In this summer's blockbuster movie Transformers, there is a character called "Mustache Man" in the credits. He's a holographic projection that the Decepticons use in their vehicular modes to make it look like they've got a human operator. We first see him in Blackout's cockpit during the initial attack on the base in Qatar, and then later wearing a police uniform inside Barricade and then sitting in Starscream's cockpit. We never actually see Mustache Man speak, but he's got an amazing on-screen presence that really conveys the personality and menace of the Decepticons.Well, according to the Albuquerque Tribune in a story from about a month ago it turns out that this earthly face of the Decepticons is a real-life helicopter pilot instructor in the United States Air Force. Maj. Brian Reece has been in the military since age 17, and has served in Iraq and Afghanistan several times. And then about a year ago...
...he was chatting with director Michael Bay on the "Transformers" set at Holloman Air Force Base near Alamogordo. Bay, who was using Kirtland helicopters in background shots for the movie, was lamenting over not having cast actors for some of project's smaller roles.Very cool! The article also talks about how Reece's wicked stare made a serious impression on Steven Spielberg."He was talking about it," Reece said, "and one of my guys walked by singing that stupid `Team America' song. I thought, `You've got to be kidding me. You're gonna walk by singing that song?'
"So I was like . . ."
Reese made what he calls "one of those death glances" — an eyes-narrowed, chin-tightened, don't-tread-on-me stare that suggests impending doom to its recipients.
Upon seeing this, something in the director's brain apparently clicked. Quicker than you can say "Action!" — or in this case, "You've got kind of a piercing stare" — Reece had a role.
"Michael wasn't looking for it," said Ian Bryce, one of the film's producers. "It happens. Sometimes you meet people and you start talking about the movie and suddenly the light bulb goes off. Michael's very good at thinking like that."
Minutes later, Reece found himself in the helicopters he'd been sent to help fly — this time as an actor with a fake mustache fixed above his lip.
Here's hoping that we'll see Brian Reece as the front-man for those diabolical 'Cons again in future installments of the Transformers movie franchise!
EDIT 9:39 a.m. EST: Here's the scene from Transformers where Frenzy summons the Decepticons, featuring two apperances by Reece as the Mustache Man:
Let's get what I'm obviously going to say out of the way. The thing that I always mention whenever the subject of They Might Be Giants comes up. Namely, that Flood from 1990 is the greatest musical album ever produced.I dare anyone to try and tell me otherwise. Not when every single song on this album is nothing less than a work of freakin' genius.
I've owned a copy of Flood in one form or another since 1992. It's easily the most-played album on my MP3 player. So many good memories associated with this album. I sorta feel a duty to shamelessly pitch for it :-)
Anyway, yeah I'm a huge fan of "the two Johns", Linnel and Flansburgh. These guys have always been on the cutting edge not just of music but of technology. And now Gearlog has an awesome interview with John Flansburgh in two parts (here's Part Two) about the band's use of technology, going right back to the days of the original Dial-A-Song and up to Long Tall Weekend, the first album by a longtime performance group released completely in MP3 format. Well worth a read if you're interested in either contemporary music or how the use of computers and other tech has grown up around it.
All I will say is that this should be a challenging read for those who think that some people in our government are "anointed by God".
The board voted 8-4 to impose a time limit of 5 minutes per each person who addresses the board during the public comments portion of the meetings. Which is considerably more than the limit of 3 minutes that the board was originally considering. Elaine McCollum, Reida Drum, Nell Rose, and Nell Rose voted against the limit. Voting for it were Celeste DePriest, Ron Price, Lori McKinney, Amanda Bell, Jim Austin, Wayne Kirkman, Herman Hines and John Smith.
I suppose that 5 minutes does seem pretty reasonable. This however is not: that in addition to the 5 minutes per person, the board is also limiting public comments to one hour per meeting.
Now I wish that I had been able to be at tonight's meeting, because this was something that I was afraid might happen, although I had enough faith in the board to believe that it would be rather unlikely.
Five minutes per person, I can kind of understand. But shutting off all public comment after one hour is completely unacceptable.
Let's say that this rule was in place during the school uniforms debate. As actively a part of P.O.T.S.M.O.D. (that was the group opposing the uniforms) that I was, I would not have wanted to see one side completely dominate all the time allowed for public argument. But if this rule had been enforced during the past few months, there's no doubt in my mind that anyone who was in favor of the uniforms would have been effectively shut out from having their support become a matter of public record. That wouldn't necessarily have been a conscious effort either on the part of the uniforms opponents: naturally they would have wanted the board to hear them out. But that shouldn't come at the cost of unfairly denying the other side their fair say in the matter, either.
What this means is that at some point during a matter of contentious debate, one side or the other on an issue is going to seek to abuse this new policy by "stacking the deck" in their own favor during the public comments time of a meeting. It probably won't happen anytime soon or even in the next year or two, but it's coming. And I really don't know if allowing for the possibility of an entire meeting devoted to public comments is going to alleviate that concern.
Folks, this is laziness. It's dereliction of duty, even. Members of the Board of Education should have understood when they ran for the office that they would be called upon to make a sacrifice of time in order to carry out the duties that they were asking to take up. If they were unwilling to see that done in due fairness for all citizens, then they shouldn't have run for the seat in the first place. They should be made to stay until 3 a.m. if that's how long it takes to listen to everyone, because that's what they signed up for when they said they wanted the job. If some board members can't take this demand of their office, then they should reconsider whether they belong on the board at all.
