As of this evening...

I have officially begun production of my first real film project in more than three years. And it feels great! What's happened since Schrodinger's Bedroom in 2007? A heapin' helpin' of real life stuff, most of which I ain't even begun to intimate at on this blog. Yah, last summer we destroyed Burlington, North Carolina with giant monsters and it was a hoot. But I've been dying to do something that will engage my creative juices for more than a weekend's worth of work :-) And there have been a lot of ideas that I want to follow through on (including Keys, the script for which has been done for quite some time now) but I'm holding off on those for the time being, for various reasons. This one though, feels just right. For me as a person, and also as a filmmaker for the much-needed jumpstart/kick in the pants that I need. This is probably the craziest project that I've worked on yet. Lord willing we'll start filming later this spring. The title role has already been cast (it ain't me, and it's no one who's done a KWerky Productions film with us before). But there'll be plenty of room for involvement. So if you're in North Carolina or Virginia or thereabouts and if you can act or come up with music (especially music) or have some firearms that you can loan us, write us at kwerkyproductions@gmail.com and tell us what ya got!

Beastie Boys' "Sabotage" + BATTLESTAR GALACTICA = Awesome!

This one's going out to all of y'all who are fans of the rebooted Battlestar Galactica. A dude named Katamaran78 on YouTube has created this amazing video using clips from the show and the song "Sabotage" by the Beastie Boys. The result? A spectacular shot-for-shot Galactica-style interpretation of Spike Jonez's classic music video. Here 'tis... There are bunches of "Sabotage" mash-ups floating around, but this one is probably the best that I've seen yet (and I never even really watched Battlestar Galactica... but this video is making me want to check it out :-)

Why is the United States Department of Education buying shotguns?

Click here for the official purchase order for 27 Remington shotguns, deliverable to the Department of Education. And here's the full text, in case it goes down the proverbial "memory hole" (or if you're too lazy to hit the link)... Remington Shotguns Solicitation Number: EDOOIG-10-000004 Agency: Department of Education Office: Contracts & Acquisitions Management Location: Contracts (All ED Components) Synopsis: Added: Mar 08, 2010 10:39 am The U.S. Department of Education (ED) intends to purchase twenty-seven (27) REMINGTON BRAND MODEL 870 POLICE 12/14P MOD GRWC XS4 KXCS SF. RAMAC #24587 GAUGE: 12 BARREL: 14" - PARKERIZED CHOKE: MODIFIED SIGHTS: GHOST RING REAR WILSON COMBAT; FRONT - XS CONTOUR BEAD SIGHT STOCK: KNOXX REDUCE RECOIL ADJUSTABLE STOCK FORE-END: SPEEDFEED SPORT-SOLID - 14" LOP are designated as the only shotguns authorized for ED based on compatibility with ED existing shotgun inventory, certified armor and combat training and protocol, maintenance, and parts. The required date of delivery is March 22, 2010. Interested sources must submit detailed technical capabilities and any other information that demonstrates their ability to meet the requirements above, no later than March 12, 2010 at 12 PM, E.S.T. Any quotes must be submitted electronically to the attention of Holly.Le@ed.gov, Contract Specialist (Contract Operations Group), with a concurrent copy to Sherese.Lewis@ed.gov, Contracting Officer (Contract Operations Group). The following clauses are applicable to this requirement: 52-212-1 Instruction to Offerors - Commercial Items 52.212-2 Evaluation - Commercial Items 52.212-3 Offeror Representations and Certifications - Commercial Items 52.212-4 Contract Terms and Conditions - Commercial Items 52.212-5 Contract Terms and Conditions Required Implementing Statutes or Executive Orders - Commercial Items In accordance with 52.212-2, the fill-in applicable to this requirement is below: 52.212-2 Evaluation-Commercial Items. As prescribed in 12.301(c), the Contracting Officer may insert a provision substantially as follows: Evaluation-Commercial Items (Jan 1999) (a) The Government will award a contract resulting from this solicitation to the responsible offeror whose offer conforming to the solicitation will be most advantageous to the Government, price and other factors considered. The following factors shall be used to evaluate offers: (i) Technical Capability (ii) Price In accordance with 52.212-5, the following clauses are applicable to this requirement: 52.225-1 Buy American Act - Supplies (February 2009) 52.232-33, Payment by Electronic Funds Transfer-Central New equipment only; no remanufactured products. No partial shipments Offer must be good for 30 calendar days after submission. Offerors must have current Central Contractor Registration (CCR) at the time offer is submitted. Information can be found at www.ccr.gov. This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial items in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation Part 12, Acquisition of Commercial Items. The Government will award a commercial item purchase order to the offeror with the most advantageous offer to the government. All offerors must submit their best price and delivery capabilities. Place of Delivery: U.S. Department of Education Office of Inspector General c/o: Gary Pawlak, Special Agent 500 West Madison Street - Suite 1414 Chicago, IL 60661 Contracting Office Address: 550 12th Street, SW, 7th Floor Washington, District of Columbia 20202 Okay so... anyone wanna speculate as to what this is about?

