Well, to his creator anyway. Ian Fleming was born May 28, 1908. WOW… that would make him 100 years old today… of course he passed away many years ago. Ironically, he left the world mere months after the release of From Russia with Love on the big screen in 1964. The centennial of the author’s birth is being celebrated in at least two ways. Today sees the release of the newest James Bond novel Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks. In November, the 22nd film in the Bond franchise Quantum of Solace will be presented on the big screen with Daniel Craig reprising the role of British Secret Service agent 007.

In total, Fleming wrote 12 Bond novels and two collections of short stories. Following his death, other writers have taken up the mantle. Although most of the plots for the books and the movies have very little in common, fifteen of the movies take their titles directly from the books. The novel From Russia with Love was high on President John F. Kennedy’s favorite reading list which prompted the production of the second film. Below is a list of Fleming’s 12 Bond novels and 2 short stories and the order in which the movie was released which are not synonymous.

Casino Royale (21)

Live and Let Die (8)

Moonraker (11)

Diamonds are Forever (7)

From Russia with Love (2)

Dr. No (1)

Goldfinger (3)

For Your Eyes Only (12)

Thunderball (13 sorry… 4)

The Spy Who Loved Me (10)

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (6)

You Only Live Twice (5)

The Man with the Golden Gun (9)

Octopussy (13) and the Living Daylights (15)

(GoldenEye takes its name from Fleming’s Jamaican home where he wrote the stories)

Fleming’s writing was not limited to the world of the spy. He also penned the children’s book, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

James Bond Novels

What a snooze… No, not me last night which was anything but- I think I may have gotten about five hours of sleep if I’m lucky.  I’m referring of course to the assemblies that happen sometimes at schools.  Especially those that totally mess up the schedule.  For me, it was pretty much irrelevant too.  Not to the kids or staff, just to me and any other sub that might have been there.  You see, it was an awards ceremony.  For the entire school.  All, or at least many, sports and academic clubs.  As a sub I knew pretty much zero of the names, hence why it was kind of a snooze to me.  It was a snooze to probably nearly all the students as well because it lasted for more. Than.  Two.  Hours…  For nearly all of the awards, they handed out certificates to every student involved, name by name, and then gave awards to high achievers.  I would guess well over 300 names were read over those 2 hours 20 minutes.  There was one sport I couldn’t believe they had, let alone the number of students involved.  Bocce-Ball.  I kid you not.  Nearly a hundred kids involved too by my estimate.  Wow.  Only track compared to that with four teams, 7th and 8th grades, boys and girls.  There were probably 60-80 students involved there.  The only other sport I remember was girls volleyball- I’m guessing there was no boys volleyball team because one of the students was a boy.  The teacher was careful to not refer to that particular team (7th or 8th, I don’t remember) as “the girls.”

The academic teams and clubs consisted of a math team, geography team, and science olympiad.  Probably more- I don’t remember.  Interesting to note the math team was entirely Indian (or similar) or East Asian.  Hmm.  Perhaps our schools really are failing the children in the math field.  Band, orchestra, and drama were part of the other extracurricular activities.  And finally, there were also service clubs.  One club helped the mentally-challenged kids, and another- well club doesn’t really apply here (you’ll see why in a sec)- recognized students who did some sort of community work.  Thankfully they did not recognize these students individually as a good 90% of the students raised their hands when the principal asked who has done some community work or project!  Was this part of a class assignment or were they really this outward-thinking?

Well, after some 25 teams, clubs, and organizations they wrapped up, had a drawing for some Pepsi T-shirts, and then were dismissed.  The scheduled ending time was 9:45.  The actual ending time was 10:35.  Oops.  Reminds me of television networks and sports for some reason…

So, we skipped two of the periods and I went on break.  Finally I could get off my feet.  Oh, did I mention that I had to stand for the entire assembly because there were no chairs provided for the teachers?  Some plopped down with the students, other stood right along beside me.  Now, I have an injured foot so I did a lot of leaning, walking, and a little bit of sitting on the floor in addition to the standing.  So, all good and well now.  Unfortunately I had about twenty minutes and I had to start eating my lunch as the teacher I was in for had no scheduled lunch.  Instead, she had a study hall period.  So, I had a panini during 4th period, an orange and a Mountain Dew 6th during study hall, and the rest of my lunch last period.  Well, an interesting day for sure.

