The beautiful Princess Giselle is banished by evil Queen Narissa from her magical, musical, animated land and finds herself in the gritty reality of the streets of modern-day Manhattan. Shocked by this strange new environment, that doesn’t operate on a “happily ever after” basis, Giselle is now adrift in a chaotic world, badly in need of enchantment. [When] Giselle begins to fall in love with a charmingly flawed divorce lawyer, who has come to her aid, even though she is already promised to a perfect fairy tale Prince back home, she has to wonder…can a storybook view of romance survive in the real world?
IMDb Storyline
In the animated fairy tale kingdom of Andalasia, Narissa, the corrupt, ruthless queen and dark sorceress, schemes to protect her claim to the throne, which she will lose once her stepson, Prince Edward, finds his true love and marries. Giselle, a young woman, dreams of meeting a prince and experiencing a “happily ever after”. Edward hears Giselle singing and sets off to find her. She and Edward are instantly attracted to each other and plan to be married the following day. Disguised as an old hag, Narissa intercepts Giselle on her way to the wedding and pushes her into a well, where Giselle is magically transformed into a live-action version of herself, [then] transported to New York’s Times Square in the real reality.
Photo Credit: Screen Rant
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Hanspostcard/Quinn Maddux has a TV draft challenge. This is my Round Two pick.
“You can’t take the sky from me.”
Ok. I will say it. I am a hopeless Sci-Fi geek. I could easily do this TV Draft with nothing but Sci-Fi. I led with Doctor Who because it, by far, has the longest tapestry in my life. I would venture to say that Firefly was the shortest…and, yes, I am a Browncoat. I had an extensive list of Sci-Fi choices but, chose these two, only, because I also wanted to touch on other genres including law enforcement, drama, comedy and a couple of cartoons. ~Vic
Image Credit: Neato Shop
When this came out, it struck me as being very close to the original description given to the first Star Trek series…a western in space. Fox had already scored big with the X-Files, running from September 1993 to May 2002. Firefly debuted September 2002 and, I was front and center. I didn’t find out until later that the first episode that aired was not the first episode of the series. You can thank Fox executives for that mess-up. It went downhill from there.
Created by Joss Whedon (Executive Producer, Writer, Theme Composter & Director of three episodes), it starred:
★ Nathon Fillion as Malcolm “Mal” Reynolds, the owner & Captain of Serenity, a Firefly-class, small transport spaceship. He is a former sergeant from the Battle of Serenity Valley, an Independent soldier in the war against the Alliance (a fusion of the last two superpowers, the US & China) in the year 2517.
★ Gina Torres as Zoë Alleyne Washburne, second-in-command aboard Serenity and Mal’s loyal corporal during the war. She is Wash’s wife.
★ Alan Tudyk as Hoban “Wash” Washburne, Serenity’s pilot and a bit jealous over his wife’s attachment to Mal. He is known for cracking jokes, even during horrible situations.
★ Morena Baccarin as Inara Serra, a Companion that is a blending of a courtesan, a geisha & a mistress. She has a very high social status and rents one of Serenity’s small shuttles. She & Mal are attracted to each other, dislike each other’s “jobs” and want to remain professional towards each other.
★ Adam Baldwin as Jayne Cobb, a 6’4″ mercenary that acts dumber than he really is. He sends much of his income back to his mother. He is excellent in a fight, has an intense fear of Reavers and has an extreme dislike of Simon and his sister, River, as she attacked him with a knife.
Image Credit: Aerettberg
Deviant Art
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★ Jewel Staite as Kaywinnet Lee “Kaylee” Frye, the ship’s adorable mechanic. With no formal training, she intuitively knows mechanical equipment. She routinely talks to Serenity and has a crush on Simon Tam.
★ Sean Maher as Simon Tam, a trauma surgeon (top 3% of his class) that became a fugitive after he snatched his sister, River, out of a government research facility. He struggles with his desire for Kaylee as his life revolves around his sister.
