shefsatyr

08:08 pm: torchwood
Finally finished Torchwood, it was a arduous process. Not always enjoyable. But it was interesting at least. Depressing at times and very non american, which some might consider a good thing. I know normally I prefer english comedy shows to american crap. But it's the drama shows that really hit home just how different we are across the pond. I mean in our mentality. I know that Children of Earth would never fly as an american show. The army wouldn't be taking the children to sacrifice to the addicted aliens, or not so easily. Where the english finally started fighting the soldiers (ineffectively I might add) with rocks and fist. The american version would have involved a lot more gunplay and probably a lot less soldiers willing to tote the line. In other words the shit wouldn't fly here. Not saying the American ways is always better than England but we are a few years behind them in the nanny state dept. And though we have plenty of folks that will bend over for our govt. More than I think we should. We still have some semblance of the rebelliousness we have so rightly been attributed with.

I still stand by my earlier observation that the cast from NCIS and the writing from that show would have kicked ass as Torchwood. Of course it wouldn't have taken 5 episodes for Jethro to finished off the bad guys. He'd have probably done it by hour 2 at the latest and without the innocent body count being so high. Other american sci fi captains would have dealt with shit a lot better as well. Picard would have figured the score in less than an hour episode. Malcom Reynolds would have done it in about half an hour leaving the other half hour for witty and fun dialogue.

Maybe that's the greatest injustice of all. Torchwood was 31 episodes give or take. And Firefly was only given 9 total. It just isn't fair.

I know it sounds all ultra negative about this show, it wasn't horrible it was just.. subtley wrong. Though I will give them props for having risky characters. Not like an American drama, sci fi or otherwise would have an openly bi male as the lead character. Kudos I guess. Though really is it the best choice to put out there? I mean you have a attractive male lead, who makes out with other attractive males. Far as I can tell this is not a selling point for women audiences who are doubly deprived of a sex symbol. Men for the most part don't find two men making out appealing unless they are gay as well. And oddly enough gay men and women seem to have the wierdest hangup about bisexuals. I've seen too many of them with the attitude of "Choose one sex or the other" I'm not sure why they get pissy on this point but I've seen it over and over again. So having an openly bi male lead doesn't attract a large demographic of viewers.. mainly other bi men and a few of the more interesting individuals. Vs the larger viewing audience that is unappreciative of this for viewing and the ones in the middle like me that just don't care one way or the other but would probably prefer if it was a chick lead having a bi thing going on.. Cause one thing almost everyone can agree on is two (or more) chicks making out is worth watching no matter what the show is.

11:46 pm: Nature vs Nurture. I've always said it's both  of these factors that make up a person, and not just on or the other. For instance my two boys raised in the same house by the same parents but they are very different creatures. Oddly the almost 3 year old shows more independence and self reliance than my 6 year old.
Cotton sleeps on his own voluntarily, he rarely if ever finds his way into our bed in the middle of the night. The 6 year old would still prefer to be between us at night if he has his way. Or one of the best examples between the two occurred tonight. Woman bought them each a cheap pair of swim goggles, which come in a plastic heat fused package. You know the ones, industrial scissors and a 5 minute fight to get your item free of the plastic prison. Ben comes in and asks ma n law to open it for him, she tells him that it's the hard plastic stuff and she'll need scissors or a knife to even try. Ben then comes upstairs and asks if I'll open it for him, to which reply basically the same thing. I assume he found his mom and asked her. Someone eventually opened it for him. Cotton a minute or so behind him does the same thing, asks ma n law and she says the same thing. Cotton then goes to the kitchen and finds the utility scissors and brings them to her. Problem solved, goggles on. Meanwhile Ben is still asking around for help. sigh. Where did we go wrong here? Not that we did anything really different with them. Ben just is more the "help me" type and Cotton is the "I'll do it" type.
We can't keep Ben in the kitchen long enough to watch how to throw waffles in the toaster. Cotton who is not even 3 yet can basically scramble his own eggs. He knows how to crack em, how to season them to his liking and how long he wants them cooked. He'll plop down on the barstool in front of the stove and do it himself and don't even try to help too much or you'll get scolded. "No I do it". The boy will know how to cook, not only enough to survive but to impress chicks before he's old enough to know about impressing chicks. I'm hoping some of this will rub off on the older one someday.

