Your typical late 1950’s giant monster movie. Huge lizard terrorizing a small western town. Strange accidents occur, people go missing, and we see a lizard and a very large foot. Complete with dark settings and ‘spooky’ music.

As with most of these 1950’s ‘horror’ movies, they do try to write some sort of plot. Bunch of ‘kids’ in this are driving around in ‘hot rods’ and having all sorts of relationship problems. Money, family, girls you name it, they seem to have those problems. These problems have nothing to do with the giant gila monster.

First report of this monster is from a drunk (of course), and he wasn’t in any condition to be believed.

Yes, a typical ‘B’ movie. I had a few laughs watching it. Available on IMDb.

The big film style from the 40’s, 50’s and even into the early 60’s was the Musical. Just did some background checks on Musicals in Film history.

In the 2000’s only one musical won best picture (Chicago 2002)
In the 1990’s there were no musicals winning best picture, If you count Disney’s Beauty and the Beast only 1 musical was nominated.
In the 1980’s none and I didn’t see any nominated
In the 1970’s none, I counted 3 nominations.
In the 1960’s there was West Side Story (1961), My Fair Lady (1964), The Sound of Music (1965), and Oliver! (1968) with many others nominated
In the 1950’s there was An American in Paris (1951), Gigi (1958) and again many others nominated
In the 1940’s Going my Way (1944) again there were many more nominated.

Now I realize that Academy awards are not a good indication of all the films made, it makes some logical sense to me that if more musicals are being made more will end up in the nomination process. That is just everyday statistics. So, I’m wondering, What happened to the musical? I may have to explore this when I have more time. The other question is, why do local community theaters always have to put on a musical? Never mind on that last question, there isn’t a budget for big special effects and action movies, I mean plays.

Post Script…
Fascinating sidebar for me. I started thinking of musicals was when I was discussing Fred Astaire with one of my daughters. I made the comment on how he made all of his dance partners look good, even the inanimate ones.

Turn out the lights, sit in the dark and watch these movies. By today’s standards, they are not scary. By the standards of the time, people screamed in the theaters.

Number 1 on my list, I’ve written about before. Dracula with Bela Lugosi, the first well know Dracula, and one imitated more often than any of the others. Lugosi’s vampire became the standard.

Number 2, The Wolfman with Lon Chaney Jr. State of the art special effects of the day when he changed into the Wolfman.

Number 3, Frankenstein with Boris Karloff. Created life goes out of control to destroy its creator and all the things the creator loves.

Number 4, The Mummy with Boris Karloff. Karloff gets to act in this movie and it is worth seeing. His voice and facial expressions are wonderful

Find them, watch them and enjoy.

Happy Halloween

I made an entry on another site yesterday and noticed a spike in my readers. There really was nothing new to this, the other site seems to be a curious bunch and when I post, my blog readership does spike for a day or two

I did something a little out of the ordinary for me, I begged for readers outside of my blog. Spike city, and I also got additional responses!!!

One of the reasons I started this blog, was a chance to communicate with more people. If nobody responds, I’m not communicating, just writing. So I welcome all newcomers.

For anyone new, most of the time I write about things that interest me. My interests vary widely and can be influenced by responses…. I’ve been into computer communication since the time of 300 baud acoustic modems. I started sharing Dungeons and Dragons hints and stuff like that in the late 70’s early 80’s. Then I got into it for work related functions and finally with this blog back to fun again.

Pick an interest, and I may write about it.

1) new/old movies tv shows (Things I’ve seen, or things I won’t and why)
2) Books (I like books, do you have any suggestions? I don’t read romance, just a quirk of mine)
3) Science News, mostly space related, but that is just a starting point
4) Odd News the odder the better in my book
5) cooking, I like to find new recipes. All sorts
6) Family – I have one and I like them
7) Friends – They are the family you pick
8 ) Hobbies and other pastimes
9) The trials, tears and other feelings about being a Widower and only parent
10) Life – thinking about it and living it

Notice I didn’t put up anything about religion or politics. I was always taught that it is almost impossible to have polite conversation in those areas, unless everyone agrees with my Father. Since he is no longer around to moderate those conversations, and I’m not in the mood to moderate them, I guess they won’t happen here.

