1 September 2015

Birthdays
Zendaya b. 1996 (Zapped [2014])
Michael Adamthwaite b. 1981 (The 100, Strange Empire, Nerds and Monsters, Arrow, Horns, Once Upon a Time, Supernatural, Fringe, Sucker Punch, Behemoth, Riverworld, Twilight: New Moon, Smallville, Reaper, Watchmen, Flash Gordon [TV], Stephen King’s Dead Zone, Dead Like Me, 10.5, Stargate SG-1, Jeremiah)
Lara Pulver b. 1980 (Edge of Tomorrow, True Blood)
Camille Chen b. 1979 (Grimm, American Horror Story, Touch, Meteor [TV], Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over)
Justice Leak b. 1979 (The Vampire Diaries, Powers, Insurgent, Supergirl)
Adrienne Wilkinson b. 1977 (Star Trek: Renegades, Nobility, Charmed, Angel, Xena)
Jenae Altschwager b. 1976 (Alien Ecstasy, She Alien, Alien Sex Files 3, Click, The Island)
Scott Speedman b. 1975 (Underworld: Evolution, Underworld)
Burn Gorman b. 1974 (The Man in the High Castle, Forever, Game of Thrones, Pacific Rim, The Dark Knight Rises, Torchwood)
Jhonen Vasquez b. 1974 (Invader ZIM)
Maury Sterling b. 1971 (Extant, Coherence, Dollhouse, Charmed, Star Trek: Enterprise, Angel, Dark Skies, Outbreak)
Ricardo Chavira b. 1971 (Warehouse 13, Piranha 3D)
Padma Lakshmi b. 1970 (Star Trek: Enterprise)
Zak Penn b. 1968 (writer, Pacific Rim 2, Alphas, The Avengers, The Incredible Hulk, X-Men: The Last Stand, Elektra, X-Men 2)
James Nguyen b. 1966 (writer, Birdemic 1 and 2)
Michelle Meyrink b. 1962 (Nice Girls Don’t Explode, Real Genius)
Joe Jusko b. 1959 (artist, Marvel Comics)
Sachi Parker b. 1956 (Eerie, Indiana, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Alien Nation [TV], Scrooged, Back to the Future)
James Rebhorn b. 1948 died 21 March 2014 (Coma [2012], The Adventures of Pluto Nash, From the Earth to the Moon, Independence Day, Cat’s Eye)
Susan Backlinie b. 1946 (Quark)
Venita Wolf b. 1945 died 22 November 2014 (Star Trek)
Beau Starr b. 1944 (Stephen King’s Dead Zone, Final Days of Planet Earth, The 4400, Earth: Final Conflict, Relic Hunter, Total Recall 2070, Halloween 4 and 5, V, Knight Rider, The Powers of Matthew Star)
Zitto Kazann b. 1944 (The X Files, Angel, Charmed, Buffy, Sliders, Waterworld, The Flash, Werewolf [TV], Automan, Tucker’s Witch, Knight Rider, The Greatest American Hero, The Six Million Dollar Man)
Don Stroud b. 1943 (Little Bigfoot, Babylon 5, The Alien Within, Carnosaur 2, Cyber Seeker, Frogtown II, Quantum Leap, Super Force, Hyper Space, The Powers of Matthew Star, The Incredible Hulk, The Amityville Horror)
C. J. Cherryh b. 1942 (won 1982 Hugo for Downbelow Station and 1989 Hugo for Cyteen)
Judy Levitt b. 1940 (InAlienable, Babylon 5, Star Trek: Generations, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Moontrap, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home)
Lily Tomlin b. 1939 (The X Files, The Incredible Shrinking Woman)
Ron O’Neal b. 1937 died 14 January 2004 (Hyper Space, Beauty and the Beast [1987], Knight Rider, The Greatest American Hero, The Final Countdown, Brave New World)
Anne Ramsey b. 1929 died 11 August 1988 (Scrooged, Doctor Hackenstein, ALF, Deadly Friend, Knight Rider, Wonder Woman)
George Maharis b. 1928 (Superboy, The Sword and the Sorcerer, Logan’s Run [TV], Bionic Woman, Look What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Baby, Death in Space, Journey to the Unknown, The Satan Bug)
Yvonne De Carlo b. 1922 died 8 January 2007 (American Gothic, The Munsters)
Vittorio Gassman b. 1922 died 29 June 2000 (Quintet)
Richard Farnsworth b. 1920 died 6 October 2000 (Space Rage, Resurrection, Strange New World, Mighty Joe Young)
Betty Blythe b. 1893 died 7 April 1972 (She [1925])
Edgar Rice Burroughs b. 1875 died 19 March 1950 (author, John Carter)

