|
|
|
| | | :: Monday, March 31, 2003 :: |
h04x0r5
OK... my new favorite beliefs of Moon hoax conspiracy nuts: The Challenger was destroyed to kill McAuliffe, whom NASA knew, even though she had not yet been into space, was going to reveal that you CAN see stars in space.
Another victim of NASA/the U.S. government was O.J. Simpson, who was framed for murder for his part in trying to expose the Moon hoax, to wit: Starring in Capricorn 1, 20 years earlier.
Terror Alert
My friend Mark Rogers has created his own snazzy version of the Terror Alert page. A few of the messages are the same ones I linked to last week, but he's mixed in quite a few great ones of his own devising. Check it out.
Space Chronicles
ISS Science Officer Don Pettit has posted two more entries in his Space Chronicles series.
More DM update
Thanks to Joe, here is a link to a more complete version of the story at the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal. Finley's comments make an even stronger argument in this version.
DM Press Update
Jim sent me an AP story about the press, though not the link, so here's the full text:
Ole Miss student paper losing printing operation
OXFORD, Miss. (AP) - Renovations at the University of Mississippi will move the printing of the student newspaper off campus.
The decision to remove the on-campus printing operation, one of only a handful remaining in the nation, wasn't one based on cost, said Stuart Bullion, chairman of the school's journalism department.
It was based on space in Farley Hall, he said.
Bullion said the university has expanded the budget to include the construction of more space in Farley Hall to accommodate more classrooms.
"It came down to the press or more classrooms," he said. "Considering the press is a less essential function of the newspaper than what goes on in the newsroom, we decided to remove the press."
Julie Finley, editor of the Daily Mississippian, said students will be missing out on an important operation of a newspaper.
"It makes us aware of the entire process," she said.
Most nights, the news staff has completed its duties and has the paper ready for the press by midnight. If printing goes off campus, reporters will have less time to cover events that happen later in the evening, such as basketball games and student body meetings, she said.
"Our goal is to get the news to the reader. With the press here, we have an advantage," Finley said.
Finley said experience gained by working at the newspaper outweighs classroom studies.
"It would take away a huge recruiting tool," she said. "It would take away the heart, the essence, of the Daily Mississippian."
Ex Astra, Ars
NASA should become an arts patron.
I thought about this watching The Core Saturday, which like I said had a pretty pro-NASA slant (I saw at least two former astronauts in the "Thanks" section of the credit, and think the agency was probably there also). That said, other than possibly fostering a little positive sentiment, it does the agency little good, in that it does not promote awareness for anything we're actually doing.
One idea I had would be for the agency to make a feature film about a Shuttle mission, possibly the next one. Basically do something similar to some of the Imax movies NASA has partnered on, only make a feature film instead. Take a camera up on a Shuttle flight, and film some pre- and post-mission stuff as well. Possibly even hire an effects house to soup it up a bit, combining real launch and landing footage with effects sequences, creating something a la Apollo 13. The one problem is, to be able to sell it nowadays, you need a plot. And movies like The Right Stuff, Apollo 13, and (now this movie sounds odd in this list) Space Camp are the rare contemporary-esque space movies that, like The Core, don't require either aliens or a bad guy. Oh, I guess also Armageddon. For every one of those, there's plenty of Space Cowboys, Mission To Mars, and even 2001-type stuff that needs either a villian or an alien to work.
That's why STS-114 might work for a movie, since you have the dramatic tension generated by STS-107. Plus, you've got interesting characters like Eileen Collins, the first female Shuttle commander. I wonder how hard it would be to sell such a movie?
To me, the Shuttle has such untapped potential for motion picture stardom, which you see a bit of in things like The Core, Space Cowboys, and Armageddon. It has the huge advantage of being both science-fictiony and iconic, since it is both a working spacecraft and a national landmark. It's just a matter of doing it right.
