1 Septmeber 2013

Birthdays
Jhonen Vasquez b. 1974 (writer, Invader ZIM)
C. J. Cherryh b. 1942
(won 1982 Hugo for Downbelow Station)
(won 1989 Hugo for Cyteen)
Yvonne De Carlo b. 1922 died 7 January 2007 (The Munsters)
Edgar Rice Burroughs b. 1975 died 15 March 1950 (John Carter)

Though I put the Cute Girl in the Picture Slot, writers outnumber actors on today's birthday list, which is a rare thing.

While Cherryh may be the more honored in the genre, Edgar Rice Burroughs is easily the best known to the general public. My favorite tidbits of info about Burroughs are that he was 36 before he sold his first story. Before that, he had bounced around in low paying and lackluster jobs, the most often mentioned was as a pencil wholesaler. While the first story he sold was one of his Martian adventures, Tarzan is his best known creation and the keystone to his financial success. Though he had only started writing in 1911, he had made enough money by 1920 to buy his own ranch in California, which he named Tarzana. A town sprang up around the property and the citizens voted in 1927 to adopt the name of the ranch as the name of the town.

While I mention him last, Jhonen Vasquez is the creator of one of my favorite cartoon shows of all time, Invader ZIM. Many happy returns to Vasquez and Cherryh.

Prediction: February 1999, the first expedition to Mars lands and encounters the native population. It does not go well.

Predictor: Ray Bradbury in The Martian Chronicles, copyright 1950

Reality: Of course, humans so far have only set foot on the Moon and not anywhere else in the solar system so far. The best information that we have about Mars is no living creatures are there, though some think there might have been life in the ancient past.

Early 1999 was one of the times when Mars was closest to the Earth, but even then the distance is a little over 50 million miles and to make the trip in about a month means traveling at speeds at least twice as fast as the Cassini space probe.

This month's splash photo
Every month, I change the picture at the top of the page. I like pictures that are wide and not tall so the title of the daily post is visible as well as the first Picture Slot. This month it is artist Patrick Grimmel's rendering of the Hyperloop high speed tube train, proposed this year by Elon Musk, the billionaire behind PayPal and the Tesla electric car.

I've read the .pdf, which addresses stuff like earthquakes and power outages and avoiding sonic booms while traveling faster than sound, but I am not enough of an engineer to judge the practical aspects. I can say that it's nice to see something in the 21st Century that has that optimistic feel and sleek look that are so typical of the mid 20th Century's vision for the near future.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

We hear again from George Orwell and his prediction of a new holiday.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!