★ Summer Glau as River Tam, an intuitive child prodigy that the Alliance experimented on, leading to psychic abilities and combat training. She suffers from PTSD and has flashbacks from the experiments. She can be delusional, paranoid and violent without warning.
★ Ron Glass as Derrial Book, commonly referred to as Shepherd Book (a 24th century version of a pastor). A devout Christian, his background is unknown but, he has much knowledge that the average pastor would not have. He has a fairly high status with the Alliance and, though he objects to violence, he is skilled in combat. Quote: “…while the Bible is quite specific about killing, it is somewhat fuzzier on the subject of kneecaps.” Book is the voice of reason, spirituality and conscience for the crew.
Image Credit: The Movie Database
Fourteen episodes, with a two-hour pilot, were produced but, only 11 of them aired before being unceremoniously cancelled. The Browncoat Brigade started a postcard writing campaign to Fox, and UPN but, it ultimately failed. They continued to push for the DVD release and, in 2005, the feature film Serenity was released on September 30.
Gore Vidal: […on Truman’s voice…] “To the lucky person who has never heard it, I can only say…imagine what a brussel sprout would sound like, if a brussel sprout could talk.”
Truman Capote: […on Smith & Hickock…] “When you’re talking to them, they seem like perfectly nice boys. To be frank, I’m much more concerned for my safety around Norman Mailer.”
This is the second movie on Truman Capote regarding his foray into the Clutter Family murders. Released August 31, 2006, at the Venice Film Festival and widely on October 13, 2006, this film stood in the shadow of Philip Seymour Hoffman‘s Capote and his Academy Award for Best Actor. Unlike its predecessor, this film, with its $13 million budget, lost money. That being said, despite Hoffman’s turn, Toby Jones is no slouch and his interpretation has its own unique depth. Jones was awarded the London Critics’ Circle Film Award for British Actor of the Year. I found this film to be fascinating and quite entertaining, with parts difficult to watch. Bubbly Sandra Bullock brings forth the subdued, Southern To Kill A Mockingbird novelist Harper Lee. Much of the storytelling is done in mock interviews with the actors, in character, talking about their interactions with Truman. I seem to have a thing for underdog/obscure movies. ~Vic
“Why shouldn’t there be a fizzy, comedic take on the naughty adventures of the Park Avenue gadabout as he fashioned In Cold Blood […]? Why not a movie that concentrates on the contrast between the writer’s frivolous party-boy side and the brutal murders in Kansas, the exotic and colorful tropical specimen who becomes a fish-out-of water when he jumps from his luxurious high-rise swan pond into the Midwestern plains?
[A]fter In Cold Blood, [Capote] never published another major work. Out of career desperation as much as anything else, he sold out his friendships with these […] people, publishing gossipy stories about them in an Esquire excerpt from Answered Prayers in 1976 and was banished from their lives.
[T]he movie centers on the symbiotic relationship between Truman and Perry, pondering the extent of the seduction and, who seduced whom.
Toby Jones inhabits Truman as if he were to the character born, a livelier and more perversely ebullient man than Phillip Seymour Hoffman‘s version in Capote (2005).”
I discovered this band when their third track Painless was released in the US in November 1991. Suze’s voice is stunning and powerful and, her band is as hard rocking as any from Downunder. I bought the CD and there’s not a bad song on it. It deserved Album of the Year. They broke up in 1996 but, reformed in 2007. They continue to perform and record.
Have you ever been faced with the job of re-decorating a room? You know what it’s like…you strip off the old wallpaper only to find that the plaster is full of cracks. This means either filling in the cracks or re-plastering with all the mess that entails. Well, this is what has been happening for the past months (or years) to everybody, either on a personal level, a government level or nationally.
These are the real symptoms of change. In order to become new, to find out who we truly are, we first have to demolish the old. This process of change we are undergoing requires that everything of the past is cleared out so that we can see the cracks that have been underlying our lives for some time. We cannot become what our potential demands as long as the world, and ourselves, are still layered over with the old paper, old ways of being, which covered up everything.
