Birthdays
Hayden Panettiere b. 1989 (Heroes)
Carrie-Anne Moss b. 1967 (The Matrix)
Kim Catrall b. 1956 (Star Trek)
Basil Poledouris b. 1945 died 8 November 2006 (Composer, Robo-Cop, Conan the Barbarian, Starship Troopers, Cherry 2000, The Twilight Zone (1980s re-boot))
Several excellent choices for Pretty Girl = Picture Slot today and as adorable as Hayden Panettiere is, I still have a soft spot for the original Matrix, blissfully forgetting how bad the sequels were for up to ten to fifteen seconds at a stretch.
Many happy returns of the day to the living.
Prediction: Naturally lifts (elevators)... will be everywhere in evidence. The plan of attaining the upper part of a small house by climbing, on every occasion, a sort of wooden hill, covered with carpet of questionable cleanliness, will of course have been abandoned : it is doubtful whether staircases will be built at all after the next two or three decades.
Predictor: T. Baron Russell in A Hundred Years Hence: The Expectations of an Optimist, published 1905
Reality: Umm... no. Elevators weren't brand spanking new in 1905, Elisha Otis having invented the safety elevator in 1852, but buildings were getting taller due to increased use of metal infrastructure. While elevators are common, they do break down on occasion, and I'm not sure I've ever been in a multi-story building that didn't have a flight of stairs. Regardless of Russell's worries about cleanliness, stairs are a reliable back-up system to technology that does screw up sometimes (see The Big Bang Theory for an example) and they have not faded into the past nor are they likely to any time in the future.
Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!
A prediction from a 1982 movie about the lawless hellhole that is The Bronx in 1990.
Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!
dammit. I had a great, long-form comment about the elevator predictions and accidentally scrolled back to the prior page and lost it all.
ReplyDeleteI know where you're going with tomorrow's prediction, though.
Sure, it was an architecture prediction, right up your alley. The only way to make it more perfect is if it was a zombie architecture prediction.
Deleteyou think you joke, but one of the CAD software companies had a design charrette competition recently where the subject was a house to defend against zombie attack.
DeleteActually, elevators would make a pretty good chokepoint, especially if you equipped them with keypad code activation, so the dimmer zombies wouldn't be able to attain your elevated position.
Of course, zombies don't mind the brute force tactic of just piling up zombodies until there are enough to climb over whatever walls you are hiding behind, but still it might help....
Catrall was also in "Split Second," which I had forgotten about until last year. I watched it again; it's best forgotten, in my opinion. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105459/
ReplyDeleteTo be clear, that's not intended as a criticism of either Catrall or Rutger Hauer, both of whom I generally like. It's just a dumb movie.
ReplyDeleteCatrall was also in "City Limits" most memorably riffed by MST3K. with an un-needed appearance by Robbie Benson, but a DELIGHTFUL turn by James Earl Jones.
ReplyDeleteSame caveat as Lockwood. Except for Benson, who at least has the integrity to die in the movie.
So many great MST3K lines, but the one I remember here is Doctor Forester's intro.
Delete"This week's experiment is City Limits, one of the worst films James Earl Jones was ever in AND one of the best movies Kim Catrall was ever in."
"Oh, Kim Cattrall"
ReplyDeleteJust seemed appropriate.