PHILADELPHIA, PA – It took days of deliberation.  Consecutive sleepless nights spent hammering out the details.  Agents and lawyers flowed in and out of conference rooms in three different cities as the parties involved fought for every last inch of one of the biggest baseball deals of the year.  Leaks had been flowing from every which way, some contradicting others, some agreeing in a sort of pseudo-confirmation, granting edification to the lucky reporter who broke it first.

Finally, a little after 4AM Eastern time on Tuesday, the terms of the deals were finalized.  The Phillies pitching staff, playing host to Toronto starter Roy Halladay, (in town for some reason) elected to rent 1998 Robert Duvall action movie Deep Impact from Blockbuster for their weekly movie night.  In return, the Blue Jays (and a group of the Phillies top prospects who got lost in Canada on a road trip to Boston), will rent Last Holiday, the mediocre 2006 Queen Latifah vehicle.

“We had to take this golden opportunity when Doc [Halladay] was out of town to finally rent Last Holiday” said Jays’ Center Fielder Vernon Wells.  ”[Blue Jays 2B] Aaron [Hill] won’t stop talking about it, says it’s the best thing since sliced bread.  Every time it comes up though, Roy shoots it down.  I have no idea why,” said Wells, already in his pajamas and getting ready to microwave a bag of popcorn.

In Seattle, where Phillies starter Cliff Lee was in town visiting friends, the Mariners (missing a number of their top prospects, assumed to be on vacation) responded to the Phillies’ choice of Deep Impact by renting the other 1998 movie about an asteroid striking the Earth, the Bruce Willis thriller Armageddon.

“I could never get Armageddon to fly in Philly.” noted a visibly excited Lee, who was unrolling his Philadelphia Phillies sleeping bag in the Mariners’ rumpus room.  ”Raul [Ibanez] and Jamie [Moyer] just hate that movie for some reason.  Last time I brought it up,  Jamie mumbled something about the old guy sacrificing everything for the team, and Raul, well…I think Raul just hates Ben Affleck.”

The real winner today, though, is Blockbuster.  With these three high-profile rentals, the once-popular brick-and-mortar entertainment giant gains some much needed advertising in tough economic times.  Speaking to an investor group, Jim Keyes, chairman and CEO of Blockbuster, Inc, said “Each year, we rely on a large sports trade to remind the public that Blockbuster exists.  Based on past experience, we expect our profits to jump by as much as 10% in the aftermath of the free publicity this news coverage will subliminally bring.”

When asked about his thoughts on the actual trade, Phillies hurler Lee replied, “Trade?  What trade?  My agent said we were going to Baskin Robbins after…”

You’re absolutely crazy—they don’t look anything alike except for the eyes. Aside from them both looking like someone gave them sapphire implants, I think Elijah is so cute but Jeremy is just plain yucky! I just went to San Francisco to see Deep Impact, which wasn’t my cup of tea though Jonathan loved it. He loves all that science fiction stuff. But Elijah was just heaven to look at. I drooled all the way through, although the film itself was hardly drool material. Actually I was a little bored. I mean, the earth and the moon collide? Give me a break. I hear he’s supposed to be really good in The Ice Storm I haven’t seen that. At least it’s not an action film or sci fi like Deep Impact was. It sounds very serious and right up my alley, though I wonder if it’ll ever come up here.   

• http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/contributor/1800021190
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd8jfzN5OkI
• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120647
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLgSKv2P-ow
• http://www.amazon.com/Deep-Impact-Robert-Duvall/dp/6305232660
• http://www.swapadvd.com/dvd/title/2448-Deep+Impact

This post (hopefully first of a series) was inspired when a chance twitter about the Scattered Disc, Oort’s Cloud et al triggered requests from my Facebook friends to blog about the new Solar System.

The new Solar System

The mind can journey far beyond where the eye can see, or the ear can hear, and much much farther than the spear can be thrown.

The mind effortlessly soars beyond humanity’s farthest frontiers – the material frontier where Voyager now transits through the Heliopause some hundreds of millions of miles away – or the energy frontier – the outward traveling wavefront of the very first radio transmission recognisable as emanating from intelligent human life.

The position of Voyager 1 in 2007 as it approaches the heliopause. At the heliopause, the Sun's solar wind is stopped by the interstellar medium and the satellite is subject to the the stellar winds of the surrounding stars. (Click to enlarge).

The stars above me on a clear moonless winter night, the necklace of luminescent stars that make up the Milky Way, the pinwheel spiral galaxies where man may never reach – all these have fascinated me since I was a child. I adored fiction about space, especially space opera. Like most of us, for a long time all I knew was what I had learned in school – that we had a star and nine planets…yadda,yadda, yadda… Jupiter is the largest, Pluto is the furthest,,,yadda, yadda, yadda…

The old view of the Solar System - Sun with 9 planets, outermost of which was Pluto!

As a young child, I found nearby planets boring! I yearned for the deeps of outer space. I wanted to be on the bridge of the Enterprise, boldly going where no man had gone before. Galaxies were great stuff, so were pulsars and supernovas. Mars, Moon, Jupiter? Huh!

The Andromeda Galaxy portrayed on a German stamp of 1999.

I much preferred the mysteries of black holes and the looming terror of an event horizon to the rings of Saturn. It was during my early days of editing Wikipedia. I had not yet received a barnstar, a kind of award on Wikipedia. I learnt that if I reviewed five nominee articles for the status of ‘Good Articles‘ and shepherded them through a process, I was eligible to receive a barn star.

One of the articles I reviewed was Deep Impact (space mission)!  You probably would not have heard of 9P/Tempel – a minor periodic comet which circles around our Sun every five and a half years! A fairly frequent and predictable comet, it was selected by NASA as the first comet to be explored by their pioneering venture into space after comets – the unmanned space mission called ‘Deep Impact’.

While reviewing this article I once again discovered the magic and mystery in that mundane grouping of planets around a yellow dwarf that we call our Solar System.

Deep Impact, a spacecraft which sent an impactor to collide with Comet 9P/Tempel in July 2005.

Wikipedia tells us that -

A comet is a small solar system body that has a coma and/or a tail and is bigger than a meteoroid. When close enough to the Sun, a comet exhibits a visible coma (fuzzy “atmosphere”), and sometimes a tail, both because of the effects of solar radiation upon the comet’s nucleus. Comet nuclei are themselves loose collections of ice, dust and small rocky particles, ranging from a few hundred metres to tens of kilometres across.

Comets have long fascinated mankind – in the Western civilisation they have been regarded as harbingers of doom or omens of upheaval and change! The people of the past had no idea of geography, no concept of the Universe as we know it today. They found it fearsome to see a strange heavenly object appear amongst the familiar patterns of the constellations.

The tail of a comet always points away from the Sun!

This strange visitor moved from constellation to constellation and had a plume that ALWAYS pointed away from the Sun! For a period it would vanish as it would circle the Sun and reappear as a blaze on its return path. Gradually as it went into the deeps of space it would lose its plume, its shine and then disappear ostensibly forever.

No one could predict when such an apparition would return until the English astronomer Edmund Halley corelated historical data from a variety of sources and realised that in a cosmic game of Vikram and Vetaal, the comets of 1456, 1531, 1607, and 1682 were one and the same. He further predicted that this comet would return in 1758. Halley did not live to witness the comet’s return, but when it did, the comet became generally known as Halley’s Comet.