Another option, and possibly a more potentially succesful one, is for NASA to become an arts patron, giving genius-grant-type awards to people involved in certain projects, such as novels, or scripts for movies.
The projects would have to meet two criteria: They would have to be positive and possible, which is to say, pro-spaceflight, and based in real science achievable in the next 20 years.
The idea would be to support mass media that would raise public awareness of manned spaceflight, to remind people just how cool this can be.
Such an endeavour could even help pave the way to Mars: One of the biggest things standing in our way right now is a lack of political support, which in turns answers to public opinion. Books, movies, TV, etc. that won over public interest in a Mars project could actually help make such a thing a reality.
Such an idea is not completely without precedent. NASA paid for the "Way Up There" song to celebrate the centennial of flight, which was also used as a memorial for the STS-107 crew. NASA has also met with Hollywood to discuss working together before. In fact, the ideas discussed then could even help make scripts generated through a system like I'm proposing more likely to actually make it to the screen.
Anyway, just an idea.
Space Love
Pravda published this article a while back about pregnancy tests being sent to ISS. Amusing reading.
Pope Of Deliverance
McCartney warned: Don't wake the Pope.
How Much Longer Will The World Be Safe?
According to e-mail I just received from my former editor, Jim Abbott, he heard on the radio this morning that Ole Miss is going to shut down the press for The Daily Mississippian, ostensibly because they need the room. If anybody hears any more about this, let me know.
More Yuri Gagarin News
Man, this guy is just all over the place lately. SpaceDaily has a new story about the Yuri's Night event being planned for April 12, marking the anniversary of the first manned spaceflight.
Columbia update
New information from Columbia's flight data recorder shows that the overheating of the left wing began sooner than previously known, meaning that the breach apparently already existed prior to re-entry.
I read an interesting article in The Washington Post that pointed out that the flight data recorder had already been missed once in a search of that area, but that the search team was sent back out because it was determined that area was where the box should have landed. That's just pretty darned impressive.
Daily Hatbag
Looking for a Hatbag strip, I noticed for the first time that the guy who falls for Hippie's psychic bit actually used to live with Hippie. Shouldn't he have known better?
So true
In The Globe And Mail, a former Windows devotee writes that the newest Macs are "probably the best personal computers ever made."
DVD Alert
I'm sure you'll all be delighted to know that the Herbie "The Love Bug" movie is getting its special edition DVD release May 20.
Pictures ... from spaaaaaaaaace!
Atleast for the duration of Exp. 6, Science@NASA has set up a Space Station Science Picture of the Day Web site. Every Monday through Friday, a new picture taken on ISS will be posted on the site. Today's pic is a view of the amazingly dense starfield visible from ISS in the southern sky.
| | | :: Sunday, March 30, 2003 :: |
Ch...ch...ch...changes
So, I mean, what's the point of having a blog called You Must Fight The Bear if there are no bears? Consider that remedied! There's a series of random bears that will come up each time you come to my site. If you find another fight-worthy bear, send them my way.
I've also added a link to Arlo & Janis, the greatest contemporary comic strip (assuming you consider Hatbag defunct). For a sampling of A&J strips, click here.
Also, on the off chance you haven't noticed it, at the bottom of the sidebar I've included a news feed from Liftoff, one of the NASA sites I'm curating. Good stuff down there. Check it out.
Daily Hatbag
Ah, who could forget those heady days of Animaniacs?
Whoever said the human race is logical?
Click here for travel photos from Spock's tour of America.
Known issue
For some reason, the number of Idle Ramblings is not displaying after each entry. I don't know why, but I do know that some other blogs that use this system are suffering the same problem (and some aren't). The messages are still there, and can still be added, it's just inconvenient. As soon as it can be fixed, it will be.
Somebody leave the light on
Alright, it's time for the first ever "You Must Fight The Bear" movie review. We went and saw "The Core" last night, so here's my thoughts.
