to help form guidelines
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Baby Paige's dedication video
A few weeks ago I wound up helping with the video for a friend's baby dedication ceremony. Well actually she's more of my sister's friend (and my sister's in this video too) and they called here wanting some advice about audio editing, and I offered to do it for them and e-mail it for their project. Or something. Anyhoo, they had the ceremony for baby Paige a few days ago and because she's the cutest lil' thing, and because her parents are really great people and also 'cuz Lord only knows when I'll ever get to use pink as a border color for a YouTube video again, here is their presentation!
Monday, June 16, 2008
Behold... Davros
Confirmation at last. There had been some concern that the last photo was not even genuine.
Let there be no doubt now: The greatest murderer in the history of the universe is back.
Credit Planet Gallifrey for the find. They also have a pic of the new Red Dalek over there.
Click the image to magnify the evil...
These seem to be leaked (unintentionally or not) press photos made by the BBC. This one of Davros matches up well with the still from the mid-season trailer a few weeks ago, particularly the indentation on the front near the top of the chair.
Yeah I know, this blog has been going a little crazy lately about the return of Davros to Doctor Who. But ever since news came out almost five years ago that the show was returning after a sixteen-year hiatus, this has been the single bad guy that fans have been wanting to see back the most. And Davros isn't your average insane evil genius hellbent on universal domination, either. From the very beginning he's had one very clear motive for everything he has done: perpetuate himself through his creations. This is how Davros wants to achieve a kind of immortality for himself. That his creations happen to be the most xenocidal lifeform to ever exist is inconsequential to him.
Davros last wrecked havoc in the 1988 story Remembrance of the Daleks. So what does Davros for the new millennium look like? Pretty darn sweet! I love how they've tweaked the original chair design: very modern but still classic Davros.
So now that we've concrete proof that he's returning, let's celebrate with this excellently-produced video that I found on YouTube called "Davros Vs. The Universe"...
Speaking of Doctor Who, I haven't watched this past weekend's new episode but I might get a chance to in the next day or so :-)
EDIT 7:39 a.m. EST: Surrey Dave in the comments passed along The Sun's reporting that the BBC has FINALLY officially confirmed that Davros is back, and is being portrayed this time by Shakespearean actor Julian Bleach. Previously there had been speculation that everyone from Sir Ben Kingsley to Patrick Stewart was going to be in the chair.
Ross Perot launches Perot Charts website
Ross Perot was the first man that I ever voted for President, and almost 16 years later I'm still proud to say that. Heck, I still have the "Ross for Boss in '92" button that I had made at a crafts fair at our high school, along with some "Perot for President" yard signs and bumper stickers from when I volunteered for his Rockingham County campaign. Yeah I've come to disagree with him on some things over the years (so far as I know he still backs abortion "rights") but other than Ron Paul, I don't know if we've ever had anyone run for President in the past 20 years who had Perot's grasp of fiscal responsibility. If Perot had any flaws regarding his bid for office, I've come to believe that they were that (a) he started as an outsider who tried to play by the rules of the party too much, and (b) some of his ideas needed a few more years before they could be appreciated. The "electronic town hall" that Perot loved to talk about: well, isn't that what blogging and YouTube have turned into? Perot's campaign in 1992 - quirks and all - was a thing of both wonder and madness. Wonder at the inertia that came together to try to get him elected, and madness that for all the frustration, this country's mindset is still locked into the status quo.
If you were around then, you'll no doubt remember those famous "infomercials" that Perot ran simultaneously across most of the networks, where he'd look into the camera while showing charts that depicted the state of the economy, while using down-home lingo and cornpone humor to get his point across: "This deficit's like the crazy aunt the family keeps in the basement. Everyone knows she's there but nobody wants to talk about her." Well, the man himself has just launched Perot Charts (at perotcharts.com) and he's bringing his flip charts into Web 2.0's realm.
Have to wonder what this country would have been like had he won the election that year. Would it have been any worse than what we've had from sixteen years of Bill Clinton and then George W. Bush? I doubt it.
Stan Winston has passed away
Ain't It Cool News seems to be the first place breaking the sad news that Stan Winston died last night of cancer...
Stan Winston was the special effects and makeup genius responsible for some of the most iconic images to burst out of the movie screen of the past thirty years. Winston was the man who made the Terminator function across three films, unleashed the Aliens (and then Predator), brought dinosaurs back to life in Jurassic Park and its sequels, made us believe the mecha of A.I., and scores of other films over the years. Most recently he created the armor and other effects for the hit movie Iron Man.
Along with Aliens, you wanna know what my personal favorite example of Stan Winston's work is? It's The Thing from 1982. It could only have been Stan Winston who could turn someone like Wilford Brimley into one of the most sickeningly horrific creatures ever shown in a film. Or the scene where Norris has his heart attack (as in: his heart attacks and bites right through Copper's arms).
