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| Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 |
rstevens
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1:45p |
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mister_neil
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12:02p |
Kent Hovind's Dissertation free for download
As reported on Pharyngula, the Patriot University (PU for short) dissertation of Kent "The Yellow Dart" Hovind has finally graced the internet in all of it's barely literate glory. Marvel at his use of filler and run-on sentences. Laugh that any so-called "university" would actually accept a paper like this. I would love to see an actual English professor grade this paper on grammar alone. Do enjoy: LINK |
rstevens
|
11:29a |
i'm dreaming of a white powder
I got my wish granted this morning. Just enough snow to trigger my sleep-a-little-longer gland because I finally caught up on work last night. This is from just before the sun came up.  Now to the office cave! Blizzards lead people to do a lot of online t-shirt and sock shopping and I've got a mailman to wrestle. |
aberranteyes
|
7:42a |
Happy birthday, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) badmagic! Current Mood:  chummyCurrent Music: Garbage, "#1 Crush" |
| Tuesday, December 8th, 2009 |
dr_hermes
|
10:35p |
Surprise Package
Once again, I should mention that the picture behind the cut could be something charming and amusing or something to make you wake up in a cold sweat. Only one way to tell. ( ? ) |
dr_hermes
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10:04p |
Radio's Merry Mimic
Here's a tidbit from a 1945 issue of RADIO TIMES. Petula Clark would have been thirteen or so, and was a huge star in the UK (the "British Shirley Temple"). We in the States basically know her from a string of pleasant pop songs beginning in 1965 with "Downtown.* But her career has gone on and on for hundreds of years. Well, decades actually. In addition to her albums, she has been in thirty-odd movies, the only one which I recall seeing being FINNIAN'S RAINBOW. As a kid, I found an old LP in a flea market in which Petula sang the original slower-tempo version of "I Will Follow Him" (a huge bombastic hit by Little Peggy March and more recently resurrected in the movie SISTER ACT) and was unsettled by the variation.  _______________ *Incredibly esoteric trivia. In one of the Modesty Blaise novels, Willie Garvin says he likes "Downtown" and wanted to listen to it on the radio but got interrupted. |
dr_hermes
|
8:18p |
Be sure you're in the right bleachers
 Hah, this is a gem. STAG started out as a general-purpose male-oriented magazine with a lot of informative articles, humor, sports, pin-up girls etc. This issue is from December 1949, before the big boom in men's magazines. Quickly enough, it morphed into one of the dozens of mags with covers showing guys wrestling jaguars, getting whipped by Nazi warrior women, sitting in a life raft with a shark checking them out, running through a village of Jivaro headhunters, that sort of thing. Then, toward the end, it became loaded with photos of naked women as a sort of El Cheapo PLAYBOY. But this early phase at least had a sense of whimsy. |
dr_hermes
|
6:04p |
Earl just stepped in the spittoon
This is a saloon back in 1914. Guys were better dressed in a lot of ways, you don't see sweat shirts or jeans or sneakers or baseball hats on backwards here. The fellow third from the right reminds of Chico Marx, and the man second from the left evidently is Jay Garrick, the Flash, vibrating to keep his features from being recognizable. None of them seem delighted at having their picture taken.. maybe it cut into valuable drinking time, or maybe one or two realized he had told his wife he was going for a haircut. The balding chap behind the bar seems ready for the National Anthem to start.  The elegant touch on the floor by the bar rail are the spittoons. These were mostly for tobacco chewers (very popular back then), but were useful for any sort of hawking. If you had a bad cold or even TB, no need to stay home.. just be careful with your aim. I can't remember the last time I saw one of these charming devices in a public place. Perhaps they vanished about the same time that cigarette machines did, still hanging on here and there in tiny numbers. |
