ClintJCL

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday adopted a new noise ordinance that will enable police to ticket residents with loud parties or incessant barking dogs, after the county had gone for more than four years without a valid noise law.

The implicit, and ever more explicit, institutional acceptance of the dominant cryptocurrency Bitcoin (we say dominant because as we pointed out last week, there has been an unprecedented spike of digital currencies one can pick and choose from) continues when following the surge in vendors willing to transact in BTC over Thanksgiving, the latest news comes from the birthplace of the modern central bank.

A pregnant woman has had her baby forcibly removed by caesarean section by social workers. 

The Promise:

"Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government."

The Update: Compromise

As a candidate in 2008, Barack Obama promised to strengthen whistleblower laws for federal workers by speeding up the review process for claims and granting whistleblowers full access to jury trials and due process.

Obama has signed both a 2012 law and an executive order increasing whistleblower protection rights, and the overall conditions for federal employees have improved greatly. But a significant gap remains — protections for whistleblowers in the intelligence community, most famously Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor.

Shanna Devine, legislative director for the Government Accountability Project, a whistleblower advocacy group, gives Obama credit for moving forward on improvements for employees, but she said the administration could have done more to help contractors.

"We sought a Statement of Administration Policy in support of S. 794, legislation to restore whistleblower protections for intelligence community contractors, and the administration failed to deliver," Devine said.

Also, there are concerns about a possible Labor Department administrative ruling that could make it tougher for private sector whistleblowers to prove their case.

The key step was the 2012 passage of the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act.

It strengthened and expanded existing protections for whistleblowers, and for the first time allowed whistleblowers to sue for damages if they had been victims of reprisal. More workers could claim whistleblower status and find support from government offices created to back up their case, if it was legitimate.

Despite getting high marks from government transparency advocates, the law failed to give whistleblowers access to jury trials, and it did nothing for workers in the intelligence community.

Obama filled some of the gaps with Presidential Policy Directive 19. The executive order expanded whistleblower protections to national security and intelligence employees. An executive order is not law and can be reversed by any administration that follows, but still, this was a first.

However, the order aimed to keep revelations out of the press. It encouraged whistleblowers to keep their complaints internal, or, if they must, go to Congress.

Those who chose to go the media found the limits of the policy.

In the seven years of Obama's presidency, the administration launched a record number of cases against those who revealed what the government wanted kept secret. Under Obama, eight whistleblowers have been prosecuted under the World War I-era Espionage Act, more than under all other presidents combined.

And although there's been no legal ruling, contractors such as Snowden seem to have no protections.

One pending issue is making its way through the Washington bureaucracy that would affect private sector whistleblowers and potentially some federal workers as well. At issue is what a worker and employer need to prove in arguing their case. Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers worry that the Labor Department's Administrative Review Board will rule in favor of employers in a pending case.

Overall, Obama's actions on whistleblower laws are mixed. He moved forward with the passage of a new law to make it easier for ordinary federal workers to step forward. On his own, he offered some limited avenues for those in the intelligence sector to report violations. But that didn't apply to contractors, and with a record number of prosecutions, his administration has sent a strong warning to anyone in the intelligence sector to steer clear of the press.

The rating of this promise remains Compromise

Complete promise details

This is gonna be a big one. The Elements of Brony is a 6-part series of ultra-long analysis videos seeking to explain who, what, and why bronies are in the greatest depth possible. Hosted by Neal X and featuring myself, Tommy Oliver, Antony C, Clover Keen, and other guests across the episodes, this epic series will take you as far down the brony rabbit hole as we can go. Check out the video, as well as a somewhat more in-depth explanation of what it is, below the break!

Read more »

On Tuesday, November 19th of 2013 I went to the Fillmore Silver Spring to see Slayer and Gojira. Although I arrived over 15 minutes before Gojira started, the will call line was so slow I didn’t get into the venue in time to photograph them from the photo pit (at most big shows photographers only get to shoot during the first three songs each band plays). I finally made it in and the venue was already uncomfortably packed. I’m not sure if the show was sold out but I’ve never seen the venue this packed before. There wasn’t really anywhere to stand without being shoulder to shoulder with people on the main floor so I headed upstairs to try my luck. Unfortunately if you’re not on the rail on the Fillmore’s second floor the sight lines are, well, pretty much nonexistent. The French band played a pretty similar set to the one they played at Rams Head Live in Baltimore back in February so I didn’t feel like I missed too much. Backbone is always heavy as hell but as much as I enjoy Gojira’s music, I was really here for Slayer.

The curtain came down in front of the main stage while Slayer set up and this is when things started getting better. I worked my way to the front of the stage. I noticed there were some very large boxes for shipping gear in the photo pit area which made it so the guard railing was pushed farther away from the stage than usual. This certainly made things on the ground level more crowded but at least for three songs I got to have some space up front and shoot the band. They actually ended up giving us an extra song to shoot (I think the stage hands just miscounted) and I’ve gotta say being between the wild crowd and intense band performing at a show like this is a bit surreal, like being in the eye of a hurricane. After my songs were up I assimilated back into the audience and got to enjoy the show as a regular fan.