First, a personal note. After 9/11, I was one of those that said that movies filmed before then that featured the World Trade Center should be left as is, rather than removing the towers from the film. I thought it a poor tribute to pretend they had never existed.
Going in to see this movie, I agreed with the director's decision to leave the Shuttle scene in its original form. And I guess I still do. That said, I thought I was ready to watch it. I wasn't. For most of the people reading my blog, it shouldn't be a problem. For my co-workers, I might advise waiting a little while, or at least steeling themselves a little more than I did (Watching San Francisco be blown away, on the other hand, was fine. Nothing personal, S.F.)
That said, it was kind of cool seeing a movie where NASA is so instrumental in saving the world. It wasn't even a big deal, it was sort of subtle, kind of a "Well, of course NASA would be involved" sort of thing.
Anyway, back to the movie. It was exactly as good as you would think it would be from the trailers and commercials. I couldn't name any significant flaws with it, but neither was there anything transcendent about it. All in all, is was a pretty decent popcorn movie. The science was, to a liberal arts major, surprisingly non-problematic, compared to, oh, say, um, Armageddon, for example (remind me sometime to write in here about the "Goodnight, Moon" movie idea that Lain and I developed). The only major science problem I had was the extent to which things early on were written simply to solve problems at the end... there were several times when they were building the ship that I thought, why would they want it to do that, only to have that question answered at the end. But it was the sort of thing that probably wouldn't bother 98 percent of the audience, including Richie (though other things might).
So, there you go. A movie review with no useful information. And to think, I used to get paid to do this.
Get Up, Stand Up
I got to play Tron last night. The old Tron arcade stand-up video game is one of my favorite arcade games of all time (the original Star Wars game is probably number one) and so it's always great when I find the machine somewhere. Sadly, the one I found, which used to be elsewhere in Huntsville and whose new location I discovered only last night, has been sold, so soon it won't be there anymore. Here's the other sad thing, though: despite my love for the game, I'm not any good at it, never have been, and never will be. I think one time I might have made it to the third board, though for the life of me, I don't remember how. Oh well.
This place also had a Q-bert machine for sale as well. Neither one of us is a huge Q-bert fan, though Nicole used to be a pretty serious Q-bert Atari player back in the day. Nonetheless, at the price they've got it at (cheap, even at more than what you would pay for any console on the market), it's darned tempting just to own an arcade stand-up. I mean, who hasn't wanted their own arcade machine? Ironically, that's one that's been a dream of Nicole's even more than mine. Visitors would be awed by our sheer coolness (we'd turn the A/C way up, too).
So, I need advice... what would it be worth to own a Q-bert arcade machine?
| | | :: Saturday, March 29, 2003 :: |
Web Of Government
I saw a new Indiana license plate today, and at the bottom, it actually has, the way many states have the county name, the Web site for the state, www.IN.gov. That's just kind of weird, and means the Internet is now officially no longer hip. Kind of sad, really.
Eye In The Sky
Shuttles in orbit will be photographed by satellites on future flights, per O'Keefe.
DVD Watch
Coming Tuesday on DVD are The Beatles Anthology, a new West Side Story, and season two of Deep Space Nine.
(This past week saw Who Framed Roger Rabbit and the first season of Futurama, which I may end up getting.)
Hello, Darkness My Old Friend
Another strip chosen just 'cause it's celebrating its anniversary today. That said, nighttime strips were one of the great innovations of Hatbag. If we ever started a new strip, it should be called, "Things That Keep You Up At Night," and consist only of two people talking on dark panels. Hey... that's actually a pretty good idea!
Who Wouldn't
Lain and I used to play this game where we would go to a video rental place and go through the pre-viewed movie bins, putting together two or three (or more) videos so that their titles form one continuous idea. For example, one of the classics was "'Twelve Monkeys' 'Grease' 'Tarzan.'"
It's also funny with this occurs naturally at your local movie theater, which it does with amazingly regularity. Almost any time you go see a movie, the theater owners have unintentionally juxtapositioned two titles with at least semi-amusing results.
