Monday, February 25, 2013

Good Time vs Good Place

 
So sometimes people recommend things to me, such as restaurants, hotels, or comedians.  This is very nice.  I Google +1 their head.  Unfortunately, a lot of people are biased by events and it's frustrating.  Take, for instance, (yeah, I used two commas for rhetoric) when someone buys a car.  It's often a shitty car, like an SUV or something that SUX.  It's a people-transport at-best, and it's boring no matter how cush it is.  It's not cool in any way.  There are no cool SUVs.  Some try to be cool but no.  Fail.  It's just a minivan in disguise, always.  Still, folks who just buy it will be in their, "I just bought a new car" mode for a while, all elated and gooshing over it.  Still, I'm sure it's better than their previous SUV, so sure, it's an improvement in some ways.  I see a lot of folks who owned Jeeps or SUVs get an actual car and they go nuts over it because their 0-60 isn't 20 seconds anymore and now they're getting more than 12 mpg so it's insanely good for them.  Uh huh.  Yeah, sure, that Subaru AWD El-Yawn Edition is fine, I guess, but to them it's outstanding. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
  Movies are like this too.  Some people don't go the cinema a few times a week, or month, or year.  When someone finally does break down and enter society for a brief moment, the experience of it is so overwhelming they just goosh over how awesome the crappy movie was, then you're suckered to go see it based on overwhelming enthusiasm and.. well.. you're left empty-handed.
 
 
  Most people I know are pretty non-adventurous so I'm rather leery at suggestions.  Some are experts in things and I value those further.  Sometimes, though they mean well and are enthusiastic.. well, they're clueless...
 
 
  Most folks know I love comedies.  I listen to XM Channel 99 Raw Dog Comedy which sponsors the latest comedian acts currently running around and some within the last year or so, so it's pretty fresh.  I also listen to a little international humor with XM Channel 160 Laugh Attack which features Canadian-only humor, which is a little more abstract but often more ironic or sarcastic with a peppering of less potty-humor and more cosmopolitan flair, so it's a good balance.  I have favorite comedians such as Maria Bamford (she's just awesome), Dane Cook's older material, Jim Gaffigan, and some of the other cleaner comedians like Mike Birbiglia (it's harder and therefore more challenging such as semi-early Bill Cosby, though very very early Bill Cosby was very dirty).  I'm fine with Doug Stanhope or Otto & George though, so I'm no prude.  I consider myself a bit of a comedic connoisseur.  When people learn this that I meet, they immediately suggest Jeff Dunham, who I abhor.  It's just racial patheticness that translates poorly on audio-only and his puppeteering (which is an art I very much admire) is lame.  I think he stinks.  Same with Ron White.  He's just full of hate and anger towards his wife and women.  Just my take.  XM's Blue Collar Comedy Channel is also something I'm not too fond of, but it has its moments.  Comedy is like dessert.  Everyone likes it but not everyone likes the same thing.
 
  The internet radio service, Pandora is similar as an uninformed acquaintance.  It assumes that if I like Rush then I must indeed like Moody Blues, Led Zeppelin, Yes, Cream, and Kansas.  Well, they're okay, but I'm not an Eric Clapton fan whatsoever (I probably should be because I love guitar, but I find his work blah and over-rated the same way Meryl Streep and Gene Hackman are).  No, Pandora, I really aren't into those.  If it was semi-smart, it'd know I like a bit of progressive-rock like Dream Theater or Queensryche or maybe some Savatage but it's too lame.  Luckily, XM Channel 38 The Boneyard knows this and isn't afraid to play No Sanctuary, Before the Storm, or Countdown
 


  Netflix's suggestions are horrible (and often confused when there's two raters on one account).  Sure, I liked Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares but no, I don't want to watch American Idol but yes indeed, I'll watch season 2 of The Gong Show.  Ah tastes are so varied and confusing!   It really helps if you truly know the person you're making a recommendation to.  Certainly, you shouldn't recommend Schindler's List 2: Electric Boogaloo to a 3-year-old, nor should she recommend Sesame Street's Count To 10-a-palooza to you.
  
