#british comedians are out here making the most devastating shows

[cakebatteronabrickwall]

Well wrap it up, because Richard Gadd just made one of the best shows, if not the best show, of the year with Baby Reindeer.

[talesofafangirlwithadvr]

JUNE PICKS

I know, I know it’s currently July 13th and I’m only posting my June picks now. In my defense summer is going FAR too fast and I didn’t want to encounter spoilers for Stranger Things so i was avoiding a lot of social media. So without further a do here come my picks.

Always be prepared for spoilers. Tread lightly. 

LEGENDS OF TOMORROW

Best.season.so.far... As a MAJOR fan of all things Arrowverse, recently I have found myself losing interest in the Berlanti CW/DC shows. Some of the plots feel overdone (we’ve done it on one show and now it’s appearing on another), or characters are losing who they once were. The only show in this multiverse that I’m caught up on is Legends of Tomorrow. Thanks to Netflix I was able to binge it all at once (which I found really helps watching this show. You just want to watch episode after episode because you NEED to know where we’re headed next). I think Legends is really underrated as a whole, which is wrong. It deserves more love compared to Arrow and The Flash. I believe it is the strongest of the superhero shows on the network. That was proven with this great season (I’d call it the best and I can’t wait to watch season 5). I really enjoyed this team of heroes aboard the Waverider. We’ve seen much change from last season and only 3 remain from the original team that Rip created. (Which is SO crazy!) At first I was worried about Charlie because I didn’t want her to just be a recasting of Amaya, but I loved her addition. She brought another style to the Waverider and having her as a “monster” was perfect for this season that involved bringing awareness to these creatures. Plus her power came in handy a lot of the time. I’m always a fan of Constantine so it was great to see him as a permanent fixture of the Legends (even if he claimed he didn’t want to be :). After speaking with him at HVFF in Edison, New Jersey this June I am excited to see his character return as a regular for season 5. I also enjoyed Nora Darhk. When we first met her last season we we’re supposed to like her, but since she’s no longer possessed and wanting to change her ways we see a different side of her now. A side that Ray sees (still think it’s super adorable that off screen husband and wife are love interests on the show). I was a big fan of her involvement this season. Speaking of Ray, what a journey he went on. Props to Brandon Routh for his acting this season. Very out of his regular character, which often is the most fun to watch. I loved the Time Bureau getting more involved in the plot. We got to see more of their headquarters and how they function while the Legends do their thing throughout space and time. I hope that continues, especially so we don’t lose seeing characters like Ava and Mona (oh and of course Gary-oops!) MAJOR SPOILER ALERT!!!!   That ending!!!! Please don’t tell us Zari is off the team for good. I mean I’m sure her brother is nice and all, but we need her! After speaking with Tala, also at HVFF, she said we’ll be getting a much different Zari this season. Which makes complete sense seeing as how her backstory has drastically changed. 

Man, I guess I could have dedicated an entire post just to Legends of Tomorrow. Just shows you it is a great show that you should be watching. 

Now I can’t stop singing James Taylor’s “Sweet Baby James”

Good Omens

This Amazon Prime Video original was my first watch of the month. I didn’t binge it all at once (mainly because I don’t like investing ALL of my time into watching something that’s only a handful of episodes and then feeling completely lost when it’s over...Wow that opened something I didn’t know was there....) While that’s one of the reasons I didn’t watch all episodes in one sitting the other is that I couldn’t really get into it. People have told me great things about the book, but I haven’t read it and I didn’t know a whole lot (other than what I’ve seen from the trailer) before watching. It’s hard for me to explain why I didn’t enjoy it or get into it. I don’t know if it was the large amount of characters to follow or the style of episodes or just the overall style of the show. I enjoyed the voice over narration and I thought the dynamic between Aziraphale and Crowley was great (always a fan of David Tennant). I liked the reinventing of the final battle and how these forces currently exist on Earth. I think my favorite episodes were the last two as the battle occurred and how Adam was a part of it all. 

Have you watched Good Omens? Did you like it? 

Jack Whitehall’s Travels with my Father

After watching Good Omens I was looking for a quick watch before jumping into Daredevil (which I know is also a quick watch). Seeing Jack Whitehall in Good Omens reminded me of a Netflix show I had saved in my queue a while ago. The British Comedian Jack Whitehall decides to go on a gap year in his late twenties and bring along his seventy year old father. Like everyone does! I’ve read a lot of things, while I watched, about how the show is scripted and while it is at times very obvious I still liked watching their banter. His dad had some great lines as Jack brought him to some eccentric spots. It was also nice to see their relationship progress as the episodes went on. As someone who wasn’t thinking of traveling to Asia I really liked being able to see some of the places and attractions in different countries that might not be as publicized. I have the second season saved in my queue where Jack’s dad will bring Jack to what he considers a vacation. This time traveling around Europe. I think it should be good, but right now I have other things to watch before.   