Think I'll pop The Thing in the DVD player tonight after our rehearsal for Children of Eden, and toast Winston's memory.
Friday, June 13, 2008
"Forest of the Dead" is the BEST episode of revived DOCTOR WHO yet, maybe best EVER and should make everyone feel warm and happy!!!
Last Saturday the BBC transmitted "Forest of the Dead", the newest episode of Doctor Who (until tomorrow night anyway, when "Midnight" premieres). I watched it on Tuesday.
And it's taken me this long just to get my thoughts together about it...
"Donna?"And that is as far as I dare go with the usual choice quotes from a new Doctor Who episode."You said 'river', and suddenly we're feeding ducks."
"The only story you'll ever tell... if you survive here."
"Yo... WHO ARE YOU?!?"
"I'm going to prove it to you, and I'm sorry. I'm really, very sorry."
"LOOK AT THAT! I'm VERY GOOD!!!"
A few weeks ago I finally figured out what the "Media Extender" capability of our Xbox 360 is. So now it's configured into our home network and now I can watch those wonderful Doctor Who episodes (uploaded onto BitTorrent courtesy of our Brittish brethren) on a 42-inch high-definition television set, instead of an LCD computer monitor. Not fully high-def, but it looks amazing.
And that is how I watched "Forest of the Dead": far and away the best episode yet of the revived run of Doctor Who, and I think it could even be said that this would be in the running for the best episode of the entire 45-year history of the show.
"Wait, Chris... it's even better than "The Girl in the Fireplace"?!"
Oh yeah. Which Steven Moffat also wrote, incidentally.
This will be the episode by which all others will be judged. I feel as if after watching "Forest of the Dead" that in the words of Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor "I have dipped into the future." If this is a taste of what is to come when Moffat begins helming Doctor Who in 2010, then we are potentially headed for the richest and most epic storytelling ever done with an already grand mythology.
"Forest of the Dead" begins where "Silence in the Library" left off, with the Doctor and Professor River Song's expedition trapped by the Vashta Nerada. We find out what happened to Donna, and the Doctor is determined to discover how does River Song know so much about him. The moment that he does is going to be the source of endless speculation between now and at least 2010. If you thought Lost was maddening, "Forest of the Dead" might be worth at least an entire season of that series' questions.
And that ending: if you choked back tears watching "The Girl in the Fireplace", keep the Kleenex handy for the last several minutes of "Forest of the Dead". Please folks: that's not a mild suggestion. It's beautiful and hopeful and uplifting... and after some of the nonsense I've gone through during the past week, it sure cheered me up! Murray Gold's score alone is enough to have your spirit soaring. I'll buy the DVD of this season's soundtrack just for the music when the Doctor is running back to the data core.
If you are an American fan who has only been watching this season on the Sci-Fi Channel, I cannot begin to tell you what is in store for you with "Silence in the Library" and "Forest of the Dead". Clear some space on your DVR if you need to: this one's a keeper. And I'll give it the full 5 Sonic Screwdrivers out of 5!
Frank Darabont's script for INDIANA JONES 4 is online... somewhere!
So if you are diligent enough with Google, right now you should have no problem at all finding an Adobe Acrobat file of Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods: Frank Darabont's now-legendary script for the fourth Indiana Jones movie. G4's Mike D'Alonzo wrote a review of it a few days ago and Moriarty at Ain't It Cool News confirmed that it's legit. It took me about two minutes of looking around to snag a copy for myself.
Thoughts?
Darabont's draft is so much like what became Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull that until I know why, it's going to be an eternal question in my mind as to why he never received a writing credit for the final product. It's the same basic story: Jones gets involved with a quest for a seemingly-mystical crystal skull and the adventure winds up in Peru. The space aliens angle is still here. So is the rocket sled, the mushroom cloud, and the refrigerator (but those all date back to Jeb Stuart's Indiana Jones and the Saucer Men from Mars script in 1995 anyway). Mutt is not in Darabont's script, but Marion returns here too... and I have to say that Darabont's script might have captured the spirit of her character more than what we saw in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. There are many references to the previous entries in the series: some pronounced and others very sly (especially one thing that hearkens back to the first time we see Indy and Belloq meet in Raiders of the Lost Ark). Sallah and Henry Jones Sr. have some fun cameos in Darabont's script, too. Oxley also figures in Darabont's story and doesn't feel as tacked-on as he did in the actual movie.
Now please don't get me wrong here: I loved and still love Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. There are numerous elements in Darabont's draft that I wish had made it over to the finished work, however. I liked the new character Yuri and the dialogue he shares with Indy and I could easily picture Ray Winstone in the role, too. The aliens are a much bigger threat and per Darabont's pen feel very... well, "alien", in a Lovecraftian way. And Indy himself comes across as more happy-go-lucky and whimsical: a sign of the growth that he has undergone as a character after so many adventures.
