Congratulations are in order tonight!!!

Good news from a couple of my Theatre Guild peeps this evening!

First of all, there is good friend Jessica Gray, who is now engaged! Her boyfriend last night proposed to her in front of about 500 of their close personal friends :-)

And also bigtime congratulations to Marlo Nall, another friend, who just announced that there will be no doubt another happy member of our troupe as she will be a mother later this year!

Funny: I was telling Marlo just two months ago that she was going to make a great mommy someday. And last night for no obvious reason it popped into my head "It's almost time for Jessica to get engaged."

If someone else in the Theatre Guild has another great announcement tonight, it'll be a trifecta!

Seriously though: Congratulations Jessica and Marlo! And God be with you and yours as you begin y'all's next scenes in the drama of life :-)

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Classic SESAME STREET: The Cookie Counter

Ernie should have just kept pointing!

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Chile earthquake is making scientific and television history

First things first: The proprietor of this blog extends his own thoughts and prayers to the very many that are going out to our friends down Chile way today, in the aftermath of the 8.8 earthquake that rocked that country in the wee hours this morning.

And by the way, it's a great testament to that country about how on the ball the folks are about this. I've heard only great things about Chile over the years and the speed and diligence that they have exerted in dealing with this disaster, makes me compelled to tip my hat to 'em.

If you haven't already today, it would - not to put too fine a point on it - be extremely recommended that you tune in right now to CNN or Fox News or whatever, and check out the live feed coming from Hawaii, which looks to have dodged the proverbial bullet so far as tsunami are concerned. There have been significantly higher waves hitting Hawaii but so far, nothing of serious consequence (and let's pray it stays that way). The truly fascinating thing that I'm finding from all of this is that, for the first time that I can remember it happening anyway, possible tsunami have been anticipated and evacuations well underway... and before television cameras for all the world to see, too.

Considering that the Boxing Day Tsunami was just over five years ago, that's a huge leap in technology and means of geological analysis and prediction.

Gotta love science :-)

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US court ruling gives zombies free speech rights

Constitutional rights are no longer applicable only to living citizens, but to the undead ones as well.

Here's the story from Metro.co.uk...

US court rules 'Zombies have free speech rights'

A court has allowed a group of protesters dressed as zombies to continue with a lawsuit against police who arrested them for disorderly conduct.

The appeal court overturned a previous finding that the group had correctly been arrested over a 2006 protest in a shopping centre.

The group had been wearing makeup designed to make them look like and extra in a horror flick, with white faces, fake blood and black circles round their eyes.

They then proceeded to stagger round the shops, urging consumers to "get your brains here".

They also carried audio equipment, which police described as "simulated weapons of mass destruction", even though they were mobile phones.

The appeals court ruled that the police had no reason to imprison the protesters simply for "dressing as zombies, and walking erratically in downtown Minneapolis."

Thankfully, everyone else still has our Second Amendment rights and will be ready to employ it when the inevitable zombie apocalypse descends upon us :-P

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Awright, new terminology...

I don't like the term "insane". I prefer "mentally hilarious".

(Shamelessly stolen from Bryan and Kathy Shepley :-)

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Climatological wishful thinking

This is one winter that makes global warming sound like a pretty darned good idea.

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Andrew Koenig's most amazing role

By now you've no doubt heard about actor Andrew Koenig, who was found dead in a park in Vancouver, Canada several hours ago.

Most people remember Koenig (son of Walter Koenig who played Pavel Chekov on Star Trek) as "Boner", the best friend of Kirk Cameron's Mike Seaver on Growing Pains. But a few years ago there was a film that Andrew Koenig appeared in, and played no small part. Indeed, for the many of us who have seen this we can't but be astonished at the incredible power and potential that Koenig had as an actor. It was definitely a sign that he was going to go far. I've even heard some say that Koenig's portrayal of the Joker is the most faithful take on the character in cinema history.

So in memory of Andrew Koenig, here is Batman: Dead End...

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This blog needs some more beautiful on it...

...so once again, here is my cousin Lauryn.

Curiously, every time I post a photo of her, this blog's counter starts skyrocketing.

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Question for my Twitter-in' peeps

What's the best third-party application/front end thingy to use with Twitter?

I'm beginning to use my own Twitter account a lot more, including photos and probably video as well. It would also be nice to have something that would, if at all possible, automatically aggregate tweets/twits/whatever addressed to me so that I see 'em without having to just happen upon them.

So what would y'all recommend? :-)

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Not a trap: Ole Miss might make Admiral Ackbar its new sports mascot

The University of Mississipi, better known as Ole Miss, retired its previous mascot Colonel Reb a few years ago. The school has put it up to the student body to select the next standard bearer of athletic pride.