Blood & Treasure

CBS’ new summer show has already been picked up for a second season and the first season hasn’t even finished yet! If that’s not a reason for you to check this out then read this review. :) 

This action adventure show follows Danny, an ex FBI agent, and Lexi, an art thief, as they travel the globe in search for Cleopatra’s tomb and other Egyptian antiquities before they get in the hands of a terrorist. Each week feels like you have entered a movie as you join this team race against the clock to retrieve these artifacts. Because of this there are times where I feel like the show might work better as a movie or a mini-series/3 longer episodes. By this point I feel like there are times where the plot gets a little extended and parts might not need to happen (but do because of the length of episodes). That being said I am still enjoying this show and am excited to see how the season eventually ends. Now that I know there will be a second season it will be interesting to see what they pursue next. If you like movies like Indiana Jones and National Treasure as well as the TNT show The Librarians, then this show is one for you!    

PBS Les Miserables 

I am way behind on reviewing this program that debuted on PBS’ Masterpiece in the Spring, but with one episode left I am very excited to talk about this new adaptation of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. This six episode show directed by Andrew Davies brings Hugo’s characters to life without music. Being a fan of the musical, I was a little worried about how the show would be without this element. While there are times where I would like a song that is traditional sung by one of the leads to be played in the background (and I think it would have put the scene over the top) I have really enjoyed watching. Due to the length of the series we have really been able to get to know these characters and watch their transformations. I have always been daunted by the size of the novel, so I have not had the chance to read it, but being familiar with Davies’ work in the past (the iconic Pride and Prejudice 1995) I have a feeling this program is very accurate to the original text. My favorite character is still Jean Valjean (despite the slight plot wholes at how he has so much money despite escaping jail so many times). I think my favorite parts have been the earlier episodes when Cosette is young. I understand she wants to see the word as she gets older, but sometimes she bothers me. Currently I am at the barricade with them. One more episode to go. I know how it will end, but I’m probably still not mentally prepared.    

Master Chef Junior

This season I have watched a good amount of reality shows (in the sense of game shows/competition shows/and yes Bachelorette). Some seasons when you watch I feel that you connect better to the contestants. You root for them and are devastated when they lose or get out. You call them by name as if you know them. I often feel this way with Fox’s Master Chef Junior, but this season especially I was invested in this show. They were a great group of young home cooks.

While their cooking skills ALWAYS put mine to shame and half the time I don’t know what they’re talking about and just smile and nod, I always find myself watching cooking competitions that involve kids. It’s just so impressive all that they can do at their age. I always love how they talk about cooking for so long meanwhile how much cooking could you do at 2 years old? (Or was it just my parents that wouldn’t allow me to use a stove??) This season they had multiple non-elimination rounds showing just how good these kids were. While my favorite, Reid, did not make the finals (he was soooo close) I will forever think of him when people talk about fishing. “The best part about fishing is fishing.”   

The Amazing Race

I’ve been a fan of the Amazing Race for a very long of time, but cannot believe that this past season was their 19th SEASON! In the past I’ve heard of the show possibly not returning for another season, but I’m so happy that was not the case. There really is still not too much out there like it. This season the teams (ironically) came from all reality shows ranging from Big Brother, Survivor, and (of course) The Amazing Race. There were so many familiar faces that it was like we were visiting old friends. (I’m still super happy that the top 3 were all Race teams). This season was another example of getting too invested in the show. It often caused a lot of anxiety and being told to ‘fast forward to the end’ to know who got out. (Which I usually refused to do). Next season will be very hard to beat!

BINGEING

The Walking Dead

I mentioned that the Walking Dead was on my to watch list and I have decided to make it my Summer Show of 2019. Season 1 went by extremely fast (it was only 6 episodes) and now I’m in the middle of season 2. (I think I just hit episode 10?) Shane is getting crazier and crazier by the day. Sofia was discovered. I knew she’d be a zombie, but wow I was not expecting where we’d find her. Dale has quickly become one of my favorites and I don’t want anything bad to happen to him. I love how he knows what’s truly going on. Glenn is still my favorite and I’m excited to see his relationship with Maggie progress. Carl got his signature look wearing Rick’s hat. I think Hershel might let them stay on the farm. This show is just so addicting. I can never just watch one. I know I’m in for a roller coaster and just like when I watched Game of Thrones, the spoilers are out there (because I’m watching it so late) and I do know some, but not all. Can’t wait to continue. Are you a fan?  

So, that’s it! That’s the June Wrap Up. Are we watching any of the same things? Are there any shows that seem interesting? Anything I should add to my watch list? Let me know!

July Watch Preview

Just finished it last night. (You now see why I had that rant earlier about finishing a show and not knowing what to do with my life.) Wow! I am probably not going to be able to wait to post an article till July. Keep your eyes open for a new post soon!!

[potterheads23]

35 Things You Might Not Know About Harry Potter

1. ROWLING AND HARRY SHARE A BIRTHDAY.

They both blow out candles on July 31 (happy birthday, JKR!). And that’s not the only influence Rowling had on her characters: She’s said that Hermione is a bit like her when she was younger, and her favorite animal is an otter—which is, of course, Hermione’s patronus. Plus, both Dumbledore and Rowling like sherbet lemons (Rowling said that the wizard’s “got good taste”).  

