Atlantis still missing, says Google techs

Late last night this blog joined many other outlets in passing along the word that the Google Earth application had discovered something weird on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean west of Africa. And a lot of people were quick to suggest that perhaps this might be the sunken remains of mythic Atlantis.

Already we have an answer: no, it's not.

According to the eggheads at Google, the odd grid array is a visual artifact from the sonar process that spawned the undersea maps. In this case, the lines are caused by the paths of the boats on the surface as they went back and forth taking sonar measurements of the ocean floor.

So no Atlantis this time. But I'll bet Lemuria and Mu are still out there somewhere :-)

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Finally have a Rorschach action figure!

Ever since the first time I read Watchmen, I've thought it would be neat to have an action figure of Rorschach to decorate my shelf or computer desk with.

It's taken twenty years, but today I finally get my wish...

Found it at Books A Million in Greensboro while out on some business this morning.

Now all we need is for someone to make a big plush Rorschach doll that goes "Hurm" when you pull the string :-P

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Has Google Earth found Atlantis?

The latest version of Google Earth, which has a new oceanographic feature, has found a very odd feature on the Atlantic floor hundreds of miles northwest of the Canary Islands. Here's the screengrab that I took of it, including the coordinates...

It's said to be as large as Wales, and sits beneath three and a half miles of water. Some are saying that Google Earth might have stumbled upon the location of fabled Atlantis. Interestingly, the site does rest in the spot beyond the Strait of Gibraltar where Plato said Atlantis rose and fell.

My hunch is that this is going to turn out to be some natural feature on the eastern flanks of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. But it is plenty intriguing that it looks so regular and organized, almost like the layout of a city.

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CHILDREN OF EDEN at The Sanctuary in Greensboro starting this weekend!

Longtime readers of this blog know that my favorite musical is Children of Eden. This past summer I was extremely blessed to have taken part in a production of it by the Theatre Guild of Rockingham County. Well, if you've never had the pleasure of beholding this amazing show and you live near Greensboro, North Carolina you're in luck this weekend and the next. Jay Smith, who played Cain in our production, is directing Children of Eden at The Sanctuary, located at 900 Sixteenth Street in Greensboro. The show begins Friday, February 20th at 7:30 p.m., and runs through February 28th. Many of the same faces from Theatre Guild of Rockingham County's production will be in this new show, including Neil Shepherd returning as Father. Click here for more information, and hope you can come check it out! :-)

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Descendants of Geronimo sue to get his remains from Skull and Bones

Family members of Geronimo, the great Apache warrior, are suing the Skull and Bones secret society at Yale University. The purpose of the lawsuit: to compel Skull and Bones to hand over the skull and other remains of Geronimo that were allegedly stolen from his grave in Oklahoma in 1918. Supposedly, Skull and Bones (the membership of which includes many business leaders and politicians, including both presidents Bush) has been using Geronimo's noggin for weird sexual rituals deep within its headquarters known as "The Tomb". It has long been alleged that Geronimo's remains were in Skull and Bones' possession, but a letter unearthed a few years ago that detailed the grave robbery has lent new credence to the claim.

All I gotta say is: any "fraternity" that makes its initiates masturbate inside a coffin, cannot possibly be of much good.

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WATCHMEN coming in 3 crazy flavors of DVD and Blu-ray!

Collider.com is reporting that director Zack Snyder has confirmed that there are three cuts of Watchmen. The first will be the theatrical release that will come out two weeks from tomorrow, and will run for 2 hours 36 minutes.

The theatrical cut will be coming out on DVD probably "around Comic-Con of this year" (mid-July or thereabouts) and at the same time there will also be Snyder's "director's cut" clocking in at 3 hours and 10 minutes!

But that's still not all. Later this fall will be the "ultimate" cut of Watchmen coming to DVD and Blu-ray. That version will incorporate the animated Tales of the Black Freighter footage that is coming out as a separate home release next month. This version will be 3 hours 25 minutes long.

