"Mantyhose"?! What the...?!?

Folks, what I'm about to show you is so disturbing, some might even call it so obscene, that for the first time in The Knight Shift's history I am NOT going to show it to you outright. Instead I am at last going to make use of the "jump break" feature, and give you the choice of whether or not you really want to look at this aberration from the natural order of the universe.

(And in case you're wondering, blame falls on my girlfriend Kristen for finding this. It wasn't me who stumbled upon it, honest!)

Ready? Brace yourself...

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Ralph McQuarrie has passed away

I cannot begin to imagine what the Star Wars saga - and a lot of other movie and TV franchises - would have been like had it not been for Ralph McQuarrie.

He started out at Boeing, and then was hired by CBS to create animations of the Apollo program as NASA was preparing to land a man on the moon.

Some years later McQuarrie was approached by a filmmaker named George Lucas, who was planning a movie about a galaxy far, far away and needed to populate it with a unique assortment of heroes, villains, robots and spaceships. And had it not been for McQuarrie's visual conceptions, what was at the time merely "Star Wars" might never have been picked up by any studio.

But thanks to Ralph McQuarrie, it was. And in addition to creating the looks of Darth Vader, Chewbacca and R2-D2, McQuarrie would go on to further flesh out the look and feel of the Star Wars saga. He also worked on the original Battlestar Galactica series and then again for Lucas and Steven Spielberg when they set out to produce Raiders of the Lost Ark. Along with many other movies and television series.

The sad news this morning is that Ralph McQuarrie passed away this weekend, at the age of 82.

Thoughts and prayers going out to his family this morning.

Thank you, Ralph, for sharing your talents and visions with us...

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Dad gets his turn in the newspapers

That's my father Robert Knight in the photograph on the right, sitting next to friend and fellow farmer John Ashe, in a pic taken for a news story that's gotten national circulation (The Republic out of Columbus, Indiana has it along with a whole slideshow of photos) about tobacco farmers trying to stay profitable in spite of new trade deals.

I've known John for most of my life. He's a solid dude and everyone around here is proud of the success he's had as a farmer. It's really good to see him getting coverage like this on behalf of farmers everywhere. But I want y'all to click on the link and see the full photo taken by Ted Richardson. The entire pic of Dad and John sitting on the tailgate of Dad's truck, it's just a classic pic about modern farming. I'd even say "award worthy" :-)

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These roller coasters give you the ride of your life... and maybe your LAST one

The Swarm, a new roller coaster set to open at an amusement park in London later this month, might have to be toned down a bit. This after crash test dummies put on the coaster had their arms and legs torn off by the horrific G-forces the Swarm generates during ride.

And then there's this lil' baby...

The Euthanasia Coaster, designed by Lithuanian engineer Julijonas Urbonas, is a concept (it only exists on paper, thank God) intended to give terminally ill people one last thrill ride.

After a precipitous drop, the coaster would take its passenger through a series of ever-tightening loops that increase the forces on the person's body, starving him/her of oxygen until death results.

Read more about the Euthanasia Coaster here.

Can you imagine one of these things at Disney World? Well, maybe under Michael Eisner...

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ASSASSINS CREED III cover art would make James Fenimore Cooper proud

I've never played an Assassins Creed game. I have no idea what this series is about. But daaaaang if this cover for Assassins Creed III isn't hella awesome...

Playing as a Native American with a tomahawk, scalping British soldiers during (presumably) the American Revolutionary War. Now there's a direction that I can't remember video games ever taking.

Kinda makes you wonder what a Nintendo adaptation of The Last of the Mohicans would have been like, huh?

Thanks to good friend Drew McOmber for spotting this!

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Tonight I went to THE LAST CIRCUS

This is without a doubt THE most whacked, demented, torn-up, psychotic movie that I've watched in a really long time...

The Last Circus (original title Balada Triste de Trompeta) is a 2010 Spanish film written and directed by Álex de la Iglesia. Covering four decades stretching from the Spanish Civil War on through the early 1970s, The Last Circus is the story of a love triangle between two circus clowns and the acrobat each lusts after.

So what's it like? Imagine that Quentin Tarantino, Tim Burton and Guillermo del Toro collaborated on a movie together. That is the best I can describe The Last Circus.

Here's the trailer...

I think I needed something this off-kilter and screwball ultra-violent right now. With a healthy dash of historical drama thrown in for good measure. This kind of movie appeals to that visceral "id" creature within me. I wound up ordering the Blu-ray based on the trailer and good word-of-mouth alone: in retrospect, definitely a good purchase! Looking forward to showing The Last Circus to some of my friends :-)

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Interesting tidbits about Leap Year

Today is February 29th, which only comes about every four years because of Leap Year. And if you wanna know why exactly we have that, The Christian Science Monitor's website has a rather informative article about the Gregorian Calendar and how it came about.