Enjoy, and be welcome.

Full shows available on the internet.  Who would have thought of that.  I also have enough speed to watch one as long as I don’t make the screen too big or watch anything else.

I really liked that show when it was on.  What I thought was great, is that some of the things he did would actually work.  

I can’t remember how many I tried out.  Yes, even as an adult I did try some of the MacGyverisms.   My wife thought MacGyver was good looking, so she didn’t have a problem watching the show either.  She got mad when I sprayed a lightbulb with water once.   Hot lightbulbs explode when they get wet. Who would ever have thought that would work in real life.  Glass shards all over the place…  I was more careful after that.  I waited until the house was empty to try new things.

Well anyway you can watch whole episodes of Macgyver on an IMDb link here. 

This is one of the strange seasons of the year. I’ve always enjoyed Halloween with all the ghouls, goblins and ghosts associated with it. But this time of year also brings to mind some very sad memories.

In 2000, just prior to Halloween, my my mother passed away. In 2001, just after Halloween, my father passed away. In 2003 around Halloween, my wife was struggling with all sorts of problems that a cause could not be determined. She died before the start of the New Year. Sad thoughts sometimes fill my mind at this time of year, and will haunt my thought through the end of the year.

Will these thoughts be with me 100% of the time? Not anymore. Time does, after a fashion, heal all wounds. What they never tell you is that you may not like the way you heal. Break a bone and you may have re-occurring pain whenever the weather changes. Lose a loved one and you my feel that grief sneak back in when you least expect it.

When the fall leaves start changing and falling on the ground, I tend to thing a lot about my father. This was the time of year we spent cutting down trees and moving wood. We did this together because it made the job a bit easier. It is still hard work, but we were able to laugh and joke during it. Laughter makes light work.

Sunday afternoons, I sometimes find myself thinking of my mother. Sunday dinners with the family were always a welcome addition to the day.

There are many times, places and events that bring back memories of my wife. Watching our daughters is one of those events. While other see my my features in my daughters, I tend to see their mother’s features. That is sometimes uncanny.

The smell of baking apples, or hot cider remind me of my wife. Hot tea at night remind me of her also. I could spend days writing about all the things that remind me of her.

All of these memories, plus memories of other loved ones who are no longer with us, are generally good memories. They are, however, memories tinged with a bit of sadness. Things that won’t happen again. Places in the past that just live in the corners of my mind. Sadness that new things won’t happen. There are no new stories to tell about them.

This weekend, my youngest will be involved in her school’s show choir. They are giving a show for some group. I’m not even sure yet if I can see it. This is something her grandparents, and mother would be waiting to see. The stories of the show would be family conversation for a good long time. There are many voices that have been silenced. I miss their viewpoints.

There may be more “memory” posts to come, who knows where or when this mood will hit…

There are times when I tend to have brilliant ideas during my sleep state. I then wake up only to find that I can’t find paper and pencil fast enough to get the idea down in a concrete form. So now I have a computer ready for me at a moments notice in my room. Sometimes this works, and other times not so much. I’ve made notes, sent myself emails to my work address, just to keep these ideas alive.

Now I will admit that I have a writer stuck somewhere deep in me. I keep thinking of plots and stories for murder mysteries. Not to contain myself in just 1 genre, I’ve had ideas for the old west, 30’s, current, and some in the future. Some of my ideas for stories even contain aliens and flying saucers. My problem with all of these stories, is that the background about the time period, the crime, the actual solution (if there is one) are very strong and in depth. The characters never pan out. Let’s face it they are just plain boring. After reading 1 chapter of a story, my late wife told me she didn’t care who died or even if they all did. She was right about that. I’ve written over 20 chapter 1’s. In each case, when I visit these stories again after a time, I find the characters weak and uninteresting.

I may be a bit hard on myself, but when I read books, I usually hooked by the end of chapter 1. If I don’t find enough there to catch my interest, the book is usually put aside. There are few authors, that I know through previous works that I will go past chapter 1 if my interest isn’t peaked.

