19 March 2013

Birthday
Connor Trinneer b. 1969

Many happy returns to Mr. Trinneer, whose best known work is on Enterprise and Stargate, two sci-fi shows I never got in the habit of watching.
 

Prediction 
1951: Dr. Hugo Pinero puts $10,000 in escrow to pay the first person living past Pinero’s predicted date for that person’s death.

Predictor: Life-Line, by Robert A. Heinlein, published 1939

Reality: To be fair to Ridiculous Bob, this is very early in his career. Some people in "Hard SF" made an effort to really understand science, but Heinlein wasn't one of them. He is more like someone skimming through a textbook and thinking "Time! It's different from what we used to think!  What if it worked in this cool way?"

But it doesn't, Bob, and your story just is like something out of the "gypsy curse" genre made allegedly plausible with impossible science.

 Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE! 



The three words I do not tire of typing... John Elfreth Watkins.

Join me then... IN THE FUTURE!

5 January 2013

Birthdays
January Jones b. 1978
Clancy Brown b. 1959 

There will be a lot of birthdays of artists with a connection to fantasy and sci-fi celebrated here on the blog and actors are going to outnumber writers and directors because movies and TV shows hire more actors than directors or writers. As much as I love Clancy Brown's work, when it came to a picture of him or a picture of January Jones from X-Men: First Class, I did not have a tough time choosing.


Being a heterosexual male did have some bearing on my decision.

The date is 5 January, 1900.

H.G. Wells, known to his friends as George, makes his first trip INTO THE FUTURE in his time machine.

from The Time Machine, released 17 August 1960

I love predictions that give exact dates. This isn't exactly a prediction, since the movie is released in 1960 and the first scenes take place in 1900, but in any time travel movie, we are allowed the Dr. Who Rule, better known as:

Timey wimey wibbly wobbly.

Accuracy: Sorry, we didn't actually invent time travel in the Victorian era.

This movie will get another exact date prediction later in the year, on its release date of the 17th of August, to be exact. It really does look INTO THE FUTURE, at least from the vantage point of 1960, and it's a doozy of an apocalypse.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

Man travels the depths of interstellar space... in 1997? Well, perhaps only in The Twilight Zone.

Join me then... IN THE FUTURE!