This morning, when I opened my browser to the Apple-Netscape homepage it defaults to, among the listing of trailers I could watch was this jewel, "What A Girl Wants: The Hulk In America."
(I just checked my local movie listing as Fandango to see if they had any good ones, but they list the movies alphabetically, so that cuts down on the potential. They best they had was "Piglet's Big Movie Spirited Away The Core.")
| | | :: Friday, March 28, 2003 :: |
Ah, sweet eMac
This post is the first done on my new eMac at work. A very nice little machine if I do say so myself.
You Must Fight The Python
Lain requested that I post this here. Consider it done.
I wonder if the Python she fought was Eric Idle or John Cleese. I'm assuming it wasn't Terry Gilliam, or she'd still be petrified.
Knock, Knock
Whooo, Here's Spock
Leonard Nimoy will be in Huntsville Thursday for the Von Braun Memorial Dinner. Tickets were $125, but it's too late to register anyway. Sorry.
Daily Hatbag
Remember, since blogs are cool, you know you can always turn to me to find out what else is cool, since I have a blog.
Skip to Ed Lu
Edward Lu, a member of the ISS Expedition 7 crew that will launch next month (shhh... it's a secret he's part of it, don't tell anybody [again, to me, the single best argument ever against the Moon hoax is that there is no way on Earth NASA would have been able to keep a secret for 35 years]) has a home page.
Some of the info has been updated to reflect post-Columbia changes, other has not.
National Hero
Since his name popped up a couple of times yesterday, I thought I'd include this article today:
Was Gagarin killed?
Columbia Update
While analysis work will not begin until this weekend, the process of copying the data from the tape on Columbia's flight data recorder has shown that the signal on the tape is very strong, and the tapes appear to contain information not received through telemetry communications, according to Space.com.
"Quit Your Jobs And Invetigate Dark Streaks"
According to Space.com, there is growing support for the belief that there is currently flowing liquid water on the surface of Mars, and that it may be supporting microbial life.
Fear the Power of Flash
According to NewsAskew, the animated Clerks movie is moving ahead.
I'm Batman
The Dark Knight returns?
New Favorite Question
All right, my new favorite question from my e-mail is, "Dear NASA, how does science work?"
I'm tempted to write back with just one word: "Magic."
| | | :: Thursday, March 27, 2003 :: |
Bang! Zoom!
As with all of my blog, this is just Dave's personal opinion, and in no way reflects the opinion of NASA as a whole.
That said, you know how Buzz Aldrin made the news a while back by punching the guy that did the Moon hoax special for accosting him? Ed Mitchell had to physically throw that same guy out of his house.
So here's my idea. They should have a big convention, once a year, where all of the remaining living moonwalkers get together. And anybody who doesn't believe we went to the Moon can go to the convention and have some sense slapped into them by a bunch of septagenarians. I don't know if it would help the Moon hoaxers much, but it would help me a lot.
Apple Gored
Business Week and The Baltimore Sun have both come out with criticisms of Apple's appointment of Gore to its Board of Directors, saying, to put it nicely, there's not much he can offer as a board member...
Perhaps he could help with environmental concerns? Or offer advice on how to make it look like you've won with a smaller market share?
Questions, questions, questions
I'm in the process of trying to make a very small dent in the backlog of questions I've gotten at the Liftoff and NASA Kids site, and some of these are just great. One person asks when someone will come out with a book about the Space Shuttle, another asks me to please stop the war, and another asks me to explain the existance of the solar system ("In the beginning, the Earth was without form, and void...").
My personal favorite so far, though: "Can I see the Earth up close?"
MSFC Update
The Blue Angels are flying around our building.
At Your Age...
What kids need nowadays is more self-esteem.
Celebrity Quote
"What you see is real. I am really that high."