What does this have to do with late night ideas? Well most of my previous ideas were for stories, problem solving at work, or how to finish some project I am working on. So now I have this idea, it doesn’t involve a story or a problem at work or home. It could be beneficial to me. A bit early to be certain, but that is how it is. No characters to develop, no computer problems to solve at work, just a plain simple idea. Hmmm, now to make sure I remember where I put it…. My documents/mylatenightidea…..

Saturday started out with a quick trip to Wild Winds Buffalo Preserve in Fremont, IN. My youngest and I didn’t take the truck trip into the preserve, but we were able to visit the 1850’s Rendezvous and talk with a few of the ‘trappers’. The main goal of the trip was to pick up some bison burgers for a gaming night at my oldest’s house. Good food, good fun and a wonderful afternoon and late-late evening. More Dungeons and Dragons was played.

Today, I made a recipe that I submitted to our Theater’s cookbook to serve at the final production of “Kitchen Witches”. Fun little show and the audience/guests seemed to like my samples. The recipe is on page 6 of our cook book. (Just wondering if we could sell that on line? — E-Book???).

I’m going to try a recipe or more from the book, they all look pretty good to me. My oldest daughter got to be the on stage “guest judge” for the show today. She seemed to really enjoy the small bit of stage work. Another day of good fun.

And finally I see that some dear friends are all back from their Florida vacations. Someday, when I can get more than a day or two off, I will need to do something like that.

That’s all folks…

It is a seasonal thing… I was going to post a news article about a big spider in Australia, but after seeing some of the pictures, I decided not to. If you really want to look it up, it was about a spider the size of a person’s hand dining on a bird.

What really interests me is that there are so many different arachnids around the world. I always thought of the tarantulas as the big spiders. The tarantulas are not web weavers in general. But here was a rather large spider in Australia that actually spun a web that caught the bird.

Anyway what caught my attention to this story was the bird being the victim here. If I remember the song correctly the bird ate the spider, after it ate the fly….

Now who started going through the rest of the song???

Yes, that’s right the old video game of Pong, OK, actually it was the first video game, not quite Pong.

I’m old enough to remember the first Pong games in the city of Toledo. They was one located in the entry of a K-mart store. At least I think it was a K-Mart. I remember the game, not really the store local. 1 quarter allowed you to play the game. My older brother would let me play it on his cash. Well, he was 12 years older and had a job, I was around 12 when they first came out. I remember those few games with my brother. I looked up to him, and he had time for a jerky little kid.

Fast forward a few years, and there were video arcades, games in bars, and of course home game systems. They all really started because of Pong. If you read the links, you will have found out that Pong was not the first video game. It was the first game to really take the home market. The same game you had to pay a quarter for, you could play for free at home whenever you wanted.

Back in the 80’s there was PacMan, Ms PacMan, DigDug, Q*bert, Centipede and many others. These also came to the home market. Soon the home market was bigger than the Arcade business, so much so that you are hard pressed to find any independent arcades anymore. There are some arcades in a few restaurants, or in Family activity centers that deal with things you just can’t fit in your home. Me I grew up in the age of the arcade. There was an arcade in almost every mall. There were arcades set out by themselves or in strip malls. Turn a corner and you could find a place to play a video game. I liked these games, and was very good at a few of them.

Then came the home consoles. I never did get the hang of those games. Quirky joy sticks that didn’t work quite the same as the arcade. No heavy duty track balls. No big red firing buttons. Then the games started to use game pads. Tiny buttons that you had to know exactly which one to push and when. Nope, never got into those. At first I said it was because the graphics were so poor on the home games, then of course it was the poor joy sticks. But of course the graphics got better than anything we saw in the arcades, but the interface was still not quite right.

A reader of this blog, and a friend pointed the way to arcade style controls in his blog. It would be interesting to have my own arcade style game, but for me not really needed. I have enough to fill my time right now, I don’t need to add an additional hobby. Sounds like fun, if someone wants to invite me to play on their home arcade, well I’d be willing to give it a whirl, but I won’t be putting in my own. Has to be someone with lots of room though. Those arcade games can take up a bit of space….

Does anyone remember the old Atari game console? What were your favorites? I found a list here. My favorite, was Pong at the arcade machine with my brother…