Then Cupid next on vaulted beams
Quite hidden where the candles shade
With slender steel tip dipped in love
Pulled back the bow and aimed his blade:

“O Vulcan lance forged right for Mars
Sail straight and faithful- find thy prey!
Burn track through all this caverned air
And find a stony heart to slay.”

Pygmalion- who knelt below-
Was dashed by Cupid’s arrow high
Affection flooded all his vein
And new love forced a mystic sigh.

Hola, hamijos.

Siento no haber pasado por aquí estos días, pero entre el nuevo diario público (http://diario-vulcano.blogspot.com/) y otros asuntos, se me olvidó.

Repasemos las noticias más importantes:

1ª Hubo elecciones legislativas en los tres países, siendo los ganadores Master, en VULCAN; Mixalberto, en Hispania, y Baldor, en POL.

2ª Fray, presidente de Hispania, está en medio de un proceso judicial, por asuntos económicos y de expropiaciones.

3ª Hoy se han abierto las fronteras de POL. Desconozco la causa, pero es para alegrarse.

4ª Va a haber una reforma del Código Penal vulcano. Mejor dicho, se han presentado tres propuestas de reforma. ¿Quién ganará?

Espero volver por aquí regularmente, cada día, con más noticias. Y tampoco se olviden de leer el diario público.

Firmado: Lula, Juez Supremo vulcano, y redactor y jefe de La Nueva Virtualpol.

Contains spoilers.

Let me start by stating that yes, I am a STAR TREK fan. Particularly the original series. However, I have never been to a convention, never dressed up as any of the characters, and I do not speak a word of Klingon. That said, as a kid, I would have LOVED to have done any and all of the above.

My point? While I count myself as a fan, my fanaticism has its limits. There are those who can talk STAR TREK circles around me. And I welcome their input and observations. I say this because I truly enjoyed much of J.J. Abrams’ new STAR TREK film. I also had some issues with the film that keeps it from being a favorite. Or even as great as its first half promised. And my problems with the film are, in part, fan-based and, in other part, common sense-based.

There’s nothing more frustrating to me than a really good film that allows sloppy moments to intrude on the world of the story and characters. That said, I should state here that I am all for re-imaginings. It seems to be the thing these days. No longer is the sequel king. It’s the remake. And I’m all for it if it can do something new and unique with the material and characters. And this STAR TREK movie does that. Much the same way CASINO ROYALE re-started the Bond franchise and re-imagined our ruthless hero. Is it the Bond from the novels? Not really. Is he still highly watchable and exciting? Yes. The Bond series needed a breath of fresh air and they got it. Sadly, the second installment forgot about character development, but that’s another film and another post… Back to TREK.

J.J. Abrams’ new take on the old series is almost terrific. In fact, the first half of the film held me lovingly in its grip. True, I went in fearing the worst, but the filmmakers had some great ideas on how to re-invigorate these characters and films and they managed to pull off the near-impossible: take these much-beloved characters –an institution, really– and give them over to an entirely new cast in an entirely new environment. Changing the timeline, as they did, is quite brilliant (and keeping within the rules of the TREK universe) and have single-handedly set us up for a whole lifetime of new adventures that do not require most of the facts and circumstances of the original series or any other offshoot, be it television or film.

The casting is near-perfect. Even if these aren’t exactly the characters as we knew and loved them, they’re pretty damn close; close enough to remind us why we loved them and make us yearn to love them again. And here is where one of my problems with the film rears its ugly head. It’s an issue that may very well be insignificant to anyone but a lover of STAR TREK. The casting and direction of the actors was so spot on, so fun to watch, both nostalgic and new all at the same time, that it’s that much more disappointing when they get one of the characters wrong.

I initially saw the film in the theater and had some reservations and issues, but all films deserve a second viewing (at least) and so I rented the Blu-ray and sat down for another look. And sadly, the same issues remained for me. The first being the casting of Simon Pegg as Scotty, originally played by the late James Doohan. As an actor and comedian, I think Pegg is great. But his (and the filmmakers’) take on Scotty basically mocks Doohan’s character. In fact, I would go as far as to say, with the exception of the accent, there is little-to-no similarities between the two. Pegg’s Scotty is a wise-cracking goofball from another movie. Whenever he’s on screen, the kids in the audience may be entertained, but the rest of us are stuck with a cartoon character. The filmmakers worked so hard to get all the characters right, why did they abandon this one?

