In William Shakespeare’s Star Wars: Verily A New Hope Ian Doescher gives us star-crossed lovers who have visited actual stars! Droids who beep in iambic pentameter! Luke’s soliloquy, “Alas, poor stormtrooper, I knew ye not” delivered to a stormtrooper’s helmet!
As one blurb says, “Zounds, the Forsooth is strong in this one!”
[Thanks to Willard Stone for the story.]
“An ancient Egyptian statue appears to have started moving on its own, much to the amazement of scientists and museum curators,” begins the NBC news story.
The 10-inch statue, kept in a locked glass case in the Manchester Museum, has been captured on video slowly turning counter-clockwise during the day.
Oddly, the statue turns 180 degrees to face backward, then turns no more. This led some observers to wonder if the statue moves to show visitors the inscription on its back, which asks for sacrificial offerings “consisting of bread, beer, oxen and fowl.”
The news item is full of scientific head-scratching and quotes from curators about their favorite theories. Maybe magnetic attraction? Maybe differential friction caused by tourists’ footsteps?
“Ray Bradbury would have loved this…and made it into a great story,” writes John King Tarpinian.
Jason Allemann custom-built this post-apocalyptic steampunk trading ship entirely out of LEGO components.
Instructions for building the walking frame are here.
Allemann was inspired by Theo Jansen’s full-sized kinetic sculpture, the Strandbeest.
Details of the trading ship’s crew and cargo.
Adam West’s Batman TV series in the 1960s was known for its many quirky and campy motifs, including Batman and Robin’s habit of bantering with the guest celebrities who hailed them from windows as the Dynamic Duo were scaling buildings en route to fight crime.
This YouTube video contains all 14 window cameos, featuring these stars.
Jerry Lewis
Dick Clark
Green Hornet (Van Williams) and Kato (Bruce Lee)
Sammy Davis Jr.
Jose Jimenez (Bill Dana)
Howard Duff as Detective Sam Stone on “Felony Squad”
Colonel Klink (Werner Klemperer)
Lurch (Ted Cassidy)
Don Ho
Andy Devine as Santa Claus
Art Linkletter
Edward G. Robinson
Suzy Knickerbocker
Carpet King (real name unknown)
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian for the story.]
How many things were wrong with the first Hobbit movie? Everything Wrong With The Hobbit An Unexpected Journey In 4 Minutes Or Less stops at 45.
[Thanks to David Klaus for the story.]
From the tiniest measurement to the greatest reach of the human imagination, The Scale of the Universe 2 puts it all in proportion.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian for the link.]
A California couple buying a home in Woodland Hills this month knew it came with a fallout shelter but they were surprised to discover it was perfectly preserved and still fully stocked with vintage supplies.
The shelter was constructed 15 feet underground by nuclear engineer Alvin Kaufman in 1961 in the hope it would let his family ride out a nuclear attack. Kaufman, who died in 2004, had originally planned to build a fallout shelter for his entire block, but his neighbors passed up on the offer.
After seeing the photos in the Daily Mail Gregory Benford declared, “He musta been a fan!”
In case the family got bored while waiting for the radiation to clear above round, they could play a board game or read a dozen copies of Analog science fiction magazine inside their temporary dwelling.
Kaufman obviously was one of the many engineers attracted to Campbell’s magazine, but there’s no evidence that he was an actifan – at least, the LASFS membership database has no record that Kaufman ever joined his nearest sf club.
[Thanks to Gregory Benford for the story.]
Peter Mayhew, left, at Denver airport.
Peter Mayhew, Chewbacca in the Star Wars films, was on his way home to Texas from the Denver Comic Con when TSA wouldn’t let the 7-foot 2-inch actor through airport security with his lightsaber-styled cane. Mayhew sat down in a wheelchair and tweeted a complaint to his 20,000+ followers.
“Giant man need giant cane… small cane snap like toothpick… besides… my light saber cane is just cool… I would miss it…”
Only after he posted several pictures of the incident on his official Twitter account @thewookieroars did agents relent and pass him through with his cane.
[Thanks to Craig Miller for the story.]
Atari’s unsuccessful E.T. is considered by some the worst video game ever:
Atari reportedly ordered 5 million copies of E.T. ahead of the title’s release but wound up selling just 1.5 million. What’s more, a large number of purchased copies were reportedly returned by customers frustrated with the game’s notoriously poor graphics, confusing gameplay, and all-around awfulness.
According to legend the unsold millions of cartridges were chucked in a landfill — and a film-maker is planning to dig them up:
The Fuel entertainment company plans to sift through a New Mexico landfill in search of Atari video games. According ancient legend, that’s where Atari dumped millions of copies of “E.T.” The movie-based video game did not sell well in 1982. But now folks are ready to pay for Atari’s remains.
But an Atari historian says there’s no secret to discover:
Marty Goldberg, co-author of Atari Inc.: Business is Fun, thinks the treasure hunt being conducted by Fuel Industries is a “non-issue publicity stunt.” …
“There were never thousands of E.T. games buried in Alamogordo, that’s a myth that sprung up later and was also never once mentioned by the actual press articles of the time. The dump there was simply a clearing out of Atari’s Texas manufacturing plant as it transitioned to automated production methods and a focus on personal computer manufacturing. It had previously been one of the main plants for manufacturing of game cartridges and other hardware, and game manufacturing was being moved overseas to China,” Goldberg said.
“As part of the transition, the unused cartridge stock of a group of titles (not just E.T.), console parts, and computer parts were all dumped there in New Mexico. It was covered in detail by the Alamogordo press at the time, and is just such a non-mystery that I’m surprised by all this.”
I remember nothing about the game though it’s likely I tried it at least once – Bruce and Elayne Pelz used to buy all the Atari games and let party guests play to their heart’s content. And it was based on an sf movie, after all.
Encouraging the idea that Star Trek: Into Darkness is driving fans to drink, a California vintner hitched a ride on the movie’s publicity at the same time Canadians were jumping on the beer wagon.
Viansa Winery of Sonoma is offering a limited 1,701 cases of Star Trek wine, the bottles featuring labels based on the posters of Juan Ortiz for a trio of episodes, “The City on the Edge of Forever,” “The Trouble with Tribbles” and “Mirror, Mirror.”
Not that any collector would ever open them, but inside the bottles is a blend of Merlot, Sangiovese, Cabernet Franc, Dolcetto, Tinta Cao, and Tempranillo wines which is promised to be “full of depth and character.”
The wine can be pre-ordered from Vinport.com/startrek.
“City on the Edge of Forever”
“Mirror, Mirror”
“The Trouble With Tribbles”
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian for the story.]