(I learned some new stuff reading that. Like: because of a deal brokered by Saint Patrick, today is the one day during four whole years that the lady gets to propose to her man! And if the dude says "no" he's obliged to give her a new dress and some gloves.)

And over at io9.com there's the strange but true tale of how there was once a February 30th.

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New trailer for THE AVENGERS

This is looking to be the most fun of the comic book movies set for this summer...

As jazzed as I am about The Dark Knight Rises, the more that I see of The Avengers, the more it's looking like the superhero movie that we always dreamed as kids of seeing but thought we'd never get to have.

The Avengers assemble on May 4th.

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Davy Jones, lead singer of The Monkees, has passed away

The sad news is breaking this afternoon that Davy Jones, lead singer of The Monkees, has died of a heart attack at the age of 66.

I have never quite figured out exactly what The Monkees were supposed to be. Where they actors who could sing? Were they singers who could act?

Whatever they were, they were always entertaining, extremely funny... and waaaay more talented than a bunch of "performers" that I could pick out of today's pop culture.

Jones leaves behind a wife and four children, and millions of fans across five decades. Thoughts and prayers going out to his family this afternoon.

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My girlfriend burns up the dance floor with two hot routines!

From Saturday night, here is Kristen doing an Argentine Tango...

Later on, she performed a Bolero (one of the tougher ballroom dances to do, I'm told)...

And yes, your friend and intrepid blogger has taken up some ballroom dancing as well. Maybe someday soon there will even be photo/video documentation of it. If you're good. And if I'm good :-P

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I don't care what the pundits are saying...

...but for The Artist winning ALL that Oscar bling last night, including Best Picture, that makes yesterday evening's Academy Awards the best in years.

If only Uggie had been nominated for Best Supporting Actor, then it would have been spot-on perfect.

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STAR WARS EPISODE I in 3D gave Chris a splitting headache!

So yesterday evening, my lifelong best friend Chad and I met up in Durham to do something we had never done before. For all the things we've done together, we had yet to see a Star Wars movie together in the theater.

Okay, we've done that now. I'm thankful that we got to fix that. But that's the only good thing that came out of last night's screening of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace in 3D(?!?).

Yeah, a Star Wars movie in 3D. I know, it looks good on paper, buuuuut...

Now I have to be honest: there are some parts of the movie that look far better in 3D than they deserve to be. The podrace sequence, f'rinstance. But I'm inclined to believe that's only because it's already moving so fast that your eyeballs are being vicariously assaulted before your gray matter gets time to register the sensation. Unfortunately a movie consumed with things like boardroom meetings and bureaucratic theatrics makes the 3D a tedious thing to sit through. That's when the 3D works at all.

Because there are loads of times during Star Wars Episode I's 3D edition that the 3D isn't there to begin with! Trust me folks, I took off my 3D specs a number of times during the second half or so of the movie and, I couldn't tell ANY difference at all between the 3D conversion and the 2D original that I have seen about 9 times already on the big screen. And then there is what was likely the most significant reason why my visual cortex felt burnt afterward: the schizoid use of 2D and 3D elements simultaneously. I saw plenty of that during the Coruscant scenes in particular before giving up and letting myself just watch the darn thing.

The Phantom Menace in 3D adds nothing particularly enjoyable to the experience of watching a Star Wars movie in theaters... and that's something that I've never had happen to be before, in over thirty years of going to see Star Wars flicks at a cinema. Taking a movie shot in standard 2D and converting it into 3D has proven time and time again to be an expensive and glorious mess. I had hoped, sincerely hoped, that Star Wars Episode I would be the breakthrough movie that put an end to the never-ending parade of 3D post-production disaster. Heck, we've known this was coming for years before Avatar ever came out. In Industrial Light and Magic did I trust.

But no, I cannot recommend Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace in 3D. Neither can I see myself going to any of the other Star Wars movies set to be released in 3D, one a year for the next five years.

Now if George Lucas wants to produce a new Star Wars film trilogy, and actually shoot them in true honest-to-goodness stereo camera setup THREE DIMENSIONS, I'll gladly see those in the theaters a dozen times over. But turning 2D into 3D?

Who'da thunk that I'd leave a Star Wars movie... any Star Wars movie... cringing about having watched a steaming pile of bantha poodoo.

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America: Death by inconsistency

Louisiana College, a private Baptist school, is suing the federal government over the requirement that religious-affiliated hospitals and organizations must fund contraceptives as part of health care, even in spite of strong beliefs against such measures. Louisiana College and other religious organizations are quick to note that Obama's "healthcare" mandate violates their constitutional rights.

Doug Powers notes that the mainstream media is giving President Obama a "free ride" about the ridiculous price of gasoline, when it blamed George W. Bush for it at every opportunity.

