Twelve hours from now...

...I will be in a movie theater, beholding the film adaptation of Watchmen.

This is a day that I have literally been waiting for, ever since early 1990 when I first read the book. More than that if you count that the first time I heard about Watchmen at all was in summer of 1988 and the very first whispers of adapting it into a movie.

I've been writing about the attempts to turn Watchmen into a full-length feature from the very beginning of this blog. Most of the time, it's been to share my belief that this is a book that has been and will remain impossible to film.

But all the same, here we are: on the eve of the release of Watchmen in cinemas.

I'm heading out early this evening to join some friends who have likewise been waiting a long time for this movie. Will report back later with my initial reaction.

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Cover for STAR WARS: DARTH BANE: DYNASTY OF EVIL

Drew Karpyshyn's Darth Bane novels have been a surprise runaway success for the Star Wars franchise. I loved the first book Darth Bane: Path of Destruction (read my review here) and I thought that Darth Bane: Rule of Two was a considerably good follow-up, particularly when you bear in mind that Karpyshyn was operating under a much tighter deadline than usual.

This December will come his third novel in the series. Darth Bane: Dynasty of Evil is set to continue the chronicles of the man who re-established the Sith Order and instigated the Rule of Two that carried on down to the days of Darth Sidious and Darth Vader. StarWars.com just released the cover of the book, featuring Bane and his apprentice Darth Zannah.

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Would-be illegal immigrant ratted-out by "good luck" card

My filmmaking partner "Weird" Ed Woody found this story and passed it along here...

Hasta la vista, baby

Wed Mar 4, 1:20 pm ET

LONDON (Reuters) – A Mexican national who told airport immigration he was visiting Britain to see a friend was swiftly deported after a search unearthed a good-luck card in his luggage wishing him well for his "new life in the UK."

UK Border Agency officers at Manchester Airport routinely stopped the 40-year-old chef after he arrived on a flight from Los Angeles last Friday.

The man told them he was on a short trip to see a friend who was opening a restaurant in the area.

"However, a search of the passenger's baggage revealed a huge collection of Mexican food recipes and a good-luck card from his church wishing him well for his 'new life in the UK,'" the agency said in a statement.

The man later admitted he had intended to work at the restaurant illegally and had planned to bring his family over from America if he liked it.

He was deported the next day.

"We will not tolerate people coming here to work illegally," the agency said. "People wanting to visit the UK must play by the rules. Those who do not are sent back."

Why can't the United States be this determined to stop the problem with illegal immigration that it has?

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Yah here's my thoughts on tonight's LOST: "LaFleur"

So with four full seasons of dangling threads from mythology still left unaddressed, tonight's new episode of Lost introduces entirely new mythology... and along with the previous two episodes completely reinvents the series. With a season and a half still left.

Now that takes brass ones.

Of all the episodes this season thus far, "LaFleur" was the one that I thought has come the most wild out of left field. Maybe even ranking up there with "Flashes Before Your Eyes" and "The Constant" as among the most unorthodox of Lost episodes. But oh so spot-on for this most exceptional of television series.

This was one of the best Sawyer-centric episodes yet. Seeing him in tonight's show, and then looking back on what kind of man Sawyer was in Season 1, there's a great sense of appreciation of how much he has grown and matured: from the vindictive con man, to a real nurturer and protector. But he hasn't forgotten how to pull a fast one when he has to. For some reason I thought Sawyer's best scene was when he was laying the smack down on Richard Alpert: it was like "I know who you are so don't mess with me."

Lots of good new DHARMA Initiative stuff ('specially good to see Horace again) and intriguing hints about the Hostiles. And hey, we finally got to see the rest of the Four-Toed Statue, if only for about three seconds. Granted it was only the back of it but hey, at least we know there really was more to it, aye?

The reunion at the end: we saw that coming, but it made it no less powerful. And so television's most-discussed love triangle has become... a quadrangle. Should be fun to see where this goes.

Not as tense or hurried as last week's "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham", but I thought "LaFleur" held its own very well. No new Lost next week, but we'll do this again on the 18th! :-)

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FDIC may become insolvent (Uh-oh....)

"Gloom, despair, and agony on me.
Deep dark depression, excessive misery."

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation - the government agency which makes sure that the money you keep in the bank will still be there if the firm goes bust - is running out of money for its fund and risks insolvency, FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair has told bank CEOs. A lot of banks have gone under in the past several months and its depleted the FDIC's coffers.

The FDIC is now looking to shore up the fund with new banking fees, and is projected to raise $27 billion.

Will that be enough at all to keep scenes from yesteryear like the one depicted above from happening again?

In my opinion: not likely.