--Celine Dion
Expedition 7
The two-person Expedition 7 crew will launch for the International Space Station on board a Soyuz from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome on April 26 at 9:50 a.m. CST.
Robots!
Sony is working to try and put robots in people's homes.
In other news, Terminator 3 will be released this summer.
Right Stuff SE Update
Sorry, don't mean to get carried away about this DVD, it's just that each announcement has gradually better information.
CollectSpace has more details on what exactly will be in the Special Edition features.
Today In History
The first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, died 35 years ago today in an airplane crash.
This Week On NASAexplores
The two new stories at NASAexplores this week deal with MISSE, the first experiment to be performed on the OUTSIDE of the International Space Station, investigating how materials hold up in the harsh environment of space, and with microgravity flame research, which has discovered that in space, just about everything we know about fire is wrong.
Enterprise
I mentioned earlier that Enterprise would be used in the Columbia investigation. Reuters posted an interesting article late yesterday explaining exactly how. Wing material from Enterprise, roughly the same age as the corresponding material from Columbia, will have pieces of foam shot at it with a compressed-gas gun. Even if she never launched, it's kind of cool that Enterprise is still making contributions well over two decades after being grounded.
Watery Moon
According to Nature, there may be five times as much water on the Moon as was previously believed.
Perhaps we should go find out?
Daily Hatbag
This one doesn't really tie in with anything; I just like it.
Hubble, Hubble
Here's some cool pictures taken by the Hubble of an "erupting" star.
Columbia Update
The CAIB is gradually approaching an answer to the question of what happened to Columbia. Spaceflight Now today has an article that pretty effectively summarizes what is know at this point, and what investigators believe likely happened to the Shuttle.
Further supporting the foam theory, it was announced today that CAIB investigators found flaws in the foam on one of the "spare" ETs at Michoud.
Meet The Astronauts
For the lady I ranted about in here a while back who complained that she didn't know anything about current astronauts, and that it was somehow NASA's fault, presumably because we don't spam people with astronaut biographies, here's a new feature that may or may not be ongoing in my blog. Of course, it won't actually do that lady any good, unless of course she runs searches on the Internet for herself as lady complain didn't know about astronauts. And, of course, Google crawls my blog so doing a search works.
My coworker, JoCasta, is currently in Philadelphia representing NASAexplores like we did recently in San Francisco. However, unlike S.F., where we had our own booth that was half of a limited NASA presence at the convention, in Philly, JoCasta is working in a large NASA section representing a wide variety of agency education programs. In the booth with her are NASA education head Adena Loston, and Educator Astronaut program heads Debbie Brown and Leland Melvin.
Leland Melvin is an astronaut candidate who was selected at the same time as Barbara Morgan (who will be at the Philly convention later on) in 1998. While he's awaiting being assigned to his first flight, he's working on the EA program, guiding the process that will lead to the selection of teachers to become astronauts. Melvin is a little unconventional compared to how people think of contemporary astronauts--engineers and physicists who wore white lab coats prior to space suits. While that's true of Leland as well, most people don't associate that with also being a professional football player. His honors include both an Invention Disclosure Award for Lead Insensitive Fiber Optic Phase Locked Loop Sensor and being named an NCAA Division I Academic All American.
During EA presentations, Melvin is a great spokesperson for the agency, coming across with great energy and excitement when he talks about spaceflight, though he's not yet been up, himself. JoCasta said he's the same way in person, very nice and charismatic. He even talked with her about Lasik surgery (Jo can't apply for the Educator Astronaut program because she had Lasik surgery. Leland said that requirement may change, they just haven't done enough testing yet [apparently the concern is that the back of the eye is weakened by the surgery, and the eye could suffer significant damage [pop!] during the pressures associated with liftoff and landing]).
So there you go, info about an astronaut. Now, when he is selected to fly, you'll be able to tell people that you'd heard about him back when he was still just a candidate.
