Happy Birthday Mikes and Ray

I have to be honest. Today in history has yet another grim outlook. However, I choose to celebrate Michael Phelps' birthday instead. Yep, get your party hats on, that swimming guy just turned 24. His birthday cake looks like this:

Raymond Moody is also celebrating his birthday today. By normal standards, this is his 65th birthday. However, seeing as this guy believes he has led 9 previous lives, it's more like his 785th birthday. I bet he's really tired of blowing out those stupid candles.

Raymond Moody, for those of you who are unfamiliar with this household name (if your household happens to be the Moody residence), is a parapsychologist. He wrote some pretty widely-read stuff about the afterlife based on interviews and research on near-death experiences. He also says that there are 9 events common to most people who have a near death experience. The top one on the list? Hearing sounds such as buzzing.

So apparently we'll be escorted into the afterlife by some bees. Odd choice, Big Man Upstairs. Whatever. I'm just disappointed that the following things were not mentioned on that list:
Arriving at the Pearly Gates
Seeing gold-paved streets
Eating soft-serve ice cream

Mike Tyson was also born on this day in 1966. His birthday cake looks like this (right):

And now that I've got you wondering...this is what Raymond Moody's birthday cake looks like (below):

You would not believe the crazy stuff that comes up in a Google Image search for "Pearly Gates cake".

Pictures:
Pool Cake
Ear Cake
RIP Cake

Today In Today

I'm going to pass up Today In History for Today In Today, an exciting new segment that details actual events according to various news reports. Of course, I'm not going to cover the usual stories (military coups, the entire Middle East, and/or any stimulus package). I'm only delving into the bizarre.

The Salt Lake Tribune brought an interesting fact to my attention today. If you check out this website that is a "guide" to Draper, UT, you'll be pleasantly surrounded by the various things Draper City offers. Good dining, good shopping, and the State Prison. The State Prison is not mentioned under the 'Trivia Facts" section (which unfortunately doesn't even exist). It is listed under "Entertainment".

Upon clicking on the link for more information about the State Prison, you get the address, phone number, a little box labeled "You also might like...Federal Correctional Facilities...," and lower down the categorization of the prison being both "Correctional Facilities" and "Attractions". There were no user reviews...

Out of curiosity, I searched the Draper Prison website to see if I could schedule a tour. After all, it wouldn't be a very welcoming entertainment location if they didn't at least offer tours. I found no easy way to do so and I did not feel inclined to call them somewhat jokingly. I was mostly deterred from making this call by the pictures posted on their website. Every time I saw a picture of the guards that worked there, they were at a firing range. I kid you not; I struggled to find a picture of a guard that was not wearing earmuffs and aiming a gun. Oddly enough, the targets were never pictured, so you really have no idea what these guys (and gals) were aiming at...

So cross that off your list of "Things to do when I visit Utah". It may be theoretically categorized as an attraction and entertainment, but I think the jury's still out on such classification...

Continuing on in the news, I found a brief article mentioning a murder that took place in Pennsylvania in May. Two guys were arguing over a game, one had a gun, the other apparently thought he was Dirty Harry and his last words were, "Shoot me, shoot me, you ain't got the..."

The game that provoked the argument? Beer pong.

What makes this news scoop even more sad is that the Pennsylvania State Prisons do not appear to be listed in the Entertainment sections of any city guide websites, as far as I can tell. So Joseph Jimenez (who apparently did have the guts or gumption or whatever the other guy was about to say) is likely to spend some time in a prison facility that is not very entertaining. The good news for him is that I could not find a single picture on the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections website of gun-wielding guards practicing shooting things. And by the way, you can purchase a piece of furniture that Joseph might have made through the Pennsylvania Correctional Industries catalog, if you so desire...

If you don't go to that website, you're missing out on the very thing that will make your day a happy one.

Now back to beer pong. I'd like to note here that I'm firmly against drinking alcohol. Not being a drinker myself, I'm completely unfamiliar with drinking games. But I just had to find out what this one was all about. Some of you may be surprised to find that Wikipedia has a very extensive article outlining everything related to beer pong.

The general idea: bounce a ping pong ball into a cup of beer, then drink beer. There are, of course, MANY variations to this and usually there are teams. I'm guessing that most of these variations came about when the heavy drinkers vaguely recalled playing something that involved a ping pong ball and they recreated the game as best as they could.