Pelosi sez: Pass healthcare bill "so that you can find out what is in it"

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi made the following startling comment yesterday morning during her address at the 2010 Legislative Conference for National Association of Counties... "You've heard about the controversies within the bill, the process about the bill, one or the other. But I don't know if you have heard that it is legislation for the future, not just about health care for America, but about a healthier America, where preventive care is not something that you have to pay a deductible for or out of pocket. Prevention, prevention, prevention—it's about diet, not diabetes. It's going to be very, very exciting. "But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy. Furthermore, we believe that health care reform, again I said at the beginning of my remarks, that we sent the three pillars that the President's economic stabilization and job creation initiatives were education and innovation—innovation begins in the classroom—clean energy and climate, addressing the climate issues in an innovative way to keep us number one and competitive in the world with the new technology, and the third, first among equals I may say, is health care, health insurance reform. Health insurance reform is about jobs. This legislation alone will create 4 million jobs, about 400,000 jobs very soon." I chose to quote a good portion of Pelosi's remarks, lest anyone accuse me of taking her out of context. You can read the full text of her speech here. And look! Video! What the #@$& is Pelosi saying?! Good Lord, is this woman thinking at all?! What the #@$& kind of "transparency" is that supposed to be?! "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it"?! Hell, there could be anything in that monstrosity. And brazenly adding that this is to avoid "the fog of the controversy"?! Mrs. Pelosi, if it weren't for that "controversy" then people like you would be able to get away with damned near whatever you wanted to do. What you call "controversy" is all too often the final tenuous precaution against a nation sliding full-bore into tyranny. This woman has no business being anywhere in the government of a democratically-elected constitutional republic... let alone as the head speaker of its primary representative legislative body.

"Dr. Linus": Post-episode reaction to tonight's LOST

So all this past week I've been inwardly bemoaning how this show needs to ratchet things up with ten regular episodes left before the series finale. And then showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse bring us "Dr. Linus" (an episode directed by Mario Van Peebles, by the way), which was totally off the chain already for 59 minutes and then in the last 30 seconds... Charles Widmore has returned. That can't possibly be a good thing. Looks like that hella war for the Island is about to kick off bigtime. Best. Season Six. Episode. Yet. Which is what I had expected, since it was pretty obvious from the title that this was going to be a Ben-centric installment of Lost. The episodes focusing on Michael Emerson's character Benjamin Linus have been some of the strongest of the show's entire run. I wasn't disappointed at all. And in fact, this might have been the best of the Ben-intensive episodes. Certainly one of the best overall. Other highlights: possibly the revelation of why Richard can't age (which we got before watching the most explosive game of chicken ever). The reason why Frank wasn't flying Oceanic 815. And even a hilarious wink toward the Nikki and Paulo fiasco. But the highlight of this episode was the continuing evolution of Benjamin Linus from a cold-blooded schemer toward becoming a repentant human being longing for redemption. And on that note I thought that the "flashsideways" for this episode was the best of the season by far. If the rest of the season can measure up to this one, then we are in for some of the greatest television ever. I'll give "Dr. Linus" a 9.3 out of 10. EDIT 10:31 p.m. EST: Am re-watching this episode and totally forgot about Ben's history lesson in the "X" timeline about Napoleon's exile on Elba. That's gotta be a big hint about the Man in Black's own nature and history. And the exchange between Ben and Locke in the teachers lounge? Pure Lost subtlety.

