News & Record article on those wacky school board commercials

Lex Alexander at the News & Record has written-up a story about the various TV commercials that have been spawned by the Rockingham County Board of Education race. In it he talks to Eric Smith, Richard Moore and Yours Truly about the ads we've got running on the web and local television. You definitely get a sense from reading the article - titled "These aren't your congressman's TV ads" - that these commercials are a little on the quirky side...

...Which I think is great! Just imagine what would happen if every election had more than the two stale old parties that are always on the ballot, and instead have a whole slate of characters to choose from. Why, every one of them would be doing something different and a little wild in trying to stand out for the voters. This school board election, in my mind, is a model of how elections all over America should be. It's definitely a race involving individuals, not parties. Who knows: as morally bankrupt as both the major parties are fast being revealed to be, maybe we're seeing a little something of the future in the Rockingham County school board race happening right now.

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"R.A.B.": Rowling reveals the big Harry Potter mystery

Toward the end of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry and Professor Dumbledore embarked on a quest to find one of Voldemort's Horcruxes (a Horcrux is an object containing part of a person's soul, so that as long as the Horcrux exists that person is immortal). They believed they had found it in a locket hidden in a faraway cave. Dumbledore almost died in the process of recovering it. They transported back to Hogwarts just as Voldemort's followers had begun a full-scale invasion of the school. Then came the most unkind cut of all: Dumbledore was murdered in cold blood by Severus Snape... who Dumbledore had insisted to everyone that he trusted completely.

Later, as he looked on Dumbledore's dead body, Harry noticed that the locket isn't the one they were supposed to be looking for at all. And inside, on a piece of parchment, he found a note:

To the Dark Lord
I know I will be dead long before you read this
but I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret.
I have stolen the real Horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can.
I face death in the hope that when you meet your match,
you will be mortal once more.
R.A.B.

For more than a year now fans have been speculating about who "R.A.B." might be, and there's been one standout name that a lot of evidence has been pointing to. Well, it looks like J.K. Rowling herself has let it slip just who "R.A.B." is. From the Nimbus Network in Portugal...

Who is R.A.B.? - Short Summary

Publicado por Nadir Tejani @ 09-10-2006
Comentários: 0

To clarify any misunderstandings, Nimbus Network would like to explain international websites how we got the information about R.A.B. identity.

(Spoiler Warning)

On the 26th of October, 2005, Nimbus Network received a message from Isabel Nunes, responsible for the translation and coordination of the Portuguese versions of the Harry Potter series. In that message, Mrs. Nunes told us directly who R.A.B. was:

Since it is common knowledge, and it was already confirmed by JKR (when we asked her about the character's sex), I don't mind telling you: R.A.B. is Regulus Arcturus Black.

Although we wanted to tell everyone who R.A.B. was, we asked Mrs. Nunes for more details about the revelation - it wouldn't be professional to disclose an information this important. The answer arrived three days later:

Dear Nadir

I've decided to send the confirmation due to many speculations concerning the identity of RAB. It may bring doubts about its credibility, so I'll explain: there is an informal group of translators of the Harry Potter books who kept in touch during the translation of HP6, which, while exchanging ideias and informations, managed to overcome some difficulties. JKR's agent was posed a question concerning the sex of RAB (this is not the first situation of this kind, as has also happened with the characters of Sinistra and Blaise Zabini). It's always needed to proceed through writers' agents because there isn't any direct contact with the writer. We were truly amazed when the written answer had not only the sex but the true identity of R.A.B. To be truly honest, we don't have any clearance to disclose this but we hadn't been told otherwise. There was not any direct concerning about not publishing this information...

All that was needed was his middle name, and it looks like it all falls neatly into place: Regulus Black, the younger brother of Sirius Black. All we really know about Regulus is what Sirius told Harry: Regulus was one of Voldemort's followers, the Death Eaters. But then Regulus decided that he was in way over his head and tried to get out... except that once you commit to following Voldemort it really is a lifetime thing. He was killed, probably by another Death Eater on Voldemort's orders.

So if R.A.B. was Regulus Black, and Regulus did manage to steal the real locket that was the Horcrux... where is that locket now?