What nearly stunned me (although I should never really doubt the almighty power of Wikipedia) was just how much detail its beer pong article explored. I simply cannot do this article justice. Diagrams, ideal trajectories (see picture on left of arc shot, fastball, and bounce shot), and my favorite part of the whole article, "The game is also played by high school students, despite the fact that supplying alcohol to persons under the age of 21 in the United States...is nominally illegal," (emphasis added). Right. Unfortunately for Joseph, murder is not one of those "nominal" offenses.

On the bright side though, I bet Joseph can whip up a mean "Big House Laundry Detergent".

Pictures:
Prison
Prison Guards
Beer Pong
Beer Pong Ideal Trajectories

Busy week

I know I've promised a dozen times to not use this as an outlet for personal information, but I feel some obligation to explain my absence. My wife and I have been house- and dog-sitting recently and I only have Internet access via the computer my wife brings home from work. With such limited time, I opted to put the blog on the back burner. I'm not saying it's completely back from the back burner now, but just know that I may not be as vigilant about posting every day anymore!

Today in history is awesome. Are you ready?

June 26, 1284: The legendary Pied Piper leads 130 children out of Hamelin, Germany.

That's right, the Pied Piper is real.

Well, ok, maybe not REAL, but at least the story has a lot of credence to it. I just thought it was amazing that it was narrowed down to the very day that the Pied Piper led the kids out of the town. I mean, we don't know the day that Snow White met the 7 dwarfs or the day that Little Red Riding Hood went off to see her grandmother.

For anybody who is unfamiliar with the legend of the Pied Piper, here's a brief recap:

Hamelin, Germany has a rat infestation.

The Pied Piper shows up and offers to take care of the rat problem. By the way, "Pied" refers to his clothes, apparently they had patches of two or more different colors, like the magpie's black and white coloring, which is where "pied" got its name from. I guess nobody really knows this because half of the Google image pictures that come up when you search for "Pied Piper" depict this guy in one color only. Goofballs.

The town agrees to pay the Piper "X" amount of money to get rid of the rats.

He pipes away a tune that leads the rats into the nearby river, where they all drown.

The townspeople immediately ask if he knows a tune to enchant politicians.

He doesn't.

They get mad and refuse to pay him.

He gets mad and decides to get revenge.

He invents rap music and pipes away, leading away all the children.

Then the various versions of the story branch off here. Some say he leads the kids to a nearby cave and hides them there until the townspeople pay him (usually an exorbitant amount of money, much more than the agreed-upon price). Some say he never returns the kids because he never got paid. Some say he leads the kids away to a mysterious place where they are never heard from again. I was going to surmise that this mysterious place where they disappeared was the Neverland Ranch, although considering recent events that joke seems terribly tactless. Oh well, I said it anyway. Does the joke become more tasteful if you recognize that it's completely tactless?

So the Pied Piper was actually depicted on a stained glass window of the Hamelin church around 1300. The church isn't around anymore, which is really disappointing because I would sure like to see a stained glass representation of rap music being invented.

Apparently the earliest record in the town chronicles is an entry from 1384 which states that it has been 100 years "since our children left".

Side note: Does your town keep a chronicle? Probably, but it's most likely called something different these days. Too bad; I'd love to read a town chronicle. Well, maybe I'd love it for about 10 minutes and then it would get boring. Too much politics. If only the Pied Piper had known a politician-enchanting tune.

So some historians believe that the Pied Piper represents Death. There was some tragic event in which a whole lot of town children died and the townspeople thought it best to depict Death as a musician. Forget the whole black cloak and sickle outfit. Ironically, Marilyn Manson thinks the reverse--that it's a good idea for a musician to look like Death. There are a lot of people that argue this controversial concept though. Most seem to be on the side of Marilyn Manson not being a "musician".

There are other theories that say the kids started a pilgrimmage or even a Children's Crusade but never returned. The Pied Piper in these instances is the leader or recruiting agent. Another possibility is that the kids were sold to help populate some other nearby region, which apparently was not an uncommon practice at the time. Illegitimate or orphaned children that the town couldn't support were possibly just sold off to the Baltic general area. I guess there's some credence to that, but I still can't imagine rap music being invented in the Baltics.

The most common theory is that the children willingly abandoned their parents to found their own villages during the colonization of Eastern Europe. The Piper is seen as their leader. Because hey, if a guy can play an instrument, he must surely be wise enough to found a village.

Possible Baltic rap lyrics:

Yo check it, this here is the Baltic rhapsody,
coming to you from Lithuania City.
It could come from Latvia or even possibly
Estonia, sucka, 'cause that's the Baltic THREE.