Exodus guitarist Gary Holt has been playing with Slayer since the late Jeff Hanneman left the band in early 2011 due to an infection from a spider bite. Original drummer Dave Lombardo was recently booted from the band as well, to be replaced by Paul Bostaph who had previously replaced Lombardo in Slayer from 1992 to 2001. Of course I was worried going in how these line up changes would affect Slayer’s live sound. Luckily I needn’t worry at all, the band was as tight as ever! In fact, the last time I saw all four original members of Slayer play together, in 2010 at 1st Mariner Arena, Jeff Hanneman was obviously drunk and his playing was pretty sloppy. The version of Slayer we got at the Fillmore was really tight once again. Everyone in the band was in sync, there was very little stage banter between songs as they only paused between songs four times. That all combined with the intensity of their “old school” set list (see it here), which featured no songs written after 1990, showed everyone that Slayer wasn’t slowing down at all. The set list was pretty similar to the one on the excellent live double album Decade Of Aggression though it did feature some different songs, such as an old favorite of mine, “At Dawn They Sleep.” As a nod to Gary Holt being in the band they played a Slayer-ized version of the Exodus classic “Strike Of The Beast” too! Any problems I had with the venue prior to their set were far from my mind as I thrashed in the pit during Raining Blood. This show was overcrowded, sweaty, intense and had almost non-stop shredding from these gods of heavy metal, just how a Slayer show is supposed to be. I really can’t wait until they come around again. If there was any doubt in anyone’s mind before, this night proved to all in attendance that in a live setting Slayer still fucking rules!

I only shot photos of Slayer at the show but I think some of them turned out pretty good. See the full set, including some images that I didn’t post below, by clicking here.

Filed under: Concert Reviews, Fillmore Silver Spring, Thrash Metal Tagged: Fillmore, Fillmore Silver Spring, Slayer, Thrash Metal

I’ve been using Dorot’s frozen garlic, basil, ginger, and cilantro cubes in my cooking for a little over a year, after discovering them in my local Trader Joe’s. Now I don’t need to keep buying a garlic bulb or piece of ginger root every other week, after the unused portion (which is most of it) has lost its freshness. The cubes are conveniently sized (example: one cube = one clove), already minced, and last forever in the freezer. And I can’t tell the difference in most recipes from fresh.

-- Loren Bast

Dorot Frozen Herb Cubes
About $2 per 20-cube tray

Let me start off by saying that if you are prone to motion sickness, this might not be the best video for you. With just 15 beads attached by string to a beam above, this incredible trick is just out of control! I can’t believe this is actually possible. These pendulum waves create intricate designs one after another. All I could do is wonder what was coming next. Take a good look at this work of art and lets see who can figure out how its all possible.

I mean it starts off going in a wavelike motion, but then it takes an entirely new direction and starts spiraling around with the numerous beads going in all different directions. The beads start swaying from side to side before forming into two lines and create a wonderful back and forth design. Just when you think you have it figured out, the beads end up separating into individual units and sway in an entirely different motion! Next thing you know, the beads are swaying in a few groups before they join together and start the motion all over again.

How is it that these pendulum waves are able to do all of these different motions with just a single swipe of the beads to get them started? I don’t know about you, but I have yet to figure out how this whole thing works. It had me the minute the beads started doing all different movements and swaying in a variety of different ways. These pendulum waves perform so many different movements that it’s hard to keep up with them all. What are your thoughts on this? Would you consider it as an optical illusion? This video is definitely ideal at keeping the kids and pets entertained and amazed.

The post VIDEO: Pendulum Waves appeared first on Mighty Optical Illusions.

Took a common antibiotic and nearly lost my mind. Crippling anxiety and nausea. Anyone else ever had weird reactions to antibiotics? Stopped taking it and am now working on feeling sane again. Ugh. : (

schwit1 writes "As Silk Road emerged from the 'dark-web', other sites have appeared offering services that are frowned upon by most. As Forbes reports, perhaps the most-disturbing is 'The Assassination Market' run by a pseudnymous Kuwabatake Sanjuro. The site, remarkably, a crowdfunding service that lets anyone anonymously contribute bitcoins towards a bounty on the head of any government official–a kind of Kickstarter for political assassinations. As Forbes reports, NSA Director Alexander and President Obama have a BTC40 bounty (~$24,000) but the highest bounty — perhaps not entirely surprising — is BTC 124.14 (~$75,000) for none other than Ben Bernanke."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

mdsolar writes with this excerpt from Bloomberg News: "Arizona will permit the state's largest utility to charge a monthly fee to customers who install photovoltaic panels on their roofs, in a closely watched hearing that drew about 1,000 protesters and may threaten the surging residential solar market. The Arizona Corporation Commission, which regulates utilities in the state, agreed in a 3-to-2 vote at a meeting [Thursday] in Phoenix that Arizona Public Service Co. may collect about $4.90 a month from customers with solar systems. Arizona Public is required to buy solar power from customers with rooftop panels, and the commission agreed with its argument that the policy unfairly shifts some of the utility's costs to people without panels. Imposing a fee designed to address this issue may prompt power companies in other states to follow suit, and will discourage some people from installing new systems, according to the Sierra Club."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It’s that time of year again, the weather is getting colder and you’re starting to hear holiday music when you venture out in public. This can only mean one thing: Gwar will be playing at the 9:30 Club soon! Sunday, November 17th to be precise (that’s this Sunday!). I’ve been commanded by my slave master Oderus Urungus to bring more lambs to the slaughter and so one of you (un)lucky DCHM readers will win a pair of tickets to attend this very massacre concert. To enter just leave a comment on this post letting me know which celebrity you’d like to see get the brutal Gwar treatment on stage at the show. At 5pm EST this Friday, November 15th, a winner will be chosen at random (using Random.org) from all valid entries to win the tickets. Be sure to use a valid email you check regularly so I can contact you if you win. Don’t worry, I won’t add you to any spam lists or sell your info or anything sleazy like that. If I haven’t heard back from the winner in 24 hours another winner will be chosen at random. If you can’t wait to see if you win or the contest is already over when you read this, then you can get tickets from Ticket Fly for $25 here.

If you’ve never seen Gwar live before then get ready for a truly religious experience! Our alien masters are known for putting on the goriest live show in the universe and you’ll be covered in blood, bile and worse by the time it’s over, a truly epic baptism by mosh pit. But before Gwar even dominates the 9:30 Club stage there will be sets by other bands as well. Iron Reagan is a crossover/punk band with Tony Foresta (Municipal Waste vocalist), Landphil Hall (Municipal Waste, Cannabis Corpse) and Ryan Parrish (ex-Darkest Hour drummer) and they’re going to shred your faces off! Starting off the festivities is the aptly named A Band Of Orcs. If you’ve ever wondered what it would sound like if monstrous orcs from Lord Of The Rings formed a metal band then get there early to find out. These guys are more Tolkien than Gorgoroth! Still not sure if you should go? Then check out these awesome music videos by the bands playing the show as you think up your entry!

Filed under: Contests, Nightclub 9:30 Tagged: 9:30 Club, A Band Of Orcs, Gwar, Heavy Metal, Iron Reagan, Washington DC

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Calum Marsh writes in The Atlantic that when Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers hit theaters 16 years ago today, American critics slammed it as a 'crazed, lurid spectacle' featuring 'raunchiness tailor-made for teen-age boys' and 'a nonstop splatterfest so devoid of taste and logic that it makes even the most brainless summer blockbuster look intelligent.' But now the reputation of the movie based on Robert Heinlein's Hugo award winning novel is beginning to improve as critics begin to recognize the film as a critique of the military-industrial complex, the jingoism of American foreign policy, and a culture that privileges reactionary violence over sensitivity and reason. 'Starship Troopers is satire, a ruthlessly funny and keenly self-aware sendup of right-wing militarism,' writes Marsh. 'The fact that it was and continues to be taken at face value speaks to the very vapidity the movie skewers.' The movie has rightfully come to be appreciated by some as an unsung masterpiece. Coming in at number 20 on Slant Magazine's list of the 100 best films of the 1990s last year, the site's Phil Coldiron described it as 'one of the greatest of all anti-imperialist films,' a parody of Hollywood form whose superficial 'badness' is central to its critique. 'That concept is stiob, which I'll crudely define as a form of parody requiring such a degree of over-identification with the subject being parodied that it becomes impossible to tell where the love for that subject ends and the parody begins,' writes Coldiron. 'If you're prepared for the rigor and intensity of Verhoeven's approach—you'll get the joke Starship Troopers is telling,' says Marsh. 'And you'll laugh.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

BitTorrent Sync is a relatively new tool that allows users to securely sync folders across multiple devices using the BitTorrent protocol.

In terms of functionality it’s comparable to most cloud-based sync tools, except for the fact that there’s no cloud involved. Users simply share their files across their own devices, or the devices of people they invite to their private folders.

Combine the above with no limit on file-sizes or bandwidth and a smash hit is born.

The free application was first released to the public in January and today BitTorrent inc. announced that it has already passed the one million user mark. The company further informs TorrentFreak that together these users have synced over 30 petabytes of data thus far, up from eight petabytes back in July.

The success has motivated the San Francisco company to put a dedicated team of developers on the software, which has resulted in several updates and improvements in recent months.

Today BitTorrent Sync 1.2 was released and one of the key changes is a doubling of the maximum transfer speed. Sync was already quite fast as files are not stored in the cloud, but the latest release bumps the transfer speeds to 90 MB/s.

“Sync skips the cloud to deliver files faster than server-based alternatives, like Dropbox. And with 1.2, we’ve boosted Sync’s speed performance. The app’s been clocked at 90 MB/s on the LAN. Which means your 10 GB file will be synced in less than two minutes,” the BitTorrent Sync team notes.

The new release also offers several updates and improvements for iOS users, including an iPad app to sync photos.

“We’ve updated Sync to include an updated design, improved connection speed, iOS7 compatibility, and a native iPad app. We’ve also added to the iOS feature set. You can now send and sync files in other apps using Sync, and save media from your Sync folders direct to your camera roll.”

Finally, BitTorrent has released an API. The company hopes this will encourage developers to create a wide variety of Sync based apps, such as social networking or secure chat tools.

“The new API will allow developers to create distributed social media, communications, and enterprise apps on top of the platform. It’s designed to work across major operating systems; including Windows, Mac, and Linux.”

With the latest improvements and the new tools BitTorrent hopes to reach an even wider audience, especially among those who want full control over their own data

“Our goal is to build a sharing tool that lets you move big files, and big ideas, freely. Without surveillance. Without speed limits. And without size caps. Your data belongs to you. Sync is designed to keep your stuff yours; with you and your team, wherever you are,” the Sync team notes.

The latest version of BitTorrent Sync is now available for download here, completely free of charge.

Source: BitTorrent Sync Hits 1 Million Users, 30 Petabytes Transfered

carolyncasl posted a photo:

[IMDB link] [Netflix link]

PEOPLE: Written and directed by Adam Green, who’s written & directed a good 10 or so films. None that I’ve heard of.

Starring Emma Bell and Kevin Zegers (who played a kid in In The Mouth Of Madness, haha) as the couple, and Shawn Ashmore (who, ironically, was Iceman from the X-Men movies) as the 3rd wheel. It’s pretty much these 3 actors on screen the entire time.

Maybe 1% of screen time is devoted to the ski lift operator, Ed Ackerman, who played a highschool cop in 17 Again.

PLOT SUMMARY: Kids get stuck in a ski lift. And nobody’s coming back to help them anytime soon.

UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): [highlight for spoilers]→ Negligent ski lift administration leads to satiated wolves.

QUIRKS: Man vs. nature survival horror psychological thriller. Do you go on ski trips? Hang out on ski lifts that sometimes get stuck? Make sure you’re not the last one when the resort closes…

VISUALS: Pretty much 3 people in a ski lift for the entire movie. The lack of a change on focus greatly increases the tension. While not overly gory, there are a few cringeworthy gore moments that are a must see. The movie as a whole doesn’t really have much blood–but people at the Sundance film festival nonetheless fainted, vomited, or had to leave the theatre crying or shaking. Carolyn was shaken up by this film too… I had to hold her hand, awwwww.