One of the earliest photographs of Halley's Comet taken during its visit in 1910.

Since then hundreds of comets have been mapped. Each year, large numbers of minuscule comets traverse the Solar system unknown to all but astronomers.

It is only those comets which are visible to the naked eye that draw the imagination of mankind. Such comets are called ‘Great Comets‘. Some of the recent great comets have been Halley’s Comet of 1986 which was visited by the Giotto space mission, Comet Hale-Bopp in 1997 and Comet McNaught in 2007.

On a gruesome note, members of a religious cult in the United States, called Heaven’s Gate committed mass-suicide after their leader proclaimed that a space-craft followed in the wake of comet Hale-Bopp to transport them to ‘the next level of existence’.

Besides this, Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 made history in 2004 when it broke apart and crashed into Jupiter.

Comet Hale-Bopp seen over Croatia. It's arrival triggered a mass-suicide of the Heaven's Gate cult in the US.

But what is a comet composed of? What are the properties of its ‘earth’ or ’soil’? To answer these and other such questions, many space missions have been launched to date. Vega 1 and 2, Giotto, Deep Space 1, Stardust and Deep Impact all helped us piece together what we know today.

To learn more about comets, wait for ‘Deep Space and Stardust’ (Part II)…

10- The movie starts with happy bright sunny day.

9- No one believes the disaster is coming.

8- There is a divorced parent somewhere in the story line.

7- If divorced, they fall in love again. If not, they fall in love anyway.

6- The hero survives all disasters, one after another, rescues his family in the process.

5- His hair style, her make up, all remain intact … even after crawling out of a volcano.

4- Debris fly all over the place, but doesn’t hit the hero and his family.

3- The asshole (normally the guy who didn’t help believe the disaster is coming) dies a terrible death, most probably gets crushed or is eaten by a monster.

2- The man rescues the woman.

1- The world is saved by a white guy. If a black guy is involved, he only helped out.

Acest film are toate sansele sa castige Oscarul, asta daca Academia Americana de Film o sa introduca o noua categorie la decernarea premiilor, si anume “World’s Best Driver”. John Cusack este fenomenal in acest film, este aproape providential. Cu o limuzina de peste 7 metri lungime reuseste sa se fereasca de bucati care se desprind din cladiri, de masini care produc accidente in lant, reuseste sa treaca la milimetru pe sub poduri care se prabusesc, este mai rapid decat lava unei eruptii vulcanice, face inconjurul lumii, reuseste sa supravietuiasca in Himalaya in haine de vara sau poate sa isi tina respiratia sub apa cat timp vrea el.

Roland Emmerich nu face din 2012 un film prost, dar nu este niciun film care sa faca parte din categoria capodobera. Este un film pentru care timpul petrecut in post productie a fost de 4 ori mai mare decat timpul alocat efectiv filmarilor, bugetul de peste doua sute de milioane de dolari permitand realizarea unor efecte speciale cu adevarat deosebite. Probabil ca din aceasta suma imensa s-ar fi putut face 2-3 filme mult mai bune. Un bun exemplu in acest sens este Deep Impact, un film care trateaza aceeasi tema, cu un buget mult mai mic, dar care totusi depaseste productia lui Emmerich. 2012 este plin de clisee: o familie despartita, dar care se uneste in fata pericolului, relatia America-Rusia, mici glumite care se fac chiar inainte de o tragedie si multe alte care sunt introduse si distribuite neinspirat pe parcursul filmului.
Prestatia actorilor din distributie este aproape modesta, insa se poate accepta acest compromis, avand in vedere ca 2012 a fost creat special pentru box-office si nu s-a dorit sa urmareasca interpretari de geniu ale unor actori cu adevarat mari.

Pentru a savura cu adevarat efectele speciale, 2012 trebuie vazut neaparat la cinematograf, orice alta locatie minimalizand mult din impresia pozitiva pe care o poate produce filmul. Momentan evolutia filmului in box-office se incadreaza in grafic, avand toate sansele sa intre pe profit.

Just walked out of the theater after watching 2012. The director took the world through one horror after the other. It was like he had all these awesome (if awesome to you means the Earth biting the dust and then getting washed away in water) special effects and quickly put together a story.

Typical Hollywood fare. Divorced parents of two. Some animosity between the ex and the present hubby. Disaster. Family comes together to fight it. And in the end (spoiler alert!!!) after poor Gordon flies the family to China to board a sort of Noah’s Ark he is crushed in the gates. 

While the clever Americans knew exactly how long it would take for their safety zone to be hit and other such clever things they resurface after 27 days and head to Africa which is intact and the only continent  left standing.  If they could’ve figured that out they could’ve saved more than the rich folks and they need not have carried giraffes, rhinos, and elephants with them as Africa has plenty of those.

Deep Impact, Armageddon and now this. You’ve seen one you’ve seen it all.

Lots of natural disasters in recent times but Nature is more gracious than people and is not a  raging megalomaniac. Yeah sure, she has her bad days…

A lot of people say that yes, the world will end in 2012 but not in this way. The world as we know it will end and it can only be for the better. More awareness. More peace. More love.  And no special effects can get that message across. How can you replicate that feeling? The bigger you make it, it only grows smaller.

We have an odd and rather morbid fascination with the apocalypse. It seems that every year, there’s at least one blockbuster movie playing up the “World is at an End” motif. Just off the top of my head: Terminator 2, Independence Day, Armageddon, Deep Impact, End of Days, The Day the Earth Stood Still, 28 Days Later, The Matrix, I am Legend and so on and so on and so on and so on.

This year is no different with the release of “2012” based on the Mayan prediction that the world will come to an end on December 21^st, 2012 (12-21-12).

If memory serves me correctly, there’s been a few times in my brief life when the world was supposed to end.  There was Y2K of course, when computers were supposed to rise up and eat us.  There were those crazy Zetas, who warned that the Earth would stop rotating on its axis in 2003.  Most recently, a British group by the name of “The Lord’s Witnesses” promised that a final World War would destroy Earth on March 21, 2008.

These nuts have real balls.  If I were a delusional Nostradamus wannabe I’d pick a date like 2505 when I know for sure I wouldn’t be around. These Zetas and Lord’s Witnesses…what do they do now?  Did they all go back to their alpaca farms? Were they like…”Woe to you Jupiter’s moon! My life has been one big lie!” How many do you figure broke into investment banking, realizing that they’ve got to shine it on for just a while longer than expected?

The Book of Revelations promises signs for the coming apocalypse (see The Four Horsemen).  I’m a Christian, but at the same time I’m a skeptic.  Not about God’s ability to send us real and discernable signs. No, I’m skeptical about all those loonies who see the image of Jesus in their McSkillet Burritos.

But I have to admit that with 12-21-12 quickly approaching, I was a bit rattled when I heard the following news (as sure a sign of the apocalypse as I’ve ever seen):

The Oprah Winfrey Show to End September 2011

Said Winfrey: “I love this show. This show has been my life. And I love it enough to know when it’s time to say goodbye. Twenty-five years feels right in my bones, and it feels right in my spirit. It’s the perfect number—the exact right time. So I hope that you will take this 18-month ride with me right through to the final show.”

Winfrey continued, “So, the countdown to the end of The Oprah Winfrey Show starts now, and until that day in 2011 when it ends, I intend to soak up every meaningful, joy-filled moment with you.”