2. SHE INVENTED THE NAMES OF THE HOGWARTS HOUSES ON THE BACK OF A BARF BAG.

In 2000, Scholastic gave schoolchildren across the U.S. the opportunity to ask Rowling questions about Harry Potter. When one student asked her, “What made you think of the people's names and dormitories at Hogwarts?” Rowling responded, “I invented the names of the Houses on the back of an airplane sick bag! This is true. I love inventing names, but I also collect unusual names, so that I can look through my notebook and choose one that suits a new character.”

3. EARLY ON, ROWLING WROTE A SKETCH OF THE FINAL CHAPTER OF THE FINAL BOOK.

Rowling calls the idea that she had the first chapter of Deathly Hallowswritten and locked away in the safe “rubbish.” But there was a small element of truth to it: “I had, very early on—but not the first day or anything, probably within the first year of writing—I wrote a sketch for what I thought the final chapter would be,” she told Harry Potter's big screen portrayer, Daniel Radcliffe, in an interview for the Deathly Hallows Part 2 DVD extra features. “I always knew—and this was from really early on—that I was working toward the point where Hagrid carried Harry, alive but supposedly dead, out of the forest, always. I knew we were always working towards a final battle at Hogwarts, I knew that Harry would walk to his death, I planned the ghosts—for want of a better word—coming back, that they would walk with him into the forest,  we would all believe he was walking to his death, and he would emerge in Hagrid’s arms.”

And that mental image is what kept Hagrid alive, despite the fact that he “would have been a natural to kill in some ways,” Rowling said. “But because I always cleaved to this mental image of Hagrid being the one carrying Harry out … That was so perfect for me, because it was Hagrid who and took him into the world, and Hagrid who would bring him back … That’s where we were always going. Hagrid was never in danger.”

4. THE DEMENTORS ARE BASED ON ROWLING’S STRUGGLE WITH DEPRESSION AFTER HER MOTHER’S DEATH.

Rowling’s mother, who had multiple sclerosis, died in 1990, after which Rowling suffered a period of depression. She would use the experience to characterize the Harry Potter’s dementors, creepy creatures that feed on human emotion. “It's so difficult to describe [depression] to someone who's never been there, because it's not sadness," Rowling told Oprah Winfrey. “I know sadness. Sadness is to cry and to feel. But it's that cold absence of feeling—that really hollowed-out feeling. That's what Dementors are.”

5. SHE CREATED QUIDDITCH AFTER A FIGHT WITH HER BOYFRIEND.

“If you want to create a game like Quidditch, what you have to do is have an enormous argument with your then-boyfriend,” Rowling said in 2003. “You walk out of the house, you sit down in a pub, and you invent Quidditch. And I don't really know what the connection is between the row and Quidditch except that Quidditch is quite a violent game and maybe in my deepest, darkest soul I would quite like to see him hit by a bludger.”

6. THE WIZARDING WORLD’S PLANTS COME FROM A REAL BOOK.

“I used to collect names of plants that sounded witchy,” she told 60 Minutes, “and then I found this, Culpeper's Complete Herbal, and it was the answer to my every prayer: flax weed, toadflax, fleawort, Gout-wort, grommel, knotgrass, Mugwort." The book was penned in the 17th century by English botanist and herbalist Nicholas Culpeper; you can read it here.

7. A PROPOSED TITLE FOR THE AMERICAN VERSION OF PHILOSOPHER’S STONE WAS HARRY POTTER AND THE SCHOOL OF MAGIC.

Rowling turned that down, saying, according to American publisher Arthur Levine, “No—that doesn’t feel right to me … What if we called it the Sorcerer’s Stone?” (The French edition, Levine points out in J.K. Rowling: A Bibliography, is called Harry Potter a L'ecole Des Sorciers.)

8. ROWLING MADE COMPLICATED OUTLINES FOR THE BOOKS.

You can see a partial outline for Order of the Phoenix above. The outline has chapter titles, a general outline of the plot, and then more specific plot points for certain characters. (Based on this outline, it looks like Rowling thought about calling Dolores Umbridge Elvira Umbridge instead!)

9. ARTHUR WEASLEY WAS SUPPOSED TO DIE.

In a battle between good and evil this epic, not everyone would make it through alive—that would have led to “very fluffy, cozy books,” she told Meredith Vieira. “You know, suddenly I [would be] halfway through Goblet of Fire and suddenly everyone would just have a really great life and … the plot would go AWOL.”

Which is not to say that Rowling knew exactly who was on the chopping block. She thought about killing Arthur Weasley after he’s attacked by Nagini in Order of the Phoenix, but instead opted to save him, partly because “there were very few good fathers in the book. In fact, you could make a very good case for Arthur Weasley being the only good father in the whole series.” (She also “seriously considered” killing Ron, then thought better of it.)