The movie was shot without any greenscreen or CGI. They really were up on a ski lift. The hired camera crew was in fact too scared to dangle up there, so the director and director of photography ended up doing a lot of the camerawork themselves.

Even the [highlight for spoilers]→ wolves were “real”. There was no stunt double. When the black wolf went up to Keven Zegers’s face, and he looks away — that was him in real life looking to the animal trainer for help. The wolf had to be pulled away. The spot where they shot it is supposedly where someone committed suicide, too. Just to make it creepier.

MORALS: Pay for your lift ticket.

GOOD STUFF: Horrible hopeless unbreaking tension. Total cringe moments of horror. With very few cuts, you rarely have a moment to take a breath and calm down. Things just get worse… And worse… And worse.

BAD STUFF: In actuality, [highlight for spoilers]→ the ski resorts that Carolyn has gone to all send down some skiers, prior to shutting down the lift machine, to ensure that nobody is stuck on the ski lift. I also wonder if [highlight for spoilers]→ ski lift cables are really “razor sharp”.

CONCLUSION: While kind of minimalist, this was actually a riveting psychological thriller survival horror movie. Sure, man vs. nature has been done again and again, and you could argue this is simply a more modern To Build A Fire. But goddamn, this was a cringe-worthy movie of sucky suckiness. This felt a lot like an episode of I Shouldn’t Be Alive.

RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 5/5 stars. IMDB: 9.4/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 5/5 stars. IMDB: 10/10. She was shaken up by the movie.
The native public rating for this movie is: IMDB: 6.5/10, Netflix: 3.3/5 stars (Netflix‘s predicted rating for us was 3.3/5 stars–WRONG!!).

RECOMMENDATION: I almost decided not to watch this. That was a mistake! SEE IT!

FRIENDS’ RATINGS: Jon B recommended this, so I know he liked it. OutlawVern’s review.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS BY CAROLYN:

Mood: full
Music: Anthrax – I Am The Law (live)

Filed under: Carolyn, Clint, Media, Movies, People, Reviews, Video

3M VHB Heavy Duty Mounting Tape is a game-changer. Goodbye glue, screws, nails, rivets and studs. In the right application, it permanently bonds plastic, fiberglass, porcelain, glass, PVC, wood, cloth, concrete and just about any other material you’re likely to encounter.

Mounting a GPS unit on a car dash? Done. Need to secure a circuit board to a metal rack? No problem. Want to stick together tricky space-age materials, like Velcro to a Kydex knife sheath? Forget about exotic adhesives; use VHB tape (it stands for Very High Bond, by the way).

Don’t mistake this stuff for temporary mounting tape. It forms a PERMANENT bond, and trying to remove it will likely remove the finish on both bonded surfaces.

-- Douglas Cawley

[This is a Cool Tools Favorite from 2013]

3M VHB Heavy Duty Mounting Tape

Available from Amazon

After the massive success of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET in 1984, you’d think Wes Craven would’ve been sitting comfortably atop the horror director pyramid. Yet his directational followups were just the ’85 TV movie CHILLER, the ’86 silly robot movie DEADLY FRIEND, and a couple episodes of the new Twilight Zone. It wasn’t until ’88 that he did something he seemed passionate about, the pretty respected voodoo thriller THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW. By ’89, only five years after the birth of Freddy, he was already at that sad “time to come up with the next Freddy” stage you’d expect him to go through eventually.

If there was any question about whether SHOCKER would try to mimic the ELM STREET formula, Craven ditched it from frame one, intentionally reflecting his own opening credits sequence:

ELM STREET opens with closeups on the hands of Freddy Krueger in a dark, messy workshop somewhere, creating his trademark bladed glove. SHOCKER opens with the hands of Horace Pinker (same amount of syllables, you notice), and he’s repairing a TV, using a hunting knife as a screwdriver. His weapon is a TV.

Pinker is played by Mitch Pileggi, who would later play Skinner on the X-Files. Like Freddy he is a hateful, scratchy-voiced serial killer who is caught and killed but returns from the dead through supernatural means to kill more people while occasionally yelling out terrible one-liners. His are mostly just random idioms, not puns (“No more Mr. Nice Guy!” for example), but there is one part where he says “Come on boy, let’s take a ride in my Volts-wagen!” before shocking his victim. And I realize as I’m writing it that that sounds like a joke one I would make up, but trust me, that’s a real line from the movie.

Freddy’s killing spree was in the past, and we only hear about it as a story from the protagonists’ parents (and in flashbacks in sequels, and in an episode of Freddy’s Nightmares, and in a terrible remake). SHOCKER is not a multi-generational story, so it shows us Pinker’s reign of terror for the first half hour of the movie. Rather than a Final Girl like Nancy we get Jonathan Parker (BATTLESHIP director Peter Berg, kinda looking like Ethan Hawke) as a kid whose family was killed by Pinker, except for his dad (Michael Murphy, the Vice President from WHITE HOUSE DOWN), who is the police lieutenant trying to catch Pinker. Jonathan dreams about the killings in detail before they happen, so he’s able to help identify and catch the killer and be there when he’s executed (see poster).

Oh, here’s the thing though. Pinker is involved in black magic and shit. It is mentioned on one of the many John Tesh narrated news reports we hear throughout the movie. Just before they bring him to the electric chair they find him in the cell with a bunch of candles and wires performing an electro-magick ritual on a reconfigured TV. “Come on, give it to me!” he yells. “You got it, baby!” say the animated lips that protrude from the screen. If you are wondering “Do you understand this part at all, Vern?” the answer is no, I do not understand this part at all.