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Nuke your hometown (or any town for that matter)

The brilliant minds at Carlos Labs have put together this neat app using Google Maps and Javascript. Ever wonder what would happen if a nuclear weapon went off in the heart of your hometown? Just enter the address (city name or ZIP/postal code works fine) into Ground Zero. Then select the explosive yield: anything from the Little Boy that was dropped on Hiroshima, to the Tsar Bomba hydrogen bomb (the most powerful detonation in recorded history). Or if you're feeling particularly genocidal, select an asteroid impact. Ground Zero calculates the thermal damage and projects it outward from your given hypocenter...

So according to this gimmick, if a device on the scale of Tsar Bomba were to go off in the middle of downtown Reidsville, North Carolina, it would not only destroy all of Rockingham County, but it would also effectively sterilize an area stretching from Martinsville across the line in Virginia, to the outskirts of Thomasville south of Greensboro, and from Winston-Salem to the west and across I-40 to Mebane (yup, you're gone too Burlington).

Just... wow.

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If you are going to see WATCHMEN at midnight tomorrow night...

...and you live in the Greensboro/High Point, North Carolina area, shoot me an e-mail at theknightshift@gmail.com.

A few people have already committed to what promises to be a very fun stunt to celebrate the release of this movie.

Don't worry: it's not going to be anything illegal. I don't think it should be anyway...

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Woman calls 911 three times about Chicken McNuggets

"This is an emergency, my McNuggets are an emergency." That was the rationale proffered by one Latreasa L. Goodman, 27, of Fort Pierce, Florida. Last week Goodman went into a McDonald's restaurant and ordered a 10-piece Chicken McNuggets. She paid the money but was then told that the location was out of McNuggets. The staff offered her a McDouble but she didn't want that.

So Goodman called 911 and reported the "emergency". And not once, but three times. She's now due in court on a charge of misusing the 911 service.

If Goodman caused this much trouble over McNuggets, then thank Heaven she didn't go nuts after being told the McRib had gone away again.

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Three years of study yields secrets of belly button lint

Georg Steinhauser, an Austrian chemist, has devoted three years to examining 503 different "specimens". For his efforts, Steinhauser gets to boast of uncovering the mystery of why our navels produce belly button lint. One of his discoveries is that of a new kind of body hair that traps stray pieces of lint and then draws them "inward". And once there, Steinhauser learned, the excess particles of cotton wind up enveloped and embedded with dead skin, fat, sweat, and dust.

A biology teacher once told us that "scientists will study anything". After reading this story, I don't doubt it :-)

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Bankrupt of principles, Republicans now turning on each other

What is going on in recent days with the Republican Party and its adherents who still proclaim to be "conservative" reminds me terribly of the events of John Carpenter's The Thing. The men of Antarctic base Outpost 31 in that movie grow increasingly paranoid, even violent toward each other. As Wilford Brimley's character tells MacReady (Kurt Russell) at one point: "I don't know who to trust."

I don't think the Republicans have been infiltrated by aliens just yet (as happens in another John Carpenter movie, They Live) but ever since this past weekend's annual Conservative Political Action Conference you would think that the party is divvying up and preparing to go at it with flamethrowers and fire axes. But I think that the "mainstream press" (now more worthless than ever) is missing the real story here. This power struggle among so-called "conservatives" is only happening because the Republicans are so utterly void of foundational principles, that it now stands revealed - and just as much as the Democrats - as being only concerned with the acquisition and maintaining of political power. For all the cooing of how "wonderful" Rush Limbaugh's speech was about getting Republicans back in control of the White House and Congress, nobody among these people are daring to ask themselves "Do we deserve to be in power?"

I propose that the Republicans/conservatives' failure to address this with the humility it deserves, cries out that they don't deserve any more power. They had eight years to do as they pleased, and they did absolutely nothing substantive with it. Why should we trust them with more opportunity and authority? How can we respect them when the only thing they accomplished the last time was radically increasing the size of government and wasting a countless amount of our money?

The sooner we accept this truth, the sooner this country can begin on the road to real recovery: neither of the two major political parties has America's best interest at heart. There is no faith to be had whatsoever in either the Democrats or the Republicans. Together, these two "factions" are driving this nation full-bore toward the cliff. I can't see how arguing about who's at the steering wheel is going to make any real difference.

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Theatre Guild of Rockingham County unleashing MONSTER IN THE CLOSET this weekend!

This coming weekend the Theatre Guild of Rockingham County's Childrens Theater will be presenting Monster in the Closet at Rockingham Community College's Advanced Technologies Building Auditorium.

Directed by Tony Hummel, Monster in the Closet is the age-old story of that most primal of human fears: that deep within our closet there lurks some twisted fiend. Pity poor Emily then: it is not her imagination that there really is a monster abiding in the darkness, and her best friend saw it too. But beastie Murray has his own problems: he doesn't want to scare the kids. This lovable slacker merely longs to play Emily's new video game... no matter what his boss says.