Instead, Lupin—a character she had no intention of killing when she began the books—and Tonks died during the final Battle of Hogwarts. “I wanted there to be an echo of what happened to Harry just to show the absolute evil of what Voldemort's doing,” she said. “I think one of the most devastating things about war is the children left behind. As happened in the first war when Harry's left behind, I wanted us to see another child left behind. And it made it very poignant that it was [Lupin and Tonks's] newborn son.”

10. TO KEEP DEATHLY HALLOWS FROM LEAKING EARLY, BLOOMSBURY GAVE IT CODENAMES.

You probably wouldn’t have been so interested in reading Edinburgh Potmakers or The Life and Times of Clara Rose Lovett: An Epic Novel Covering Many Generations.

11. HALEY JOEL OSMENT COULD HAVE PLAYED HARRY.

When Steven Spielberg was attached to direct the film adaptation, he wanted Sixth Sense star Haley Joel Osment to play Harry. But the director eventually left over a creative clash with Rowling, and new director Chris Columbus had to find his star. Some 300 kids tested for Harry Potter over a period of seven months; Jonathan Lipnicki (Jerry McGuire) even expressed interest. “There were times when we felt we would never find an individual who embodied the complex spirit and depth of Harry,” Columbus said.

Then, one night, Heyman went to the theater with screenwriter SteveKloves (who ended up penning all but one of the Potter scripts). “There sitting behind me was this boy with these big blue eyes. It was Dan Radcliffe,” he told HeroComplex in 2009. “I remember my first impressions: He was curious and funny and so energetic. There was real generosity too, and sweetness. But at the same time he was really voracious and with hunger for knowledge of whatever kind.” He persuaded Radcliffe’s parents to let their son audition, and the rest is history.

12. RUPERT GRINT’S AUDITION WAS UNUSUAL.

Nine-year-old Emma Watson’s first audition for the role of Hermione took place in her school gym; she auditioned a total of eight times. Grint, then 10, sent in a video audition, and went in a rather unusual direction: “I found out that you could audition by sending a picture of yourself and some information to Newsround,” he said in 2002. “I did my own video with me, first of all, pretending to be my drama teacher who unfortunately was a girl and then I did a rap of how I wanted to be Ron and then I made my own script thing up and sent it off.”

He had some competition, though: Tom Felton auditioned for both Ron and Harry before ultimately being cast as Draco Malfoy.

13. THERE’S A VERY GOOD REASON HARRY’S EYES AREN’T GREEN IN THE MOVIES.

In the books, Harry’s eyes are described as “bright green”—but Radcliffe’s are blue. When Sorcerer’s Stone was in pre-production, Heyman called Rowling and told her their options: They’d tried green contacts; they could also trying making Radcliffe’s eyes green in post-production. How important was it, he wondered, for Harry’s eyes to be green?

Rowling said that the only thing that was really important was that Harry's eyes looked like his mother’s eyes, so whoever played Lily Potter would need to have some resemblance to Radcliffe. This was a relief for Radcliffe, who had an an extremely adverse reaction to the contacts. (He was also allergic to the glasses, which made him break out in acne.)

14. THE BROOMS USED IN THE SERIES AREN’T REGULAR BROOMS.

They were made by modeler Pierre Bohanna using aircraft-grade titanium. “People think of them as a prop the kids are carrying around, but in reality, they have to sit on them,” Eddie Newquist, chief creative officer of the firm Global Entertainment Services, which puts on Harry Potter: The Exhibition, told Popular Mechanics. “They have to be mounted onto motion-control bases for green-screen shots and special-effects shots, so they have to be very thin and incredibly durable. Most of these kids weighed 80 pounds, 90 pounds [at the beginning]. Now they're all adults, so they're up over 120, 130 pounds, and you have to really make sure your brooms can withstand that.”

15. THE ROLE OF PEEVES WAS CAST AND FILMED—THEN CUT.

British comedian Rik Mayall was cast as Hogwarts’s prank-happy poltergeist in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. He showed up and shot the scenes, which were later cut when director Chris Columbus decided he didn’t like the look of the ghost. Mayall described the experience in a 2011 interview:

I got sent off the set because every time I tried to do a bit of acting, all the lads who were playing the school kids kept getting the giggles, they kept corpsing, so they threw me off.

Well, they asked me to do it with my back to them and they still laughed. So they asked me to do it around the other side of the cathedral and shout my lines, but they still laughed so they said they’d do my lines with someone else. So then I did a little bit of filming, then I went home and I got the money. That’s significant. Then a month later, they said: ‘Er, Rik, we’re sorry about this, but you’re not in the film. We’ve cut you out of the film.’ … But I still got the money. So that is the most exciting film I’ve ever been in, because I got the oodle and I wasn’t in it. Fantastic.

He didn’t tell his kids his part had been cut, though, and when they went to see it, “they came back and they said: ‘Bloody good make up. You didn’t look like yourself at all dad,���” Mayall said. “They thought I was playing Hagrid, Robbie Coltrane’s part.”