But actually it’s kind of similar to a flashback scene they later did in the Craven-less FREDDY’S DEAD: THE FINAL NIGHTMARE where wormy, stop motion “Dream Demons” gave Freddy his nightmare-haunting abilities.

Somehow those floating TV lips give Pinker magic powers, so after he’s electrocuted his body turns into electricity which also is his soul or something and that body-electricity-soul can take over another body. (There’s a good joke where Lieutenant Dad sees the body disappear, leaving the clothes behind Jedi style, and thinks he just disintegrated. “Jesus,” he says. “That chair really kicks ass!”)

But Jonathan knows that Pinker is still alive and coming after him, and then the bastard kills his lovely girlfriend Alison (Cami Cooper, LIKE FATHER LIKE SON). So he’s got to stop him, etc.

For some reason in the late ’80s there was this belief that a killer jumping from body to body was a cool idea for a movie. JASON GOES TO HELL: THE FINAL FRIDAY, THE FIRST POWER and SHOCKER all prove otherwise. In SHOCKER it primarily happens in a long sequence in the park where Jonathan is pursued by Pinker in the body of a cop, then a jogger, then a little girl, then the little girl’s mom, etc. I at least give them points for the kid, because it’s funny to watch a little blond girl in a pink sweater cursing and recklessly driving a bulldozer. And then he grabs the girl in front of her Mom and it makes him look like some pervert kidnapper or psycho. ORPHAN did this better though, with Vera Farmiga straight up punching a little girl in public, without the witnesses understanding that the little girl is evil. (Also it’s kind of a cop out that Pinker jumps right to the mother so that there are no consequences to the hero’s public child-grabbing.)

So Horace Pinker can jump from body to body. Sometimes if the body dies or gets weak or something his spirit floats out, and it has scan lines on it like a TV screen. Because also he can go into a TV and come out another TV. But also he is electricity, so he can go into a wall outlet. But also weird things keep happening to Jonathan that will turn out to be a dream, and blood-covered Alison comes and talks to him and gives him back the heart necklace he gave her when she was alive, and then when he wakes up he still has it in his hand, Freddy’s hat style, and she said it could defeat Pinker because it represents love.

So, in summary, he used black magic and TV repair to make his soul transfer from body to body, but his soul is also a TV signal but also it’s electricity but also dreams are real and ghosts and he is the opposite of love. See, this one doesn’t have the same elegance as “if you die in your dream you die for real.” This is a precursor to the record-breaking convolutedness of MY SOUL TO TAKE.

Craven is a thoughtful director, loading movies like LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, THE HILLS HAVE EYES and THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS with interesting subtext. So I think it makes sense to try to decode this one. If Horace is the Freddy of the late ’80s, does that mean that TV had replaced our dreams? The movie itself seems to mix up the powers of TV and dreams with its muddled mythology.

There aren’t many signals that it would be a criticism of TV-watching. Only during the climax is there a cartoonish depiction of a family of obese people who won’t leave the couch. Before that there is never any indication that Craven is going after a TV-obsessed culture. The heroes don’t sit around watching TV, they go out and play football and stuff, and though the coverage of the Horace Pinker crimes is non-stop it’s not shown to be as exploitative or inaccurate as the usual movie depictions of TV news (for example in Craven’s own SCREAM).

On the other hand, there are visual cues that Craven is in a NATURAL BORN KILLERS type mindset of showing how TV turns our world’s worst horrors into little visual thrills inside a box. When the police come to arrest Pinker at his creepy TV repair shop, they’re confronted with walls of identical TV screens showing loops of Klan rallies, Vietnam bombing runs and piles of skulls. Some of these same images flashed through the opening credits and reappear during the silly climax where, in the tradition of Nancy going into the dream world and pulling Freddy out at a certain time, Jonathan goes into the TV channels and pulls Pinker out at a certain time in order to get him on live TV and trap him in a… I don’t know, but also the power goes off at a certain time, so… whatever.

Anyway, Jonathan and Pinker chase each other through war footage, the Hindenburg explosion, riots, a boxing match, Leave It To Beaver, FRANKENSTEIN, a John Tesh news report, etc. You know, like STAY TUNED or whatever. But scary. (?)

Man, there really is nothing good on, is there? I gotta watch that Vietnam footage again?

The image of a fuzzy Horace Pinker climbing out of a television THE RING style to grab a sleeping Jonathan is pretty loaded, as if to say that The Media or Hollywood or TV is coming for our children. Craven being a major horror director and somewhat of a lefty I feel safe in assuming that he would not mean that literally, only as a parody of this sort of paranoia. And yet he keeps filling screens with real world violence like the war footage, which maybe could mean that TV is feeding us this stuff or desensitizing us or– shit, I don’t know. I am prepared to admit that I can’t make sense of the mythology or the subtext of this one.

It’s a ridiculous movie, but it’s not without its appeal. I like the overall gloomy mood and the overcast look. Alot of it is reminiscent of ELM STREET and its sequels, but not in a bad way.

There are some strange moments that are maybe silly but that I appreciate for being things I haven’t seen before. You know how killers like to leave threatening messages written in blood? Pinker does that, but then Jonathan’s dead girlfriend leaves him a more positive one:

Look at that nice, neat cursive! I would’ve liked to see a heart, star or smiley face on there, but the handwriting is good enough.

At this time I would like to take a moment to acknowledge what can only be called the “Scary Chairy” scene.

I guess I don’t really have to say anything. The images speak for themselves.