Notes from the birthday list.
1. The Picture Slot. The previous Picture Slotters were Yvonne De Carlo and Edgar Rice Burroughs. This year, it goes to Venita Wolf from the Star Trek episode The Squire of Gothos. I consider major guest roles on Star Trek to be iconic almost always and she's a fabulous babe as well, but the third reason she is getting a mention is that she died last year and it escaped my attention. She should have had a send-off.

Best wishes to the family and friends of Venita Wolf, from a fan. She is never to be forgotten.

2. Spot the Canadians! Did you know Yvonne De Carlo was from the Great White North? I didn't. We also have Michelle Meyrink, Scott Speedman and Michael Adamthwaite. Of all of these actors, only Adamthwaite's credit list gives away his nation of origin.

3. Nepotism FTW. Sachi Parker is Shirley MacLaine's daughter.

4. Okay... WTF? Justice Leak? This is a Washington scandal, not an actual person's name.

5. Stealth MST3K. Our Picture Slotter Venita Wolf was also in Catalina Caper, not genre but it did get the best Brains treatment.

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

Predictor: Robert A. Heinlein in his 1957 book The Door Into Summer

Prediction: I found that a helicopter bus was due to leave for the center of the city in twenty-five minutes.

Reality: Local public transit that flies... not so much. Heinlein thought it would be here by the year 2000.
 

 This month's splash illustration: This month, I took a section from the cover of one of Frank Miller's Dark Knight series, probably the most influential version of Batman to this day.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

We take a look at the Atlantic hurricane season at the halfway mark in the season.
  
Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

10 April 2014

 Birthdays
AJ Michalka b. 1991 (Super 8, Birds of Prey)
Alex Pettyfer b. 1990 (In Time, Beastly, I Am Number Four)
Haley Joel Osment b. 1988 (A.I. Artificial Intellignce, The Sixth Sense)
Jamie Renee Smith b. 1987 (True Blood, VR.5, Dark Skies)
Mandy Moore b. 1984 (Southland Tales)
Ryan Merriman b. 1983 (Attack of the 50 Foot Cheerleader, Final Destination 3, The Ring Two, Veritas: The Quest, Smallville, Taken, Halloween: Resurrection, Rocket’s Red Glare)
Jamie Chung b. 1983 (Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, Once Upon a Time, Sucker Punch)
Charlie Hunnam b. 1980 (Pacific Rim, Children of Men)Orlando Jones b. 1968 (Sleepy Hollow, Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant, Pushing Daisies, Primeval, The Time Machine, Evolution, Bedazzled)
Brad William Henke b. 1966 (Pacific Rim, Grimm, Lost)
Jeb Stuart Adams b, 1961 (They Live, Once Bitten)
Peter MacNicol b. 1954 (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Battleship, Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, Baby Geniuses, Dracula: Dead and Loving It, Addams Family Values, Ghostbusters II, Dragonslayer)
Jim Burns b. 1948 (artist)
Hari Rhodes b. 1932 (The Powers of Matthew Star, Beyond Westworld, The Bionic Woman, The Six Million Dollar Man, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, Earth II, The Satan Bug)
Max Von Sydow b. 1929 (Branded, The Wolfman, Solomon Kane, Minority Report, What Dreams May Come, Judge Dredd, Needful Things, Until the End of the World, Dune, The Ice Pirates, Conan the Barbarian, Flash Gordon, The Exorcist II: The Heretic, The Exorcist)Lee Bergere b. 1924 died 321 Jan. 2007 (Time Trackers, Wonder Woman, The Six Million Dollar Man, Star Trek, Mr. Terrific, My Favorite Martian, The Addams Family, The Munsters)
Chuck Connors b. 1921 died 10 November 1992 (Werewolf, Day of Resurrection, The Six Million Dollar Man, Soylent Green, Adventures of Superman [TV])

Last year, the Picture Slot went to Max von Sydow. In terms of iconic roles, only Haley Joel Osment is his match on this list. There are a lot of Pretty Girl = Picture Slot choices, but instead I went with the artist Jim Burns, a very prolific artist of covers for books and magazines. Lee Bergere is one of those hard working actors who make good trivia questions for hardcore trivia geeks, but I wouldn't have recognized his name on imdb.com except that he played Lincoln on an episode of the original Star Trek.