And so the countdown to the end of days has begun. So allow me to make MY predictions

On that fateful day, a couple things will happen. As soon as the curtain drops on her final show, Oprah will be beamed up to a spacecraft waiting to take her to New Earth located in the EL-RAM X System.

The rest of us will devolve into something like the following (just imagine a horde of dazed and purposeless women in place of the zombies).

Fill your canteens now, people.  Nuclear winter is coming.

Jeg var inde og se den fantastiske effektfulde film: 2012. Wow.

Så fik jeg ideen lige at lave en liste over fede katastrofe film. Der er naturligvis film som jeg har vurderet ikke hører til katastrofe film eller hvor katastrofen ikke er stor nok til at kvalificere sig til listen. Film beskrivelsen er hentet fra bloggen: Om livet i al almindelighed – the jules rules og fra Scope.

2012.

2012

Forskere opdager at jorden snart vil gå under, og klodens ledere lægger i al hemmelighed planer for at redde sig selv og så mange andre som muligt. Jackson er på ferie med sine to børn, da han tilfældigvis opdager sandheden om den forestående undergang, og inden han får set sig om, er den hyggelige ferie ændret til en kamp mod elementerne og egoistiske samfundsspidser.

Titanic

Titanic

James Camerons romantiske storfilm – der vandt 11 Oscars – om det unge par Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) og Rose (Kate Winslet), der trods forskellige baggrunde forelsker sig få dage inden Titanic synker.

Outbreak

Outbreak

Indbyggerne i den lille californske by, Ceder Creek, bliver syge unden varsel. Ramt af en virus, som er mere smitsom og dødelig end pest. I et hæsblæsende kapløb med tiden – og hans overordnede i militæret – kæmper Dr. Sam Daniels for at finde smittebæren – og modgiften. Med bl.a. Morgan Freeman, Dustin Hoffman og Rene Russo.

Armageddon

Armageddon

En tidlig morgen forsvinder rumfartøjet Atlantis fra NASA´s skærme, og nogle få timer senere falder en meteorregn over jorden. Men det er desværre kun begyndelsen. Med en hastighed på 35.000 km/t er en gigantisk asteroide på størrelse med Texas på vej mod jorden. Rammer den, vil det betyde jordens undergang. Med bl.a. Bruce Willis, Liv Tyler, ben Affleck og Billy Bob Thornton.

Deep Impact

Deep Impact

Hvad vil du gøre, hvis du vidste, at en gigantisk komet om få dage vil ramme jorden og hele menneskeheden blive udslettet?? Nedtællingen til dommedag er i gang i dette altødelæggende overraskende brag af en filmoplevelse. Mimi Leder intruerer en række stjerneskuespillere som Robert Duvall, Tea Leoni, Elijah Wood, Vanessa Redgrave, Maximilian Schell og Morgan Freeman.

Kina Syndromet

The China Syndrome (1979) – (Kinasyndromet)

Jack Lemmon, Jane Fonda og Michael Douglas medvirkerii Kina Syndromet en uforglemmelig advarende thrilleriom faren ved atom spaltning og TV nyhedernes enorme magtfaktor.

The Day After Tomorrow

The Day After Tomorrow (2004)

Klimatologen Jack Hall´s research peger på, at den globale opvarmning kan udløse en pludselig og katastrofal ændring af Jordens klima. De iskerner, som han har boret ud af Antarktis beviser, at det er sket før, for ti tusinde år siden. Og nu advarer han myndighederne om, at det kan ske igen, hvis de ikke griber hurtigt ind. Men hans advarsel kommer for sent. (naturligvis, ellers var der jo ikke nogen film…) Dernæst følger en række stadigt alvorligere vejrkatastrofer rundt omkring på kloden: hagl på størrelse med grapefrugter hamrer ned over Tokyo; orkaner af hidtil usete vindstyrker hærger Hawaii; der falder sne i New Delhi, og så pisker en række alt ødelæggende tornadoer igennem Los Angeles. Snefri fra skole? Det tror jeg nok!

Independence Day

Independence Day

Den engelske forfatter H.G. Wells har ikke levet forgæves. Hans over 100 år gamle sci-fi roman Klodernes Kamp har tydeligvis dannet forbillede for denne opdaterede filmudgave, instrueret af Roland Emmerich. Verden står over for en trussel fra det ydre rum i form af en hær af gigantiske rumskibe fyldt med væmmelige, gopleagtige aliens, der bestemt ikke har gode hensigter. Will Smith og Jeff Goldblum er to barske gutter, der står klar til at tage den ulige kamp op. Og det gør de godt, hvis du spørger mig.

Dante's Peak

Dante’s Peak

I den fredsomlige by Dante´s Peak frygter ingen af indbyggerne at den store vulkan, som ligger tæt på byen, skal gå i udbrud. Videnskabsmanden Harry Dalton, som er på besøg i den smukke by, kan dog mærke, at noget er galt. Helt galt. Kommunekontoret nægter at hjælpe – en redningsaktion er for omkostningsfuld, siger de. Ingen lytter dog mere til Harry Dalton end den kvindelige borgmester, men snart får de dog meget andet at lytte efter – lyden af eksploderende lava! I rollen som manden der kæmper mod naturen og de forstokkede kommunalpolitikere, ses Pierce Brosnan. Den kvindelige borgmester, Rachel Wando, spilles af Linda Hamilton.

Twister

Twister

Huse bliver flået i tusinde stykker. En brølende ko kommer flyvende gennem luften. Traktorer falder som regndråber. En 8 tons tankvogn bliver en flyvende bombe. En kilometer bred og 300 km i timen hurtigløbende naturkraft af total og fuldstændig ødelæggelse kommer imod dig.Twister er på vej til dit hjem. Helen Hunt og Bill Paxton spiller to videnskabsfolk, der forfølger den mest destruktive naturkraft, der har hærget gennem Amerikas Midvesten i 50 år. Ved at udsætte en beholder fuld af små sensorer umiddelbart foran skypumperne, håber tonadojægerne at de bliver suget op, så man kan kortlægge skypumpernes anatomi. Men for at få placeret beholderen rigtigt, bliver de to tornadojægere nødt til at komme helt tæt på, så tæt at de næsten kan røre ved deres gigantiske og lumske modstandere.

Volcano

Volcano

Los Angeles. Hjemsted for de rige og berømte. Hele verdens underholdnings-hovedstad. Englenes by. Men underneden rumler et skoldhedt helvede – nu er det klar til at bryde ud. En sprække i jordens skorpe åbner for en altødelæggende kraft. En endeløs strøm af hvidglødende lava bliver til en flod af uundgåelig død, der nu begynder at strømme gennem verdens tættest trafikerede gader mens ildkuglerne regner ned fra oven. For byens katastrofechef er det hans værste mareridt, der er blevet til virkelighed. Han har ikke set det værste endnu! Med bl.a. Anne Heche, Tommy Lee Jones og John Corbett.