A better horror moment is when the death row screws find Pinker already electrocuted in his cell and are worried it’s gonna be their ass if they can’t bring him to get officially electrocuted. Not knowing what else to do one of them starts giving him mouth-to-mouth, when suddenly Pinker bites him on the lower lip and yanks it like a dog playing tug of war. It’s one of those really effective sympathy pain moments you get sometimes in horror movies. You can almost feel it.

Since Jonathan is a jock he is physically capable, and has an actual chase scene with Pinker when he’s still alive. The highlight is when he does a beautiful WWF style flying drop kick to Pinker’s back. (That said, he’s not a superman, as evidenced by the funny opening where he runs straight into the goal post while showboating at practice.)

That is one interesting switch from the ELM STREET paradigm. In the original, Nancy and her friends knew about Krueger killing them in their dreams, but no adults believed them, and they were on their own. Nancy could only count on her boyfriend, and then he got turned into a blood geyser. In SHOCKER, Jonathan has similar trouble convincing his dad about Pinker, but no trouble at all convincing everybody else, because “We’re friends, right? And we’re a team, right?” in the words of his best friend Rhino (Richard Brooks, who recently played Frederick Douglass in the PBS series The Abolitionists). Rhino, along with Student Assistant Coach Boyd “Pac-Man” Stewart (Theodore Raimi) and even adult, seemingly reasonable Coach Cooper (Sam Scarber, DEAD BANG) immediately believe everything he tells them about Pinker still being alive and having magic powers.

The ELM STREET sequels, especially part 3, were about misfits and outcasts of society. Though Jonathan kinda starts out seeming like ELM STREET 1′s Rod (greasy angry boyfriend mischaracterized as murderer) he’s a popular kid, and has that to fall back on. The whole football team breaks into and sabotages the power plant on his behalf.

The football player hero is kind of a weird match with the several heavy metal songs on the soundtrack (including a title song and “No More Mr. Nice Guy,” a tagline song). I don’t know if that means Craven didn’t understand the divisions between young people of the time, or if it means the once rebellious subcultural music had by that point been absorbed by the popular kids. One disadvantage I have over some people for watching this era of horror is that I just got no love for the heavy metal music at all. I mean I can appreciate the first two Black Sabbath albums, and that’s about as deep as it goes. I have neither sincere or ironic nostalgia for any of those ’80s metals bands or their sound or their aesthetic. I mean, maybe Twisted Sister. But otherwise none. I never liked it then and it has not held up well or come back around to seeming cool again, and probly never will as far as I’m concerned. So to me it’s not a selling point that there’s a Megadeth song on it, but I can get through it. (Other bands on the soundtrack with less recognizable names: Bonfire, The Dudes of Wrath, Dangerous Toys, Dead On).

Well, sorry Mr. Craven, this is not the new Freddy. You missed the mark on that one. This is a stupid movie. But it was kind of fun to watch. Maybe I’ll do it again in another 24 years.




Okian Warrior writes "Hackaday brings us news about a continuation of the original Star Trek series. The Kickstarter-funded project is attempting to complete the original 5-year mission, which ended after only three seasons on the air. The fan-based and fan-supported reincarnation is cleverly titled Star Trek Continues and has CBS's consent. Check out the first episode, Pilgrim of Eternity. For being fan-made, it's actually pretty good." The attention to detail in the sets, costumes, and even lighting is incredible. It's far and away the most faithful re-creation of the original series I've ever seen.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Have you guys seen this? THE WIZARD OF OZ? I think it’s pretty well known. Last month they had a one-week re-release in 3D Fake Imax, so I took the opportunity to see it then and I thought I should write a little about it. If you have the 3D getup at home the converted version is now on blu-ray if you’re interested.

Loosely based on the stories of L. Frank Baum, Judy Garland (THOROUGHBREDS DON’T CRY) plays Dorothy Gale, an inquisitive, somewhat agitated girl who lives on a farm with her Aunt nah just kidding I’m not gonna explain the plot to you. Look it up on IMDb you lazy assholes.

Yeah, this movie is almost 75 god damn years old and still loved by each new generation that womankind squirts out, so I’d say it’s a pretty monumental piece of cinematic history. But to be honest it could end up that 200 years from now nobody gives a shit about OZ anymore but BLADE II is still beloved so BLADE II would be considered alot more important in the long game. But regardless of that I think there is room in history for both movies.

You know what, I’m gonna give you a rare glimpse into the ol’ childhood. Consider this Outlaw Origins: Vern. Like anybody this movie was something I saw alot growing up because it would play on TV every year. And looking back on it it was very important to my criticalistic development, or at least my understanding of movies. See, I have this memory of watching it when I was real little. It was at the part where they’re going through the woods saying “Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!” And li’l Vern was scared shitless. I don’t know what I thought was gonna happen, was an actual tiger gonna come out and tear Dorothy’s throat out? I don’ t know but I was pretty concerned.

Then all the sudden I had this realization. You know when you’re in a dream and you’re worried about something but then you notice some logical impossibility, like “wait a minute, I’m on vacation in California right now, how the fuck did I take the bus to work?” and then you figure out you’re in a dream? I had kinda the movie-watching equivalent of that where I remembered wait a minute, I’ve seen this movie a bunch of times already, and at no point has a bear jumped out and disemboweled the lion. I know they’re gonna be just fine, so what am I scared of? I really think it was the first time I stepped back and thought about how movies work. Or looked behind the curtain, you might say, but I wouldn’t.

Another thing I remember, I wanted to go back to watching THE WIZARD OF OZ on TV, but my old man said I had to finish my dinner first. I couldn’t do it because I thought the casserole or whatever was nasty, so when he wasn’t looking I scraped it off onto the table and put the plate on top of it. Problem solved! I went back to watching the movie but it turned out that he was later gonna move the plates and find out what I did, so there was hell to pay. Shoulda thought ahead a little more. This is not important to my development as a movie watcher, it’s just indicative of the poor decisions that have led me to where I am in life.

