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whimsically-ominously-auspice · 5 years

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Uncle Donald gave her $800 in the 1980s

She let him invest it for her up until now

And she has now $45B

I hope you enjoyed your game as there are more to come but with more people as it enters TV for free of course on Channel Fox.

As always enjoy life and what it brings with the most care you can afford.

Don't let the economy, crumble, Uncle Donald, i hit up JP for some cash since Jesse stole mine from United Business Bank located in Oregon, Washington, and New Mexico.

I own Chase, bought it with Donald and sold to the US Government for a mint. Jesse could got in on this deal but he wanted to challenge me instead.

So I asked Uncle Donald for a cash loan, how much he could afford and what was in his wallet. $4000 roughly. So we split it between his 4 kids (the 4th being me) and I gave him back $200 for the rest of the day.

And we returned to the bank and I asked him how to deposit the money into Chase Manhattan because Denise had bought me clothes but I wanted to be a fashion designer and had altered them So she threw them all away in a rage of jealousy and heat.

Of course i started to cry so we went back across the street to McDonald's and we talked. He said "i have a surprise for you, lets get to the bank"

So we walked alllllll around the building, up and down and he talked to a man and got us inside all the back rooms. He said "i wanna buy it!" And he turned to me and asked "would you like to invest your $800 into my bank as an investor?"

I said "what about my clothes! She said i had to return the money or else i get none!"

"But who did she spend the money on?"

"Me and my brothers and and her!"

"Well don't you think Its time to invest in you and your fashion?" He asked for my $800 i had to pull from 4 different pockets and my sock as he taught me to split to beat pick pocketers. And handed it all. He handed me back $200 and I handed it back then he handed me a $5 from his breast pocket and t told me to keep it.

And began to walk to the counter to buy the bank.

I chased after him and put it in his left cost pocket and told him, 'well you know you bought me lunch so you keep it"

I pulled it from his pocket to produce proof I had already given it and he couldn't give it back and then stuffed it back in deep, all the way i nearly ripped his shoulder off for which I promptly apologized, jumped on the counter and rubbed his soreness off and jumped down.

And he started to cry a little bashful at first then a full sob. And I tried to console him and Robby appeared with a trailing line of toilet paper so his silk hanky wouldn't be soiled with snot.

He thanked him and became startled and asked if he wanted in on the investment.

Robby said, "i might but i need to talk to you, I belong to this boarding school ran by this might be soon white bigger as he calls himself, inspired by her and taken completely out of context"

"Michael Jackson" interjected our new found Uncle Donald. "Come let's sit"

We moved to the side of the spacious lobby to a small table accompanied by two plus club chairs.

He and i talked about how neat it would be to have chaise chairs in Chase bank.

"Well, her mom is abusive, mostly about money so i would like to take control of her stock with her permission"

"Yes! I do! And i will wanna get married!" I jumped with my fist in the air and pushed against the chair like a standing push up and stood

....

"Her sit. First I would like to talk to you as an investor. I am run by the boarding house and they teach us things like to steal and bring back to get 'rewards' much often things less than they are worth like a stick of gum for $2 when I can get a whole pack for 20 cents. Uh oh, here he comes"

"Im about to invest into this bank with these two kids you got something you wanna say to me?" Instead of waiting for a reply, uncle Donald got up and briskly walked to the counter, asking to return to a different room, promptly and away from Mr Jackson whom was still solidly black (he doesn't have vitaligo its just bleached).

And we entered a nearly empty office and he turned fiercely, angry even, "this will be your office where you will WORK"

...

"Its okay! We are still friends!" I climbed into the chair then up onto the desk "this is where I will sit"

"Well close your legs and sit like a lady, like this hand me your foot, no don't take off your shoe"

"Well I didn't want to ruin you! Your suit is NICE!!"

And he moved my foot and crossed my ankles and patted my knee and said "or you cross at here"

I took my ankle to my knee "no not like that, that's like a man. Knee to knee"

"Oh like this?" I squeezed my knees together

Robby laughed and Uncle Donald looked flustered

"Oh i know I know cross at my knees, you need to explain better!" I patted his shoulder. In the 80s it was okay to touch, at least for a child.

"I said that first!"

"Oh! I interrupt!"

"No apologize" Robby groaned

"I apologize for interrupting"

"For?" Asked Donald "you can't tell her that Because ---"

"No he could I get misinformation that way"

"Except when I'm being scolded and she knows the truth" said Robby.

Tune in next week for another Miss Adventure of one Wild Single Mom's Childhood!

I had 48 cents. Robby had put in 2500 front Hayes then 1500 each from Mark and Mike Andrews which he had not signed and they got rejected. Yet Jesse notified me of this, restricted my remote deposit privileges and now i am to notify the Sheriff of Hays County, Austin, Texas that the money is kept hidden in the tax and revenue accounts of his great county. And to open an investigation which he will pretend he did and then not. So i get his hush money as well as the other two and the $15B JP Dejoria stupidly just paid me because i Told Jesse to tell his father in law that Jesse is a stupid piece of shit which he didn't.

And of course I will invest in schools across the nation, installing playgrounds at any schools that do not have them, including intermediate, Jr high, middle, High and etc.. And may be finally lockers at least were I'm centrally located and/or where i want to be, namely at high schools at least.

Because that is what I want to do. Make people happy in the funniest ways possible.

And if there is any left I want to reinvest at the parks i originally invested in, initially, to make them better snd brighter, starting at the older to the newer.

I want the world to seem happier and brighter and in the case of schools at least around here once they hit 7th grade (middle school) they change schools to those that no longer have lockers or desks to put things in, 7 or more teachers to please instead of one or two they spend all day with, like a parent who gives love and kindness and retribution, they go through puberty which in itself is a chore. Then the kids riot. I've seen it in small schools and i know it happens in big ones. 20 in one week at the beginning of school less than a mile from my house where i can hear the school bell.

And so they need a place to sleep their weary heads like the shoulder of an old friend instead of weeping a soul they can no longer call their own.

The secrets i have included here broke my heart to where it actually stopped over and over.

Instead of asking what was wrong, Mr Moneybags Jesse sent me to the doctor alone. -.-

He could have provided me with what i needed like I provided and protected him from Ms Dejoria and Mark Hindberg, Afghanistan and Iraq, which I will no longer do.

He is the one that encouraged Michael Jackson to pickpocket the slaves he had created.

Yes Michael Jackson is Wacko, is Him and is burning in Hell because I killed him with my own pistol Jesse had stolen from a cop, altered and resold to himself at a cheaper price than the way over inflated price he created to create a deficit in his company to receive a refund from the US government's IRS Department in the amount of $8,000 instead of paying the $1M he owed.

I plead guilty before a judge and Uncle Donald, Mrs Katherine Jackson, the Anne my 4 year old daughter that Michael Jackson attempted to rape in front of me, as well as Robby, my true love and of course Sunny and Jesse James himself whom gave me the gun.

Then, before then President Barack Obama, i was exonerated and pardoned completely without the possibility of parole or any other misconceptions that would be included with self defense manslaughter.

This week total I have arrested a total of 19 men and women thanks to the CIA as an unpaid civilian.

That would guarantee me Presidentship of one really great country, now, wouldn't it?

Thanks. And not to be repeated: No more games. Only truth.

Until next time my fair weather friends!

Now! Let's grab the bookie!!! Snag! You're in jail. What did ya know, Mike Andrews, I knew all along that Mark Hindberg was FBI. Why didn't you think that?

Moving along, hi JP. How are you? No one cares. Good thing you trusted into your rapist daughter who was married to a true hero whom puts up with my shit even after we name him Mr Vomit cause I make him so scared he actually vomits like I did tonight (that's included. No more scare, only truth)

Oh yes, JP, you have already been arrested and so you know -- you have no guns with you, right? Alexis Dejoria is no rapist, she's actually an excellent FBI agent whom hates her dad and is included in any exonerations I may have to hand out butbat my leisurely pace, because she actually didn't rape anybody!

Also the US government will pay your wages as you did file a lawsuit this very week by signing up with Namus.gov like we all did.

She like me, was an unpaid civilian whom ran into luck. While she's smart, she's not smart like me. Thus she's the FBI vs me who is CIA and can work against the world in a millisecond as i usually do and have in Afghanistan and Iraq where i protected many NHRA members during their tours in the US Military while they served with Jesse James and my little brother and were even kidnapped thanks to Matt Hagan's temper tantrum and Jesse James refusal to listen to command. Eventually I saved them from that too in a day and 6 hours after leaving base. They were involuntary bound and gagged and beaten within 20 minutes of their capture. Within the next 20 when I was finally told of their status they were rescued by Tony Schumacher and his team.

And now i have saved the NHRA from being beaten and raped and tortured. My time to continue here at home is not wasted,

I love you all and thank you very much for listening...

And now i have something to say about Jesse since i made him puke from a lie via email Because he made me mad for being a Dick douchebag and not caring enough about me, not wrecking his motorcycle and then lying to make me feel bad and stupider than ever although I saw the wreck and my being a girl, up and President running, couldn't stop to rescue or assist a man on his feet whom had already picked up his bike after a wipe out and the trailer passed me up to show me he would assist because forgive those trespassers as we trespass ourselves and i care that he could really been hurt. That may be a fault of mine but it is called Grace and not salvation which is being my daughter reincarnated into a goat in Iraq to keep everyone safe because Jesse is a dumb dumb sometimes and Matt Hagan prefers truth over himself, sometimes. Like being in love with a goat of my daughter's soul, in Iraq. (I bet he fucked her, too. Bestiality freak. Not my business tho, nor yours. But still, let's laugh instead of poking fun at his misadventures. It is funny, yo!)

Jesse cared about the goat so much he listened to her over every one, even me. Because he believed she was closer to God where he needed to be..

I changed his life once in Alabama and several times then, over and over, any time that need be.

But finally for this one time he trusted somebody else and learned to love as much as he could, the soul inside of him.

So God bless to all of the two headed creatures we will see wandering around the backs of people at the NHRA in the future to come. Including even on me.

I'm Mrs Cougar cause of my fingernails and my desire to be with someone young to keep me fresh and Alive -- not by his blood byt by the life he gives me. And he will be Mr Snake the one who slithers up beside me only for love while I labor in the grass kicking myself for what i might have done but not for what i might have missed out on because I was there the whole time thinking and feeling and frolicking through the grass, same as me.

And of course my tattoo will be scary cause the world as I know it, very much can be.

And you can thank me for the past or you can think about the future and beyond!!!

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loljulie · 7 years

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stay with me; {006} things we lost

(the title of this chapter is inspired by things we lost in the fire by bastille like listen to that song its v good and bastille in general is amazing. and it’s kind of a play on words. sorry it’s a bit angsty ???? ahead.... yikes. thank u for being patient for this chapter; things are still p busy with me but i promise to keep this fic going until the end. enjoy lovelies~)

genre: dunkirk

collins x reader

word count: 1622

As November slowly passed, the two of you found yourself in a pleasant routine. As the weather got colder and colder, it only seemed right that your dates take place indoors. One of your favorite things to do during this time was sit in front of the fireplace of Collins’ living room, snuggled next to him as rain fell nonstop outside. You’d sometimes sit and talk for hours, with an old-timey record playing in the background. Other times, you’d take a stab at his miniature library and take turns reading chapters aloud to one another.

The fire crackled in front of you, as you held the almost finished Screwtape Letters in your hands. Your eyes followed each line as you repeated every word out loud. Raindrops hit softly against the glass window, mixing with the crackling of the fire to create a charming atmosphere. In your time, you’d be able to search up recordings of ambient moods like this when you were feeling particularly stressed, but nothing could compare to the real thing.

This routine was very welcome to your hectic life. Though rare that you would risk leaving in the middle of a work day, it became a momentary getaway for you. When you found yourself elbows deep in paperwork, you’d steal away to meet with Collins in his warm living room and be back at your desk mere minutes later, feeling rejuvenated. Of course, you always made sure to arrange another get-together before you returned, just in case you needed another pick-me-up the next day.

“’Your affectionate uncle, Screwtape,’” you finished the last sentence of your chapter and flipped the page. It was at this point, normally, that Collins would take the book from you and begin the next chapter. When you felt no movement from him, you cast a curious glance his way.

You’d never seen him in a state like that before. His eyes were glazed over, but he kept them focused on the flames in front of him. You couldn’t tell what he was thinking about, but his mind seemed distant and elsewhere. You looked over at the fire, wondering if there was anything special about it.

The orange flames wrapped around the charred logs, occasionally sending glowing embers skywards. Gray ash tumbled to the ground every now and then as the fire ate away at the wood with a crackling here and there. You looked back at Collins, focusing on his eyes now more than before, and noticed that he appeared to be looking through the flames.

“Love?” you called out, and shifted your body so that you could face him. He didn’t make any sign that he acknowledged your voice. You carefully shut the front cover of the book and placed it on the coffee table in front of you. More determined this time, you leaned your face so that his eyes would find you in their periphery and repeated yourself. “Love, are you alright?”

Collins blinked a few times, let out a breath, and tore his eyes away from the fire to look at you. From there, he looked around the living room, his eyes registering his surroundings in quick movements. He seemed flustered, for some reason.

“Are you alright?” you asked again, placing a hand on his shoulder. You weren’t sure what was happening with him, but he reacted to your touch by focusing back on you again. He gave a hesitant nod.

“Aye, juist...” his voice was a bit raspy as he started. He seemed to lose track of what he was about to say, and shook his head. “Remembered something.”

“About what?” you asked, oblivious to what was going on with him. It didn’t occur to you what he was thinking about – you not even minding the fact that the fire was what caused his space out – until he said it himself.

“Th' fire it...” he began, struggling with his words. You couldn’t tell if he was anxious to tell you, or if he was anxious to have to re-tell what he just went through. “It reminded me o' th' war.”

Your heart dropped, and you watched as his eyes focused on the flames again. You rubbed his shoulder reassuringly. “I’m here, if you want to talk about anything.”

He was silent for a moment as he watched the endless flames before him. “I wis oan a civillian boat. I hud juist crashed into th' channel, flying to Dunkirk. A ship wis sinking, 'n' we wur pul'in men into th' boat, bit thay wur covered with oil.”

“I remember watchin' as Farrier – he kept oan th' plane above us. He finally downed th' bas, bit 'twas off to crash into th' oil. I remember yelling to th' captain to go as th' plane fell. Thare wur men in th' wa’er, swimmin` toward oor boat, bit we couldn’t wait thare or we'd a' die.”