 
  So when someone goes to a restaurant and has a good time with their family, they recommend it to me and, well, maybe they don't go out much so it's a fun time because they got 15 minutes of breathing time where they weren't chasing their kids around so therefore the restaurant is good because that pinball machine occupied their living mistakes for a bit as a prisoner's reprieve.  Sure, I guess.  These folks are so wrapped-up in their lives they can't transcend their state of misery to consider outside their own box.  I feel bad for them.
 
 
 
  A fellow co-worker recommended a Hilton in Hawaii's main island Kona (aka Hilo) so Beck and I centered a good portion of our vacation around it.  I should have considered that he had 5 kids.. The hotel itself was violently overpriced (he makes twice as much as me) and caters to kids by way of water slides and fun things for kids to do constantly right outside the rooms, giving parents breaks.  Well, sure, that'd be fine if I had kids so I could get a little alone-time but I don't so.. it's just an onslaught of screaming other-people's-kids 24x7.  He also later recommended a Disney cruise and I almost slapped him in his mouth-face.
 
 
  So, I applaud those that get out of the house.  Do so!  Enjoy Life!  If, however, you're going to make a recommendation, sure, tell me what a great time you had, I'd love to hear it, but if you don't realize I'm a middle-aged dude with no kids or know how I think or live, then please take a second to think that I'm not you.  If you don't though, I've been mildly burned from these experiences, so don't worry, I'll filter you.  I've learned how.  As a bonus, I'll do the same for you. 
 
Ciao.

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Biro's Hit!

It's HIM.  Ted Carroll playing as Biro in the 1980 film Flash Gordon.  Why was he so important?!
  You know, I always wondered about this sudden and semi-important non-developed character "Biro" in the 1980 cinematic masterpiece, Flash Gordon.


  I've done some research and can't find mention of "Biro" in any of the serials or the three original movies, Flash Gordon, Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars, Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe.





  He was played by Ted Carroll who died in 1998 and had several bit-parts in British TV and movies. I don't see any connection with him and DeLorentes either. I have no idea how Ted Carroll's manager got him onboard, or how he suddenly had extreme character-development, "Biro's hit! I'm going in after him!"


   I think ABC television did a making-of in 1982-83 on TV (I remember noting they did the clouds by dripping food coloring into oily water and filmed it upside-down in slow-motion) but I don't remember how Biro became "beloved". I will probably die having Biro a mystery to me. Why a broken-nosed old-man suddenly became a hyper-focus to the plot and then totally forgotten after, "See you in Mongo City, Prince!" which blows your mind because you remember Voltan is a Prince of Mongo though he acts like Olde King Cole as a king of Cloud City and not so much a prince being of what, 50 years old at the time? Weird.





  If you, or anyone you know, have any information on Biro or why his important is crucial to the plot which screeches to a halt to be saved during the assault on War Rocket Ajax, comment below as Mysteries of the Unexplained for all Time.




  All can agree, however, that Ted Carroll is definitely a guy you want to hang out with.  You know that he knows things, and has been around the block.  You never mention his broken nose.  You DO drink heavily with him and get into soccer hooligan fights, and you win. 



  Biro is win, and you know you want him on your side, no matter what.  Hear hear!  To BIRO!

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Snowstorm of the Century

  Here's a picture of outside:



  Schriever AFB's "Snow Line" indicated that, "Road Conditions are now RED.  All personnel are to report on-time."  I'm a little confused at that, indicating perhaps it's WW-III and we need to fight the Final Battle?  Okay then!  Let's fight the good fight!  God for Harry, England, and St. George!

  The drifts are pretty impressive.  Becky had to go out in it, she survived it with Blizzaks just fine, though several trucks, 4WD SUVs and the like were in the ditches, trapped, she said.  Typical for this region that folks think big trucks or 4WD/AWD help in these conditions (actually, they do during start-up from a traffic light by 20% when immediately accelerating, albeit only during acceleration and for about the 4 seconds you're doing it).  It does not give one a spiritual license of immunity to a deficit of coefficient-of-friction on melting snow beneath one's tires.  The top-heaviness almost completely counteracts it.  Ah, paradigm paralysis at it's finest.

