Analog-Theater 2.0

Man, it’s been a while since I posted anything here.  I guess I have some catching up to do.

Early last week my dad was in town and we went to DC to see the Smithsonian Aerospace museum.  I took my camera, but forgot batteries, so I don’t have any pictures.  A couple days later, I was laid up with a cold.

In more exciting news, if you don’t know what to get that special person for Christmas, here are a couple ideas:

Idea 1
Idea 2

In other news, for Halloween Funcom has reactived all accounts from October 31st to November 2nd. 

I was talking to my friend Eric about the stories I’ve been posting here and he had a good idea.  I’ve decided to go back and rewrite the first four chapters to reflect the new idea.  I will be reposting them, as well as certain chapters of the other stories that I will also have to update.  Hopefully I will have that done early next week.

Don’t forget, Saturday night is the time some of us in the US set our clocks back an hour.

The Quiet Earth stars Bruno Lawrence as a New Zealand scientist named Zac Hobson who was working on a project called Project Flashlight to harness energy directly from a grid around the Earth.  However, he wakes up one morning to find that he is the only person around.  Everyone else had disappeared.  He comes across a plane crash with not bodies, but all the seat belts fastened.  He goes to his lab and notices that one of the monitors says “Project Flashlight Complete” and realizes that it was the cause of everyone disappearing.  After getting over the initial panic, he starts to enjoy his solitary life.  He loots a mall, moves into a mansion, and does whatever he wants.  Then he starts to break down.  He realizes that it was the project he was working on that caused everyone to disappear.  He starts crossdressing and almost commits suicide.  Finally he discovers that he’s not alone, he meets Joanne (Alison Routledge).  Later they meet Api (Pete Smith).  The three of them realize that they are the only people around because they were all on the verge of death when the Project Flashlight activated.  Zac also realizes that the incident might happen again.  The three of them get a truck full of explosives and go to blow up the laboratory where Project Flashlight is located.  Zac ends up driving the truck into the lab just as the incident starts happening.  He then wakes up on a beach somewhere.  He looks up at the sky and sees clouds that look like waterspouts and a ringed planet.

The ending threw me for a loop.  I saw it, rewinded it and watched it again and was just left going “huh?”  I made no sense to me.  All I can think is that he was blown to one of Jupiter’s moons.

As far as the rest of the movie went, it was boring.  There was supposed to be a love triangle between the three characters, but I didn’t really notice any.  Zac was too busy investing what happened to the exclusion of almost anything else so Joanne started to pay more attention to Zac, but that ended quickly and at one point she pulled a machine on both of them and threated to kill one of them and said she didn’t care which.

The acting was mediocre, the plot was weak, the movie was boring, the ending made no sense.  I give this movie 0 bananas because there was nothing there.

Today I got the second signature for the petition to get my name on the ballot, just 123 more to go.  I have discovered that most of my friends don’t live in my district and are not willing to move so that they can vote for me.  The our friends that I do have that live in the district are hiding from me.  I’m hoping to get a few more signatures tomorrow at church and then I’m going to have to go out and meet people.

There is one person that  I do want to meet.  John M. Palatiello, he’s the executive director of America Moving Forward.  It’s a national coalition for public-private partnerships for impoving the infrastructure.  He wrote a very interesting article in the paper about how to fix the problems with the roads.  Virginia and the Federal Goverment are both running massive deficits in their transportation budgets.  Basically, we can’t afford to build the roads that we need.  Mr. Palatiello suggests that we let private companies build some of the roads and allow them to charge tolls on those roads and the government will then supervise to make sure that the tolls aren’t too high.  That’s the idea in a nut shell.  I think that’s a pretty good idea.  I also think that we need to expand public transportation.  Around DC, there is the metro system, a combination of buses and subway.  I think we could expand that further out, like to Dulles Airport, a major employer in the area.  This should cut down on the traffic on the road, lessening the need to more roads and repairs to existing roads.  My hope is that this and other ideas will help get rid of the multi billion dollar deficit in the state budget and then we can start putting more money where it needs to go, like health care and education.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Burn Notice is on break until the early part of next year.  I decided to check the dates for the new sessions of some other shows that I’m waiting for.

Lost season 5 starts in January or February 2009
Doctor Who has a Christmas Special and then the real session starts in April 2009
Battlestar Galactica season 4.5 starts in Early 2009
Burn Notice season 2.5 starts in Early 2009

The only shows that are currently running are Heroes, which just started last week, and Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles.  That’s two hours (an hour and a half when you take out the commericals) a week worth watching.  Of course, I get some movies from Netflix, but that doesn’t add up to much TV a week.  But, as I was watching The Sarah Conner Chronicles last night, they had an ad for Fringe.  It looked interesting, so I decided to watch the first episode.  Then the second, and then the third.  Now I’m hooked.  When I get home tonight I’m going to watch the fourth (and newest) episode.

The show follows an FBI agent, Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) who gets recruited into a top secret division called the Fringe, which is run by Philip Broyles(Lance Reddick).  During the first episode, while trying to find a cure for a flesh disolving agent, she recruits Peter Bishop(Joshua Jackson), a genius college drop out, and his scientist father, Dr. Walter Bishop(John Noble), who spent the last seventeen years in a mental institution.  Rounding out the team is federal agent Astrid Farnsworth(Jasika Nichole) who is Dunham’s assistant.  Together, they investigate various attacks using highly advance science (like the afore mentioned flesh disolving agent) which form something called “the pattern”.  Oh, and there is a cow.

The series has the same feel as Lost, which makes some sense since J.J. Abrams is one of the co-creaters.