16. THE ACTRESS WHO PLAYED MOANING MYRTLE WAS MUCH OLDER THAN A STUDENT.

Shirley Henderson was 36 when she played the bathroom-haunting ghost of a 14-year-old student who was killed by a basilisk’s stare in Chamber of Secrets. Playing a ghost was tougher than playing a real person, she told the BBC, “because of all the technical stuff it involved. I had to be strapped up to this harness so it looked as if I was flying and so I could be pushed through the air and twisted and turned over and over again. It's physically very tiring on your body. It also requires a lot of concentration, because there's all kinds of people shouting stuff like 'Turn, do this, look at this' so they can do all their stuff with the computer effects while I'm trying to act it out. But once you block all that out, it's great fun. Really good fun.”

17. PRISONER OF AZKABAN DIRECTOR ALFONSO Cuarón ASKED THE TRIO TO WRITE ESSAYS ABOUT THEIR CHARACTERS.

Alfonso Cuarón wanted Watson, Radcliffe, and Grint to write essays about their characters from a first person point of view. According to Heyman, “they all responded very much in character … Dan wrote a page, Emma wrote 10 and Rupert didn't deliver anything.” Grint told Entertainment Weekly, “I didn't do mine, because I didn't think Ron would. Or that was my excuse. At the time, I was actually quite busy with the real schoolwork involved with my exams, and I just didn't do it. But in the end, it felt right because that's what Ron would have done.”

18. ROWLING SHOT DOWN ONE OF Cuarón’S IDEAS.

Rowling wasn’t precious about all of the details of her books (see: Harry’s eye color). “Inevitably, you have to depart from the strict storyline of the books,” she told Radcliffe. “The books are simply too long to make into very faithful films.” But that didn’t mean she’d let everything slide: “Sometimes I would dig my heels in on the funniest things,” she said. “I’d say yeah, change the costume, that’s not a problem … And then all of a sudden I’d say, ‘Why would they do that spell? They wouldn’t do that there.’”

Take, for example, one shot that Cuarón wrote into Prisoner of Azkaban, which Rowling called “rather bizarre.” “I think Flitwick was conducting, and there were miniature people in an orchestra inside something,” she told Radcliffe. “I said to him, but why? I know it’s visually exciting, but part of what I think fans really enjoyed about the literary world is that there was a logic that underpinned it. There was always a logic to the magic, however strange it became. And I know it’s intriguing to go through the mouth of whatever it was and see these little people, but why have they done it? For you to film it, that’s just what it feels like. Normally, with the magic, there’s a point. So we had a bit of discussion.”

19. ROWLING TIPPED ALAN RICKMAN OFF TO SNAPE’S MOTIVATIONS.

“I told him really early on that Snape had been in love with Lily, that’s why he hated James, that’s why he projected this amount of dislike onto Harry,” Rowling told Radcliffe. “So he knew that. Then you told me that he’d been saying … ‘I just don’t think Snape would do that, given what I know.’” She laughed, continuing, “And I thought, ‘Alan, are you really milking this now?’”

She also tipped Radcliffe off to Harry’s (partial) fate after seeing him in Equus. Radcliffe asked her, point blank: “Do I die?”

“You get a death scene,” Rowling told him.

“I saw you double-take,” Rowling said. “Neal, my husband, afterward, said, ‘What did Dan ask you?’ And I said ‘He wanted to know if he’s going to die.’” When he asked what she’d said, Rowling told him, “I’m not telling you!” Though her husband was tipped off to Dumbledore's fate ahead of time, Rowling kept Harry’s ultimate fate a secret till the end.

20. THE ACTORS COULDN’T PLAY CONTACT SPORTS.

Instead, they played golf. ''[At Leavesden Studios], Rupert Grint and my brother [James] and I would hang out at the driving range downstairs quite a bit,” Oliver Phelps, who played George Weasley, told EW. “I mean, I say driving range, but it was a mat and a 150-yard cone at the other end. Golf was one of the only sports we were allowed to do in our contract because it was relatively quite safe. We couldn't do any contact sports.”

21. THE MOVIES FEATURED SOME HIGH TECH VISUAL EFFECTS …

Visual effects artists were tasked with bringing many of the fantastic magical elements of Harry Potter to life, including everything from fire-breathing dragons and club-swinging giants to zombie-like Inferi and Voldemort’s snake-like face (which was created by using practical makeup and digitally removing Ralph Fiennes’s nose). One of their most challenging sequences came early in Deathly Hallows, when members of the Order of the Phoenix arrive at Privet Drive to whisk Harry away to a safe spot. Multiple Harrys, Mad-Eye Moody says, will confuse the Death Eaters on their trail—so some of the wizards chug Polyjuice Potion and transform into Harry.

The transformation was tough for visual effects artists to pull off. "We needed to have a little bit of the attributes of Harry, and a little bit of the attributes of whoever we started with—George, Fred, Ron, Hermione," Nicolas Aithadi, VFX supervisor at Moving Picture Company, told Popular Mechanics. "The tricky part is you have to be able to read the Harry part and the George part. What we keep from each of these characters has to be perfect." They accomplished it by coating the actors’ faces in UV paint, then having them make faces in the Mova Contour Reality Capture system, which has 29 cameras and can capture 50,000 points of information, creating a 3D mesh cloud they could use as a basis for the transforming faces.