Through 2007, and particularly 2008, we have seen the removal of many layers of old paper, which have served to blinker our view of reality. As we entered 2009, the blinkers really began to come off and we started to realise that we, as individuals, have to take responsibility for our own lives. We can no longer rely on anyone or any institution to save us. Those who have turned to the ‘quick fix’ for their problems realised, at long last, that there cannot be a quick solution. We cannot just add another layer of wallpaper. We have to face the consequences of re-building from the foundations up.
Taking Positive Action
You know the kinds of conversations we have all had, where you come up with the answer:
“I know I should be doing (whatever it is) but,…”
Well, the result of all of this self-work is that the answer needs to be changed to:
“I know I should be doing (whatever it is) so, I am going to start doing it now.”
This is what the last couple of years have been about…removing the wallpaper and seeing the cracks underneath, to help us to realise that we can no longer paper over these cracks. We have to take positive action and positive action, now. We cannot wait until 2011 or even 2012. If we wait beyond 2009 to take action, we will not be able to make it as far as the end of 2011. This is what the energies for change truly mean. We need to put our own house in order, clear out old emotions, and ways of dealing with the people with whom we share our lives, before we can reach our higher levels of being. And, nobody is going to do it for us.
It’s a nice thought that there are legions of ‘angels’, ET’s or even well meaning ‘orbs’ out there who are going to step in and do all of the work for us. But, the reality is that, while they may be happy to show us what we need to do, it is we, ourselves, who need to do it. [In] that sense, we are on our own. This is our planet and it is our mess we need to clear up. There are those beings ‘out there’ who would love to come and help but, they cannot come and help until we have shown that we are capable of resolving our own problems by making our leap into full consciousness. Until we have made that leap, we are on our own. The two featured books (visible in the blog post as The Universal Soul and The Human Soul) can help you understand where you are in this process of change and how to move forwards.
Consciousness Reintegration
This full consciousness state is that which many have come to call ‘Ascension’ but, we need to remember that we are not actually ‘ascending’ anywhere. We are staying firmly rooted on the planet. What we are supposed to be doing is bringing the ‘Higher Self’ into the physical body. In so doing, we ‘ascend’ to higher levels of consciousness and understanding. Once we have achieved that, we will be greeted by every ‘angel, and ET in the Universe to congratulate us on a job well done. According to the Akashic, there are currently about two million people who have already achieved this full consciousness reintegration world-wide. The majority of these people live in tribal cultures in remote regions of the planet. They have achieved what we all set out to achieve on this amazing Earth. So, during 2009, the rest of us, in the ‘western world’, need to be taking the necessary steps to catch up with them. This can only be achieved by each individual taking responsibility for themselves and not putting off, ’til tomorrow, what they can do today.
It’s finally October, home month of jack-o-lanterns, ghosties, ghoulies, witches (the cartoon type), bats, spiders, skeletons, and the like, for the upcoming Halloween. I love wandering around to get shots of local decorations, much like Christmas. This post, however, covers some of my old stuff…stuff collected over the years (remember email forwards?)…stuff I didn’t take, myself, plus…a really cute video from 2005. I have no idea who took these. ~Vic
The show revolves around contestants competing by identifying accurate pricing of merchandise to win cash and prizes. Contestants are selected from the studio audience when the announcer states the show’s famous catchphrase, “Come on down!” (Contestants’ Row) [F]our contestants are called […] to take a spot in the front row behind bidding podiums […]. [They] compete in a bidding round to determine which contestant will play the next pricing game (known as One Bid). After winning the One Bid, the contestant joins the host onstage for the opportunity to win additional prizes or cash by playing a pricing game. [The Showcase Showdown (spinning The Big Wheel) follows with a final winner selected at the end of the episode (The Showcase)]
The Price Is Right has aired over 8,000 episodes since its debut and is one of the longest-running network series in United States television history. The show’s [48th] season [will] premiere on September [23, 2019.]