  Well, stay in, fellas, if you can, and stay warm.



  On a side-note, I've been getting some spam comments lately, so I've used them for humor purposes.  A lot of them show up from last year, but keep your eyes peeled for previous entries with a lot of comments on 'em for your delight.

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Star Trek Timeline

Not a complete one, but a nice, short one for those inexperienced with the whole shebang.  It's been pretty culturally significant, I'd say, though Abrams made it more Die Hard than what it used to be.  Let's see if he can do better this summer.


Neet?



Friday, February 15, 2013

Hansel and Gretel: Witchhunters


Gemma's freckles have been airbrushed out of the poster
 So after PB&J's: A New York Deli (yeah, right) we went to see the German-American collaberation of Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters.  Now I knew I was getting into a sort of Van Helsing (2004) so I had low expectations, but let me tell you, it's actually better.  The dialogue and snappy interaction between The Avenger's Jeremy Renner and freckle-y Gemma Aterson is ketchy and fun as brother and sister, and though it's a bit teeny-one-dimensional at times, it plays out like a game of Baldur's Gate when Drizzt shows up to some degree.  Famke Jansen of X-Men are also in it, who played "Dark Phoenix" and she's a treat.  CGI is decent (for a change).





 have the necromantic power to raise and control things, some specializing in different arts like summoning.  One witch controlled trees such as the D&D Necromantic spell "Power Tree" and others can control beasts temporarily.  Actually quite interesting as each have limitations as well.


  There's a troll battle that's quite apt as a D&D game, and everyone seems to be rolling natural 20s as people are flung 200 miles an hour into cast iron stoves and what-not in extreme fashion.  I suspect there's seemingly a Gretel-shooting cannon the producer Will Ferrell (yes, the Will Ferell of Anchorman) was using.  I'd love to see bits of "the making of" on this one.


  Emma is pretty all-American hot and girls will like Renner as well.  The movie is a bit goofy but it's a good sigh of relief from the drab rom-coms that are pushing their way into your attention this drab pre-season when crap comes out in the theaters.  Go in it expecting the worst and you'll be refreshed.  It's no Joss Whedon's The Avengers but more Cabin in the Woods but it'll do.

I has a Flavor.





I am the last blogger on Earth

  So I've done a search on the web'r'nets and I've determined I'm the last active blogger on Earth.  I've seen a few start-ups such as diet-oriented blog success (and later I suspect failures due to their demise) and what-not last for a few days a few years ago and then poof, they're gone.  Sure, they start-out with like one post-per-day pretty neatly and then after a month, it's every other day, then one every month, then .. dead.



  It's frustrating.  I can't find anyone else having anything whatsoever to say of any value so I can read another's interesting opinion.  I've seen a few pictorial-based blogs that are pretty active but they're painfully lame, such as, "These are my 2 beautiful boys" about 30 times a month.  Girl, unless they have mutant abilities or fire lazers out of their quadracorn horns, I'm not interested in your self-indulgent, all-encompassing world of parasitic death.  I don't care that you live for a couple of larva that will grow up to resent you despite your best intentions and leave you utterly with your scrap-books filled with failure and despair, ending in a drug-prescribed haze as your kidneys fail and you're put on a dialyses machine, your boys moved on and don't even know your cadaver is rotting in a basement of a smelly Obamacare hospital.  No, ma'am.  Please don't repeatedly show your boring kids with those same vacant eyes as yourself, perpetuating nothingness for all generational eternity, taking up my parking spaces with your fat SUV fatness.
  I want a blogger who can write and write well.  Something a bit sarcastic, a bit harsh, but in good spirit.  Someone who has a soul.  Someone who has something to say.  Someone who's not thumb-buried in their useless ultra-low-qual phone all freakin' day thinking they're making any world of difference ever.  Your phone takes you away from Life, kiddies.  Get out of it and get into Life.  Sigh.  I'm so disgusted with Society right now, happy America is crumbling into rubble as we're fed bread and watch circuses as Rome falls (both literally and figuratively).  WAKE UP and SAY something!  I want to read.  Remember that?  Remember imagination?  ARGGH!  The Zombie Appocalypse has already happened!  Thanks Apple Inc.