Poseidon

Poseidon

Nytårsaften bliver den gigantiske luksusliner Poseidon ramt af en flodbølge af de store og vender bunden i vejret. En lille gruppe overlevende bliver fanger dybt inde i skibet og må arbejde sammen for at slippe ud af skibsvraget, der langsomt fyldes med vand. Opgaven gøres ikke lettere af, at alt er smadret og vendt på hovedet.

war of the worlds

War of the Worlds

Filmen er endnu en moderne fortolkning af H.G. Wells’ klassiske science fiction-roman, der omhandler en fantastisk kamp for selve menneskehedens overlevelse, set gennem en ganske almindelig families optik. Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise) må flygte for at redde sig selv og sin familie fra en skræmmende hær af trebenede rumvæsener, der udsletter alt på deres vej. War of the Worlds er et actionspækket eventyr, der nærmest eksploderer med spektakulære specialeffekter! Men for mig bliver filmen noget ødelagt af ret dårligt skuespil og en meget irriterende hysterisk pige, der skriger hele filmen igennem. Ja, du er nok kun 10 år, men hold dog kæft, så de der rumvæsener ikke kan finde dig!!

The Towering Inferno

The Towering Inferno (1974) (Det tårnhøje helvede)

For at fejre opførelsen af verdens højeste skyskraper, holder holdet bag en fest på øverste etage. Desværre har elektrikeren brugt dårlige materialer for at spare penge. En kortslutning sætter ild til 85. etage og pludselig er festdeltagerne på 135. etage fanget. Brandmajor O’Hallorhan og arkitekt Roberts forsøger sammen at redde gæster fra ilden.

World Trade Center.

World Trade Center

Politimændene John McLoughlin og William Jimeno er på arbejde en stille dag i New York i september, da terrorister flyver to fly ind i Word Trade Center. Sammen med andre redningsfolk kommer betjentene de indespærrede til undsætning, men ender med selv at blive fanget under murbrokkerne. Chancerne for at overleve er ikke store, men John og William nægter at give op.

The Core.

The Core

Golden Gate broen styrter sammen. Pacemakeripatienter falder døde om, ingen ved hvorfor. Fuglene mister deres stedsans. Årsagen skal findes i jordens indre – kernen er holdt op med at rotere! Det har den skræmmende konsekvens, at det magnetiske felt, som jorden er omgivet af, er ved at gå i opløsning. Et hemmeligt sted i Utah arbejder en gruppe videnskabsfolk med tiden som deres værste fjende. De får kun 3 måneder til at bygge et fartøj, der skal kunne rejse ind til jordens kerne med en atombombe, som skal genstarte kernens rotation. Som astronauter- nu terranauter- er det den kvindelige Major Beck Childs (Hilary Swank), der skal styre besætningen sikkert ind til jordens kerne og tilbage igen.

Hard Rain

Hard Rain

Byen Huntingburg trues af en oversvømmelse. Sheriffen evakuerer befolkningen samtidig med at en havareret pengetransport bliver overfaldet af en røverbande. Men transportens chauffør, Tom, stikker af med pengene, forfulgt af banden og politiet, der ikke er så retskafne som de burde være. Undervejs får Tom uventet hjælp af Karen, der prøver at holde vandmasserne ude fra den kirke, hun er ved at restaurere. Men langsomt strammes nettet om de to unge…

Daylight.

Daylight

Den underjordiske tunnel mellem Manhattan og New Jersey styrter sammen. Nogle få overlevende finder sammen i tunnelens midtersektion, der endnu holdes oppe. Men hvordan skal de komme ud? Heldigvis er der en modig taxa-chauffør (Sylvester Stallone), der ved lidt om tunnelkatastrofer og ikke står tilbage for at tage på en redningsekspedition under jorden!

Cloverfield

Cloverfield

En hyggelig fest for at fejre Robs afrejse til et fedt job i Japan afbrydes pludseligt, da jorden i New York begynder at ryste. Forvirrede og bange styrter folk op på taget af bygningen, hvor de ser en ildkugle fare gennem luften. Så rystes bygningen igen, strømmen går, panikken bryder ud. Hud har fået til opgave at lave en videooptagelse som en farvelgave til Rob, og han lægger ikke kameraet. På den måde får vi et øjebliksbillede af, hvordan panikken breder sig, når husene rystes og gaderne fyldes af støvskyer, når skyskrabere synker i grus. Hud følger en lille gruppe på flugten, men da Rob over mobilen får fat i sin elskede Beth og hører, at hun ligger fastklemt i et af de sammenstyrtede huse, ændrer han retning. Mod bedre vidende går han mod centrum af Manhattan, hvor noget stort og dødbringende er på spil. Og mod al sund fornuft går Hud og et par af vennerne samme vej. Uhh!

Supernova

Supanova

En astrofysiker har opdaget, at verdens undergang er nært forestående. Solen vil snart eksplodere og Jorden vil gå under. Mens et hold af forskere kæmper mod tiden for at forhindre, at hans dommedagsprofeti skal gå i opfyldelse, forvandles verden til et sandt inferno. Med bl.a. Luke Perry og Tia Carrere.

Sunshine.

Sunshine

Solen er ved at dø og sker det, vil det selvsagt få katastrofale konsekvenser for jorden og menneskeheden. Det største rumskib der nogensinde er blevet bygget, ICARUS II, bliver derfor sendt ud i rummet med en enorm atom nyttelast ombord, hvis formål er at gendanne de dele af solen, der allerede er gået ud. Ombord på rumskibet er en besætning bestående af otte astronauter. De kommer alle til at stå ansigt til ansigt med deres værste frygt.Sandsynligheden for at missionen lykkes synes mere og mere usandsynlig som de langsomt nærmer sig den frygtindgydende og overvældende kraft fra universets største og mest imponerende enkelte objekt – solen!

Since the movie 2012 is nearing its premiere, the TV stations here have once again dug out the tiny stash of movies they own rights to play for relating movies, including ID4 and deep impact… which they play annually anyway.

So here I am, sitting on the couch drinking some sago with coconut milk I made earlier watching deep impact due to a lack of a better option, and once again I am critisizing how people choose to spend their last moments, knowing a month in advance… and here there are people still going to work, watching TV, and wandering aimlessly around the streets… but then again if you think about it, if everyone knew they’d die soon noone will run the shops and clubs, the news and reruns of  the simpsons will probably be the only thing left on TV, most power stations will probably go off line, and gas stations will probably run out of gas in the first 4 hours the news was given… so you can’t even go very far…

So now nothing’s working, nowhere to hang, and you need to think of your own activities because those diving lessons you always wanted to take won’t be there anymore… now I’m sure everyone has a hit list of people you want dead… now assuming you don’t have a top 200 list, this will only occupy you for so long assuming your targets aren’t too tough.. (don’t forget these guys may have already killed themselves)… then there is that girl you’ve liked all these years… now assume you don’t sadly get rejected in these circumstances… what else can you do? Right now I can’t think of anything besides to find the best view to see whatever disaster is about to strike me…

And you know what, I really can’t think of anything so I’m gonna end it here. I’ll be happy to accept suggestion or at least what everyone else would do, at least I’ll have a plan when the apocalypse comes.