According to Phelps, it was completely different than anything they’d ever done before. “There are probably 30 different facial expressions they tried to get you to do,” he told Popular Mechanics. “I never realized how wide I could open my mouth until we did that scene, so that was quite cool.” Because of the UV paint, the VFX artists had one piece of advice, Phelps said: “They were quite keen to say, ‘Just don't go to any nightclubs tonight, because you'll look like a floating head.’”

22. … BUT NOT ALL THE EFFECTS WERE COMPUTER GENERATED.

Animatronics were made for the actors to interact with on set, including baby mandrakes, Hedwig, the Monster Book of Monsters, and Buckbeak, which was used on-set for close ups. “He could stare at you, his eyes could follow you, he could bow, and every one of his feathers was dyed and put in by hand,” Newquist told PopMech. “There are tens of thousands of them, and they look absolutely gorgeous.”Other creatures were built to give the animators reference for lighting, like the giant Jack-in-the-Box from Prisoner of Azkaban and house elf Kreacher.

23. THE FILM’S MAKEUP ARTISTS APPLIED THE LIGHTNING BOLT SCAR MANY, MANY TIMES OVER THE COURSE OF EIGHT FILMS.

Five thousand eight hundred times, to be exact. In our 2014 interview with Radcliffe, he told us, “The lightning scar, on the first two films, we essentially painted it on, and after that we used Pros-Aide, which was like a glue [to put it on]. It was very simple.” The scar was applied to his face 2,000 times; the rest went on film and stunt doubles. Radcliffe also went through 160 pairs of Harry’s round-frame glasses.

24. HELENA BONHAM CARTER KEPT HER BELLATRIX TEETH.

“I loved my [fake] teeth!” the actress told EW. “I kept them because they're not going to fit anybody else. I keep them in a blue plastic thing in the bathroom and bring them out when I miss [Bellatrix].’”

25. THERE COULD HAVE BEEN AN OFFICIAL HARRY POTTER MUSICAL.

Rowling has turned down a lot of proposed Harry Potter ideas—including, she told Winfrey, a musical that Michael Jackson wanted to do. Earlier this year, Rowling announced that she’s working with a team to bring a new Harry Potter story to the stage; Harry Potter and the Cursed Childwill hit the West End in 2016.

26. DUMBLEDORE WAS GAY.

In 2007, when asked by a fan whether or not Hogwarts’s favorite headmaster had ever been in love, Rowling responded, “I always thought of Dumbledore as gay.” She revealed that he had fallen in love with Grindelwald, “and that added to his horror when Grindelwald showed himself to be what he was.”

Rowling said she found the reaction to the news very interesting. “To me it was not a big deal,” she told Radcliffe. “This is a very old man who has a very terrible job to do. And his gayness is not really relevant. Very relevant to him as a character, because I always saw him as a very lonely character. And I think that there is in fact a hint of it in [Deathly Hallows] because of the relationship he has with Grindelwald. He fell very hard for this boy ...  And don’t you think it was perfect that Dumbledore, who is always the great champion of love … his one great experience of love was utterly tragic.”

This led to one very necessary tweak to the Half-Blood Prince script. “In an early draft of that script, Dumbledore said to Harry … ‘I remember a young woman with eyes of flashing whatever, raven-haired…’ and I read this and I scribbled on my copy of the script, ‘Steve, Dumbledore is gay,’ shoved it up the table,” she said. “And Steve [said,] ‘Oh.’ So that’s why that line didn’t make the film.”

27. ROWLING ACKNOWLEDGED THAT A HARRY/HERMIONE PAIRING MIGHT HAVE WORKED.

In an interview with Emma Watson for Wonderland magazine in 2014, Rowling said that “I wrote the Hermione/Ron relationship as a form of wish fulfillment,” saying that they ended up together “for reasons that have very little to do with literature and far more to do with me clinging to the plot as I first imagined it … The attraction itself is plausible but the combative side of it … I’m not sure you could have got over that in an adult relationship, there was too much fundamental incompatibility.”

She noted that “in some ways Hermione and Harry are a better fit,” and that she felt that “quite strongly” when she wrote a particular scene in Deathly Hallows, where Harry and Hermione are in the tent. “I hadn’t told [Steve] Kloves that and when he wrote the script he felt exactly the same thing at exactly the same point,” she said.

28. BACK IN THE DAY, THE MALFOYS HUNG OUT WITH RICH MUGGLES.

“Until the imposition of the Statute of Secrecy in 1692, the Malfoy family was active within high-born Muggle circles, and it is said that their fervent opposition to the imposition of the Statute was due, in part, to the fact that they would have to withdraw from this enjoyable sphere of social life,” Rowling wrote on Pottermore. In fact, one Malfoy might have had designs on the British Throne: “There is ample evidence to suggest that the first Lucius Malfoy was an unsuccessful aspirant to the hand of Elizabeth I, and some wizarding historians allege that the Queen's subsequent opposition to marriage was due to a jinx placed upon her by the thwarted Malfoy,” Rowling writes. The Malfoys gave up their Muggle fraternizing when the Ministry of Magic, “the new heart of power,” was founded.