04:58 pm: torchwood
I've watched the first 5 episodes of Torchwood now. Can't decide if I'm wasting 40 some odd minutes each time or not yet. One thing is for sure. It seems to be a rule in Scifi, probably all genres but I watch more scifi so.. That the team or group has to be completely dysfunctional and without communications skills. Frustrating as hell to watch people be idiots all the time.

An addendum to that.. I had watched only 4, at number 5 I'm completely disillusioned. I'm trying to decide if I'm going to even watch the rest of them at all.
One of the Torchwood staff, hides his cyborg girlfriend in the basement, she was augmented by some evil yada yada and now he's trying to convert her back to human. Hasn't bothered to mention this to his teammates. All in all this causes the deaths of two innocent people and nearly the deaths of the team. Not to mention the possibility of releasing the "borg" on earth. Ok no star treks borg but honestly it's the same concept. So what happens to the guy? Nothing not a damned thing. they briefly angst over whether he'll leave Torchwood or not. WTF? the dude screwed the pooch and killed innocent people. He not only set up the situation for it to happen he tried to cover it up by hiding the first body. What is there to think about. The dude needs to be gone.

I wanna like this show I really do. Maybe just because it's tied in with Dr Who which I used to really like but dammit this is weak. I don't care if it's sci fi let's try to be somewhat realistic. At least when I ranted about Farscape and it's dysfunctional crew I can see that they were tossed to together at random and against their wills. Not excusing them for not throwing Rigel out an airlock at the first betrayal but at least they had a reason for being together like this in the first place. Torchwood is on earth, and even if it's set in Wales they should still be able to get 4 or 5 people together who have a fricking clue.

I'm still watching Torchwoods and still not satisfied with it. I figured out that the guy who was responsible for 2 dying in the episodes from yesterday is sleeping with the boss so that might explain why he kept him around after his little faux paus. I still find it vaguely amusing that the character with the least amount of flaws and that I can actually stand to some degree is the American leader of the group who appearently is bisexual at least, and I'm not putting it past him to have shagged a few aliens so we'll just call him sexually ambiguous or something. Either way he's one of the more enjoyable characters on the show. I'm not to sure I'd have him as a leader even at that, too much seems to get by him. Like homicidal employees or employees who get civilians killed with huge gaping lapses of reasoning.

I also know I wouldn't want to work for the dude. When 2 members of the team get captured by human eating aliens or maybe human eating humans. He doesn't immediately go to the rescue, stating. "They can take care of themselves" which if that were true and they were halfway competent they wouldn't have gotten captured so easy in the first place. It's about this time I was wishing they'd cast the writers and actors of NCIS and put them into the sci fi scenario of Torchwood. Now that I'd watch. Oh come on admit it having Abby doing her thing on alien devices every week would be so much cooler than another DNA database blah blah blah.

01:07 am: yahell
For years I've used Yahoo IM, it is my favorite instant message form to date. A couple of days ago I clicked to sign in and it seemed to be attempting to but never logged me in.  Ok maybe yahoo is having issues. it happens. It went on for a day or so and I figured maybe something on my computer was interfering so I rebooted. Still same issue. Ok fine uninstalled it, went to Yahoo.com and attempted to grab the software for download. Firefox crashes. I go back. Every time I try to download firefox dumps. I'm starting to suspect a conspiracy.
I'm also wondering if it's worth going through all the trouble to figure out what the hell is going on.
I mean I only really talk to a couple of people on it these days. Granted I look forward to some of those conversations but...

Maybe I'll try it again tomorrow using Opera to download the software.