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mmMMMmmm… babies…

[This is for the Chinese/Japanese/any nation that uses Chinese characters: the two characters in the logo (one Korean and one Chinese), look like the Chinese words "子宮", which means "uterus". Now just out of curiosity, does anyone know what the Korean character means? Cheers]

Zaćmienie Księżyca /www.wikipedia.org

37 lat. Tyle czasu upłynęło od ostatniej załogowej misji na Księżyc. Tyle lat NASA czekała, aż klimat polityczny, naukowy, ekonomiczny i któż wie, jaki jeszcze, będą sprzyjające na tyle, by ogłosić, że czas na powrót ludzi na Srebrny Glob. Obama aby zostać prezydentem Stanów naobiecywał wiele. I chociaż niejedno można mu zarzucić, to jego poparcie dla nauki jest niezaprzeczalne (że wspomnę choćby tylko jego wystąpienie na temat badań na komórkach macierzystych. Szkoda, że zabrakło mu odwagi na zdecydowane wystąpienie w Kopenhadze). I zapewne dzięki temu odczuwa się niejakie ocieplenie klimatu także wokół NASA, która w tym roku zapowiedziała, że ludzie ponownie wylądują na Księżycu przed końcem 2020 roku.

Jednym z najpoważniejszych wyzwań, jakie stoją przed astronautami, którzy jako pierwsi na Księżyc powrócą, jest problem surowców (podobny problem stoi też przed hipotetyczną załogową misją na Marsa, ale o tym może kiedy indziej). Oczywiście można ze sobą wozić zapasy powietrza i wody, ale na dłuższą metę, jeśli zachciałoby się nam Księżyc zasiedlać – lub przynajmniej budować na nim jakieś stacje badawcze – jest to rozwiązanie koszto- i energochłonne. Stąd też wyniki badań przeprowadzonych w czasie trwanai programu Apollo bardzo były niefortunne – astronauci na Księżycu wody bowiem nie znaleźli.

Sytuacja zaczęła się jednak nieco ostatnio zmieniać. Zrobiono – za pomocą nowych sond – nowe pomiary. Powyciągano z lamusa stare. Niecały miesiąc temu w Science ukazała się seria prac na temat pomiarów zrobionych w 1999 roku sondą Cassini oraz w 2009 sondami Deep Impact oraz Chandrayaan-1. Pomiary spektroskopowe nie pozostawiły wątpliwości: na powierzchni Księżyca znajduje się warstewka grup hydroksylowych (-OH) oraz wody. Wszystkie te prace wskazały także, że wody szukano do tej pory w złym miejscu – wszystkie załogowe misje lądowały bowiem w okolicy równika Księżyca, podczas gdy wody jest znacznie więcej przy biegunach (przy czym tutaj jeszcze pojęcie więcej było bardzo, bardzo względne). Po tych doniesieniach świat naukowy z zapartym tchem oczekiwał ogłoszonego na 9. października uderzenia części systemu LCROSS w powierzchnię satelity.

W zeszły piątek NASA wreszcie triumfalnie ogłosiła wyniki pomiarów systemu LCROSS: w wiecznie zacienionych kraterach w okolicach biegunów Księżyca znajduje się woda! Po uderzeniu części sondy w powierzchnię Księżyca, jej druga część zbierała dane. Na zdjęciach widać chmurę pyłu, zaraz po uderzeniu sondy w powierzchnię Księżyca. Badania potwierdziły jednak, że w chmurze tej oprócz pyłu właśnie znajduje się woda. Dokładniej: z krateru o średnicy 10 m wyparowało około stu litrów. Jest to znacznie więcej niż oczekiwano. Z drugiej strony, że powołam się na autorytet Steinna Sigurðssona – naukowego bloggera, ale i zarazem astrofizyka z Penn State – ilość ta jest znikoma w porównaniu z najsuchszymi nawet obszarami na Ziemi. Są więc powody do optymizmu, ale nie wiem, czy do hurraoptymizmu, który prezentują panowie z NASA. Dobrze, bo wiemy, że wody na Księżycu jest znacznie więcej niż oczekiwalśmy (i że jest w ogóle). Źle, bo może się okazać, że odzysk wody z jakiejkolwiek formy, w której się znajduje, jest nieco bardziej skomplikowany niż odkręcenia kurka w kranie.

Zdjęcie z kamery pokazujące chmurę pyłu powstałą 20 sekund po uderzeniu sondy w Księżyc /©2009 NASA

Niemniej nie sądźcie, że szerzę defetyzm. Bo nie szerzę (a przynajmniej staram się nie, to tylko mój wrodzony sceptycyzmo-realizm przeze mnie przemawia). Jest się z czego cieszyć. I jest duża szansa, że zanim na Księżycu ludzie wylądują ponownie, będziemy wiedzieli znacznie więcej, a być może nawet wystarczająco dużo, na temat tego gdzie woda się znajduje, w jakiej formie i jak ją wykorzystać…

“Detection of Adsorbed Water and Hydroxyl on the Moon”, Roger N. Clark, Science 326(5952): 562-4; DOI: 10.1126/science.1178105 (24 Sep 2009)

“Temporal and Spatial Variability of Lunar Hydration As Observed by the Deep Impact Spacecraft”, Jessica M. Sunshine, Tony L. Farnham, Lori M. Feaga, Olivier Groussin, Frédéric Merlin, Ralph E. Milliken, Michael F. A’Hearn, Science 326(5952): 565-8; DOI: 10.1126/science.1179788 (24 Sep 2009)

“Character and Spatial Distribution of OH/H2O on the Surface of the Moon Seen by M3 on Chandrayaan-1″, C. M. Pieters, J. N. Goswami, R. N. Clark, M. Annadurai, J. Boardman, B. Buratti, J.-P. Combe, M. D. Dyar, R. Green, J. W. Head, C. Hibbitts, M. Hicks, P. Isaacson, R. Klima, G. Kramer, S. Kumar, E. Livo, S. Lundeen, E. Malaret, T. McCord, J. Mustard, J. Nettles, N. Petro, C. Runyon, M. Staid, J. Sunshine, L. A. Taylor, S. Tompkins, P. Varanasi, Science 326(5952): 568-72; DOI: 10.1126/science.1178658 (24 Sep 2009)

Strona NASA poświęcona sondzie LCROSS

Doniesienie o wydarzeniu na blogu Starts with a Bang

Doniesienie o wydarzeniu na blogu Cat Dynamics

Ce-am învăţat din filmu’ ăsta:

1. Abia în 2012 or să ajungă americanii să aibă drumuri ca ale noastre. Consider totuşi că au cam exagerat metafora cu gropile din asfalt.
2. John Cusack seamănă cu Meme Stoica când îi ud fleşcă. Cusack ud fleaşcă. Meme tre’ să fie doar… Meme.
3. Barrack Obama îmbătrâneşte foarte mult în 2 ani.
4. V8-urile sună demenţial! Acoperă chiar sunetul unor coşmelii de 40 de etaje ce se dărâmă.
5. John F. Kennedy se întoarce la Casa Albă. Ofcors, în 2012. Stay tuned.
6. Leonardo di Caprio ştie să se “ducă la fund” mai dramatic decât Blu Mankuma.

Concluzia: 2012 o luat The day after tomorrow-ul, Independence Day-ul, Deep Impact-ul şi Titanic-ul şi le-o băgat în buzunarul din spate de la blugi, după care o băgat blugii la spălat. Ce să mai? Douămiidoişpe e “Chuck Norris”-ul filmelor cu dezastre. Parol.

Concluzia concluziei: Pfai, cât mi-o plăcut!

This disaster movie turned out to be just that, a complete disaster! I wasn’t expecting much going in, in fact I knew going in that this was going to be just a special effects extravaganza and might be only that. Still, something entertaining to watch with popcorn and gummy cola bottles. As you can tell from the trailers, the film is simply about the earths crust shifting and disaster begins, and it is the mission of a family that has discovered the secret to survive by reaching an ark that will save humanity. Sound familiar? Deep Impact, Armageddon…take your pick of several.

