Month: February 2017

  • Bowling Green Mandela Effect!?

    Bowling Green Mandela Effect!?

    Kellyanne Conway, President Trump’s advisor, got herself in a bit of a jam..

    ABC news reported it this way yesterday:


    Despite comments made by White House Senior Counselor Kellyanne Conway, there never was a massacre at the hands of Iraqi refugees in the city of Bowling Green, Kentucky.
    In fact there never has been a terror attack of any kind in the city of 60,000, and local officials are now rushing to assure everyone their town is safe – and always has been.
    “I bet it’s brand new information to people that President Obama had a six-month ban on the Iraqi refugee program after two Iraqis came here to this country, were radicalized, and they were the masterminds behind the Bowling Green Massacre,” Conway said on MSNBC on Thursday night. “I mean most people don’t know that because it didn’t get covered.”
    It didn’t get covered because it didn’t happen. There was no massacre.
    It is true – as ABC News first reported in 2013 – that in 2009 two al-Qaeda terrorists from Iraq were found to be living as refugees in Bowling Green. In court, they later admitted that they had attacked U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
    The arrest of the two men, who are now in prison, led to a six month drastic curtailment and overhaul of the Iraqi refugee program in 2011.
    The entire saga played out in the small Kentucky town without bloodshed, much less a massacre.

    And with that, a scandal developed.. a laugh line emerged. And another political football was thrown.

    But I try to delve deeper than the static noise..

    I saw an interesting theory online tonight regarding this event.. something worth passing on for your thoughtful intercession.

    This is not a defense of Conway, nor any attempt at making sense of the Trump Administration thus far.. but it’s being offered up because of my life of the Mandela Effect, the paranormal, and politics..

    What if–WHAT IF!–Conway experienced a Mandela Effect? A time slip!? A moment where the past seems to be different from what you thought it was..?

    A very public Mandela Effect, perhaps?

    This is where politics may rear its head.. and quite possibly where you stand on Trump will have some play in what you think next.

    But follow this.. just think..

    From a REDDIT thread:

    I know the press is (unfairly?) hammering Kellyanne Conway about this and everyone just assumes she made it up, but does anyone else remember an actual Bowling Green Massacre?
    And I’m not talking about the arms smuggling scheme or whatever that all of the articles I’ve read seem to think she might have been talking about. I mean an actual, honest-to-goodness terrorist attack.
    I definitely recall a bombing in Bowling Green that killed … maybe a dozen people? I think it happened either at the end of the Bush administration or the first month of the Obama administration. I’m pretty sure it involved a suicide bomb being set off on a city bus. The way I remember it was a young muslim guy–he could have been in his late teens, possibly early twenties? (I’m ashamed to admit this, but I remember seeing his pictures on the news and thinking he was kind of cute.) He hid an IED inside a dufflebag or knapsack or something and I think he detonated it using an ipod or some kind of portable music player.
    Later, they arrested a second, older muslim guy. I think he was responsible for building the bomb. They were definitely both Iraqi refugees, like Conway said.
    So am I nuts, or did this happen? Everyone at work thinks I’ve lost it.

    Yes this is a big stretch, and yes most likely many skeptical people will continue to be critical of the original post on REDDIT.

    But … for a late night with stars in the sky, such thought seems appropriate. After midnight, no holds are barred.. even political Mandela Effects that are felt far and wide..

  • Doctors discover a live cockroach inside a woman’s…

    Doctors discover a live cockroach inside a woman’s…

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wACLoFMaR30?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&origin=http://safe.txmblr.com&wmode=opaque&w=400&h=225]

    Doctors discover a live cockroach inside a woman’s head…
    And yes, there’s video.

  • IMDB SHUTTING DOWN MESSAGE BOARDS!

    IMDB SHUTTING DOWN MESSAGE BOARDS!

    Goodbye old century! 

    The new net of Facebook, less creativity, and ‘socials’ is here.. the ghetto of socials..

    Take this news for instance: IMDB is announcing on its site that a primary reason so many have visited and stayed through the years is going away. Their message boards are over February 20 ..

    No love is in the air after Valentine’s Day.

    From the announcement: 

    IMDb is the world’s most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content. As part of our ongoing effort to continually evaluate and enhance the customer experience on IMDb, we have decided to disable IMDb’s message boards on February 20, 2017. This includes the Private Message system. After in-depth discussion and examination, we have concluded that IMDb’s message boards are no longer providing a positive, useful experience for the vast majority of our more than 250 million monthly users worldwide. The decision to retire a long-standing feature was made only after careful consideration and was based on data and traffic.