Anyway, I think we all know this movie holds up, I don’t gotta try to convince anybody it’s good. If somebody genuinely doesn’t get why THE WIZARD OF OZ is good then they’re just one of those weirdos that doesn’t like pizza or something. There’s not much point in trying to clue them in.

I saw this movie on the big screen once before, back when they still used film prints, and it looked great. One thing I remember from seeing it that time was spotting what urban legend claimed was the body of an actor who played a munchkin who had hung himself on set and had not been discovered, but which in fact was very clearly a bird walking through the fake trees. I figured if people had seen it on the big screen instead of TV broadcasts and VHS there never could’ve been that misunderstanding.

I forget which scene that’s in and this time I didn’t spot it. I wonder how 3D conversion artists handle stuff like that. It was technically a mistake that the bird is in the shot, but I doubt they would erase it. I hope there is a code of ethics for 3D conversionists.

The 3D is pretty cool. Of course a conversion, as opposed to a movie actually shot with cameras at two different angles, is never gonna look that great. But as far as these things go it’s pretty cool, and it fits the movie. It’s funny that in part of the “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” scene there’s one piece of hay sticking out into the frame so they get to put it in front of Dorothy.

Definitely the best part of it is the backgrounds. There are so many painted backgrounds in this movie, and they’re not necessarily trying to look photorealistic, or at least they don’t look that way when vividly remastered and shown on a giant Imax screen. So what’s cool is that even though they’re clearly paintings they 3Dified them to give them depth. So if there’s a painting of mountains, even though we know it’s actually flat, they render each mountain at a different depth. I like it.

More important than the retrofitted 3D is just seeing it big and clear on a giant screen. The digital Imax (as a one week release this was only digital and not real Imax) is not my favorite. They use two separate projectors, which is great for the 3D illusion, but they’re not up to the standard resolution of digital projection. You don’t always notice it but it sucks to see pixels on the credits of a 75 year old movie. There were no pixels involved in making those credits! It’s kinda wrong.

Still, it’s probly the clearest I’ve ever seen the movie (can’t remember for sure how the print compared, that was a long time ago) and I like how you can see through the illusion more. I noticed alot of makeup and bald cap lines and cheapness in the sets, and maybe that could be a bad thing but I think it’s kinda cool because you’re very conscious of all the artists and craftspeople who had to build this shit. Watching the Munchkinland scene I kinda felt like I was at Disneyland, looking around at  all the buildings and costumes and appreciating the attention to detail.

So even though I’ve seen it a million times, it was kind of like watching it with a new set of eyeballs, and it made me think about some aspects of the world of Oz I hadn’t really considered before. So let’s discuss those.

I know there’s that musical called “Wicked” that I believe is supposed to be this story from the point of view of the witch. Maybe they deal with this question I kept wondering: How bad could this Witch of the East really have been? The citizens of Munchkinland all celebrate her death like she was Saddam, but don’t most tyrants tend to live it up themselves and starve most of their people? We don’t see a bunch of Munchkins in rags throwing burning garbage cans at flying monkeys. Look at these little guys with their fancy outfits, houses, carriages.

True, this appears to be a Necromonger style government where they want Dorothy to rule them because she slew their previous master. But they’re not barbarians. They have a mayor who seems to have legitimate power, not just a figurehead. The coroner, I mean who knows, but he doesn’t seem to have a haunted look in his eye like he’s seen fucked up shit you wouldn’t believe. They have an elite guard who are happy to still do their precision marching, apparently not disbanded during sudden regime change. They have the Lullaby League and the Lollipop Guild, so obviously this witch allowed organized labor to flourish. You don’t get that in many fascist states. The Lollipop Guild have stylized jagged cuts that seem to represent torn clothes, the only arguably impoverished Munchkins we see, so they might not be getting paid a living wage. But obviously we know they have food.

It is very possible that all of these titles are just some bullshit that the Wizard made up a long time ago and not actual offices. But it’s hard to argue with their material wealth. We see it on them.

On the other hand, look at the Wicked Witch of the West. She’s not exactly gonna get on MTV’s Cribs. She doesn’t have an Ice-T style shark tank. Yes, she lives in a castle, but it’s not some Saddam or Scarface type shit. It’s all rough stone, not marble. Very little decoration. Probly cold. Almost for sure smells like monkey shit. Nobody in their right mind would prefer to live in that place to Munchkinland, if they could fit. If her sister in the East had a similar lifestyle then how tyrannical could she have been? Her people were living better than her.

What I’m getting at is maybe these Munchkins are a bunch of tea partiers, this witch actually did well for them but they can’t appreciate it, they hate her because she’s different from them. They’re okay with tall ladies like Glinda and Dorothy, but Glinda’s telling them this stereotype that ugly women are “bad witches.” Maybe that’s what it was about. Overall Oz is an accepting land for people of many sizes, talking animals and animate-inanimate objects. But maybe Munchkinland is the deep south of Oz. I see exactly one brother in this whole place and he’s the security guard.

But what do I know, I’m not on the inside, and they could very well know things that we’re not seeing in the movie. Maybe that witch was executing her enemies left and right, maybe there are political prisoners rotting away somewhere. Maybe they’re in the sewers we saw one Munchkin crawl out of. I don’t claim to be an expert on the political situation there, so don’t get offended. I’m just making some observations.

Before we move on from witches, why do they melt in water? I mean that’s a dumb question, but I wonder if the answer is that they’re made of sugar. If so it would be cool to just eat ‘em. Like one of those cake decorations that are carved out of sugar. You’re not supposed to eat ‘em, but when in Oz, you know?