The Galaxy Song[1] Whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown
And, things seem hard or tough
And, people are stupid, obnoxious or daft
And, feel that you’ve had quite enough
Just remember that you’re standing on a planet
That’s evolving and revolving at nine hundred miles an hour
It’s orbiting at ninety miles a second, so it’s reckoned
A sun that is the source of all our power
The sun, and you and me, and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm at forty thousand miles an hour
Of the galaxy we call the Milky Way
Our galaxy, itself, contains a hundred billion stars
It’s a hundred thousand light years side to side
It bulges in the middle to sixteen light years thick
But, out by us it’s just three thousand light years wide
We’re thirty thousand light years from galactic central point
We go ’round every two hundred million years
And, our galaxy is only one of millions and billions
In this amazing and expanding universe
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, the speed of light you know
Twelve million miles a minute
And, that’s the fastest speed there is
So remember, when you’re feeling very small and insecure
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And, pray that there is intelligent life somewhere out in space
Because, there’s bugger all down here on Earth
I have included Eric Idle’s Galaxy Song for the same reasons that I used it as the frontispiece for The Human Soul, published back in 2007. The reason is to show, in a non-serious way, how little we really understand about our Universe, our solar system, the Earth and ourselves. Humans have become so focused down onto the minutiae of our day-to-day lives that we forget that we have a greater purpose beyond being a “wage slave”. The other main problem we seem to have developed over the past few years is that we only see the world around us in very small “bites”…if it isn’t immediately in front of us on our computer screen, we don’t consider it and, as soon as we change the website, we have forgotten what we read on the last web page. We seem to have forgotten all about context and history.
Image Credit: rsc.org
Mr. Idle’s little ditty also highlights another problem we have. We see ourselves as being very small and this makes us insecure. Added to which are the determined efforts by the “Elite” to keep us in a permanent state of fear so that we only think about our lives in reference to whatever is currently making us afraid. Given that we do not understand who, and what, we actually are, how we are deliberately kept in a state of fear and, we do not remember what our true place is within this Universe, is it any wonder that people have begun to look for help from beings, and places, beyond our solar system?
The line in the song: “And pray that there is intelligent life somewhere out in space…” seems to have caught a great many people’s interest and, they are looking to other races to come in and save them from themselves. However, the Velon, and all of their misleading disguises, should not be seen as being “intelligent life”. If we properly understood ourselves, and our place in current Universal history, we would know, absolutely, that we have all of the information and the tools we need already with us here on Earth. We already have everything we need to solve our problems as part of our fundamental make up. We have just forgotten that we are so much more than we have been propagandised into believing.
The Situation Since 1996
December 21st 2012 was a critical day in a series of recent critical days that began in 1996. To try and re-tell our history, as recorded in the Akashic, at this point, would be pointless. This is fully covered in my books. But, some historic connections need to be made in order to explain the significance of 1996 and the critical days that followed up to the present. To understand the present, you have to place it into its historical context, otherwise, what is happening now cannot be understood properly.
The Earth revolves on its own axis. The Earth orbits around the Sun. The Sun travels around its own orbit, travelling at 200 Km/hr. On its orbit, the Sun travels through many regions of our galaxy and, every 26,250 years, the Sun aligns with the center of the galaxy. With this galactic alignment comes a new burst of energy that can be used to rejuvenate the energies within our solar system, if the planetary consciousnesses choose to so do. This 26,250 year cycle is the one referred to in the ancient calendar systems, the most well known of which is the Mayan Calendar.
We began to enter the central galactic energy stream a few years ago but, the energies, as far as their potential influence is concerned, reached its peak between the 29th of October 2011 and the 21st of December 2012. This is why these dates have significance. This is why human plans (The Human Plan) were timed to reach their conclusions at this time…to take maximum advantage of the fresh energies arriving from the galaxy center. This is the Mayan 6th Sun.