With some of the big name actors in this, you wonder how they got this film so screwed up. John Cusak (High Fidelity, Grosse Point Blank) plays a writer who has figured out the governments secret and is trying to save his family. I use the term PLAY loosely, as he does absolutely nothing special in his role. Woody Harrelson (Natural Born Killers, The People vs Larry Flynt) plays the obligatory crazy conspiracy theorist that has the whole thing figured out and no one seems to listen. As much as I thought he was perfectly cast in Zombieland, he is that much miscast in this one. If it was a comedic break to put this character in, it fails miserably. Thandi Newton (Crash), Amanda Peet (The Whole Nine Yards), and Danny Glover (Lethal Weapon)  are also on-screen simply getting a paycheck. The only character I was sort of interested in was Carl who was played by Oliver Platt (Frost Nixon). I thought he had a few lines that brought comedic relief to the film, but not for long. His character in the end was as flat and left for dead just like everyone else.

Ok, let’s get to the special effects. If you saw the trailer, you have seen the best of them, and there wasn’t much more than that. The effects were not even that enjoyable to watch as they had to make EVERY effect just hugely over the top….and I don’t mind over the top, but this was over kill. Every plane that took off had to escape an oncoming black cloud (Seen that one in Dante’s Peak), every car scene had to jump a chasm caused by an earthquake that just happened right in front of them. Every effect seemed to have the most unreal of circumstances happen in each one. Why not just make a scary situation and put the people on the edge of their seat? Na, just make everything so over the top and unbelievable that leaves the audience sighing and shaking their head in disbelief.

Well, you don’t have to guess whether I would recommend this one or not. This movie is basically an insult to an audiences intelligence. For example a girl whistles for a dog that is 100 yards away and among 1000s of rioting people, and goes to the girl. Ok, so maybe a dog’s hearing is good, the dog is a King Charles Spaniel, and very sweet dogs, but dumb as a bag of hammers (If I can borrow the line from George Clooney in O Brother). Yet this dog tight rope walks a steel cable like nothing else. My brothers King Charles is a connoisseur of Barbie Clothes and small rocks, so tightrope walking, give me a break. Also, this film gets very old as each character, (conveniently representing different nationalities and races) are given the chance to say good-bye to loved ones. I couple of scenes, OK, I will live with it, but give me a break.

This movie is not worth seeing at all, and not even a rental for me. It is terrible acting and absolutely no story. Had I not seen Year One, this film would have got my vote for worst picture this year.

Le compte à rebours a commencé le 1er mars 1997. A cette date, il était prévu d’aller rencontrer la comète 22P/Wirtanen. Départ : janvier 2003. Arrivée 8 ans plus tard en août 2011. Malheureusement le lanceur Ariane connaîtra quelques problèmes, et le départ sera retardé..

La fenêtre de lancement suivante (et la possibilité d’obtenir un lanceur) obligera à changer l’objectif. La comète 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko est choisie. Le lancement de Rosetta a eu lieu le 2 mars 2004 depuis Kourou en Guyane française avec une fusée Ariane 5.

La comète sera située à 675 millions de km du Soleil. Le voyage de Rosetta de 5 milliards de km durera 10 ans. Trois orbites autour de la Terre en 2005, 2007 et 2008 ainsi qu’une orbite autour de Mars en 2007 sont prévues afin de donner la vitesse nécessaire à Rosetta pour prendre la direction de la comète cible. En mai 2011, un dernier ajustement de la trajectoire sera effectué, puis à partir de juillet 2011 ce sera le silence radio : Rosetta sera livré à lui-même pendant qu’il croisera l’orbite de Jupiter. En janvier 2014, le vaisseau sera recontacté et réactivé, il sera alors près de la comète Churyumov-Gerasimenko en octobre 2014.

Un “lander” (atterrisseur) sera détaché pour se poser sur le sol de la comète.
Le “lander” est de conception  européenne : Allemagne, Autriche, Finlande, France, Hongrie, Irlande, Italie et Grande-Bretagne. Il comprendra 10 instruments scientifiques devant servir à étudier la composition physique et chimique de la comète et ses propriétés électriques et magnétiques. Une caméra doit permettre d’obtenir des macro et micro photographies.

Le vaisseau Rosetta accompagnera la comète pendant 17 mois sur son trajet autour du Soleil, jusqu’à ce qu’elle atteigne son point le plus proche du Soleil. Quand la comète arrivera a 500 millions de km du Soleil, la glace à la surface du noyau comètaire va se sublimer, libérant ainsi des gaz et formant une nébulosité autour du noyau appelée coma ou chevelure, ainsi qu’une queue dirigée à l’opposé du Soleil. Cette dernière peut s’étendre sur plusieurs millions de km ! Sa formation sera observée et étudiée par Rosetta.

High school student Leo Biederman (Elijah Wood) spots something strange with his telescope as he stargazes near the local observatory. Marcus Wolf discovers it’s a comet, but he is killed in a car accident before he can alert anyone. Fast-forward a year, and the government has decided it must destroy the comet so it does not collide with the Earth. They have a very ambitious and ludicrous plan to land on the comet and detonate it; retired astronaut Spurgeon Tanner (Robert Duvall) is scouted to lead the mission because he landed on the moon once, so he has the best chance of landing on the comet, dammit! There are other various story arcs and characters in the film. Leo lives with his parents and has a crush on Sarah (Leelee Sobieski), the girl-next-door. Leo becomes a minor celebrity once the President (Morgan Freeman) breaks the news to the nation – they have named the comet Wolf-Biederman. Jenny Lerner (Tea Leoni) plays an ambitious journalist who has a meteoric (pun intended) rise in the industry because she sort-of uncovered the story. She becomes lead anchor on the story. Her arc also revolves around her relationships with her mother (Vanessa Redgrave) and her father (Maximillian Schell), who has recently remarried to a woman only 2 years older than his daughter.

The beginning of the film is really slow moving, with too much time dedicated to convenient character drama. When I think back to more successful disaster films like The Day After Tomorrow, which jumps right into the disaster in the opening act, Deep Impact seems positively frustrating in comparison. The idea of the disaster is introduced in the early scenes, but it then moves away from this to focus on the blissfully unaware characters. The troubled relationship between Tea Leoni and her father is particularly drawn-out, although I did like the ultimate pay-off in that story arc. Elijah Wood and Leelee Sobieski are both good in their roles, and I think we most connect with these characters. Morgan Freeman plays the President with his usual resonant voice.

Obviously the most interesting part begins when the comet actually hits (the scenes in outer space were supposed to be thrilling but are quite preposterous). The real entertainment value of Deep Impact lies in the excitement and horror as we see well-known cities and landmarks destroyed by something out of our control. As a young girl the image of that giant tidal wave, in conjunction with Titanic, made me quite fearful of water! Even though the special effects might be a little bit dated, they are nonetheless spectacular. These kinds of movies are interesting because they spark a few paranoid questions – Could this ever happen? What would we do? Would I survive? Who really cares?

Deep Impact is a true film of the 90s, a time when disaster films were very much in vogue. It’s not great by any standards but it is pure entertainment, and you may just be on the edge of your seat in the final act. Not bad to watch on a quiet night in.