Look in the pages of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, particularly the part where Harry and the others are doing some housecleaning around Number 12 Grimmauld Place.

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School Board Campaign Commercial #1

It started airing this afternoon. It's ummmm... elicited some interesting comments. I'll probably be releasing another version soon with a different disclaimer at the beginning, 'cuz I'm not all that happy with it: I wanted to shoot that outside but we've had a lot of rain the past few days.

So here it is, my first-ever political campaign TV ad:

Feel free to post any thoughts and comments you have about it on this blog entry.

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Baring "Tooth and Claw" tonight on DOCTOR WHO

I've come up with a pretty cool theory about the British sci-fi TV show Doctor Who, and tonight's episode is an example of it: the Doctor is trying to bring Rose to the year 1979 (the year of The Muppet Movie and Margaret Thatcher as he puts it ) but instead the TARDIS brings them to 1879. Why, in spite of the Doctor's best attempts to go where and when he wants, does the TARDIS always seem to bring him into the middle of danger and terror? It's almost like the TARDIS has a distinct mind of its own. I mean this has been going on since the very beginning of the show over forty years ago. Well, here's my idea: the Doctor, whether he knows it or not, is acting as an agent of God. It's the Almighty Himself who is steering the TARDIS according to His will. Wherever there is something going wrong anywhere in time and space, God is sending the Doctor there... because God knows that the Doctor will do his best to make things right no matter where or when he's at. Sorta like on Quantum Leap how it was implied that something - or Someone - on a higher plane was directing Sam's leaps.

Well anyway, if you're watching Season 2 (28 if you're counting from the original run of Doctor Who) in the States on the Sci-Fi Channel right now, tonight at 8 o'clock brings us "Tooth and Claw", the second standard Doctor Who episode featuring David Tennant as the tenth Doctor. Definitely a stronger episode than the previous entry "New Earth". Tonight's is a story involving werewolves, wire-fu The Matrix martial artists, and a face-to-face meeting with Her Majesty Queen Victoria. It's also a fairly important episode in the current overall mythology of the show because it has a little to do with "Torchwood", which you will be hearing plenty more about as the season progresses. All things considered, a solid episode that kicks off a whole string of solid stories that continues over the next few weeks with "School Reunion" and "The Girl in the Fireplace".

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Last night's LOST

Last night was the third season premiere of Lost and it was a heckuva good episode, especially the opening: we got to see where the Others were and what they were doing when Oceanic Flight 815 came crashing out of the sky. But Lisa and I had to wonder: in all this time that the crash survivors have had to go from one end of the island to the next, how is it that the Others have an entire frickin' town that hasn't been run across yet? Others-ville can't be more than a two hours walk or so from where the mid-section of the fuselage came down... and you mean that at least Locke and Sayid didn't know about it? What about Rousseau: she's been on the island for a long time and she's never said anything about it to the crash survivors either.

I'm starting to wonder if the "island" is even an island at all. Maybe it's just one really big peninsula of a much-larger landmass. Heck as far off-course as Flight 815 was it could be part of Antarctica that somehow stays tropical (think the "Savage Land" from Marvel Comics). However it is, that lil' island is starting to get awfully crowded with crazy geography. Maybe the producers will release a comprehensive map of the place someday.

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Ten years ago Part 1

To anyone who will understand,
I still remember everything that happened starting that night and across the next few days.

To everyone who was involved: thank you.

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Harry Potter is causing school shootings, claims mother

I will say once again: if the Harry Potter books weren't so popular, these kinds of people wouldn't be paying them any mind. Deep down, these people are happy that there is something like Harry Potter to kick around. Twenty years ago it was Dungeons & Dragons. Then it was Pokemon. Today it's the Potter books and five years from now it'll be something else. These people are in it for the attention and they'll say anything stupid to get it. Here's the latest story of anti-Harry hysteria from the Daily Mail...

'Ban Harry Potter or face more school shootings'

Last updated at 13:20pm on 4th October 2006

A woman who maintains that the Harry Potter books are an attempt to teach children witchcraft is pushing for the second time to have them banned from school libraries.

Laura Mallory, a mother of four from the Atlanta suburb of Loganville, told a Georgia Board of Education officer that the books by British author J.K. Rowling, sought to indoctrinate children as Wiccans, or practitioners of religious witchcraft.

