Moving to a New Location

And, we're back.  True to their word, the zombies have returned control of the horizontal, the vertical, and everything back to me.  These were hard-working zombies.  And, all they consumed were a few hamburgers.  A little on the rare side, though.

As of this writing, we are transferring helm control over to my blog's new location at:

http://multimediameditations.com/

All previous posts and comments will reside over there, and all writings from now on will be at the new location.  It's been fun here with Blogger, and I've enjoyed it, but it's time to move on.

I now transfer control from here....

Zombies Have Taken Over

We interrupt this blog for a few words from our sponsors. Zombies have been sighted recently, and they want to revamp the site. Don’t know if a revamp is the same as a vamp or even a vampire, or why the zombies should care, but they are holding the site hostage until I make some changes. Please stay tuned for further developments.

The zombies inform me the site will be back in operation in two weeks.  And, if we believe the zombies, that will be March 4th, 2013.

 

'til next time... Adios.

Monkeying Around

Let's have a look-see at the Monkey List, shall we? I'm beginning to see just how needed this list is. There's no comprehensive Monkey Catalog out there that I can find. That can't be. We must know our monkeys!

Not sure yet how best to organize the Monkey List. For the moment, I'll just throw it in a post, unless it gets too bulky.

Oh, and a hearty Monkey Thank You to my readers out there who have contributed their monkey suggestions.  Here we go:

The Ape Man (1943) -- Bela Lugosi as Dr. James Brewster, a not-really-mad-but-slightly-peevish scientist who gets bored and decides to turn himself into a monkey. Doc Brewster shares living space in a cage with an actual ape played by gorilla actor Emil Van Horn. There's Mayhem! There's Murder! And, there's Monkey Business!

King Kong (1933) -- The most famous of the monkey movies.

Planet of the Apes (1968) -- "Human see, human do."

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) -- Wonder if the ape actors in 2001 also got work in Planet of the Apes?

Planet of the Apes (2001) -- Good the first time around, not so good the second.

Bedtime for Bonzo (1951) -- Who learned from who?

Mighty Joe Young (1949) -- King Kong lite. Who hasn't wanted his or her own big monkey as a friend?  Irene "Granny" Ryan has a bit part.

Mighty Joe Young (1998) -- Hollywood's remake fever. Same story, more effects.

Space Chimps (2008) -- According to IMDb, a team of astronaut chimps must rid "...a far-away planet of their nefarious leader." I love anything that has the word 'nefarious' describing it.

Son of Kong (1933) -- Carl Denham is back from King Kong, but without Fay Wray. The King's son, a chimp off the old block (I have no shame), monkeys around.

Kingu Kongu tai Gojira -- King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) -- The Toho Company and RKO join forces to pit Big Green and the Big Ape against each other in a knockdown-dragout.

That's about all the monkeying around I have time for tonight. I will leave everyone with this question, though. Have there been any zombie monkey movies? Zombies. Monkeys. Seems like a great combo.

'til next time... Adios.

Resistance is Futile

Got to love this new age of tech. An era when we can have near-immediate access to videos and audio of a huge chunk of space rock blasting through the atmosphere, and also get updates on fake zombies via the hacked Emergency Broadcast System.

Oh, yeah, and let's not forget the Poop Ship.

Makes me wonder what's gonna happen next. Alien landings, perhaps?

That's all I have for tonight. Stay tuned tomorrow. More stuff on its way.

'til next time... Adios.

Weather R Us

I love watching the Weather Channel People when there’s the possibility, no matter how remote, of some sort of Event. They’re like kittens out there, playing in the snow. Except there’s no snow. Yet. But, they assure us there will be, standing out there, all dressed alike in their L. L. Bean jackets, with their little designer rulers and yardsticks.

It wasn't always like this, though.

Once upon a time, many ages ago before The Weather Channel, we had to turn to each other for weather entertainment. “What about that big storm last night, huh, Bert?” “Yep, sure was a big one.” “Uh huh, sure was.” It’s a wonder we ever got out of bed every morning. There was no drama, no excitement, and no fun. But not anymore. No sirree. With TWC (I’m going ahead and acronyming – the term for changing a perfectly functional and descriptive name to an annoyingly vague abbreviation – The Weather Channel, to stay ahead of the curve, following the examples of TLC (formerly known as The Learning Channel)), if there’s no exciting weather, they’ll whip some up.

