Saturday, May 16, 2015

16 May 2015

Birthdays
Atticus Mitchell b. 1993 (The Colony, My Babysitter’s a Vampire)
Thomas Brodie Sangster b. 1990 (The Maze Runner, Game of Thrones, Doctor Who, Nanny McPhee)
Megan Fox b. 1986 (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Jonah Hex, Jennifer’s Body, Transformers)
Stanislav Ianevski b. 1985 (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire)
Tien You Chui b. 1983 (Contagion)
Joseph Morgan b. 1981 (The Originals, The Vampire Diaries, Immortals, Hex)
Jim Sturgess b. 1978 (Cloud Atlas)
Chris Ackerman b. 1978 (Elektra)
Lynn Collins b. 1977 (John Carter, X-Men: Origins, True Blood, Bug)
Melanie Lynsky b. 1977 (Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, Rose Red, The Frighteners)
Sean Carrigan b. 1974 (John Carter, The Event, Heroes)
Tori Spelling b. 1973 (Smallville, Cthulhu)
Eha Urbsalu b. 1972 (Men in Black 3, Early Edition)
David Boreanaz b. 1969 (Buffy, Angel, The Crow: Wicked Prayer)
Tracey Gold b. 1969 (Arachnoquake, Solar Flare, The Dead Zone, Beyond Witch Mountain)
Brian F. O’Byrne b. 1967 (Flashforward)
Ramon Tikaram b. 1967 (Jupiter Ascending, Vampire Academy, Game of Thrones, Primeval, Speed Racer)
Scott Reeves b. 1966 (Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, The Munsters Today)
Vincent Regan b. 1965 (Atlantis, Snow White and the Huntsman, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, Clash of the Titans, Black Knight, Invasion: Earth)
Solveig Dommartin b. 1961 died 11 January 2007 (Until the End of the World, Wings of Desire)
Kevin McDonald b. 1961 (Dead Before Dawn 3D, Invader ZIM, Sky High, Galaxy Quest, Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy)
Bruce Norris b. 1960 (The Sixth Sense)
Mare Winningham b. 1959 (Geostorm, American Horror Story, Under the Dome, Mirror Mirror, Torchwood, Twilight Zone, Threshold)
Debra Winger b. 1955 (E.T., Wonder Woman)
Pierce Brosnan b. 1953 (The World’s End, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, Mars Attacks!, The Lawnmower Man)
Allan Wasserman b. 1952 (Monster Heroes, Big)
Laurette Spang b. 1951 (Battlestar Galactica, Man from Atlantis, Project U.F.O., Gemini Man, The Six Million Dollar Man)
Bill Smitrovich b. 1947 (The Last Ship, Ted, Iron Man, The Event, Millennium, Independence Day, The Phantom, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Splash)
Danny Trejo b. 1944 (Cyborg X, Juarez 2045, The Burning Dead, Rise of the Zombies, Spy Kids, Stargate: Atlantis, Halloween [2007], The X-Files, From Dusk Till Dawn, Anaconda)
Yvonne Craig b. 1937 (The Six Million Dollar Man, Holmes and Yo-Yo, Land of the Giants, Star Trek, Batman, My Favorite Martian, Mars Needs Women, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea)
Jack Dodson b. 1931 died 16 September 1994 (Mork & Mindy, Munster Go Home!)
Harry Carey Jr. b 1921 died 27 December 2012 (The Exorcist III, Back to the Future III, Cherry 2000, Gremlins, Billy the Kid vs. Dracula)
Liberace b. 1919 died 4 February 1987 (Batman)
Barry Atwater b. 1918 died 24 May 1978 (The Night Stalker, Star Trek, The Invaders, Bewitched, The Outer Limits, Twilight Zone)
George Gaynes b. 1917 (Sliders, The Fantastic Four [1994], Altered States, The Six Million Dollar Man)
Henry Fonda b. 1905 died 12 August 1982 (Meteor, The Swarm, Tentacles)

Notes from the birthday list.
1. The Picture Slot. All right, this is a heck of a list. Earlier Picture Slotters were Thomas Brodie Sangster from Game of Thrones and Lynn Collins from John Carter, he's iconic and she's really pretty. While the list has some honest to Odin movie stars like Pierce Brosnan and Henry Fonda, I had four excellent choices who are iconic in genre.

A. David Boreanaz as Angel.
B. The late Solveig Dommartin from Wings of Desire. The shots of her on the trapeze make her one of the most beautiful women in film history. Not kidding about this.
C. Danny Trejo, because he's Danny FUCKING Trejo!
D. Yvonne Craig, either from Star Trek or Batman.

I typed =randinbetween(1,4) in Excel. Yvonne Craig won.

2. Spot the Canadians! Atticus Mitchell's resume makes it hard to tell. Kevin McDonald you should know.

3. Nepotism FTW. Tori Spelling. I've already said too much.

4. Happy birthday, not a typo. I was surprised last year when I say George Gaynes turned 97 and I'm just as surprised and happy that he turned 98. Good on ya, Mr. Gaynes!

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

Movies released
Shrek released, 2001
Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones released, 2002
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian released, 2008
Star Trek Into Darkness released, 2013
Godzilla released, 2014

We are getting to that time of year when a lot of summer blockbusters are released.
 
Predictor: Morris L. Ernst in his 1955 book Utopia 1976

Prediction: The population of the United States in 1976 will be 190,000,000.

Reality: It was actually 216,000,000 in 1976, up from 166,000,000 in 1955 when he made the prediction. I have no idea how he lowballed this so badly. The increase from 1935 to 1955 was about 40,000,000, but he was guessing the next twenty years would only see about a 24,000,000 person increase.The average yearly growth rate would have been 0.6% for his number to make sense; it was actually 1.3%.

In his defense (sort of), he was trained as a lawyer and I know several lawyers who are very clever people but who suck eggs at math.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

The regular schedule is interrupted for a prediction about the Atlantic hurricane season.

Join us then... INTO THE FUTURE!
 

3 comments:

  1. Uh, 24MM, not 14. Point stands, but he is writing at the beginning of (one of) the so-called "baby boom."*

    One of in the sense that whether it starts in 1948, 1954, or somewhere between seems to vary by what argument someone is trying to make.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oops. Thanks, I fixed it.

      You are right about the baby boom, but if he could have found the increase from 1935 to 1955, not impossible even using pre-Internet research methods, his lowball number should have been a 40 million increase.

      Delete

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