Evil Woman!

Doesn't she look like she's trying to wish somebody into the cornfield?

:crazy:

BAYWATCH VET ALEXANDRA PAUL SEZ: REGISTER TO VOTE!

Hey, check it out, so I'm sitting in my favorite little boba house today and who should take up shop on the park bench outside the place but Baywatch's Alexandra Paul. As I type this, she's sitting out there with a sign that reads "Register to Vote." I remember her in years past hanging around on the same corner trying to get people to register. I am always happy to let her know that I am registered. The thing is, today, she had two actors visit her - both of them with SciFi pasts... :doze:

The lesser known of the two was a red-headed actor who's name escapes me. Those of you who are me remember him from the episode of the color Twilight Zone series from the 1980s where he played the obnoxious kid who's Walkman allows him to read minds while aboard an airplane when a mad bomber threatens to blow up the plane. :P

The other actor EVERYbody knows - she's Daryl Hannah and my eyes are so bad, I barely recognized her. But with my glasses on (sigh), I recognized her for sure. Good ol' Priss from Bladerunner. And there she goes again!! Wow... Westwood... who'da thunk I'd see famous people here. I mean, cripes - Hollywood's a full twenty minutes away! :laugh:

Quality Thinking from the USGov!

Got this in an email from a friend of mine:

When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ball-point pens would not work in zero gravity. To combat this problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion developing a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to over 300 C.

The Russians used a pencil.

Enjoy paying your taxes--they're due again

There's just got to be a solution like this for Iraq...

I Need Something Cute

PUPPYYYY!!!

TheKey, TheDayjob, Editing Comics, and a Screenplay...

Wow - it's been a busy and productive week or so. I made it to the end of the 2nd draft of TheKey Book 2 - now I need to print it out and get it to my editor - if she doesn't mind working for free again. ;) In the meantime, I have to go back and do two more polishes on Book 1, which I've already begun doing. The first polish is to get all of my editor's minor notes implemented into the script. Like puncuation or grammar errors. There were some bigger notes she had, and implementing those are what the second polish will be for.

The dayjob is fine as ever. Writing for a living is fun, I just wish I was writing more creative stuff for it. When I signed on for the job of copy writer, it was really half researching/half selling products with my writing. Now, it's all research. Imagine writing a book report abotu something mundane, like pudding, and you'll have an idea of the kind of writing I do every day. It's fine and it pays, but it's monotonous as hell.

This weekend I managed to scan in a bunch of my old comics from my college days. I plan on putting them together with some new stuff (assuming I have time to draw it) and even some stuff from other people (assuming anyone is interested in contributing) and publishing them all as one trade-paperback-style comic book called "ThePete.Comic." I hope to make it into a quarterly comic and then follow it up with compilations of the various stories that appear in it. I would make very little money off of it, if any. It's really just supposed to be a place for me to have an outlet for my drawing. Hopefully other artists will be interested in contributing for the same reason.

The real surprise came today when I found I had an extra hour in my schedule to work on my latest screenplay. That was fun. I'm using Final Draft for the first time on a script. I gotta say I don't like it. It's partially because of the learning curve, but also because the damn thing takes forever to save a file. I hit "save" all the time because I'm paranoid my machine will crash at any moment. (What do you expect? I'm an ex-PC guy...) But things are good in general, writing-wise, so I'm happy about that.

HELLBOY (2004)

Entertaining? DEFINITELY. This one isn't just FXplosions, either - nice character stuff in here.
Technically any good? The script structure was uneven (scene of someone dying to scene of someone having a nice moment - both someones we care about) but over all, you come to care about everyone and are genuinely scared for them when things go wrong. How may action movies can you say that about?
How did I feel as the credits rolled? Definitely satisfied. This one won't end up in my DVD collection, but it missed my strict cut-off point by a hair's breadth. I really liked this one.
Final Rating? GSN

TAKING LIVES (2004)

Entertaining? Yes, very much so.
Technically any good? There were a couple of things that could have been better, but over all it was a reasonable thriller. Won't blow your mind, but it should entertain you just fine.
How did I feel as the credits rolled? Satisfied, for sure. Angelina Jolie is good as always. And she does a nude scene, which is nice, but IMHO, wasn't needed. (I know, the deuce I say...)
Final Rating? SIYL (There are shots of very dead bodies and the aforementioned nude scene some may have problems with.)

HIDALGO (2004)

Entertaining? Yeah! Lots of pretty horses, beautiful scenery and beautiful people.
Technically any good? It couldn't decide if it was a fable or not. Too much realism mixed in with not enough fantasy. Also, very boringly cast. No offense to the actors, but I'm sure there are much less "western" looking actors who could have been cast instead.
How did I feel as the credits rolled? Just fine. I like horseys, but the story was a bit "eh". You never have any doubts about how things turn out.
Final Rating?SAM (The cinematography is great on the big screen.)