An Entertaining Comic
Man, somewhere amongst the readership/writership of the this blog is more than enough resources to do this. In all seriousness, anybody that would be interested in working together on this, let me know. We could form our own Ultimate Marvel Team-Up. I'm already halfway through the script for my big Secret Wars of the Gods crossover series. It can't miss.
For more info, go here.
| | | :: Wednesday, March 26, 2003 :: |
Bear Is Driving! How Can This Be?!
DeeDee introduced me to the world of Strong Bad, which some of the Brak fans in the audience may enjoy. There's actually a series of Web short features that go with this part, but the Strong Bad e-mails are often hilarious.
In this one, he explains anime.
Up in the sky
So, how would you make Superman take off?
(And who would be your ideal cast and crew?)
In A Land Before Time...
Joe's comment below reminded me of this, the funniest movie trailer ever.
Today In History
The first movie projector was patented on this day in 1895.
OSP.MOV
NASA's SLI page has a series of animations showing different possible concepts for the Orbital Space Plane. While these are all completely hypothetical, they're still kind of cool.
First Amendment
I'm greatly amused by the argument that's been flying around that freedom of speech means that you can't not buy Dixie Chicks albums or not go to their concerts because you disagree with something they said. I would be interested in knowing exactly how people who make that argument believe that the First Amendment is worded. That would be a darned difficult thing to codify.
Return To Flight Update
All of Michoud is now back in business.
The Black Hole
This is scientifically interesting, and yet the headline also sounds kind of dirty.
But they're going to show it to chimps before people...
The Right Stuff DVD will be out June 10. More details are here. This has real potential.
Daily Hatbag
It occured to me yesterday that since I had the item in my blog about Clonaid, I should have linked to this strip. So I'm doing it today.
Battle Royale (With Cheese)
So, what exactly would happen if Bad, Bad Leroy Brown decided to Mess Around With Jim?
Huntsville, we have a movie
According to yesterday's Huntsville Times, Apollo 13 is coming soon to the dome Imax theater at the Space and Rocket Center here. What soon is, it didn't say.
| | | :: Tuesday, March 25, 2003 :: |
Technology is your friend
OK, I'm sitting at my PC at my desk at work, listening to music on Lain's harddrive on his Mac in Athens. That's just kind of cool.
Call SETI
Maybe they're right, or maybe the aliens just hate cats.
Science Explained
Perhaps in all of history, there has been no one better at explaining scientific principles than Calvin's Dad.
Feel The Love
DeeDee had this posted on her blog, noting that, yeah, she feels this way sometimes, too.
I kind of do, except that I dislike people in the abstract, also.
Adama would be proud
Starbucks will be opening a free-standing shop soon in Arkansas, one of the last states currently without one.
Phase Two begins soon.
Clone Wars update
Clonaid has released a great picture of their third cloned baby. With evidence like this on their side, who can doubt them? Plus, they said they're going to come forward soon with some evidence showing that the baby is, in fact, a clone. No, really, they mean it this time. Honest.
Daily Hatbag
Just another way that DVDs are making the world a safer place.
Columbia Update
The hand-cleaned tape from Columbia's flight data recorder is being shipped to Kennedy Space Center today, where it will be copied and engineers will begin the process of analyzing whatever data may be present, according to Spaceflight Now.
We still don't have to talk about the Matrix
According to NewsAskew, the guy that did the phony Morpheus voice in the Clerks cartoon was tapped to do a voice in the Animatrix short, "Final Flight Of The Osiris."
Indy Films
Here's a tiny bit of news about Indiana Jones IV.
Mac Daddy
I'm a happy, happy man.
As of like five minutes ago, I now have a Mac on my desk at work.
It's an eMac, which I've never used before. Beyond that, I don't know any specs, since it's not hooked up yet. Even though I could have had it running four minutes ago, I have to just let it sit there until ODIN (the NASA computer people) come and set it up (One ODIN guy brought it, but another has to come back and set it up). Argh.