Anyhoo, it's out there, if you want to read it for yourself. Good luck! :-)
Ron Paul ends campaign for President... and what this means
Ron Paul has ended his campaign for the Republican nomination for President. Instead of conceding however, Paul has shifted gears and is channeling the resources of his political aspiration into the Campaign for Liberty.
Most readers here know that I've been an enthusiastic supporter of Dr. Paul, what with the pictures of him that I did in Photoshop and the video that was posted on YouTube. Heck, I even made a Ron Paul Jack-o'-Lantern for this past Halloween! And last month I finally got to meet him.
So now, he's winding-down his drive for the Oval Office. What do I make of this?
Personally, I think that in years to come the Ron Paul presidential campaign is going to be one of the most appreciated things to have happened in the era of modern American politics. But that's not going to happen before some very rough times we'll have to go through.
Here is why I am inclined to call Ron Paul's campaign a success: it demonstrated that there is a complete absence of principles and honor in the current American political system. And if one demands further proof, he need look no further than the "two major candidates" that our system has wound up producing, with the demand that we must "choose" one of the two.
I think Ron Paul's campaign has given ample evidence that there exists between the two major parties, the corporate media, and government in general an unwritten rule that the status quo must be preserved at all costs. Those who might threaten The Way Things Are, are effectively quashed. We saw this happen numerous times during this past year to Ron Paul, especially how he was prevented from participating in numerous "debates" and when he was allowed, the "objective" moderators from Fox News or whatever made it their mission to openly question Dr. Paul's viability as a candidate. They never did that to Romney, or Huckabee, or McCain, or anyone else.
Maybe the biggest lesson we can take from the Ron Paul presidential campaign is that: "You cannot beat the system".
Maybe we don't have to try to beat it, either.
Because the system that is modern American politics is crashing and burning quite well on its own, without any help from us.
Look at what's happening around us: soaring gas prices and even higher kerosene prices (which will soon make trucking goods a much less attractive career for those who this country depends on for shipping). Skyrocketing cost of food. Illegal migrants flooding into the country. Flagrant use of illegal labor (which has led to many recent problems involving food production). Plummeting value of the dollar. Increasing taxes. Government continually stripping rights away. Wars without end, hallelujah, amen...
Those "stimulus" checks that we all got? I made a sound investment with mine (which is all that I'm going to say about that). If there had to be a sign that ours is a broken and defeated country, that was it. "Stimulus" was socialism. It was crumbs thrown to us from the table, and we gobbled it up without thinking about it. I understand that retail buying was up last month. "Stimulus worked," some will tell Chris.
Okay, fine. But now the stimulus money has run out and the economy is grinding to a halt again. Are we supposed to expect another stimulus? Believe it or not, I have heard that this is seriously under consideration. Which will pump more money into the supply, making the dollar worth even less...
I don't even want to begin to speculate on what's been going on with the weather lately, and how this has already caused the price of corn to shoot through the roof. A number of people have suggested that if there is anything like a severe hurricane season this year, the cost of commodities like oil and food will become unconscionable. Granted, there's not much we can do about acts of God. But there has been plenty that we could have already done about managing what's been granted our purview.
Except not one of the "leading contenders" for President has a damned clue about what to do about any of this. Heck, we've pretty much been promised higher taxes, no matter who is elected.
It can't be said that we didn't have a choice. Ron Paul and a very few others who took a stab at this wanted to bring legitimate concerns and solutions to the table. They never stood a chance. They were derided as "joke candidates", "also-rans" while we were supposed to believe that people like McCain and Clinton and Obama were... what, serious?!
Can anyone tell me that any of those three have been out for anything other than the power and the opportunity to stamp their names in the history books?
I don't know what that's a worse commentary on: the ones who perpetuate this system or the American people who continually buy into it.
But hey, this system already gave us George W. Bush: bar none the worst President in American history. Why should we expect any better from it?
So it is that I'm sticking with the vow that I made over a year ago: I am voting for Ron Paul for President, or I am voting for no one at all. And if I have to go to the poll and not mark down anyone for President, so be it. I've no problem with that. My conscience will be clean. Because the sad fact of the matter is, it's not going to matter one whit who among the candidates of the two major parties is elected President.
The inertia has become too great. The timbers have become too rotted. It is the acme of either foolishness or insanity to put faith in either party, or the present system at all, to stop what was already in motion long ago.
Trust me, having done the politics game already: this is not something to stock your hopes in.
But even so, I can't help but believe that Ron Paul's campaign was not only a success, it had a divine hand behind it. Maybe it was just one of the ways that God let the American people have a chance to turn back from the brink.
But we didn't take it. Now we've got two childish punks, drunk on power, fighting for control of the steering while while the car of state speeds full-tilt toward the cliff...