Here is an update on a story I posted last week about a man who was pulled over and subsequently backed his car up onto the police car.  Seems the officers did manage to find something to charge him with besides the original speeding ticket:

Police Charge Niles Man They Say Backed Onto Squad Car

A Niles man who reversed his car so that it ran on top of a Buffalo Grove police car Friday has been charged with reckless driving.

Henry Raskin, 70, had been pulled over by a police officer around 11:30 a.m. Friday for speeding. He had been driving 58 mph in a 35 mph zone on Dundee Road, police said.

After the officer wrote Raskin a ticket, he hit the gas while he was in reverse and ended up with his vehicle on top of the squad car, police said.

Sgt. Scott Kristiansen said Tuesday that police determined the incident wasn’t purely an accident after watching the squad car video and talking to Raskin.

“It appears to be a little bit more than a mistake,” he said. “We think it meets the criteria for reckless driving.”

Kristiansen said that most drivers if they found they had accidentally reversed in this situation, would have hit the brakes before driving over a police car.

Raskin posted 10 percent of his $2,000 bond Friday and was released. He has a June court date in Rolling Meadows.

We watched an interesting movie tonight, for lack of a better word.  It is called Funny Games.  It wasn’t funny, and let me apologize ahead of time for the vague review – you’ll have to see the movie to understand why I couldn’t write too much about it.  I had never heard of it before, but it was a thriller, so my husband suggested it.  If you like thrillers, see it and then tell me what you think.  I don’t really know what to say about this movie.  It was captivating and VERY tense, so I was never bored, but I was disappointed with the way it ended.  For one thing, I did not understand the movie.

Let me back up and give a quick synopsis.  Naomi Watts stars as a mother who, along with her husband and son are held captive by 2 very well-spoken young men in their remotely secluded (of course it’s secluded – this IS a thriller movie!) vacation home.  As I said, the movie is very intense but only after what is a somewhat slow start.  I don’t want to spoil anything, so I will just say that are no words for what happened in the last 40 minutes of the movie.  Near the conclusion, it took a turn for the confusing, and what happened made me not really understand the entire movie.  It’s based on an Austrian film, and imdb.com said that the American guy who remade it didn’t change much from the Austrian version, so maybe it didn’t translate well?  I liked the movie, for the time being anyway while I was watching it, but I would really like some insight about a certain event that took place…  it might actually be a thriller I would watch again, which is rare, but I might want to see if I can get what I must have missed.  Like I said, if you’re a big fan of suspense movies, I would try this one, it’s definitely different from all the others!  And if you have seen it or do see it, make sure you try to fill me in on what I missed, cuz I just didn’t get it!

In more Harry Potter related news, Daniel Radcliffe (Harry himself) will be making his Broadway stage debut on September 5 at the Broadhurst Theatre. Last year, he received rave reviews for his London stage debut in Peter Shaffer’s play, Equus. The story of Alan Strang, a rather disturbed young stable boy who has an unusual fixation with horses. However, the psychiatrist who attempts to must solve the mystery of Alan’s sexual and religious perversion has his own hidden psychological trauma. Incidentally, the psychiatrist will be played by Richard Griffiths who also plays the role of Harry’s eternally frustrated Uncle Vernon in the Potter films. A few words of warning to those who may think that the play will delight the young fans of the boy wizard (although “delight” may not be the most appropriate term). Equus is definitely NOT a play to introduce to young children. Its heavy adult themes and scenes are much too heavy perhaps even for some adult theatregoers.

Want tickets to a sold out show? Click here

Tonight, I watched my nine-year old niece at her softball game. The weather made me recall many mid-October Friday nights in the stands of a high school football game; it was that cold. This was one of the few I will be able to make this summer with musical rehearsals soon to be taking most of my evenings. Apart from the 50 degree weather, it was actually fun watching the game. Elizabeth went 3 for 3 at the plate. Her first hit went between the third baseman and short stop… a line shot. Her second time at bat, she hit another line drive that unfortunately went foul. Then, she eventually hit the ball that landed in front of the plate, leaving Elizabeth stunned for a second until everyone told her to go.

She also did well in the field at short stop. “Well” is a relative term as these were a group of 8-10 year old girls who are still pitched to by their respective coaches. I don’t remember being pitched to by a coach. I remember going from hitting off a tee to having my peers pitch before I was 8. Elizabeth made a few nice stops in the field and tagged a runner attempting to advance to third base.