11:12 pm: Life update
I think I'm going to have to figure out how to do that RSS stuff where I can post something on my page and it'll update LJ, Facebook etc with whatever I post. Cause I can't remember to post to every place every time.
But for now, for those of you that read my LJ stuff a little update about life.
Let's see, big story of the month is that Woman got laid off last friday. Basically our main source of income just went poof. If the economy picks up (as if) they want her back, which is nice but since that's unlikely to happen anytime soon we just hope something happens before we miss too many house payments.
Other than that my foot seems to be healing which is good since with the job goes our insurance so it'd better heal up cause I don't have any other options about it.
It's been a couple of days now where I've been able to walk around the house and short distances without the help of a cane or crutch. It's not fast and it's not graceful but it's progress.

Tonight we finally managed to get to one of Bean's art gallery things and see him play a song on the sidewalk.  I think his artwork has just gotten amazing. And if I was impressed by his hanging art I was completely blown away by his calendar doodles. He has the big monthly desktop calendars and he's been doodling on them for years. In color. It's honestly just awe inspiring to see the art he does just sitting at his desk. On one date he has written "Heavy Trash" and the next little box is a work of art. I told him if he scans those in as prints and puts em out as a book I bet they'd sale. Hell I'd love to have a coffee table book of just that.
If you live in Houston and like art I'd suggest checking out one of his gallery things. Great art, and he sits down and plays some music, which is about as close as we can get to a full on Beans Barton show these days.

08:00 am: A month update
Just noticed I hadn't posted in a month, so... Yesterday were two firsts for me, or at least firsts for the last 9 months. I wore shoes, specifically the same boots I was wearing when I was in the accident. They still fit and were fairly comfy all things considered. The other was a bit more scary. I'm up in the photo pit at Hank III taking pics and the foot is unhappy and stiff as usual when I'm spending a lot of time on it. I was leaning forward to take a shot and the ankle popped. Scared the hell out of me. I mean the last time that thing popped it was being dislocated and breaking. However, and I'm not going to TRY to repeat it, my foot ached a little less as I leaned forward after that.

As for the Hank III show, wow that was great. He packed the place with more rednecks and metal fans and just pure hillbilly, rockabilly and every kind of billy you can imagine. Which actually was not a bad thing. They were having a good time and not starting trouble or anything like that. I highly recommend catching him live if you like outlaw country and not that crap that Nashville calls country these days, or Hellbilly music and full on thrash metal. He plays all 3 types in an evening. Pretty amazing to watch the band transform as the night goes on.

10:28 pm: Homemade Pierogis
As many of you know I'm my own worst critic when it comes to my cooking. I'll often grumble bitch moan about something I've made that isn't up to what I think it should be. Everyone else is happily eating it, which may just be the fact that they are hungry and didn't have to cook it so it's just fine by them. Either way I'm usually pretty harsh on myself. But sometimes, sometimes I just get it right, and even I can't fault a dish. Tonight was that moment. Woman had bought me some Organic white flour from Central Market and I made the dough I'd settled on last week, the one with sour cream as the main liquid. The dough was tasty and perfect. Then I made the stuffings, one was potato and sharp chedder cheese. Which I also cooked up some onion in butter till golden and added in the mix. Sharp cheddar was a good call. Next I made the Sauerkraut filling, Boars Head Kraut, again I saute'ed up some onions in butter but then I added the Kraut and cooked another 5 minutes. Lastly we still had some dough left over and  we took the italian sausage from last night's french bread pizza's we'd made and the mozzerrella and used just that as the filling. The thought was that if it worked we'd use the pizza sause or spaghetti sauce as a dipping sauce for them. We didn't get to try the sauce part out as we ate the pierogis to quick.
Each of the pierogis we made today was better than the last one, I mean my god they were good. The pizza pierogi really surprised me how good it was. But the kraut one was my favorite I could eat a couple of dozen of these no problem.
We have a winner recipe now I think, and even though they are a work intensive dish I think they will be seeing a lot more plate time around here.  Some days I can look at my plate and say Damn I'm good.