“We sailed the baoot awa' as th' fire spread. I remember feeling relieved that we'd made it. I didn’ even stop to think aboot they men in th' oil, 'til juist noo.”

He paused, his eyes now focusing on his hands in his lap. You couldn’t see his face, but after hearing him speak next, you realized he must’ve been crying. “They're deid. I know 'twas survival, that 'twas war, but they're still deid, aren't thay? I can’ chaynge that, na maiter how I justify it.”

You moved your hand to just under his chin and pulled his face upward. A couple of tears had streamed down his face, and his eyes were red. He hastily wiped away the stray tears. You pulled him into a hug, your arms wrapped firmly around his neck. Slowly, he wrapped his arms around your back and leaned his forehead into your shoulder.

You stayed like that for a while, your fingers massaging the base of his neck as he held onto you. From the sudden wetness on your shirt, you could tell that his tears kept falling.

This was the reality of war. It doesn’t just end when countries make peace treaties. It carries on, in the hearts and minds of all the soldiers that had to partake in the terrible event of war. Regret, guilt, anxiety – all embedding themselves inside every man who stepped foot on the battleground. You knew the words to describe his condition, the words that wouldn’t be coined or recognized until the 1980’s.

“You can’t think like that,” you whispered to him after a few minutes in his embrace. You weren’t sure what good your words could do to ease him, but you had to say something. “They may be dead but that wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t save them – if you tried, you wouldn’t be here.”

You felt him shift in your arms – you guessed he was wiping away his tears on your cotton shirt. “You’re here, you’re alive, and what you can do now, for them, is to keep living and moving forward. Otherwise, they would’ve died for no reason.”

After a few shaky breaths, Collins pulled away from you and sat up. His eyes were bloodshot from the tears that welled from them moments ago, but he gave you a soft, reassuring smile when he noticed how concerned you looked.

“Ye'r richt,” he said finally. “Tis juist – tis juist hard to think aboot. But ye'r richt.”

Your face cracked to reveal a smile, and you opened your arms to beckon him back into your embrace. He willingly leaned into you, nestling into your side and wrapping one arm around your waist. You picked up the book from the table and flipped to where you left off.

“I’ll just read the next one, yeah?” Collins nodded silently and you began reading the next chapter aloud. And you’d read the next one after that, and the one after that, until you were all finished with it. You didn’t mind, though. After the ordeal Collins just had to relive, you were positive all he wanted was to have someone to hold – and the fact that you were reading one of his favorite books was an added comfort. You were just glad to be that person for him, the one he could trust and was comfortable enough with to show a glimpse of his vulnerable side.

When you returned home that night – after he insisted that he treat you to dinner in the town for putting up with him – you couldn’t help but feel mixed emotions over everything. On one hand, your heart was fluttering when you realized you had become such a special person to Collins that he felt he could come to you when he needed solace. It must be hard for him to tell you about something so personal, and yet he opened up anyway. You realized how important you were to him, and it made you overwhelmed.

But on the other hand, you remembered your circumstances. As much as you wanted to believe that you were Y/N from Carlisle, that you were just a girl who used to work in a bakery with your parents, you weren’t. You were from the future – from a time centuries after his own – and you knew no other life than that one. Eventually, you’d have to stop this from going any further – but it was already getting so far.

You did your best not to dwell on that because a small seedling inside of you took advantage of your romantic side and – though very wrong – was beginning to hope that maybe you could find a life with Collins. And you started to believe that small thought more than you should have.

#jack lowden x reader #collins x reader #jack lowden imagines #dunkirk imagines #dunkirk fanfic #stay with me

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avannak · 7 years

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Zombie Apocalypse AU

#zombie!hp

Preface: It’s the 1940s, Gridewald’s gaining influence and the World Wars are creating weapons and conflict in both the muggle and wizarding worlds. Amidst all the desperate inventions and technology, muggles – those in power, aware of magic’s existence – are finding a way to defend against wizards. What started with Chamberlain fast-tracked under Churchill... only to abate along with the wars.

“The Project” is revisited by the early 1980s as a new magical threat -- Voldemort -- takes form. Twice threatened within a century, muggle governments keep a permanent eye on handicapping Wizards with the sudden reminder that they can be a more threatening form of human. Research and Development continues, silent and deep, even after the threat is abruptly eliminated in 1981.

When Fudge meets with the muggle Prime Minister, all but admitting he’s been ousted for incompetence, with the knowledge that this Voldemort is coming back, and that terror upon muggles will be renewed…the muggle Prime Minister decides then and there that THIS TIME nonmagicals weren’t going to be another mass grave... They would not be victims, nor perceived as such. Magic had to be dismantled. The Project is pulled up from underground and presented to the right channels to be thrown into action.

Fast forward near the end of Harry’s sixth year, where, on the deep political muggle-end of things, a red button is pushed. A year of watching families attacked, disappear, a hearty remind of what wizards are capable of, quiets the majority of nay-sayers to this Project.

The Project is unleashed... perhaps prematurely. Well-tested (though, not thoroughly enough for some) radioactive energy intended to create polarizing waves upon contact with magic. Ideally, when a human manifests magic, there are explosive, adverse effects. It’s released it into the very air to step on the throats of wizards, no matter what sort of magic they intended to preform. Any focal of magic (be it wand, wave, or broom) is explosive.

It was muggle advancement and science at its finest. And, like all human creations, its prone to human error, and the prolonged exposure to what could basically be classified as biochemical warfare incited a goddamn zombie apocalypse.

Basically, the second wizarding war is halted in its tracks thanks to a third player they never saw coming: muggle science. And, in its place, came a zombie apocalypse where wizards now have to survive without magic, because they may literally explode if they try to use it.

So we have Harry -- (and I can picture this opening scene so clearly) -- we have Harry coming back from school… Dumbledore’s dead. He has a head full of horrible Voldemort-knowledge, a secret plan to run off with his friends and abandon his studies, and the weight of this war and horcruxes on his shoulders.

Less than a fortnight into the summer and the only news he’s getting at first is odd, odd sickness on the muggle telly and no wizarding post. There’s stories of self combustion on the news. Then cannibalism. Just a couple, at first. Very weird. Enough for Harry to wonder if it’s Inferi or some sort that have been let loose (cannibalism? Really?).

Halfway through the third week of summer vacation, it comes straight to Privet Drive.

Harry almost uses magic but he feels wrong when he tries. He grips his wand and there’s an ill-boding vibration. He receives a letter from Hermione, Hedwig returning—finally—after his inquiries over what’s going on in the wizarding world (and if the bloody Order stopped his post for some reason, so help him…)

What he gets instead of excuses is a DESPERATE warning not to use magic.

That wizards are dying, and its naught to do with Voldemort. That there’s chaos in the wizarding world beyond the war. That they should try and get to St. Catchpole, to reconvene with the Weasleys.

Voldemort remains a quiet mystery for awhile, because as Harry’s reading Hermione’s letter, chillingly remembering the “self-combustions” mentioned on the muggle telly, he hears a scream.

He stumbles down the stairs as his Aunt runs inside, from Mrs. Across the Street’s tea party, clutching her neck, claiming Margaret attacked her. Attacked all of them. They had to relocate their tea to Margaret’s house, you see, as she was feeling under-the-weather and they were SUCH accommodating friends. Margaret was feeling particularly ill, went to the bathroom, and returned, half an hour later, only to chomp down on Mrs. Linden’s collar with not a word uttered.

Vernon’s still at work. Dudley’s shrieking. Harry’s shoving his aunt in a chair and holding a cloth to her neck. He barks at Dudley to take over with the cloth when he sees Mrs. Linden limping across their lawn, blood coated down her clothes.

Dudley follows his line of sight and cries out. Petunia notices too and starts crying again. Harry’s in survival mode and shouting at them to shut up, that he’ll take care of it, Hermione’s haunting words not to use magic ringing in his head.

And, the worst part is, he can feel it — when he’s about to use magic. The ill-boding crackling. It’s a hard instinct to clamp down on, but he’ll have to rely on muggle methods.

As he’s running out the kitchen side door into the garage, Dudley calls out behind him: “You need to take out her head!”

Because it’s DUDELY with all his video games and muggle culture and physical know-how, that understands what’s happening before Harry ever does. Harry, who knows of Draugrs and Infirius but still thinks things like Zombies could be mythological until proven otherwise…

When Harry exits the kitchen, kicking the door closed behind him, Mrs. Linden is clawing at the kitchen windows with unfeeling fingers, his Aunt’s frightened shrieks only serving to stir her attention. So Harry calls to her. She sees him, though her milky eyes tell a different story, and staggers in his direction, mouth gaping, teeth bared, a large chunk of her neck missing and blood coating her front.

The first thing Harry grabs is a shovel and strikes her. It knocks her back, but it’s not enough. Harry, you see, had been neglecting his health, as had always been a bad habit when he had too much on his mind.

From the corner of his eye, he sees movement. A family across the drive is scrambling into their car, dropping haphazard belongings as mindless figures enclose on them.

His line of sight shows a neighbor eating the gardener. As though sensing an audience, the man looks up, entrails hanging from his mouth, and that pale stare zeroes in on Harry.

Harry’s attention is drawn to the immediate threat when Mrs. Linden lunges at him again. He stumbles, and barely manages to shove her off with the shovel but somewhere in his mind he knows…the shovel’s not going to be an effective weapon for him. Not now. Not in this condition. If only he could get her on the ground and just bash her head in…

But then the other neighbor, the one he made eye-contact with, is coming at him too… So he kicks her back a third time, and glances around the garage, and leaps at something far more accurate – a pair of ice climbing picks his Uncle once bought Dudley for his 14th birthday. Never used.

As soon as one’s in hand, Harry swings it around with desperate accuracy and it easily pierces Mrs. Linden’s ear. She drops. By then the other neighbor is stumbling into the garage and Harry’s hardly aware of the rise in screams outside or how silent the inside is, and he uses the icepicks to kill the second zombie. His arms don’t start shaking until after he struggles to get the icepick out of Mr. Montaugh’s head.

That’s when the kitchen side door opens and Dudley comes out, cheeks wet, and for a moment neither he nor Harry speak to each other because they’re both fully aware of what’s currently happening, and what they’ve both had to do, and it doesn’t matter why or how its possible, but that it’s happening.

Harry silently offers Dudley one of the icepicks, and Dudley shakes his head, gives a wobbly, empty chuckle, and says, “That’s not my style in this game”. Then he starts to cry. Really crying, with a bloody hand over his face and great heaving shoulders. Harry awkwardly steps forwards and pats his back, trying not to look through the door behind his cousin’s broad back, where his Aunt is dead—dead by some method Dudley had to employ and would likely never forget.

Eventually, Harry says something about how they have to leave (his mind is still on St. Catchpool and Hermione’s warning and how everyone is faring) and Dudley says he can’t – that his dad is still out there, that they might be safer in the house, that they don’t even have a car at the moment... Dudely firmly believes his father will come home as soon as possible, especially if shit is hitting the fan everywhere, and Harry warns him that this is escalating too quickly, that his father might not make it back in time, that they should find their own transportation…

That’s when an obnoxious red truck jumps the curb, right onto Mrs. Dursley’s pristine lawn.

It’s Malcolm, Dudley’s friend, and he’s swearing up a storm – Shouting at Dudley, that, if he’s okay then they gotta get out, that people are getting violent looking for cars, that everyone’s heading to the country side…

Two more of Dudley’s friends are in the back; they’re screaming about another zombie coming at them. An older woman and a small girl are in the back as well. From what Harry can immediately gather, Malcolm stole his shit-head stepfather’s truck and took off with two buddies from Dudley’s gang. They’re heading to Pierce’s next, and picking up all their friends and friends’ family that they can. Malcolm calls for Dudley to get his mother and get in (probably knowing Mrs. D doesn’t work, assuming she’s in the house). Dudley can barely get out the words so Harry cuts in and explains, “she’s gone”.

THEN things get awkward, because Harry’s like “Dud, this is the best opportunity to survive right now” and he knows this. He knows it in his gut. He’s got experience with survival. It’s, arguably, his one life skill. And Malcolm’s like, “Look mate,” (which is a laugh because he’s never treated Harry as a mate), “there isn’t much room.” To which Dudley decides THEN to be a noble idiot and say “If Harry’s not going I’m not.” And Harry’s just like, “It’s fine, it’s fine!”

So there’s a small tiff, the zombies are encroaching on the truck, and Malcolm’s just breached “Fuck it!” so he starts to go and Harry leaps in front and yells at Dudley to get in the fucking truck.

“What about you?”

It’s almost emotional for the two cousins who had about 1.6 minutes of bonding. “Don’t worry,” Harry insists, “I’m really good at escaping assholes.” (which makes most present feel a bit awkward at the jab) and then he turns to Dudley and offers, “Maybe we’ll see each other again someday. You just gotta survive.” They shake hands and Dudley says, roughly, “yeah, you too.”

And that’s the last they see of each other for the next two years: Dudley in the back of an obnoxious red truck with three members of his former gang, someone’s mother and someone’s little sister…

And Harry, in the street, zombies tripping around him, two ice picks held loosely in his hands.

From there, it’s basically Harry on his own. A Solo Player for a while. As a child he utilized parkour a lot, especially when escaping the ‘gang’, hence why teachers so easily believed he got on the roof of his own volition

He doesn’t trust easily. He’s joined a couple of Groups™, but for the most part strikes out when he can. He’s seen more Groups™ fall apart than stick together.

“Call me Jim”, is how he introduces himself. He wanted to disappear and let the world think Harry Potter was consumed by zombies for a bit. It was safer if he could shed that identity lest he was left fighting both zombies AND deatheaters. He wears a trucker cap and a hoodie and he’s pretty damn fast. Almost supernaturally fast (later on) as he slowly employs magic… merely keeping it within.

He initially tries to make it to Ron’s house, but the horrors he sees along the way, the responses he no longer gets from the wizarding world, dissuades him into focusing on his own survival.

Harry names his icepicks Glinda and Elpheba. His girls.

I call it “The Runner” in my Head, because that’s pretty much what Harry does. Free Running. And Running from, well, everything. He acts as a Group™ runner too, whenever he gets suckered into staying somewhere. When communities start to form, he acts as a contract runner. Basically, does supply runs for pay. He’s good at getting in and out of places and hauling loot. Especially on his own, especially with an increased exercise in parkour.

#Harry Potter #dudley dursley #Harry Potter AU #zombie!hp #HP AU #zombie au #long post

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andrewdburton · 5 years

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Death by a thousand cuts

I've been on the internet for a long, long time.