MORE ON (MORON?) CONDI'S 911 LIES

"Moron" because she is one if she thought we wouldn't be able to see right through her lies, anyway...

You may recall, as do I, that Condoleeeeeza (sp?) Rice has publicly said that the USGov had no idea that terrorists would use planes as missiles. Well, if you read ThePete.Com, you know that a former FBI translator uncovered evidence that essentially proves that good old Condi was lying and FINALLY a mainstream news service has decided this story merits covering. Okay, it's not an American mainstream news source, but hey, that's something more than the blog over at TheMemoryHole.Org and this column!

This is from an article at Independent.co.uk :

A former translator for the FBI with top-secret security clearance says she has provided information to the panel investigating the 11 September attacks which proves senior officials knew of al-Qa'ida's plans to attack the US with aircraft months before the strikes happened.

She said the claim by the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, that there was no such information was "an outrageous lie".

You may be asking why she didn't come forward with this information earlier. The answer to that is simple. She tried. Why do you think she's a former translator for the FBI?

Read the article at Independent.co.uk for yourself.

Read more about this story over at the site that I first learned about it from TheMemoryHole.Org


From Independent.co.uk :

'I saw papers that show US knew al-Qa'ida would attack cities with aeroplanes'

Whistleblower the White House wants to silence speaks to The Independent
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington

02 April 2004

A former translator for the FBI with top-secret security clearance says she has provided information to the panel investigating the 11 September attacks which proves senior officials knew of al-Qa'ida's plans to attack the US with aircraft months before the strikes happened.

She said the claim by the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, that there was no such information was "an outrageous lie".

Sibel Edmonds said she spent more than three hours in a closed session with the commission's investigators providing information that was circulating within the FBI in the spring and summer of 2001 suggesting that an attack using aircraft was just months away and the terrorists were in place. The Bush administration, meanwhile, has sought to silence her and has obtained a gagging order from a court by citing the rarely used "state secrets privilege".

She told The Independent yesterday: "I gave [the commission] details of specific investigation files, the specific dates, specific target information, specific managers in charge of the investigation. I gave them everything so that they could go back and follow up. This is not hearsay. These are things that are documented. These things can be established very easily."

She added: "There was general information about the time-frame, about methods to be used � but not specifically about how they would be used � and about people being in place and who was ordering these sorts of terror attacks. There were other cities that were mentioned. Major cities � with skyscrapers."

The accusations from Mrs Edmonds, 33, a Turkish-American who speaks Azerbaijani, Farsi, Turkish and English, will reignite the controversy over whether the administration ignored warnings about al-Qa'ida. That controversy was sparked most recently by Richard Clarke, a former counter-terrorism official, who has accused the administration of ignoring his warnings.

The issue � what the administration knew and when � is central to the investigation by the 9/11 Commission, which has been hearing testimony in public and private from government officials, intelligence officials and secret sources. Earlier this week, the White House made a U-turn when it said that Ms Rice would appear in public before the commission to answer questions. Mr Bush and his deputy, Dick Cheney, will also be questioned in a closed-door session.

Mrs Edmonds, 33, says she gave her evidence to the commission in a specially constructed "secure" room at its offices in Washington on 11 February. She was hired as a translator for the FBI's Washington field office on 13 September 2001, just two days after the al-Qa'ida attacks. Her job was to translate documents and recordings from FBI wire-taps.

She said said it was clear there was sufficient information during the spring and summer of 2001 to indicate terrorists were planning an attack. "Most of what I told the commission � 90 per cent of it � related to the investigations that I was involved in or just from working in the department. Two hundred translators side by side, you get to see and hear a lot of other things as well."

"President Bush said they had no specific information about 11 September and that is accurate but only because he said 11 September," she said. There was, however, general information about the use of airplanes and that an attack was just months away.

To try to refute Mr Clarke's accusations, Ms Rice said the administration did take steps to counter al-Qa'ida. But in an opinion piece in The Washington Post on 22 March, Ms Rice wrote: "Despite what some have suggested, we received no intelligence that terrorists were preparing to attack the homeland using airplanes as missiles, though some analysts speculated that terrorists might hijack planes to try and free US-held terrorists."

Mrs Edmonds said that by using the word "we", Ms Rice told an "outrageous lie". She said: "Rice says 'we' not 'I'. That would include all people from the FBI, the CIA and DIA [Defence Intelligence Agency]. I am saying that is impossible."

It is impossible at this stage to verify Mrs Edmonds' claims. However, some senior US senators testified to her credibility in 2002 when she went public with separate allegations relating to alleged incompetence and corruption within the FBI's translation department.


1 April 2004 20:06
� 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

Keep Yer Damn Tax Cuts and Keep Gas Prices Down!

THANKS, BUSH!