05:00 pm: Battered and damaged but better now.
When I got hit by the car last year my damage, dents, scratches, breaks was well documented. My bike took little to no damage so nothing to write about there. My jacket, clothes and phone were pretty much a loss. However my watch is a whole other story. This is that story.
Yes I still wear a watch, no I don't have a regular job I rarely need to know what time it is and yes my phone could tell me the time if I wanted to pull it out of my pocket. That's not the point. I just like having a watch, and if I'm riding the bike I can glance at my wrist but I can't take my phone out at 80 mph, or even 20 mph. A few years ago I got this Seiko Kinetic Titanium watch on what turns out to be a really good sale. I paid around a hundred buck. I checked around a lot after the accident for a replacement and the prices were more than double that for on a good sale for half the watch.
I was wearing it of course when we hit the freeway, we both took some impact damage and got scraped up as we rolled down the lane. I shattered my foot, the watch shattered it's glass and did a lot of internal damage that eventually a couple of hours later as we both lay on the emergency room bed thing it stopped altogether. I made it through my surgery to fix some of my internal damage a few hours later.
After I got home I looked over the watch pretty well and gave it some thought on what to do about it. I almost bought a new watch several times over the next few months but I never took the plunge, nothing was appealing to me over what I had, had. Eventually I sent it in to Seiko just to see how much it'd cost for it's surgery. The price was steep, as much as I had paid for it in the first place. I found new watches online the same make and model and even though they were now discontinued there were some out there, for around $400.00 bucks. Still the more I thought about it the more I thought this watch has history, we both were in a wreck we both got broken and we both are going to be scarred forever. We are both old and battered but we are still ticking. I said fix him. Today I got him back from Seiko. What a match we are.

My only regret in having him fixed is not having them fix it's one original shortcoming. The hands don't glow in the dark. I should have had them put hands on that would. I asked and it'd been about 30 bucks more and they were backordered so no idea how much longer it'd take. Still I should have done it.

08:34 pm: Pierogis
Last week in Costco I spotted some pierogis on the pasta isle. Normally all you can ever find anywhere in this part of the country is Mrs T's Pierogis. (I think it's Mrs Ts something like that at least), but this was a non frozen package of Kasia's Potato and Cheese Pierogis. I had to try em.  Oh my, oh my oh my, easily the best store bought pierogis I've ever had. For those of you who are not sure what I'm talking about, pierogis are a polish pasta type thing that is like a dumpling stuffed with potato, cheese or maybe sauerkraut, meat, etc. Usually you find potato and cheese or potato and onion as the filling in store bought stuff.
I happen to like em a lot, and the Kasia ones really had me happily standing in the kitchen slow cooking them in butter and onions, till golden brown. Exquisite! I went back to Costco for more as soon as we could and damned if they weren't out, the whole pasta isle was anemic with product so we are hoping that it was just waiting for the truck or something to restock and that they will carry the brand regularly.
Having been blocked from getting my pierogi fix though I thought about actually making some from scratch. I've never really comptemplated doing it before since I figure it'd be a pain in the ass. But I was jonesing. So I set out to make some. First batch we did was too much dough flavor and boring dough at that. The potato and cheese filling was decent enough but nothing to write home about.  I did however have half the filling left over from the first attempt, I decided tonight to try another dough. This time I made the dough with sour cream as the liquid and 3 eggs to the 3 cups of flour. That seemed to give it the flavor I was looking for. Next I rolled out the dough thinner than before, maybe a 1/16 of an inch.  I used the old filling I had left over and boiled the pierogies for a bit then I pan fried em. Much much better. Not as good as the Kasia's yet but definately on the right track. I think next time I'm going to use a sharp chedder to give it some more flavor and probably some carmelized onions in the mix as well.
I'll still buy the Kasia's anytime I see em but at least now I know I can make some in a pinch if I have to.