Referring to the recent rash of deadly assaults at schools, Mallory said books that promote evil - as she claims the Potter ones do - help foster the kind of culture where school shootings happen.

That would not happen if students instead read the Bible, Mallory said.

She added that the books were harmful to children who are unable to differentiate between reality and fantasy.

The children, she said, try to imitate Harry Potter and cast spells on classmates.

"They're not educationally suitable and have been shown to be harmful to some kids," Mallory said.

She argued that teachers do not assign other religious books like the Bible as student reading.

It was Mallory's second public campaign against the popular fiction series, after trying to get her son's elementary school to ban the books in August 2005.

Victoria Sweeny, an attorney representing the Gwinnett County Board of Education in Atlanta's eastern suburbs, which had ruled against her in May, said that if schools were to remove all books containing reference to witches, they would have to ban mainstays like "Macbeth" and "Cinderella."

"There's a mountain of evidence for keeping Harry Potter," she said, adding that the books don't support any particular religion but present instead universal themes of friendship and overcoming adversity.

Sweeny said parents, teachers and scholars have found them a good tool to stimulate children's imagination and encourage them to read.

The hearing officer presiding over the appeal will make a recommendation to the state board, which will then decide the case at its meeting in December.

Mallory is appealing after the Gwinnett County school board ruled in favour of the books.

Wiccans consider themselves witches, pagans or neo-pagans, and say their religion is based on respect for the earth, nature and the cycle of the seasons.

This woman is positively nuts! Everything she is claiming about J.K. Rowling and the Harry Potter books is a bold-faced lie... and she's using the name of God to perpetrate it.

I'll leave with this thought to ponder: people like Laura Mallory will no more understand the Holy Bible than they will the Harry Potter books. And when it all gets boiled down, Mallory is approaching the Bible as a "magic spellbook" even more than she thinks the Potter novels are.

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Thank you for smoking

Wow, that has to be just about the worst picture of Yoda ever...
Why is he smoking a cigar? Or maybe its medicinal marijuana: "When 900 years old you reach, your eyesight not be so good it will."

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23 hours = 1 minute

It's 12:15 a.m. on Tuesday morning as I write this. The last time I got any real sleep was before I woke up Sunday morning. The better part of the past 48 hours I've been kept going on a steady stream of Mountain Dew and re-heated pizza and a twisted combination of personal drive and utter frustration.

What's the deal? My first-ever campaign commercial. So far I've notched up 23 hours dedicated to getting this one minute of footage assembled together. Some of that is time that could have probably been saved 'cuz I've been doing some "tweaking" in Premiere Pro and After Effects. What benefits come from that may not show up that well on TV anyway... but I'm a compulsive perfectionist. If it can possibly be made better, I'll take the extra effort to do it. In the end it's all the little things that make the difference.

It's coming. Soon. Brace yourself: I was told tonight that one thing that happens in this commercial makes Lyndon Johnson's "Daisy Girl" ad seem mild in comparison :-P

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Foley ballot flap more indication that the parties are too powerful

The Republican Party in Florida has picked Joe Negron to replace disgraced former House Representative Mark Foley - who resigned last week after it turned out he was an e-mail pedophiler - on the ballot in next month's election.

Which proves all the more that the major parties - Republican and Democrat alike - have too great a stranglehold on this country.

Negron didn't have to submit himself to any of the scrutiny that is supposed to come with being a Congressional candidate. He's not going to be running because he gathered enough signatures on a petition to warrant his name being on the ballot. No, the only reason he's running is because the party bosses hand-picked him to be "their man". Because all that matters to them is "keeping control" of Congress... to hell what is in the best interest of the people of that district.

I've written in the past few days how the process of my being an electoral candidate for the first time has led to some personal change and growth. Well, I'm going to write more about this in the weeks and months following the election, but I'm compelled to say this much now at least: for all the talk about "voter apathy" in this country, why should the average American feel morally obliged to go to the polls in an election, if the American people aren't in charge of their own country anymore?