My rating:

I remember a conversation I had with one of my favorite mentors Ms. Baker while voulunteering as her assistant in the Shaw University library. We used to get into all kinds of heavy topics, usually based in conspiracy theory. Ms. B was the only adult I could converse with about the Illuminati and extraterrestrials who wasn’t too complacent in maturity to think outside the box. She was old enough to be my grandmother and an extremely learned woman, which equpped her with a wisdom that could not be gained by study alone. She was an eye  witness to events I could only read about in my history books, as well as events that ‘they’ are content to leave buried under the rubble of the past.

During one of our lengthy chats we ended up on the subject of black presidents, the apocolypse, and movies. She spoke of being hit with an eerie feeling while watching the film Deep Impact, stricken particularly by the image of a black man having to tell the citizens of the United States they were about to experience, in essence, the end of the world. This made me think back to something I had once read on educate-yourself.org about the Illuminati and their connection to Hollywood. Sidenote,  if you visit the site(which you should at least once) check out the articles under Swine Flu Hoax/Vaccine….all I can say is DAMN, Illseed told yall.

“How do they do this? They don’t go to a film producer and say, “Oh, by the way, we’re Illuminati members and we want you to make a movie that promotes our agenda”. (Remember, they aren’t stupid, either). Instead, they will form a small investment corporation that funds movies with ideas that they like. They quietly hire actors and producers and directors and scripts, but they never mention their affiliation publicly or why they are doing this.

Money talks, and especially in Hollywood. If you have money, you can get about anything made, and they know this. They can also channel money intoadvertising campaigns, etc. for their films (how many Christian films have had major ad campaigns in the past twenty years? Very few. How many occult movies have? I rest my case).”

Now this got the wheels in my head turning a little, but what got them cranking full speed is what I noticed when I caught one of my favorite flicks Head Of State on television a couple of nights later. Am I the only one that finds it ridiculously ironic that the movie came out in 2003 but heavily references the election year 2008. I also find it strange that Black candidate Mays Gilliam(Rock) bears several similarities to Obama; being relatively unkown in the world of politics, seen as not possessing enough experience due to age, both had  low profile political positions before being elected, Gilliam was an alderman and Obama was a legislator and both have vested interests in thier cities most poverty stricken areas, South Side Chicago and DC’s 9th Ward. Similarities and coincidences aside,  it is the shady tactics that take place during the election and the underlying agenda for Gilliam being in the election in the first place that really does it for me.

Working with the assumption that the images on our movie screens are not without purpose, that they subliminally carry a message or push an agenda of some sort, why is it that when a black actor is portraying the President in most instances society as we know it is in peril or shambles.

Deep Impact- President played by Morgan Freeman, a giant meteor will strike the earth innevitably killing most of us

The Fifth Element- President played by Tom Lister Jr (Deebo!), a great evil will appear, destroy all life

Idiocracy- President played by Terry Crews (Another Friday series alum) in the year 2505 our society is comprised of nothing but idiots, hence the title Idiocracy

Left Behind: World At War- President played by Lou  Gossett Jr, the title pretty much speaks for itself, after the biblical Rapture many have been left behind in a world that is at war

2012-  President played by Danny Glover, in the year 2012 the earth as we know it will be destroyed, given all the speculation about the predictions of the Mayans and rare planetary alignments, I’ve always found it interesting that the end of Obama’s first term as President takes place in this ‘catastrophic’ year.

Along with these films, many other online sites and threads dedicated to this topic have cited the series 24 as being a member of the ‘Black presidents’ facing disaster’ club. I know I’m not the first to question Hollywood’s portrayal of Black folks in the presidency, but after seeing Danny Glover in the trailer for 2012 I couldn’ t help but think to myself, ” Really?”  I mean it is an accurate depiction given how our current president is of the darker persuasion but……..

 Are we reading too far into things? Should we just be happy that black actors are playing such powerful roles on film? Or is somebody, somewhere, trying to tell us something?

Eu sempre quis envelhecer e morrer na praia.

Quer dizer, até ver essa cena.

armageddon

I had a dream this morning about revealing something that I had found.

I can’t tell you about it just yet, but when I find out that I’m right I’ll let you all know what it’s about.

I spent yesterday relaxing and watching movies – Independence Day, War of the Worlds, Deep Impact.

I’d have to say they are all great movies, but I was feeling scared and a little depressed last night.

I had trouble falling asleep, kept having nightmares about meteors falling down on me.

This theory of 2012, is about a large meteorite hitting earth and causing mass destruction even extinctions?

Is this why the government keeps telling us to prepare for a major disaster?

Stock up on 3 days worth of water, dry goods, a change of clothes, be ready for the inevitable.

Is this their way of telling us to move our butts and find higher ground.

Then I’m thinking about deep impact.

What if you DON’T have a car?

How do you rely on the government to get you out of a pickle?

I don’t think they will, honestly, according to the movie only doctors, scientists and gifted individuals will be protected first.

The rest of us can go to hell. LOL

Oh well, so C’est la Vie!

Life life to the fullest, have no regrets and if we all die from a meteor hitting earth, then we can say we lived life as best as we could for as long as we could.

Needless to say, I’m looking forward to the movie 2012 and Paranormal Activity.

I can see both movies will cause me to suffer from a lack of sleep.

Now that doesn’t happen too often so when I’m really scared of something, a movie sticks in my mind and I think it’s cool.

Great job to the producers, writers and directors of these films, you affected my brain.

And I’d have to say I’m a movie buff and nothing fizzes me, but last night the combination of these 3 movies, kept the mental wheels turning to the early hours of the morning.

I actually had a panic attack, then I told myself, meditate and enjoy what you have now.

Do the best that you can and if the world ends, then I’ll have lived as humanly possible, doing what I can to help others, showing lots of love and care for my fellow human beings.

To make an impact on other people’s lives is a gift.

So anyone in Hollywood that is famous, has the papparazzi hounding them day and night, take note, use that to your advantage.

Stop, say something cool about world peace , get involved in a charity and do something good for the world.

You’ve been chosen by the Universe to make a difference here on earth, while your here.

Don’t waste the opportunity to do something good for the world.

I hope that Perez Hilton who has over 2 million views a day on the website, will take note and do something with all that popularity!

Here I am posting away and a freaky thing happened – Bon Jovi – It’s My Life starts playing!

The universe has a message for you today… listen to this song, let it touch your heart.

So, just now I took a total of ten minutes out of my day to see America do what it does best – blast the shit out of something that didn’t deserve it.

Yes, I tuned in for the NASA webcast of the LCROSS mission, and let me just say… it was the boringest thing I’ve ever seen. Yes, the aptly titled boringestblog will finally talk about something I feel is worthy of the title.

Now, I will admit, I’ve been severely behind the times on this issue. When I heard about this mission, probably about five days to a week ago, I thought it was the most amazing thing I’d ever heard. They were going to change the course of history, by doing things the “Michael Bay Way”. Sure, the mission didn’t have Bruce Willis or a rough-and-tumble crew of scallywag oil junkies, but it did have rockets slamming into a celestial entity, which was enough for me to consider it cool. But let me tell you – after watching the climactic finale, this was less of a Deep Impact, and more of an Armageddon to my interest in NASA.

It had everything that makes space exploration great – visiting the moon, rocket-related destruction, and the potential to make an astounding discovery. Now, I could care less what they find. If they find Atlantis on the moon, I won’t bat an eyelash, because not only was this a waste of tax dollars, but it was a waste of my precious time.