11:14 am: Speaking of Rollerball
Oh man if I had the money, I found a 1975 Honda cb 125 motorcycle for sale on Ebay. That bike I'd actually learn how to be "innovative" for. I have a project in mind for this very bike. Only this year and only this bike will do. And here someone posts a running one for 250 bucks. Sure I'd have to go to Illinois for it but.. it'd be worth it.

Why this bike? What's so special about that year and model? Glad you asked. In 1975 Norm Jewison made a movie about a dystopian future where there was only one sport, a sport that replaced war and all other sports. It was a great social commentary but at the same time the movie did what no other movie ever has done. Created a fake sport that is in fact quite entertaining and valid as a sport. So good was this fake sport that the actors and stunt men played it between takes and during time off. This movie was called Rollerball. And in this movie they used this particular bike. I want to deck out one of these bikes with the same armor etc and have it look just like the movie version. Now that is something I'd ride in an art car parade.

09:20 am: death race
I watched Death Race last night. I had no idea how closely it was tied to one of my favorite movies Death Race 2000. But right from the opening scene with the mask, Machine Gun Joe calling the other racer "Franky" I was going wow this is a serious homage to that 70's camp classic They even used Carradine's voice. Then the opening credits.. Roger Corman. The dude who made Death Race 2000. Ok this is a more serious big budget modern remake of another 70's scifi classic.  While it wasn't as bad as the Rollerball remake it was still not as good or innovative as the 70's original. Oddly enough both remakes recast the supporting actors with black actors or rather rappers/models turned actors, I guess to appeal to the modern demographic.

The should have at least had Stallone do a cameo.

I did miss the politically incorrectness of the original flick though, the scoring points for hitting pedestrians probably would have been too much for today's whiny nannies.

As the cars roar into Pennsylvania, the cradle of liberty, it seems apparent that our citizens are staying off the streets, which may make scoring particularly difficult, even with this year's rule changes. To recap those revisions: women are still worth 10 points more than men in all age brackets, but teenagers now rack up 40 points, and toddlers under 12 now rate a big 70 points. The big score: anyone, any sex, over 75 years old has been upped to 100 points.

11:35 pm: Shot some concerts recently
I drug my ass out and actually shot a show last weekend, god I miss doing this all the time. The Meridian is still holding in there although several familiar faces have moved over to House of Blues. That part is depressing to me, but what can you do right?
So the main band of the evening is Combichrist which I saw opening for KMFDM I think it was, over a year ago. I liked em or at least the look of the band. Fun to shoot hard to get a good pic thanks to the many strobes going off. Either way I wanted to catch em again, plus even though it was a challenge to shoot they are really cool about pics, shoot as long as you want and use a flash if you want.

I got there early enough to catch some drummer guy out of Austin, didn't hear his name but it was pretty cool the couple of songs I saw.
Next up though was a band I tried to hate. Retard-O-Bots, Foul mouthed industrial something I don't know. The singer looked like a Kaja goo goo reject or Howard Jones on speed and ritalin at the same time. Turned out he was pretty cool when I talked him later. The keyboardist/bassist though was .. a mouth breather.  If you don't know what a mouth breather is.. well you just may be.. uhm.. so anyway I tried to hate these guys but they were fun to shoot even if the lighting sucked. Ok it's obvious you aren't going to go look up mouth breathers, so let me put it this way, if Wallace Shawn and Pugsley Adams had a love child, he just might grow up to be in a band called Retard 0 Bots. Now where was I? Oh yeah, like a train wreck though I had to watch em and I started to actually kind of like them, almost like a Industrial version of the Bloodhound Gang.

http://satyrgraphs.com/concerts/RetardOBots/content/20090118-IMG_5342_large.html

After that I almost thought of calling it a night, it ain't easy doing a concert shoot with a camera and a crutch and my foot was pretty bitchy by that point. Still I hung in there for the last two bands. Next was Black Light Burns, which par for the course I'd never heard of either. But it turns out they weren't half bad and it's led by the guy who used to play guitar for Limp Bizkit, you know the only guy in the band who actually had talent and when he left the band sort of just faded away. This is his new project that appearently they couldn't find a singer for so he stepped in and did it, setting down the guitar in the process. By this point of the show I was really longing for some decent lighting but I have given up on Meridian ever bothering to light the damned stage 4 years in and it's still not even an afterthought.

http://satyrgraphs.com/concerts/Blacklightburns/content/20090118-IMG_5397_large.html

Next Up Combichrist, just as hard to shoot as I thought it would be. Bah who cares though I made a shoot and that is something I can count on one hand how many times I've gotten to do in the last 7 months.
Come to think of it I did two things I hadn't done in a long time that day. I rode the Silverwing that I was on when I got hit by the car. Not far just to drop Ben off at school but I rode on two wheels, which showed me two things. I can still do it and I can't do it yet. Well I can but my foot did not want to hold me and the bike up easily. I still have a long way to go towards healing.

10:25 pm: micro update
A couple of years ago I bought a nice Logitech wireless mouse and keyboard. In the past my mouse and keyboard usually die due to the cords going bad. Despite that I was hesitant to buy into what must surely be a battery sink, however the battery issue never materialized. In fact the batteries last a long time despite the almost constant use they get. The problem it seems is that without a cord to wear out the devices were left to wear out something else, in my case the left mouse button has almost no play in it anymore and the delete, shift and maybe another key or two are starting to not respond. Not sticking just not registering the first hit or two. For the first time I've worn out my keys and buttons, which really sucks since Amazon wants 62.99 for my keyboard. Locally they want 70 something. I'd go for a cheaper model but I have certain needs and standards when it comes to the mouse. I need a good DPI for doing some of the photoshop work I have to do but more importantly the mouse must be comfortable in my left hand. So only an ambidextrous mouse will do. Not a left handed mouse since I've long since learned to use the mouse in left hand but not to reverse the buttons. 
The keyboard also must be able to fit comfortably in my lap, which is the only way I know how to type anymore so none of those microsoft curved ergonomic P.O.S.es. I like a longer key action but that's really hard to find in sub 100 dollar keyboards, so I live with crappy keys.
I have the Logitech LX730 now, and I'm looking at the LX530 since it's 20 bucks cheaper. Can't find any hard data online on what's the difference between these two models. A slightly different look but nothing that explains the price difference.
Damn I hate looking for keyboards and mice, especially when the next minor computer purchase should have been another much needed hard drive.

11:13 pm: Screwed 16 ways it seems.
I went to see the doctor today. He walks in looks at my foot puts his hands on/around the foot and looks at me and says "do you want to walk again" Right then for some reason a vision of some evangelist faith healer went through my head. He coulda then gone on to say "Be Healed" and the moment would have been complete. Instead he said ok let's get some x-rays and make sure.

So basically a month earlier than expected I've been promoted to "weight bearing" and cleared to walk. Now saying I can walk and actually doing will likely prove to be very different beasts. Still it's good to feel like I'm making progress. Soon the moment of truth will come along and we find out if all this was worth it and whether I can walk pain free or really at all effectively. For the moment I'm not pushing it to hard to find out. One small step at a time, and a lot of stretching, elevation, ice, and anti-inflamitories

Oh and I counted the pins and screws and I have 16 screws and 4 plates in the foot. Looks like they shoved a nike tennis shoe in there sideways and laced it up. ok that was what it looked like when I saw the x-ray.  Speaking of which I got copies of today's x-rays. I've still gotta get the early one where we have crushed bones etc but at least I remembered to get these.