Anyone who watched the original show knows that Scotty was never the comic relief. Not any more or less than any other character. But in this STAR TREK universe, he serves little else. His very presence undermines all the tension Abrams worked so diligently to build up throughout the film’s first half. Abrams might as well have cast Jim Carey and let him run around the bridge talking out of his butt. It’s all very silly and out of place in a world where entire civilizations are wiped out and intimate family members murdered. But someone somewhere seemed to think that the film might be getting too dark and that they should dip into sitcom-land for a little while lest anyone get too tense or, god forbid, think the filmmakers where taking this seriously.

At one point, Scotty accidentally transports himself into an engine cooling system while our beloved Kirk has to watch him zip through transparent water tubes a la WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY. Now you don’t have to be a STAR TREK fan or know any of these characters to recognize the tension all but completely disappear as the film veers off into an odd comic nether-sphere.

Add to that Scotty’s little alien friend –his cute little buddy that follows him around– and we have an episode of GILLIGAN’S ISLAND on our hands! Perhaps in their attempt to incorporate the many different elements of the TREK universe, the filmmakers thought this would be fitting. Sadly, for me, it completely took me out of the film and made me hyper-aware of the folks behind the scenes trying to make a few more “commercially-minded” choices. So, in effect, they took a beloved character, placed him in a rather riveting story, and then decided he should be more like Bill Murray in MEATBALLS.

But Pegg’s Scotty is really the only major character that completely missed the boat for me. There are a few instances where I thought the filmmakers were trying a little too hard to incorporate now-famous phrases or actions, like Karl Urban’s McCoy stating “I’m a doctor, not a physicist!” at a point where it really doesn’t make any sense in the context of the conversation that’s taking place and just ends up standing out like a sore thumb. But that I can more easily forgive because it is all in the line of trying to make the characters more like the ones we know and love. You can’t get everything right. Especially on the first outing.

But now comes the clincher; the moment in the film when logic and character motivation are replaced by a weak plot necessity resulting in what feels like blatantly lazy writing. In one fell swoop, the writers (or whoever made this decision) have Spock decide that he wants Kirk off the ship so badly that he actually has him ejected onto a dangerous ice planet. Whoa, hold on here, cowboy… Now while the filmmakers may have written themselves into a corner in needing to get Kirk and the older Spock together, they unfortunately resorted to an act that I do not for one second believe any captain or character (not to mention a logical Vulcan) would enact. Not on a ship with a brig. Lock Kirk up. Done and dealt with. Or why not simply sedate him as they had done previously? No, it makes no sense to the story or characters and ends up making me aware of the writers struggling. What’s odd is that this STAR TREK feels like a film where the filmmakers DID actually care and were hyper-aware of the characters and their motivations. So what happened here? Why a moment of such unnecessarily lazy writing?

Unfortunately, this unbelievable moment leads to one of the film’s most extraneous sequences where Kirk is chased by some wild beasties across the frozen landscape. This feels like the effects determining the story and not the other way around. It’s gratuitous and not particularly interesting. It’s an aversion from the story. For this viewer, the entire sequence and the clear unmotivated plot manipulation that preceded it took me out of the film and gave me a slight sinking feeling in my stomach. Mostly because, up until that point, they were doing such a bang-up job and I was so completely IN the world of the film! And of course, this sequence leads us directly to the introduction of Scotty, adding insult to injury.

The good news is, though it takes a while, the film finally finds its footing once again and is pretty damn entertaining straight through to the climax. Yeah, Bana’s Nero is not all that interesting or developed, but he is serviceable in a film that has chosen to spend the bulk of its time reintroducing us to these beloved characters in their new skins. And rightfully so. The film (and the franchise) depends on this.

So, for me, the filmmakers made some crucial mistakes in the second half of the film. They allowed themselves to get lazy as well as give in to some overly commercial elements that, in my opinion, had no place there and, in fact, disrupted the flow and integrity of the story.