Via local Bulletin Board Systems, I started reading USENET newsgroups — mostly Star Trek and comic book and computer game stuff — during college in the late 1980s. I got sucked into the world of MUDs. Soon after graduating, I heard about this new thing called the World Wide Web, so I installed Mosaic on my Macintosh SE.

Before long, I taught myself HTML and built my first website. Eventually, in 1997, I started my first blog — back before blog was even a word!

I was drawn to the web (and the internet) in part because it seemed so egalitarian. Anyone could start a website about anything, and as long as they produced great stuff and shared it, people would read. I also liked the fact that almost everything was free. It didn't cost anything (besides your $19.95 monthly dial-up service) to access any of this information. The early web was a de facto sharing economy.

Best of all? The web was a wide open space, a blank slate, a platform free from dominance by mainstream media. Little people like me could have a voice.

None of this lasted long.

The Monetization of the Web

Soon, banner ads came along. I hated banner ads when they first appeared. “My site will never have banner ads,” I told my friends. (This was my first real lesson that you should never say never. My friends have been giving me grief about this for more than fifteen years!)

In 1998, Google arrived and changed everything. Until that point, web search was a miserable experience. It wasn't very good and it was overly monetized. Google was the opposite. It was amazing and had no monetization at all.

Hahahahahahahaha. How things have changed. Today, Google is all about ads. And using it is more and more a miserable experience. Look at this mess:

How long until Google has transformed itself into AltaVista?

In time, the mainstream media realized that the web wasn't going anywhere. By the early 2000s, they were treating it as an important part of their operations. By the early 2010s, the web had become the most important part of most media companies' platforms. And if it hadn't, those companies would soon be dead.

Meanwhile, two parallel (but related) trends developed.

First, there was the rise of “software as a service” (Saas). In the olden days — 1995, say — when you wanted a computer program, you went down to Circuit City and bought it. You paid for it once and you owned it forever. As “web apps” became a thing, companies shifted from one-time payments to a subscription model. Today, even big companies like Microsoft and Adobe have adopted the practice of continually charging for their products. (And if they don't use a subscription model, they often “sunset” their software, which is essentially the same damn thing.)

Second, forward-thinking sites and companies learned there was money to be made by disrupting existing business models. Netflix is a great example. Founded in 1997, this company has single-handedly destroyed multiple industries, most notably retail video. And, eventually, Netflix began to disrupt the monolithic television industry itself! Initially, this was beneficial to consumers. Now, in 2019, it's become apparent that oops, nope it's not. (See also.)

Twenty-five years ago, when the web was young, it was all about free. Anyone who could afford a computer and a $19.95/month dial-up connection was free to create and publish whatever they wanted — and free to consume what other people had created. It was like some sort of digital utopia.

Death by a Thousand Cuts

Today, the web is most decidedly not free. And it's getting less free with every passing month. Let's be honest: More and more, life online is fucking expensive. It's like death by a thousand cuts.

This morning as I was pulling together the latest edition of the GRS Insider — this site's weekly email — I experienced the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. And that prompted this article. (And delayed the newsletter haha.)

First, I tried to read a New York Times article: “Health facts aren't enough. Should persuasion become a priority?” But I couldn't. I've already read one article from the NYT this month: “D.I.Y. Private Equity Is Luring Small Investors”. It used to be that the NYT was free. Then they instituted a limit on article consumption unless you subscribed, but it was a limit I could live with (something like ten articles per month). Besides, I could bypass the paywall with my browser's incognito mode. Then they got wise to incognito mode, which is fair enough. Now, apparently, you get one free article per month.

Next, I wanted to read this article: “Families Go Deep in Debt to Stay in the Middle Class”. I mean, I really want to read that article. But I can't. It's at The Wall Street Journal and the WSJ has been locked behind a paywall for years.

Crashing into paywalls is a daily occurence now. No — it's an hourly occurrence. I follow a promising link and bam I'm brought up short because I have to pay to access the article. This happens at newspapers, magazines, and even internet-only sites. It makes me grateful for the publications that produce terrific content and still provide it for free. (One example? I find that I'm frequently drawn to articles at The Atlantic. They provide top-notch quality without asking for payment. But for how long?)

Meanwhile, the subscription software model is starting to take its toll too. I completely understand that some apps and services require subscriptions in order to function properly. I pay a monthly fee to have Get Rich Slowly hosted on a webserver. That makes sense.

It does not make sense to me that some of the tools we use to build Get Rich Slowly require monthly (or yearly) subscriptions. There's no ongoing maintenance. There's no draw on the vendor's resources.

It does not make sense to me that my favorite weather app for the iPhone requires an annual subscription. In fact, it's insane. (Yet I still pay it.)

It does not make sense to my that Pzizz, a sleep tool that I've used for over a decade, moved from standalone pricing to subscription pricing. (And hey, Pzizz people, how many times do I have to pay for your product before you give me lifetime access? Because I've paid three or four times already.)

Generally speaking, SaaS and subscription plans aren't necessary — they're just profitable for the companies that use them. And as long as we keep paying, they'll stick to the model.

All Good Things Must Come to an End

The “cut” that's really going to mess with people's minds? The upcoming high price of television.

When Netflix and Hulu and similar companies came along, they offered low-cost alternatives to cable. Cord cutting became an act of frugality. I ditched cable television in 2007 and have never looked back. Until now.

Now, big media companies have recognized that they too can get on the act. They too can inflict one of the thousand cuts.

CBS was quick on the draw. Want to watch the latest Star Trek shows? No Netflix for you! You have to pay $10 per month for CBS All Access — or $6 per month if you're willing to put up with commercials.

Disney is a heavy hitter and they want to get in on the act. Disney+ — coming November 12th — will cost $8 per month. Want to watch the latest Marvel and Star Wars shows? Want to watch Disney and Pixar movies? This is your only option.

By far, the most popular show on Netflix is NBC's The Office, which accounts for a mind-boggling 7% of all Netflix viewing in the U.S. NBC knows a golden goose when it sees one. When its current deal with Netflix expires, it's yanking The Office and using it as a tent pole to launch its own subscription service.

Meanwhile, Netflix and Hulu and Amazon all offer their own original programming. (At least the latter is free for folks who pay for Prime, which is nearly one-third of the United States. Holy shit!) Apple will soon get in on the game and they're using big names to draw viewers: Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston, and more.

youtube

Streaming used to be a cheaper alternative to cable television. As Consumer Reports notes, these days it's a toss-up. And soon, streaming is likely to be the more expensive option.

Note: The one huge advantage to this proliferation of options? Users can pick and choose which content they subscribe to. For years (or decades), folks had been asking for a la carte pricing for cable channels. Well, I guess now we have it.

No Free Lunch

To provide supporting evidence for this article, I started to make a list of all of the software subscriptions I have, my software that's being “sunsetted” and needs to be upgraded (Quickbooks 2016 just notified me yesterday that it's no longer supported), the most common paywalls I encounter, and the television-related payments I make. I gave up. It's a doable thing, but it'd take too much time right now. It's a project for another day.

I know I sound like a cranky old man (again!), but I've had enough. I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore! Except that I probably am.

“Don't you expect to pay for services?” Kim asked me as I bitched to her this morning. “How does anybody run a business if it's free? In your mind, their business model should be to not charge the customer?”

Okay, fair point. I don't want to be taken for a choosing beggar.

As somebody who runs a website himself and knows how much it costs (in terms of time and money) just to maintain my tiny corner of the web, I absolutely do not begrudge anyone the desire to make money.

And, in fact, my biggest challenge since repurchasing Get Rich Slowly two years ago has been balancing my desire to provide excellent information without destroying the user experience with monetization. It's a delicate balance, one that I'm not sure I'm achieving. (But hey, I'm working on it!)

My frustration is that there are just so many companies extracting a pound of flesh from me. It's too much.

Yes, I realize most (of not all) of these expenses are voluntary. Yes, I realize this is capitalism in action. Yes, I realize there are often free (or cheaper) options. Yes, I realize we can't reset the internet to 1995. Believe me: I've been thinking about this issue for years now. I understand all of this stuff. But I don't like it.

In the end, my solution recently has been to KonMari my digital life. I've removed most of the apps from my iPhone and iPad, opting to cut those with subscription fees first. When possible, choose software with a one-time fee instead of an ongoing subscription. I try to steer clear of sites with paywalls. I killed Hulu. (But then Kim promptly joined.) Even though I love Star Trek and the Marvel Universe, I refuse to pay for CBS All Access and Disney+. I never will.

But then, I was never going to have banner ads on my website either, was I?

The post Death by a thousand cuts appeared first on Get Rich Slowly.

from Finance https://www.getrichslowly.org/death-by-a-thousand-cuts/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

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survivingart · 5 years

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IS THIS ART?

Countless figures throughout history have tried to explain this incredibly complex question: What is art? And more importantly, what isn’t art?

But still the institutions have no real answer, no common ground upon which they could define a normative of what defines art. Brut art is a problem, so are other outsider artists, and home schooled creatives that defy or just never become part of the institutional system.

It’s the carpenters that put more than the usual love and attention to detail in building their “consumer objects”. It’s the iPhones and iPads and other designer products that always walk the thin line between art and function.

Then you have others that do not agree with the institutional idea that one needs to even be part of the system to be considered an artist. You only need to have ideas and communicate them with the world via your production.

And in the philosophy of aesthetics — the field that studies this question ontologically — there is even more confusion. A materialist philosopher that believes all reality is only material and no immaterial reality can ever exist, will tell you art is pure matter, pure reciprocity between the object and its perceiver.

But they might also say that art doesn’t even need spectators to exist — like the whole status of art is somehow imbued inside the object that it is representing. Almost comically, some believe art is a magical aura (but of course physical, never metaphysical or non-material) that lives in an object, a special part — almost like an extra organ of the body of that object — that pumps pure artistic energy through it and makes us instantly experience art, if we indeed are knowledgable and receptive enough to perceive it.

But it’s all a load of incoherent and over-theorised bull if you ask me.

For me, all of this began with Descartes, when he decided to divide reality into two connected but distinct realities: the material and immaterial world.

There are even jokes about how the common person in the street is always a cartesian — a follower of Descartes — even if they themselves don’t know it; all average people believe in a body and in a soul as two distinct entities.

Now, I won’t go into the fallacies of such beliefs too much as this is an art channel not a philosophy discussion, but just to give a bit of context, I’d like to present three interesting and extremely precise arguments for the contrary — that art is not an object, but an experience.

Because if art is an experience, we surely can come to understand that truly it is impossible to create a functional theory, a list of checkboxes that anything considered art has to tick to really become art, or even fine art.

The first is by Thomas Nagel, the author of the story titled What It Is Like To Be A Bat, who posed an interesting proposition:

While humans can understand and imagine the behaviours of creatures, in this case a bat; merely being able to imagine how it would feel to be able to fly, navigate by sonar, hang upside down and eat insects, would never really be the same as a bat’s perspective.

Nagel claims that even if we were able to gradually turn into bats (think Kafka, but more uplifting), our brains would not have been wired as a bat’s from birth; therefore, we would only be able to experience the life and behaviours of a bat, rather than their mindset.

To behave as something isn’t equal to being something, regardless of how much it looks, swims and quacks like a duck, the shocker is, it might just be a rubber ducky.

And this goes for our language and communication problem too; I could paint a picture of an apple being picked by a woman somewhere in a forest. Some would see a nice lady picking apples, others would see the highly complex concept of Ancestral Sin. Same painting, same communication, immensely different results.

The next story, written by Frank Jackson is also about a woman who’s life is changed because of an apple — not because of eating it but merely by looking at it! Titled What Mary Didn’t Know, it describes a very curious lady who loved natural sciences — the field of colour theory especially.

She knew everything there was to know about colours; their wavelengths, the numerous psychological effects colours have on us, the various types of receptors that are utilised in our bodies to see them … just about everything. But she had one issue. She had been educated about all of this in a black-and-white room.

Black-and-white books, TV screens, and furniture — for some weird reason even Mary herself is black-and-white, but it is a story and if it was OK for Little Red Riding Hood to be red, I guess Mary can be colourless too.

So Jackson argued: Even though Mary had all the same information about colours that we do, she had never really experienced them and was therefore missing one crucial piece of information; one important bit of quaila, as philosophers like to call these magical bits of subjective experience, namely actually seeing red.

Jackson proposed that when Mary stepped out of her room and saw a red, juicy apple, she not only saw colour for the first time, she in fact learned something new. Something that she couldn’t have learned through any text book or black-and-white YouTube video.

She gained a new emotional and preceptorial experience — seeing red. (Remember all those people who told us that we can’t learn everything from books, well they were right in a way!)

And the last, and my personal favourite story curiously also evolves around red (philosophers love it for some reason). One of the greatest minds of the 21st century, John Searle wrote a wonderful tale about a talking room.

Titled The Chinese Room, this wonderful tale of speaking Asian walls stirred the lines of cognitive scientists when first presented in 1980. It describes a room, where one would input a piece of written-down information — be it a question, a statement or just a remark about the weather — and the room, after a period of time, would answer back. All in Chinese for some weird reason, probably because Searle himself said he’s awful at speaking Mandarin (The man speaks more than 6 languages fluently though!).

Well, the room wasn’t some magical artefact from a forgotten time, it was operated by one person. And the interesting fact was, that parson had no idea how to speak or write Mandarin. What he did have though was an assortment of instructions and guidelines on what to do and a giant library of cards with Chinese signs, decorating the walls of the room.

Whenever text was slid through the opening in the main wall, he would open the instruction books at the appropriate page depicting the combination of symbols (he was obviously really efficient at what he did and compensated generously for his job, probably owned a villa and a few Ferraris too).

After locating the right page in the manual, he would then find the appropriate cards on the shelves of the room, align them in the order depicted in the instructions and return the answer back though the slit in the wall. And the person on the outside would be absolutely amazed of how wonderful a computer this contraption was!

But the point of Searle’s work wasn’t to explain away computers by using miniature librarians living in our processors and memory units, he wanted to point out a simple yet profound truth about communication, computation and the mind. One that we have heard twice before, albeit in different iterations and with slightly different points.

Syntax (that is the assortment of signals; be it voice signals, written words or electric currents going to the processors of our computers) does not equal semantics (that is the name we give to meaning; the meaning of a word, a picture, a sign … anything that has some symbolical value to anyone).

The only true way to experience art is to, well, experience it. It’s impossible to not experience something if we wish to even try to comprehend it, let alone understand fully what it is about.