Thursday, February 14, 2013

PB & J

  Peanut Buttuh Jelly Time!  Peanut-buttuh-jelly wid-a-base-ball-bat! x4 to Coda.


  So Becky and I have been trying the local watered-down ketchup of cuisine Colorado Springs has to offer this week.  The day before yesterday we tried PB &Jellies on Tejon St. across from The Famous: a Steak House, tastefully downplaying the Michelin Star quality of it all.


  It claims it's a New York Deli.  Despite a late '90s iPod Mini injected into a small boom-box playing Frank Sinatra and a single photo on the wall of the Brooklyn Bridge, it's pretty much not a NY Deli by any means.  Indeed, the only NY Deli item they have (and surprisingly) is frozen, then deep-fried Jewish knish and microwaved Hot Dogs served with kraut.  Hmph. 

  Still, the place is decent.  Tables are over-sized and there's crayons (I drew a character Jake from my old comic strip Alternating Currents stating, "PB and Yay!" which they promptly posted and taped-up).  There's a ketch of little kid-ness going on, and it's right next to a "medicinal" marijuana place, which is a bit appropriate.  They serve average sized but homemade PB&Js.  You get to pick from a few PBs and a few very VERY watery jellies (more like pancake syrup).  Overly sweet is an understatement.  It's as if a galaxy of sugar did something unspeakable your mouth for an hour.  If you crave sweet, you'll be cured of that here.


  I ordered the Elvis, which is not like the famous one he ordered from Los Angeles and flew into Denver overnight to get the hollowed-out French bread delight.  Instead, it's a club-sandwich-style PB and banana with a little honey.. then.. they add bacon.  It's their only weird sandwich choice.

  I ordered the maple crunch PB which went well with the maple bacon and honey (no, this was not my overly sweet problem as you'll soon read).  The sandwich is then grilled.  Overall it was decent with a side of generic Ruffles wannabe chips.  I've never had such a concoction before.  They suggested a pitcher of Kool Aid to go with it, which was pretty clever a stint, complete with the old-fashioned Kool Aid pitcher design from the '70s.  Instead we opted for Mello-Yello which is actually quite hard to find on fountain-tap.  Becky tried the standard PB&J, maple PB with grape jelly.  Safe.  Still violently overly sweet like a sugar assault tidal-wave of sugary violence-in-the-mouth party not unlike Killer Klowns from Outer Space dangerous.  Diabetics are made here.  Kids'll love it as they contract Type 1-8 diabetes.


  Honestly, it was fulfilling and pretty good and reasonably priced at $12 because once you have it, you'll not have a want for one despite its average size for several weeks or months.  It satisfies and the high workers reminding me of the sea turtle from Finding Nemo are appropriately hired.  Nothing there is too weird.  I myself would have had JIF, Skippy, PeterPan, etc. and a TON of Smucker's varrieties, but they had only like 4 watery jellies which are always on-the-side (odd) and 3 PBs: maple, regular, and crunchy.  Hm.  Still, pretty good.  B+.

 

A lil' somethin' for the kids.

Original DewBack scene from Star Wars
    I remember seeing Star Wars in 1978 (yeah, a few months late, but then again I had just turned 8 years old).  It was pretty awesome.  I had seen some bootleg footage around that summer in Maine with the original Jabba the Hutt played by the Irish actor Tom Mulholland, and I had made a mental note of that, as well as some unusual extended dialogue with C3P0 and R2D2 when they first crashland on Tatooine.  They had chatted and argued for quite a bit, and I remember C3P0 didn't seem so prissy because of it.  I also remember the Dewback riding Stormtroopers as well.  The CGI updates look like crap in comparison.

