Remember the classic episode "A Piece of the Action" from the original Star Trek TV show? That was the one where Kirk and Spock beam down to the alien planet that had its entire culture based on 1920s Chicago mob wars. What happened was another Federation ship had come years earlier and accidentally left a book about the Chicago mobs behind and the aliens on this planet, being curious and innovative, re-engineered their world around what they learned...
Sunday, May 06, 2007
Spirituality and certainty
My friend Jenna Olwin is part of a collaborative blog called Silhouette: mostly a group of Washington state armchair Christian theologians who put out some pretty deep stuff. Well she's got a new piece called "Spirituality and Certainty". Here's an excerpt:America, as we all know, has experienced quite a revival in spirituality since atheism wore out of fashion. When Muslim terrorists brought down the Twin Towers and part of the Pentagon in 2001,...
Review of SPIDER-MAN 3
I enjoyed Spider-Man 3. There, I said it.Spider-Man 3 is a good entry into the series and an all-around entertaining superhero "popcorn" flick. And with just a little bit more thought, it could have been an all-time truly classic movie.There was simply way too much that was shoehorned into this one movie to make it overwhelmingly superb. I worried a year ago that Sam Raimi...
Saturday, May 05, 2007
Where crime involving political signs is taken seriously ...
Opponents of a school bond referendum in Davie County have vandalized thousands of dollars worth of signs supporting to measure and it's being treated as an actual crime there. I'm going to do some more looking into this come early next week. Funny how a few counties over it's treated as a serious criminal matter (as it should be) but here in Rockingham County it's almost as if it's no big deal when other people's political signs are messed with.Speaking...
Friday, May 04, 2007
Song parody: "MacArthur Park 2007" (illegal aliens rioting)
With apologies to Jimmy Webb and the late Richard Harris, but I just couldn't resist writing this one. Inspired by events of the past few days..."MacArthur Park 2007"Originally written by Jimmy Webb and performed by Richard HarrisNew words by Christopher KnightBorder is wide open for them girlThey're starting to get boldAs they scream their Spanish chantsNow they incite a...
Wally Schirra has passed away
Walter M. Schirra Jr., better known as "Wally" Schirra, has passed away at the age of 84.Schirra was one of the original seven NASA astronauts, tapped from hundreds of candidates to be part of the Mercury program. He flew the Sigma 7 craft in 1962 and then a few years later commanded Gemini 6 as it rendezvoused with Gemini 7: the first such encounter between two spacecraft...
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Bush: "I'm the Commander Guy!"
Remember that old TV commercial that had Mrs. Fletcher shouting "I've fallen and I can't get up!"? That's what America has become, my friends. It's fallen and it's so lame, there's no standing back straight and tall ever again. The timbers in the ship of state are just too rotted.Witness the latest sign of the decadence: President Bush has a new name for himself. Yesterday he said this:"The question is, 'Who ought to make that decision, the Congress...
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Tonight's LOST: musings about "The Brig"
Lisa usually turns in before Lost starts at 10 p.m., meaning that I watch it and then we see it together the following afternoon from the DVR. But tonight she got drawn in by the first few minutes of "The Brig" and couldn't let go. So we got to see it first-run together. It just finished a short while ago...John Locke may be the greatest tragic figure to come out of television of the past twenty years. You know what I keep thinking about, after...
Comments temporarily for registered users only
Because of some apparent abuse on the part of a suspected individual on the "The Ronfather" post, I am temporarily turning off anonymous comments. You must be registered with Blogger in order to leave comments at the present time. I'm hoping to lift this and return to normal commenting - which you can choose to be anonymous or not - as soon as possible.EDIT 5-03-2007 1:03 a.m. EST: Normal commenting has been restor...
Student disciplined for making video game map of his high school
The Fort Bend Independent School District (in Texas) is upholding the suspension and subsequent placing in an "alternative education center" of a Clements High School student whose only crime was... get this... building a video game map from his high school! Here's more of the story:...on April 17, the day after the Virginia Tech massacre that left 33 dead, Clements High School officials learned a student had been playing Counterstrike, an Internet-based...
Fox News handling of Republican debate shows how screwed-up this country is
Let me see if I've got this right...Fox News may exclude SEVEN candidates from its Republican presidential debate - including Internet favorites Ron Paul and Duncan Hunter - because they and others are hovering around 1% support in national polls. Fox News doesn't want to give airtime to anyone who is showing just that 1%.If they had live and unfettered airtime during the debate, they more than likely stand a good chance of seeing their percentage...
Ron Price: He'll make you an offer you oughta refuse
If this is The Ronfather, does that mean its central character is "Ron" Corleone?Someone called here yesterday to ask me about the Ron Price situation and I told this person that at no time have I "hated" the guy. Been disgusted with him? Certainly. But that's a far cry from outright loathing his guts. At the same time, he's doing wrong: both by staying on the Rockingham...
Tonight's LOST goes out of "the box" and into "The Brig"
A few weeks ago in the episode "The Man from Tallahassee", Ben told Locke (Terry O'Quinn) that on the island there was "a box" that would produce anything you wanted. Locke laughed at the idea. And then at the end of the episode Ben told Locke that "I'm going to show you what came out of it."What Locke saw when he opened the door and looked inside the room was probably the biggest shocker of the show's entire run.We've only seen Locke very briefly...
Tom Poston - aka George Utley on NEWHART - passes away
When I was growing up, Newhart was one of the few television shows that I really liked to watch. Guess it was all those weird characters living together in that tiny Vermont town. One of the quirkiet was Tom Poston's George Utley. I think it was in his very first appearance on the show that he gave Bob Newhart's character Dick Loudon his business card and all it says on...
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Happy anniversary Ed and Olivia!
It was a year ago today down at Cypress Gardens in Charleston, South Carolina that my longtime collaborator "Weird" Ed Woody was united in holy matrimony to his lovely bride Olivia. Here's a pic of the happy couple...What Ed, ya think I would let this day go by without remembering that? :-)Happy anniversary you t...
It's illegal to have this number on your blog
Hexadecimal 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0This is the decryption key for most of the HD-DVD titles that have been released. Apparently the bigwigs in the entertainment industry are going after websites and blogs that host it. This is similar to what happened a few years ago when DeCSS was discovered. Some people were arrested for spreading the code for that one around (in quite a few creative ways). Just for the heck of it, here's...
RONBO: Lawsuit story hits the News & Record
Gerald Witt has a write-up in today's News & Record about the lawsuit that Ron Price has filed against Richard Moore (click here for more info on that). At the beginning of his story Witt makes mention of something that's currently on Moore's website and I couldn't resist posting it here either for sake of posterity...Political sniping going to courtBy Gerald WittStaff...