I must say: that is gonna be one strange day two weeks from now when Watchmen comes out. I've been writing about the attempts to make this movie for as long as this blog has been running. The thought had crossed my mind that maybe after writing the Watchmen review that I should just retire The Knight Shift blog. I mean, in its own way... how will I ever top this?

But I'm sure something else will come along :-)

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Post #3000 is reaction to tonight's LOST episode "316"!

Wow... three thousand articles (and other stuff) for this blog to date! Thatsa lotta writing over the past five years :-)

And "316", tonight's episode of Lost, had a lot of everything that makes this show, so unprecedented for the television medium.

That was probably more new mythology that got introduced - or revealed, however you wanna say it - in just the first few minutes of this week's installment than there has been in many entire stretches of episodes. There's a real sense of evolving story here. And "316" makes one appreciate that there is just more than a season and a half left of Lost: this is one show that knows where it's going, and is giving us one heckuva thrill ride along the way.

(So does anyone wanna build a big Focault pendulum so that we can really find where the Island is? :-P)

Loved the scene in the church where Ben talked about the apostle Thomas. Anyone else think that showed a new, spiritual side to Ben that we haven't seen before? It served to highlight one of the best running themes of the show: Jack, the "man of science", and his struggle with faith.

Great to see Frank Lapidus again. I loved his line: "We're not going to Guam, are we?" I just hope he and the rest of the plane are okay. Frank was one of my favorite new people from last season. 'Twould be great if he winds up on the Island again somehow.

All in all, this was more of a character-driven episode than one really rife with action (except for that startling final scene)... but that's what makes Lost so powerful anyway: the characters, and how they cope and change and grow over time. I'll chalk "316" up, along with everything else we've seen of Season 5 thus far, as one of the best of the show to date.

And next week's episode has a title that outta have every Lost-aholic tuning in: "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham". What happened to Locke between the time he left the Island and his winding up in a coffin in a butcher shop's 'fridge? We'll find out in seven days! Until then... "Namaste".

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Ratio Depopulata

Such is what has become of our world.

"Reason laid waste".

Feel free to comment.

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President Obama signs "stimulus" into law

The $787 BILLION package is now enacted legislation, as President Barack Obama signed the bill at a ceremony in Denver.

There might be another "stimulus" coming soon, believe it or not.

And on the day of this esteemed occasion, the Dow dropped 297.81 points, -3.79%, to close at 7,552.60.

And on a somewhat related note, I've been hearing some curious rumblings about stuff going down in the Eastern Europe markets, that might bear watching for the time being.

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Travis the Chimp, on Xanax, goes bananas and mauls woman before being shot dead by Connecticut cops

So help me, my eyes are tearing up with laughter after reading that headline, even though this really is a horrible story...

Travis, a 200 pound, 15-year old chimpanzee who had appeared in TV commercials and "was toilet trained, dressed himself, took his own bath, ate at the table and drank wine from a glass", went berzerk last night in a Stamford, Connecticut neighborhood after breaking loose from his owners' custody, and then severely mauled Charla Nash with "life-changing, if not life-threatening injuries" to her face and hands. Travis' owner Sandra Herold had to beat the ape off her friend with a butcher knife and a shovel.

Travis had earlier been given tea laced with the anti-depressant Xanax. He proceeded to terrorize the streets before being shot dead by Stamford cops, after Travis opened the door of a police cruiser and attempted to enter the vehicle. According to one report, Travis may have intended to drive away from the scene.

Feel free to post the obligatory Planet of the Apes comments as you see fit...

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Ramos and Compean finally free (they never should have been in prison to begin with!)

This morning, former Border Patrol agents Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos were freed from the federal prisons they had been in, and rejoined their families.

About time. But then, their imprisonment was a travesty of justice from the beginning. Regardless of their sentences being commuted, a whole lot of people in this country will never forgive George W. Bush and his lackey Johnny Sutton for taking sides with a known drug smuggler against two men who were trying to protect their country's safety and sovereignty.

No, I won't be one to forgive Bush for that, either.

That said: it's good that Ramos and Compean are back home.