That said, it's not actually mine. It was ordered for one of my co-workers, who does a lot of network maintenance stuff, particularly streaming video. He needed a Mac to be able to check compatability issues with what he was doing, but didn't have any room for it. I, being the team player that I am, made the sacrifice of offering to store it on my desk. That's just the sort of generous guy I am.
So now I'm just praying for ODIN to return soon.
Next Generation
NASA recently held a two-day summit on the Shuttle Life Extension Program, designed to figure out how to best make improvements to the Space Shuttle to keep the fleet flying safely for another 15 to 20 years (or more).
This is one of O'Keefe's policies that came under heavy criticism, which has only increased since the loss of Columbia. For years and years, NASA has been working on a successor to the Space Shuttle, thus far with little to show for it. While O'Keefe didn't stop that effort entirely, he did push it way down the priority list. Basically, it was a huge investment, it showed little return (much of the technology proposed for next-generation shuttles was proving to be not particularly mature), and it wasn't necessary. We already have a Shuttle that has life left in it, we don't need another now.
I fully support O'Keefe's decision, though I would likely go another step further. To me, the question is less "when" NASA needs another Shuttle, but "if" it does. The Shuttle is useful for its original purpose, building the International Space Station. But the Station should be largely finished within the lifespan of the current fleet. It's useful as an orbiting microgravity science lab, but the Station has the potential to be far better at it. The Shuttle is useful for ferrying people to and from Low Earth Orbit (LEO), but the Orbital Space Plane being developed now will be able to do that. So essentially the Shuttle becomes a heavy launch vehicle, a less-powerful Saturn V with return capability.
So why do we need to build a deluxe LEO cargo truck?
In my opinion, what we need to be working on now (or at least in the time frame we would have been working on a next-gen RLV), is something with new capabilities--something to get us out of LEO. Maybe even something that GOES somewhere. But, as usual, they never as me.
| | | :: Monday, March 24, 2003 :: |
All You Vader-Haters
For anyone who's not yet seen it, "We Got Death Star".
Hatbag Sale
Hatbag sweatshirts are now on sale at the hatbag store.
Free Will
Based on the title, I was really hoping that this site was the antithesis of my blog.
Sleep, Data
It turns out Rodney Crouther is alive. I'd not heard from Rodney, another member of the best Daily Mississippian staff ever, for quite some time, and so was glad to hear that he's still out there, somewhere.
Of my comments about the Oscars, Rodney sent me an e-mail asking if I had forgotten everything he taught me.
In reply, I offer this, my final column from Ole Miss (the uncredited advice is from Rodney).
Country at War
OK, one of the cool side-benefits of this war is the growing hostilities it's invoking in country singers. I've never been a big country music fan, but it's kind of cool getting to take sides in the big country battle. By now, everyone has heard about Dixie Chick Natalie Maines telling a European audience that she was ashamed to be from the same state as Bush. So, now, at a Toby Keith concert in Huntsville last night, Keith blasted Maines, putting up a photo of her and Hussein. Which is just turnabout, since Maines had called Keith's "The Angry American" song and his listeners ignorant. Frankly, I'm hoping this escalates into widespread hostilities and violence in the country music industry, which finally tears it apart.
Shatner-iffic
According to the commentary track by Nimoy and Shatner on the Star Trek IV DVD, my favorite line in the movie, "Doctor gave me a pill I grew a new kidney," was actually improvised on set during shooting, as was the whole bit with "I love Italian, and so do you."
Cool, huh?
Since some of the guards on the U.S.S. Enterprise and medical personnel at the hospital in the movie were people who did those jobs in real life, what if that lady was really a patient at the hospital, and to get an effective performance from her, they told her the doctor gave her a pill and she grew a new kidney? That would have been sad, even if she wasn't being treated for kidney-related problems.
Daily Hatbag
According to Richie, this strip is actually correct.