More government questions. If the Wizard is the ruler of the whole place doesn’t he have some responsibility for what goes on with the witches, who only rule by region? Is this like one of those countries where there’s a government but they can’t really control the warlords in certain regions? You’d think it would be more of an obvious hellhole if that  was the case, but maybe not. I can buy it.

But I don’t know how much we as Americans should be supporting this Wizard’s regime. He decides to leave and just transfer his power to the Scarecrow! We like the Scarecrow, but what kind of democracy is that? I guess we shouldn’t be surprised. The Wizard’s power is completely based on hype and bullshit, like THE MATRIX. We know this, but then we forgive him because of a couple medals that we know don’t mean shit. A total used car salesman.

We should not be in bed with this guy, it’s gonna blow back on us. And don’t tell me we’re safe just because they’re in a dream and we’re in the waking world. There are many connections between our lands. Dorothy travels there by dream, the Wizard by air. They’re treated as foreign visitors, but not as aliens. There has been plenty of communication between the realms, otherwise how do you explain the references to Lincoln and Shakespeare? They know our history and our writers. They know more about us than we do about them.

But maybe that’s a good thing that our people haven’t explored Oz that much. We can’t be trusted anymore than they can. Thank God the Crusades didn’t make it over there, or the Witch Trials. Poor Glinda coulda been burnt at the stake, then instead of seeing her flying around in a bubble we’d see horror movies about why she deserved it.

On a completely different topic: do you guys remember that the Scarecrow is a gun owner? Somehow I didn’t remember this, and an informal poll shows that nobody I know remembers it either. But I swear to you that when they’re in the Haunted Woods all the sudden the Scarecrow is waving a piece around. Here, watch his right hand:

See, you don’t even have to have a brain to pass the background check. Luckily he never uses it. But maybe he should’ve tried shooting that witch or some of those monkeys, now that I think about it.

Back in the real world, where everyone is awake and in sepia tones, did they ever solve the issue with that neighbor lady who looks like the Wicked Witch of the West who says she’s going to execute Toto for trespassing in her garden? I don’t think they do. That lady was so bad that Aunt Em said that “being a Christian woman” she couldn’t say what she’d wanted to say to her for 23 years. How many people do you know that Aunt Em wants to call the c-word?

I don’t think Dorothy saves the dog, but she does learn her lesson that “there’s no place like home,” so I guess she should stay home on the farm at all times instead of wanting to go out and do different things or go to different places. It’s supposed to be a nice warm message, but it’s kinda sad. I got two pieces of advice for Dorothy:

1. You can always write letters to home. Go travel for a while, live in a city somewhere, have a good time, find yourself. You don’t gotta be a chicken farmer just ’cause your aunt was, you gotta do what fulfills you. And you seem like somebody that likes to meet different people. If you stay here you’ll never experience diversity like you saw in Oz. You’ll probly never meet any gay people. Trust me, gay people would love you! You gotta get out there.

2. You know, people are very rarely interested in hearing about other people’s dreams. Cool it with the “and you were there, and you were there” business.

Anyway, pretty good movie in my opinion.




Check out this super clever optical illusion video featuring RayBan sunglasses! The more you watch it, more surprising it gets.

It’s really amazing what all can be done with simple perspective manipulation. If you like this kind of stuff I recommend you browse through our #videos, as well as #anamorphosis section – you will find few more similar amazing examples there! And now for the video:

The post VIDEO: RayBan Sunglasses Illusion appeared first on Mighty Optical Illusions.

Another high school story… I used to hang out with Brent a lot in high school (and in college). Friends of Clint these days might know him as “Mark’s older brother”, but back then Mark was simply “Brent‘s younger brother”. I’ve never met a pair of siblings I’ve hung out with more in my life.

I used to enjoy playing darts — I put dartboards on my door. When I wasn’t throwing knives into my door, or playing guitar, I was throwing darts into my dartboard.

Brent and I invented a game that we called “Speed Darts”. You see, in order to alleviate the boredom of being a highschooler, one must increase risk.

Here’s how you play: You throw a dart (or 2), then the second you are done throwing it, you go and pull the dart out of the dartboard, while the next player throws his dart (or 2).

Then, the 2nd player retrieves his dart(s), while you run back and throw your dart(s).

Basically, you are running up to a dart board and pulling a dart out WHILE darts are being thrown at the same board.

And how exciting and paranoid of a game this was!

I never got darted, but I did eventually dart Brent. Twice.

Though I think one of the two times I darted him may have been in my front yard, and not related to the game.

Mood: headachey
Music: Treblinka – Mould In Hell

Filed under: Anecdotes, Brent I, Clint, Journal, People

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "NBC reports that flying instructors at Humberside Airport, near the city of Hull in northeast England, told a passenger who had never flown before how to land a four-seater Cessna 172 after the pilot collapsed and died at the controls. Passenger John Wildey explained to air traffic controllers that he had no flying experience and that the pilot could not control the plane. 'It came down with a bump, a bump, a bump, hit the front end down, I heard some crashing and it's come to a halt,' said Stuart Sykes. 'There were a few sparks and three or four crashes, that must have been the propeller hitting the floor. Then it uprighted again and it came to a stop.' Roads around the airport were closed while two incoming flights to the airport, from Scotland and the Netherlands, were delayed as a result of the incident. The passenger took four passes of the runway, and there were cheers from the control tower when it finally came to a halt on the ground. 'For somebody who is not a pilot but has been around airfields and been a passenger on several occasions to take control is nothing short of phenomenal," said Richard Tomlinson. "He made quite a good landing, actually,' added flight instructor Murray. 'He didn't know the layout of the airplane. He didn't have lights on so he was absolutely flying blind as well.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

You've been invited to add this photo to the group HOT VINTAGE. By group admin aliciamoon84.