It’s like dreaming about something you have never experienced — I know, dreams almost never look like reality, but to be honest, our dreams don’t just appear as a beam of light from god or some bored alien on Mars that decided to give us a transcendental experience because we’re the chosen one to guide human kind into onto the next level of existence.

It’s all just pieced together by everything we experience during our waking days. Every bit of information was consciously or unconsciously experienced and internalised. It’s the same with art.

You need to be present, you are indeed the key to the question of: What art is? Without anyone to view the Mona Lisa, there is no art, just a peculiar object.

Because to know what art is, we also need to know what art isn’t.

But when does art stop to be? Or what if it never even become perceivable to us as art?

In the moment where there are no more men, no more women, and no more children.

And what happens to art then?

It is, like all that is created from an ego, bound to its creator. When he perishes, so does the essence of all his children, leaving behind a heap of empty material shells. But the intricate architectural dams of beavers, the beautiful patterns of various animals and the chirping and poems of all the beautifully performing singing birds. These don’t perish.

Even if there is no man to hear the song, see the pattern and enjoy the complexity of animal life and their creations they still serve an immediate function.

If there is a female Nightingale around, the song is heard, if there are beavers, they will enjoy and understand the dams and the tigers will comprehend their intricate skin patterns — each species forming its own personal language.

And when they’re gone, so are all their features, all their creations.

And you know why?

Because even if today the thought of a non-sociocentric universe is impossible for most, some things in the world actually weren’t made by us. Neither to amuse or to teach. And because of that, they can last quite a bit longer than our concept of art ever will.

Art is an experience, not an object. But it isn’t only a material experience — and no, I’m not saying it’s magic that makes us live and die, because the last time I checked nobody wrote Emet on my head and magically made me a real boy the way the golem becomes alive in Jewish folklore.

But the point to take home is, the more you know, the more you understand about the world around you, the more things will give you the same experience of art, of the sublime.

Because while surely not any object can produce the same power of artistic pleasure — for me it’s a mid-late Rothko painting, for you it might be a conceptual piece with hay and neon or a realistic portrait of Loui XV or just a nice handmade drawing of your child about how much they love you.

The object is only as important as our understanding of it. That’s why learning is paramount. To be a good artist, and even a good spectator we need to constantly expand our horizons. Because the day we stop learning is the day we create a canon in our life.

And as with every determinate belief that only so and so is an artist and the others are imposters, we inevitably become blind to the ineffable vastness of what art really is.

Art is everything. But to the inexperienced and blind, it is less than nothing, because even nothing takes something form us, whereas a foreign object to a closed mind doesn’t even register. It is like it never even existed.

So to truly experience reality — at least a much of it as we possibly can — we need to stay humble, open and childlike in our awe towards the world. If nothing else, we owe it to either God or our parents or ourselves or just to the lovely abyss that the nihilists of us enjoy staring down.

We owe it to whatever makes us stand-up in the morning to give everything the world has to offer a chance. Maybe we will find a new thing we like, but it’s much more likely we’ll discover a previously completely hidden part of reality that was really just hiding in plain sight.

What is art then?

Everything for those of us that aren’t afraid to look.

from Surviving Art http://bit.ly/2WJW4tG via IFTTT

#artist life #contemporary art #surviving art #make art everyday #blog

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talhaghafoor2019-blog · 5 years

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Drake, Ariana Grande, Cardi B and the other songs to create the best Summer music playlist

On Spotify last weekend, it seemed as if the streaming service had given itself over entirely to presenting the music of a single artist.

That would be Drake, whose double album Scorpion was released on June 30.

Everywhere you looked, there was his handsome mug, the cover image of every single playlist on the world’s most popular streaming service.

That went for even the ones his songs weren’t featured on, such as “Best of British,” or \”Happy Pop Hits.” The promotion was a silly goof that online rageaholics are comparing to U2’s Songs of Innocence being inserted into all the world’s iTunes music folders in 2014 because, well, because people love to complain.

But the all-Drake all-the-time stunt underscores a truism: Scorpion is the unavoidable event release of the summer. The Toronto rapper’s album is uneven but still packed with hits. Scorpion has smashed streaming records left and right, garnering more that 435 million plays on Spotify, Apple Music, and other streaming services in its first three days of release. That is more than the previous record holder, Post-Malone’s Beerbongs & Bentleys, accumulated in a week.

Drake is included on the 24-song summer playlist assembled here, which you can play on Spotify by scrolling down to the bottom of the page.

But there’s more than Drizzy happening this summer: The tunes assembled include big pop hits in contention in that winner-take-all Song of the Summer competition that media outlets obsess over, but also breezy and brooding songs with a multiplicity of moods, because while hot and sticky seasonal pop songs are often joyful, they’re not always enough to chase away the summertime blues.

“I Like It,” Cardi B feat. Bad Bunny and J Balvin. If a single song of the summer had to be named, I’d go with this one, the second Billboard chart topper for the Bronx born rapper who dominated 2017 with “Bodak Yellow.” This collaboration with two reggaeton emcees effortlessly blends trap music beats with salsa. It’s further evidence of the indomitable spirit of the rapper born Belcalis Almanzar.

“Make Me Feel,” Janelle Monáe. The current single from the Atlanta R&B-pop-funk synthesist’s terrific new Dirty Computer is “I Like That.” “Make Me Feel,” however, is the superior summertime jam, a celebration of sexuality that takes pointers from Prince’s “Kiss.” She will play the Made in America festival on the Ben Franklin Parkway on Labor Day Weekend.

>> READ MORE: ‘I’m not America’s nightmare, I’m the American dream’: Janelle Monáe’s new kind of protest song

“Apes-,” The Carters. Beyoncé says the bad word on multiple occasions in this hard-banging celebration of high-powered entertainment couple bliss on Everything Is Love, which features art history lessons aplenty in its video filmed at Paris’ Louvre museum. Jay and Bey will be at Lincoln Financial Field on July 30.

>> READ MORE: Beyoncé and Jay-Z are a happy couple on ‘Everything Is Love.’ Is that good for their music?

“Short Court Style,” Natalie Prass. A delectable slice of bubble gum flavored throwback 1970s pop-funk is Richmond, Va., indie singer Prass’ impressive second album, The Future and the Past. Prass plays the Xponential festival in Camden on July 28.

“Boo’d Up,” Ella Mai. Summertime is the love song time. British singer Ella Mai first put out this celebration of going steady early last year, but it’s a success story that gathered stream and pop radio exposure into 2018.

“Slow Burn,” Kacey Musgraves. While still IDing herself as country singer, Kacey Musgraves has redirected her music in a ‘70s soft-rock direction, a smart strategy since country radio is too conservative to play her anyway. This superbly crafted tune stays on permanent simmer.

“Babe,” Sugarland feat. Taylor Swift. Wyomissing, Pa.’s own megastar Swift now rules a pure pop universe. She plays back-to-back nights at Lincoln Financial Field starting Friday. but she’s smartly kept her finger in the country pie by continuing to write hit songs for country pop acts such as reunited duo Sugarland.

“Let’s Take a Vacation,” Joshua Hedley. The Nashville crooner puts a warm-weather spin on Merle Haggard’s “If We Make It Though December,” on this cut from Mr. Jukebox, as he tries to convince his significant other that a summer time getaway will put some zip back in their failing relationship.

“Pretty Horses,” Dwight Yoakam. This is the best of two new lonesome and blue songs that the uncommonly dependable veteran songwriter recently debuted on his excellent new Sirius XM channel Dwight Yoakam & the Bakersfield Beat.

“Pet Cemetery,” Tierra Whack. A love song to her lost dog, this is one of the standout cuts on the North Philly rapper’s wondrous 15-songs-in-15-minutes album Whack World.

>> READ MORE: Welcome to Tierra Whack’s ‘Whack World’: The North Philly rapper only needs 15 minutes of your time

“Summer Games,” Drake. “Summer just started and we’re already done,” the Canadian rhymer, in sad and sensitive mode, raps on the 1980s synth driven summer bummer, sounding disappointed. It’s one of many Scorpion cuts, along with “After Dark” and “Nice For What” that would have made worthy addition to this list.

“No Tears Left to Cry,” Ariana Grande. The octave leaping singer has a new album called Sweetener due next month, and a frisky new single called “Bed” with Nicki Minaj. This, though, is the sad song with a sweet melody whose mournful tone feels like a response to the terror attack that killed 22 at a Grande show in England last year.

“Lucid Dreams,” Juice Wrld. Drake isn’t the only rapper who’s pouring his feelings out this summer. Juice Wrld is the suburban Chicago teen born Jared Higgins who specializes in feeling sorry for himself in song, thankfully with a modicum of self-awareness. “I take prescriptions to make me feel a-OK,” he rap-sings. “I know it’s all in my head.”

“Heat Wave,” Snail Mail. Baltimore teenager Lindsey Jordan explores her feelings with scalpel-sharp acuity and songwriting smarts on her debut, Lush, and this will mentally cool you down if you watch its ice hockey video. Jordan plays Union Transfer on Saturday.

“Nameless, Faceless,” Courtney Barnett. The Australian rock songwriter who is so good at precisely — and drolly — detailing thoughts of alienation and detachment on her new Tell Me How You Really Feel. Put down of the summer: “I could eat a bowl of alphabet soup and spit out better words than you.”

“If You Know You Know,” Pusha-T. There’s no self-pity on this hard-hitting highlight from Daytona, the Kanye West-produced return to form by the rapper who made his name with the street-wise Virginia hip-hop duo Clipse.

“Stay Woke,” Meek Mill feat Miguel. The appropriately serious-in-tone first song by the Philadelphia rapper since his release from prison in April. He spits with authority, and takes Grandmaster Flash’s classic “The Message” as a starting point. Look for Miguel to join him when they both play Made in America on Labor Day weekend.

“This Is America,” Childish Gambino. The song of the summer that speaks the most intensely to a bitterly divided nation in 2018 from Renaissance man Donald Glover.

“The Middle,” Zedd, Maren Morris, Grey. A collaboration between Russian-German deejay-producer, a Nashville country pop singer, and an L.A. EDM act is just the sort of Frankensteinian creation that contemporary pop mega-hits are made of. And this one is hard to resist.

“One Kiss,” Calvin Harris feat. Dua Lipa. This summer’s soaring firework celebration-ready dance track from Scottish deejay and Taylor Swift-ex Harris. This time with English songwriter and vocalist handling the vocal duties in a testimony about how a single peck on the lips can spell transcendence.

“A Song for Those You Miss All the Time,” Thin Lips. Speaking of Lips, this song by the Philly band fronted by Chrissy Tashjianis is by no means a happy one, but its gnarly guitar riff and catchy hook does deliver plenty of catharsis. Chosen Family is out July 27.

“Hey! Little Child,” Low Cut Connie. A ribald stomp from the raucous throwback Philly rocker’s Dirty Pictures (part 2), covering Big Star star Alex Chilton, who included it on his 1979 solo album Like Flies On Sherbert.

“I’m Your Man,” Spritualized. One man band Jason Pierce — a.k.a. J. Spaceman — is returning with And Nothing Hurt, his first album of new music since 2012 on Sept. 7. This and a second song, “A Perfect Miracle,” are marked by swelling orchestration and divine summertime sadness sentiment.

“Summer’s End,” John Prine. Before you know it, it’ll be gone. This highlight from the 71-year-old Prine’s superb better-than-it-has-any-right-to-be The Tree of Forgiveness is as beautiful and bittersweet as a late August sunset.

July 5, 2018 — 6:54 PM EDT

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mrcoreymonroe · 6 years

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The Joy Of ADF

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Like many of you, I bought my first airplane a long time ago, and the panel looked like something out of a South American locomotive. There was a very tired, crystal-controlled Narco VHT3 navcom that worked on alternate Thursdays when the moon was full. There was also an equally weary but still functional Bendix T12D ADF that looked as if it shouldn’t work but did.

At the time, I regarded the Bendix as a wonder box. It was the simplest possible form of radio navigation. The needle pointed at the station. End of directions.

Simplicity isn’t necessarily all it’s cracked up to be. ADF offers no distance or altitude information and no internal heading info, though following the needle could provide a bearing to the station. If you could receive two strong signals with the proper geometry, you could switch back and forth and sometimes triangulate a rough position. Very rough.

ADF was simple and primitive, but it worked…most of the time.

Anyone who’s read Rod Machado, William Kershner or any of a dozen other aviation textbook authors can probably recite chapter and verse as to why ADF has been all but abandoned as a primary nav aid for VFR and IFR flight.

The system dates back to the 1920s, and no, this isn’t a historical dissertation on the superiority of ADF over today’s satellite-based, supremely accurate navigation technology.

ADF operates in the LF band that ranges from 200 to 415 kHz and the AM, commercial broadcast band that plays between 550 and 1600 kHz. Unlike some clear channel, AM broadcast stations that boast power up to 50,000 watts, dedicated aviation LF stations generally make do with 200 watts or less.

Of course, as everyone learned in flight school, the LF signal is notoriously unreliable in convective weather. Any electrical discharge, typically a thunderstorm, can drive the needle crazy, most often pointing at the nearest lightning flash. Terrain errors, common in mountainous areas, can induce erratic readings. Ionosphere error during sunrise and sunset also can cause fluctuations in the readout. Bank error can compromise the DF function when the aircraft is in a turn.

The former owner of my 1946 Swift had a directory of commercial AM broadcast stations that he carried with him everywhere he flew, and he bequeathed that book to me when I bought his airplane. The info in the directory and my Bendix ADF helped me travel to pretty much anyplace I wanted to go.

Blessed with undeserved courage and limited aviation brain cells, I flew the Swift from Southern California to practically everywhere in North America except Mexico. Though my directory provided the lat/long of the transmission source, it didn’t relate to the airports’ location. I could usually determine that info from Acc-U-Quik or by consulting the chart.

I was reminded of all this a few weeks back when Dan Neil, auto reviewer for the Wall Street Journal, wrote a story in his Rumble Seat column about driving coast-to-coast across the lower U.S.A. in his minivan.

Neil waxed poetic about the joy of driving at night when some AM broadcast stations could reach out and touch him from 2,000 miles away. Obviously, Neil had no DF capability in his van, but that barely mattered since he was forced to follow the interstate highway system anyway.

When I flew at night over Southern California, I was a little amazed to sometimes tune WABC in New York (770 kHz) and have the stations come booming into my headset as if they were on the phone.

Moot point. The Swift had a range of about 350 nm, so those far-flung stations were never my destinations. At least, the ADF could point out the proper direction to the station, sometimes even in daylight.