11:35 pm: Lost in 2008
Patrick Mcgoohan and Ricardo Mantalban dying this week made me think man how many people who've had a memorable part of scifi have seemed to die recently. I got to thinking last year really sucked for how many famous people died or at least ones that I had more than a passing interest in.
Also a lot of people associated with Star Trek died last year it seems

Vampira (TV icon) -- Dead. Cardiac arrest. Died January 10, 2008. Born December 21, 1921. Obscure actress wanna-be who turned a Halloween costume into a brief TV career as a movie host, real name: Maila Syrjaniemi. Make memorial contributions to

Heath Ledger (actor) -- Dead. Accidental drug overdose. Died January 22, 2008. Born April 4, 1979. Astonishing in Brokeback Mountain, died before The Dark Knight was released and while The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus was being filmed. 

Barry Morse (actor) -- Dead. Died February 2, 2008. Born June 10, 1918. Actor with a long and varied career, including The Fugitive and Space: 1999. 

Roy Scheider (actor) -- Dead. Multiple myeloma/staph infection. Died February 10, 2008. Born November 10, 1932. The French Connection, Jaws, All That Jazz, 2010

 

William F. Buckley, Jr. (writer) -- Dead. Emphysema. Died February 27, 2008. Born November 24, 1925. Conservative commentator and publisher of the National Review, wrote God and Man at Yale just after his college graduation.

Gary Gygax (author/game creator) -- Dead. Abdominal aortic aneurysm. Died March 4, 2008. Born July 27, 1938. Co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons and writer of many game-related books. 

Sir Arthur C. Clarke (author) -- Dead. Respiratory problems. Died March 19, 2008. Born December 16, 1917.

Charlton Heston (Actor/NRA activist) -- Dead. Alzheimer's. Died April 5, 2008. Born October 4, 1923.

John Berkey (artist) -- Dead. Died April 29, 2008. Born circa 1932. A science fiction artist who did some pre-production Star Wars illustration, he designed the famous "Old Elvis" stamp proposal and one of the better-known portraits of President Lyndon Johnson

Alexander Courage (composer) -- Dead. Stroke. Died May 15, 2008. Born December 10, 1919. Most known for the distinctive Star Trek original theme, did orchestrations for many TV shows and movies. 

Joseph Pevney (director) -- Dead. Died May 18, 2008. Born September 15, 1911. TV director, mostly known for Star Trek episodes like "The City on the Edge of Forever" and "Devil in the Dark."

Robert Lynn Asprin (humorous fantacist) -- Dead. Heart attack. Died May 22, 2008. Born June 28, 1946.

Dick Martin (director/comedian) -- Dead. Respiratory failure. Died May 24, 2008. Born January 30, 1922. Long time professional partner of Dan Rowan, co-host of Laugh-In, later directed shows like The Bob Newhart Show and Family Ties. 

Robert Justman (producer) -- Dead. Parkinson's disease. Died May 28, 2008. Born July 13, 1926. Producer of various Star Trek shows, Superman, and directed some episodes of The Outer Limits. 

Harvey Korman (comedian) -- Dead. Died May 29, 2008. Born February 15, 1927. The Carol Burnett Show, Blazing Saddles.

Bo Diddley (guitarist) -- Dead. Heart failure. Died June 2, 2008. Born December 30, 1928. "I Am a Man", professional musician for over 50 years. 

George Carlin (comedian) -- Dead. Heart attack. Died June 22, 2008. Born May 12, 1937. These days, you can say those seven words on cable television, a number of books including When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?, never lost his passion for political humor.

Don S. Davis (actor) -- Dead. Heart attack. Died June 29, 2008. Born August 4, 1942. Stargate's Major General Hammond.

Pauline Baynes (illustrator) -- Dead. Died August 1, 2008. Born September 9, 1922. Primary illustrator of the first editions of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis and Richard Adams. 

Isaac Hayes (actor, songwriter) -- Dead. Stroke. Died August 10, 2008. Born August 20, 1942. Wrote the theme for Shaft, "reborn" as Chef on South Park.

