Tale of the Zombie Sea-Monkeys

A little over a month ago I was in Greensboro on some afternoon's business. While there I went into that new Target store on the north side of town, more or less to oggle the Star Wars toys (and if need be to straighten them up and make them look neat and tidy, 'cuz that's what all his friends do now that Darth Larry is on the other side of the country... but that's a story for another day).

Anyway, it was in the toy section that I spotted a package of Sea-Monkeys: those "adorable" brine shrimp that have been a classic gimmick for over a half-century now. I'd had 'em before, most recently as of about six years ago. So pretty much out of whimsy I bought a set of them for nine bucks. For that you get the aquarium tank, the "water purifier" package, the envelope containing the Sea-Monkey eggs, and the food which can last about a year if you use the included measuring spoon. I also got a sealed jug of distilled water, because when it comes to Sea-Monkeys the higher the quality of water, the better.

I started that night on the process of bringing my new charges to glorious life. First I poured the water into the aquarium, mixed in the purifier and per the instructions waited for 24 hours. The following night I opened the packet of eggs, dropped them in and gave the whole primordial soup some vigorous "wake up" action with a spoon.

You could barely see them come the next day, but with the right lighting some very tiny specks could be observed flitting through the water. Within another three or four days they were far more visible. Five days after hatching I gave them their first bit of food.

And then the weather turned unseasonably cold, and the Sea-Monkeys were in a part of my home that doesn't get that much warmth when the heat is turned on.

Long story short: my Sea-Monkeys apparently died. Frozen to death, barely a week after tasting life beyond the state of suspended animation in their egg state.

I did some research and it looks like brine shrimp can be very temperature sensitive once they have been "vitalized". I spent the next several days watching often for any evidence that there had been survivors. Alas! There were none to be found. So I sadly wrote them off as casualties of my own gross neglect, and contemplated what to do next. Perhaps give them a dignified burial at sea courtesy of the bathroom toilet?

For whatever reason, I didn't do that right off. Got busy with other things. And then a week and a half later, I happened to catch something moving in the aquarium.

The Sea-Monkeys... had come back from the dead.

They are still swimming around as of this writing, active and supposedly content. But curiously, they are also now much bigger than I have ever personally seen Sea-Monkeys before. There are four or five of them in particular that are of positively monstrous size.

So as if my life didn't have enough craziness in it, I've now somehow cultivated undead Sea-Monkeys. Whatever it is that's going on in that tank is a phenomenon that I've never seen before, after having three or four batches of these critters over the years.

So... anyone else had any experience with "zombie" Sea-Monkeys? Feel free to leave a comment if you have! :-)

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Ever see SUPERMAN III and OFFICE SPACE?

Remember how Richard Pryor's character Gus Gorman in Superman III (an "under-rated" film, as the guy in Office Space says) used his hackin' skillz to embezzle all that money from the company he worked at? Okay well...

A now-retired aerospace engineer discovered forty years ago that he was being overpaid by 2 cents an hour. He suggested a way to fix the discrepancy, but it got lost in bureaucratic bungling.

And now, four full decades later later, the government has lost BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, literally pennies at a time, because it failed to address what is being called a "simple" error that would have only required very minor changes in accounting software.

Read MSNBC's article "Did Pentagon lose billions, pennies at a time?" for the full story on aeronautical engineer Walter T. Davey... and how the United States government could have saved a buttload of money if it had listened to him.

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I knew he couldn't stay away forever

The greatest curmudgeon of the Internet - and probably the modern world - has returned.

Actually, Fred Reed has been back at it for over a month now from the looks of it. He announced in February that he was retiring... but nature does abhor a vacuum, right?

So Reed is at it again, and in his latest work he offers his unique insight regarding the death of the journalism industry.

Here's an excerpt...

A story once might have begun, “At midafternoon Thursday a house burned down at 112 Maples Street. Three children left unaccompanied inside escaped unhurt.” In the sensitive new journalism, the lead became, “Sally Harpooner, a single mother of three, saw a towering plume of smoke rising from her home as she returned from a community-sponsored drug-rehabilitation center. Her heart beat faster….” Before, a reporter would have said forget her heart, beat sally for being such a useless skell. Not longer. Stories began to appear about a kind old man who was giving hydrotherapy to his faithful dog Bowser who had hip displasia. The old crew had nothing against Bowser, but they didn’t think he was news.

The new crowd didn’t remember being blind drunk on ghastly Cambodia gin during the siege of Phnom Penh, running the alleys in rikshas by night and eating deep-fried pregnant crickets. They eggs made them creamy. Kipling would have understood. By day in Phnom Penh the ancient T-28s flown by the Khmer Air Force crashed because they pilots were trying to smuggle more sugar than they could take off with. The ragtag press corps—Cambodia was a sidewhoe--when not eating crickets, lay on rooftop patios with the full moon hanging above and the smell of flower trees making the air sticky-sweet and Chicom 122s whistling into the city from the marshes and taking out whole houses.