Monster in the Closet plays this Friday, March 6th at 7:30 p.m., then on Saturday, March 7th at 10:30 a.m. and 7:30 pm., and a final performance on Sunday, March 8th at 2:30 p.m. Visit the Theatre Guild of Rockingham County's website for more information. I have heard from many people that this is going to be a very funny show, so come see it y'all can! :-)

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Winter in the country

Behold the snow-blasted landscape that was left behind by the March 1-2 2009 winter storm across the south and eastern United States, in rural Rockingham County, North Carolina...

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Snow, at last

People here are waking up to about 3-5 inches of the white stuff all over. Temperature currently is 25 Fahrenheit.

So now all of those kids across this part of North Carolina who had been growing up only hearing about the mythical substance known as "snow", can get to experience it firsthand :-)

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Finished my first WARHAMMER 40,000 army

A few days ago I wrote about how I'd gotten into the Warhammer 40,000 miniature wargame hobby, and had my first batch of troopers ready for action. Today, since the alleged threat of severe winter weather has supposedly been good enough reason to stay inside, I finished the rest of the Space Marines that come with the Warhammer 40,000: Assault on Black Reach intro set. Last night I spent about 4 hours detailing the Space Marine Captain. This morning I set to work on the Dreadnought, which was a lot of fun to play around with!

Anyhoo, here it is: my very first completed playable army for Warhammer 40,000. Behold the brave men of the Ultramarines chapter...

At the top left: 4 Space Marines in Terminator armor. At the top right are 9 Space Marines in standard armor. Between them is an Ultramarine Dreadnought (a crippled Space Marine throw into a "mini AT-AT"). At bottom left is the Terminator Sergeant, while a Space Marine Veteran Sergeant is at the bottom right and between them bearing the Ultramarines banner is the Space Marine Commander.

So, how'd they turn out? I'm taking 'em into battle for the first time this coming week! :-)

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"WEIRD AL" YANKOVIC IN 3-D released 25 years ago

Twenty-five years ago today "Weird Al" Yankovic In 3-D was released... and neither music or pop culture in general was ever the same again.

True, this was the second album that "Weird Al" Yankovic came out with (following his self-titled debut record). But In 3-D was the one that blasted his career into high orbit and he hasn't come down yet. The first song of the album, "Eat It", was a culinary parody of Michael Jackson's "Beat It". The song itself is a mirthful marvel in its own right, but the "Eat It" music video is what grabbed everyone's attention: in 1984 and the height of the MTV revolution, nobody had seen a music video packed with so much humor! "Eat It" wound up winning a 1984 Grammy, for Best Comedy Performance Single or Album, Spoken or Musical. It would be just the first of many for Yankovic.

So to "Weird Al" and his band: congratulations on In 3-D reaching the quarter century milestone! :-)

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J.J. Abrams hints at CLOVERFIELD sequel

Cloverfield was one of my very favorite movies from last year. I thought it accomplished just what J.J. Abrams set out to do: give America a leviathan film monster all its very own (read my original review here). It did extremely well at the box office and in DVD/Blu-ray sales, so obviously people are wondering: might we see a second installment of the story?

During the Star Trek panel at WonderCon, Abrams spoke in considerably strong terms that a Cloverfield sequel is indeed in the works...

"We're actually working on an idea right now," Abrams told the packed crowd. "The key obviously at doing any kind of sequel, certainly this film included, is that it better not be a business decision. If you're going to do something, it should be because you're really inspired to do it. It doesn't really have to mean anything, doesn't mean it will work, but it means we did it because we cared, not because we thought we could get the bucks. We have an idea that we thought was pretty cool that we're playing with, which means there will be something that's connected to Cloverfield, but I hope it happens sooner than later because the idea is pretty sweet."

The novelty of Cloverfield is such that the ideas for stories set during the same attack are virtually limitless. I'd love to see at least two or three more Cloverfield movies. And a good video game that lets the player experience the horror of that "terrible thing" as it destroys New York City.

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Paul Harvey has passed away

You want to know one of the biggest reasons why this blog exists?

It's because for the longest time, I dreamed of being like Paul Harvey.

I first discovered Harvey as a kid in elementary school. Dad always had one of the local AM radio stations playing on his truck as he drove my sister and I to school, and the timing of the commute every morning happened to coincide with Harvey's fifteen minutes of news. And then later on I started listening to his "The Rest of the Story..." broadcasts.

That's what first turned me on to realizing the "other side" of the people and incidents that I read about in the history books. That more often than not there was something else that for whatever reason never got widely chronicled, but always made you appreciate that much more the person or situation.

Well, when blogging came about, picking up on the more weird or odd news of the day, and sharing the more unusual tales from times past, became something that I relished doing here. And there was never a time that I've done that, that I didn't think of Paul Harvey. That I could hear that distinctive "Paul Harvey... good day!" sign-off that he always used.

Today, Paul Harvey, radio legend and communicator extraordinaire, signed off for the last time... and passed away at the age of 90 at his winter home in Phoenix, Arizona.

I am compelled to speak of him as Thomas Jefferson once said of Benjamin Franklin: "No one can replace him." He was... and will ever remain... a true American original.

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