When I was learning to fly in Alaska, navigation was mostly by pilotage, dead reckoning or ADF. Few trainers had VOR receivers. Mountains are practically everywhere in the 49th state, so even when VORs finally became available, their application was limited.

When ADF worked, it was the closest thing we had to long-range nav. Fortunately, most general aviation aircraft came equipped with ADF in that era, and it seemed there were NDBs everywhere.

When I began delivering airplanes overseas in 1980, ADF became even more valuable. LF beacons are relatively inexpensive to buy and maintain, and they’re still used extensively all over the world, especially in Africa and on many remote Pacific islands.

The advent of GPS has eclipsed much of the NDB’s application in the U.S., and the FAA is slowly decommissioning more and more of those low-frequency stations.

LF beacons and four-course ranges were standard in many places until VHF/VORs began to supplant them in the early 1960s. The VOR network was good for short distances over land but not so good over the ocean.

On the standard, 1,800-nm leg from Gander, Newfoundland, to Shannon, Ireland, we used to tune a commercial broadcast station (Radio 2 – 566 kHz, I think) that happened to have its transmitter located directly east of Shannon.

If atmospheric conditions were good, we could track that signal all the way across the Atlantic. Sometimes, when conditions were optimum, we could pick up Radio 2 while sitting on the ramp at Gander.

If we homed on the station with the needle, we’d sometimes prescribe a slight arc across the ocean because of frequent, northwesterly crosswinds. Most of the time, the added distance was less than 5 percent of our total. If we “tracked” to the station, using a wind correction angle, we could often reduce or eliminate the error.

More importantly for pilots who were smarter than to overfly oceans, ADF allowed tuning LF frequencies at airports across the U.S. These stations weren’t always very strong, but some offered NDB approaches that allowed IFR procedures when weather was marginal.

Coincidentally, a non-directional beacon (CPM–378 kHz) was mounted on the side of my hangar in Compton, California until a few years ago. One joke around the airport during instrument weather was that if I could call ahead and have someone open my hangar door, I could fly right into my hangar. Not!

ADF was usually a good friend. I used it religiously, even after the VHF/VOR network was introduced. Every airplane I’ve owned has been equipped with ADF, and the system has been a valuable backup more times than I can count.

Once, back in the ‘80s, well before the introduction of GPS, I was flying a 36 Bonanza outbound from Honolulu, final destination—Perth, Australia. I was halfway out on the second, 2,000-nm Pacific leg toward Majuro in the Marshall Islands, still 1,100 miles distant.

The Majuro NDB was strong and pointing straight ahead when the needle lost lock and wandered slowly around to the 90-degree-right, park position. I tried to check the identifier, but there was nothing on the frequency. Majuro’s beacon had gone off the air.

No cause for panic. For what it was worth, I still had my dead reckoning flight plan, but that was based on best guess winds aloft in Honolulu, now far behind me. My chances of finding tiny Majuro, a half-moon coral atoll about three miles across counting the lagoon in the center and still 1,000 nm away, were marginal, at best.

I called up San Francisco long range on HF and asked if they could check with Majuro on the problem with the NDB.

San Francisco called back a few minutes later and said they were still trying to contact Majuro. Apparently, there’d been a major power outage, and even San Francisco couldn’t raise anyone at Majuro.

Meanwhile, with no better plan in place, I kept doing what I’d been doing, hoping that someone could get the NDB back on the air. Power failures are common on mid-Pacific atolls, and they usually don’t last long, I kept telling myself.

Sure enough, a half-hour later, the needle came back to life and rotated back to top center. At the same time, San Francisco called and said someone at Majuro had forgotten to refill the generator’s emergency fuel tank. When the power failed, the voltage drop was supposed to kick the generator back on and keep the NDB on the air. No gas, no signal.

Perhaps sadly, the advent of GPS has eclipsed ADF in both OEM and the aftermarket. Most aircraft manufacturers still offer ADF as an option, but many buyers don’t bother to check that box, because GPS is regarded as invincible.

Don’t believe it. I was flying a Cessna Grand Caravan from Guam to Seoul, Korea, on the last leg of a ferry delivery from Santa Barbara a decade after the Majuro incident and was treated to a GPS “blink,” a brief signal loss on both panel-mount GPSs and my two portables.

I was flying in strong headwinds toward Hiroshima, Japan, and the airplane was 1,700 pounds over gross with ferry fuel. Plus, with a cargo pod hanging down, the Caravan was about as aerodynamic as a stagecoach, so I was only grounding (watering?) 120 knots. Plus, Dumbo, the dancing bear in the left seat, hadn’t checked the ADF before departing from California. It turned out the ADF was stone cold dead.

Japan and Korea are hard targets to miss if you can merely read a compass, but I was still grateful the GPS signal came back online in about 20 minutes.

Before you sign on to your MacBook or Dell to ask, yes, I’m a big fan of GPS. I have two of them on my current Mooney’s panel, plus a semi-permanent Garmin backup on top of the dash, and they’re my primary nav sources. I also have a small Terra ADF tucked into the lower right corner of the panel, and it’s on most of the time during every flight, just in case GPS decides to blink at me again.

Check out more Cross-Country Log flying stories from ferry pilot and Senior Editor Bill Cox.

The post The Joy Of ADF appeared first on Plane & Pilot Magazine.

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tube-thoughts-blog · 6 years

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tube thoughts vol. 3

zero stars - terrible, 1/2 a star- dull, 1 star - folly, 1 1/2 stars - lacking, 2 stars - fair, 2 1/2 stars - decent, 3 stars - terrific

GLOW 'The Story of the Glorious Ladies of Wrestling' *What they lack in testosterone they make up for in tenacity and triumph.* 3 stars

'Heavy Metal' *You don't have to be high on cat piss, like the southpark heavy metal homage, for this trip.* 3 stars

G.I. Joe 'Retaliation' *Joe Pros: Firefly portrayal, really badass toys/tech and actor. Cobra Commander, creepy even in a prison fishtank. Brief Storm Shadow vs. Snake Eyes faceoff (wish was longer). Red Ninjas. The Rock's tumbler tank & hover-boat-gun-boat. Bruce Willis' stash of high powered weapons littered throughout his suburban home (quite funny). Cobra Cons: All the pop culture references. RZA's acting. Moronic score/soundtrack. Roland Emmerich style large scale CGI destruction of a major city. Cliche'd walking away from an explosion while not looking back -scene.* 2 stars

"Second Glance" 1992 --Christian themed after school special-- *A Jason Segel look-a-like gets really pushy about his politeness and preachiness getting in the way of his puerile attempts at procuring poontang at a 1980s style high school where the people, and setting, are so awkward that it must be the town over from Napoleon Dynamite.* 2 1/2 stars

Russel Mulcahy's 'Tale of the Mummy' *When the moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter aligns with Mars, dirty toilet paper will CGI creep across the planet. Cursed with some of the flaws of other late 90s horror thrillers, this movie at least tries and is earnest in its attempt at an homage and modern updating of a classic genre. Moreso than Brendan Fraser's 'The Mummy' which was somewhat entertaining but chose to take the Universal Monster character and turn him into a showy villain in an action adventure movie.* 2 1/2 stars

Fox's "Gotham" Season 1 Episode 1 *I'm not a fan of shoehorning Renee Montoya into Jim & Barbara Gordon's relationship. Jada Pinkett Smith's character Fish Mooney looks to play too much of a major role in the show. I don't care about seeing a child version of Ivy or Catwoman looking like cosplay fan service early versions of both characters. Not liking the new character relationships, like mentioned above, and the inclusion of the Fish Mooney character's overbearing presence just might keep me from coming back to see what I do like most about the show, which is Bullock, Penguin, and Jim Gordon's personal quest to make things right with the Wayne homicide and corruption surrounding it.* 2 1/2 stars

Captain America: "The Winter Soldier" *A couple of old song and dance(s). Would you feel safer with guns pointed at everyone on the globe? Sometimes you have to say you don't know the people that you used to know.* 3 stars

Guillermo Del Toro's "Pacific Rim" *It's easy to believe a mad scientist would try to synch his brain with a giant lizard, from another dimension, when you've already seen the same actor eat the cheese from slum land rat-traps and digest catfood in a sleep experiment. Asian women driving cars is bad enough, let alone giving them the keys to a transformer. In this world, the weather channel is better than the WWE.* 3 stars

Farscape: "Thank God It's Friday, Again" *Wastin' Away In Margarita Village of the Damned Josefine Stalin Turnip Farm Rave Party* 2 1/2 stars

The Outer Limits: "White Light Fever" starring Bruce Davison *To hell with natural death. The heart wants what the heart wants, but the reaper gets the final jolt.* 3 stars

X Men: "Days of Future Past" *The Sentinels are realized, on film, in the scary and overwhelming manner they should be. And you can't go wrong with Peter Dinklage.* 3 stars

Transformers: "More Than Meets The Eye" (3 part 1984 debut) *Dear diary, Otimus Prime would make a neat president. 1984 presidential election-- Otimus Prime & Michael Jackson vs. Megatron & Ronald Regan* 3 stars

Fred Dekker & Stan Winston present "Monster Squad" *The only time you'll see Dracula dynamite a kids' clubhouse in order to make a statement.* 3 stars

SYFY & The Asylum present--- Z Nation: "Puppies & Kittens" *Captures the style of AMC's "The Walking Dead" closely except for the great storytelling and practical visual fx of Robert Kirkman & Greg Nicotero. That being said, it's debatable whether DJ Qualls as disc jokey of the z nation is more debonair than Daryl Dixon, the possum eating sex symbol of the world of "Walkers."--* 2 Stars

Charles Band presents "Ghost Town" *Going mad, on the lone prairie, chasing tumbleweeds. A role reversal High Plains Drifter.* 3 stars

Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs presents Larry Cohen's "It Lives Again" *The still grieving father, from the first film, leads a fringe group of citizens and scientists who fight the pro-life fight for the killer mutant babies because they believe the distubing infants could be the next step in human evolution. Yep, another misguided organization, like PETA, this time with even more disastrous results.* 3 stars

Masters of Horror: "Dream Cruise" *The Japanese tell a decent ghost story. This one involves treachery, trying to forget, and the curse of the dead at sea.* 3 stars

The Outer Limits: "The Choice" *Paige Fletcher, The Hitchhiker, hires a scanner nanny to look after his American Beauty daughter who suffers the same condition. The nanny wants to abduct the daughter into a Lillith cult, while a G-man witchhunter searches for the cult, the little girl, and the nanny to experiment on them in a concentration camp.* 3 stars

"Without Warning" (1980) *You don't want to be stranded in the middle of B.F.E. stuck between batshit Martin Landau, batshit Jack Palance, and a shadowy Slender Man like alien with his flying leeches.* 3 stars

Thundarr: The Barbarian-- "Secret of the Black Pearl" *Nomads living in the ruins of Manhattan, after a great cataclysm, discover a power to fight against an evil two-faced sorcerer. They entrust it to a Conan, with a lightsaber, his musclebound Wookie, and a hot sorceress. The heroes use it to fight off Two-Face and his torch flamethrower wielding animated Statue of Liberty.* 3 stars

"Hot Dog: The Movie" guest starring Shannon Tweed and the guy from American Werewolf in London-- *Sex crazed 1980s party animals versus stuck up German snobs on the ski slopes of Squaw Valley, USA.* 3 stars

Doctor Who (4th Doctor Tom Baker) "Genesis of the Daleks" *The Daleks originated on a planet where two civilizations fought in their own version of WW1, WW2, and the Cold War for over a thousand years.* 3 stars

Disney's Gummi Bears "A New Adventure" *A kid in a king's court stumbles onto the truth about his favorite fairy tale creatures. They're real. He teams up with these Renaissance Beverly Hillbilly bears to stop a dastardly duke, and his bumbling ogre henchmen, from catapulting the king's castle to ruins.* 3 stars

"The Peanut Butter Solution" (1985) *Polite, Canadian hair'em scare'em. A kid gets a strange fright. His hair falls out like Uncle Fester. Two ghosts convince the kid to spread mudpie on his scalp. The kid turns into Cousin It. Then, the kids, in town, all get abducted by the Frenchy former art teacher and he puts them to work in a sweat shop making brushes out of the kid's long hair so that Frenchy can paint magical paintings of his dog.* 3 stars

Tobe Hooper presents Stephen King's "Salem's Lot" *The sweetest singing and a feeling like drowning* 3 stars

rifftrax riffs "It's like Rob Schneider's "The Animal," only this is a comedy." & Richard Stanley(sort of), John Frankenheimer, Stan Winston, and H.G. Wells(sort of) present "The Island of Dr. Moreau" *Distractingly bizarre / defiant / spaced out / aloof / odd for odd's sake are Brando and Kilmer. Their enemy is not the cruel repression of a species, but instead the art of filmmaking as they figuratively fling thespian poo like dramatic monkeys at the zoo.* 3 stars with riffing 2 stars without

Cowboy Bebop "Asteroid Blues" *Coyote, with red eye, on the run to mars. A couple of bounty hunters looking for beef.* 3 stars

The Galaxy Invader (1985) *"The greatest scientific discovery, of the century, gets lasso'd by rednecks."* 2 stars

Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 *Crucified to the supper table. "There's roadkill all over Texas." A subpar, but still somewhat sinister, Sawyer family portrayal.* 2 stars

Hammer Films "The Curse of Frankenstein" starring Peter Cushing as the Baron Frankenstein & Christopher Lee as the monster *Cushing's descent into madness is mesmerizing.* 3 stars

Kolchak, The Night Stalker "Demon In Lace" *Co-ed blueballs and the stench of brimstone* 3 stars

Something Weird Video presents "Trouble Down Below" ---xxx--- (1981) *Warning! This is not a daring expose' on downstairs mixups. It's instead the slow-hell of having to stare at the shriveled coin purses of men from the era of Ron Burgundy.* 2 stars

Victor Salva's "Clownhouse" *The director is a perv for little boys, Sam Rockwell bullies his two younger brothers, and three escaped mental patients stalk about in the shadows.* 3 stars

New World Pictures "Saturday, the 14th" (1981) *Arrested development in Eerie P.A., where you can't piss on hospitality, the necronomicon,or an electric can opener.* 2 1/2 stars

"Student Bodies" (1981) *Psycho-sexual-slap-stick* 3 stars

"The Kindred" (1987) *Aquatic hybrid sibling. A forgotten special fx gem.* 3 stars

"Queen of Blood" (1966) starring Dennis Hopper & John Saxon-- *She has glowing eyes, green skin, a beehive hair-do, and likes to slurp spacemen as if they were Hi-C.* 2 1/2 stars

New World Pictures "Reform School Girls" (1986) *Trashy twats terrorizing troubled tarts.* 3 stars

"Don't Go In The House" (1980) *There are no haunted places, only haunted people. Yet another Ed Gein, this one with a dragon in his guilty belly, 'cause mama tried to purify "his evil" using flame.* 3 stars

--- Joe Bob's Hollywood Halloween (1999)

in search of The Nair Witch segments

and the feature movie Don Coscarelli's "Phantasm" (1979)

*Here we have an outdated skit comedy about a late 90s found footage horror movie, and the braintrust at TNT's moronic attempts to turn Monstervision into Three's Company with Joe Bob hanging out with two babes in the Hollywood hills.