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

In the year 2000!

Predictor: Lee de Forest, "The Father of Radio", predicting the world of 2000 in the 17 January 1960 edition of the Sunday supplement American Weekly.

Prediction: Passenger-carrying helicopters (helibuses) will take you up and over congestion, turning the sky into radar-controlled, multilevel highways which, incidentally, will be much less costly than those on the ground. Inexpensive private airplanes equipped for vertical take-off and landing also will fill the air.

Reality: Dr. de Forest did so well predicting communications breakthroughs, but when it comes to transportation, it's all flying cars and helibuses. I know it's our dream of the future, but the reality is getting airborne and getting back on the ground for short trips eats up a lot of fuel and takes a lot of training. De Forest has a few more predictions about the future of transportation and they all suffer from the twin sins of being run of the mill and completely innaccurate.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

Speaking of inaccurate predictions, it's time to hear again from our Friday regular Paul Ehrlich.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!
 

20 February 2013

Birthday
Pierre Boulle b. 1912 died 1/30/1994
 Boulle was credited with the screenplay for The Bridge Over the River Kwai, which was actually written by blacklisted writers Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson, the credit was changed posthumously in 1980. He did write the original novel.

He is mentioned here because of his other best known novel, Planet of the Apes.

   

What life will be like... in the year 2001!

Predictor: Lilly Daché (milliner and fashion expert)
Contra-magnetism will mean fabrics will repel dirt...
Whites and pastels will be worn in all seasons...

Predictor: Herb Score (pitcher, Cleveland Indians)
Plastic domes over stadiums keep out bad weather...
Parking not a problem, fans come in on helicopters...
No vendors in the stands, vending machines on the back of every chair...

Reality: We don't have fabrics that repel dirt quite yet, but Ms. Daché gets some points for predicting the "no white after Labor Day" rule would be largely forgotten.

Herb Score gets a point for domed stadiums, but we still don't use helicopters like buses and there are still vendors at ball games. I, for one, kinda like it that way. Sometimes you miss a play when the popcorn guy walks by, but it's part of the ambiance.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE! Even when I mix things up for the sake of variety, we can't escape Robert A. Heinlein, who made a special batch of predictions for this issue of Amazing Stories, almost all of them amazingly wrong.


Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

19 February 2013

What life will be like... in the year 2001!

Predictor: Sid Caesar, host of the TV variety hit Your Show of Shows
The Pocket TV will be so common people will take it for granted...
Einstein's theory of relativity will be understood by every schoolchild because he will see it on his pocket TV in the helicopter on his way to school.

Predictor: John Cameron Swayze, anchorman and spokesman*
No major war between 1956 and 2001...
Light-weight low priced private air transport...
Cities disperse, the slums will disappear...
 
Reality: The modern high end cell phone is kinda sorta like a pocket TV, though streaming a TV program is an expensive way to use one. Transistor radios hit the market in 1955, so the idea of miniaturization is definitely in the public mind. Also in the public mind in the mid 1950s was that "Einstein's theory of relativity" was the most difficult concept ever devised by man. It is not yet a concept understood by schoolchildren.

Swayze was right about no major war. The middle part of the century was big on the idea that cities were intolerable and had to be abolished. We kinda got over that.

 And then we have the helicopter school bus and "light-weight low priced private air transport", which are both roundabout ways to say... Flying Cars HELLZ YEAH!

It is the express policy of this blog never to discuss reality and flying cars at the same time. So it is written and so it shall be. Amen.

* Some younger readers might need more explanation of who John Cameron Swayze was. He was one of the original anchormen for evening news broadcasts, but by the time I was growing up, he was the spokesman for Timex watches, the commercials that brought us the deathless tagline "It takes a licking and keeps on ticking". Wikipedia says that John Cameron Swayze was a sixth cousin to the now more famous Patrick Swayze, both deceased. I'm not as close to my cousins as some other people are, but "sixth cousin" seems a polite way of saying "not really related at all".

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE! Sure, we start the week with predictions about TV, war, city life and flying cars, but tomorrow we get to what really matters: fashion and baseball.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!