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Trailer for TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN

Giant transforming sentient robotic organisms and lots of Michael Bay-hem signature carnage and 'splosions (with a soundtrack by Steve Jablonsky). What more could you ask for?!

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Trailer for INGLORIOUS BASTERDS

I must regretfully confess that I have never seen a Quentin Tarantino movie during a first run in the theaters...

...but I am already sold on Inglorious Basterds, due for release this summer.

"Each man under my command owes me one hundred Nazi scalps. And I want my scalps."

See Brad Pitt pour out unbridled Jewish rage on Fortress Europe below...

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PRIDE AND PREDATOR?! Are you kidding me?!?

Elton John's Rocket Pictures has begun production on Pride and Predator: a cinematic adaptation of a Jane Austen novel that deviates wildly "from the traditional period costume drama when an alien crash lands and begins to butcher the mannered protags, who suddenly have more than marriage and inheritance to worry about."

This is, apparently, not a joke.

One of the producers has also said that "It felt like a fresh and funny way to blow apart the done-to-death Jane Austen genre by literally dropping this alien into the middle of a costume drama, where he stalks and slashes to horrific effect."

Jane Austen books must be a hot sci-fi genre these days. Cinema Blend is also reporting that Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is in the works, with involvement from Natalie Portman.

Words fail...

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Kansas and California have run out of money

The state government of Kansas is no longer issuing tax refunds and may be unable to pay its employees.

Meanwhile, California is $40 billion in the red and may have to lay off thousands of workers soon.

Dare I mention that "Hell Époque" thing that I first wrote about last year?

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BIOSHOCK bringing moral chaos to mobile phones

BioShock, 2K Games' smash hit first-person shooter that tries your personal ethics as much as it tests your aim, is now coming to mobile phones courtesy of Indiagames. The reveal came at the 2009 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. Indiagames is working on two versions of BioShock for mobile devices: a straightforward 3-D port of the original game, and... a 2-D rendition, believe it or not.

(Can't help but wonder if the 2-D version will resemble this NES-style "demake" or perhaps this Game Boy mock-up.)

I'm of the opinion that BioShock is a game that needs to be played at night, or at least a way darkened room with all the lights out, on a fairly large screen and the sound turned way up. The ruined underwater city of Rapture with all its 1950s trappings is easily the most sinister setting of a video game that I've ever encountered. Putting it on a tiny device to play anywhere... sounds like it's gonna take away from that kind of atmosphere. But hey, the more BioShock the better, right? :-)

Here's some footage of the 3-D version, including the deranged Splicers and of course a Big Daddy in action...

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Banker gives $60 million of own money to his employees

Lately it seems like the "feel good" stories have become even more few and far between. So when one is found, I feel more than a little compelled to give it a shout-out.

Take, f'rinstance, what Leonard Abess Jr. did. Back in November he sold a majority share of his holdings in Miami-based City National Bancshares.

And then, Abess gave away $60 million of the profits to EVERYONE that was on his bank's payroll. He even went so far as to find 72 former employees so that he could give them a share of the money, too. More than 400 people got the "bonuses", and depending on how long they had been employed some got more than $100,000

This is an awesome story of capitalism and corporate responsibility, folks. And when I say "responsibility", what I mean by that is a company or business owner going above and beyond in rewarding its employees - who have already shown loyalty to the company - without it being mandated by some decree of government. Nobody made Abess give up his own money. In my opinion, Leonard Abess Jr. made a smart investment in his own company. And I'd be willing to wager an RC Cola and a Moon Pie that City National Bancshares might be among the better managed banks in this day and age.

Abess didn't publicize his good deed, but it was inevitable that news of it would get out. When asked about his motivation...

Abess said he had long dreamed of a way to reward employees. He had been thinking of creating an employee stock option plan before he decided to sell the bank.

"Those people who joined me and stayed with me at the bank with no promise of equity -- I always thought some day I'm going to surprise them," he said. "I sure as heck don't need [the money]."

Leonard Abess Jr., you're a good man. And you deserve a tip o' the hat for your good deed :-)

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