Tru Blood / True Blood - The Drink

Vampire movies, shows, and books seem to have arrived at a situation of perpetual popularity now. Just like dinosaurs. One of the newer phenomena is "True Blood", a hit HBO TV series based on the "Southern Vampire" mystery novels by Charlaine Harris.

In the books and TV show, vampires have emerged from the shadows to become one of the US's many minority communities. Many vampires drink an artificial blood substitute called "Tru-Blood", made in Japan. It probably does wonders for their ability to fit in socially, compared to drinking humans dry.

Reading up on "True Blood" last night, I found that they are actually selling a drink inspired by the series. Here is the official site for the beverage. It's a non-alcoholic, non-sanguine (which means no blood) lightly carbonated Blood Orange flavored drink. Bottles were given out at the San Diego Comic Con, and it is supposed to be in stores in September. However, it is expensive at $4 a bottle. That's the most expensive sodapop I've ever heard of.

If it succeeds, look for future sodapop-vampire tie-ins. All they would have to do would be to slap a "Twilight" sticker on anything, even Fresca or TAB, and it would sell well. Put a picture of Edward Cullen on "New Coke", and it might be successful this time. They could try Johnny Depp "Dark Shadows" cola, too.

Still, I'm intrigued. I love orange soda, am willing to try unusual sodapop, and the bottle looks pretty interesting. A good addition to my bottle collection, perhaps. Cost aside, is this something anyone else would try?

5th Annual Traverse City Film Festival

Update: Check out this post at Torch Lake Views for the balloons at the Film Festival. Incredible!

The Traverse City Film Festival started yesterday, and I went downtown this afternoon to see what is going on. I tried earlier to get tickets for a couple of movies, but they had already quickly sold out shortly after going on sale.

The "standby line" for the movie "Big Fan" is a short line, on the left. The ticket-holders' line is very long, and extends off the photo to the right, through a long wooden tunnel, and down around the block. This guy is often parked in front of the State Theatre. He has a few peace and veterans-for-peace bumper stickers. There's even a Star Trek sticker. I saw him slap this one on the tailgate while we waited in line for the special premiere of "Star Trek" a few months ago. The owner of the truck was first in line for that. If there were such thing as a "Klingons for Peace" bumper sticker, he probably would have put it on the back of his truck too.

This horse and cart were waiting near the Opera House, which is another one of the film festival venues.

Twilight Alternate Ending

A friend sent me an illustration showing an alterate ending to Twilight:

Tom Petty "You Got Lucky" - Mad Max meets the Mad Hatter

I've read recently about Johnny Depp playing the Mad Hatter in the next movie version of "Alice in Wonderland". I remembered Tom Petty as the Mad Hatter in the 1985 music video for "Don't Come Around Here No More". I didn't think he did a bad job of all. Click here to compare him to the original John Tenniel illustration. Tom Petty's long hair and long face actually make him closer to the original than you'd expect.

Click here to see the music video for "Don't Come Around Here No More" on Youtube.

Click here for a blog post that compares several Mad Hatter's.

I'm also reminded of a great old Tom Petty music video from 1982 called "You Got Lucky". The Youtube video is below. It takes place in a post-apocalyptic science fiction world as per "Damnation Alley" or the "Mad Max" movies. The sky even has the same chromakey nuclear storm effect from "Damnation Alley". Tom sports a Mad Hatter-like hat in this video also, but the overall look is more Mad Max than Mad Hatter. Fans of classic 1970s science fiction TV should make sure to go to 2:37 on the Youtube counter in the video to find out exactly who destroyed civilization.

Tom Petty revisited postapocalyptic science fiction in the Kevin Costner movie "The Postman", in which his character was Tom Petty, a man who was a famous rock star before civilization fell.

Pirates on the Bay

I snapped these photos earlier this afternoon. The clouds were billowy and dark, and patches of fog moved across West Grand Traverse Bay. In the background, a tall ship with dark sails loomed. I could not help but think of a pirate ship, perhaps the "Black Freighter".