Original Jabba the Hutt from Star Wars
  I had made a mental note of those things as sort of a memory snapshot in my mind because I knew at the time, for some reason, at 8 years old, that it was significant in some way.  Years later, despite argument from some, my memory was correct.



  I really liked the film back in '78.  It was pretty cool.  A lot of countries were kicking themselves because they had wished they had made something as cool.  Like in my life whenever I myself do something pretty cool, it gets stolen or added-to because a lot of folks lack creativity or skill.  I remember a whole montage of a movie I called P2 (for Ping Pong) with an '80s rock theme starring Journey about how a Ping Pong champion started a gang but she herself stopped actually competing because of a brutal accident with her fiance and her super-move.  Only after training a young new male recruit (complete with falling-in-love stuff) she has to once again save the day with a final boss nemesis to save the day.  There were oddball characters such as Ping and Pong, twin girls with upturned collars.  Their catch-phrase was, "You can't pong if you don't ping."  Movie started out with "Anyway You Want It" by Journey as the main female character rode a scooter through Californian suburbia to her warehouse gang hideout. 


  Yeah, it goes on a bit.  I had relayed it to Becky a few times in detail.  We were at the Marriott near the Bob Hope International Airport in Burbank, California one day and at the restaurant there I was going over some of it again with her.  One year later, it came out without my approval as "Balls of Fury".  It was pretty darn close to what I had said.  Eavesdropping writers?  Perhaps.
 


  Anyway, a lot of countries stole the Star Wars idea.  Here's one of 'em.  It's pretty mad-cap and hilarious.  Watch it all the way through.  They steal a LOT of George Lucas stuff, and a little Flash Gordon at 6:12.  Enjoy the sleazy, international plagiarism.



Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Hocus Pope-us!



 So many of you know I'm an expert.  Those of you who read and try to translate prophesies know of the great prophesy of St. Malachy's The Prophesy of the Popes in 1139AD.  I had read and studied it about 25 years ago, give or take, so I'm a little late to the party.  If you don't know about this, it's okay, I'll tell you about it, because I'm an expert in things, as bards often are.  Let me rock you a tale to tell the Tell of the 'Poccyclipse and Mr. and Mrs. Walker and tell it True.

Insert awesome rockin'-out tune here.

  So Saint Malachy had visions of all of the Catholic Popes to be in-charge (as Popes do) from 1139 AD onward per request of the current Pope.  Now visions don't come easy, and a biography of him in 1539 did not ever mention this.  It is rumored that good 'ol Nostradamus wrote these instead and only said St.Malachy did so as not to be burned at the stake for witchcraft.  I suspect Nostradamus was quite possibly a Time Traveler and has been nearly 100% accurate on all his prophesies.  Seriously, his quatrains were uncanny.



Nostradamus?!


   Now before I continue further, I really despise the Bible Code, the DaVinci Code, and all that other crap. There was no Book of Yadda Yadda in the Apocrypha that was legit, like the Book of Mary or Judas. Just poppycock.

  So anyway, the list goes as such that each Pope is named as his taken name (not his actual real name, the Christian name is decided after-the-fact, such that John Paul II was actually named Karol Wojtyla until he became Pope, in which point he gets to choose.  I think several good names such as Pope Voltron, Pope Ming the Merciless, or Pope Bob might be pretty good, or Pope C3PO, Pope Freddy Mercury, or Pope GayLord McFaggyPants might work.) and a little Latin blurb is mentioned next to each one with the crest drawn-in nicely.  The list is here:  LIST OF POPE PROPHESY.  All 111 Popes are listed, impressively.  Click the link, I'll wait.  I won't list it here cuz' it's LOOOONG.

Pope Guido Sarduci
  Now what's interesting about all this was that when I was reading about this, Pope John Paul II was in power and Benedict XVI was not even remotely considered.  Indeed, Joe Ratzinger changed his name as Popes do when Pope'd to "Benedict" (the XVI makes him the 16th Pope to take that name) so there was no telling that "Benedict" was going to be chosen in accordance with the Prophesy of St.Malachy (or Nostradamus).