(Longtime readers will know that I have never been a fan of either Obama or Bush. They're the two worst Presidents in American history, in my book...)

I juxtapose these two seemingly unrelated items before you, good readers, because I remember plenty of times during Bush's presidency when too many Christians simply "rolled over and took it" when he and his administration violated the Constitution. Not only that, but practically sang praises to the man (and even praying to Bush in at least one instance). So too, do I know fully well how many if not most of the "mainstream press" have a significant bias toward the Democrat party and for what are considered "liberal" causes.

Every day, bit by bit, I watch America die before my eyes because we the people will valiantly fight for what's right when it is in our favor but will feign ignorance and indifference when it is not. Who knows: we may not have this ObamaCare crap if a lot of us had chosen to take a stand against certain politicians during the past decade.

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All kinds of Popcorn Sutton goodness!

There's just no stopping the legend of Marvin "Popcorn" Sutton!

First thing's first: the Third Annual Popcorn Sutton Tribute is set for August 3-4, once again in beautiful Maggie Valley, North Carolina! That's right this year it's gonna be a two day event! I'm currently planning to be there for all of it.

Wouldn't surprise me at all if next year's is a three-day extravaganza, given how Popcorn's life and times continues to gain legions of admirers. And there are gonna be even more after this article in The New York Times about Popcorn's life and likker. There's a terrific photo of Mrs. Pam Sutton holding a jar of Popcorn's original moonshine.

Meanwhile, attorney Will Cheek notes that three years after his passing, Popcorn has achieved a victory of sorts. Namely, that distilling liquor is now legal in Cocke County, Tennessee (where Popcorn lived).

And though it's nearly a year old, I'm led to direct y'all's attention to Arianna Armstrong's essay "Portrait of a Moonshiner", which is packed with a bunch of biographical information about Popcorn Sutton that I didn't know previously (like how Popcorn's father's name was Vader Sutton, and how Popcorn would use his daughter's baby bathtub to mix the ingredients for his likker).

At the rate things are going, it wouldn't surprise me if Popcorn Sutton's Tennessee White Whiskey was soon just as big a household name as Jack Daniel's and Jim Beam. Hey, non-drinker though I be, I'd be totally fine with that :-)

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A late night's ponderance

Government is force. Government is not law. And government can certainly never be force of law.

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It was Professor Plum, in the kitchen, with the wrench

So about thirty years after I initially learned about it, this past weekend I finally played my very first game of Clue.

Up 'til now, my only real exposure to the Clue franchise was the 1985 film, which had three different endings. I got introduced to that back in college, by roomie/now filmmaking partner "Weird" Ed Woody. I told him then that Clue was always a game that I'd wanted to try but never had the chance.

That finally came on Sunday afternoon. It was raining hard in Norfolk (while everyone back home was getting snowed hard upon) and instead of going out, the four of us opted to stay in and watch movies, play games and such. And so it was that Clue was brought out.

I didn't know anything about the actual rules, but I quickly was brought up to speed. For my piece I chose Mrs. Peacock, only because she was already on the side of the board that I was sitting on.

And I didn't win. That honor belonged to our friend Grace. But I had a heck of a fun time! Lord willing we have some children ('cuz Clue needs 3-6 players) I'm definitely gonna invest in a copy of this game.

So that's one more thing scratched off my "Must Do Before I Die" list. Now if I can only see a real tornado. And live long enough to see Elon's basketball team go to the NCAA Tournament...

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Today is the first day of Lent

The last time I seriously gave anything up for Lent, it was 2006, when I stopped blogging for the entire 40-some days of the period. As much as I came back refreshed and invigorated, I don't know if I could do that again.

But Lent was something that I was feeling led to observe this year, for a number of reasons. So at the suggestion of some friends, I am choosing to give up video games and root beer.

The video games, I'm not worried about. It's only the seriously narrative-based games that I seem to indulge myself in, and the last time I did that was Batman: Arkham City. Though I'm curious as to how long I can go without the original StarCraft (which I plan to elaborate upon in the near future).

It's the root beer which I'm cautious about.

It's like this: I don't drink soft drinks hardly ever. At home, I'm a true southern-bred boy, drinking good ol'-fashioned sweet tea. Whenever I go out to eat or to a movie, I drink root beer. If root beer isn't available, I go for some other soft drink. Because no restaurant or movie theater seems to ever do tea the way it's supposed to be.

Knowing this, my girlfriend Kristen keeps her fridge well-stocked with A&W Root Beer whenever I'm dropping by. And I usually wind up drinking more of the stuff than I'd intended. Because, well, root beer is delicious!

But for the next forty days, I'm going off the stuff.

We'll see if I can do this. Hey, if Kristen could be completely off chocolate for Lent one year (I'm still hoping pictures will show up of this 'cuz my mind refuses to acknowledge it) then going without root beer should be easy enough :-)

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