There were several pleasure-boaters out in their white sailboats. I wonder if they were having a regatta or other sailing event. There were many of them in a cluster. More than one dark tall sailboat looms in the background (to the right). Marion... er Power Island is in the background on the left.

I'm reminded of the Black Freighter of "Pirate Jenny" and Watchmen fame:

"I'll tell ya
There's a ship....
The black freighter
Turns around in the harbour
Shooting guns from her bow...."

One of the many Youtube videos of "Pirate Jenny" appears below.

Saturday Scavenger Hunt - Summer

Today's "Saturday Scavenger Hunt" word is "Summer". I'm pretty much sitting this one out with other things going on. Visit Laura B's blog to see her latest entry, and the rules (on the right). Ananda Girl and others are participating as well. It's not too late if you want to make your own entry. In the mean time, here's actress Summer Glau, from Firefly, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and maybe (according to a rumor) Dollhouse.

Detroit 308

Detroit is 308 years old.

I heard on the radio today that today is the birthdate of Detroit, Michigan. It was founded on July 24, 1701 by the Frenchman Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac. So I figured I'd get out of some of my old postcards of Detroit.

The first one is of Washington Boulevard at State Street. St. Aloysius Catholic Church is on the right. The Hudsons building (with the HUDSONS letters) looms behind it. This postcard was mailed in 1961. This is downtown Detroit at its peak, before the riots. Click here to see a photo on another blog that shows the area as it looks recently.
The postcard below is probably from 1940s, and it shows the Hudsons building. It was demolished during the Dennis Archer mayoral administration in 1988. Three years later, the Hudsons name (which had still remained) was retired. The Hudson stores (part of the ever-shifting Dayton/Hudsons/Target/Mervyn's/Marshall Field/Macy's retail conglomerate) changed their name to Marshall Field for a short time, and are now called Macy's. I don't remember ever seeing the big old Hudson's Building in downtown Detroit before it was demolished. When they took it down, it filled downtown with choking dust. Much more than expected.. Click here for a photo of the dying building kicking out dust.

This card is much older, from 1913. It shows the view east from the Majestic Building, which itself was demolished in 1962. In the background is the Detroit River and Canada.

I have a yen for.... (Postcard Friendship Friday)

Yesterday's post mentioned a comic-book publisher named Yen Press, which made me think of the yen, which gave me the idea to show a postcard from Japan for "Postcard Friendship Friday". The above postcard has no date on it, but from the look of it, and seeing the man with an old-style radio set, I am guessing that it is from the 1920s or 1930s and is of Emperor Hirohito. It might very well be from Japan's WW2 days when it was expanding its empire on the mainland of Asia. I can't be sure it is Hirohito, as I do not know my mid-20th century Japanese leaders very well. The flag in the upper left is the War Flag of the Imperial Japanese Army, and Japan used this flag from 1870 to 1945, and next to it of course is the national flag of Japan.

If he is the emperor, then he is unusually dressed down. Most pictures show him covered in imperial regalia. Perhaps he realizes that, no matter how regal you look, no-one will see it on the radio.

As for the yen? I did find some Japanese coins that I have. The one with the big "1" on it is obviously the Japanese one-yen coin. Currently, the yen is worth about one cent. It is very light and about the size of a penny. The second coin (the dark one) is a ten-yen coin, and it is about the size of a quarter, and feels about as heavy. The last one, with a hole in it, is a 50 yen piece.