Chicago
Well, Chicago won best picture at the Oscars last night. Interestingly, considering how seriously I used to take the Academy Awards, I have no commentary on this, and haven't even seen Chicago (in fact, LOTR:TT was the only nominee I saw this year).
Believe
New Mexico's legislature has approved Extraterrestrial Culture Day, which I have to say that I have a serious problem with.
I mean, the very name implies that all extraterrestrials share one culture, which is just ludicrous. Someone needs to start a campaign to make New Mexico end its narrowmindedness and embrace nonhuman multiculturalism.
| | | :: Sunday, March 23, 2003 :: |
Let's Roll Out
I had heard about this before, but it's still cool.
Well Said
For perhaps the first time in history, also in today's Parade magazine, Marilyn Vos Savant said something I agreed with. Asked her thoughts about the Columbia disaster, Vos Savant wrote, "I think the program should continue as long as astronauts are willing to take the risk. In my opinion, those of us who are less courageos should not intervene on their behalf. Bravery is a beautiful thing, and I wouldn't want to discourage it. Spaceflight isn't a daredevil sport with no reward; it's an endeavor undertaken on behalf of science and our country."
(Normally, I agree with these people about Marilyn.)
Rock On
According to Parade magazine, Clinton says he has partial hearing loss from too much loud music.
CoinStar
I'm easily impressed, but this is a cool invention.
Daily Hatbag
Movies have the Oscars tonight, and we have these.
| | | :: Saturday, March 22, 2003 :: |
Wanna Visit The Space Station?
Then click here. If you don't speak German, you may need BabelFish, though you may not. However, you will need a decent bit of cash.
(Or, skip the auction and go here).
Dave's Shopping Spree, Cont'd
I bought tiny Star Wars Legos today.
Also, Robonaut.
God Speed, United States Post Service
I took my first step into a geekier world today by mailing John Glenn a copy of his memoir, in hopes of getting him to autograph it. It's the first time I've written off for an autograph (except maybe once in eighth grade, for a class project; I'm not sure).
I bought today a copy of "Deke!", so that I now have books by three of the Mercury Seven. (And I also picked up a remainder copy of Gene Kranz' "Failure Is Not An Option.")
"You Must Fight The Bear" Book Club
While I was out today, I saw that Jasper Fforde's new novel, Lost In A Good Book, is now out in hardback. This is the sequel to his delightful The Eyre Affair, now out in paperback, in which Detective Thursday Next has to hunt a devious killer through the pages of Jane Eyre. Wonderful stuff. If you haven't read The Eyre Affair, pick it up now. (These books are actually cheaper at Bamm.com, but Amazon has better descriptions. [I've probably offended Richie now by providing convenient and easy ways to buy these books, rather than having to use an arcane method which requires that someone help you to pay more.])
That said, I didn't buy Lost In A Good Book, because I'm currently lost in a good book. I'm about halfway through Donna Tartt's The Little Friend, and after that, I'm reading Grisham's The King of Torts.
Hopefully, not long after that is Dave Barry's Tricky Business, and possibly Christopher Buckley's No Way To Treat A First Lady.
Among my recent reads are Douglas Coupland's Miss Wyoming, Scott Dikker's disappointing You Are Worthless, and the latest crappy Star Wars paperback.
Remember When Pirate Was A Noun?
The people who make the arguement that Napster and online song trading have hurt the music business are certainly supported by the fact that, based on listening to WZYP while driving around town, there are only like four songs left in existance. And at least one of them is Celine Dion's inferior cover of "I Drove All Night."
Personal Note
Nicole is in the hospital (again). Waiting to see how serious it is, so I really can't tell you right now.
(BTW, this is why it's late, light bloggin' today. Not that anybody reads this thing during the weekend anyway. Five blog points to anyone who posts feedback here before 5 p.m. Sunday.)
| | | :: Friday, March 21, 2003 :: |
Yum, yum
When you visit Japan, be sure to try the chicken and curry. Also, they have a great | |