The first TRON LEGACY trailer has arrived!

Yowza!!! Zap here to see the first trailer for Tron Legacy. And December 17th can not get here fast enough. This is already looking like it's gonna be one of the greatest sequels ever.

More late night theologicalizing

Something that may or may not make it into the eventual publication of "The Chris Knight Dictionary" (working title)... Salvation: (noun) That which can not be earned, can not be achieved, but nonetheless must be desired in order to acquire. Comments, as always, are more than welcome.

HTML 5 is coming... and what's arriving with it

Not since I first began finagling with web pages in 1995 have I been so intrigued in a markup specification like the forthcoming HTML 5. Among other things it aims to get rid of embedded Flash video and similar presentations with a simple video tag. (Meh. Don't particularly care for that one just yet. I don't really see what the problem is with Flash, other than it won't work on iPhone and other mobile devices but that's an issue of Flash's interactivity colliding with touch-screens.) Anyhoo, Neil McAllister has an in-depth essay about HTML 5 and what we can expect from it at the InfoWorld site. Well worth reading even if you're just a casual tinkerer with HTML.

Saw THE CRAZIES this weekend

Whilst out and about yesterday I got to see The Crazies, which opened a little over a week ago. The Crazies was a movie that wasn't quite what I was expecting, but was far better than I had anticipated. I haven't seen the 1973 original directed by George Romero (who also produced this remake) but from what I understand the premise is the same: a military cargo plane crashes near a small town and begins leaking something into the water supply. The "something" in question happens to be a virus engineered for biological warfare. Needless to say, this can't end well for the people of Ogden Marsh, Iowa. Usually decent-minded folks begin going mad with homicidal tendencies. And then like what usually happens in tales like this, the military comes in to mop-up the mess and try to contain the infection before it spreads out into the wider world. I think what makes The Crazies stand out most to me in terms of modern-day cinematic retelling is that this is a film that doesn't use the opportunity to pour on the extra gory. Director Breck Eisner took the road less traveled and made The Crazies a story about survival against the odds, instead of focusing too much time on the nastier things that the virus is causing these people to do. I liked that. It's not something that is often seen in modern horror movies but I appreciated it greatly. By the way, don't leave just yet as the movie ends. There's one more bit of The Crazies that plays during the credits that you won't wanna miss.

Iceland citizens vote no on government bailout of failed bank

I don't get it: why don't those Icelanders take on the extra $3.5 billion in debt that would have been incurred by their politicians bailing out the British and Dutch for the failure of Landsbanki, by borrowing more money and creating massive inflation of the currency? I mean, that's what we do here in the United States, ain't it?! Seriously though: nice to see some fiscal sanity in this world. Maybe our Icelandic friends could consider exporting some of that here. Mash down here for more of the story. Worth keeping an eye on as no doubt the European Community is going to be looking to retaliate against Iceland for its gumption.

Score tonight: Duke 82, UNC 50

It was like watching the old "Four Corners" play that the Tarheels were notorious for before the institution of the shot clock... but with the Tarheels losing! Look, I'm not all that much of a sports fanatic, but something is seriously off-kilter in this state so far as basketball goes. As one friend put it a few weeks ago, it's pretty sad when the best team in North Carolina right now is the Bobcats :-P

It's Steven Glaspie and three bestselling Star Wars authors!