St.Malachy
  All the Popes, to include the Anti-Popes (yes there were a few in power!) were named and listed correctly.



  That.... is interesting.

Pazuzu from The Exorcist
  What's MORE interestinglier is the times the Popes were to be in-power were also listed, and also correct, though a bit more vague.  The Prophesy indicated that our current Pope Benedict XVI would only be a Pope for a short time, under 8 years.  Turns out, dead-on right.  Pope Benedict XVI just stepped down, which hasn't happened in 600 years!  Usually Popes just pass-on and die (like a king) before a new one is chosen!  This creates quite a hubub in the Catholic Church.


  What's MOST interestingliestier is that there is only ONE MORE POPE, a 112th FINAL POPE, though not officially.  Pope 112 is only Pope possibly for a few weeks as a "short time" as a temporary bishop in-place named, Pope Peter Romanus which begins the End of Times, the destruction of the Catholic Church, and great devastation on Earth within 1 year.  (Oh no, not another Doomsday Prophesy).  Well, it's an end to something.  That's right.  This next semi-Pope is THE FINAL POPE OF ALL TIME (and only for a few months at most).

This could actually be the future Pope Peter Romanus!!!
  There's a few concerns about this.  Some say the final Pope is Satan himself, or perhaps Stan Himself, not sure.

Satan Pope the Stan (embarrassingly at a gay-pride parade)

  Now one could argue, well since the Catholic Church knew the list since 1139 AD, the new Popes could just take-on the next name in the list so it'd be cool.  Okay, yeah, but for 900 years they did this?  All of 'em?  Maybe.  Sure, it could be a conspiracy.. maybe...

    Not Catholic?  Don't care?  Well then.  That's just fine, but there's a little bit of a problem, as I'll quote from another prophet on this matter, St.Hildegard:

The time is coming when princes and peoples will reject the authority of the Pope. Some countries will prefer their own Church rulers to the Pope. The German Empire will be divided.

Before the comet comes, many nations, the good excepted, will be scourged by want and famine. The great nation in the ocean that is inhabited by people of different tribes and descent will be devastated by earthquake, storm, and tidal wave. It will be divided and, in great part, submerged. That nation will also have many misfortunes at sea and lose its colonies.

[After the] great Comet, the great nation will be devastated by earthquakes, storms, and great waves of water, causing much want and plagues. The ocean will also flood many other countries, so that all coastal cities will live in fear, with many destroyed.

All sea coast cities will be fearful, and many of them will be destroyed by tidal waves, and most living creatures will be killed, and even those who escape will die from a horrible disease. For in none of those cities does a person live according to the Laws of God.

A powerful wind will rise in the North, carrying heavy fog and the densest dust, and it will fill their throats and eyes so that they will cease their butchery and be stricken with a great fear.

You can read the whole darn thing here:  St.Hildegard's Chastisement of the Catholic Church Prophesy

Interestingly, both Pope John Paul II (who was pretty cool btw) and Benedictine XVI have been asked about this prophesy, and very frighteningly, this is what they said (they call it the Third Secret of Fatima).  It's totality of the Fatima is very highly classified within the Catholic Church's vaults:

Germany asked John Paul II in 1980 if the Third Secret of Fatima contained
a threat from God, the Pope responded:


     "If there is a message in which it is said that the oceans will 

     flood entire sections of the earth; that, from one moment to the
     other, millions of people will perish . . . there is no longer
     any point in really wanting to publish this secret message.

     Many want to know merely out of curiosity, or because of their
     taste for sensationalism, but they forget that "to know" implies
     for them a responsibility. It is dangerous to want to satisfy
     one's curiosity only, if one is convinced that we can do nothing
     against a catastrophe that has been predicted....

     (At this point the Holy Father took hold of his Rosary and
     said:) Here is the remedy against all evil! Pray, pray and ask
     for nothing else.  Put everything in the hands of the Mother of
     God!"

     John Paul II's reply seemed to imply that a threat of flood is part
of the Third Secret of Fatima.