Do I think this is, in the least bit, a lash-back against the initiative that a lot of people in the public - the ones that Ron Price referred to as "bad for the community" - took in defeating the uniforms? Not much doubt in my mind on that one, folks. I dare not say this reflects on everyone who voted for this limit tonight but there were a number of those who went in favor of this that I can't say it's a surprise to see they voted this way. They're the ones who general consensus is that they think people in the public are getting too "uppity". I've heard that from a lot of folks these past few weeks.
Well, I've seen time limits imposed from this board before, and I've seen them done away with. We'll see how long this one lasts.
I won't say that Karl Rove is the source of most of the problems that this country is facing, as some will no doubt be fast to claim. But that Karl Rove was allowed to go as far as he did certainly is symptomatic of those problems. I see no reason to praise this accomplishment. Indeed, it says much about how seared our soul has become when many of us refuse to feel anything but dire shame at possibly admiring this man.
I imagine that Karl Rove is going to die someday: as an obscure, broken man with nothing more to show for his life other than the knowledge that he helped to hurt a lot of people, if not an entire country. After all, this is the man who helped engineer the biggest wholesale destruction of Constitutional rule of law in recent memory, to say nothing about pushing the drive for the war in Iraq and this administration's criminal refusal to secure our borders.
I defy anyone to tell me that there has been something decent and "Christian" about this man worth raising a toast in his honor.
Quite a few times (I even heard him once tell this to a reporter during a TV interview) Merv Griffin said that he wanted these words to someday be inscribed on his tombstone:I always thought that seemed to reflect a pretty good outlook on life.
Two months ago, a Republican party official also said that America needs to be attacked again so that people would appreciate President Bush.
If "saving" America means not only anticipating, but openly hoping for the deaths of innocent people, then America does not deserve to survive at all.
I mean that.
Here is the biggest problem that I have with these self-styled "neoconservatives": they believe that America's strength is supposed to be in material wealth and military might. They don't give a damn about the value of individual life. How else can they sincerely consider it to be "good news" when it's reported that the death toll of American military is the lowest in several months... and not bother to ask themselves if even one life needlessly lost because of this fiasco is one life too many.
These people don't care if others die for America. So long as they aren't the ones having to do the fighting and the dying.
If America is a country where the many are deemed to be expendable assets for the betterment of the few, then that America does not merit survival. If we are ceasing to be a people that values the life of the individual and the rights that God has bestowed upon him or her, then there is no longer anything inherently good in America at all. Certainly not worth fighting or dying for.
And we still don't have that glorious orchestral score on CD yet! The petition to get an an album of the movie's soundtrack by Steve Jablonsky currently has 3,730 signatures.
Here's something that's much better: the opening credits from 1980's big-screen movie Flash Gordon, with that amazing theme song by Queen!
Bush War Adviser Says Draft Worth a LookI will gladly support a draft. Provided that Jenna and Barbara and George P. Bush are the first to get inducted and put on armed patrol duty in Basra.Aug 10 06:25 PM US/Eastern
By RICHARD LARDNERWASHINGTON (AP) - Frequent tours for U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan have stressed the all-volunteer force and made it worth considering a return to a military draft, President Bush's new war adviser said Friday.
"I think it makes sense to certainly consider it," Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute said in an interview with National Public Radio's "All Things Considered."
"And I can tell you, this has always been an option on the table. But ultimately, this is a policy matter between meeting the demands for the nation's security by one means or another," Lute added in his first interview since he was confirmed by the Senate in June ...
Or better yet, George W. Bush should suit up and take up the rifle on his own and set an example for the rest of us to follow. If Leonidas could lead 300 Spartans against two million Persians, certainly our own Commander in Chief can take point in his "surge" against a few dozen militants ... right?
And then a few days ago China threatened to dump its holdings of U.S. Treasury bonds, which would severely drive down the value of the dollar.
Bear in mind that for all intents and purposes, the only thing really propping up the dollar right now is its value as currency on the oil market.
In the past day or so I've heard some say that this almost looks like 1929 all over again. I disagree: it's looking much more like the economy of the South toward the end of the Civil War. At that point inflation was so bad, and the Confederate dollar so worthless, that if you wanted to buy a piece of bread from the baker then you'd give him your round Confederate coin and he'd cut out a piece of bread exactly that size.
Nobody can base an economy on credit and debt and expect it to persist for very long. And there's not that many ways that this current situation can really turn out okay, from where I'm sitting.
Today is very much the hottest weather that I can remember around here in quite a long time.
You know what I'm talking about if you've read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It's the five words that Molly Weasley screams out just before going full-tilt wacko in the final battle. The five words that are going to absolutely rock the house when the movie version comes out.
Well, if you're on Facebook and you're also a fan of that indomitable matriarch of the Weasley clan, check this out: the "NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!" Mrs. Weasley Appreciation Group ...
It already has over a hundred thousand members!
I will say it again: that is the single greatest line from a children's book ever. And you wanna know why? Because I don't know of anything else that's ever been said in a work of fiction that more perfectly reflects the virtue of parental love. In real life, a mother who loves her children seriously would do anything to protect them, just as Mrs. Weasley did. She would die for them and she would kill for them if it came to that. And she's not going to give a flying rat's butt about being polite about it, either.
When you think of it, Molly Weasley really is quite the avatar of Christian motherhood. I think it could even be said that Mrs. Weasley could be a symbol of the pro-life movement.
You can probably tell that I'm already looking forward to reading these books to our children someday :-)