But perhaps it’s a small transgression given the task they set for themselves and the amount they actually did get right. Still, all in all, what they got wrong brought the film down enough for me that it just doesn’t sit in my gut as comfortably as I would like it to. And that’s a shame. Because all I really want at the end of the day is good storytelling and rich characters (and yeah, these days that makes me a demanding audience member). And for the first half of the film, they delivered that in spades. But once they stumbled, I was never quite able to shake that feeling that this film was almost terrific. But these days, almost is more than we can usually expect from any film produced and developed by an American studio. So by that gauge, STAR TREK is still way above average.

Grupo britânico pede ajuda para manter exemplar do Avro Vulcan em condições de voo

O Avro Vulcan B2 foi desenvolvido durante a Guerra Fria (Foto: Airliners.net / Clique para ampliar)

O grupo britânico Vulcan to the Sky Trust, que mantém o único Avro Vulcan em condições de voo no mundo, fez um apelo na internet para manter essa lenda viva. Esses fanáticos e entusiastas precisam de nada menos que £ 200 mil até o Natal, visando cobrir custos de operação e débito do programa. Até 31 de março do ano que vem, o grupo vai precisar demais £ 600 mil, visando comemorar os 50 anos de existência deste clássico bombardeiro estratégico da Guerra Fria.

Até o momento pouco mais de £54 mil foram levantados. Para fazer a sua doação, acesse o site http://www.vulcantothesky.org/ donate e siga as instruções. O projeto de restauro começou em meados de 2006, com o primeiro voo de testes realizado em 18 de outubro de 2007. O Vulcan de matrícula militar XH588 (registro civil G-VLCN) já se apresentou em dezenas de eventos no Reino Unido em 2008 e 2009, mostrando a verdadeira missão desta organização que é de preservar, manter e principalmente, de difundir a história da aviação entre o público leigo, de fanáticos e entusiastas por aviação através do XH588.

EUA saem de base equatoriana

Os Estados Unidos interromperam suas operações a partir da Base Aérea Manta-Eloy Alaro, no Equador, onde operavam voos que faziam desde 1999 para combate a aeronaves ligadas ao narcotráfego. O acordo firmado com o Equador previa que o controle daquele aeroporto militar voltaria à Força Aérea do Equador dia 29 de novembro, mas essa data foi antecipada. Neste período foram ali realizados mais de 5500 voos de patrulha sobre o mar. Enquanto utilizou as instalações de Manta os americanos investiram cerca de US$ 71 milhões para melhorá-las.

Bolívia recebe aeronaves

O Governo da Bolívia negociou com a China, sem licitação, a compra de seis jatos de treinamento e ataque K-8, num contrato de US$ 57,8 milhões que envolve também peças de reposição e treinamento dos pilotos e mecânicos. Ao mesmo tempo a Bolívia negocia com o Brasil a cessão de cinco helicópteros militares Bell tipo UH-1H, ex FAB. Essa operação, porém esbarra na desconfiança de Washington sobre o Governo do Presidente Evo Morales. Pouco tempo atrás a mesma Bolívia foi impedida de comprar jatos de fabricação checa que usavam componentes norte-americanos.

Caças Gripen superam marca de 130.000 horas

A frota de caças Gripen já voou mais de 130 mil horas. Atualmente, os caças Gripen operam nas Forças Aéreas da República Tcheca, Hungria, África do Sul e Suécia, além da Escola de Pilotos de Teste do Reino Unido (ETPS). A Força Aérea Sueca é a maior operadora de Gripens e seu primeiro Esquadrão de Gripens foi inaugurado em 1997. A Força Aérea Tcheca recebeu seus caças Gripen C/D em 2005. Em seguida, foi a vez da Força Aérea Húngara, em 2006. As entregas à Força Aérea da África do Sul começaram em 2008 e continuam. O número total de horas de voo inclui também os voos de teste, realizados pelo Departamento de Ensaios de Voo da Saab, localizado na cidade sueca de Linköping. Os caças Gripen C/D são constantemente desenvolvidos, recebendo novos equipamentos e software. Além disso, o Gripen NG Demonstrator também já foi submetido a voos de teste. A Força Aérea Sueca começou a operar caças Gripen C/D, em 2005. O Gripen de número 39210 foi o primeiro Gripen C a ultrapassar a marca de 1.000 horas de voo, no início deste mês.