To continue reading (it’s eight pages), download the PDF version HERE.
[Note: This PDF was originally posted on the One-Vibration Forum Blog on July 6, 2013.]
Footnote [1]The Galaxy Song was written by Eric Idle. Music by Eric Idle and John Du Prez. Taken from Monty Python’s film The Meaning of Life, I did attempt to contact Eric Idle, or his agents, to obtain copyright approval to reproduce the lyrics here but, unfortunately, I could not find any way of contacting him. The lyrics are available on many websites. You can also watch Eric Idle and the Monty Python team perform the song on YouTube.
This is for the birds! I will have more next Friday or Saturday.
All Photos Are My Personal Collection
A murder of chattering crows at dusk.
Taken in Texas 12-12-2007Pet parrot visiting uptown.
10-22-2011
Beautiful bird.We have local geese that hang out at the river.
This one took up bodyguard duty to four ducks.
04-23-2016Standing guard while they eat.Careful crossing the street.Different goose. Same job.
02-13-2017
January 9 has been a very special day to Apple, Inc. On this day in 2001, Apple announced iTunesat MacWorld San Francisco, an application for Internet radio, music playing, ripping music from CDs and maintaining a library. The software ran on MacOS and Windows and, in 2003, you could download media from the iTunes Store. In 2005, Apple extended functionality for video and podcasts…University lectures in 2007 and, books in 2010. iTunes Radio, free music streaming, came in 2013 followed by Apple Music, paid music streaming, in 2015.
“This is a day that I have been looking forward to for two and a half years. Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone.”
From Wikipedia:
Apple created the device during a secretive and unprecedented collaboration with AT&T, formerly Cingular Wireless. The development cost of the collaboration was estimated to have been $150 million over a thirty-month period. Apple rejected the “design by committee” approach that had yielded the Motorola ROKR E1, a largely unsuccessful collaboration with Motorola. Instead, Cingular Wireless gave Apple the liberty to develop the iPhone’s hardware and software in-house. The whole effort was called Project Purple 2 and began in 2005. Six weeks before the iPhone was to be released, the plastic screen was replaced with a glass one, after Jobs was upset that the screen of the prototype he was carrying in his pocket had been scratched by his keys.
With the iPhone X costing $1,000 dollars, Apple rules the world.
This is Part Three of the five-part series showcasing my former supervisor W. H. Patton’s photography. The original post is here. Last Saturday’s post is here.
The above picture (on a phone) or the picture to the left (on a PC) is from the Texas Lone Star Wind Farm just outside of Abilene (northeast) and Clyde (northwest). On one of my visits to his ranch in Clyde, he took me out to this wind farm installation. Those wind turbines make the weirdest noises.
I wish I had remembered MY camera.
Round Three below.
Image Credits: W. H. Patton
Wild turkey in his backyard, 04-07-2008Another gobbler, 04-07-2008Backyard Dove, 07-31-2007Pair of Doves, 07-31-2007Roadrunner in the backyard, 07-30-2007Perched Roadrunner, 05-31-2008Bandits in the bird bath, 11-08-2007Covey of Quail, 01-03-2009
In my previous post from November 24, I spoke of my former supervisor, W. H. Patton, whom I worked for, and with, from September of 2002 until he retired in May of 2007. This is Part Two of a five-part series. Below are more of his photography works.
Photo Credit: W. H. Patton
From his ranch in 2007, a pair of BobcatsPhoto Credit: W. H. Patton
From his driveway, 09-16-2008Photo Credit: W. H. Patton
From his driveway, 09-16-2008Photo Credit: W. H. Patton
From his backyard, 09-16-2008Photo Credit: W. H. Patton
From his back patio, The Quartet 08-10-2008Photo Credit: W. H. Patton
From his back patio, The Texas State Bird Chorus & a couple of wasps 08-10-2008Photo Credit: W. H. Patton
From his back patio, 07-23-2007Photo Credit: W. H. Patton
From his backyard, 07-23-2007