Hang on tight, friends and neighbors: it's a long way down.
The last, best thing I know to say about recent events
If certain people (who I have it on record are still constantly visiting this blog looking for... whatever) cannot watch this all the way through without the slightest twitch of conscience, then there is nothing more than I know to say. Because those people really will have had no soul. The main antagonist in the little drama of the past several days has already given us a glimpse into a very dark abyss, what with his proclaiming that it is his divine mission to "defeat (and) destroy" his fellow Christians."Love thy neighbor as thyself. On these words, depend the future."
Let me present to you now, if nothing else will convince, why it is that I have felt led to confront these people with the evil that they are doing.
From 1955, here is Good Will To Men.
My original idea was to use Peace on Earth. Good Will To Men is a remake of that, and was produced by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. The reason that I chose to use this one instead of the original is because I think the ultimate message of Good Will To Men is the more clearly stated...
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Thoughts and prayers for fellow Boy Scouts in Iowa
As you might have heard by now, four Boy Scouts were killed yesterday when a tornado tore through the Little Sioux Scout Ranch in Iowa.
When I did the Boy Scout camp thing years ago, at Cherokee Scout Reservation, we had a tornado alarm. I think that I only heard it used once during a drill. I don't think any of us ever expected that there'd be a reason why it would be used for real.
I've come to have a whole new appreciation for that alarm having been there now.
To our friends and brothers in the Mid-America Council and their families who are going through this right now, please know that our thoughts and prayers are with you, from here in the Old North State Council and beyond.
Charles Roark offers FREE airtime on WGSR to Johnny Robertson for commercial defaming Yours Truly using my likeness
He did. It's true. I've got it documented.
And in Charles Roark's words: "I don't care... Take me on."
Just thought y'all should know.
So how is this different than what happened the other night? I never used Robertson's image.
Am glad that I didn't, now.
EDIT 5:08 p.m. EST: Roark talked about this on his "warm-up show" on WGSR this afternoon at 4:30. He's trying to spin it as if...
- I called Robertson out first.
- I told WGSR not to use my likeness at all.
Both are false. In fact, both are pretty much blatant lies.
Robertson wanted to debate me first. My only thing so far as "instigation" goes was to ask a theological question. He answered it. I was satisfied. Then Robertson announced that he was going to talk about me on his show that week and that I wouldn't debate him.
So I took him at his word, met him at the station with my video camera and let him have his opportunity. He quickly reneged.
So far as any reasonable human being is concerned, Johnny Robertson was the one who brought this to the television arena. Not I.
And so far as what I've told WGSR goes, I made it clear that my likeness could not be used in promos paid for by Johnny Robertson and his so-called "Church of Christ". Instead, Roark spun it so as to sound as if I was telling WGSR that it could not use my likeness at all.
So I called into the show. And told Roark that. I also accused him of very low journalism. He spat back that "this station is the most successful in the region" and then tried to make it sound as if I was "bitter", having worked there before.
Sure Charles, whatever.
Folks, some of you have been leaving some... not too polite... comments on this post, about Charles Roark. I don't really care to see those but I admit that the lesser angels of my nature are in resounding agreement. My last shred of respect for the man evaporated this afternoon, and I don't know if I'll ever tune in to WGSR again because of it.
He was right when he said one thing: once upon a time, I believed in that station. I thought it was good and I wanted to do my part to make it into something better. But I don't know if it will ever be anything more than it already is.
If Charles Roark is happy with that, fine. But if Roark is throwing his objectivity out the window for sake of a wealthy, paying client - and so far as I know Johnny Robertson and his "Church of Christ" are the biggest things keeping WGSR afloat at all - then I can't support WGSR anymore. Not as a matter of conscience. And the idea that I'm somehow "bitter" has nothing to do with it.
I can't help but think that I doubt Charles Roark will ever understand that.
Walter E. Williams asks: Are Americans slaves?
I've always appreciated Dr. Walter E. Williams's perspective and candor. There have been times when I didn't necessarily agree with him, but whenever he writes or speaks it's apparent that it only comes after investing considerable thought into the matter. For that reason alone, I would recommend Dr. Williams as someone far above and removed from the rest of the "talking heads" out there.
Over at Townhall.com Williams has posed the question: "Are Americans pro-slavery?". It's a fairly short but rich piece that should have everyone reading it question whether they are really free or not.
Personally, I don't believe that the state of condition in America fosters anything but captivity to the current system. That we aren't "owned" in terms of there existing a title deed with one's name on it doesn't change the fact that most of the product of our own labor does go to bigger government. And can it be said that we are becoming "more free" at all, in this day of increasing taxes and mandates on the citizenry?
Yeah, we're slaves all right, just like Williams describes in his piece. Now the question is: What are we going to do about it?