Word, unh, yeah, what?
Lithuania City, yeah, what?
Not the Baltic sea, no, never happen.

Pictures:
Pied Piper
Alleged Rapper, probably not from the Baltics
Marilyn Manson

Man, oh man!

Today's blog is going to be entirely different. I've cast away the concept (for today at least) of looking at this day in history and seeing where that takes me. Instead I shall look at this day in the future...specifically 2012.

Not too far off, right?

It all began this morning when I chanced to actually look at the Google ads on the right of my blog as I reviewed it. I noticed one I could not believe. Are these people for real? I had to go to their website. For anybody who's worried about this, don't fret. I did not click on the link because I know of Google's Terms of Service. I can't click on my own links to generate cash.

Anyway, I soon commenced the discovery of the fact that on Dec 21, 2012 the world will end. And it must be true because these people used science to prove it.

Institute for Human Continuity (IHC for short)

Ok, so apparently this is all a bit of a hoax, in preparation for the movie 2012 which is due to come out towards the end of this year. But still, the website is a lot of fun to peruse, I must admit. And the preview is pretty fun, too. A Tibetan monk eats it...hard.

Let me share with you some highlights I found from the website.

Oliver Platt is the White House Chief of Staff.
IHC is hosting a lottery to determine which individuals will be tucked away for guaranteed survival.
Australia seems to have the most registered lottery participants.
A survival pack should apparently contain canned food (that's one survival pack I don't want to heft around).
Floating cities are a real possibility (floating on water, that is, not air).

I highly recommend perusing the website. You definitely have to see, if nothing else, this interactive presentation of how it all happens. The cataclysmic events aren't depicted as much as I would have liked, but it's still pretty sweet. If you get stuck, just click on "Send Solar Flare" a couple times. It helps move the program along. There's another one here. There are multiple scenarios, too; I recommend replaying a few times. To get back to the website after either of those, just hit "Close" from the top right of that little simulation (not the very top right of the screen, Genius).

Yeah, just explore. I'm amazed at how much advertising has gone into this film!

My absolute favorite aspect of all this (let's see if you can find it) is to watch a clip of "Charlie Frost" (played by Woody Harrelson) in which he declares, "I think the sun will bombard the Earth with enough neutrinos to cause catastrophic crustal displacement. But hey, I'm a hopeless romantic."

Pictures:
Science
Floating City
Sun (doesn't this picture look like the sun just gave somebody an uppercut?)

GPS, Tahiti, and 1973

On June 18, 1767, Samuel Wallis (an English sea captain) spots Tahiti and is considered the first European to reach the island. He was trying to get to Sydney but his GPS was in a cabin that they didn't use too much, so nobody heard the constant "Turn left now" and subsequent "Recalculating route." The GPS finally gave up because nobody was listening and right before the batteries died, it uttered, "Fine, sail anywhere you dang well please."

GPS systems are incredibly useful. I'm just surprised that more hasn't been done with them yet. Approximately three seconds after cell phones were invented, ringtones were being programmed based on popular songs of the day. Unfortunately, since the cell phone was really invented in 1973, the first three ringtones (the following information is not true) were poor electronic keyboard versions of John Denver's Rocky Mountain High, Roberta Flack's Killing Me Softly with His Song, and Marvin Gaye's Let's Get It On. Surprisingly enough, these three are still in the top ten most-purchased ringtones.

Actually, I would love to see ringtones from the following 1973 hits:

Bad Bad Leroy Brown (Jim Croce)
You're So Vain (Carly Simon)
Shambala (Three Dog Night)
Smoke On The Water (Deep Purple)
Dueling Banjos (Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandel)
Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy (Bette Midler)
Kodachrome (Paul Simon)
Ramblin' Man (Allman Brothers)
Your Mama Don't Dance (Loggins and Messina)
Neither One of Us Wants to be the First to Say Goodbye (Gladys Knight and the Pips)
Monster Mash (Bobby "Boris" Pickett and the Crypt Kickers)

I'm sure half of those already are ringtones, if not all of them. But I'd like to hear the poor electronic keyboard 1973 ringtone versions.

I would also just like to hear these 1973 hits, just for the sake of accomplishing one more random, yet oddly satisfying, thing before I die someday:

Also Sprach Zarathustra (Deodato)
Say Has Anyone Seen My Sweet Gypsy Rose (Tony Orlando and Dawn)
Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu (Johnny Rivers)
Half Breed (Cher)

So I went ahead and listened to these four via iTunes. Wow. 1973. For a few moments I thought it would be great to invent a time machine and go back to 1973, if nothing else for the music. Because that first list of 1973 hits was pretty fantastic, I must say. But then I listened to these four songs. I hope I'm not stepping on any toes here, but those songs are really quite horrible. With one exception. I'll let you mull it over for a few moments, trying to figure out which one is worth its weight in at least copper.