    Increasingly, IMDb customers have migrated to IMDb’s social media accounts as the primary place they choose to post comments and communicate with IMDb’s editors and one another. IMDb’s Facebook page (http://ift.tt/1ulSoDG) and official Twitter account (https://twitter.com/imdb) have an audience of more than 10 million engaged fans. IMDb also maintains official accounts on Snapchat (http://ift.tt/2kxzCzS), Pinterest (http://ift.tt/1QJ17hJ), YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/imdb), and Tumblr (http://imdb.tumblr.com/).

    Because IMDb’s message boards continue to be utilized by a small but passionate community of IMDb users, we announced our decision to disable our message boards on February 3, 2017 but will leave them open for two additional weeks so that users will have ample time to archive any message board content they’d like to keep for personal use. During this two-week transition period, which concludes on February 19, 2017, IMDb message board users can exchange contact information with any other board users they would like to remain in communication with (since once we shut down the IMDb message boards, users will no longer be able to send personal messages to one another). We regret any disappointment or frustration IMDb message board users may experience as a result of this decision.

    IMDb is passionately committed to providing innovative ways for our hundreds of millions of users to engage and communicate with one another. We will continue to enhance our current offerings and launch new features in 2017 and beyond that will help our customers communicate and express themselves in meaningful ways while leveraging emerging technologies and opportunities.

    I have long been interested in the changing and twisting habit of NET goers.. When I was young it was AOL messenger, chat rooms, and really brilliant people in message boards espousing their beliefs on just about anything.

    Those days are gone.. being anonymous is gone.. your name in bold print is here.

    And with each shut down of old style technology, the ghetto of social media breeds bad habits.

    Sorry to say, but keep Facebook. I know I’m on it.. 
    Twitter and Instagram too.
    But the real debate and fun was on 20th century internet websites that are dying every day.

    Goodbye old web.
    Welcome to the devolution of conversation inspired by corporate elites who save every keystroke and sell it.

  • Saturday morning box office review: SPLIT OVER RINGS!

    Saturday morning box office review: SPLIT OVER RINGS!

    Paramount’s Rings and STX’s teen romance The Space Between Us which are respectively opening to $12.8M in second and $3.8M in seventh..

    The entire concept of RINGS appears to be oddly disjointed anyway.. it has been 15 years since the original VHS related horror flick. The mess of this film attempts to bind together early century technology with modern file sharing, and what could have been a clever homage to some other time and age turns into a clunky pile of 21st century junk..

    But guess what’s first? Pretty exciting news for an M Night Shyalaman fan like myself: SPLIT is still in the lead box – three weeks now and running..

    And it’s actually the first title in Shyamalan’s resume to hold the No. 1 spot at the B.O. for three weeks in a row since 1999’s The Sixth Sense!  Talk about old style century tech getting its revenge!

    Good show M NIGHT..

    SPLIT was a good film with (to me) not the greatest ending of M Night’s career.. but he was setting Philadelphia up for a sequel whether the King of Prussia mall is ready for it or not..  Bruce Willis is.

    Late night estimates put Split at $14.7M for the weekend, and a running cume by Sunday of $98.8M, -8% behind Sixth Sense at the same point in time..

    Prognosticators don’t think that SPLIT outshines SENSE, as a matter of fact by Valentine’s Day plenty of other films–included animated and a lot of SHADES of gray–will fill theaters..

    The predictions for the final tallies: 

    1.) Split (UNI/Blumhouse) 3,373 theaters (+174)  /$4.8M Fri (-39%)/3-day: $14.7M (-43%)/Total: $98.8M/Wk 3

    2.) Rings (Par) 2,931 theaters /$5.2M Fri. (includes $800K previews)/3-day: $12.8/Wk 1

    3.) Hidden Figures (Fox) 3,401 theaters (+50)/$3M Fri (-20%)   /3-day: $10.4M (-26%)/Total: $119.7M/Wk 7

    4.) A Dog’s Purpose (UNI/Amblin/Walden) 3,178 theaters   (+120)/$2.8M Fri (-46%)  /3-day: $10.1m (-45%)/Total: $32.1/Wk 2

    5.) La La Land (Lionsgate) 3,236 (+100) /$2.3M Fri (-31%)/3-day:$8.2m (-33%)/Total:$119.1M/ Wk 9

    6.) Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (SONY) 3,104 theaters  (0) /$1.36M Fri (-73%) / 3-day: $4M (-71%)/Total: $21.4M/Wk 2

    7.) The Space Between Us (STX) 2,812 theaters   /$1.48M Fri. (includes $170K previews)/3-day: $3.8M/Wk 1

    8/9) Sing (ILL/UNI), 2,293 theaters (-409) /$905K Fri.(-33%) /3-day cume: $3.75M (-41%)/Total: $262.6M/Wk 7

    Lion (TWC) 1,405 theaters  (+830) /$1.1K Fri (+83%) /3-day: $3.75M (+63%)/Total: $24.4M/Wk 11

    10.) xXx: The Return Xander Cage (PAR/REV) 2,478 theaters (-1,178)  /$1.1M Fri (-50%)/3-day: $3.6M (-58%)/Total: $39.9M/ Wk 3

  • Creepy and cool art that can melt your face into your phone!

