29 July 2014

Birthdays
Allison Mack b. 1982 (Smallville)
Dominic Burgess b. 1982 (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Doctor Who, Batman Begins)
Megan Hayes b. 1980 (Sleepy Hollow, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, +1)
Rachel Miner b. 1980 (Supernatural)
Stephen Dorff b. 1973 (Immortals, Blade, Space Truckers)
Dileep Rao b. 1973 (Touch, Inception, Avatar)
Wil Wheaton b. 1972 (Big Bang Theory, Eureka, The Guild, Neverland, Star Trek: Nemesis, The Invisible Man, Python, Deep Core, Flubber, Perversions of Science, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Monsters, The Curse, The Last Starfighter)
Graham McGrath b. 1971 (Krull, Frankenstein [1984 TV])
Timothy Omundson b. 1969 (Supernatural, Warehouse 13, Jericho, Xena, Starship Troopers, Dark Skies, SeaQuest 2032)
Richard Steven Horvitz b. 1966 (Invader ZIM, Babylon 5, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, The Munsters Today)
Dean Haglund b. 1965 (The Icarus II Project, Atlantis Down, The X Files, The Lone Gunmen)
Alexandra Paul b. 1963 (A.I. Assault, Disaster Zone: Volcano in New York, Cyber Bandits, Christine)
Brian Peck b. 1960 (Jack and the Beanstalk [2010], X-Men 2, X-Men, The Tick, Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest, Return of the Living Dead I, II and III)
Marcus Gilbert b. 1958 (Army of Darkness, Doctor Who)
Wendy Hughes b. 1952 died 8 March 2014 (Star Trek: The Next Generation, Amerika)
Charles Hallahan b. 1953 died 25 November 1997 (Roswell, Warlock: The Armageddon, Cast a Deadly Spell, Twilight Zone: The Movie, The Thing)
David Warner b. 1941 (Penny Dreadful, Doctor Who, Hogfather, The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse, Cyber Wars, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde [2003 TV], Planet of the Apes [2001], The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne, Total Recall 2070, Wing Commander, The Last Leprechaun, Perversions of Science, Beastmaster III, Babylon 5, Lois & Clark, Necronomicon: Book of Dead, The Lost World, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, My Best Friend is a Vampire, Frankenstein [1984 TV], Faerie Tale Theatre, The Company of Wolves, Cat a Deadly Spell, TRON, Time Bandits, Time After Time, The Omen)
Robert Fuller b. 1933 (The Brain from Planet Arous)
Lloyd Bochner b. 1925 died 29 October 2005 (Legend of the Mummy, Superboy, Millennium [1989], Manimal, Battlestar Galactica, The Amazing Spider-Man, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Bionic Woman, The Starlost, The Dunwich Horror, Bewitched, The Green Hornet, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Twilight Zone)
Frank Marth b. 1922 died 12 January 2014 (The Incredible Hulk, Battlestar Galactica [1979], Captain America, The Bionic Woman, The Six Million Dollar Man, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Marooned, The Invaders, The Green Hornet, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, My Favorite Martian)
Melvin Belli b. 1907 died 9 July 1996 (Star Trek)
Maria Ouspenskaya b. 1876 died 3 December 1949 (Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, The Wolf Man)

A lot of good choices today. Last year, having done less research, I only listed Wil Wheaton and David Warner, and the younger actor got the Picture Slot. When I woke up this morning, my first thought was to give David Warner his moment in the spotlight, but another iconic image came to mind when I saw Lloyd Bochner's name. So many Twilight Zone stories depend on the twist ending, and To Serve Man is certainly one of them. Bochner's does not say the line, he gets to react to it, standing in for all of us at home who were thinking "Holy crap!" This still captures the moment.
A quick note: two actors died this year on today's birthday list and I didn't hear about their deaths. Both Wendy Hughes and Frank Marth deserve to never be forgotten.

Many happy returns to all the living on the list and to the dead, thanks for all the memories. 

Movies released
Cowboys & Aliens, released 2011
 

Predictor: Geoffrey Hoyle in his 1972 children's book, 2010: Living in the Future

Prediction: A large restaurant on the roof of the Sports and Social Center covers the roof and looks more like a garden than a restaurant.

It is sometimes hard to find people in this big area. So, to help you, there is a map at the entrance with all the sitting places marked on it. Look carefully and you can see where your family have marked their place.

At the table it is easy to order. You type what you want on the control panel fixed to the table. A few minutes later the tray comes along the conveyor belt close to the table. You can see that it is your tray because there is a flag stuck to it with your table number on it.

It is interesting to see how the food arrives in the giant kitchen. The kitchen is at the far end of the roof. Like the kitchen at home, it works by computer.

The restaurant kitchen serves thousands of people every day. It would take hundreds of deliveries by electric trucks to keep the refrigerators and deep freezers of the kitchen full. So the supplies are piped to it each day.

Whatever is needed in the restaurant is packed in special wrappers at a depot in the town. Everything is then placed in the pipe, which is filled with a special liquid, and pumped to the restaurant on the roof. The liquid allows packages of different weights to float. Otherwise small packages would float while large packages would sink and bang against the bottom of the pipe. When the packages reach the restaurant they are taken from the pipe, unwrapped, and put into the right containers.

The food is cooked the same way it is at home and sent along the conveyor belts to the customers.

Reality: Jeez, what a commie. Everybody eating at the the same restaurant. What does he think this place is, McDonalds?

Of course, there are restaurants that serve thousands of people a day and deliveries are all by truck. It's kind of too bad, because the pipes are almost like pneumatic tubes, a favorite futuristic gimzo from the predictors of the early to mid 20th Century. More than that, automation in fast food kitchens is possible, but it's certainly not the standard yet.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

Herman Kahn takes another crack at predicting the late 1970s and early 1980s from his vantage point in 1972. Not quite as bold as our usual predictors and not that much more accurate.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!