kajafoglio
|
1:20p |
Working in the Studio
What I'm doing: fooling around with social networking sites. (I made a "Kaja & Phil Foglio" fan page on Facebook!) What I SHOULD be doing: lettering tonight's page, which I should have done ages ago. (It's not like I don't know what it says...) What Phil is doing: drawing something that he thinks is funny. What Phil SHOULD be doing: finishing the cover art for Volume 9 so I can send the info to Diamond. Current Mood:  busy |
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someposifeed
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6:48p |
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qcjeph
|
12:28p |
Weird Methods
This song started out as a potential Deathmøle riff and quickly morphed into...something else. Sort of Fuck Buttons meets Dan Deacon meets dub techno I guess? I don't think I've ever had this many MIDI tracks running at one time before. Your average Deathmøle song has three, maybe four tops.  Anyway here's the song, hopefully you will like it: Weird Methods (tumescent elephant mix) |
aberranteyes
|
7:34a |
Happy birthday, AA and Gil! Current Mood: fannishCurrent Music: Garbage, "Milk" |
| Monday, December 7th, 2009 |
dr_hermes
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10:58p |
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dr_hermes
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10:44p |
Today's mystery guest
Whuh...? Why is this man dressed like Her Royal Highness? Or is it something we're better off not asking?  |
dr_hermes
|
10:21p |
BLACK WINGS HAS MY ANGEL... some cover
What exactly is she saying?  "Gee, those cops sure are noisy when you wing 'em." "This is probably a bad time to tell you about my husband." "Shhh. I can see the crowd, we'll get into that Tori Amos concert yet." "Stop kissing my hand, this is serious." |
fragilegravity
[ kittykatya ]
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9:12p |
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mister_neil
|
5:50p |
Sleep boogers
Man, I got really sick around Thanksgiving. I don't know if it was the flu or not, but it was a pretty bad respiratory infection. I didn't have any aches or fever. I just coughed a lot and expelled volumes of phlegm. The next time I come down with an illness, I'm going to forensically deduce which of my sister's kids gave it to me and then use my eye lasers to destroy them. Spent a lot of time in bed over the last week. Incredibly, my eyes seemed to expel a lot of crap. I don't know if it was just from getting too much sleep or perhaps being a little dehydrated. I was just digging what felt like sand out of the corners of my eyes every morning...after hocking several loogies out the window, mind you. Over the course of a week, I managed to polish off a bottle of Robitussin, down half a bottle of Chloraseptic, and nearly devour an entire bag of Ricola like it was candy. And I'm not sure any of it was particularly effective. While spending time in bed, I got to see a lot of my crime investigation programs like City Confidential, American Justice, Cold Case Files, Forensic Files, etc. I could watch those all day, every day. I also made the trek over to my sister's house for a couple days, since she's home all day. I could have someone to talk to. I got to sleep on her awesomely comfortable couch, but I was also at the mercy of her TV choices. We watched The View, which is SOOOOO STUPID. We also saw some show called Real Housewives or something like that, where I was subjected to some awful rave song called "Don't Be Tardy For The Party". If you don't want that stuck in your head for weeks on end, I suggest that you DON'T watch that on YouTube. You've been warned. As of today, I'm still recovering, but I'm doing a lot better. Might be another day or so before I'm back to peak condition. Just as long as I don't hear any more Kim Zolciak songs. I'm likely to relapse if that happens. |
dr_hermes
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5:44p |
Why is that detective so obsessed with hair oil?
