Johnny Depp, who played Thompson in the movie version of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - descended on Thompson's ranch at Woody Creek, Colorado to blast the gonzo journalist's cremated remains into the air in a fireworks display.Here's the monument that's been...
Can I play it on my Atari 2600?
If you've ever wanted to play id Software's original Doom game on your iPod or your digital camera or your calculator or your Kenmore microwave oven (am not sure about that last one though) go to ItPlaysDoom.com and find a port so you can get your Doom fix anywhere and everywhe...
AMC's month-long James Bond run is good watchin'
AMC channel has been running them in sequential order every weeknight this month and right now they're showing The Man With The Golden Gun (with Christopher Lee as Scaramanga, who also predates Krusty as the the original "man with the superfluous third nipple"), so this has been the perfect time to watch all those James Bond movies that I've never caught before. I'll sadly admit that most 007 flicks have always been just off my radar range (the...
Favorite post of the week
Of all the posts I made this past week, this one has paws-down gotta be my favorite :-) Guess I'm a sucker for little dogs or something...