    Creepy and cool art that can melt your face into your phone!

    If you ever saw someone’s face literally melt into their faces, then you will appreciate this artwork from French photographer Antoine Geiger..

    I saw the artwork originally on CREATOR’S PROJECT.. 

    The report,

    “The project came spontaniously,” Geiger tells The Creators Project. “All of a sudden I would be on the metro or in the museum and feel on my own while it’s crowded. I could literaly see people’s faces melting on their screens, like their identity was being lost in the non-space of technology, like the spacial dimension of the present has been outstretched.” A bit of post-processing in Photoshop, and his eerie feeling was visualized. 

    The photos are chillingly weird and actually quite real–you can almost envision the melting of someone’s complete emotional existence into their smart phones..

    HERE IS THE ART WORK .. it’s awesome. 

  • Radio stations are being hacked to play ‘F*ck Donald Trump’ on a loop

    Radio stations are being hacked to play ‘F*ck Donald Trump’ on a loop

    Radio stations are being hacked to play ‘F*ck Donald Trump’ on a loop:

    From the article:

    The hackers are reportedly commandeering the LPFM stations to broadcast “F*ck Donald Trump,” the protest anthem from rappers YG and Nipsey Hussle, on an endless loop.

    The days of old fashioned hacking back?! Just like the days of hijackings in a Max Headroom style..

     

  • The Evolution of High-Tech Horror Movies, From ‘Dot.Kill’ to ‘Rings’

    The Evolution of High-Tech Horror Movies, From ‘Dot.Kill’ to ‘Rings’

    The Evolution of High-Tech Horror Movies, From ‘Dot.Kill’ to ‘Rings’ :

    This is what happens when horror is done right: Modern technology becomes frightening.

    The days of VHS are gone. But they can equally be scary (Such as VHS, the movie) …

    The original RING film was a classic for me.. I brought my entire family and lots of friends to see it in theaters in the early part of this century.. But kids of today? They just don’t get it. They know more about the RING from the SCARY MOVIE parody series than by watching it themselves.. and .. VHS!? A Tape!? What in the world is such an antiquated thing!

    The newest RING is promising to merge the old nostalgia of VHS with modern technology.

    As THE WRAP reports in the aforementioned link, the RING is not alone. UNFRIENDED was one of my favorites..

    Modern era tech can be scary.
    You know why? Because even though technology advances the frightening people who sit behind a computer screen are still the same..

  • Lady Gaga in a bra, a sneak peak of the new Super Bowl Pepsi…

    Lady Gaga in a bra, a sneak peak of the new Super Bowl Pepsi…

    Lady Gaga in a bra, a sneak peak of the new Super Bowl Pepsi commercial .. set to start a stir.
    By the time the halftime show rolls, we will wonder if we are shaken or stirred..

    There is a high degree of attention being paid or the show this year. Hollywood and showbiz has taken to the airwaves to protest every move Donald Trump makes. If things go as some hope, Gags will make a political statement. In that light, there is already online petitions asking her to be BANNED> Because we have become frightened of FREEDOM OF SPEECH in Amurica…?

    Regardless, I am intrigued as well by whether the LADY will make her appearance political in nature.

    I predict this: We will hear some old songs..we will hear Poker Face.. we will see Patriots fans dancing (before and after the game, I predict as well) …and we will get a covert statement. Nothing overt.

    But that’s just me.. and my little zany prediction…
    The game time is coming. We will see soon.

  • A political cartoon inspired by Groundhogs Day.

    A political cartoon inspired by Groundhogs Day.

    A political cartoon inspired by Groundhogs Day.

  • Clive Barker Will Develop $300,000 Horror Movie With Winner of Upcoming Contest

    Clive Barker Will Develop $300,000 Horror Movie With Winner of Upcoming Contest

    Clive Barker Will Develop $300,000 Horror Movie With Winner of Upcoming Contest :


    From Feb. 13 to March 17, filmmakers can head projectgreenlight.com to upload a pitch (one to three minutes) of an original horror film concept. Ten semi-finalists will be selected and voted on by the public as well as a judging panel. The winner of the audience vote will advance, along with four chosen by the judges. Those five finalists will receive funding to shoot a short scene to show off their chops.

    In June, the finalists will be invited to the second annual Shudder Labs, a creative retreat where they will receive more guidance on how to enhance their scenes. Then one winner will be selected to develop their film with Barker serving as executive producer.

    Such a good idea.. Inventive.
    And it continues to help in the modern rebirth of horror..
    Will be watching ..