Looks like Ole Miss is going to replace a colonel with an admiral. Namely, Admiral Ackbar from the Star Wars movies. Ackbar has emerged as the front-runner among the possible candidates for the mascot job.

"It's a trap!"? No, and it's not a joke either. Assuming the lawyers at Lucasfilm (who I have a more than cursory knowledge about, and that's as much as I dare say about that) lets Ole Miss do it, the Mon Calamari tactical genius who orchestrated the assault on the second Death Star could very well be leading the cheers at the football and basketball games!

I like what one person has said about Admiral Ackbar at Ole Miss: "Well it does rebrand the Confederate cause in far more positive way -- I say they run with it. In fact, Ackbar's leadership as a symbol of the diversity of the Rebel Alliance against the human supremacist Empire reverses the whole image problem! Remember, the Rebel Alliance was fighting Palpatine's 'Grand Army of the Republic.'"

Yeah, I guess that's one way of looking at it. But still, even being a die-hard Star Wars geek (and proud of it!), if I were at Ole Miss and had some say in who the new sports mascot should be, and if it had to be an aquatic alien, I wouldn't have considered Admiral Ackbar at all (no offense Acky).

Instead I would have suggested Cthulhu from the writings of H.P. Lovecraft...

Can you imagine the sheer terror that would be evoked by such a thing? And hey, Ole Miss could rename their team to be the "Ole Miss Old Ones"!!

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Color me officially intrigued by Bloom Energy

Heaven only knows how many alternative energy schemes have been proposed over the years, only to watch all of 'em that come to mind fail to deliver the promised goods of cheap, clean power.

But having read about it for the past few weeks, and now seeing what was unveiled yesterday by the company, I think there's a LOT of potential in what Bloom Energy has come up with.

Imagine ten years from now, having a brick-sized energy server supplying all of the electricity to your house. No power lines or anything. A few weeks ago my house went 22 hours without power during a severe winter storm, along with 43,000 other people in this county. That would be a thing of the past, along with monthly bills from the power company.

Well, possibly. PCWorld's website has ten questions about the Bloom Energy Server that lots of folks will probably be asking.

Can't wait to see how this unfolds :-)

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Had an interesting day

Edited a bunch of video, worked on a writing project, fixed a nasty computer problem, got sent on an impromptu medical mission of mercy of sorts, and tonight I found something that I've been searching for the past, oh, twenty-two years.

And thank the Lord, it didn't snow!

Now let's see what the morrow brings with it...

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Not interchangeable

Power can come from enlightenment, but enlightenment can never come from power.

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To ALL those good people in Jamaica who are visiting this blog right now...

Greetings! :-)

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"Lighthouse": Post-episode reaction to tonight's LOST

Did that one get called, or what?

So 108 and 23 played a huge part of "Lighthouse" toward the end of the episode. But what's Jacob game here?

I'm starting to get a bit impatient about the flashsideways-es. This episode was in my opinion the best single-character centric look at the other timeline, and in spite of himself Jack is a terrific father. But what is the purpose of this other reality... and why are we seeing it at all? Questions abound and the clock is ticking down on opportunities to explain that and the bajillion other mysteries left on Lost.

I'm beginning to think that "Christian Shepherd" on the island was the Man in Black all along, and Claire sided with his camp as long ago as "Cabin Fever". Sure seems that way, the way Claire introduced Jin to "my friend".

So is that the explanation for the numbers?! Probably more to it than that but if not, that's still a heckuva neat purpose for them.

The teaser for next week promises answers. We'll see.

I'll give "Lighthouse" an 8.5 out of 10.

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Is the Joker on the loose in Mayberry?

Over the weekend somebody vandalized the statue of Sheriff Andy Taylor that sits outside the Surry Arts Council building in Mount Airy, North Carolina. The statue depicts Mount Airy's most famous son, actor Andy Griffith, alongside his son Opie from The Andy Griffith Show.

Sheriff Andy now has green hair and a red smile painted on his face. His sheriff's badge is also now colored red. Opie was unharmed.

You can read all about it here.

I don't think that whoever did this has any idea of the trouble they're in. This being North Carolina, and Mount Airy (the inspiration for Mayberry on the show) of all places, an attack on Sheriff Taylor is downright sacrilege.

Sounds like the Joker is afoot in Mayberry. Time to load up your bullet Barney!

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Speed of light slowed to 38 miles per hour

Light in a vacuum travels at about 186,000 miles per second. Now a group of scientists has slowed down a beam of light so that it only goes 38 miles per hour.

They did it by sending the light through super-cooled sodium atoms, which worked "like molasses" on the photons.

Read all about it here.

38 miles per hour? That's about half as fast as I usually drive :-P

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