The basic over look and shooting test of the nerf product …

Shopping store: buy cheap Nerf N Strike & discount

NERF N-Strike Vulcan EBF-25 Review

by 006airsoft (Category: Entertainment)

Como nos aburrimos y andamos justos de noticias, hoy os traemos esta viñeta que nos explica qué sucedió en VULCAN después de que selvatgi abandonase la ciudadanía:

Hola, queridos lectores.

Muchas gracias por haber venido a la inauguración de un nuevo diario.

La verdad, yo era un poco escéptico sobre esto de los periódicos, pero dado el incremento del número de ellos, pues razoné que son muy útiles para mantener a la gente informada.

En concreto, este periódico hablará de todo lo que acontezca en VirtualPol, aunque esté hecho por un vulcano.

Comenzamos esta nueva andadura hablando de un asunto que conmocionó a Hispania, y a toda la sociedad de VirtualPol.

Hoy se vivieron momentos muy tensos en la plaza hispana, ya que, después de haber sido proclamado presidente Fray, el ahora ex-presidente Mixalberto se disponía a dimitir de su cargo cuando algo sucedió. No aceptaban su dimisión. ¿Cómo es posible que haya dos presidentes en un mismo país?, pensaba la mayoría de ciudadanos.

Ya muchos pensaban que Mixalberto iba a ser Rey de Hispania, dado que los reyes no pueden dimitir. Pueden abdicar, mas no dimitir.

Desesperados, los hispanos imploraron a su Dios, GONZO, para que solucionara el problema. GONZO es muy sabio, es todopoderoso, y no defraudó a nadie, habiendo solucionado el conflicto de intereses. Ahora Fray goza de su presidencia de Hispania sin preocupaciones.

Aunque ese no es el único problema que pasa en la sociedad. El caso de Johnny_Palillo tiene para más de un artículo. Y es que, después del juicio del ciudadano Lula (un servidor), nadie está contento.

Las disputas dialécticas se suceden día tras día entre Xabio, 11m11 y otros ciudadanos, habiéndose creado un conflicto de intereses entre los partidarios de su muerte, o simplemente de su expulsión de Vulcan, bien permanente o bien durante 3 meses, como dicta el Código Penal vulcano.

Esperemos que se solucione pronto y para bien de todos.

Firmado: Lula, Juez de Paz vulcano, y redactor y jefe de La Nueva Virtualpol.

NOVEMEBER 22ND in LA

mtn promo from viejas del mercado on Vimeo.

33third Los angeles / Mid-City Arts & Montana Present:

The 1st Annual Montana Exhibitiion This Sunday November 22, 2009 12-6pm

A FREE Live Painting Exhibition By Some Of The Worlds Top Street Artsits:

Apex (SF), Jase (SF), King 157 (SJ), Neon (SF), Revok (LA), Rime (LA), Saber (LA), Sever (ATL), Vulcan (SF)

All Montana Products Will Be On-Sale

This Event Is Free & Open To The Public.

33third Los Angeles / Mid-City Arts
5111 W. Pico Blvd.
Los Angeles Ca. 90019
(310) 694-3460
midcityarts@gmail.com

Das Motorradfahren ist weniger ein Hobby als eine Leidenschaft von mir, leider kann ich seit einigen Jahren aufgrund einer Schulterverletzung nicht mehr fahren und mein Mopped döst seither in der Garage

Hier mal ein Foto, nach dem zweiten Umbau. Es wurden Lenker, Blinker, Spiegel, Sitzbank, Auspuffanlage, Fußrasten etc. verändert.

Und nach sechs Vorstellungen beim TüV, bekam ich endlich nach einigen weiteren Änderungen den erforderlichen TüV Segen

Vermutlich habe ich den TüV auch so genervt, dass die mich so schnell nicht wiedersehen wollten. Auf jeden Fall kannte ich anschließend jeden Prüfer, der dort beschäftigt war

The city of Boston, MA has declared today LEONARD NIMOY DAY, in honor of everyone’s favorite Vulcan who is a Boston native. So to celebrate check out this interview from the Boston Pheonix HERE and this absolute career highlight, Mr Nimoy singing The Legend Of Bilbo Baggins! Leave a comment and tell us what you’ll be doing on this most illogical day…

what… the… fuck???