     Later, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger admitted in an interview with
journalist, Vittorio Messori, that he had read the Third Secret of Fatima.
Messori then tells how he questioned the Cardinal about the "secret":


     "Undenied versions are circulating in the world, I continue,
     which describe the contents of that "secret" as disquieting,
     apocalyptic, as warning of terrible sufferings. John Paul II
     himself, in his personal visit to Germany, seemed to confirm
     (albeit with prudent circumlocutions, privately, to a select
     group) the undeniably disconcerting contents of that text.
     Before him, Paul VI, during his pilgrimage to Fatima, also seems
     to have alluded to the "apocalyptic" themes of the "secret." Why
     was it never decided to make it public, if only to counter rash
     speculations?"


     Cardinal Ratzinger's critical response, that revealing the Third Secret would
add nothing necessary for the Christian to know and that it "would mean
exposing the Church to the danger of sensationalism, exploitation of the
content,
" also seemed to "confirm (albeit with prudent circumlocutions)"
that the contents of the Third Secret of Fatima DID INDEED contain those
"disconcerting" messages.


  If you want to read more about other Saints and their prophesies, go here:  MORE.  The complete Third Fatima has not been revealed.  The first two were involving the first and second World Wars before they actually happened.  The last one involves a section about Armageddon.


  Ah, so we have this comet thingy to contend with, so I did a little research for you Apple-user types.  NASA.gov shows that there's a comet ISON with a name of C/2012 S1 "ISON" (from Russia's International Scientific Optic Network) that will be the brightest and largest comet display for Earth since the 1600's and will reach us around October 2013.  This is science, not prophesy bullshit.  It's a bit of a crapshoot as to how LARGE ISON will be, or it's magnitude in the sky.  It's assumed to have a negative magnitude, so about as bright as a half-moon at the very least.

  Currently, ISON is about 5 AU away and is moving QUICKLY.  I think it's near Mars now. Watch the NASA.gov video here:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/asteroids/news/asteroid20130205.html

  It was only discovered a few weeks ago.  It's quite large.  If you play on ISON C/2012S1 a little, for fun, you can get this result:

C/2012 S1      [make the / a one, because it looks like a one, don't it?]
C 12012 S1    [now put S1 into a mirror...of eeevil...]
C 12012 12    [make 0 nothing because, well,  zero is nothing]
C 12 12 12     [If C means divide by 2 then the result is...]
    6    6   6      [just sayin'..]


  So.. what are we supposed to do?  Well, not much, really.  No Vogon Constructor Fleet, though I'd grab an Electronic Thumb to hitch a ride just in case.  The Comet ISON will actually miss us quite a bit, though the tail might have a lot of dust in it, and we might go through the debris in-orbit, the amount of debris created with Sol in its maximum solar cycle might be intense, depending on solar-flare activity at the time.  I'm all talking Space Weather here, which I'm more of an expert on.  So, well, Don't Panic, for one.  This whole Pope business is gonna get everyone worked-up in the next few weeks for sure, screaming Doomsday and I suspect a few people will dig-up old Tripod, Angelfire, and GeoCities early '90s websites and scour Wikipedia for information, building new Doomsday websites for all to enjoy and creating mass-panic.  So .. don't .. panic.  Don't dump your stocks.  Don't buy 100000 rounds of ammo.  Don't kill any bunnies.  Just.. don't .. panic.  That the Catholic Church is going to get its come-uppance is actually, to me, a good thing.  It needs its pee-pee whacked.  Becky commented, "Mabye finally the Church will give up all that gold and money it's hoarding to the poor like it should."  Nice one, and.. agreed. 


  Now if we all rock-out with guitars and other instruments, our powers combined might rock-out the comet and we'll be saved, and the Lord will grin, and we can rejoice in triumphant power, and hold the goblet of heavy Met-al aloft and win the day!



Until then...

I recommend this:



  Honestly, I hope all this doesn't come to pass, becuase I really want to buy and enjoy that new C7 Stingray Corvette!  Let's see how this turns out.  Pass the popcorn.