Egad. It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown was first broadcast 40 years ago tonight.
Here’s the NPR story that reminded me of it this morning: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6388497
“You’ve heard of the fury of a woman scorned, haven’t you? Well, that’s nothing compared to the fury of a woman who has been cheated out of trick-or-treats.”
Truer words were never spoke.
We Evil Mad Scientists like Halloween. A lot.
You might have already seen our old-school Cylon Jack-o-lantern. Here is another halloween electronics project, hopefully in time for you to make your own: It
My love for this show is growing by super leaps and time-twisting bounds.
If you haven’t checked out 9th Wonders (the Official/Unofficial Fan Site for Heroes), you should. It’s pretty nifty.
If you would all be dears and head over to PopCurrent.com and give me a nice rating, I would surely become rich and famous. Then, I’d invite you all over to my mansion for a fondue party.
“In a notice dated Wednesday, the Justice Department listed 196 pending habeas cases, some of which cover groups of detainees. The new Military Commissions Act (MCA), it said, provides that ‘no court, justice, or judge’ can consider those petitions or other actions related to treatment or imprisonment filed by anyone designated as an enemy combatant, now or in the future.” – Washington Post
So, once you’re designated an “enemy combatant” you have no right to challenge that in court. Peachy.
And just how do you get to be designated an enemy combatant? However and whenever the President or Himmler Secretary of Defense feel like it.
A finding, whether before, on, or after the date of the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the President or the Secretary of Defense that a person is an unlawful enemy combatant is dispositive for purposes of jurisdiction for trial by military commission under this chapter. – Military Commissions Act of 2006
Here’s the key question. If you (and I mean you) are accused of being an unlawful enemy combatant, stripped of whatever you’re carrying (like your wallet and ID), and you don’t have habeas corpus rights to challenge it in court, how do you prove you’re a citizen…?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15321167/
[ via a co-conspirator ]
HEROES IS THE MOST AWESOMEST SHOW EVER!
UPDATE: They’re going to show the last 3 episodes on Sunday, Oct 22, starting at 8pm. So, you can get caught up if you missed it.
That still doesn’t totally help if you missed the first episode. So, here’s a plot summary. (Don’t read it if you want to figure stuff out yourself.)
Hello lumpkins. Didya miss me?
Apparently not, considering the tidal wave of concern for my whereabouts that didn’t flood my inbox. But no matter. I am returned safe and sound from the wilds of The Meadows (“Las Vegas” to my Hispanic friends), where I spent a week standing around in dress shoes and urging people who were otherwise occupied with loading up shopping bags full of free candy, tobacco and beer to buy accounting software. They were so excited to drop that and come to our booth that most of them went running right past, poor dears.
In any case, I did get a chance to freeze my butt off at the Voodoo Cafe on the 55th floor of the Rio Hotel and to have a cheeseburger in paradise at Margaritaville, a home for the diehard parrot head. (If you are someone who merely “likes” Jimmy Buffett, you’ll go a little insane there). So, it wasn’t a total loss.
Well, I have to get back to catching up on my DVR watching. So, don’t expect another post for a week or so. Try not to suffer too badly, eh?
Moving back to a more serious matter, let’s talk about addiction.
Having watched more episodic television in the past two weeks than in recent memory, I really have a hard time picturing myself sitting in front of the TV for six or seven nights a week for three or four hours a night (after being allowed to stay up past 9pm, of course).
Right now, I’m talking about watching three or four series and a smattering of other shows like I’m wasting half my waking hours! But when I was a kid? Feh. Try 20 or 30 hours (counting Saturday morning cartoons and the “Gilligan” hours from 3 or 4 in the afternoon until the news came on at 6, when they’d re-run Gilligan, Star Trek, Brady Bunch, Jeannie, etc.).
See? I’m much better now! *shakes*
But the problem with finding a list of historical TV schedules is that now I have to sit here and recreate my nightly viewing habits from ages past. I can’t just let those grids sit there, mocking me, whispering “remember me… remember me… remember meeeeeee…”
So, here is our nightly viewing schedule from 1967 (the year I was hooked by “Lost in Space”) until I graduated high school (1980) with a special, bonus Saturday Morning Cartoon lineup.
‘cuz, I know you care.
When I was a kid, I lived in front of the TV. Nightly TV was a ritual not to be trifled with. There was a schedule to be maintained. Six Million Dollar Man, The Invisible Man, Happy Days, Welcome Back Kotter, Little House on the Prairie, The Waltons, M*A*S*H, Emergency!… and that was just 1975. Every year there was great care and planning put into the shows to be watched in the upcoming season.
I got better. Somehow.
In fact, it had been years since I regularly watched a television show. Sure, I’d catch Monk or Mythbusters when I thought about it. I’d sometimes watch ER or House or Simpsons, Family Guy or South Park. I remember watching a season of the X-Files off and on. But I wouldn’t go out of my way to clear time for any of them on a regular basis. The last show that I scheduled my life around was Babylon 5 (and can you believe it’s been almost 8 years since the last episode?).
With the SciFi Channel’s re-broadcasting of the new series of Doctor Who last year, the habit crept back in. I only missed one episode of that. But it was just one show, right? No worse than B5. And that hadn’t turned into anything serious? Right???
Well, I just finished watching the second episode of Heroes. And it is aaaaawesome. I’m hooked.
On top of that, I watched the Battlestar Galactica “The Story So Far”… and I think I’m hooked on that now, too!
And… and…I watched the season premiere of Smallville and was blown away. So, I think I’m going to have to watch that regularly, as well.
And…and…and… ok, that’s all. But still. Is this a trend? Someone stop me before I start watching 24 or Lost. Please?