This morning good friend and fellow Eagle Scout Steven Glaspie (who needs to update his blog sometime: something about being too busy with his sweet lass of a girlfriend lately...) and I went to StellarCon 34 in High Point. 'Twas Steven's very first sci-fi convention. Well, he didn't know as much going in but I'd already heard that three of his favorite Star Wars writers were going to be there. I've met with Timothy Zahn, Michael Stackpole and Aaron Allston quite a few times over the years (including an interview I got to with Zahn for TheForce.net years ago) and had some photos with each of them already. But for Steven, it was an entirely new experience! So I got a pic of all of them together... (left to right: Michael Stackpole, Steven Glaspie, Timothy Zahn, Aaron Allston) Allston, Stackpole and Zahn did a panel discussion for an hour and a half this morning that we got to attend, and Steven and I both came away very thankful and appreciative of what these three writers shared with everyone. Okay Steven, feel free to put that pic on your blog. Or do something to update it, bro! :-P

THE WICKER MAN featuring Jim Henson's Muppets

I would pay to see Muppet Studios make a real project out of this... Cartoonist Paul O'Connell has created this OUTRAGEOUSLY smart mash-up of animated felt and pagan ritual: a homage to both the Muppets and the classic 1973 horror movie The Wicker Man. I honked out loud with laughter at Kermit playing Sergeant Howie, but it's Gonzo taking Christopher Lee's place as Lord Summerisle that really fixes this spoof into your gray matter. Click on the above link for more.

Security Theatre: Full-body scanners begin to be deployed (and how to possibly foil those using them)

Eleven airports - most of them in the Midwest and California but also Charlotte-Douglas International here in North Carolina - will be the first in the country to receive the full-body scanners that create a virtually naked image of the person being examined and leave nothing to the imagination. The Transportation Security Administration, and the Department of Homeland Security over it, claims that the images created by these machines are not stored in any way. Does anybody possessing more than the minimum neurons for a working ganglia honestly believe anything that this asshat excuse for a government tells us anymore? This is simply more "security theatre": measures that make it look like our government is sincerely doing something to deter "the terrists" but in reality is just a multi-billion dollar puppet show. If the government was serious about both stopping terrorism and serving its people, domestic airports would adopt the tactics of those in Israel. I'm told by many people that the average time between arriving at the terminal at Ben Gurion International Airport and then coming to the gate for departure is around 15 to 25 minutes... with no shoes being removed and certainly no full-body scans! And Israel has a helluva lot fewer problems with airborne terrorism as a result (like, none at all). What are the Israelis doing that we Americans aren't? From the moment a passenger arrives at the ticket counter onward, he or she is being observed by airport staff. That pretty lady behind the counter who's pleasantly asking you about your trip and your business? She's actually watching how you react to her questions. Israeli airport personnel are fully trained to watch for nervousness, hesitancy, and a lot of other indications that I could only speculate about. If there's enough reason to deem a person to be of interest as a potential threat, that person is discreetly taken aside and questioned without disrupting service to any other passengers. It's a very simple system and it works brilliantly! And if the United States government had any sense it would adopt a similar plan for our own air travel. I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for that to happen though. Nor do I plan on partaking in any air travel if it can at all be avoided. But in the even that do have to travel by plane, I intend to purchase several packs of these things. Allegedly they're supposed to really work in defeating the peculiar wavelengths of the full-body scanners. So my scheme is to get several of them and assemble some makeshift undergarments that will not only shield me from the radiation of the scanners, but will also display the letters "F U" across what would otherwise be my bare behind. Don't think that I wouldn't do it, either!

1992 prison training video... starring Michael Emerson!