Here's what happened.

At some point, they thought, “Huh! We’re all out here, all excited for some really nasty weather, and nothing’s happening.” That's when they saw the future. “Hey, so what if nothing’s happening now. We can talk about what would happen IF…..” And, thus, was born, weather fiction.

(... to be continued)

'til next time... Adios.

Stupid Tech Tricks

Okay, they made this one easy for me. You’ve heard the old saying about turkeys standing in the rain and drowning. Well… that’s a perfect lead-in to a new piece of tech, or rather, a tech accessory, called the Brolly.

First things first, though. The name itself, Brolly, already sounds like something a first-grader would come up with. The thing looks like a set of brass knuckles, and it's designed to let you hold your umbrella and text at the same time. In the rain.

Now, I think this is just a wondrous idea. I mean, first thing I think of when I’m standing in the middle of a rainstorm with the wind whipping around the umbrella is, "Man, I sure do wish I had a way of holding onto my umbrella so I could text, too. And, then, maybe someone will make a force field, too, that would protect me from oncoming traffic as I stumble rain-blinded and text-addled into the street."

I figure what's coming next on the tech superhighway is an accessory that attaches your i-Thingy to your steering wheel’s airbag. It'll be called In Your Face. That way, when you’re in a head-on collision, you can bang out a text as the airbag explodes. I hear they’re also working on one for commercial airline pilots. “This is your captain texting. LOL.”

A friend of mine came up with another add-on for the Brolly. For ultimate practicality, connect the umbrella to the iPhone and use the umbrella as an antenna for better reception. Also, it could double as a charger for your phone when you’re struck by lightning. Talk about re-usability.

Actually, I’m thinking about taking out a cheap life insurance policy on anyone who buys one of these things. That way, I won’t have to pay much on the premium. I’ll just count on volume. I figure that after a short period of time, they’ll all be entrants in the Darwin Awards.

http://www.gizmag.com/brolly-text-friendly-umbrella/26011/

'til next time... Adios.

Star Spats Part Two-o

(continued from yesterday's post -- Battle Beyond the Stars)

Ah, good ol’ reliable Roger Corman. The cheesemeister himself, whompin' up a cheese casserole.

This movie has it all. Androids. Bad guys. Spaceships. Really bad laser weapon effects. It’s even got a Valkyrie. Oh, yeah, and a cowboy. A space cowboy, no less, played by George Peppard. But, somewhere across the galaxy, he lost his accent, so he sounds like a cowboy from the western fields of Illinois.

All the characters are a patchwork quilt of other characters we’ve seen in other films. They lifted the Robert Vaughn character, Gelt, straight from The Magnificent Seven, where he played the gunfighter-on-the-run, Lee. He also had a smidgen of the Charles Bronson character from Seven thrown in, too. But, the two most bizarre characters had to be that of Peppard as Cowboy (a Han Solo-like character), and Sybil Danning as St. Exmin, a Valkyrie, complete with foam rubber helmet. In the back of my mind I'm hearing Bugs Bunny music -- "Kill de wabbit, kill de wabbit!"

Richard Thomas as Shad (gotta love the characters' names in this souffle) the farmer plays a cross between Luke Skywalker and also a composite of the Mexican villagers in The Magnificent Seven going off to hire the mercenaries. He meets a young woman while on his quest whose father (played by veteran character actor Sam Jaffe), who has a head but a robot body, wants her to procreate with Shad (not enough room or time here to go into that). She's never seen other humans before, other than her father, the robot, so she runs off with Shad. This part is pure Forbidden Planet (1956).

And, the list goes on. The exterior spaceship shots are not too bad, pure Star Wars sequences; sound effects made me think of every late-70's early-80's video game I ever played, with some machine gun sounds for Cowboy's laser (?); the laser effects, well, they really didn't spend much there; and John Saxon as Sador, the bad guy, sported a facial tattoo, that looked really similar to Eric Bana's Nero character in 2009's Star Trek reboot.

All-in-all, it's an absolute hoot. I wouldn't spend much on it, but it's fun just seeing some bad post-Star Wars effects.

'til next time... Adios.