Month: April 2006

Categories
Should We Talk About The Weather?

Another local weather myth.

With the 1996 Fort Smith tornado very much on my mind, and having recently re-read my “tornado diary,” I thought I would offer one major factual correction. The Arkansas River really doesn’t do anything to deflect tornadoes. Not a thing. It can’t stop a supercell thunderstorm from crossing the river and then dropping a funnel right into downtown, or any other part of town. And in the case of the ’96 storm, every once in a while you’re dealing with a storm that’s just too big to be bothered by a little river in the way. Sort of like every once in a while you’ll see a hurricane that tops the levees. So I just wanted to get that correction on the record, before anyone thought it was a true thing – it’s a local weather myth, a meteorological old wives’ tale, and a dangerous one at that because it gets people to let their guard down.
She’s a strange lady, this mother nature.… Read more

Categories
Serious Stuff Should We Talk About The Weather?

Ten years after the night the sky fell.

I’ve gotten a number of e-mails, and even a call from a reporter, in the past week, all related to the 1996 Fort Smith Tornado Journal that I wrote in the pre-blog version of Scribblings almost exactly ten years ago. (I only just realized that I hadn’t ported this rather lengthy article over to the new, more bloggish portion of Scribblings, so I’ve done just that as of last night.) Generally, everyone’s been upbeat about it, glad that there’s some document on the web from someone who was there when it happened, and I’m glad they like it. In its own way, it’s a document of a time and a place and a mindset, and so I guess that since it’s a document of my mindset at a juncture that was less than favorable for me to hang on to all of my marbles, if I’m to be honest, I’m a little bit embarrassed about it. It’s a bit “overwritten” from a stylistic standpoint, and veers a little too close to angsty emotional overload for my tastes these days. But that’s who and where I was at the time, so I’ve managed to resist my urges to edit it or rewrite any of it.
Anyway, thanks to everyone who’s been reading it and letting me know.… Read more

Categories
Critters

Needle on “E”

I’m pretty much drained after a weekend of waiting for more little horse hooves to hit the ground and other work on the farm, and just not getting a whole lot of sleep in general. I don’t mind helping out on the farm, but I’m not 21 years old anymore and I can’t just change my sleep schedule on a dime. Invariably, I wind up more exhausted and unhappy at the end of a weekend than I do going into the weekend. I almost dread Fridays. But I don’t suppose this’ll matter to anyone until I fall asleep at the wheel, roll my car, and everyone suddenly has to find just the right trained chimpanzees to take up the various chores I have at home, at the farm and at work. Then someday they’ll look back and say, “Wow, y’know, that Earl was a cranky bastard…but at least he didn’t fling his own poop all over the place.”
Bah, they just never found where I was flinging mine.
Anyway, here’s something to cheer us all up: cute Easter critter pictures!
Chloe
Chloe perches herself on the railing of the deck…
Xena chows down
…so she can watch Xena lay down and chow down.
Othello
She’s probably also keeping a wary eye on Othello, who is also out and about and on the deck railing…… Read more

Categories
Television & Movies

On Deck 78

Having plumbed the depths of the Discovery from 2001, I’m setting my sights this time around on a more mainstream target. In the intro to the 2001 set design piece, I mentioned that the net is oversaturated with photos of nearly everything Star Wars, Doctor Who and Star Trek related. And while I still think this is true, one has to remember that Trek fandom has a somewhat selective memory. For me, the best-looking ship interiors ever to grace the screen in the Trek franchise were seen in what was, for many years, the lowest ebb of the franchise.
One of the things I loved about TNG was the look of the Enterprise. I loved how Herman Zimmerman designed the sets for the ship’s central locale (and thus setting the template for future production designer Richard James to follow after his departure), and I adored those touch-screen computer interface graphics designed by Michael Okuda – “Okudagrams,” as they quickly became known in the Trek art department (and later to fandom). But it wasn’t until 1989 that I saw those two elements married to the more functional, less-living-room-esque design of the original Enterprise bridge as laid out by Matt Jeffries, with the console silhouettes developed for the movie era by the late Mike Miner. While it’s impossible to deny that this was the darkest hour of the original crew since the final scene of Turnabout Intruder, I must admit to absolutely loving one thing about Star Trek V: The Final Frontier…and that is the Enterprise herself.
Star Trek V Enterprise shuttle bay… Read more