29. MOANING MYRTLE HAS AN INTERESTING INSPIRATION.

Rowling wrote on Pottermore that the whiny, bathroom-dwelling ghost was inspired by “the frequent presence of a crying girl in communal bathrooms, especially at the parties and discos of my youth. This does not seem to happen in male bathrooms, so I enjoyed placing Harry and Ron in such uncomfortable and unfamiliar territory in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.”

30. MUGGLES CAN’T MAKE POTIONS.

And that’s because you can’t make potions without wands. “Merely adding dead flies and asphodel to a pot hanging over a fire will give you nothing but nasty-tasting, not to mention poisonous, soup,” Rowling wrote on Pottermore. Though her least favorite subject in school was Chemistry, she admitted that “I always enjoyed creating potions in the books, and researching ingredients for them. Many of the components of the various draughts and libations that Harry creates for Snape exist (or were once believed to exist) and have (or were believed to have) the properties I gave them.”

31. ROWLING’S EDUCATION CAME IN HANDY.

At university, she minored in Classics, and she put that education to good use, peppering the books with Latin. “It just amused me, the idea that wizards would still be using Latin as a living language, although it is, as scholars of Latin will know,” she said in 2000. “I take great liberties with the language for spells. I see it as a kind of mutation that the wizards are using.” Expelliarmus, for example, combines expellere, meaning “drive out” or “expel,” with arma, meaning “weapon,” and knocks weapons from an enemy’s hands. Incendio, which lights a fire, comes from incendiarius, or “fire-raising.” And Hogwarts’s motto is Draco Dormiens Numquam Titillandus—“Never Tickle a Sleeping Dragon.”

32. THERE WAS ONE HARRY POTTER QUESTION ROWLING FEARED THE MOST.

It was “What was Dumbledore's wand made of?”

“That would have been quite a telling question,” Rowling told Time. “Because I had this elder thing in my mind, cause elder has this association in folklore, it's the death tree. I thought, ‘What am I going to say?’” Thankfully, no one ever asked.

33. STEPHEN KING THOUGHT DOLORES UMBRIDGE WAS A GREAT VILLAIN.

In his review of Order of the Phoenix for Entertainment Weekly, King said, “The gently smiling Dolores Umbridge, with her girlish voice, toadlike face, and clutching, stubby fingers, is the greatest make-believe villain to come along since Hannibal Lecter” [PDF].

34. YOU CAN SPOT A CRUMPLE-HORNED SNORKACK IN THE WIZARDING WORLD OF HARRY POTTER ...

It’s on the second story of the Magical Menagerie. Luna’s father, Xenophilius Lovegood, claimed it was a real creature, but it was never found. Rowling said that Luna, who became a naturalist, had to eventually “accept that her father might have made that one up.”

35. … AS WELL AS ARTHUR WEASLEY’S FLYING CAR.

The flying Ford Anglia—which Harry and Ron flew into the Whomping Willow and later saved them from Acromantulas in the books—can be found in line for the Dragon Challenge roller coaster, just over the bridge and before entering the castle.

[impressivepress]

Charlie Chaplin Goes to War: Shoulder Arms

Charlie Chaplin’s emergence as the world’s favorite film comedian almost precisely coincided with World War I. His first film, Making a Living, appeared in February 1914, just six months before his native Britain (along with France and Russia) went to war against Germany and Austria-Hungary.

Initially, he played supporting roles in comedy shorts from Mack Sennett’s Keystone Company. But soon he created his enduring character—“the little tramp” or the “little fellow” as Chaplin called him. Combining sentimentality and slapstick, Chaplin’s tramp quickly became one of the most popular characters in film history and made Chaplin an international star. Chaplin’s first contract with Keystone had paid him only $150 a week for the first three months; by the time he signed with Mutual in 1916, he was earning $10,000 a week (as well as a bonus of $150,000) and making such classic films as The Immigrant.

When Chaplin signed his contract with Mutual, it included a clause stipulating that he could not leave the United States without the corporation’s approval. The British press criticized the provision since it meant that Chaplin, who was only twenty-seven years old, could not join the British Army. Two years later, when he signed a million-dollar contract with First National pictures, he faced similar criticism in the United States, which had recently entered the war. Chaplin apparently tried to enlist in the U.S.army; only when he was rejected as underweight did the criticism abate—although some in Britain still felt that he should join their military forces.

When Chaplin did finally appear in army khaki, it was in his classic film comedy Shoulder Arms. Although the idea of sending Charlie to war seems obvious in retrospect, many at the time advised against it. Movie producer Cecil B. De Mille, mindful of the criticism directed at Chaplin for not joining the Army, told him: “It’s dangerous at this time to make fun of the war.” But Chaplin persisted with the project.Originally planned as a five-reel or feature-length, film under the title Camouflage, he finished a three-reel (40-minute) version in September1918 and retitled it Shoulder Arms.