For more info go to: 33Third.com

The statue of Vulcan stands atop Red Mountain and has been linked to the City of Birmingham for over a hundred years. People from the other side of the mountain, however, saw the statue’s bare rear end, leading to the standing joke that Vulcan was mooning Homewood.

Created for the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, the statue was designed to highlight Birmingham’s historical tie to the iron and steel industry. It’s the largest cast iron statue in the world and continues to serve as a symbol for the city. Birmingham is the only place on earth where one can find large deposits of the three minerals required for the manufacture of iron – coal, iron ore, and limestone. For years it was known as the Pittsburgh of the South, but the furnaces are quiet now and the air cleaner. I remember in the 1960’s when TCI poured iron, and the sky around the facility was bright with the reflection of the molten metal.

So Vulcan, the god of the forge, was a perfect representation of Birmingham. The statue, which won a first prize at the World’s Fair, was created in pieces, and after the fair the pieces were left by the railroad tracks, abandoned due to unpaid freight fees. The pieces were later moved to the Alabama State Fairgrounds. My sister-in-law’s mother told me when she was a little girl and went to the fair her mother told her if she got lost to go to Vulcan’s toe and wait. My mother also remembered seeing the pieces at the fairgrounds.

It was later assembled at the state fairgrounds, but didn’t get its permanent location atop Red Mountain until the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration partially funded a park on the mountain in 1936. Having lost his original spear during transport from St. Louis, Vulcan was given a neon torch in 1946. If the city had gone 24 hours without a traffic fatality, the torch glowed green; otherwise, it was red.

The father of one of my best friends from high school was the man who maintained the torch, a responsibility I found admirable. He later worked to design all of the neon at Galleria, a gigantic mall south of Birmingham. He was also a wonderful person.

Vulcan’s bare butt was a constant joke when we were growing up; two local disc jockeys tried to get the city should put Bermuda shorts on the statue. This was shortly after a local woman’s group had statues in one of the downtown parks covered to hide their nude forms.

When I was growing up, it was common for teenagers to end their dates by climbing Vulcan’s inside stairs and look at the city. Once my brother came home from a date with lipstick smeared on his white sports coat, but he said he’d gotten it by brushing against the wall inside Vulcan.

The statue was taken down in 1999 and fully restored, along with a new observation deck which opened in 2003. Shortly after the statue’s restoration began, I was on a buying binge on eBay, trying to put together an album of postcards of what Birmingham was like when she grew up there. I missed out on a set of five postcards, but the winning bidder tracked me down and we began emailing each other. I told him what I was doing, and he said he was gathering information for Vulcan’s restoration – I believe his firm was in Washington, DC. He asked me to scan and send him any postcards I had of Vulcan’s early years which I did, of course. In return, he sent me the non-Vulcan postcards for my album, plus a scan of the one of the statue. I like to think that in a small way I helped with the restoration. And in the restoration, Vulcan got back his spear.

A final note is about the wonderful Birmingham writer, the late Anne George who wrote the Southern Sisters mystery series. In her book Murder Gets a Life, fifth in the series cut short by Anne’s untimely death, the author includes a recipe for Vulcan’s Buns which I’ll gladly send anyone who requests it.

©2009 jgschenck

"The Mona Lisa"

If you’re in the Bay Area this Saturday there’s some pretty cool FREE stuff going on over at the Shooting Gallery — a Stencil Workshop (spray paint provided by Montana) and you can bring t-shirts and stencils from home or create stencils there and work on a giant wood panel they’re installing in the alley beside the gallery.  That fun will be followed by a Street Art Lecture with Apex, Vulcan and Neonski talking about their signature “Super Burner” murals (some of which have as many as 500 colors in them).

All the deets are right here.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

In honor of the holiday, today’s factoid revolves around my Halloween costumes.  I loved being literary characters as a young child, but over the past few years, I have usually been movie characters.  This year, I dressed up as Spock from “Star Trek,” proudly wearing the pointy ears and giving the Vulcan salute when called upon.

LIVE LONG AND PROSPER!

P.S. – I think I am really cool again and watching two horror movies today, the original “Saw” and “Drag Me to Hell.”