Meanwhile, back to the GPS concept, I think it would be great to have Voicetones you could download to your GPS. You could do some famous actors and actresses (Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Earl Jones, Sylvester Stallone, Angela Lansbury) or even a more popular character package that includes all the voices from particular shows. You could switch through the voices at your discretion.

I'm thinking the following packages would be the most popular:

Star Wars
Examples: "Chewy, I need you to make a left turn buddy, come on (followed by Chewbacca's familiar groan, if that's what it is)." "(A series of beeps and electronic noises) Oh my R2, you're right! They do need to turn right in 50 yards." "(stifled breathing) Release your anger. You have missed the exit. You must now make a U-turn." "U-turn you must take, yes. Missed the exit you have. Mm-hmm."

Star Trek (the original cast)
Examples: "Mr. Sulu (pause), turn left (pause) now! Full impulse power!" "Captain, if I may, I suggest a right turn in approximately 1.63 miles, it is the most logical course of action." "I'm sorry, Captain, but she just can't take another wrong turn! She won't hold! She needs to turn right in fifty yards or we're done for!"

Simpsons
Examples: "Don't have a cow, man, just make a U-turn." "Hey, what does this little arrow mean? Do you want me to turn right you cute little arrow? Is that the fastest way to the Donut King? Dough...nut...ahhh...(drooling sounds)"

ER
Example: "You need to take a left turn in 40 yards and intubate, STAT!"

Seinfeld
Example: (this one would be in conversation mode and constantly use all the characters, nothing would ever be just one voice) "I mean, come on! How hard can it be? I tell you to turn left, I should think you would turn left!" "That's what I said! You don't think they didn't turn left because I don't have much hair, do you?" "Who's turning left?" "Apparently not this guy!"

High School Musical
I can't give you any examples. I'm sure there would be a song and the GPS might even show a little dance number, probably on the school track. I haven't seen these movies and I don't think I ever will. It's a moral choice. I'm not opposed to their GPS Voicetune though.

Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu. That's the one song, of the four, that I considered actually worthwhile. The odd thing is that I checked the popularity meter on iTunes when I listened to smidgeons of all four songs. The first two were pretty low, a 3 and a 5 respectively. The third was through the roof (with good reason). What shocked me was Cher's Half Breed song. It was incredibly high in popularity as well, even though it sounded terrible to me. Upon further investigation, I found that this song was about a woman who is half-Cherokee and half-caucasion. In fact, the entire album was named Half Breed. At first I thought that maybe Cher was indeed of this racial mix and it was very personal. Which could explain some of the popularity.

While Cher does have some Cherokee blood in her, it's not much. Her mother was of Cherokee, English, and German descent. Her father was an Armenian refugee, which in my opinion is really where she got the features that could kind of be misinterpreted as Native American. So I don't think she was really ostracized (as the song lyrics and music video suggest) for being a Half Breed as a kid.

So I ultimately have no idea why the song was such a hit in America, and even less of an idea why it was popular in Sweden and Norway. But then again, High School Musical was a hit in both of those countries as well, so their taste is just clearly very different from mine. Hey, can you imagine the High School Musical GPS Voicetune...in Swedish?

Pictures:
Tahiti General Area
Hippie
Star Wars
Intubate
High School Musical (ugh)

Yes! Finally!

Well folks, it finally happened. And I'm very excited (in case you couldn't tell from the title of this post). I've been writing these posts daily (with only one exception) for a few weeks and finally, finally, it happened.

Vlad the Impaler is mentioned in today in history.

What he's mentioned for is not important. You know who good ol' Vlad is, right? Dracula!

For some reason I was mildly obsessed with Dracula as a kid. I recall being Dracula for Halloween several years in a row. The only bummer about being Dracula on Halloween is when you have to go trick or treating with your sister who is dressed as a ballerina. Dracula's a lot less frightening when accompanied by a ballerina. Ah well, it was nice of her to accompany me regardless.

At some point when I was slightly older I learned about the man behind the Dracula legends--Vlad the Impaler.