Don LaFontaine (Voice-over actor) -- Dead. Collapsed lung. Died September 1, 2008. Born August 26, 1940. Did the voice-over for over a thousand movie trailiers (often leading off with "In a world..."),

Gregory Mcdonald (writer) -- Dead. Cancer. Died September 7, 2008. Born February 15, 1937. The Fletch series, former newspaper reporter. 

Paul Newman (philanthropist/actor/race car driver) -- Dead. Lung cancer. Died September 26, 2008. Born January 26, 1925. Versatile actor married to Joanne Woodward. 

Michael Crichton (writer) -- Dead. Cancer. Died November 4, 2008. Born October 23, 1942. Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park, created the popular TV series ER.

Forrest J Ackerman (magazine editor, invented the term "sci-fi") -- Dead. [rumors] Heart failure. Died December 4, 2008. Born November 24, 1916. Accumulated a massive SF/movie collection, but later had to move to smaller quarters and sold most of it off, edited Forrest J Ackerman's World of Science Fiction. 

Bettie Page (pin-up model) -- Dead. Heart attack following pneumonia. Died December 11, 2008. Born April 22, 1923. Popular '50s pin-up model, an early Playboy centerfold, had a cult following that spawned multiple biographies of her during the '80s.

Majel Barrett Roddenberry (actress/voice) -- Dead. Leukemia. Died December 18, 2008. Born February 23, 1936. The only actor to be involved in every incarnation of Star Trek, from the original pilot in 1965 to the 2009 "early days" movie.  

Edd Cartier (artist) -- Dead. Died December 25, 2008. Born 1914. Starting selling art to science fiction magazines in 1936.

Leo Frankowski (writer) -- Dead. Died December 25, 2008. Born February 13, 1943. Military SF writer, known mostly for books about "Conrad Stargard."
Eartha Kitt Dead. Colon cancer Died December 25, 2008. Born January 17, 1927. Mrrrrrrow! - the second Catwoman on Batman, popularized "Santa Baby".

01:36 pm: wrong but fun
http://www.todaysbigthing.com/2008/12/31

08:37 pm: Beans tonight
Anybody set up to be able to record them playing on KPFT tonight?
If not I'll have to scramble to figure out a way to tape it from the web or air. 

06:23 pm: I'm a sucker for these things

Your Word is "Why"

You see life as complicated and intriguing. The only thing you know for sure is that you haven't figured it all out yet. You question everything and believe very little. And whatever you believe is likely to change. You are interested in theories, philosophies, and religions... even if you don't buy into any of them. You are also fascinated by how things work. You'd like to understand as much in the world as possible.

01:43 am: nuh nuh nuh nineteen nuh nuh nuh nineteen.
Nineteen years ago we had a very serious decision to make... To go to lunch or drop by the J.O.P. and win a shotgun from a bet I'd made with a friend of mine. I consulted my best friend and she said we could get lunch later but why toss away a perfectly good shotgun bet. She was right of course, so we made a last minute decision and headed out the door to get married. I don't think either of us thought it was that big a deal at the time, or maybe we did. I don't know it was a long time ago. All I know for sure is I still have the wife and the shotgun. And it remains the best bet I ever made. I so won big time! So happy anniversary Woman!


ps if you know what I'm quoting in the subject line then you are as old as me.

10:53 pm: Man 86 sucked for music or at least "pop" music
I read this idea on chvytrk's LJ and figured why not. Didn't really realize just how bad that year was for music. Or at least music that got played on TV or MTV. The stuff I listened to was awesome but it certainly didn't get on the radio.

Go to musicoutfitters.com

Enter the year you graduated from (high) school in the search function and get the list of the 100 most popular songs that year.

Bold the songs you like, strike through the ones you don't and underline your favorite. Do nothing to the ones you don't remember (or don't care about).


I did it, about 5 to 7 good songs about 70 I hated and the rest indifferent.
Peter Gabrial's Sledghammer kinda had a tie with Genesis that year for best song.