This commercial for Intermountain Healthcare has been running lately, always gives me a chuckle.
Jul 172016
Jul 162016
This here downright cringeworthy educational film dates from 1967. It is, of all things, a US Navy film on *dating* etiquette. A lot of it is badly dated (“Receiving lines?” Really?), and I bet a lot of it would raise hackles with the SJWs. It assumes distinct male/female roles, which might well irritate the trigglies (but then, what are the chances that a military man is going to date a triggly?), but on the whole it suggests that “consideration” is the thing to keep in mind, to “be a gentleman.”
Silly as the thing is on whole, I do wonder if a modernized version for the general population might be advisable for junior high and high school. It certainly seems like the concepts of consideration and gentlemanliness aren’t as prominent as they once were.
Jul 162016
The Cthulhu Wars: The United States’ Battles Against the Mythos
From the Patriots’ raid on the necromancer Joseph Curwen, to the Special Forces’ assault on Leng in 2007, this unique document reveals the secret and terrible struggle between the United States and the supernatural forces of Cthulhu. In this war, immortal cultists worship other-dimensional entities, and plot to raise an army of the dead. Incomprehensible undersea intelligences infiltrate and colonize American seaports, and alien races lurk beneath the ice of Antarctica and high in the mountains of Afghanistan. It is only through constant vigilance and violence that the earth has survived. Also included are threat reports describing the indescribable– humanity’s deadliest foes serving Cthulhu and the other Great Old Ones. Strange times are upon us, the world is changing, and even death may die– but, until then, the war continues.
I’m curious if if conceit is that the world of the Cthulhu Wars is *this* world, and that they’ve managed to keep it secret from the public all this time. But I have doubts, especially after finding this piece of art (from the illustrators Deviant Art page):
Heh.
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The same publisher also produces “Nazi Moonbase,” which looks equally goofy and entertaining.
Jul 152016
So, Ken Ham’s Biblical theme park “Ark Encounter,” which has cost many millions of dollars to complete (much of it footed by Kentucky taxpayers), recently opened to the public. How’s it going?
Here’s the entryway at 1PM on opening day:
Sometimes things actually give me hope.
Scenes from Ark Encounter’s Opening Day (Inside the Ark)
Some videos at the link. The place seems… I dunno. It’s a big structure, but it seems like a bit of a wasted effort. The “Ark” is supposedly the size of the Ark from Biblical tales; it is full of cages and boxes for all the millions of different species that the ark was supposed to carry, but they all seem to be populated with *statues* of animals rather than the real thing. Machines making animal noises rather than animals making animal noises. Now, if less than a dozen people could take care of the total animal population of the ark, you’d think the army of employees the Ark Encounter surely has would be able to *easily* keep a boat full of critters fed, watered clean.
Overall it seems like a rather barren form of entertainment for a $40 entrance fee. I wonder how long it’ll be before it goes bust, and what it’ll end up as next. I can see Trump buying it and turning it into a casino. It’s big enough, and there are certainly some wide open spaces in it *now* that could be filled with slot machines.
Jul 152016
Because why not, I saw the new “Ghostbusters” today. General impression: I don’t really have one. It was neither good nor especially bad, just… forgettable. Pretty sure I chuckled twice.
Some overly dramatic types have been yapping about how they were thinking, based on the lackluster trailers, that “Ghostbusters” would “ruin their childhood” or some such. Kinda doubt it: in 3 or 4 months, I suspect the new version will be largely forgotten, leaving the original, far superior, “Ghostbusters” to continue to reign supreme in memory.
Because, let’s face it, RoboCop 2014 didn’t ruin RoboCop 1987. The same with Conan the Barbarian. And Total Recall. And Arthur. And Carrie, Clash of the Titans, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Flight of the Phoenix, Footloose, Fright Night, Invaders from Mars, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Karate Kid, The Land that Time Forgot, The Manchurian Candidate, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Oldboy, The Omen, Point Break, Psycho, Planet of the Apes, Poltergeist, The Poseidon Adventure, Red Dawn, Rollerball, The Stepford Wives, Straw Dogs, The Time Machine, The Wicker Man or any other other pile of remakes that made their money (or didn’t) and then largely faded from memory.
