Monday, August 28, 2006
Monday Meandering
- Bless The Vine And Branches
I think I might have mentioned before that my back surgeon is also the owner of a regional vineyard. I'm not sure, but I think I mentioned that. I am sure that I've mentioned that he looks like George C. Scott, which I think is completely awesome. Well, today the area newspaper ran a story about him having had his vineyard blessed. I thought that was pretty awesome, too. - Snake's On A Plane!
So what do snakes do once they get on a plane? Apparently, they flop. The Mark Wahlberg true-life sports flick Invincible debuted at number one this weekend. It easily……knocked Snakes on a Plane far off its perch. How far? A stunning first-to-ninth drop, down 58% to only 5.9 million and a dismal $1,648 per screen, horrible for a second week. The highly buzzed Samuel L. Jackson flick has only claimed $26 million to date and doesn't look like it will be able to fly significantly higher than a disappointing $30 million.
Hey, this is no surprise to me. I always thought that Snake's On A Plane was a flimsy premise for a film. Disco Stu's On A Plane would have gone over much better.
- Same Burr, New Burgh
Actually, it's the same burr in no Burgh at all. Pastor Scott of The Burr In The Burgh has officially moved from Pittsburgh to Fort Wayne and he's considering suggestions for a new name for his blog. Stop by and see what you can come up with. You're bound to come up with a better suggestion than mine. - A Religion Of Peace? Bull.
In 2004, Iran executed a 16 year old girl for crimes against chastity. The Iranian government has been covering up this heinous state-sponsored crime ever since. However, a few brave souls who are familiar with the incident have started speaking out about it. If you have time, watch this documentary about Atefah Sahaaleh, a young girl who had her whole life ahead of her until she fell victim to the theocracy of Iran.
And, by the way, the next time I hear some loud-mouth liberal hippie wack-job talk about how America has become a theocracy because Dubya is a born-again Christian, it's going to be a real struggle for me not to punch said moron in the teeth. If these people were really concerned about stamping out brutal theocracies, they'd campaign for war against Iran around the clock. - Oh, So Now Reality TV Is Bad?
MCF mentioned in today's Phantasmic Links that the new season of Survivor is all about racial profiling. From what I've read, a number of people think this is in (gasp!) bad taste.CBS announced Wednesday that Survivor: Cook Islands (Sept. 14, 8 ET/PT) will start off with a controversial bang: 20 contestants will be divided into teams by race, pitting whites, blacks, Hispanics and Asians against each other…
"We have more than enough polarization in the country right now," says Jacques DeGraff, former board member of economic empowerment group 100 Black Men and reverend at Canaan Baptist Church in New York. "To promote this even as a game or sport is to encourage a dark side in our American psyche…
Oh, yeah… and up until now, Survivor has done so much to encourage and advance the best elements of our nature. Right.
Look, "reality TV" should be more properly known as "unscripted smut TV." It's dumb, it's made by dumb people, about dumb people, and it's purpose is to make us dumber. So it is, so it's always been. But now we're supposed to think that it's unacceptable because it's exploiting people based on race? I suppose it was acceptable when it was just exploiting people based on sex, greed, scandal, vanity and voyeurism?Jen Chau, co-founder of New Demographic, an anti-racism training company (says) "If the producers are splitting the contestants up by race, it's clear they want to show racial tensions, and they want the usual competitive trash-talking to devolve into racial slurs… I don't buy that they are merely trying to do the right thing by presenting a more diverse cast."
The producers of a reality TV show aren't doing the right thing? Say it ain't so! - A Meeting Of Amazing Minds
Kim Peek is possibly the world's most famous savant. The inspiration for the movie Rainman, Kim is a friendly, fascinating man with amazing abilities. If you tell him your birth date, he can tell you immediately what day of the week you were born on and what day of the week your birthday will be on this year. Mention your home town and Kim can tell you the zip code, area code, major highways and local radio stations. He's read and memorized the information in some 12,000 books. It takes him about ten seconds to read a page of text. Kim has trouble with the minutia of day-to-day life… but he absorbs, retains and references data like a super computer.
Daniel Tammet was born in 1979 in England. Like Kim, Daniel has an amazing ability to retain and recall data. Daniel's ability to function socially is somewhat more refined than Kim's, but his memory is equally astounding. Daniel can remember and recite Pi to the 22,514th digit in about five hours. He's fluent in English, French, Finnish, German, Spanish, Lithuanian, Estonian, Icelandic, and Esperanto. It takes him about a week to learn a new language.
Here, the meet for the first time:
Permalink -- Posted by Darrell at 18:54 
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Your meandering is the stuff of other people's serious research. I loved the meeting of the two fantastic minds.
i enjoyed reading your survivor/reality tv thoughts...
you know, you're probably onto something.
--RC of strangeculture.blogspot.com
you know, you're probably onto something.
--RC of strangeculture.blogspot.com
That video clip was great!
BTW, you were mislead by my post's warning today. No animals were harmed in the making of or plot of Prison Break, at least the episode in question. It was about a vet and a convict and I used it as a segue for me to tell a story of animal suffering you probably wouldn't want to read.
Prison Break on the other hand is an awesome show, and so far even better now that they're on the run this season. It's like the Fugitive, and they brought in William Fichtner as this FBI guy figuring out their every move. Awesome new character.
BTW, you were mislead by my post's warning today. No animals were harmed in the making of or plot of Prison Break, at least the episode in question. It was about a vet and a convict and I used it as a segue for me to tell a story of animal suffering you probably wouldn't want to read.
Prison Break on the other hand is an awesome show, and so far even better now that they're on the run this season. It's like the Fugitive, and they brought in William Fichtner as this FBI guy figuring out their every move. Awesome new character.
I like the genre's euphemistic name...reality shows... as though there was any reality in them at all. Sheesh.
As far as Iran goes, this country needs stopping before they get nukes. It doesn't get any plainer than that.
As far as Iran goes, this country needs stopping before they get nukes. It doesn't get any plainer than that.
‘Makind cannot bear too much reality’ wrote Eliot. So I don’t believe that Kim Peek or Daniel and other savants have the ability to remember everything. Because, I believe there is such a thing as the sub-conscious mind. The only examples from Peek I have seen are his recollection of the date of Queen Victoria’s ascension to the throne of England and his working out how old Churchill would’ve been if he were still living – Not something that one would expect someone not to know, especially someone with a little education, let alone someone who has spent their entire life studying subjects of historical interest.
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