Right about the same time that Benjamin Linus was helping the Island's indigenous natives by betraying his fellow DHARMA Initiative members in the Purge, the man who would one day portray him on Lost was getting some acting work under his belt. Like this strange training video intended for correctional facilities. Here is Michael Emerson as prison counselor "Mr. Andrews". And I think you'll agree: even at this early stage in his career, we can see Ben Linus peeking out from behind those eyes of Emerson... I'm sure that with some clever editing Mr. Higgins could be replaced with Michael screaming and ranting "WAAAAAAALT!!!" :-P

Physicists create "negatively-strange antihypermatter"

Someday in our foreseeable future, our children will be learning about chemistry with a periodic table that looks something like this... ...no thanks to researchers conducting experiments with the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory. According to this article at The Register (which reads disturbingly too much like a quantum physics essay written by Alex DeLarge from A Clockwork Orange) the "topflight international reverse-alchemy boffins say they have managed to transmute gold into an entirely new form of 'negatively strange' antihypernucleic antimatter, ultra-bizarre stuff which cannot possibly occur naturally - except perhaps inside the cores of collapsed stars." In layman's terms it's a new form of matter whose strangeness is less than zero but probably not too boring. I'm currently hopped-up on allergy medicine, and I still have no idea what the hell all of that means.

CBS SUNDAY MORNING this week to spotlight Neil Gaiman!

Neil Gaiman, in the opinion of a very many people, is one of the greatest and most masterful writers of our modern age. Lately I've found myself re-reading his classic Sandman series and found myself enjoying it just as much today as I did when I first discovered it years ago... if not more so. Well if you also appreciate Gaiman's work, you'll be pleased to know that according to his Twitter page, Neil Gaiman will be the focus of a segment this weekend on CBS Sunday Morning... Looks like the CBS Sunday Morning profile of me goes out this Sunday. In the morning. Barring natural disasters or breaking news of course. Very cool! I'm a way longtime viewer of CBS Sunday Morning and have always enjoyed its stories and unique pace. Somehow, a feature on Neil Gaiman seems just perfect. (By the way, have I ever told y'all that I can do a spot-on impersonation of late creator of CBS Sunday Morning Charles Kuralt? Maybe I should post that as a YouTube clip sometime :-) CBS Sunday Morning comes on at 9 a.m. EST, but check yer local listings to be sure and set those DVRs!

This came to mind while working on stuff this morning

God will take us just as we are... and He won't stop working to make us more than we were.

A clarification of policy

I don't do predictions about politics. Politics is too predictable.

Found: The meaning of life!

Longtime friend and filmmaking collaborator "Weird" Ed Woody found the following and sent it this way. I don't know who came up with it, but it's hilarious! 'Twas screaming to be shared with y'all :-) The Meaning of Life Explained On the first day, God created the dog and said, "Sit all day by the door of your house and bark at anyone who comes in or walks past. For this, I will give you a life span of twenty years." The dog said, "That's a long time to be barking. How about only ten years and I'll give you back the other ten?" So God agreed... On the second day, God created the monkey and said, "Entertain people, do tricks, and make them laugh. For this, I'll give you a twenty-year life span." The monkey said, "Monkey tricks for twenty years? That's a pretty long time to perform. How about I give you back ten like the dog did?" And God agreed... On the third day, God created the cow and said, "You must go into the field with the farmer all day long and suffer under the sun, have calves and give milk to support the farmer's family. For this, I will give you a life span of sixty years." The cow said, "That's kind of a tough life you want me to live for sixty years. How about twenty and I'll give back the other forty?" And God agreed again... On the fourth day, God created humans and said, "Eat, sleep, play, marry and enjoy your life. For this, I'll give you twenty years." But the human said, "Only twenty years? Could you possibly give me my twenty, the forty the cow gave back, the ten the monkey gave back, and the ten the dog gave back? That makes eighty, okay?" "Okay," said God. "You asked for it." So that is why for our first twenty years, we eat, sleep, play and enjoy ourselves. For the next forty years, we slave in the sun to support our family. For the next ten years, we do monkey tricks to entertain the grandchildren. And for the last ten years, we sit on the front porch and bark at everyone. Life has now been explained to you.