It was the last wheeze of the news game as it should be—raw, free, often eccentric. Then came embeds and newspapers run by accountants with green eyeshades. Advertising had always paid for papers, but now it became the paper’s reason for existence. The distance between a newspaper and a PR firm narrowed. Pleasantness became compulsory. The old hands hated pleasantness like poison.

One of these days, I'm gonna go through a whole bunch of Fred Reed essays the way they're prolly meant to be enjoyed: pissed-off mad and with several shots of Jack Daniels in my belly (and I'm not even a drinking man). One of these days, my friends. 'Til then, mash down here for the rest of Reed's newest article.

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The Google Goats

In an effort to encourage "a more carbon-friendly, less polluting alternative to lawn mowers", Google has turned to employing goats to chew down the excessive vegetation on its sprawling California campus.

Here are the Google Goats hard at work...

The idea isn't entirely without precedent. During the World War I years First Lady Edith Wilson kept the White House lawn "mowed" by letting her family's sheep graze freely on the grounds. Maybe Obama could follow Google and the Wilsons' example and demonstrate some real environmentalism at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? :-)

Well anyway, I think it's a pretty neat story. Having grown up on a farm with a number of goats I can attest that they can eat anything, and will faithfully keep the grass and weeds at bay. Who knows: maybe with some good PR, goats and sheep can become the next "cool" pets to own.

(And as an added bonus, they can provide goats milk and lambchops!)

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THE HUNT FOR GOLLUM: The most beautiful fan film I have EVER seen!

Ever since I began my own forays into filmmaking, it's become one of my personal missions in life to encourage others to make their own movies too. And you wanna know why?

Because the time has finally arrived when every person can make a movie that stands on par with anything that the major studios can produce.

Seriously. Think about it: high-def consumer camcorders are now inexpensive and with some equally affordable editing software and a lil' bit of know-how, the finished footage can look extremely cinematic. Can't compose a note of music? Ask around on the 'net for talented folks to help you out (hey, it's what I'm doing with a project now :-)

Thanks to the web and broadband, practically the entire world becomes a fully-equipped studio and post-production facility right at your fingertips. There's no longer any reason not to make the movie you have always dreamed of.

And as of today, a group of dedicated fans of J.R.R. Tolkien have proven that premise in spectacularly gorgeous fashion.

The Hunt for Gollum is a 40-minute long movie that had its online premiere earlier this afternoon. It's directed, co-written and executive produced by Chris Bouchard, who coordinated a worldwide effort involving 160 people to make the film a reality.

Adapted from Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, The Hunt for Gollum expands upon Gandalf's recounting to Frodo earlier in the novel the tale of how Gollum eventually went looking for the One Ring, before the vile creature was tracked down in the wilderness and captured by Aragorn.

That's all you need to know before you start watching The Hunt for Gollum, because the film is so utterly amazing and tremendous an achievement, that I don't dare spoil anything else for you. Well, I can tell you that the cinematography is a feast for the eyes, and it's obviously styled after the look that Peter Jackson came up with for his The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.

Okay, I'll tease ya with this: yeah, you see Gollum. Chris Bouchard and his friends didn't "cheat" either. Maybe someone should make a fan film about The Hunt for Gollum crew breaking and entering into WETA so that they can CGI-render Gollum on the sly :-)

So... want to see it for yourself? Click here to watch The Hunt for Gollum in high-def or standard quality. And prepare to be amazed, friends and neighbors.

And to Chris Bouchard and his staff: very well done!! Y'all deserve nothing but the highest of praise for what you have done :-)

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MAKE MINE FREEDOM: Amazing insight from a 1958 cartoon

Just over fifty years ago, Harding College produced a series of films "to create a deeper understanding" of American culture. This one, Make Mine Freedom, has been "re-discovered" in recent days and is making the rounds quite a bit across the Internet. Personally, I found it to be uncannily prophetic about the country we are living in today. Perhaps we should begin considering the wisdom of the past.

Here is Make Mine Freedom...

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My first-ever text message from a mobile device

Yesterday (Saturday) afternoon I finally broke down and got a new cell phone. At the risk of sounding like a Luddite, I had only the vaguest sense of what mobile technology is capable of doing these days, like "Bluetooth" and such.

And then there is text messaging. Something that I have never done before in my entire life. Not even once.

Until tonight.

I got the X-tc from Virgin Mobile (and I might treat myself to an iPhone if... something happens in the near future), which has a very nice slide-out QWERTY keyboard. It's a feature I was particularly looking for since I'm such a fast typist, and I didn't want to "re-learn" how to do texting like most folks seem adept at doing.

Anyhoo, I tied my Twitter account into my new mobile phone, and a short while ago sent my first-ever text message from a mobile gadget.

Want to see it? Here it is.

"What hath God wrought" were the words in the very first telegraph message, sent on May 24th, 1844 by its inventor Samuel F.B. Morse from a line in Washington, D.C. to Baltimore. The quote is from Numbers 23:23 in the Bible, and was suggested by the daughter of a friend.

The first time I got on the Internet, those were the words that I sent in my all-time first e-mail. So I figured this was an appropriate time to use the phrase again :-)

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Jack Kemp has passed away

Jack Kemp was one of the best people in modern American politics who never became President.

I'll be even more blunt: when the 1996 elections came around, Kemp was the only reason why I not only voted for Bob Dole, but put up a huge campaign sign for "Dole-Kemp" in our front apartment window (yeah my roomie was rootin' for 'em too).

And I can't help but wonder: if he had been vice-president under Reagan (I've heard plenty over the years that he was highly considered for the job by Reagan himself, but the party bigwigs wanted George Bush as his running mate instead) then this might have been a far different... and far better... country today. Kemp was a man of real ideas, particularly in regards to economic growth.

Jack Kemp - former NFL football player, member of the United States House of Representatives, and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development - passed away today at the age of 73 following a long battle with cancer.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family tonight.

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Swine flu has FINALLY infected swine!

It's taken more than a week, but tonight the first confirmed case of the swine flu infecting REAL swine has been reported.

The plague-laden pigs were found in Alberta, Canada: a loooong way from what's thought to be the initial hot zone down South of the Border.

Meanwhile, news agencies all over have been struggling with what to call the epidemic, since it's apparently "not nice" to refer to it as "swine flu". In the past few days there's been a dramatic shift on the part of journalists toward calling it simply the "H1N1 virus".

Can't say that really rolls off one's tongue, aye? So I noted to one reporter that it adapts well in "leet-speek"...

...so maybe we should start calling it the "Hiney-virus" :-P

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Framed websites creeping back into popularity

Remember "frames"? That website design technique which a lot of us discovered during idle hours in a campus computer lab back when the Internet was still so new? Depending on how they were used frames could make a page look spiffy-kewl... or they could make it look like a fractured abomination.

(To this day I'm still stunned at that one homepage that my filmmaking partner "Weird" Ed came up with. Just how many frames did you cram into that, Ed? Did you even know?!)

Anyways, The Wall Street Journal is reporting on the comeback of frames and how a lot of people aren't too happy about it. Digg attempted to resurrect it last month but was promptly booed-down by many of its users.

Personally, I never found any reason to outright dislike frames, and it mystifies me that there's this much raw hatred toward them.

What do y'all think?

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He can have a strong influence on the weak-minded

Found this political cartoon and couldn't resist posting it here...

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PATRIOT Act denied son Constitutional rights, says North Carolina mom

This early on in the reporting of the story, I'll admit to wondering if there's more to this. But knowing what I do about how damned abusive and corrupt our own government has become, I'm also inclined to take this family at their word.

Sixteen-year-old Ashton Lundeby, of Oxford in Granville County, North Carolina (not far from Raleigh) was the subject of a raid by federal agents who handcuffed him and took a LOT of his personal possessions. The feds claim that Lundeby made a bomb threat, but the family denies the charge, saying that someone hacked into their IP address and made crank calls through the Internet.

And now...

Ashton now sits in a juvenile facility in South Bend, Ind. His mother has had little access to him since his arrest. She has gone to her state representatives as well as attorneys, seeking assistance, but, she said, there is nothing she can do.

Lundeby said the USA Patriot Act stripped her son of his due process rights.

"We have no rights under the Patriot Act to even defend them, because the Patriot Act basically supersedes the Constitution," she said. "It wasn't intended to drag your barely 16-year-old, 120-pound son out in the middle of the night on a charge that we can't even defend."

Passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S., the Patriot Act allows federal agents to investigate suspected cases of terrorism swiftly to better protect the country. In part, it gives the federal government more latitude to search telephone records, e-mails and other records.

"They're saying that 'We feel this individual is a terrorist or an enemy combatant against the United States, and we're going to suspend all of those due process rights because this person is an enemy of the United States," said Dan Boyce, a defense attorney and former U.S. attorney not connected to the Lundeby case.

Critics of the statute say it threatens the most basic of liberties.

"There's nothing a matter of public record," Boyce said "All those normal rights are just suspended in the air."

According to the story, Ashton Lundeby sounds like a pretty good kid. He's got American flags all around his room (he's probably more patriotic than the assholes who passed the PATRIOT Act) and he was away at church when the raid went down.

If the Lundebys' story is true, I will once again be led to yield to the lesser angels of my nature, go against all sense of polity and Christ-like bearing that I do strive to uphold, and repeat with great exuberance what I posted here a little less than a month and a half ago on another story about law enforcement abuse...