A breezy caper with Dashiell Hammett's famous creation. This is from THE MARVEL FAMILY# 35, May 1949.   Wow, talk about a one-track conversationalist. He should get together with Erin Esurance and they can drive each other crazy. |
dr_hermes
|
4:04p |
Christmas with Hangman
Anyone who has been visiting Retro-Scans a few times must realize that my sense of humor is well, a bit off. So it's no wonder I found the Christmas Hangman Skeleton amusing. http://www.dedge.com/christmas2/Evidently, this was first started as a Halloween Hangman online game. Fair enough, I enjoy an online Hangman game now and then. But the bare minimum embellishments made to give this a rudimentary holiday feel are whack. The unflattering remarks from the skeleton add to the atmosphere. There's also the Rob Zombie Halloween Hangman http://ume.f2m2.com/robzombie/where old Rob dangles an anxious victim over an open grave as the game proceeds. This would be easier to play if I knew any Rob Zombie songs, but life is rough.  |
itlandm
|
4:48p |
Phone crash
The Googlephone hung when I tried to turn it off today. Half an hour later it was still not off, and uncomfortably hot. So I took out the batteries and put them back in. That worked, but of course now it asks for the SIM PIN, and I don't go around remembering that. (This is after all the third time I need it, the first time being when it was new and the second when I upgraded to a new version of Android.) Without my mobile phone/ GPS / internet connection I am not going to the Mothhouse today. I hate living in the past. |
aberranteyes
|
7:51a |
Happy birthday, Anne and Matt! Current Mood: chummyCurrent Music: Garbage, "Stupid Girl" (not you, Anne) |
| Sunday, December 6th, 2009 |
kajafoglio
|
9:31p |
Scavenging Parts
Because I am a great big scavenger, I picked up a little cabinet the other day. Around here, one way we recycle stuff is to leave it by the side of the road with a "free!" sign on it. (Did you know that a "kaja" is a Scandinavian jackdaw? Yeah. I found that out when I visited Sweden back in '96. Hah. Maybe that's why Great-Grandma didn't like her name...*) But yes, I dragged a busted cabinet home. It was so lonely there on the sidewalk... Phil was rolling his eyes at me until I shocked him by telling him that I actually had a PLAN for it already. (That isn't always the case, sometimes I'm just thinking: "I can use this somehow! Yay!") Anyway, it needs work, but it is just right for a base to the lovely doll house that Master Payne built for my daughter a couple of years ago Christmas. The girl wants to decorate it to look like the Haunted Mansion, but with touches of pink. (She's got that whole pink and black thing going.) We have really cute little Jack, Sally and Zero dolls that are just the right size, but the whole thing will really benefit from having a cabinet underneath for keeping extra toys and furniture out of reach of the dog. Because, you know, "Woof! Dog eat everything!" Like I need another project. Still, I even have a tiny plasma globe--it will make a fantastic light fixture. And the Muppet Labs action figures came with some great lab equipment that will fit right in. No, really, the doll house belongs to my daughter. I just help play with it. *Hm. Edit: I should point out that I actually like the name, especially since I found out what it means. So very appropriate... Current Mood:  creative |
| Monday, December 7th, 2009 |
qcjeph
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12:13a |
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| Sunday, December 6th, 2009 |
dr_hermes
|
11:59p |
What really happens to those cookies that disappear
Continuing my campaign to make the public aware of the Rabbit Menace. We've already seen the real reason why nobody ever actually sees the Easter Bunny (and lives to tell the tale, that is). Now, despite stern letters from PETA and slander campaigns from the Lepus Lovers League have deterred me. Revealed by our motion-sensor camera, the real reason why cookies seem to vanish and everyone swears they didn't touch a crumb.  |
dr_hermes
|
10:48p |
THE INFERNAL LIGHT (there was a Green Hornet novel...?)