In a sane world, nobody would be filling in for Foley on the ballot. The contest would belong to whoever it was who's left in the race (which I guess would default to the Democrats, since no one else is really allowed to run in an election in this country)... and tough cookies for the Republicans.

But I guess I shouldn't be expecting anyone - from either of the two major parties - to do the decent thing by not circumventing the American people, should I?

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SOUTH PARK set to skewer World of Warcraft

I don't play World of Warcraft (but I know some people who love it a lot) and I barely ever watch South Park but this looks too hilarious not to check out when it airs Wednesday at 10 (right after the season premiere of Lost). Here's the preview...

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More Weird Al stuff, including the REAL reason why Atlantic tried to squash "You're Pitiful"

Ain't It Cool News has an interview with "Weird Al" Yankovic about Straight Outta Lynwood which came out last week. Meanwhile thousands of miles away the West Australian has another interview with Al, who reveals why it was that Atlantic Records tried so hard to keep Al's parody of "You're Beautiful" from being released...

Ali versus Frazier it wasn't. Things took a serious turn when Atlantic Records didn’t see the funny side of "Weird Al" Yankovic's parody of James Blunt's hit, You’re Beautiful.

Yankovic recorded You're Pitiful as the lead single to his new album, Straight Outta Lynwood, but pulled the track when Atlantic refused to give permission. Blunt had apparently told the Los Angeles based comedian he was fine with it but Yankovic's label, Volcano, didn't want to mess with the major.

Either way, Yankovic usually seeks the artist's blessing as a courtesy before commercially releasing his skewed remakes of hit songs.

Prince, Paul McCartney and Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page have apparently knocked back Weird Al makeovers but most artists relish Yankovic's humorous and harmless homages.

Dire Straits' Mark Knopfler played guitar on the Beverly Hillbillies parody of Money For Nothing while executives at Nirvana's label once told the comedian that his Smells Like Teen Spirit remake sold an extra million copies of Nevermind.

However, the wise men guiding Blunt's career don't share Yankovic's zany sense of humour.

"The reason I heard was that they felt like You're Beautiful was getting too much attention," Yankovic, 46, explains from his home in LA. "They don't want him perceived as a one-hit wonder. They thought You're Beautiful was getting bigger than he was... and that my parody would put more focus on that song."

Atlantic didn't immediately put the kybosh on the parody, rather the suits asked Yankovic to wait until the soppy UK singer-songwriter had established himself as an artist. He obliged, for a while, but the album full of timely parodies couldn't hold for more than a few months.

A frustrated Yankovic pushed the label for a final answer and was eventually told that they didn't want the song to ever see the light of day.

"At that point I just lost my mind because they had basically pushed back my album and I had no idea what I was going to be doing," he says. "They basically jerked me around."

While the song won't be commercially released, Yankovic made You're Pitiful available for free download via www.weirdal.com — and the MP3 became a worldwide viral hit. Despite his run-in with Atlantic, Yankovic will stick to his policy of seeking approval before unleashing his comic gems. "I've always done that historically and I'd like to keep doing it, but I'd have to say that experiences like this make me wish that I wasn't so dependent on the kindness of strangers."

Thta's the DUMBEST thing I've ever heard in my life!! No wonder Al is editing the Atlantic Records entry on Wikipedia to say "YOU SUCK" in the "White and Nerdy" video.

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Old Sears Wish Books getting archived on Flickr

Someone appropriately enough called Wishbook is scanning the entire contents of old Sears Wish Book catalogs and putting them on Flickr. There's only seven of the classic catalogs online so far (along with a few other retailers' Christmas catalogs) but what a joy it is to be able to look through these catalogs from years - and decades - gone by. Here's a page from the 1979 Wish Book, showing part of a two-page spread featuring Star Wars toys...
I actually used to have almost every Star Wars toy on this page! The only exception was the 13-inch Boba Fett figure. That's worth mentioning because this is the 1979 Sears catalog and Boba Fett didn't actually make his big-screen debut until the following year in The Empire Strikes Back. As far back as the Holiday Special in 1978 (which George Lucas will probably thank you for not thinking about) they were hard at work cultivating Boba Fett into a future bad-a$$ and he was already getting action figures made of him. As for who this "Zargon" guy is in the lower right-hand corner, I've a very vague recollection of the toy line he was from but it wasn't Star Wars: guess they needed someone as big as 13-inch Fett to balance out the rest of the page.