Categories
Feedback

Review: Mailwasher Pro 5.2

Mailwasher Pro 5.2 in actionI’m not really sure that there’s a place on my site for reviews of serious software applications, but this one deserves special praise. I’ve been using Mailwasher for several years now to combat spam, and a year or so back we finally paid up and registered it because it is that good. It’s very good at committing spamicide. Basically, what Mailwasher does is scan your inbox and analyze the contents of each message, letting you preview a little or as much of the message as you want before opening your e-mail client and downloading it onto your computer. … Read more

Categories
Gaming

Scrabble-opoly!

Once the kitty krisis subsided last night and Othello went to sleep (after I bugged him to take pictures and pet him, that is), my wife and I invented a whole new game by putting together two classic board games that simply belong together. We invented…Scrabble-opoly! Be warned, this is not a game for those in a hurry. … Read more

Categories
Critters

BAD KITTY DADDY.

Chloe and OthelloNow here’s a pet pairing that I don’t think I’ve had a chance to photograph in years. In the upper left hand corner is Chloe, snoozing on our antique Duncan Phyfe sofa, while Othello, snoozing on a comforter on our other sofa, is awakened by me taking pictures. (Ignore the clutter in the rest of the room if you can.) I’m surprised Othello is in as good a mood as he’s in – he’s got every right to hate my guts tonight. … Read more

Categories
Television & Movies

Today we’re watching the Discovery Channel

DiscoveryIt’s amazing how you can find nearly any photographic or graphic material related to Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon 5 or Doctor Who on the web, but there doesn’t seem to be an equally comprehensive archive of images anywhere from 2001: a space odyssey. Now that omission, dear friends, has to be a crime somewhere in the world, for 2001 boasts some of the most beautiful and logically, functionally designed sets ever to grace a soundstage in the name of science fiction. It’s time to fill this gap.
Beware, clicking on the following “more” button will take you to a page with lots of rather large pictures like this one. But if you’ve got the bandwidth and the time, venture forth into HAL’s memory core for a tour of the Discovery.
Daisy, daisy...… Read more

Categories
Music Television & Movies

Whither Star Trek…soundtracks?

The Enterprise from Star Trek: The Next GenerationI had the occasion to respond to an e-mail from a reader of the site this week who was inquiring about any possible news of new Star Trek TV soundtrack releases, and the more I thought about it, the more I thought it was a really good idea. The worst we can get is a “no, not gonna happen.” Feel free to pass the URL for this entry along to your Trek-music-hungry friends. Here’s an excerpt from my reply to the e-mail.

To make matters even more complicated, there’s the current status of Trek (not exactly the most favorite Paramount property ever under the current regime at Paramount/Viacom/CBS) and the status of the label that used to do virtually all of the Trek TV soundtrack releases. Quite a few of the staff at GNP Crescendo seem to have defected in the past few years to a newer indie label, La La Land Records, which does not have the Star Trek license; Crescendo no longer has the license to pursue new soundtrack releases, from what I understand, so we’re stuck between a studio that doesn’t give even the tiniest fraction of a flip about Star Trek right now, and no label in place to release stuff even if they could license it.
My best advice for right now is to write a nice e-mail or letter to La La Land Records and try to stir up some interest in a possible series of Star Trek episode score CDs, very much like their current “Farscape Classics” series, which gather every cue from two individual episodes on a single CD. (I’ve gotten the first one of those Farscape CDs, and I have to say, they’re really nice.) With the 20th anniversary of TNG coming next year, I’d like to think that maybe we could put a bug in their ear about this idea and start getting some TNG episode scores released – I’d personally love to have Q Who, Skin Of Evil, The Child, Peak Performance, 11001001, Datalore, and The Emissary on CD…and that’s just from a cursory glance of the first two seasons.
Give ’em a shout at www.lalalandrecords.com – the worst they can do is say no.

… Read more