I'll make sure not to include the gory stuff here. But I do want to mention that dear Vlad is still revered by the Romanian people for his accomplishments while a ruler there. Of course, I have it on good authority that Romania has also declared their national TV show to be reruns of The Dukes of Hazard. So I'm not sure how much we can trust their popular opinion...

Ok, more awesomeness about Vlad: His Romanian last name (Draculea) means "son of the dragon". This comes from his father's title: Vlad the Dragon (equally amazing). Vlad the Dragon was also a member of the Order of the Dragon (I know, I know, I too am overwhelmed with all these awesome things). It doesn't stop there though. Young Vlad (later to become the Impaler) was inducted into the same Order of the Dragon at the age of FIVE.

I would love to see a bar brawl involving Vlad the Impaler, King Magnus V of Norway, Chuck Norris, and Staff Sergeant Max Fightmaster. For further information on two of these people, read my other posts. This is the first of my posts to mention Chuck Norris though. If you don't recognize that he would make a great contender in a bar brawl with the other three, well, then you don't know Chuck Norris.

Two things to note about Chuck Norris. 1) He doesn't need to be bulletproof. Bullets dodge him. 2) He counted to infinity. Twice.

Anyway, I hope to see more Dracula costumes this Halloween. Or perhaps a Chuck Norris costume combined with vampire teeth. Perferably unaccompanied by ballerinas.

Pictures:
Vlad the Impaler
Ballerina
General Lee (the car)
The Chuck

Comments please

Until yesterday I apparently had the feature allowing you to comment disengaged. I have righted things error and you may now feel free to post whatever comments you so desire. Of course, I'll try to keep track of them. I am always severely disappointed when I read through a series of comments that eventually lose all application to the original thing open to comment. For example:

After a real article entitled "Thousands rally for, against Iranian government", put online not even an hour ago, there have been roughly 70 comments made so far. The best examples of digressing from the topic at hand include definitions of the term "neo-con-nazi" and phrases such as "Same smack all of you leftist commi's always come up with." I kid you not, that was a direct quote. Funny story behind this picture. I did a Google Image search for "neo-con-nazi" and this is where I ended up. Funny, I don't think my sisters did projects like this in their Girl Scout groups.

So why is it that comments tend to deviate from the original subject matter in every online instance? Allow me to suggest a few possible reasons:

It's been said that everybody is a critic. I suppose the Internet has given ease of access to all these critics. Consider how easy it is to post a comment on something online versus writing a letter to the editor, for instance. A letter to the editor, even if it's in E-mail format, requires a whole separate program being used on the computer and frankly a lot of people are too lazy for that. Actual letters to the editor using actual paper (paper can still be found in many museums and was even featured on the Antiques Roadshow seven or eight times) take a tremendous amount of time in comparison to an online post. So the vast majority of people who have no problem writing about neo-con-nazis (and believe me, their numbers are vast) would feel that an actual letter to an editor would take far too much work.

Now take a look at the amount of people who write letters to the editor on real paper anyway! Their numbers are still quite strong! To my knowledge, almost every publication has to actually refuse certain letters to the editor because too many are submitted! Now, I understand those who truly feel like they would like to make a point that has not been previously addressed or look at something from a different angle. They want to make sure the public is informed and feel it is their civic duty to so do. The Founding Fathers would be proud of them.

But so many letters to the editor are simply soap boxes for adult tantrums. Better still are the letters that don't even complain! They say thanks to the publication for this article or that picture. That's like writing a letter to your local gas station, thanking them for having gas.

Dear Sinclair Station,

I wanted to thank you for the gas you have provided to my vehicle on countless occasions. While I do not love the smell of refined petroleum, I have always felt that your station gets enough wind gusts from the nearby street to waft the unpleasant odor away. Your placement in that regard is phenomenal.

I have also noticed that you never seem to run out of gas. I think that is neat!

Finally, I would like to mention that I appreciate your dinosaur logo. It always reminds me of where this natural resource comes from. Doing so helps me appreciate Mother Earth and dinosaurs a little more with each visit I make to your station. I'm so glad that the dinosaurs and many other organisms died millions of years ago just so I could drive to work each morning. That was very considerate of them.

Sincerely,
(Leftist Commi's name here)

Pictures:
Kids writing on missiles
Paper and pen
Black gold

Apologies and Nicknames

I most humbly and profusely apologize to anybody who was incredibly disappointed that there was no posting yesterday. I was busy playing Werewolf with friends and family. Well, we played my upgraded version of Werewolf, which is not too different from the original game, but I've added a few nice perks.

