March 2007

Been looking through my old mini-DV tapes to find and archive some older memories before the tapes degrade, and I slapped together a couple of videos from some years back. The first is video I shot when we visited/stayed at the Chattanooga Choo Choo hotel in (obviously) Chattanooga, TN. The second is footage I took at the Gwinnett Railway Museum, circa 2003.

Here’s the hotel:

And here’s the Railway Museum:

As I have three sons who have been, at some point in thier life, obsessed with trains, I have lots more footage where this comes from. So, if you are interested, stay tuned…

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Ah, the dystopia that the people of the 70s feared… Looking back, it’s hard to tell what was the greater threat to mankind back then. Was it overpopulation, and the resulting Soylent Green-byproducts? Zombies who love mall sales? Killer bees? Towering infernos? An ape rebellion? Those were the days…

Well, thanks again to the joy that is Netflix video-on-demand, I had an opportunity to once again view a classic of the “holy crap, we’re all gonna die horribly!” genre, that Michael Crichton ode to space viruses, The Andromeda Strain.

The plot is straight forward. A space probe has landed in a small town and, in it lies the Blob! No, wait, wrong flick. In it lies a microscopic space virus that makes people die horribly and turns thier blood into reddish pop rocks. Seriously.

Thankfully, the government has spent millions of dollars preparing for such an eventuality and has a five-level Biohazard Batcave called Wildfire (since the government ALWAYS plans for any and all contingencies, don’t ya know). This being the 70s, the super-secret underground lab is made of solid chrome – Oh, and some brushed steel and aluminum, to add some variety to the color palette.

Anyway, the super-scientists are summoned (though, inaccurately, none have facial hair or suspenders), they spend a lot of time talking about the base, incuding the self-destruct mechanism it has in case some nasty bugs get out (a nuke, of course – it’s the only way to be sure). Then they spend some time talking about what happened and trying to figure out why only two people survived. Then they spend a lot of time talking about how to stop the virus from spreading.

Then they talk some more.

Have you notice that this movie is a little “talky?” I guess it’s exciting to attend a CDC conference but it really makes for a boring movie.

Not to say there’s not things to recommend. David Wayne plays one of the doctors, and I loved him as the Mad Hatter on Batman. The sets are gorgeous. The last twenty minutes are actually interesting, in a “beat-the-clock-or-we’re-all-gonna-die” way. Finally, the movie’s semi-documentary style is interesting to watch. But, unless you’re a bio-science nerd or hard SF fan, I’d skip it.

Here’s a fan remix that is cooler than the movie…

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Here’s Kermit the Frog, singing “Hurt”.

Oh, and NOT SAFE FOR WORK! And to my new employers, I did NOT do this, so, please, consider this posting in the category “editorial fair use…”

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Jeopardy spent a couple of days last week promoing a “very special episode” that aired on Friday, claiming it made “history” – well, it definitely did that. The final score was $16,000 all – yup, all three players ended up tied after Final Jeopardy. Three-way ties had happened previously, when all three players ended up with no money, but this was the first time all players tied with positive scores. Mark Evanier has spent a LOT of time on this and has some interesting theories on why this will probably never happen again.

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Wow, that was unexpected.

If you have not heard, Richard Jeni died yesterday, from gun shot wounds that were, apparently, self-inflicted. Jeni is one of those comedians that was a “comedian’s comedian” – one who made other comics laugh as much as a regular audience did. If you don’t know him by name you’ve probably seen him, as he’s done a lot of work as second- or third-banana in many movies in the 80s and 90s. He’s one of those performers you take for granted, and it’s sad to see him gone.

Mark Evanier has some thoughts, as does Elayne Boosler.

Here’s one of his best bits:

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