Let me just say, I will never look forward to a NASA mission ever again. Not even if they decide to shoot Buzz Aldrin into the sun.

Seriously, the build up to this potential internet-viewing blockbuster was so immense, I knew I’d be let down. Yet, I still tuned in. I wanted them to succeed, and I wanted to see the moon get blasted in its smug face. Damn you moon, thinking you control the tides and the night sky. If anything, it got what it had comin’.

My point is, the reason they should have done this particular mission was because of how people had a general interest in it. There are Facebook pages and groups dedicated to those for and against the mission. Techno-geek blogs like Gizmodo and major news outlets like the Guardian UK were having daily countdowns and stories building up to the mission. For the webcast to be generic, science technobabble was expected, but certainly not the post-impact wrap up show.

Holy Moses, that was bad. I mean, at least with the celebration scene from flight/mission control you had people clapping, and that guy in the red shirt attempt a high-five with another cosmonerd (only to get DEEEEENIED), and that at least shows they were psyched, but you had three guys doing the wrap-up babbling about who-knows-what, using words I’m fairly certain they coined on the spot (what in the hell is a Flash Radiometer anyway?), showing little to no emotion at all. I mean, I know shooting an object at the moon isn’t exactly rocket science, but at least be stoked on your achievement. Or maybe the guy on the left could have just trimmed his mullet. Or not worn yellow suspenders.

And for the record, maybe I was just not sure of what I’d see, but I didn’t see any sort of impact either. I knew it wouldn’t be a tremendous fireball, but when you’re claiming there’ll be a 30-mile high dust cloud, you’d better deliver.

The point is, that’s 10 or 15 minutes of my life I’ll never get back. Thanks for nothing NASA.

Husband: Would you like to see a tsunami?

Me: Would I like to see . . . a . . . salami, did you say? Why, is it an unusual salami? Can it do tricks-

Husband: No, a TSUNAMI!

Me: Oh. Mm. Really? Ok. Oh actually – wait. Did you say ‘TSUNAMI!’? Hey! That would be AWESOME! To be humbled by a raw, first-hand glimpse of the tremendous might of Mother Nature.

Me: <rolling internal mental footage of the final scene from ‘Deep Impact’ where Tea Leoni’s face melts off in the pre-force of a supersonic 3 mile high megatsunami caused by a comet striking earth because Bruce Willis wasn’t available and you can bet your ass Elijah Wood wasn’t about to pilot a spacecraft to the face of the comet, drill a hole and nuke the fucker moments before it is due to erase mankind forever>

Me: We’ll have to go to a beach with a really big hill-

Andrew: Well, it’s only a meter high.

Me: What? The TSUNAMI!? But- but that’s pathetic! I make bigger waves farting in the bath!

Andrew: And if we go to one a west coast beach, it’ll only be 40cm-

Me: 40CM? How are we expected to distinguish the TSUNAMI! from other waves? I saw the Queen Mother give a bigger wave from her deathbed! I make bigger waves doing the dishes! Your turn.

Andrew: Er. Mexicans give bigger waves.

Me: Yeah, well, um. Ok.

Yet an event like this does not happen every day, so we decided to drive to Piha to observe this natural phenomenon. Despite myself (I’ve seen bigger waves on a stale perm etc.) I was quite excited. As you can tell from the frequency of recent posts, our life rarely features exciting events (although you will be glad to hear we have no shortage of Magic Moments).

Immersing myself in the spirit of the occasion, I made coffee to go, packed snacks, the camera, and swimming togs. I would have fired commemorative mugs with a big roller and ‘Tsunami Simon’ inscribed on them except I ran out of time.

We arrived at the lookout point above Piha with plenty of time to spare, regardless of Andrew’s pessimistic predictions that we had ‘missed it’. And then we stood there staring intently at the sea for fifteen minutes, until around the time Andrew said it was scheduled to hit Christchurch.

So we didn’t miss it – not that we noticed.

So you might say, the TSUNAMI! was a wash-out, as limited to the metaphorical sense.

We went home.

Some think that there is a specific way of sitting in trance – aka picture – however the key principles are that you are comfortable, grounded and relaxed and you find it easy to go into trance.

Relaxing can be fun and easy

Now Try this…

Sitting with your feet flat on the ground and your back relaxedly straight whilst allowing your hands to rest on the area between your knees and your groin taking a deep breath in now as you exhale going deeper into a relaxing state of mind which allows you to imagine a blue sky so bright that it fills every cell in your body with a blissfully confident feeling which when it reaches your fingers now sends an envigorating and energising sensation up your spine from the bottom to the top making your mind so clear  you can see that trance  buy now  is the most exhilirating way to discover the power of your mind in sports and any other ways because while you  are reading the words above you discover the best way for you to sit as you  listen to DI-Sports CDs  or any others

By the way you can come out now and whilst that was just such a mild example of how easily you can relax you like me can see what it might do for you too

http://www.di-sport.co.uk/sportenhancementproductscds.html

Actually it’s the Arc, not the hokey cokey (and what’s that all about anyway?).  Runners are coming out today at the 5 day stage and tomorrow runners will be coming in as the supplementary stage opens.

Out goes Yeats (the battalions of Ballydoyle were having a bubble barf with that one), stalls-shy Spanish Moon (who was my ante-post ew bet) and three others.  In, for the fee of 100,000 euros, will likely come Stacelita, Cavalryman and maybe Sariska (but I am not sure about her as there has not yet been the rain they are after).  We have light rain forecast for the days preceding Sunday’s race but at the moment it is not believed to be enough to hinder the wonder horse’s participation.

The Arc and I have an uneasy autumnal sort of relationship.  My flat racing season tends to follow the same pattern every year.  Wild abandon when the Guineas comes round at the thought of all the exciting prospects, a glutted reverie in the mid-summer (after the Eclipse) when the calendar is full to bursting and week long festivals seem to be happening every fortnight, and then a sad sort of realisation about now that it is coming to an end.  Now is the time reputations are cemented, or shattered for good at Longchamp and then at the Breeders’ Cup.  I find that the enjoyable exercise of  trying to read a race in advance, now becomes clouded by sentiment and my hopes for individual horses.  Now I know Sea the Stars doesn’t give a toss if he wins on Sunday (although they do say a horse’s heart can be broken) but I really, really do.

The last time I gave this much of a shit was when I was convinced Deep Impact would win the Arc a few years back.  For those of you that didn’t see that showdown, Deep was 3rd and subsequently disqualified for having had a blast of Vicks a few days before the big one.  I felt ill before, during and after the unsatisfactory race and although I always enjoy the Arc I can’t quite bring myself to engage with it fully.  This year I have no choice.

It is tricky to preview a race without the line-up and the going.  Kieren Fallon is not to be deterred though in the “Weekender”, asserting that it is no done deal for StS given his packed dancecard and that Youmzain (his mount) may, finally and in blinkers, get in the Group 1 winning groove.  Well he might.

I have read others who are sweet on Conduit’s chances, yet others who insist he is a one-paced gallop merchant who will not have the requisite toe from the turn-in.

I find myself entirely unable to analyse this race.

I want Sea the Stars to win, trot into the history books and share his genes with us for a long, long time.

Deep on a going day

That said, I will organise my thoughts, exorcise the sentiment and evaluate the field’s chances on Sunday.