Anyway, it was Sunday regardless, so quit yer yappin.

On June 15, 923 AD: King Robert I of France is killed. Also, King Charles the Simple is arrested by the supporters of Duke Randolph of Burgundy. Now I realize you may not care much about any of this. But I think we should seriously analyze (or rather, comically analyze) noble names. Let's face it--a lot of them are a bit ridiculous.

King Charles the Simple? These nicknames came about after these people died, right? Or were people calling him that to his face? If so, did he mind it? Was there a King Charles the Complex and Full of Emotional Baggage?

It's just not very intimidating. But then again, neither are the following real British monarch names:

Eadwig (Edwy) All-fair
Ethelred the Unready
Harold Harefoot
Richard III Crookback (he was always ringing the palace bells and shouting "Sanctuary")

I mean, some of them really had a knack for intimidation. Alfred the Great, Edmund Ironside, Richard the Lionheart (probably the best one), shoot, even Richard Cromwell is half-decent. His little-known ancestral line was incredibly good at the art of cromming.

Then there's Edwy All-fair.

On this day in 1184, King Magnus V of Norway (that one's alright; I especially approve of the 5 being a V, it's more hardcore) dies in battle. I'm not surprised that he died in battle. He was probably surrounded by a heap of enemy body parts right before he died. In fact, that's probably how he died. He suffocated under the heap.

It's really too bad that this guy bit the dust. If he'd just stuck around for a little less than a millennium, I bet he could have swept through the World's Strongest Man competitions.

And finally on June 15, 1752, Benjamin Franklin proves that lightening is electricity. Coincidentally, this was the same day as Benjamin Franklin's first recorded hospitalization.

You know, come to think of it, I don't know that Ben was all that smart. If you had a hypothesis that lightening was electricity, would you tempt fate by holding something metallic up in a thunderstorm? That's like testing your hypothesis that bullet-proof vests don't work by putting one on and having somebody shoot you.

King Magnus the Bulletproof. That's just amazing.

Although not quite as cool as Staff Sergeant Max Fightmaster, voted manliest name in the world by www.Cracked.com. It's a real guy, too. Don't believe me? Check this out: CBS News Article. Unfortunately, he's not as hardcore as you would imagine. He's a computer technician. But I bet he could still break every bone in my body by looking at me in a particular way. And then, in a gesture of mercy, he would fix my laptop.

By the way, this is not an actual image of Max Fightmaster, but I bet he could do this.

Pictures:
Werewolf
Emotional Baggage
World's Strongest Man Competition
Piledriver on a Shark

A break from the norm

Today is going to be a little different. I was going to write about Mehmet Ali Agca because his story is REALLY weird. And on this day in 2000, he was officially pardoned in Italy at the Pope's request. Anyway, just read up about the guy, it's interesting. After all, how many stories do you know of that start with "While waiting to assassinate the Pope, he wrote postcards to pass the time,"?

But I thought it would be more interesting to get into a movie idea I've had because I think this would be a GREAT flick to see:

Thundercats

This would just be awesome to see live actors in. I haven't cast the whole group, but I've come up with the main ones at least. As you'll recall, the Thundercats were cat-like humanoid creatures from the planet Thundera. The plot is way too complex to try to explain here. In fact, I don't think I ever really understood the plot when I was a kid and watched the show. Yeah, I definitely didn't. But it was a sweet show.

Come to think of it, after reading the plot synopsis on Wikipedia just now, I still don't feel I understand it.

Ok, so the plot of the movie would have to be dumbed-down a lot to make more sense and to capture a larger audience. Something like, "Oh no, we cat-humanoid aliens have to flee our planet from the evil bad guys! We escaped to another planet but they're still after the special sword! Let's make friends with some of the creatures on this planet and run from others!" I think that would be sufficient. Except they'd need to end up on Earth somehow because we like to see heroes on Earth.

Lion-O: Ok, follow me on this one. Rupert Grint. That's right. He's known as Ron Weasley to the world, but I think he could pull off Lion-O. This picture clearly shows he's beefed up a little bit and with the right trainer (Sylvester Stallone), I think he could really rack in the muscle tone. He'd have to lose the accent though. In fact, we might need a voice-over all together.

Tygra: Again, this might stretch your imagination, but Kelsey Grammar. He was a phenomenal Beast in X-Men III. And Tygra's the scientist who provides wisdom and counsel. He's just a perfect fit. And I think he could pull off the voice.



Panthro: This one's obvious. Ving Rhames. The dude's name is Ving for crying out loud. How sweet is that?




