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Saturday, August 12, 2006
CONGRESSIONAL HITCH
The vaunted International UFO Congress held several times in the gambling mini-mecca of Laughlin, Nevada typically offered a hodgepodge of speakers that made wading through the b.s. virtually a bath in a bog, if you will. (Free escape to the casino was one stand-out bennie) That's not to say some truly interesting and believeable folks didn't attend to reveal their "insider" knowledge of certain UFO cases. One year Larry Warren regaled the largely credulous audience on the Bentwaters case, where he was apparently a principal witness. Better'n that, though, was that he chose that visit to elope with his British sweetheart Sue, and invited Don and I as witnesses. That's the four of us at the Laughlin courthouse, truly our highpoint of that year's (late 90s?) Congress.
:: posted by Vicki @ 12:42 PM :: ::
Thursday, July 27, 2006
EYE OF THE BEHOLDER
:: posted by Vicki @ 9:21 AM :: ::
Sunday, June 25, 2006
ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE '80S...
Cue sarcastic tone.
"YEAH, RIGHT."
:: posted by Vicki @ 12:47 PM :: ::
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
NOT ANOTHER CRISIS!
AS IF HE DOESN'T HAVE ENOUGH ON HIS MIND ALREADY...
:: posted by Vicki @ 11:42 AM :: ::
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
20th CENTURY MEMORIES
Sometime in the mid-'90s, our friend Dwight Schultz (Reg Barclay of "Star Trek" and Howlin' Mad Murdock of that super-fave thriller-satire series from the '80s, "The A-Team," among many other roles) invited Don and me to the set of "Star Trek: Voyager." It wasn't hard to ponder how many "Star Trek" fans would kill for such an opportunity, and at the time I was already a bit star-struck by Dwight's growing friendship with us. On top of it all, Robert Picardo, the Voyager's holographic doctor, was also on board that day. That's the three of us above, Picardo, Ecker and Schultz, left to right. You can see the emotions in my eyes!
Since the birth of Roddenberry's unparalleled space opera, Don has been a die-hard fan, still watches re-runs now and then, while my only involving link to the show is enjoying Dwight and watching William Shatner play a charming doofus lawyer on "Boston Legal."
I regret not having the hopeful imagination of my husband. With a robot or two cranking around Mars and NASA continuing to struggle, it's difficult for me to picture egalitarian earthlings traveling the universe at warp speed. But I've got my grounded memories, dammit! So, starting backwards, I will document some of them here. And as new memories are made, I'll keep y'all posted.
:: posted by Vicki @ 12:18 PM :: ::
Thursday, March 02, 2006
DEEP WATER WORLD
Baby boomers like me may have faint recollections of the 3D horror movies we may have seen as children (if Mom and Dad let us), but the technology has been given a 21st century boost with the creation of IMAX. If our world is slowly evolving into 100 percent virtuality, this may be where it starts.
Aptly, the current DEEP SEA 3D (opening tomorrow, March 3) IMAX flick enlarges the hypnotically beautiful, yet merciless, realms wherein organic life first tested the waters, if you'll pardon the expression. You do have to wear those funny glasses, but they're so much better than goggles! The opening scene of a huge cerulean wave crashing down on the audience begins a breathtakingly immersive learning journey. We see natural intelligence at its finest, from symbiotic hygiene routines between species and the eternal hunt for live nourishment to magical communications, sea creature to sea creature.
At the press screening I had to consciously keep my arm from reaching out and trying to touch some of the never-before-seen life the underwater cameras followed, like the sprouting anemone that wavered in the current, tiny frail palm trees of the seabed. When the sharks arrived, it took some doing not to shrink back. You never leave your seat, never lose any air while taking the glorious dive.
Narration by Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet, plus sound effects not possible in reality, add to the educational understanding and the realism of being way down below. There's a lovely feeling . . .Remember Donovan's "Atlantis"(1969) lyrics: "Way down below the ocean is where I wanna be . . ."? When learning that the living coral reefs spawn ONLY on one night eight days after the full moon in August, the precious, unfathomable intelligence of the natural world hits home. Producer Toni Myers comments, "The whole reef spawns and it's just astonishing. It's like watching something out of the Hubble Space Telescope--galaxies of eggs release in huge drifting clouds."
The creatures watched so closely are amazing in their varieties and habitats. It makes me envious of free divers, although their dive goals may be different than those of the creators of Deep Sea 3D. Something about the depths of our planet-dominating oceans is home even to air-breathing humans. As we reach farther into space and discover that water, key to life, just may exist all over the multiverse, exploring unknown worlds right here on earth becomes all the more exciting, and crucial.
:: posted by Vicki @ 11:09 AM :: ::
Friday, February 24, 2006
FISH STORY
It was exciting at first read, but the mass email announcing post-tsunami the startling "new species" of fish discovered in Thailand was a hoax. Well, not exactly a hoax, as the weird and wonderful fish pictured are real. But apparently they weren't discovered after the tsunami. According to Practical Fish Keeping Magazine, the fish pictured were actually collected during a joint New Zealand and Australia Norfolk Ridge - Lord Howe Rise Biodiversity Voyage (NORFANZ) undertaken between May and June 2003, and weren't collected in Phuket as stated in the email.
Here are a couple of the new creepies from the deep.
This guy is known as the Coffinfish, Chaunax sp., an undescribed species of pink, flabby bottom-dwelling angler fish growing to about 30cm in length. This new species has stumpy pectoral fins which are used to "walk" along the seabed. It's a predatory fish that sits around waiting for other fish to swim over the top of it, before engulfing them in its capacious mouth. (Verbatim descriptions courtesy Practical Fish Keeping Magazine)
Here we have a sensuous swimmer that seems to have a snowshoe on his belly. It's an umbrella mouth gulper eel (Eurypharynx pelicanoides).
This species gets its generic name from the latin for "all throat." It feeds on shrimps by engulfing them and the water around them. It has a light emitting organ on its tail.
While the ehoax might annoy sea lovers, it hardly dampens the increasing fascination we have for the varieties of sea life abounding as technology allows humans to plunge ever deeper into the depths of the cold, cold watery places that seemingly makes this planet so attractive to living creatures of all types (and origins).
Watch this space: IMAX has a new 3D movie coming out March 3 (See www.imax/deepsea) that's almost literally a hands-on exploration of terrestrial marine creatures, many never seen enmasse, that probably could out-bizarre any ET. More info in a later post!
:: posted by Vicki @ 11:27 AM :: ::