Last week it was news of an elementary school in New Jersey that had forced its students to chant a song of praise about Barack Obama.And now there's this video, made at Sand Hill Elementary School in Asheville, North Carolina (one of my most very favorite places that I've lived, incidentally)...What the heck is going on here?Actually, that's a very rhetorical question. Because I do know what's going on here. I've watched it build and grow for...
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
I'm getting #@&% sick and tired of EVONY ads!!
Whoever is responsible for all of those #@&% banner ads for Evony needs to be dragged out into the street and shot hung from the nearest telephone pole by his circular reproductive units with piano wire.Seriously.No, I haven't played this game. But I have heard from numerous sources that it is terrible. And the thing about Evony being "free forever" is a fraud: to achive...
It's not Saturday worship, it's SABBATH worship! A visit to a Seventh-day Adventist church
During the nearly six years that The Knight Shift has been blogging the exploits and ideas of its eclectic proprietor, I've chronicled a lot of interesting topics. This next one easily ranks up there among the more fulfilling things that I've had the pleasure of writing about. And I can't help but feel like I came away from this with not only newly-found appreciation and...
Monopoly helped British POWs "Get out of jail free" from Nazi captors!
If Ridley Scott wants to make a Monopoly movie so bad, he should scrap his plans for a straight adaptation of the board game and film this instead: the ingeniously crazy and TRUE tale of how British soldiers in German POW camps during World War II used Monopoly to escape from prison. Historians are now saying that thousands of British military personnel could have literally...
"Weird Al" Yankovic voted #1 by fans for Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Rolling Stone asked its readers who they wanted most to see inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Coming in with the most heap o' votes? "Weird Al" Yankovic! Also making the list are Rush, The Moody Blues, Alice Cooper, The Beastie Boys and Jethro Tull.Personally, I think Weird Al and his entire band should get a Hall of Fame nomination. Those guys are among the...
Monday, September 28, 2009
The trailer for Syfy's RIVERWORLD miniseries...
...resembles NOTHING of the Riverworld from the books of Philip Jose Farmer! Other than having, well, a river.(The inclusion of Samuel Clemens and his fabulous riverboat, however, does give me some hope that this will be a better effort than what Sci-Fi Channel attempted in 2003.)So if you've never read the novels, what do you think?The after-death journey to the source of the River begins in 20...
"Time telescope" could magnify communications capability
It's a very rare moment when I read something for the first time that goes almost completely over the top of my head. This is one of them: researchers are building a "time telescope" that can compress data into smaller chunks of time, that is then transmitted via fiber optics. Hit the link if you want to feel your brains getting twisted.Of course, there are going to be some who will say that time is going too fast already, but I digress... ...
First trailer for the A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET remake
Hmmmmm...Much to my own surprise, I have to say this is a great trailer and it hints at what could end up being a fairly good movie. I'm going to always consider the original series featuring Robert Englund to be the definitive Elm Street canon, but Jackie Earle Haley is looking and sounding very good here as Freddy Krueger.A Nightmare on Elm Street slashes its way into the waking world on April 30th, 20...
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Ancient coins from Egypt bear name of Joseph
Has archaeological evidence for the biblical account of Joseph been found? That's what the Middle East Media Research Institute is reporting in a translation from an Egyptian newspaper. Scholars sifting through countless artifacts stored at the Museum of Egypt are now saying that numerous "charms" are actually coins dating to the time Joseph was said to have been in the...
Johnny Robertson just hit a new low
As if he couldn't get any lower (this being the man who has already accused two churches, with no evidence whatsoever, of child pornography).Tonight on his What Does the Bible Say? show on WGSR, Johnny Robertson - the demented cult leader of the Martinsville Church of Christ - has thus far during the broadcast done nothing to discuss and expound upon his own beliefs.Instead Robertson has chosen to... attack an eight year old little girl.What the...
Friday, September 25, 2009
U.S. economy in peril if Asian countries won't buy debt
"Armageddon" is the word that Tiger Management founder and chairman Julian Robertson says the United States faces for its economy if countries like Japan and China stop purchasing American debt."If the Chinese and Japanese stop buying our bonds, we could easily see [inflation] go to 15 to 20 percent," he said. "It's not a question of the economy. It's a question of who will lend us the money if they don't. Imagine us getting ourselves in a situation...
Epic head honcho clarifies Gears of War confusion
For a good while today many fans of the Gears of Wars video game series were taken aback by reports that Epic Games president Michael Capps had remarked at the Tokyo Game Show that the next installment in the series would have to wait for the next generation of consoles: putting it around 2011-2014. Which would be an awfully long wait.Happily, it seems that things are more...
Manson follower Susan Atkins has died
Susan Atkins, the follower of Charles Manson who murdered actress Sharon Tate in 1969, has died in prison at age 61 from brain cancer. A few weeks ago Atkins had been turned down for parole, having requested a "compassionate release".Incidentally, she had been the longest-incarcerated female prisoner in California histo...
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Photos from SPARKcon!
Yeah, it's been late coming ('cuz I've been alternately busy and lazy) but here's some of what went down at SPARKcon in Raleigh this past Friday!My presentation, "The Dude Who Took Down Viacom: One Filmmaker's Story" was scheduled for 5:45 that afternoon at Artspace. About 15 people showed up to hear me discuss that very bizarre situation that happened two years ago between...
Elementary students made to praise Maximum Leader Obama with song
More and more, I'm finding that this "cult of Barack Obama" to be less laughable and more disturbing. No elected official in the United States should ever be the subject of a praise song. Not even the President. That position is merely the most important of a body of public servants.But watching this video shot at B. Bernice Young Elementary School in Burlington, New Jersey this past June, I'm reminded too much of young Russian children who got...
WOLVERINE: OLD MAN LOGAN hits a brutal conclusion
Fourteen months ago Mark Millar began his "Old Man Logan" arc for Marvel Comics: the story of Wolverine, now some fifty years in the future, eking out a hardscrabble existence with his wife and children in the countryside of an America gone straight to hell. And in all that time Wolverine - now simply known as "Logan" - hasn't once popped his claws.And then the cataract-plagued...
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Jabba the Hutt inflatable costume (fer realz...)
What the...?!?Rubies Costume Company might have crossed a terrible, terrible line with this Jabba the Hutt Inflatable Costume. For seventy bucks (plus shipping and handling) you can finally get to crash the party as Jabba Desilijic Tiure... known more infamously as galactic crime lord Jabba the Hutt!(And I suppose Star Wars geeks with more imprurient tastes could also fulfill...