Anyways, if you have some time to kill, you might enjoy looking through the rest of Wishbook's photo sets. Which you'll probably wind up laughing at when you check out how people used to dress back in the early 70s and 80s.

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TV ads from other school board candidates

The rest of this weekend is going to be spent finishing up my first-ever TV political advertisement. What will it be like? You'll just have to stay tuned and find out. I'll be posting it here after its done and it gets the nods of approval from my inner circle of trusted advisors. For a minute's worth of footage, it's sure involving a lot of work though.

In the meantime, two other candidates for Rockingham County Board of Education have television commercials already up and running. Being that I'm into filmmaking/video production and have ummmm... more than a little interest in this election, I thought it would be neat to post links to their commercials. If any other candidates produce commercials and put them online, I'll post links to theirs too.

So here they are: the first two candidates in the Rockingham County Board of Education race to have TV commercials. They are in Windows Media format so make sure you have the right player installed on your computer...

Eric H. Smith's commercial "No More Bricks"
(You can also watch Eric's commecial on YouTube)

Richard Moore's commercial "A New Sheriff"

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The current situation

There's been something that's been on my mind for awhile, especially since I first got serious about running for public office. I'll probably write more about this later, after the campaign, when I've had a lot more time to meditate upon some things. I can definitely say that ever since throwing my hat into the ring, that it has been a real growth experience in a lot of ways for me. I can't help but think that even if it's not in God's will that I am to win a seat on the school board, that He is using this to plant the seeds within me for something further down the road. I don't know what that might be, but the learning and understanding that He has been guiding me through during this has very much made me a different person over the past couple of months.

Running for local office has lent itself toward much contemplation about where we are as a country. Especially in the past few days and weeks. And I hate to say this but the more I've let this new eye bear down on things, the more disillusioned I've become with the current state of things in America.

How has it come to this: that we are a nation run by a gang of liars and opportunists and petty hustlers and con artists and adulterers... and now pedophiles? I know, that's more or less a rhetorical question because this sort of thing has been going on for so long now that we've actually become inured to it. But that doesn't mean that it's no less a damning conclusion to draw from the shape of things.

Like I said, I'm probably going to have more to say about this in the near future, after the election is finished, however that goes down. But I'll end this post on one thing that I've come to realize: that the root of much of the misery and malfeasance that's taking place in this country is that we have pursued power instead of righteousness before God.

And I'm especially levelling that charge at a lot of the Christians in this land.

(Yeah I mean you too Jerry Falwell: "The Lord will take care of that" indeed!)

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More DOCTOR WHO goodness tonight

On the same day that American audiences finally get to watch Season 2/28 of Doctor Who comes word that the show has officially been recognized by Guiness Book of World Records as TV's longest-running science-fiction show. And yep, they're counting the revived series in with the originals too. With a 43-year history and 723 episodes to date under its belt, Doctor Who is still going strong.

And with tonight being when Season 2 (or 28, your pick) debuted here in the U.S., here is the "teaser" video that aired on Doctor Who Confidential last year. This really gives you an idea of what to expect in the coming months...

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My yard signs have arrived!

Most of them arrived yesterday (there was one box of metal frames that UPS just dropped off). Here's the finished product:

I used a company called RUNandWIN.com to fill my yard sign order. They did some really amazing work on these signs. They also had a very fast turnaround time from the time I placed my order and were exceedingly prompt in answering all of my queries. They are definitely to be recommended if you yourself ever wind up running for political office :-)

By the way, speaking of printed advertisements for my campaign, here is the bumper sticker that's on my car:

You can buy a pack of blank bumper stickers (2 per letter-sized sheet) at Office Depot. Then download a Word template from OfficeDepot.com and use your ink-jet printer to make your sticker. They're supposed to be pretty water-resistant as they are, but I also gave it several coats of transparent gloss spray paint before I peeled it off the sheet. And so far, in spite of all the rain storms we've had, it looks as fresh as it did when it came out of the printer. No doubt there'll be a lot more fun to be had with these sticker sheets after the campaign is over :-)

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