Saturday, June 21, 2014

21 June 2014

 Birthdays
Benjamin Walker b. 1982 (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter)
Chris Pratt b. 1979 (Jurassic World, Guardian of the Galaxy, Her, Jennifer’s Body, Path of Destruction)
Erica Durance b. 1978 (Painkillers, Smallville, The Butterfly Effect 2, Stargate SG-1, Andromeda, House of the Dead)
Maggie Siff b. 1974 (Push)
Juliette Lewis b. 1973 (From Dusk Till Dawn, Strange Days, My Stepmother Is an Alien, Meet the Hollowheads)
Carrie Preston b. 1967 (True Blood, Lost, The Stepford Wives [2004], Wonderfalls)
David Morrissey b. 1964 (The Walking Dead, Earthbound, Doctor Who, The Reaping)
Doug Savant b. 1964 (Godzilla [1998], Teen Wolf)
Josh Pais b. 1964 (The Crow: Stairway to Heaven, Deep Space Nine, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles [1990])
Berkeley Breathed b. 1957 (writer, Mars Needs Moms)
Michael Bowen b. 1953 (Revolution, Lost, The X-Files, Night of the Comet)
Robyn Douglass b. 1953 (Galactica 1980)
Michael Gross b. 1947 (Tremors, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court)
Mariette Hartley b. 1940 (Conan [TV], Encino Man, The Incredible Hulk, Logan’s Run [TV], Genesis II, Mystery in Dracula’s Castle, Earth II, The Return of Count Yorga, Star Trek, Twilight Zone)
Ron Ely b. 1938 (Superboy, Wonder Woman, Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze)
Monte Markham b. 1935 (Fringe, Millennium Man, Deep Space Nine, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show, The Incredible Hulk, Beyond Westworld, The Invisible Man, The Six Million Dollar Man, Project X)
Bernie Kopell b. 1933 (The Creature of the Sunny Side Up Trailer Park, Charmed, Bug Buster, Charmed, The Charmings, The Six Million Dollar Man, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Bewitched, My Favorite Martian)
Lyman Ward b. 1941 (Black Scorpion [TV], Independence Day, Weird Science [TV], Sleepwalkers, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, Battlestar Galactica [1979], Man from Atlantis)
Maureen Stapleton b. 1925 died 13 March 2006 (Doin’ Time on Planet Earth, Cocoon, The Electric Grandmother)

Happy middle of the sunny half of the year to my Northern Hemisphere readers. If I have any Southern Hemisphere readers, well... it gets better. The Picture Slot was a three way race today. Being a geezer nerd I could easily have gone with Mariette Hartley from Star Trek, and I did love Michael Gross in Tremors, but David Morrissey as The Governor from The Walking Dead is pretty gosh darned iconic to modern genre fans.

A few random thoughts from this morning's research.
1. Carrie Preston, best known from True Blood, certainly qualifies as a Fabulous Babe and well enough known, but I stopped watching True Blood because it's such a dangerous world depicted and there are multiple characters too stupid to live, including hers. As always, I blame the writers, not the actors.

2. I hate having to type a year after Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I was a comic book reader when this thing started and I thought it was cute, but never bought it. I knew it was a phenomenon when parodies started popping up. Then it was a TV cartoon, then a video game, then a live action movie and now a live action movie reboot. At each point, I thought "Okay, it's had a good run, but now it's over, right?" No, it's not over yet.  Sheesh.

Many happy returns to all the living on the list and to the late Maureen Stapleton, thanks for all the memories.

Movies released
World War Z released 2013
Monsters University released 2013
Minority Report released 2002


Predictor: John Swinton (1829-1901), journalist and activist, looking forward to 1993 in honor of the 1893 Columbian Exhibition in Chaicago.

Prediction: I guess that in 1993:
1. The functions and powers of our government shall be greatly enlarged.
2. Railroads, telegraphs and a great many other things now held as private spoil will be public property.
3. Law, medicine and theology will be more reasonable than they now are.
4. Inventions and discoveries will be greater than we have ever yet had.
5. The welfare of mankind will be higher than it is in this age of confusion.

Reality: Okay, first things first. We usually look to the facial hair in the 1893 predictors and he has a fine soup strainer, but that hat. I was gonna say you buy that hat you should get a bowl of soup with it, but that may actually be the soup bowl.

Oh, but John, it looks good on you.

Here I am, making fun, but as a predictor, he is vague but not incorrect for the most part, though the railroads and telegraphs stayed private spoil for the most part and are not today the strangling monopolistic octopi they were 120 years ago.

Also, I have to work the phrase "private spoil" into my vocabulary more and gentle reader, so do you.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

As much fun as a weekly nuclear holocaust is, I'm going to introduce a new Sunday regular that will tag team with the Old Goom and Doom.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

2 comments:

  1. 4. Inventions and discoveries will be greater than we have ever yet had.

    OK, now that's just cheating.

    Hey, wait: Imma make a prediction! Ten years from now, Inventions and discoveries will be greater than we have ever yet had!

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    Replies
    1. To play devil's advocate, the years 1893 to 1993 weren't just improvements on stuff we already had, we got really new stuff, like radio, television, the airplane, nuclear bombs, computers, the Internet, etc., so I stand by "vague but not incorrect".

      In the next ten years, it's not obvious we will get some brand spanking new thing that will have an impact on society equal to the changes that radio brought about, to give one example. Predictors from the turn of the century thought there would be broadcast events into the home, but they assumed it would be telephone technology, not radio.



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Traveler! Have you news... FROM THE FUTURE?