 __  From September 1966, this was a Dell paperback released to tie-in with the new ABC series. The character featured is thoroughly the TV version, a 30-year-old Britt Reid, with no mention of an earlier Hornet. 127 pages long, THE INFERNAL LIGHT has a singularly unattractive front cover-- against a solid green backdrop, we see a tiny photo of Van Williams as the Green Hornet, his Sting in his hands, standing in front of the stylized and rather sinister hornet icon used on the shows opening credits (complete with its trippy psychedlic lines). Plain yellow block letters say THE GREEN HORNET and (in white) IN THE INFERNAL LIGHT. Apparently, if there had been a series of books that would have been the format. The back cover is a bit better, a competent black and green comic book illustration (by Gil Kane) of the Hornet and Kato with the Black Beauty, but it's no classic piece of artwork either. THE INFERNAL LIGHT is credited to "Ed Friend", actually Richard Wormser (1908-1977), a veteran writer of pulp novels, hundreds of short stories and over twenty screenplays. Wormser wrote 17 issues of the Nick Carter pulp and was an editor at Street & Smith in the 1930s, so he may have had some imput into the Shadow, Doc Savage, the Avenger and other heroes. Wormser's style is very clear and straightforward, with few poetic images or heated moments. It's almost deadpan and has a sort of understated conviction. On the other hand, there's not much excitement or unexpected twists, either. It's like reading a short history of actual events by a crime journalist. The best thing about the story is the amount of details Wormser unobtrusively works in. He seems to have worked out carefully the schedule Reid and Kato follow in their double lives and the equipment they use. We're shown Reid carrying out his duties as publisher of the Daily Sentinel, and how his risky career as the Hornet is a natural extension of his racketbusting journalism. Britt Reid really has no clear personality or oddities in this book. He's totally serious, dedicated, sober and consistent all the way through. One touch is that he's so preoccupied with his twin crusades that he never gets enough sleep and has to be reminded to eat. Kato and Casey repeatedly make meals and almost put the fork in his hand as Reid is studying reports and making phone calls. Kato is presented with some interesting sides to him. The polite, subservient valet and chaffeur is a role he is playing, his secret identity, where he calls Reid "sir" and carries out instructions demurely. The black-masked crimefighter behind the wheel of the Black Beauty is the real Kato, though-- much more independent and enthusiastic. As the Green Hornet's partner, he calls Reid "boss" and works so closely with the Hornet that they carry out elaborate manuevers without discussion or hesitation. We learn here that Kato has a small office at the Daily Sentinel with a table, chair and couch where he catches up on his sleep and does legwork during the day (I always wondered how he seemed to be on hand no matter where Britt Reid was.) There is only one mention of Gung Fu, as Kato lays a thug out with a punch and two kicks. He also uses a "judo chop" to knock Reid out when the publisher is determined to try to rescue someone from a burning car. Kato carries a gas gun and Hornet sting of his own, something I don't recall the TV version doing (although with Bruce Lee in the role, that's not surprising. "Gas gun? I don't need no stinkin' gas gun!") There are a couple of questionable moments. The Hornet voluntarily informs the mastermind of Kato's name (when the villain hadn't asked) and this seems to be jeopardizing the old secret identity set-up. (Britt Reid and Kato, the Green Hornet and Kato, hmmm....) Also, it's odd to read that the Hornet reflects he could kill the mastermind without much trouble but the man might be only the front for an organization. Neither the radio version nor the TV Green Hornet seemed ready to take a life, and certainly not casually; they were both basically cunning schemers who loved to maneuver the crooks into trapping themselves. That was the whole point of the harmless gas guns. Personally, I see nothing offensive about the partnership between the two men. One is the planner, the guiding force and the strategist; the other does most of the fighting and legwork, as well as domestic duties. It worked well for Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin for forty years, and I'd love to see someone tell Archie he was exploited. (As an aside, wouldn't a book about the Green Hornet told in the first person by Kato be fascinating?) Finally, the book brings back some fond memories of the TV series. Although it may not have been practical in real life, I'm sure you remember the way the heroes entered their garage, putting on their masks and checking their gear, while the panel in the floor began to pivot. The white convertible they used in the day disappeared and the ominous, elegant Black Beauty came up from beneath the floor where it had been hanging upside down like a bat in a cave. What a great image! [This first appeared over on my website DR HERMES REVIEWS, but that host may not be up forever and, even though I've saved most of the reviews elsewhere, I thought maybe some folks here hadn't seen it.] |
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calm