Also nice to see at this developmental stage of the young ones play is the parents in the stands. Shouting words of encouragement instead of shouts of disgust at bad calls, bad plays, etc. Those will start in a short time. But for now, there were no runs kept track of and maybe a few more strikes per batter as they are still learning the basics, so EVERYONE WINS!!! Although when the 90 minute limit was up, more than one mother was happy that the game was over and able to get out of the cold.

Number 3 out of four.  What can I say about this one…  The first things that pop in my head are peanut butter, chocolate, frogs and of course Star Wars.

While she still lives at home, I tend to see her only on rare occasions.  She is in college and has a boyfriend.  Those two things put together seem to negate any family time.  For years, I was able to spend a lot of time with this daughter.  I was a coach on most of her softball teams.  When I wasn’t a coach, I was always helping out.  Then after she turned 14 she played a couple of years with me on the Church Softball team.  And at barely 5 feet even and under 100 lbs, her favorite position was catcher.  She was a good one too.  Never showed any fear waiting for that ball to come on close plays at the plate.  In part I was afraid she’d get run  over, but I was also proud of the way she played the game.

My greatest joy were those few times we have been on stage together.  I’m hoping that we will be able to do more in future shows, but the few times she has been on stage with me, are very special to me.

And let’s not forget the Star Wars.  My very first date with my future wife was a dinner at a Chinese restaurant, Star Wars – Return of the Jedi, and then a stop at Dunkin Donuts.   This young lady definitely likes Star Wars, and donuts, so 2/3rds of the time she reminds me of a wonderful first date I had with her mother… 😉

During the past couple of days, I’ve again been amazed at the pictures current space missions have been sending back to earth. The first pictures from the latest lander are back.  Just cool stuff.   I saw one yesterday where one of the orbiters got a picture of the lander underneath the parachutes.

I am interested in all things in the space program, and these landings are on the top of my list of news stories.

Normally I just roll my eyes to yet some other scandal happening in sports.  Athletes are given god-like status by many fans, so why shouldn’t they act like egotistical know-it-alls {sarcasm}?  Today, it seems Little League teams are no longer allowed to use the names of actual major league teams due to trademarks.  Not just the logos- the names too.  That is, unless MLB gets its share of the pie by forcing the Little League to use their “approved” uniform manufacturer.  How cold can their greedy hearts get?  Now, to be fair, the trademark office requires companies to actively enforce compliance or risk losing their trademarks; and the MLB could have been threatened with that from said trademark office, but I really doubt it.  I remember when I was in intermediate league one year and was on the Astros.  A friend of mine was on the Phillies.  Today we would probably be on the Oranges and Greens thanks to this ridiculous enforcement.  What happened to just giving a nod and a wink because you support youth sports?  It sounds like they support $$$ more.  Here’s a link to the story:

Major League Baseball Tells Little Leaguers: We Own Uniform Rights

We organized a concert in January with our local theater group where we had a collection of totally awesome singers perform selections from popular musicals.  My husband has an excellent singing voice – I’m not biased or anything, I swear!  Plenty of other people have said so…  If you were to ask him about it though, he would say much differently – he has a bit of an ego problem, but it goes in the opposite direction than that of most singers and actors – he does not have nearly enough confidence.  So even though there were other songs in the concert, this one might be the only one we actually get to see because I don’t know how to post on youtube – that’s his job and he doesn’t deem the other songs worthy of posting!  And if you are a stage veteran or know someone who is, you have had to suffer thru awful recordings of stage performances.  It seems that no matter how beautiful a play or song sounded on the stage, it will never translate correctly when recorded and played again – SO GET OVER IT AND JUST POST THE REST OF THE CONCERT ALREADY!!!  🙂   My favorite song from this concert was actually Bui Doi from Miss Saigon, and I was PROMISED that I would get the link to that one soon, so stay tuned!  Don’t hold your breath though…  I was also promised a new altered picture from a show we directed last fall because someone ducked out of it at the last second, and a picture in the director’s hall of the basement of the theater should have the show’s director in it, right?  But that hasn’t happened yet, so hopefully this will be more of a priority, even though I’ve stated how much that picture means to me…

I feel sorry for all those friends and family members who couldn’t make it to this great event – you really missed a great showcase of talent, especially if you’re a fan of showtunes!  Maybe you’ll be able to make it next year if we do it again.  This is a clip of Chris singing the Les Mis classic, “Bring Him Home”: