Silly Rabbit, Easter is for…..

“Well, in just a few days time, it will be Easter. And really early, before the sun rises and all the good children are awake, the Easter Bunny will be hopping across lawns and gardens all over the world, hiding colorful eggs for all the good children to find”.

Say WHAT?!?!  Rabbits can’t even lay eggs – so just where is he getting them eggs and does he have elves like Santa does, to help paint all those eggs or is it outsourced to some sweat factory employing child labor?  Rabbits are also known to be health fanatics, eating only carrots and salad.  No way a rabbit would be promoting chocolate eggs.  So why is there a bunny/rabbit/hare intruding on Christianity’s most meaningful celebration?  It makes no sense at all.

Why is an overweight man in red the poster boy for Christmas and why is a egg-centric bunny the mascot for Easter?   Christmas remembers Jesus’ birth and Easter – his death on the cross and his resurrection from the grave. Why, then, is the world promoting these mythical characters instead of  showing reverence for the real and historical Jesus Christ for which these festivals are actually meant to remember?

It is most unacceptable.  The world talks about respecting each other including our different cultures and religions.  It would not think of doing this kind of thing with other religions, so why does the world think its okay to do it to Christians?  I mean, the Muslims would be offended if the media and businesses start promoting the “Camel of Eid-ul-Fitri” on their holy month.  No one would dream of using the “Holy Cow of Deepavali” to push sales to Hindus.  Even pacifist Buddhists may be riled up if some PR guy came up with something like the “Grand Pokemon of  Vesak Day”.  I do not mean any disrespect to any of those religions.  I am just trying to illustrate how silly it would be and possibly offensive.  No such festival creature exists for any of the world’s religious festivals (except maybe the Holiday Armadillo of Hannukah from a certain episode of “Friends”).  In the same way, I will thank you for leaving the Bunny out from Easter.

Sorry, there really is no "Holiday Armadillo of Hannukah".

 

The Easter weekend starts with Good Friday and ends with Easter Sunday and commemorates Jesus death on the cross on Friday and his resurrection from the dead on Sunday.  It is the most important event in the Christian faith.  The birth of Christ is not even discussed in two of the four Gospels but the events relating to his death and resurrection occupies 9 of 21 chapters in John’s Gospel.  Where Christmas was the start of Jesus’  work of redeeming mankind from the burden and penalty of their sin, Easter was the completion of that work.

John 3: 16-17:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. “

 

So silly rabbit, Easter is not for you but it is for mankind loss and weary, separated from God – now given new hope through the love of God and Jesus’ sacrifice in our stead.  Have a blessed Easter.

Light and Evil

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.  I had a busy one as we celebrated the coming of God’s gift of light and hope, Jesus Christ, to a dark and lost world.  Our church had a special Christmas service with songs, items and short sketches which we held in an auditorium of a nearby college.  It was wonderful.  We had about 320 people attending and at least 6 made the decision to invite Jesus into their lives that day.  A reason for even more rejoicing.

Another highlight for me was watching the CNN Heroes programme on TV on Boxing Day.  With Anderson Cooper at the helm, we were feted to the inspirational stories of 10 people who are making a difference in the world and doing their part to turn back the tide of darkness and evil.  Yes, evil.  For as much as we can rejoice and be inspired by their stories, we are also reminded about the evil that they are confronting – that we all are confronting, and that this evil dwells and emerges from the hearts of men.

Violence

We can debate the root causes why drugs, gangs and gratuitous violence has gripped many inner cities and communities but the important point is that kids are being killed and gunned down in the streets.  Life is cheap and life is dangerous for kids who have no safe place to go to but to wander the dangerous streets.  In many places, the community is just dying as mothers bury their children and lose hope.

Diane Latiker burned against the evil preying on the young and opened up her own home to all kids who wanted a place to go for food, advice, help or just to get off the streets.  She started the “Kids off the Block” project and has impacted more than 1,500 kids since 2003.

Greed

It is my heartfelt belief that the world’s economic system is inherently flawed and perpetuates a growing gap between the rich and the poor.  Efforts to change the status quo have failed because of the greed of a few and the selfishness of many.  However, it seems down-right evil when food assistance for the poor requires a 120 day waiting period or that mothers and babies die unnecessarily during childbirth because they are too poor to receive  life saving medical care or children going hungry in a country that is generally over-fed (and even wasting food in stupid food related challenges on TV programmes like MTV’s Spring Break; a big pet peeve of mine).  That’s greed and selfishness at work.

Thank God for people like Sal Dimicell and Bruno Serato who take it on themselves to help the poor and needy and to feed the children and Robin Lim for the 4,000 mothers and babies she and her team have helped in Bali, Indonesia.

Waste

We are depleting our world’s resources, poisoning the very earth, water and air that gives us life.  We praise ourselves for our smartness and technology but we are frightfully and criminally incompetent at managing our world.  Even with shrinking resources and higher demands, yet we do not have the wisdom not to continue wasting what we have.  So in parts of the world, hotels throw out millions of soap bars a year; many only used once.  At the same time, millions of children in other parts of the world die from diarrhea and other illnesses  each year, for which personal hygiene is a contributing factor and a simple thing like washing their hands regularly with soap can already make a big impact.  Derreck Kayongo, himself a former refugee from war-torn Uganda, is bridging the gap between these two worlds through his Global Soap Project, saving lives and fighting the evil of waste.

Indifference

I had some trouble deciding how to title this section but I am reminded that Edmund Burke said all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.   It is about how we as a society tend to give attention to those that don’t need it (like the Kardashians) and like to look away or forget those who are in need.

There are the widows, spouses and family members who all paid the sacrifice for their country when their loved ones died in military service.  There are the football players who are celebrated and feted for their performances on field but forgotten and left to struggle on their own when afflicted by spinal injuries obtained on the field.  There are the bread winners in Mexico who became paralysed and have loss their ability to feed their families and also lost their dignity.  There are the orphans of Africa whose parents were loss to AIDS.   There are the children of Haiti still living in tents now, almost two years after the earthquake.  They are all people who need help but the spotlight is not on them, they have been forgotten or worse hidden from view by our collective selfishness and self centeredness.  But Taryn Davis (war widows), Eddie Canales (football injuries), Richard St. Denis (Mexican disabled), Amy Stokes (African AIDS orphans) and Patrice Millet (Haiti’s tent children) have not forgotten and challenge us all not to forget these people too.

For the full story, go to CNN Heroes 2011.

Of course, these 10 represent a whole army of people around the world that are putting others first and making a difference.  I am ashamed.  I had planned to do more voluntary work in 2011 and instead put it on the back-burner.  Perhaps this will give me the impetus and inspiration to do it this coming year.  My first new year resolution.

In contrast to this uplifting programme, the TV also brought news of more than 40 killed in Nigeria when several churches were targeted with bombs on Christmas Day.  A reminder of that evil is rampant and we are in a fight against it, in all its forms.

Maybe you will join me and do something to turn back the darkness in 2012?

Singapore Girl is Bringing Back the Romance

It’s strange but one of my earliest posts back in 2007 started to pick up visitors in the last month and has had so many hits that it has emerged from the obscurity of old posts and into my list of top ten of my blog’s most visited posts (It is currently in the eight position).  The post was on the Singapore Girl which was made the iconic symbol for Singapore Airlines by one of the most successful advertising campaigns ever.  For 25 years, Batey Ads ran and strategised the campaign that made Singapore Girl the personification of hospitality and sold the idea of the “romance” of air  travel.  I loved it.  For many years, I collected the beautifully shot photographs, adverts and calenders that featured the Singapore Girl.

However, in 2007, Singapore Airlines, changed over to another ad agency, TBWA.  Twenty-five years is a longtime to run with one advertising concept and despite Singapore Girl’s success, there was concern that Singapore Airlines should keep up with the times and try a new approach before Singapore Girl got stale.  Sure enough, for the last few years, Singapore Airlines did not feature the Singapore Girl prominently in their advertisements.  Sure, she might be present in the background but the focus was more on their new fleet of planes and the industry-leading facilities and services.

I was wondering why there was this sudden surge of interest in my old Singapore Girl post and when I investigated, I found that TBWA has done a turn around and has created a new television advertisement which returns to the Singapore Girl and once again sells the “romance of travel”.  The funny thing was when I watched the ad, I felt that I had lost that sense of romance.  In recent years, because of my work, I have done a fair bit of traveling around different parts of the world.  Partly because these trips were work related and maybe partly due to the stress of airport security measures these days, I think I have lost that sense of romance in air travel and replaced it with a sense of hum-dum jaded tiredness.  Maybe, with the return of Singapore Girl, I should refresh my mind and remember the thrill of flying and the romance of traveling that I had when I was younger.  At the same time, remember and be thankful again that I have had the privilege of air travel when many in the world have not had the opportunity.

Worms in Space

On 31st October 2011, a baby was born somewhere in the world and suddenly the Earth groaned under the strain of supporting 7 billion human beings.  Then, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) released a scary report on 28th November 2011 entitled, “The State of the World’s Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture .” or SOLAW.

SOLAW notes that in the 50 years between 1961 and 2009 cropland increased by just 12% but agriculture and food production grew by an amazing 150% largely due to the practices introduced during the “Green Revolution”.  It could be said that we dodged the bullet then because in the same period, the world population also increased by 100%.  If it were not for the Green Revolution, the world would already be facing widespread famine.

However, SOLAW also noted that the success of the Green Revolution has also been costly in terms of soil fertility and pollution and today the “rates of growth in agricultural production have been slowing in many areas and are today only half of what they were during the heyday of the Green Revolution. “  Today, there is very little arable land left for expansion of agricultural lands.  If anything, we are even losing arable land, burying it under concrete as cities spread out.  Furthermore, SOLAW points out that 25% of the world’s land is now highly degraded, another 8% is moderately degraded and only 10% is showing an improvement in status.

Water scarcity, salination and pollution of groundwater and other water sources and habitats are all making food production harder.  All these effects will be magnified further by the effects of climate change.

Yet while agriculture and food production is in decline and under threat, the human population is expected to rise to 9 billion by 2050.  So in the midst of the decline and decay, we will have to pull another miracle out of the bag and increase food production by another 70% in the next 40 years.

Yet at the Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa that is on right now, developed countries and even some developing countries are trying to delay implementation of further measures to reduce carbon emissions and reduce the impact of climate change.  Canada is even threatening to pull out of the minimal Kyoto Protocol because of concerns that carbon reduction targets might affect its economic competitiveness with the USA.

This reminds me of a Government Minister from a developing nation who called his farmers “stupid” for planting food crops when they could use the land for planting cash crops.  He said with the profits, “we can always buy food”.  How short sighted!  The recent flood in Thailand for example caused widespread panic amongst countries dependent on it for their rice.  Climate change is going to make this situation far worse.

It sure looks like we are all heading towards global disaster like idiots; like Nero playing the fiddle while Rome burned or like lemmings heading for the cliff while assuring themselves there is no other way.

Is it any surprise then that even worms are venturing into space to escape?  Read about it here and see the video here.

And just to link with my previous post on the Muppets, there are also Pigs in Space.

 

Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens

Well, the Muppets are back with their new movie, “The Muppets”, which was just released last weekend I believe.  I have seen a number of posts on it in the blogosphere including Riot Kitty who posted a video of the Muppets’ rendition of Queens’ “Bohemian Rhapsody“.  Thank you Riot Kitty.  How could someone not be moved by Animal’s plaintive singing of the lyrics, “Mama…”.

I haven’t seen the new movie but I have fond memories of  the Muppet series especially when it showcased the imagination of Jim Henson and his co-conspirators.  Forget the romantic tension of  moody Bella and cold vampire Edward in the Twilight series.  The on again – off again, will they or won’t they romance between the independent assertive modern Ms. Piggy and the self-effacing every frog, Kermit was far more exciting and funny.  (although the Muppets recently gave a charitable nod  in the direction of Twilight with posters of “Bella Swine” (aka Ms. Piggy) and “Vamphibian” (aka. Kermit).

Kermit’s famous song, “It’s not easy being green” was very influential in my life and was one of my theme songs during my periods of deep funk and of course I always felt better after singing it.  But today, I wanted to highlight another Muppet song that has stuck with me all these years even though I only saw it once.  It’s amazing what the mind retains.

Anyway, here is the Muppets’ cover of the Louis Jordan song from 1946, “Ain’t Nobody Here but Us Chickens”.  It still cracks me up now.  Enjoy.

Samurai Cats and Ninja Turtles

I am sure that most of us grew up with fond memories of watching Saturday morning cartoons on the television.  There were, of course, the old classics which are almost everyone’s favorites like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Wiley E. Coyote, Sylvester Cat and the rest of the Looney Tunes.  There was also the antics of Tom and Jerry to keep us amused.

However, when I was growing up there were more action adventure type cartoons being created.  These were cartoons like He-man, Thundercats, G.I. Joe and the Transformers.  A bit later there were the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.   All of these cartoons differed from the slapstick style of the classic cartoons.  They all involved serious violence and kicking the ass of evil villains.  The only humor usually came from wise-cracking heroes and the way they talk.  The Turtles, for example, channeled the surfer culture with phrases like “bummer,” “dude,” “bogus,” “radical,” “far-out,” “tubuloso,” “bodacious,” and possibly the most recognized, “cowabunga.

Sure I watched them but they always seemed to be a tad too serious for me.  So it was like a breath of fresh air when I came across a relatively unknown gem of a cartoon that parodied and made fun of this genre.  At last, a cartoon that laughed at itself and did not take things so seriously.  I loved it.  It was the antidote to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; it was the Samurai Pizza Cats.

In a nutshell, these three cool cats, Speedy Cerviche (the brave but often clueless leader), cute little Polly Ester (just don’t get her mad or it will hurt) and Guido Anchovy (the misguided Romeo of the group), fight crime and evil plots all over the town of Little Tokyo while earning a living delivering pizza.  “Big Cheese” is the big villain of the story who is always plotting to take over the throne from the Emperor.  He is  poorly supported by Bad Bird and his Ninja Crows (it’s so hard to find good help these days).

But the real charm is in how they parody the genre.  Take for example their theme song.  A phase like, “Samurai Pizza Cats, they’re so bad, they’ve got more fur than any turtle ever had.” is a clear poke at their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles competitor.

“They are stronger than old cheese and stronger than dirt’ was reference to the advertising tagline of the Ajax liquid cleaner around that time.

And then there was the episode where heroes and villains happen to coincidentally take their holidays at a hot spring spa.  When they discover each other, bitter fighting ensues.  Then a voice of reason suggested that they call a truce so that they can both enjoy their holidays.  This appeals to both sides until someone points out that unfortunately that it is against union rules for the Ninja Crows not to fight.

Once, Bad Bird even wanted to turn over a new leaf.  Fed up of being reviled as a villain, he wanted now to fight for justice and be revered as a hero.  Unfortunately, the show’s producers reminded him that he is a “contractual villain” and any hero type acts would be a breach of contract!

What might be some of your favorite cartoon series of all time and why?

100 Sci-Fi Icons

I am a big fan of the science fiction and fantasy genre which should be obvious to regular readers.  In fact, my last post compared the Harry Potter series with the Star Wars species.  I am also a big fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, X-Files, Star Trek amongst others.

I was therefore recently pleased to see a special issue of the SFX magazine at the local newsvendor’s magazine stand.  This magazine is a British publication which is dedicated to reporting on TV series and movies of the science fiction and fantasy genre.  This particular issue was the special “Top 100 Sci-Fi Icons” issue in which the result of an on-line survey of more than 10,000 Sci-fi fans was reported.

I was excited to find out how well my favorite characters had done in the survey, so I bought it and hurried home.  In the comfort of my hobbit hovel, I quickly scanned the results from the 100th placing on to the 1st place.

Three of my favorite characters were placed in the top 5 including the number 1 spot. I loved it.

Here are the top 5 positions;

1. Captain Malcolm Reynolds – this antihero is the captain of the Firefly-class spaceship, Serenity.  He loses a lot and often but still wins enough to stay alive to fight another day and to offer another quick smarty pants quip.  Played by actor Nathan Fillion.  (one of LGS’s favorites)
2. The Doctor – This distinctively British eccentric is actually a time traveling alien – last of the Time Lords.  I don’t get to watch the Doctor Who series in Malaysia so I can’t comment much but I am told the series has recently been given a fresh breath of life with a revamped and recharged new season.  This long running series has had 11 actors play the Doctor.
3. Captain Jack Harkness – Also from the newly revamped Dr. Who series and later in the spinoff series, Torchwood, this bisexual inter-galactic con man and immortal is a ground breaking and charismatic character.  He is played by John Barrowman.
4. Buffy Summers – The ordinary school girl with an extraordinary destiny and chosen to bear a heavy burden.  Fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer like to describe her with the words “She saved the world a lot”.   Vulnerable and yet physically strong; shallow and yet with a depth of character that enables her to bear much suffering to fulfill her responsibilities.  She was brought to life by Sarah Michelle-Geller.  (Squirrel’s number 1 favorite).
5. Spike -  One of the most complex characters ever.  You fear him, you like him, you hate him and you cry for him.  He was a psychotic bloodsucker and delighted in killing slayers but he was also a poet and at times a love struck puppy.  He comes stylishly wrapped up as a hedonistic punk rocker in a long leather coat.  He will eventually recover his soul and save the world by sacrificing his life ……but he gets to come back!  I did say he was complex!  Oh, and what a charming false English accent!  He was incredibly well played by James Marsters.  (Squirrel’s number 2 favorite).

Captain Malcolm Reynolds

The Doctor (the Time Lord and his Tardis)

Captain Jack Harkness

Buffy Summers - The Chosen One

Spike - William the Bloody Brilliant.

Other interesting facts:

• For Harry Potter fans, you will be pleased that the boy wizard comes in at 7th position.
• Not one, not a single one of the Twilight series characters made it in the top 10 but several characters from the other vampire series, True Blood did.  There is justice in the world. Hahaha.
• Only two actors appeared on the list for two different characters.  These are James Marsters who played Spike ( Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and Captain John Hart (Torchwood – 86th position) and Summer Glau who played River Tam (Firefly – 11th position) and Cameron (The Sarah Connor Chronicles – 16th position).  The Squirrel also thinks very highly of the River Tam character but Cameron – not so much.
• Spike was also top villain, closely followed by Darth Vader.

Well, I have the list.  Any thing else that you would like to know?  Want to know how your favorite character fared in this survey?  Just ask.

Carolina Squirrel and the Midnight Mystery

The Conspiracy Theorists

This post is the third one in the Carolina Squirrel series (which includes Carolina Squirrel and the Holy Grail and Carolina Squirrel and the Money Pit).  Following well established Hollywood practices, this sequel is actually a prequel.  This tells the tale that started it all; when a mild mannered squirrel began his career as adventurer – mystery solving, globe trotting Carolina Squirrel………..

A long, long time ago (1994), when the internet was still young and there were no blogs or Facebook or Twitter, there were Usenet newsgroups.  As a poor, impoverished and over worked graduate student, I often had to be working in the lab late at night.  When I had some free time, I would take advantage of the free computers and connect with the world through the Usenet newsgroups.

One particular newsgroup that I visited regularly was alt.skeptics.  The prefix “alt” meant “alternative” but because of the type of people that it attracted, many jokingly called it “Anarchist, Lunatics and Terrorists”.  But in fact, alt.skeptics was a great place to meet with fellow inquisitive souls and discuss, debate or debunk strange phenomena or sightings like UFOs, raining frogs, Bigfoot etc.

One night, after midnight, I logged on and joined an on-going online discussion about a most strange case.  A real life mystery which was hot off the presses and here was an active intellectual debate going on and theories were being offered to explain the facts.  It involved a woman who had just been emitted to a hospital with a green sheen on her skin and an odour that incapacitated her healthcare workers.

Suggestions were coming in from all over.  I remember someone from New York suggested that the woman had been poisoned by pesticide sprayed by planes on orange groves.  Within minutes, someone from the Palm Oil Research Centre in Malaysia replied saying that the symptoms do not fit pesticide poisoning which he was familiar with.  And so it went on, this global investigation.  It was very exciting being in the midst of all this.  I can’t remember if I ever went back to the lab that night and so was born, my alter ego, Carolina Squirrel.

This strange occurrence and the poor unfortunate victim would eventually become known as the case of “Toxic Gloria”.   The story goes as follows.

Gloria Ramirez was a thirty year old cancer patient who apparently suffered heart failure.  She was taken by ambulance to Riverside General Hospital in California.  In the emergency room, medical personnel began to treat her.  Then strange things began to happen.  Several people noticed a green, oily sheen on her skin and some detected a fruity odour coming from her mouth.  At this stage a nurse tried to draw a blood sample with a syringe and she noted an ammonia like smell as she drew blood.  Some of the medical crew claimed that they saw yellow crystals in the blood sample.

Shortly after that, the nurse who took the blood sample, fainted.   The doctor treating Gloria and another trauma staff also fainted soon after.  At that point, they decided to evacuate the entire emergency ward, with patients being wheeled out into the parking lot.  A Hazmat team was called in and during all this confusion Gloria Ramirez passed away.

The doctor and one of the nurses continued to have problems after that including sleeping and breathing problems.  The doctor was in intensive care for two weeks and she subsequently developed hepatitis and avascular necrosis in her knees.

For conspiracy and cover-up fans, there were the additional points of interests such as the fact that the syringe with the crystals in the blood sample went missing and the authorities initially did not want to release the body and then later while claiming they found nothing strange during autopsy, still wanted to insist that the body be buried in a hermetically sealed coffin.

Eventually, the family got a second autopsy done and again nothing unusual was found.

So what did you think happened to Gloria Ramirez?

In the end, we may never know what really happened but there is one theory with an unusual explanation that has received more acceptance than most but even it is at the edge of plausibility.  If, you are curious, read about it here.

Odd Balls of Fire

Following on from the last post on “possessed foods”, comes more discussion about the strange and wonderful.  I have always had an interest in the weird, the odd, the unusual and the paranormal.  I was fated to be a fan of the X-files as I was of Kolchak -the Night Stalker, which was its predecessor and according to X-file creator, Chris Carter, an inspiration for the series.

I haven’t abandoned my scientific sensibilities and try to look at each of these reported phenomena objectively.  At the same time, I don’t dismiss all paranormal phenomena as bogus hocus pocus and hoaxes, believing instead that where there is smoke, there is fire.  I don’t believe in aliens creating crop circles, for example, as it can easily be done by pranksters.  However, other phenomena may appear strange but may be scientifically verified and explained when properly scrutinised.

To my great satisfaction, two of my favorite strange phenomena from my youth have now been more or less been properly documented and there are now plausible scientific theories to explain them.  These are the phenomena of “spontaneous human combustion“  and “ball lightning”.

Spontaneous human combustion refers to cases where humans are believed to burst into flames such that the bodies are discovered burnt to ashes with the exception of parts of the hands or legs.  However, there maybe minimal damage to the surroundings such as the bed or chair.   An interesting literary  side-note is that Charles Dickens killed off one of his characters, Krook, in Bleak House by this means.

The “wick” theory seems to adequately explain all the different aspects of the phenomena and has been successfully demonstrated using pig carcasses. The theory  basically says that a low grade fire caused by, for example, a cigarette lighting a blanket,  can be fueled by melting body fat.  The blanket may take up the oil and the oil may burn but the blanket would only char just as in a lit candle where the wick does not burn.  In this way, the body is consumed with little damage to the surrounding and the parts of the body with least fat, i.e. hands and legs, are not consumed.

Then there is ball lightning.  Ball lightning have been reported for hundreds of years.  They are basically charged luminous spheres which can move around for short periods.  In some cases, they appear capable of going through surfaces like walls but in other cases they explode on contact. They can kill people in the same way normal lightning can.  One of the earliest well documented case involved a 2.4 m diameter ball of fire that entered a church in Devon, England in 1638 which killed 4 people.

For many centuries, science tended to ignore ball lightning as an unreliably reported phenomena.  There was no theory then that could explain electricity or lightning behaving in this strange manner.  However, many scientists today accept ball lightning as a rare but naturally occurring phenomena and while it is still unclear what really happens in nature, similar glowing spheres have been successfully created in laboratory experiments.

These luminous spheres can be created by discharging a high voltage capacitor in a tank of water; or by using microwaves on certain compounds and objects; or by the oxidising of silicon vapours.  The microwave experiments produce “plasma balls” which adequately demonstrates all the know properties and behavior of ball lightning.

Strangely, one of the things that seems to produce plasma in a microwave is a cut grape (as seen in the video below).  I wonder how that was discovered.  Probably some bored scientist putting everything he/she could find in the kitchen into the microwave for entertainment.  Anyway, don’t try this at home.  Apparently the fumes produce are toxic and the gases can get so heated up that it can shatter glass.  You have been warned.

Anyway, this post is meant to whet your appetite for the strange and unusual cause next week I will share with you one strange X-file that this humble squirrel was indirectly involved in.  Till then. Too doo, too doo, too doo too doo……. (theme from Twilight Zone).

The Genius behind Evil Dr. Horrible

A boy and a girl break into the school late at night. The girl is hesitant but the boy is insistent. It is clear that he is up to no good and you begin to worry that the petite, pretty blond will come to a horrible end. But it is the boy that is in for a sticky end as the girl is a vampire. The boy was surprised and so are we.

This is why I am a Joss Whedon fan. He is always taking our jaded expectations and turning them on their heads. The obvious story line becomes a roller coaster ride of the unexpected. This makes his stories so refreshingly different. He is always trying things that appear to be foolish but he makes it work. He can scare us, excite us, make us laugh and make us cry, all within a few minutes of amazing writing.

The scene described above comes from the TV series, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” in which Whedon does a mix of teenage angst and the horror genre. Big nasty vampire baddies get there ass-kicked by a petite Buffy Summers who really just wants to survive school and be popular. The most popular episode of the series was a musical “Once more, with Feeling“. A musical. Can you believe it? But it worked. And, if you can have a musical episode, how about the episode “Hush” which was done with almost no dialogue (cause everyone lost their voice due to supernatural reasons). This creativity was rewarded with an Emmy nomination.

The cult success of that series led to the spin-off series, Angel. Again confounding stereotypes, the hero, Angel, is a vampire while nemesis is a firm of lawyers who had sold their souls to evil. Okay, maybe evil lawyers is not such a surprising concept but a hero vampire private eye is.

Then, came Firefly. The Firefly universe is a world of spaceships and space ports but whose outer planets look and feel like the old wild west. The hero is an ex-rebel space smuggler and again the most lethal person in his crew is a young girl, River Tam. This also became a big cult hit. So even though the networks pulling the plug on the show, fans drove the push for a movie which resulted in “Serenity”.

After this came Dollhouse, but I never got the chance to see this as it did not reach Malaysian shores. But what came next from Joss Whedon’s fertile mind is again a masterpiece of creativity and the unexpected. Kicking his heels during the Writer’s Guild strike in 2008, Joss came up with the idea of “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog“, a 2008 musical tragicomedy miniseries in three acts, produced exclusively for Internet distribution where there is a villian that we like and who runs a blog and there is a hero that is obnoxious and distasteful and where everybody sings. Sounds like a ridiculous, disastrous concept?

On October 31, 2008, Time magazine named it #15 in Time’s Top 50 Inventions of 2008. It also won the People’s Choice Award for “Favorite Online Sensation”, and the 2009 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form. In the inaugural 2009 Streamy Awards for web television, Dr. Horrible won seven awards: Audience Choice Award for Best Web Series, Best Directing for a Comedy Web Series, Best Writing for a Comedy Web Series, Best Male Actor in a Comedy Web Series (Harris), Best Editing, Best Cinematography, and Best Original Music. It also won a 2009 Creative Arts Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Class – Short-format Live-Action Entertainment Programs.

Joss, keep it coming.

This alarming video records Dr. Horrible’s takeover of the Emmy Awards Broadcast in 2009