I’m not a fan of Christmas, and that’s putting it lightly. I’m more of a spiritual, superstitious person. I have my own beliefs and I find it hard to accept God when there are so many nut-cases in the world preaching about religion in such an aggressive manner. Plus I think Christmas is a mass government marketing ploy, and tacky.
But the one redeemable aspect of this time of year, I must admit are the lights. I loooovvveee colourful, flashing lights. So Merry Christmas!
No way Santa’s gonna miss Bainbridge Circle in Murrieta, CA; the synced music show uses 12 houses, 30,000+ lights (mostly LED), 130 extension cords, and 8,000 feet of control cable.
They are using LED lights too, which means they are conserving electricity and not wasting it. 1/10th of power was used as opposed to Christmas last year, as they state. Good to know.
The face tracking feature of the HP MediaSmart computer webcam will not recognize or track black faces.
In this experiment done by a couple of computer store employees, Wanda (white) and Desi (black), the HP camera just gives up whenever Desi enters the frame.
Actress Britanny Murphy died today aged 32 of apparent cardiac arrest around 10 this morning in Los Angeles. Brittany Murphy starred in a whole bunch of movies such as Girl Interrupted, Clueless, Don’t Say A Word, 8 Mile and Sin City and was also the voice of Luanne on King of the Hill.
She also is scheduled to appear in two more movies that are currently in post-production.
With Morgan Freeman tackling yet another authoritative role with his turn as Nelson Mandela in Invictus, he’ll add another “commanding presence” notch to his belt, but he hasn’t always played a top dog. Here’s several decades worth Mr Freeman:
While clearly Driving Miss Daisy is as low as a man can get, does inmate really outrank a freed slave? But he made it to God, so I suppose the question is moot.
He passed away yesterday aged 63, but his legacy lives on forever.
Whether or not you’ve heard Dan O’Bannon’s name before, you’re a fan of his work; Dark Star (1974), Star Wars, Alien (1979), Lifeforce (1985), Screamers (1995) and Total Recall (1990).
2008 – 2009 has had some of the most iconic deaths of talented individuals I’ve ever noticed. It’s fair to say that without such individuals such as Mr Dan O’Bannon, the awesome things we sometimes take for granted, like modern Science Fiction for example, might be totally different as to what it is today. Cheers Dan.
Probably O’Bannon’s biggest contribution to science-fiction movies is his work on the screenplay of Alien, which started life as his script Star Beast. According to Empire Magazine, O’Bannon’s script was the movie’s first draft, although others later worked on the screenplay. And Empire says he brought over several of his colleagues from Alejandro Jodorowsky’s abortive film Dune to Alien.
But prior to Alien, O’Bannon was co-writer and visual effects supervisor on John Carpenter’s loopy Dark Star. And he also played Sgt. Pinback, as seen in the clip above. And O’Bannon worked on the original Star Wars, helping to craft those great computer graphics of the Death Star plans and the attack run.
After Alien, he wrote the great helicopter movie Blue Thunder (1983) plus two episodes of the spin-off TV series, and he wrote Lifeforce, “one of the movies that I still make people sit down and watch against their will,” according to novelist Richard Kadrey on Twitter.
O’Bannon also wrote two Philip K. Dick adaptations, Screamers and Total Recall. He wrote and directed the Romero-inspired zombie comedy, Return Of The Living Dead. And he worked on both the Heavy Metal comic as well as the movie, writing the “Soft Landing” and “B17” segments of the film. Some claim his work on the Heavy Metal comic influenced the visual style of Blade Runner. [Written by Charlie Jane Anders]
O’Bannon changed science-fiction on film forever. He will be missed.
🎭 