Twlight Graphic Novel / Comic Book

The beginning of this one is for the Twilight fans who read my blog. I know there are a few, such as Melissa who now has a blog at http://melissa-chrysalis.blogspot.com/. The image below is of the Edward Cullen, Jacob Black, and Bella Swan characters as they will appear in the forthcoming comic book (graphic novel) series published by Yen Press. I have not bought any comic books or graphic novels lately, but I am sure that they cost much more than the value of a single yen. Which, according to Wiki Answers, is a little less than that of a penny. I read about this graphic novel in an Entertainment Weekly article about forthcoming projects. The ones also mentioned include:

• Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland". Is it any surprise that it also stars Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter? I'd also bet that it has a Danny Elfman soundtrack too.
• "V", a movie based on the 1983 television special/miniseries about lizard people who came to earth to eat us. From what I remember, they were faster than and looked a lot hotter than Sleestaks.
• "Zombieland". Looks like it is full of zombie clowns. What could be more scary?
• "Stargate Universe". A TV show coming in October. This one looks interesting. Like a darker take on the venerable "Stargate" franchise.
• "Sherlock Holmes". Entertainment Weekly describes this as a kung-fu take on the great old detective. "Out went the cap and curby pipe. In came bare knuckle brawling". It stars Robert Downey Jr. He was busted for cocaine possession during his troubled years. The character Sherlock Holmes was also a cokehead, but lucky for him he was snorting it before it ever became illegal.
• Entertainment Weekly did not mention the forthcoming movie of "The Time Traveller's Wife" in this article, but that is coming out soon too. I saw a trailer for it last night. I'd better finish the book, hadn't I?
  

The Eagle Has Landed

And I've found some 1971 Eisenhower Dollar coins. Guess what is on the back? An American eagle over the surface of the moon, with the Earth in the distant background, in honor of the Apollo missions. A good coin to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the moon landing.

Indian Head Penny, 1908

Now I'm spending some time going through some old coins, and getting rid of some. I have a whole bunch of Indian Head pennies, and I figured I would scan one. Coins scan very nicely in flatbed scanners. Indian Head pennies were produced between 1859 and 1909. It doesn't look much like a stereotypical Indian profile, nor does it look like a real-looking Indian. The profile resembles a classic Greek sculpture to me.

The Indian Head penny was replaced with the Lincoln penny, which has now been with us for 100 years.

This coin is probably worth two or three dollars. That's 30,000% of face value. Not bad.

Top 10 Spaceships (Movies, TV, Books, Other)

In honor of the Apollo moon landing anniversary, here is my list of Top 10 Spaceships:

1. Saturn V. This one is real. That puts it at the top of the list. The only spaceship that took travelers to another world and back, in real life. And today is the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing. A Saturn V took the astronauts there. Another noteworthy and influential real spaceship is Sputnik.
   
2. Starship Enterprise. Everyone knows what this one looks like, and can name it, even if they get things wrong and say that it was piloted by Darth Vader and Dr. Spock.
3. The Death Star. Star Wars has many ships, but this is the one that makes it into the list.The Deathstar is representative of two common types of ships: the planet-sized ship (such as Fritz Leiber's "Wanderer') and the doomsday ship that goes around blowing up plants (think of the flying artichoke in the most recent "Star Trek" movie) . The Death Star is far and away the most famous of any of these types of ships. The Wanderer (seen to the right in the cover of the 1976 novel), like the Death Star, is of both types: it is planet sized, and it shows up to threaten the Earth and eat the moon.


4. Jupiter II. From Lost in Space, the most famous flying saucer of all. Sleek, very fast, and very roomy inside, it could be piloted by one or two people. It was like a space motor home. Also noteworthy and influential: the Millenium Falcon from Star Wars. Similar in size and shape to the Jupiter II, but it is well armed and doesn't have to outrun missiles like the Jupiter II does. Jupiter II represents a very well-known class of spaceship: the flying saucer.