"F*CK THE GOVERNMENT!"

(I won't post the exact word until we know more about the situation. But you get the gist of it.)

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Third TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN trailer is online!

Officially, it's being hosted at Yahoo! Movies. Un-officially however, you can find it pretty much anywhere on the 'nets tonight. I snagged it in high-definition from YouTube.

However it is that you see it, make sure to catch the third trailer for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen...

That's Constructicon combined gestalt bad-'bot Devastator scarfing down a wazoo-load of Saharan sand, trying to suck in and chop Optimus Prime to slivers. By the way, Devastator is now said to be the most complex digital construct that Industrial Light and Magic has ever done in its entire thirty-some years of existence!

I also feel led to comment that based on this trailer alone, it looks like the second Transformers movie is going to be much more intense in the way of plot than the first film... along with a hella lot more action (and presumably more actual screen time for the Transformers themselves, supposedly being around 60 of 'em this time).

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen lands on June 24th.

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Steve Jablonsky's score helps GEARS OF WAR 2 win Best Sound at ELAN Awards!

Our friend Greg at Music4Games.net passed along the terrific news that Gears of War 2 has won "Best Sound in a Video Game Production" at the Third Annual ELAN Awards. ELAN is the Canadian Awards for the Electronic and the Animated Arts.

At the ceremony, hosted by SpongeBob Squarepants' Bob Kenny, Gears of War 2 was honored for its audio engineering, which included a full-length score composed by Steve Jablonsky (who has also composed Transformers and its upcoming sequel, Desperate Housewives and many other films, games and television projects).

Congrats to audio director Mike Larson, composer Steve Jablonsky, sound designers Jamey Scott and Joey Kuras, and everyone at Epic Games on your win!

And for a complete list of winners at this year's ELAN Awards, mash down here.

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Twitter loses 60% of new users after one month (BUT...)

If you use Twitter, the latest craze on the Intertubes, then it's quite likely that you are going to abandon the service after your first month. That's the finding of a Neilsen report which found that 60% of new Twitterers get tired of it after just one month.

However, I have to wonder how many of these Twitter expatriates eventually come back. Robert Strohmeyer elucidates on that further over at the ABC News website. Strohmeyer's point is that many folks first come to Twitter under the assumption that it's supposed to just chronicle the minutia of daily life, like "I'm cold" or "Going to the bathroom now"... when that's not what Twitter is about at all. And that when they realize how Twitter is actually quite useful as a serious micro-blogging utility, then they have the tendency to drift back.

I can vouch for that. When Twitter first hit the scene, I created an account and then... promptly got bored with it. But as more people began using it, I started taking a serious look at how Twitter could be used to complement my regular blogging.

So I've been back on Twitter for about a month now, and as things stand I'm finding it hard to envision that I'll be making a second exodus from it. Last night it was put to especially hilarious use when I vented my rage at President Obama nearly pre-empting Lost. And lately with the swine flu scare some have taken to using Twitter for comedic effect. Gotta love ingenuity like that :-)

So if you've tried Twitter before and quickly tired of recording the tedium of your waking hours, reconsider how it is that you should be using it, and give it another shot. You might find that it's a lot harder to quit after a second helping.

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Reaction to tonight's LOST: "The Variable"

I ain't saying nothing. And you know why?

Because I am completely tapped-out of any possible hyperbole that I could use to describe how I feel about Lost, after tonight's episode "The Variable".

If we are lucky, storytelling like this may happen twice in our lifetime. It's taking place, now, with Lost. Lord only knows when anything coming anywhere close to being just as comparable will ever come again.

This show is like sculpture being chiseled out before our eyes. And tonight, what we thought was the work being brought to life... just got smashed to smithereens.

Okay, I gotta say this: Eloise Hawking is a real b*tch! I didn't know what to quite make of her, until tonight's show. The whole thing about stopping Daniel and his piano playing: and you thought some parents went overboard when it comes to their kids playing sports. Sheesh!

Think I'm gonna have to watch this at least twice again tomorrow after I get it from iTunes. Just... wow.

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World's fastest camera: 6 million photos in 1 second

A team of physicists at UCLA have developed a new photographic technique called Serial Time-Encoded Amplified Microscopy, or STEAM for short. Using common fiber-optics components, the new system is capable of recording photographic images at a staggering rate of once every 163 nanoseconds.

That's more than six million photos in one second, folks.

It's an innovation owing to quantum physics and laser light, not standard CCD chips like how most digital images are captured. And the resolution right now is quite small: only about 2,500 pixels, or a thousand times smaller than most cellphone cameras. But with refinement there is the possibility that STEAM will eventually be able to video record real-time activity within living cells.

Give 'em ten years: that'll make for a helluva IMAX nature film!

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