He gets to talk about the movie, a little bit, but not enough.

The TNT censors also butcher some of the great gore special fx, but the eerie setting and story still holds up as classic.

A story about a boy who should be dealing with coming of age problems instead of morbid things like the loss surrounding death.*

1 1/2 stars for the Nair Witch garbage

2 1/2 stars for the censored version of Phantasm as it's sandwiched between all of that

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Walking Dead: "No Sanctuary" *No Safeway, either, and very little humanity, but they've got a people Piggly Wiggly, or maybe it's a Publix, these cannibals are rather new age in attitude.* 2 1/2 stars

Twin Peaks: "Variations and Relations" *sonnets and soirees* 2 1/2 stars

Farscape: "PK Tech Girl" *Ghost-ship grievances, goading smokescreen, attracting polarities, fireball spitting frog fiends.* 3 stars

The Outer Limits: "Virtual Future" *Lawnmower Man computer program wiz, Josh Brolin, gets caught up in his corrupt boss' (David Warner) Dead Zone political run.* 2 stars

Dario Argento's "Creepers" (1985) *"Fate... up against your will..." It also doesn't hurt to have telepathic control over insects and a chimpanzee backup.* 3 stars

"Skin Games" (1985) ---xxx--- appearance by Peter North *A lotta lovemaking. Not a lotta creativity or allure.* 1 1/2 stars

The Nether Horror Collection (1996) ------------------------------------

"The Bitch Is Back" *A man has a bloody tussle with his movie quoting, maniacal blowup doll. Though, a guy with an Alien 3 poster on his bedroom door kind of deserves what's coming to him.* 2 stars

"Burp" *A hooker and a business man have a bad night on the surreal streets of some European city.* 2 stars

"The Prodigal Son" *A gigolo gets purchased for a golden girl mom who sucks and bites his nipple off. Then, all hell breaks loose when the jealous brother shows up.* 3 stars

"Pick Nick" *A man tries to trick a nagging blind woman to get out of the car at a lion preserve.* 2 1/2 stars

"Zombi Orignale" *"The statue needs blood, human blood, or else the gates of hell will open and the dead will rise." Great, little homage to Night of the Living Dead and the king of gore, Lucio Fulci, too.* 3 stars

"La Mouche" *Plodding, and plodding some more, man versus fly.* 1/2 a star despite ok end

"The Great Rock & Roll Massacre" *A nerdy Colonel Sanders finger licks a guitar while some youth and a critter-esque muppet get depraved.* 2 1/2 stars

"The Great Rock & Roll Massacre 2: The Resurrection" *Bloody guitar player rises from the grave to rock out, once more.* 2 stars

"Inkt" *A Victorian lifelong fear/obsession with squid leads to time spent in a watery and nightmarish asylum.* 2 1/2 stars

"Visire" *Black & white short about grey, dreary European city life where the maggot covered dead body of your upstairs neighbor falls onto your bowl of cereal as you try to watch Looney Tunes.* 2 stars

"Bloody Mary" *Big, bald bully bothers a barmaid before getting a bloody boo boo and blacking out, bringing the barmaid to bare her fangs.* 2 1/2 stars

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transformers: Transport to Oblivion *Megatron's hard ticket to Cybertron* 2 1/2 stars

Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs presents "Project Metal-Beast" *Corrupt and crazy CIA man thaws his old werewolf buddy out of storage so that some young military scientists can have an ethical dilemma hissyfit over sewing patchwork synthetic, so-called indestructible skin all over him, when he's not gnawing on them.* 2 stars

Sundown, The Vampire in Retreat (Shouldn't it be Sunup?) featuring M. Emmett Walsh, George 'Buck' Flower, Bruce Campbell, & David Carradine *A family goes on a trip to a sleepy, desert town where the dad is helping set up a Snapple-esque blood substitute plant for the incognito vampire town residents who have given up their gruesome ways, for the most part, and are living a gentle life behind sunscreen, umbrellas, big floppy hats & sunglasses. There's also a hokey deal about Dracula getting forgiveness from Jesus, a group of dissident cave cowboy vampires, and a Straw Dog love triangle between the husband, the wife, and an old friend who has gone over to the darkside.* 3 stars

Roger Corman presents "Space Raiders" (1983) *Little Anikin Menace Phone Home Alone* 1 1/2 stars

Thundarr, The Barbarian: "Harvest of Doom" *Snakes, on a train, delivering poppies to the wizard, and a swamp girl, Huck Finn, who wants the train as her own personal playset.* 3 stars

The Outer Limits: "Living Hell" *A drifter, and all around nice guy, with a scarred past, becomes a gunshot, to the head, victim. He receives a revolutionary brain chip that saves his life, but also allows visions from the mind of a serial killer who has the same kind of bug in his head. The nice guy's sympathetic, and beautiful, brain surgeon helps him as he deals with the gruesome visions and they try to stop the killer.* 3 stars

Cowboy Bebop: "Stray Dog Strut" *Give him the once over, twice, and get enough for duck. Bumbling a bounty, but scoring a sought after puppy stuffed with precious data.* 2 1/2 stars

"Ghostwatch" (1992) *BBC mockumentary about a live, Halloween night paranormal investigation at a suburban home in London. The two girls and mother do a believable job, some of the reporters make it a little more silly than it should be, but maybe that works to the advantage of making the viewer comfortable and then disturbing them. The comments on having created a social t.v. seance and having other viewers and the studio experience outlandishly spooky events might have been a little over the top, but all in all very entertaining.* 3 stars

Gargoyles: "Awakening" *Betrayed, a millenium ago, by the humans they were sworn to protect, a group of winged beasts awake from a rocky slumber in pre-9-11 NYC. A ponytailed, shady and extremely wealthy CEO hopes to use their battle skills to wage corporate espionage from high atop a castle above the largest skyscraper in the city. Realizing the trickery, the leader, of the gargoyles, Goliath, severs ties with an old love who is showing too much of a demonic side like the human who awakened them and attempted to exploit them. The gargoyles don't lose complete love for humanity, however, as many of them find that they love modern city life and Goliath catches urban fever from a saucy, lady detective, friend. The show has a similar moody, gorgeous, compelling style as Batman: The Animated Series.* 3 stars

Tim & Eric, Bedtime Stories: "Angel Boy" *A dorky dad becomes eeriely enamored with a fairylike neighbor boy's Lady Gaga wannabe avant garde singing. So much so that he surprises his own aggressive whiteboy monstertruck driving son with a special musical performance of Angel Boy at a pool party for bitches and bros. They of course begin to haze Angel Boy, to the idiotic shock of the dad, and make him face his worst fear, water, when they toss him into the pool. He boils like a mogwai, for a moment, and then rises above the pool, in the air, and makes a demonic pitch of sound that causes everyone to shit their pants. Aside from the painfully non-humor music video moment, the story sticks to the point and manages to poke fun at people in Tim & Eric's unique and sort of spot on way.* 2 1/2 stars

Guillermo Del Toro's "Hellboy 2: The Golden Army" *It comes down to the imaginative creatures being more interesting than the dark elf plot to unleash tin man terminators on the world.* 2 1/2 stars

Farscape: "That Old Black Magic" *An evil being savors suffering and is willing to make you feel shitty in order to get his own star destroyer spaceship.* 3 stars

Martin Landau, Ruth Buzzi, and Jose Ferrer in "The Being" *Dazed & Confused town is more concerned with selling potatoes and stopping so-called smut than they are the toxic waste dump that's spawning gooey cyclops menaces.* 3 stars

Dr. Who (4th Doctor Tom Baker) "Revenge of the Cybermen" *Metal Slug induced "plague", dastardly double agent, satellite collision course, moon-planet of gold, human detonators for the biggest explosion in the solar system, generational power struggle, Tin Man Butcherers with a 14 karrot Achilles' heel.* 2 1/2 stars

Thundarr, The Barbarian: "Mindok, The Mind Menace" *Doctor-Doom-esque villain's brain refuses to die, so he seeks out frozen scientists from the 20th century to help build a giant robotic body to house his vile intellect. Our boneheaded hero, his even more boneheaded bigfoot friend, and the only smart one, the sorceress, try to free the scientists and stop Mindok. The awkward line delivery and odd moments of animation make this show unintentionally hilarious, often.* 2 1/2 stars

"Spookies" (1986) *Farting mummies killed by red wine, 13 year old boy who gets a surprise birthday party at a haunted mansion and then buried in a shallow grave by a werewolf, Jersey Shore couple victims, Grim Reaper that explodes when it falls off the 2 story roof, graveyard full of groping zombies (no flesh eating), Aleister Crowley type who is playing a big game of chess with victims for a brought back from the dead bride who never loved him, wolfboy with a hook for a hand, girlfriend possessed by demon, dorky mustache guy with puppet who gets the life, literally, sucked out of him by an Asian spiderlady, British prude lady who controls her boyfriend and they both get eaten by creatures from the black lagoon big & small. Some okay gooey special fx creatures and makeup mixed in with some cheap and crappy Halloween makeup on ghouls and an unfocused story/climax/ending that felt like they didn't know what to do and just gave up.* 2 stars

"Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy" --------------------

*Nightmare 1: Smug filmmakers think they're above the slasher genre. Bob Shea is responsible for the great 'gotcha' ending.

Freddy's Revenge: It's realized how important Englund is. Actors, screenwriter, production crew look back fondly on the silliness and gay over/under tones.

Dream Warriors: The boy actors crush on Patricia Arquette. The director is manic and jerkish about making a bold production.

Dream Master: Everyone disappointed Arquette doesn't return. Viking director takes Freddy into MTV pop culture direction. Freddy is now mainstream. We, the public, felt it.

Dream Child: Bug eyed kid actor would make a great Golum in LOTR. Fresh influences help series, including splatterpunk writers and visionary KNB special fx guys.

Freddy's Dead: Hack director gets praise for over the top looney tunes crap filmmaking. Publicity stunts help New Line and the director con people into thinking it's bye bye.

New Nightmare: Wes Craven returns to take the movie in a meta as meta can get direction. More smugness and even more Heather Lagenkampf. She's no Jamie Lee or Sigourney.

Freddy vs. Jason: In gestation for years. Many scripts. A director who didn't like the characters. An ending no one can decide on. Test audiences. Apologies. It's no Frankenstein vs. The Wolfman.*

2 stars

--------------------------------------------------------------

Barbara Hershey in "The Entity" (1980) *Psychologists are stuffy foggies puffing pipes. Parapsychologists are vibrant, videoage pioneers. Hysterical, lonely women with child abuse / unwanted motherhood regret invent undefinable, unstopabble forces of nature to avert dealing with menopausal personal crisis, or do they?* 3 stars

American Horror Story -- Freakshow -- "Monsters Among Us" *Paints with very broad strokes and overacting and power guitar performances in the wrong era. It's not as garish and actually shocking like Tod Browning's 'Freaks.' It's not moody and timeless like 'Carnivale.' It's not compelling like 'Fur: A Portrait of Diane Arbus.' And it's not truly weird like Harmony Korine's "Mister Lonely." It's a cliche killer clown, here, a fornicating lobster boy, there, and more uninterestingly freakish characters aside from the cgi siamese twin and the overbearing cabaret leader.* 2 stars

Town of the Living Dead: "Zombie Karate" *It's hard to tell whether these characters are a creation of the show's production or if these smalltown, extremely passionate moviemakers are really this stupid and odd.* 1 1/2 stars

"Motel Hell" (1980) *"It takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent's fritters." Those fritters include hippy bandmates, nosey health inspector, and kinky husband & wife swingers to name a few. "Meat is meat, and people gotta eat."... in this Jimmy Dean smokehouse massacre.* 3 stars

"Basket Case 2" (1990) *The Times Square Freak Twins flee to Staten Island where they find sanctuary with a Nightbreed Muppet Babies group lead by a loving granny. They're hounded by a weekly world news type tabloid reporter and both find out how tragic love and acceptance can be.* 3 stars

---- "The Willies" (1990)

*Sean Astin (LOTR & Rudy) is on a backyard campout, with his cousins, telling kid-friendly tales of terror. One tale is about a piggy lady who finds a fried rat in her KFC.

Another tale is about an old man who dies on a haunted house ride at the carnival.

Then there's the tale of the the monster who wears a janitor's skin and eats elementary school bullies who have mullets and wear iron maiden t-shirts along with pinch faced teachers, but he spares the picked on nerds who pee their pants.

The final tale is about a live action Eric Cartman. Gordy Belcher (Donkey Lips from Salute Your Shorts) gets twisted pleasure from the misfortune of others and stealing whatever he wants to the point of everyone in town, even his parents, disliking him. He also is methodical in his perverse obsession with flies. He experiments with them, like a god or mad scientist. The Weird Science comic covers taped to his bedroom wall reflect his personality. He has more problems than suspension from school, and punishment from his parents, when he ticks off a crazy farmer who has came up with a smelly solution to get rid of Gordy for good.*

2 1/2 stars

---------------------------------------------------------

---- "Fear No Evil" (1981)

*The pubescent Prince of Darkness mopes around, like the lead singer of Bauhaus, at his 1980s highschool where there's always MTV rock music playing, like The Ramones.

He's picked on in homo-erotic ways by the school's John Travolta look-a-act a-like, and they share a homo-erotic-satanic kiss in the showers.

He's a straight A student, accepted into every ivy league college imaginable, but his presence, since his botched baptism, has put his folks into a deep depression as they walk around like shells of human beings- in a decrepit, falling apart house they no longer tend to.

The dad just drinks and tells people, at the bar, that his son is the devil.

They laugh him off and say there's is too.

The prince tries to mind rape a girl he's obssessed with and ends up causing the stereotypical crazy gym teacher to kill her boyfriend with a dodgeball.

The girl goes into mourning and finds out she's one of three reincarnated angels sent to stop Satan.