5. Cyrano's Spaceship. Yes, there was a real Cyrano de Bergerac. Near as I can tell, the real Cyrano de Bergerac was the first science-fiction author, and the very first spaceships were those mentioned by him. Science-fiction fans owe a great deal of debt to France, which gave us Cyrano and Jules Verne. Cyrano wrote space-travel stories in the 1650s. His moon voyages involved different contraptions, one powered by the rising dew of the morning, and the other powered by firecrackers. In "Voyage to the Sun" he describes his ship: "It was a large, very light Box, that shut tight and close:of about six Foot high, and three Foot Square. This Box had a hole in it below; and over the Cover, which had likewise a hole in it, I placed a Vessel of Christal, bored through in the same manner, made in a Globular Figure,but very large, the Orifice whereof joyn'd exactly to and was enchanced, in the hole I had made in the head.The Vessel was purposely made with many Angles, andin form of an Icosaedron, to the end that every Facet being convex and concave, my Boul might produce the effect of a Burning-Glass... It shut so close, that a grain of Air could not enter it, except by the two openings; and I had placed a little very light Board within for my self to sit upon. ". Kind of hard to read, isn't it? But it is probably a lot more comprehensible than the technical documents for the Space Shuttle.
6. "Asteroids" Spaceship. Many of us have piloted spaceships. In videogames, anyway. The most well known of these, while nameless, would probably be the ship from Atari's "Asteroids". It could bust space rocks (LOTS of space rocks), shoot the occasional enemy saucer, and go into hyperspace.


7. Battlestar Galactica. The producers of the show in 1979 said that the general shape of the ship was that of an alligator on skis. The shape was kept in the series that ran during the 2000's also. While the two Battlestar Galactica TV series were very much different from each other in many ways, they both featured the last battlestar Galactica, the last hope of humanity, leading the few remaining humans to a new home.


8. Nostromo.If the Jupiter II is the fun ship, the Nostromo is the least fun ship. Unless you like scary spook-houses. Then you might like it. A cross between an oil refinery and a haunted house. It is featured in the first Alien movie, and has lots of dripping water, mist, and not much light at all.


9. Minbari Cruiser. Babylon 5 had many great ships, including the shimmering spider-like Shadow ships. I choose the Minbari fighter design to put on this list, as it is one of the most unusual out there, looking like it is assembled from grasshopper parts and seashells. Sorry, the space station Babylon 5 is left off this list, as is Deep Space Nine. These are more stations than they are moving ships. The Minbari Cruiser is also included as an example of the freedom of science-fiction ship design afforded by the move from models to CGI.


10. Rama. From books by science fiction great Arthur C. Clarke. This is probably the most well-known spacecraft from science fiction novels. It is a sort of huge hollow space-station like craft (like Babylon 5), but it can be piloted and moves very fast. Below is the fold-out cover art from the early 1970s edition of Rendezvous with Rama
    .

Honorable Mention: Red Dwarf, the invading ship from the Halo videogame, the Heart of Gold (from Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy), the mothership from "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", Discovery from "2001: A Space Odyssey" Nebechednezzar from The Matrix (which is probably not even a spaceship). I know my list is subjective. What other ones belong here?

The sacrament of beef stew

Today is Sunday, so here is a church-related post.

A church I used to go to used to have a very traditional Passover Seder meal. It was done in the traditional Jewish way. Like the Jews do now (and have done for millenia), with the same food, and same ceremony. The main difference is that there is some Christian scripture added in, especially at the end (with making sure that it is known that these additions are not part of the traditional Seder.

These Seder meals were the only time I ever ate lamb (the "Shank Bone", one of "5 foods that remind us of the struggle of the Israelites in their quest and journey to freedom") It's one of the traditional food items, after all. Not sure how fond I am of lamb, but I could eat it once a year. But there were some that could not stand even that, so they complained about it. The lamb was taken out.

One by one, people complained about the rest of the traditional items (bitter herb, almond, salt water, eggs, etc) until they were all gone. In the end it was just a regular old beef stew. Nothing special or traditional about it, no connection to the traditional Sedar meal with Christ had at the time of the Last Supper. Spoilsports, I thought. I mean, I don't like almonds at all, but I would eat them no complaint as part of the ceremony. Once they had the food the complainers wanted, everyone stopped going. There wasn't anything special about it anymore.

I wonder if, given their way, the same type of complainers would grouse about bread and grape juice, and eventually the sacrament of the Communion would consist of Fritos and coke.