Jul 142016
If you’ve been waiting your whole life for a music video that’s about the psychopathic computer in the game “Portal” and which features super slo-mo shots of kids taking delicious chocolate cakes to the face… huzzah! Your wait is over! “Cake Slingshot” has you covered.
This was shot in downtown Provo, Utah. I bet cleanup was a hoot.
BONUS ROUND for the SJWs: Get ready to be triggered by the lack of diversity!
Jul 142016
I think this piece from the Daily Mail (yes, yes, about as reliable as the National Enquirer, or the Bernie Sanders Economic Outlook Quarterly) came out before the attack in Nice today. 2016 may continue to be Damned Interesting from a political viewpoint.
France is ‘on the verge of a civil war’ which could be sparked by a mass sexual assault on women by migrants, intelligence chief warns
Patrick Calvar, head of the General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI) seems to think that things are reaching a boiling point between Muslims and French “right wingers,” and that one or two more good attacks could set off an outright civil war.
There was also this nugget:
Earlier this week a leaked report revealed a staggering 1,200 women were sexually abused in German cities during the New Year’s Eve celebrations.
Yikes. And this:
German Chancellor Angela Merkel was also told by security experts last October that middle class citizens in Germany were becoming ‘radicalised’ because of her open borders migrant policy.
Riling up the Germans? That rarely ends well.
Jul 142016
Jul 142016
News out of France:
Nice, France, truck attack kills 80, Hollande says
In short: someone driving a military-grade high-capacity high-powered assault truck drove through about a *mile* (report also says two kilometers) of a Bastille Day parade in the French city of Nice, killing around 80 and injuring Odin knows how many. The driver is reported to have also fired out of the window, making this less likely that this was just some schmuck who got likkered up and drove like an idiot. The police have apparently shot and killed the driver and have found explosives in the truck.
No motive given yet, but somehow I think I have a sneaking suspicion it just might be one of those Surt worshippers.
Jul 142016
For the past several months Syfy has been in a bit of a programming lull. Prestige shows like “The Expanse” have finished their seasons, and we’re many months from new episodes. Modestly entertaining shows like “Dark Matter” and “Killjoys” have only just started new seasons. Shows like “Footfall: The Series” only exist in alternate universes. So Syfy has had to rely on their tertiary shows to fill the schedule. Of of these has been “Hunters,” a generally “meh” show. Production values are good, acting is… meh. Basic idea is that a few decades ago an alien species crashed to Earth (some trouble on their colony ship, stuck in orbit around Saturn) and assumed human identities; sadly, these aliens are generally kinda dickish, what with slaughtering people and all. So there’s the requisite shadowy government organization tasked with capturing/killing the alien “Hunters.” In the last several episodes it has been clear that the aliens were working on a spaceship of some kind, somewhere off screen.
The show, as I said, is “meh” grade entertainment. Not good enough to watch live, entertaining enough to DVR and watch later, distractedly while preparing supper, working on the computer, cleaning out the litter box, whatever. So finding myself burned out a bit from the current projects I’m plugging away at today, I plopped myself before the idiot box and called up yesterdays episode. Imagine my surprise when *this* is how the show started:
This was followed by clips from relatively well-known (among space nuts, anyway) General Atomic films of tests of subscale Project Orion hardware. Static fiberglass models on up to the “Hot Rod.”
As it turns out, the ship the aliens have been building in the northern Mexican desert is an Orion. The characters describe Project Orion specifically, by name; and while the cataclysmic apocalyptic results of a small Orion launch are overblown, they otherwise don’t *totally* screw up the description.
The design of the ship… well, it’s far from perfect, but it’s actually one of the more clearly-Orion nuclear pulse vessels I’ve seen on scree. Whoever designed it clearly had access to some Orion design info. Perhaps little more than a Google image search might pull up, but still, they did a better job than anyone else can think of offhand. The screenshots below were taken via the expedient of pointing a digital camera at the TV screen.
One of the computer interfaces shown on the ship – everything is in English, which is odd given that the ship was built by and for aliens – gives a few diagrams. Shown here is a schematic of a very recognizable pulse unit.
I was of course looking forward to see how well they showed the vehicle in flight. Sadly, that did not occur.
Interesting timing, given my Space Show interview just two days ago. One of the main subjects I was thinking I would cover on the show was the depiction of Orion/NPP on film and TV, but obviously we got nowhere near that subject. Oh well…