The prince goes all Caligula on his town during a Jesus play and the low budget horror fx begin, including a hilarious scene where he gives Travolta guy breasts, playing off a joke/dare Travolta kid teased Satan kid with earlier when he wouldn't share a homo-erotic puff puff pass pot joint with him.*

2 stars

--------------------------------------------------------------

Cowboy Bebop: "Honky Tonk Women" *The giant roulette wheel in the upper atmosphere.* 3 stars

Transformers: "Roll For It" *(with enthusiasm) "It's time to create anti-matter!" Megatron, again, comes close to causing himself to become permanent, 'instant junk.'* 3 stars

Dino De Laurentiis presents Stephen King's "Cat's Eyes" *This cat really got around in the 80s. In the 90s, not so much. But man, the 80s... if it went down, the cat was somewhere lurking about. Lionel Richie walking on the ceiling, the cat was down on the floor saving Billy Ocean's breath, while he was napping, and being the inspiration for 'Get Out of My Dreams, Get into My car.' The night that the Elephant Man's bones came alive and attacked Liz Taylor because Michael accidentally let her get drunk and do witchcraft, the cat was there to save the day. The only time that the cat ever did wrong was when he watched a guy drown, and didn't lend a hand, luckily Phil Collins was there to witness it, and shame the cat, later, in song.* 3 stars

"Pulse" (1988) *Tense horror thriller where phenomena thrives in the disbelief it allows in some and the despair it causes in others. Set in the 1980s revival of the love for modern, electrical conveniences and the fact that there might be some sinister force dwelling on the edges of that lifestyle. Added twitch of the personal drama of how distance and divorce does disrepair to developmental years, for a child, if not dealt with in a down to earth and off the grid manner.* 3 stars

Thundarr, The Barbarian: "Raiders of the Abyss" *It's death from above as foul, shriveled monks on massive mutated bats pluck stranded passengers off of an ancient cruiseliner impaled sideways on a sharp mountain. The flying mouse brigade wanna sniff the life out of the captured, like a glade plug in, so's they can be young again. Thundarr, and his trusty wookie, are willing to blindly ride their horses off any chasm to save a fellow hugh-man, but the sorceress is wise enough to use logic and light bridges to make plausible path, and risks her skin- more than once- to save the day.* 3 stars

"The Midnight Hour" (1985) *For a town with a lynching past, 1985 seemed pretty light-hearted and accepting. How can you not like a movie with Thriller style dance numbers, Kurtwood Smith as the sheriff, Wolfman Jack as the disc jockey, LaVar Burton as a horny teenager, and an earth angel style ghost romance that saves Halloween from a vampire herpes outbreak?* 2 1/2 stars

The Walking Dead: "Strangers" *How many times has this happened, on the show,... our heroes regroup after a highly tense battle, divisive and long drawn out disputes are settled with a pat on the back and words of understanding, it's decided that a supply run is once again needed, a handful of zombies stand in the way and are quickly/watchoutohno/easily dispatched, someone in the group feels angsty, anxiety & mistrust settles back in during a comfortable moment, the show ends on a cliffhanger? We come back the next week, like the suckers we are...* 2 stars

Lost and Found Video Night Vol 4: All Musical Edition *"In a room with no windows, in the corner, I found truth."* 2 stars

Z Nation: "Fracking Zombies" *Post-zombie tech support outsourced to the polar ice caps. Zombie sled dogs in the snow. Sons of Anarchy Sex slave ring? Zombie oil spill. Zombie boredom game of 'Go Fish.' Zombie s.u.v. leering hissyfit. Z nation satellite surveillance spots a rare telephone booth. Zeriously, zthough, DJ Qualls lonely and wanting a puppy pulls at my heart strings more than Rick & Carl have in a while.* 2 1/2 stars

"The Supernaturals" (1986) *A platoon of privates, stranded in the deep south wilderness, encounter some undead rebel soldiers and a resurrected civil war army mother/widow. The hundred plus year old son has been keeping dear old mom alive since a group of yanks caused her death during cruel torture/execution at a confederate minefield. Our hero, one of the army privates, has to convince the son (who he might actually be the father of in a past life) to stop using his supernatural powers to keep these old war wounds open.* 2 1/2 stars

"Lady in White" *Charmingly crafted tale of a writer who returns to his smalltown where, during his childhood, a Halloween prank puts him on the path of ghosts, and a child murderer, set against the backdrop of a quirky schoolroom, a quirky Italian family with sweet & silly grandparents, and the issues of race during the early days of the civil rights movement.* 3 stars

Linda Blair in "Summer of Fear" aka "Stranger In Our House" a Wes Craven tv movie (1978) *An Ozark Mountains witch poses as a distant cousin so that she can spellcast her way into the top spot in a California ranch home and ruin the teenage life of the family's spunky, horse-lovin' daughter. The Poison Ivy plot can be forgiven, for it was fresh at the time, but some of the silly moments like the notion that a witch can't be photographed, and that the dad doesn't remember the entire week where he was cheating on mom, with the witch, are harder to not criticize.* 2 1/2 stars

"In Search of the Wild Beaver" ---xxx--- (1986) *College buddies devise a plan to fur-trap some girl game and pop their poindexter friend's cherry so that he'll let them take his winnebago on a raunchy roadtrip.* 2 stars

"Taking Tiger Mountain" (1983) *Feminist fascist scientists chemically castrate, sexually re-engineer, and generally just mind fuck typically horny young males, like Bill Paxton's character, in order to experiment in the balancing of the sexes. When they're royally screwed up, they send these fuck fixated fellas out into the world as sleeper agent assassins against the femi-nazi's political enemies. Europe is full of North American expatriates, due to a state of post-apocalyptic chaos west of the atlantic. We hear this on a constant radio broadcast in our head. Europe isn't much better as radicals try to overthrow the patriarchy and groups of young people are auctioned off in prostitution meat markets. Aesthetically more of a filmschool artfilm than a surreal masterpiece like Cronenberg's "Naked Lunch."* 2 1/2 stars

Thundarr, The Barbarian: "Treasure of the Moks" *River-Queen pirate raids the village of legendary rich Wookies using salvaged torpedos from a Naval graveyard. She's sitting pretty on the deck of a battleship nailed to a raft of logs. Her crew looks like casino drunks or adam west batman's penguin henchmen with their navy frog suits with skull and crossbones on the front. She's more of a villainess fashion victim with a men's necktie substituting for a pirate's bandana. On a serious note, this episode is great because it's the first time we see actual human beings as the greedy, dangerous ones in this post-apocalypse instead of the usual mutant creature, sub-species, or inhuman tech or magic entity.* 3 stars

Doctor Who (Tom Baker) "Terror of the Zygons" *Loch Nessie in a fetching scarf floating up the Thames.* 3 stars

42nd Street Forever Vol 2: Grindhouse Exploitation Trailers *Fast rides, wild teens, hot women, hard edged bruthas, controversial facts of life, unspeakable creatures, inhuman terrors, horrors of science, rowdy rednecks, energetic espionage, sword and sandal, roller disco.* 3 stars

The State "43rd Annual" All-Star Halloween Special on CBS (1995) *MTV's The State get subversive on network tv with stunts like coming out to an opening musical number through the legs of hanged men, having a well adjusted kid smoke a joint, for the first time, and take a police station hostage, and showing soldiers holding a dying squad mate and being uncomfortable with his last wish for them to tell him they love him because it would be gay and ending the skit with the soldiers 'making out' over the dead soldier's body.* 3 stars

Night Stand: Death in the Trailer Park aka Homicide in a Double-Wide *Billy Ray Jim Dick's mama is still sore at her slut daughter in law for hitching up with two-ton tubbie trailer salesman after her son's tragic truck accident. Surprise, though, Billy Ray faked his death and is now a Joan instead of a Jim. Night Stand, a great parody of Jerry Springer.* 3 stars

Disney's DTV Monster Hits (10-30-87) --------------------

*Electric Light Orchestra's 'Evil Woman' plays over a montage of Disney villainesses,

awesome 80s Pepsi & Burger King commercials -one with the Miami Sound Machine,

Donald Duck delivers a package to an unlucky address as Stevie Wonder's 'Very Superstitious' plays,

Pat Benatar's 'You Better Run' plays as Snow White flees for her life into the forest,

Spike Jones' 'That Old Black Magic' plays during some of Mickey & friends more mystical moments,

Hershey's Bar-None candybar commercial about satisfying the hungry beast,

Michael Landon promises new surprises in this upcoming season of 'Highway to Heaven,'

Daryl Hall's 'Dreamtime' plays along with gorgeous hand-drawn classic Disney animation,

"Heffalumps and Woozles" for Winnie the Pooh,

Ronald & Grimace in the story of Cosmic- a cheeseburger sharing lesson,

Golden Girls in the U.S.S.R. preview,

Annie Lennox sings 'Sweet Dreams' during a dream sequence,

all hosted by the Man in the Magic Mirror.*

3 stars

==============================================================

Halloween 666: The Curse of Michael Myers *Satanic cursed child cult, Tommy Doyle Rear Window style watcher, Laurie's daughter's baby, Dr. Loomis comes out of retirement, runes, Strode family strife.* 2 1/2 stars

Freddy's Nightmares: Tobe Hooper's "No More Mr. Nice Guy" *I had imagined Freddy being more cowardly in his life and not releshing in his own execution.* 2 1/2 stars

Frank Grillo in "The Purge: Anarchy" *A young Charles Bronson type takes by the hand and leads Fred Sanford's girls and a car trouble couple through a dream night for supporters of the NRA and players of GTA. Meanwhile, Chuck D & the Public Enemy try to lead a anti purge revolution that will not be televised.* 3 stars

Town of the Living Dead: Jasper Needs Zombies *The inept, bumbling director name drops Robert Rodriguez. The crazy investor lady has spent tens of thousands of dollars on a movie that was doomed to make nothing until SYFY stepped in. Six years of everyone involved wasting their time on a movie in a tired, oversaturated genre... I will give them credit for exploiting their crassness on cable as a way of maybe recouping some of what they've lost in this venture and gaining a coin or two of fame/shame.* 1 star

"The Simpsons Guy" *Long awaited crossover. Too bad SouthPark already pointed out how Bart's rebellious antics are nowhere near as sadistic as other cartoon bad boys in Cartoon Wars where Bart meets Cartman and too bad they wasted so much of the episode with the tired, uncomfortable Meg moments and the 'chicken fight' between Peter & Homer. I would have liked to seen more how Quahog and Springfield clashed in cultures and attitudes.* 2 stars

Tim & Eric, Bedtime Stories: "Toes" *Patients pay Dr. Bob Odenkirk to butcher their piggies. Detective M. Emmett Walsh sniffs around, making Dr. Bob uncomfortable, wanting to be his sailing buddy, but Emmett knows Bob's dark secret. He eats the toes.* 3 stars

Three Stooges Fright Night TBS Superstation (1992) --------------------

*Stop seeing things, before I gouge your eyes out. Go to sleep, before I murder you, ya sonambulist. - a few great quotes by Moe in this first 'Old Dark House' horror comedy.

Then there's a truly horrific commercial about a grown woman who was a botch aborted fetus at seven months.

Then an awesome commercial for Copolla's Dracula coming out the 13th of November.

Next is 'I Want My Mummy' about the curse of King Rooten Tooten, where the Stooges are Sherlock Holmes investigators who catch a cab from NY to Cairo to find a corpse of a midget and destroy his wife Hotsie Totsie.

Followed by 'Dopey with Dicks' (featuring Shemp) A mad scientist seeking a human brain for a mechanical man and maybe the first comedic mention of 'braaaaiiins' in a horror/comedy.

Lastly, it's 'Pests in a Mess' Stooges think they're trying to hide a stiff, they never bothered to look and see it was a mannequin, and wind up in a spooky cemetery where the scares literally cause the boys to jump out of their shoes.*

3 stars

-----------------------------------------------------------

Swamp Thing: "The Emerald Heart" *A little boy with a questionable imagination gets to spend the Summer in the swamp, and meets the Swamp Thing. Yuppy douchebag mad scientist toys with his skanky girlfriend and moreso with a poor dwarf.* 2 stars

Thundarr, The Barbarian: "Attack of the Amazon Women" *Han and Chewie get all sexist caught in the midst of a shark ridin', amphibian, estrogen civil war. Also a laser tentacles Kracken, a patriot missile trojan horse, & a lady-magic showdown.* 3 stars

Friday Night Videos (10-30-1987) hosted by Elvira special Halloween Edition ---------------------------

*Springsteen strumming alone in his kitchen, late at night.

Earth Wind & Fire show us innercity life in 'System of Survival' an awesome retro street video.

Cheesy lifesavers and scruples commercials where nerdy yuppies love & hangout.

White man blues Levis 501 blues.

Elvira answers (valley girl voice) "So Weiiird" fan letters from the likes of Madonna & Jon 'bulge in the pants' Bon Jovi.

REM sends one out to 'The One I Love.'

Phillip Morris wants to know if Elvira smokes after sex, Elvira doesn't know, she's never looked.

Tammy Faye Baker thinks Elivra exploits her body. Ha.

Then a flat busted girl wants Elvira's advice in dressing as her for Halloween, Elvira says to dress like Cher, only backwards.

Then the video for that cheesy love song from the end of 'Dirty Dancing' by Billy Medley and Jennifer Warren. Swayze crazy. These two singers must be really ugly, as they're kept in total shadow. Ha.

Jon Cryer is Hiding Out rated PG 13.

3D Toyota car for 1988.

Hershey's one of the all time greats, just ask Van Gogh and Mona Lisa.

Joe Montana knows about Nissan 'built for the human race' automobiles.

A pumpkin head helps sell us water & sofa beds.

Elvira teases us some more with her incredible legs and invites women to wear mattresses on their back, having one eye brow like brooke shields, and wearing a box on their head like Max Headroom.

Steve Winwood uses blurry 80s video editing to ask Valerie to 'Call on Me.'

Squeeze get all Renee Margarite artsy in 'Hourglass.'

Andrew McCarthy, Robert Downey Jr, and James Spader are 'Less Than Zero.'

Grab a stick, take a sniff, pull it out, on the ski slopes 'cause Juicy Fruit is gonna move ya.

"Hey, where did you learn about COMPUTERs?" response "In the Army." "

The Nighttime is the Right Time" to be with the one ya love and to drink Michelob, so tells us a bluesy beer commercial. Man, 80s yuppies loved them some white man's blues.

Elvira gives tips not tits... tips for a safe Halloween. No Smurfs covered sheets ghost costume, take trick instead of treat, and accept no candy apples that you can shave with.

U2 where the streets have no names but do have rooftop spastic Bono belting out a soaring anthem.

Whatzit? board game.

New fresher taste Baby Ruth for letter jacket wearers.

Claim to Fame the gameshow where kids, dressed as Freddy Kruger, juggle fire.

Elvira says not to give out 8 track Frampton or bakedbeans/sushi to trick or treaters, but Sony Walk-man instead.

'Blue Heaven is a Place on Earth' and Belinda Carlisle a dreamy chick on earth.

Cajun spiced Ruffle chips

and spoken word white guy Levi 501 blues.

Crocodile Dundee's buddies sell us Matilda Bay brew.

Flashdance esque advertisement for a hot Pontiac ride.

Stevie Wonder is in suburbia talkin' bout Skeletons in your Closet' and keepin' an eye on the scandalous goings on.

A chick with a Michael Jackson hat and huge earings wants more comfortable contacts.

Get a better butterfinger now.

Dreyfuss & Devito duel in a new comedy.

Not agent Dale Cooper must stop a female alien in The Hidden.

Elvira wraps it up for the Halloween weenies.*

3 stars

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The CW's "The Reaper" unaired pilot *A slacker gets special powers, from Satan, on his 21st birthday because his parents sold his soul to the devil before he was even born. The guy has to go around with a mini-vac and suck up escaped souls and send them back to the pits. The devil turns out to be a decent mentor for the guy to get his life back together. Along with his new Jedi powers and his Tucker & Dale versus Evil buddy, he's able to snare a firebug. This show is like a cross between the teen horror comedy Idle Hands and the S-Mart stuff from Evil Dead.* 3 stars

Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs special guest Chucky from Bride of Chucky "The Gate" *Before Steven Dwarf stunted his size by smoking, he was listening to Satanic rock and summoning Stygian, synchronized- shape-shifting shorties and having to stop them from summoning their Set-like snake-god via a second sacrifice* 2 stars

American Horror Story: Murder House episode 1 *Filthy horror show. Haunted victorian house, 1970s horror vibe, screwed up characters. my curiousity is peaked.* 3 stars

South Park: The Cissy *Cartman finds a new, controversial scheme to exploit a civic issue, and this time Randy, through his strangeness,brings everyone together, uninentionally, to throw a wrench in Eric's plans. This show needs to quit following the same pattern, though, I appreciate the mentions to recent episode events. It gives the show a touch of continuity.* 2 stars

Z Nation: Philly Feast *Trailer trash cannibal cult use whores to lure unlucky men to the meat freezer. The Liberty Bell rolls down the streets of the City of Brotherly Love smashing zombies.* 2 stars

Z Nation: Full Metal Zombie *Amish Zombies, Romero mentioned (interesting self aware moment. Has it been done before, in a zombie show/movie?), zombies liking to eat brains mentioned (hmmm, kind of dumb self aware moment), toilet paper rationing moment (ha), carjacked by phony zombies, nice family carjacks phony zombie carjackers and then violently executes them, nice family (including kids) get eaten (wow, TWD wouldn't show a kid getting eaten), using a fast food drive thru to talk to DJ Qualls *Citizen Z* in his igloo, old hippie shotguns pot with a zombie, horror icon Bill Moseley as a crazy army official with a ridiculously over the top death, giant zombie chokehold, only one moment where they seem to really rip off TWD in where they mistake the old man as a zombie like Rick's group almost shot and killed Daryl after his bloody zombie walk.* 2 1/2 stars

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talmastudios · 7 years

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“Bye Bye Blue Sky” and chemtrails

The documentary Bye Bye Blue Sky was broadcast in Italian in its feature length version on the swiss channel RSI in February 2011 in prime time. Then, the RSI received hostile messages from self-proclaimed “debunkers” and scientists claiming that talking about chemtrails is conspiracy theory.

This situation cast doubts inside the channel about the subject, so I wrote the public letter below, based on official information, such as the enquiry of the National Research Council (NRC) of 1997, done at the request of the Congress of the United States, and mainstream media sources.

The letter below is reproduced in its integral version of 2011, except illustrations which were added for this article, as well as the titles. And it is now about 20 years that I have been inquiring about climate issues.

You can watch Bye Bye Blue Sky on YouTube in its 30' versions (it received the Jury Award at the OneCloudFest of 2011) :

- in French: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2k97WChmN0

- in English with subtitles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UXZJ0O0NHM

You can also watch the 53′ version in vod on Vimeo.

Chemtrails or not, never forget to look at the sky!

Best regards,

Patrick Pasin

Note : the feature length versions of Bye Bye Blue Sky on YouTube are not the final one, because it lacks at least three interviews and many images. We advise you to watch the 30' versions or the 53′ in vod (Vimeo).

Here is the letter:

Dear Sirs, All these messages you received after the broadcast of Bye Bye Blue Sky are no surprise for me. Whatever the objective elements one can bring like analyses or the fact that the French army bought 10 tons of barium sulfate without any explanation of their use, or whatsoever, you will receive such messages from so-called and self-proclaimed "debunker". I have been investigating the field of the climate and chemtrails for more than 7 years. I have read dozens of books, studies, reports on the subject. I have just finished writing a book about the weather warfare and the manipulation of the climate by the military.

The "weather modification", the official word for it

It already has a long history. The first official trial dates back as far as 1891 with the experiment made in the Staked Plains in Texas by General Dyrenforth. The US Congress allowed $10,000 for it but stopped after 2 years due to poor results (I bought American newspapers from that period to know exactly what happened).

General Dyrenforth with his team

But the spraying of chemicals in the sky by the military has also a long history. The first trial to modify the weather with planes certainly happened in 1924 in the USA, when the Army Air Service equipped 2 planes according to the instructions of Dr. Emory Leon Chaffee, a physicist at Harvard. The American military was not the only one to do such experiments: the Russians, the Chinese and certainly others also tried. I read, for example, that the Chinese army sprayed deolin in 1930 above Hong-Kong to fight a terrible drought. That was only the beginning, and the real start happened after 1946 with the discovery of Dr. V. Schaeffer of General Electric: in spraying silver iodide into the clouds, it makes them rain. Thousands of experiments have then been done in the world, of course also by the military. For the USA, it was mainly the Naval Air Weapons Station at the China Lake base in northern California which was in charge of these experiments at the start. Spraying chemicals in the sky became usual for the American military (and others) for example to fight hurricanes, with the long-lasting projects Cirrus (1947-1952) and Stormfury (1961-1983).

Already during the Vietnam War

The first official use of the spraying of chemicals to modify the weather at war was done in Vietnam, under the code name of Operation Popeye. From 1967 to 1972, about 2,700 flights were made to spray chemicals over Vietnam and Laos. Almost until the end of the operation, the military succeeded in keeping it secret. The story was broke off only in 1971 and it is documented through a hearing which happened at the U.S. Congress on March 20, 1974 (it has been printed in a small book which title and references are ''Prohibition of weather modification as a weapon of war: Hearing before the Subcommittee on International Organizations of the Committee on International ... first session, H. Res. 28 ... July 29, 1975'' - I have it, of course).

The British, too

I said that the Pentagon is not the only one to have been using sprayings: the British too have done it. The BBC revealed in 2001 that the flood in 1952 which devastated the small city of Lynmouth, killing 34 people, was due to experiments of the RAF on the Operation Cumulus –the story is in The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2001/aug/30/sillyseason.physicalsciences.

The poisoning of the populations

Despite all evidences brought by the BBC, the government denied it and refused to open any investigation. Modifying the weather is one thing, poisoning the people is another. In 1997, at the request of the Congress, the U.S. National Research Council (NRC) issued an astonishing report which title is Toxicological assessment of the U.S. Army's zinc cadmium sulphide dispersion tests. It explains that 40 years earlier, in the 1950s and 1960s, the "U.S. Army released the chemical compound zinc cadmium sulfide from airplanes, rooftops and moving vehicles in 33 urban and rural areas of the United States". Cities as large as Minneapolis and St. Louis were targeted. Of course, the NRC and its experts concluded that it was not dangerous. The reading of the whole report is not that convincing at all... The military also said they didn't know exactly anymore where these experiments happened and that files had disappeared... We also learn from this report that the British and the Scandinavians have made at the same period the same experiments against the people and the environment during almost 40 years! The Observer investigated the subject and it can be read on The Guardian website (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2002/apr/21/uk.medicalscience): "Many of these tests involved releasing potentially dangerous chemicals and micro-organisms over vast swaths of the population without the public being told." The aftermath were terrible, but again, as in the U.S., distinguished experts concluded four decades later that these experiments were harmless for the population and the environment. And the case had then been closed.

Denying the evidence

Guess what? While they were spraying over the people in the USA, the UK and elsewhere, of course there were "experts" explaining that those trails in the sky were absolutely normal. For example, in the Free-Lance Star of May 6, 1972, it can be read that "the familiar contrails often left by high-flying planes might persist for a long time under some conditions". Similarly, in the book Clouds of the World: A Complete Color Encyclopedia published in 1972, it is explained in Chapter 11 – Condensation trails, that these strange-looking persistent trails are normal. In some american films or TV series of that period, you can watch them. An obvious example: the episode #25 of the first season of Zorro, broadcast in 1957-58 (there were only two seasons). You will notice these persistent trails, mainly during the race. Of course, they are persistent because we see the trails, but (fortunately) not the planes... In her book Planet Earth, The Latest Weapon Of War, Dr. Rosalie Bertell wrote that "the US and Canada had been cooperating in weather modification experiments since 1958. (…) The Churchill CRM (Chemical Release Modules) programme involved various barium compounds, including barium azide, barium chlorate, barium nitrate, barium perchlorate and barium peroxide. All are combustible and most are destructive of the ozone layer. In a 1980 programme, some 2000 kilograms of chemicals were dumped into the atmosphere, including 1000 kg of barium and 100 kg of lithium. Lithium is a highly reactive toxic chemical that is very easily ionised by the sun's rays." For those who could try to explain to us that all these experiments have been stopped since a long time, here is an excerpt of a private communication of October 2010 with Dr. Rosalie Bertell: "On 19 September 2010, the US Navy sent up a rocket from its base in Virginia and placed an aluminum oxide artificial clouds some 500 miles above the Earth over the east coast. The highest natural cloud is about 50 miles. They caused a large cloud shadow which brought early snow to the east coast. Even Baltimore had snow and had to ask Canada to borrow some snow plows. The US Naval Reserve has removed this project from their web site since I began to talk about it. Who knows what else they may be doing? They do not need to go through an environmental assessment since no one’s property is involved (since no one owns the sky)! I am guessing at the numbers but I think I am close. According to the original plan, they intended to try this experiment also over Singapore." As I said above, I wrote a book on the subject, so, of course, I could tell a lot more about all these military experiments and "business as usual" operations of sprayings which have been lasting now for more than 60 years. Who could dare say that this does not exist? Is this "conspiracy theory"? Everyone can check all the information above as it comes from official reports of institutions, mainstream medias like the BBC, The Guardian, etc.

The official discourse, in defiance of the facts

Let's talk now about the film. Of course, I interviewed scientists (one of these distinguished people is a meteorologist member of the IPCC), who told me that chemtrails do not exist and everything is a contrail. But wen I asked, during the interview, if they have made analyses of any kind to support their affirmations, of course they had not. In fact, they had not studied the phenomenon at all: they knew the "official answer", and delivered it, that's all. This is no science. When I also asked them how is it possible to find such quantities of barium at the surface of sandbox in Paris and anywhere where these trails appear often, of course they had no explanation. And I don't talk about the ten tons of barium sulfate that the French army bought: no expert nor any scientist could give me an explanation of their possible use. And I remind, as is said in the film, that the French military removed the information from their website immediately after my visit and recording of the information. Why? So, these scientists are not in the documentary: wearing a white coat and being officially a scientist is not enough. To be relevant requires to have studied the subject or worked on it. It is a respect to the people and the audience. Furthermore, the ''official answer'' is already in the film with this excerpt of the U.S. Air Force brochure declaring that chemtrails are a hoax. So, I clearly focused on scientists who had really studied this phenomenon of persistent trails: all of them have been doing it for years. I read from the emails you received that some doubts have been cast on them. Is it worth answering? Dr. Rosalie Bertell is a great Lady with so numerous references, achievements, awards, and so on! In June, she had been again invited at the United Nations on questions of disarmament. For example, she had been Director of the International Medical Commission Bhopal which investigated the aftermath of the Bhopal disaster in India, organizer of the International Medical Commission Chernobyl, she had worked on the Reagan Starwar project, etc. And she is one of the few scientists quoted in the european Theorin Report (1999), that everybody should have read. The references and achievements of Dr. Nikos Katsaros are also impressive. Furthermore, he relentless speaks and writes on the subject, even in parliaments and institutions which invite him. And Dr. Coen Vermeeren, as an expert in aeronautics, is really committed to the subject and had been investigating it with all his efforts and humility for years. Of course, documented information can be found elsewhere. The German channel RTL9 broadcast a reportage (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsQ2KnIvH0&feature=more_related) where meteorologists lead by Karsten Brandt have forced the German army to recognize that they sprayed chemicals in the sky in 2005 and 2006. Many analyses can be also found on the Internet (http://www.carnicom.com/flame1.htm ). It is incredible to listen to what Dr Hildegarde Stanninger says on the analyses she had done, with the clear link between chemtrails and Morgellons disease in cases in Texas and elsewhere (http://morgellons-info.blogspot.com/2010/11/morgellons-intervista-alla-dottoressa.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MorgellonsDiseasetankerEnemy+%28Morgellons+Disease+%28Tanker+Enemy%29%29) You can read also what Dr. R. Michael Castle writes about chemtrails: "In this century, we believe we are witnessing the gradual, purposeful demise of the Earth's Natural System. There are those who will debunk/dis-info all that is written regarding the subject of this paper: ChemTrails. What's this? ChemTrails are only a vague description, in lay-terms, of a greater theater of toxic materials being released into the atmosphere/stratosphere, for a myriad of crude and toxic agendas." I could add so many more informations, but I stop the list, because this email is long already. I hope it will help you. As I wrote at the beginning, you can use it as you need. To finish, I want to greet your courage and your sense of responsibility. Let's hope now that the people will question their politicians and get from them that the military stops all this stuff. Kind regards, Patrick Pasin Producer and director of Bye Bye Blue Sky.

#sky #chemicals #film #documentary #chemtrails #chemtrail #trails #contrails #planes #military #poison

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