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Postcard of the Day

The vintage "real photo" postcard below is of the ruins of the Indian church at Taos Peublo, New Mexico. According to "About Taos Peublo", "the ruins [of the church are] still evident on the west side of the village, was first built in 1619. It was then destroyed in the Spanish Revolt of 1680 but soon rebuilt on the same site. St. Jerome is the patron saint of Taos Pueblo. "

Park the second-to-last car

Today's "Saturday Scavenger Hunt" word is "Obsession". It was chosen by Ananda Girl.

I love to take photos. I guess that might count as an obsession, right? So I took a few photos today.

The first photo is of a sign in the office window of the parking deck. I guess the way to make sure your car will not turn up missing is to make sure it is the second-to-last car when you park it.
This dark ominous "concrete canyon" is found between the parking deck and an office building. A skyscraper hotel (the Park Place) is found at the end. Maybe this is a good place for them to hide the last car that parked in the parking deck.
As I walked down the street, I could not help but notice this sweet little tri-color basset hound. The owner said she was smaller because she was of the variety known as field basset. Looks like she has a good nose, and might be able to sniff out missing cars.

Juárez Jail, Mexico (Postcard Friendship Friday)

There are still 6 hours left of Friday if you are on the west coast, so I will consider this entry in "Postcard Friendship Friday" to be on time. This postcard is from about a hundred years ago, and shows the City Market (above) and Jail (below) of Juárez, Mexico.

Juárez, also known as Ciudad Juárez, is a very large city in Mexico, just over the border from El Paso, Texas. It has 1.5 million people, which makes it much larger than, say, Detroit. While everyone's heard of Detroit, far fewer Americans have heard of Juárez or even think of it.

I've seen Juárez. I've not been there, but I've seen it. When I was in El Paso, I looked across the Rio Grande at the city. The buildings there are rather short (compared to El Paso), and occasional monuments and church spires dominated the skyline, such as it is. The city is very sprawled out, also. Juárez is one of two Mexican cities I have seen, but have not actually been to.

Since I've not been to Juárez, I've not been to the jail (assuming, of course, that I would have gone to this jail had I gone across the border!). But I have been to a couple of the jails in Las Cruces, New Mexico, which isn't very far away from El Paso and Juárez. One of them is now a fine restaurant, known as La Posta Mesilla. I blogged about it in a previous post.

New Health Care Plan

The new national healthcare reform plan moves forward. Congress has released a chart showing how it works. Several of the features of the plan are detailed below:

1) Transport to medical appointments in distant locations available on the government's fine Amtrak rail service
2) Complete patient confidentiality at all levels of the healthcare system.

3) World-class hospitals

4) Simple payment options will be available

5) Federal healthcare professionals with the finest bedside manner....... and medical expertise

6) Prompt and timely access to doctor appointments

7) Prosthetic Enhancements and Plastic Surgery Are Covered.
8) Access to Alternative Medicine
9) Up to Date Medical Database Coordination Using the Best Technology Available.

10) A Mental Health Component Is Included 11) Free Head Transplants

Voices from MARS

Going through some of the files my dad left behind, I found this sticker and was reminded that, for a time, my dad was a man from MARS. MARS as in the Military Affiliate Amateur Radio service, that is. According to Wikipedia, "The program is a civilian auxiliary consisting primarily of licensed amateur radio operators who are interested in assisting the military with communications on a local, national, and international basis as an adjunct to normal communications."

MARS still exists (so yes, there is life on MARS), even though the number of ham radio operators continues to decline. As a kid, I thought it was cool that there was an organization called MARS.

The hissing of the wind in the summer fields.

Books In Northport has some great photos in the recent post of summer field scenes entitled "July Offering: Fields of Color". You can also click on the small sample photo to the right to see the post.

The naturally-occuring colors captured in the photo remind me of the work of great painters such as Van Gogh and Monet. Below is one of the "Monet Cook" photoshop graphics which takes a Monet painting and adds Sleestaks. This one is entitled "Sleestaks at Giverny":

And here is some real Monet. Books and other related items at Amazon.com are found below: