Gatchaman

Here's some footage from the proposed "Gatchaman" feature film. Some of you may know it as "Battle of the Planets," as it was known in the States. I think it looks pretty nice. Apparently, it's still in the works for a 2011 release. We'll see if it happens.

14 interesting facts about North Korea

If you think our freedoms are being stripped away, remember these facts about North Korea;

1. You can’t turn off the government radio installed in your home, only reduce the volume.

2. Idolatry in North Korea is such that it is second-nature for ordinary citizens to “rescue” portraits of Kim Il Sung before all else in the case of a house fire (there are even special bunkers for statues in case of war)

3. Many people don’t even know that man has walked on the moon.

4. There is no Internet, cell-phones have been banned.

5. A main cause for all problems are Americans. Mothers teach their children to sing songs about bad Americans, there are many postage stamps showing the death of “U.S imperialists”

6. A six-day work week, and another day of enforced “volunteer” work, ensures that the average citizen has virtually no free time.

7. The very first thing you do when you visit North Korea’s capital Pyongyang is visit and give a flower to a big statue of “Dear Leader”.

8. About 0.85% of the population are held in prison or detention camps.

9. Most traffic control is performed by female traffic directors (reportedly handpicked by Kim Jong-Il for their beauty), as the lights are switched off to save electricity.

10. Dogs are banned in Pyongyang to keep it clean.

11. Avarage wage in 2005 was 6$ a month.

12. Visitors of North Korea are given special guides and can’t go anywhere without them.

13. North Koreans are used to often disappearing electricity and have many candles prepared.

14. North Korea has the fourth-largest military in the world, at an estimated 1.21 million armed personnel

A few more pictures.

This frog let me get really close, which is cool since I almost ran him over with the lawnmower.


This is Hextall.

This is Boo, showing off one of her many talents. Sleeping.

A tulip from last spring. Almost perfectly symmetrical.

Winter pictures.

This is a series of winter pictures that I took. I really tried to evoke the bleak and cold that you endure during the long New England winter.

This was taken on a very overcast day at dusk.

This was actually a pretty sunny day. You would never really know it.

This is my favorite. The sun is desperately trying to break through the clouds just after a heavy snowstorm. You can feel the cold in this one.

Lit only by the street lights, there's a small amount of heat in the cold night.

It always seems colder to me when the snow sticks to everything. Last week that is exactly what happened.

Some random pictures

Here are some pictures I took last spring.

I really like how this fills the frame.

This is a Devil's Walking Stick. I really like how twisted the branches are. Makes for an interesting shape when the leaves fall off.

Moss and rocks surrounding one of our small evergreen trees.

I just like this one.

Star Wars at the Museum of Science

I thought I would take some time and post some of the pictures I took during the Star Wars exhibit that the Museum of Science hosted a few years ago.


This is the training remote Obi-Wan and Luke used in A New Hope. In person, you can clearly see that the chrome beam emmiters are model truck rims.



This is a side shot of the bridge section of the Rebel Blockade Runner, a.k.a Corellian Corvette, a.k.a. the Tantive IV. This model was much larger than I expected it to be. it was roughly five to six feet long with amazing detail put into it.



This is a model of an AT-TE, or All Terrain Tactical Enforcer from Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. I had no idea that physical models were made of this. I was very impressed with the weathering and detail level of the paint job. This model was roughly three feet long.


Here is another angle of the AT-TE to show the front end detail.



This is one of my favorites, the Arakyd Viper probe droid from The Empire Strikes Back. Only about three and a half feet tall, this was not the full sized model that was used in location shooting at Finse and the Hardangerjøkulen glacier in Norway.


This picture shows the detail that was put into the inside of Darth Vader's mask for the "creation" shots at the end of Revenge of the Sith. If I was Anakin Skywalker and I was forced to wear that monstrosity, I'd be pretty mad all the time too.

I'll be posting more pictures soon. I have a lot of the very large Millennium Falcon that show some beautiful detail work.

Boehner's Boner

So, John Boehner is the House Minority Leader in the 111th Congress. He has been serving as a U.S. Representative in Congress since his election in 1990. That is a respectable time to hold office and be re-elected.

However, last week, he made a mistake. Actually, a couple of mistakes.

The first mistake that he made was attending Michelle Bachmann's "Super-Bowl of Freedom" anti-health care reform rally. Why was this a mistake? Because Ms. Bachmann quite possibly violated House rules by organizing this rally in the wrong way. Also, since when do elected U.S. Representatives openly call for another revolution on the steps of the Capitol Building?

This leads me to Boehner's other mistake. He held up his "copy of the Constitution" to show the crowd. He then said he was going to read from it. Then he read the pre-amble to the Declaration of Independence.

Rookie mistake.

You don't get to be a party leader making those types of mistakes. Especially at a rally that Bachmann promoted through her government website. Boehner is loathe to allow anyone the freedom to choose their own health care (or anything else for that matter,), while attending a "Freedom" rally.

It saddens and disgusts me that elected representatives do not know the difference between the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. It also saddens me that instead of being available for house voting procedures, GOP members were on the steps of the building they work in decrying the very system that they work for.

The GOP needs to stop crying about what the Dems want to do and propose some ideas of their own. Ideas that would help, not hinder. Just saying "NO" is a horrible way to help the country. Saying "It's socialism!" with no clearly defined alternative plan is equivalent to crying wolf. The GOP right now is just sound and fury signifying nothing.