Cheetara: Ok, this one was tough. I could probably name a dozen actresses that could fit the role, but I needed one who was skinny yet fit, blonde yet tough. I concluded that Kirsten Dunst would be a good match.



WilyKit and WilyKat: I wish the Olsen twins were younger. I think they could have pulled this off nicely. Even though WilyKat is technically male. So ultimately I decided on Dakota Fanning for WilyKit and Freddie Highmore for WilyKat.

Whew, that was tough work, putting all those pictures together!

Ok, so today's post wasn't incredibly funny, but hey, you're now vividly picturing the greatest film of all time, in the pre-production stage.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, Snarf would probably be played by Danny DeVito.

Pictures:
Thundercats
Lion-O
Tygra
Panthro
Cheetara
WilyKit and WilyKat
Snarf
Rupert Grint
Kelsey Grammar
Ving Rhames
Kirsten Dunst
Freddie Highmore
Dakota Fanning
Danny DeVito

Twister!

I want you to picture the Olympics, any event. After a great and courageous struggle, there is a victor. After that, there is a second- and third-place winner as well of course. And so on. Technically everybody is ranked. But there are only three that get to take the stand and have their flags displayed. Can you name the 8th-place winner of any event, ever in the Olympics?

Yet according to Wikipedia, on this day in 1899, the 8th-deadliest tornado in U.S. history struck in New Richmond.

Ok, so I don't have the faintest clue where New Richmond is and therefore this tornado means very little to me. But beyond that, why is this even mentioned? This tornado's flag wouldn't even be displayed if "Tornado Kills" were an Olympic event. 8th-deadliest? Sure, there are technical ranks beyond 1-3, but who really cares about them? I tried to find a good tornado picture to go with this, but they all looked far scarier than the 8th-deadliest. They looked like contenders for first or second place.

Also on this day in 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that all state laws which prohibit interracial marriage are unconstitutional. The case? Loving vs. Virginia. I guess Virginia really IS for lovers.

Now on to today's sad news. I just checked my birthday on Wikipedia. Guess what? My name has been removed from the list of people born on June 10. And the annals of Wikipedia shall never be the same again. So much for Ambassador of Awesome. I almost want to play a game with Wikipedia now, except I probably won't because it would be a serious waste of time. The game would be that I would go around to various articles at random and insert a sentence that talks about Waldo. I could find a way to work it in.

So then the challenge would be to find Waldo! It could even be somewhat discreet because I could link to the Wikipedia page on Waldo. See, I'm convinced that's what gave me away on the June 10 page. My name stood out in red because I didn't have my own Wikipedia page. Then again...what does it take to create your own Wikipedia page...?

Ok, so I looked into this Waldo thing a little more. Did you know that there was an animated television series of Waldo? Apparently they even had "Waldo's minutes" during the show, in which the screen froze for a full minute to give the viewer a chance to find Waldo, just like in the books. And you know what? It was nominated for the 1992 "Annual Young Artist Award" in the category of "Outstanding New Animation Series", but it lost to the Back to the Future animated television series. Another thing I didn't know existed but now have a serious hankering to watch.

Ok, the craziest part of all this? I know the guy whose dad did the Narrator's voice for the Waldo television show. That blows my mind.

So here is the intro for the Where's Waldo tv series. Surprisingly, it only ran one season. Actually, after listening to the theme song, it's not that surprising:

Where's Waldo TV Show Intro

And here is the intro for the Back to the Future tv series.

Back to the Future TV Show Intro

I must admit, the theme song is a LOT catchier. The show clearly deserved to beat out Waldo for that award. But I'm still very curious as to which show ended up in 8th place...

Pictures:
Olympic Symbol
Waldo

Greek Mathematicians and Sentence Structure

We all know of Wikipedia's greatness and grandeur. I have even thought it would be great to print out every Wikipedia article, make a gigantic set of volumes, and go door-to-door selling them. Hey, it worked for Encyclopedia Britannica, why not for Wikipedia?

We also all know of Wikipedia's flaws. Like, not having true things a lot of the time. And also not having the best sentence structure. Most sentences are flawless. But however there is an occasional bad one that could really need some better diction and, punctuation and grammar and if you look at it from a different, angle it could might mean something entirely not the same and its very disappointing to find those run-on sentences that; don't seem "to" do anything write.

Oh man, that hurts my eyes to look at that.

So today in history puts Wikipedia to the test. The first entry is as follows:
1184 BC - Trojan War: Troy is sacked and burned, according to calculations by Eratosthenes.

I truly hope that Eratosthenes' calculations were about the exact day of Troy being sacked and burned. Because if he was just calculating whether or not it had indeed been sacked and burned, I lose a lot of respect for those Greek mathematicians. I can just picture this guy in a toga, walking around the only standing column in the whole city for an entire day. He's looking at it, muttering things under his breath, and looking around occasionally at the dying flames and ruins in ashes.

Finally, he turns to a group of other toga-clad people who have been anxiously waiting and he says, "I have come to the conclusion that the city was sacked and burned." The other people blink their eyes a few times, trying to determine if they missed something incredibly profound in that statement. Then they start to look at each other, making sure they're not crazy themselves for thinking, "Man, this Eratosthenes is a complete ninny." Finally one of them spits out sarcastically, "Uh, no duh Sherlock."

So in light of the fact that Wikipedia's sentences cannot be entirely trusted to only have one meaning, and the fact that Wikipedia's articles cannot even be entirely trusted to publish the truth, I have decided to conduct an experiment.

I shall hereby be known as the Ambassador of Awesome.

Don't believe me? Look it up yourself.

Really! Do it! Look up June 10, 1982 in Wikipedia. That was the day I was born. Under the "Births" section, you'll see me listed there as the Ambassador of Awesome.

This test is to see how long this will stay on Wikipedia, not only for all the world to see, but for all the world to believe, because who's going to challenge a Wikipedia article?

This is David M Blackmer, Ambassador of Awesome, signing off.

P.S. I can't believe I actually found a picture of the Ambassador of Awesome's official seal!

Pictures:
Troy
Ambassador of Awesome Seal

Silver Lining

Some might look at today in history and see only the unfortunate events at face value. They would leave that Wikipedia page glumly, feeling a desire to find something happy and kick it.

I, on the other hand, choose to look for the silver lining in each cloud. I figure the stormy clouds have the most silver in their linings because silver's a conductor, right? So lightening and silver would kind of...go together well...or something...right?

June 10, 1962: As mentioned previously, Bridget Bishop is hanged for "certaine Detestable Arts called Witchcraft and Sorceries". And thus the Salem Witch trials begin.
Silver lining: Claes Oldenburg was never hanged despite making some incredibly "Detestable Arts". See example on right of "Soft Toilet".

June 10, 1770: Captain James Cook runs aground on the Great Barrier Reef.
Silver lining: Wikipedia disagrees with itself as to the actual date of this occurrence, so it might not have even happened on this day in history!

June 10, 1793: The Jardin des Plantes museum opens in Paris. Oh great, another museum, just what Paris needs, right?
Silver lining: It became the first public zoo after a year. Funny, I didn't know they had DMV offices back them.

June 10, 1925: The first service of the United Church of Canada is held. This Church is a union of Presbyterian, Methodist, and Congregationalist Churches.
Silver lining: Now you can make up words like "Presby-Method-Ationalist" and "Metho-Byter-Gation". I suppose you could even do "Congreg-Etho-Terian". What's the Cognregationalist Church anyway? Don't you congregate in all Churches? Well, I guess not in the Separate and Lonely faith.

June 10, 1935: Dr. Robert Smith takes his last drink of liquor and founds Alcoholics Anonymous. So, as many have suspected for years, AA was conceived in a drunken stupor.
Silver lining: Come on! It's AA! It's helped a whole bunch of people to get over their addiction! I'm still waiting for a World of Warcraft Anonymous though. It actually wouldn't even have to be anonymous. They could just say, "My name is Hrandor, Prince of the Northern Kingdoms, and I am a Warcra-holic, not to be mispronounced or confused with Workaholic." Other possible names include: Thalen'k the Cave Warrior, Jibjib the Winged Wonder, Garfnox the Elf Slayer, and Jack the Nimble and Quick (he wasn't as inventive as the other guys).

June 10, 1944: Joe Nuxhall of the Cincinnati Reds steps up to the plate to pitch for his first time in the Major Leagues. Unfortunately, he couldn't finish off the inning, yielding five walks, two hits, one wild pitch, and five runs before being relieved. And they were already trailing, 13-0, when he started.
Silver lining: He was freaking 15 years old! And he didn't even have some funky injury heal in a special way to give him superhuman pitching powers!

So as you can see, there is clearly a silver lining to every cloud. The cup is always half full. Except if you're in AA...

Pictures:
Soft Toilet
DMV
World of Warcraft
Rookie of the Year