But Chaplin momentarily lost confidence in the project and considered scrapping it. Only after he showed it to his friend and fellow actor Douglas Fairbanks, who responded, Chaplin writes in his autobiography, with “roars of laughter,” did he reconsider. Released in October, shortly before the end of the war, it proved to be a huge hit—particularly, Chaplin says,with soldiers who appreciated his gentle mockery of heroic conventions of war.Moreover, when the war ended, advertisements for the film could invite everyone to enjoy a respite from wartime seriousness: “Shoulder Arms has come at the right time. People can laugh at it without any guilt feelings now.”

The film opens with Charlie in boot camp mocking the regimentation of military formations and drills. Almost immediately, he finds himself overseas in the mud, muck, and lice of the trenches. (When Chaplin re-released the film a half century later, he preceded the dramatization with the film footage of actual trench warfare in order to highlight the realism of his staged version.)Feigning heroism, Charlie prepares to go “over the top” (out of the trench and into the line of fire), only to lose his nerve at the last minute.Another memorable scene shows him reading a letter over the shoulder of another soldier and perfectly mimicking his reactions of apprehension and relief.

In the scene from Shoulder Arms included here Charlie heroically volunteers for a secret mission. Informed that he “may never return,”he vainly tries to volunteer someone else. The secret mission turns out to be a trip “behind enemy lines,” during which he walks around camouflaged as a tree. This brilliantly surreal episode shows him defeating a group of German soldiers intent on turning him into firewood. In the next sequence, he manages to evade capture by having his papier-mâché camouflage blend into a forest. “The expanses of no-man’s-land,” David Robinson reports in his book on Chaplin, “were provided, in those days of a still-rural Hollywood, by the back of Beverly Hills, while Wilshire Boulevard. . . provided the forest.”

Thus, Chaplin had recreated on the “back lots” of an emerging Hollywood a facsimile of the European theater of war. Even more remarkably, he had found a way to make audiences laugh at a subject that had recently filled them only with horror. With the war’s ending, they could share his mocking perspective on the heroic conventions of a war that had brought so much death and devastation.

[thatsnotcanonpodcasts]

Indiana Jones, Robotic Delivery Boys & AMD Ryzen

WOW!!! We have an amazing episode for you this week, first up, thank you to our 1000 weekly listeners, you are amazing. At last, winter is here, and Professor and Buck are both totally enjoying it. DJ has brought us the controversy of the week, with wild claims of a new Indiana Jones, and the boys pile in on him. Once again we solve the world’s greatest issues with logic and careful consideration. We decide Chris Pratt is not suitable for taking on the role and also convince DJ that Indiana Jones is not a Marvel character yet; give Disney time and they will make it happen eventually I’m sure.

            With a fabulous Segway into the next topic we look at Digit. Not the figures, the robot that will help deliver your shopping from the car to your door. Professor decides he wants one to carry the shopping from the door to the kitchen and then cook his food. DJ calls robots slaves, revealing his desire to take over the world. Buck and Professor decide that given the way technology has been moving they wish to become Cyborgs and serve the robot overlords. We align the killer drones, self-replicating robots, driverless cars and robot dogs.

            Moving along before we get into too much trouble. We have a new CPU that is pushing the limits and is looks surprised at how amazing it is. AMD is back baby and challenging Intel once again. Buck and Professor fully geek out over what this means for building your own system. If you get confused and lost please let us know; we will get Professor to write up a translation for you. We also figure out how to turn your computer into an oven. We mean literally you will be able to cook your sausages and toast your marsh mellows.

            As always we make fun of everything, have a laugh with each other, at each other and life in general. We have the usual shout outs, remembrances, birthdays, and events of interest. As always, take care of yourselves, look out for each other, and stay hydrated. NERDS rule!!!

EPISODE NOTES:

Harrison Ford about Indiana Jones - https://www.empireonline.com/movies/news/harrison-ford-idea-succeed-indiana-jones-nobody/

Robotic Delivery Boy - https://techxplore.com/news/2019-05-bipedal-robot-digit-autonomous-delivery.html

AMD Ryzen 3000 - https://www.anandtech.com/show/14407/amd-ryzen-3000-announced-five-cpus-12-cores-for-499-up-to-46-ghz-pcie-40-coming-77

Games currently playing

DJ

– Apex Legends - https://www.origin.com/aus/en-us/store/apex/apex 

Professor

– Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead - https://cataclysmdda.org/

Buck

– Deceit - https://store.steampowered.com/app/466240/Deceit/

Other topics discussed

Jurassic World (2015 movie)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurassic_World

James Cameron (Film director)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cameron

Terminator Salvation (2009 movie)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator_Salvation

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017 movie)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumanji:_Welcome_to_the_Jungle

The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Young_Indiana_Jones_Chronicles

Sean Patrick Flanery (American actor)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Patrick_Flanery

Shia LaBeouf (American actor)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shia_LaBeouf

Daniel Craig (British actor)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Craig

Eric Bana (Australian actor)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Bana

Gerard Butler (Scottish actor)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_Butler

Boston Dynamics Spot kicked

Meme -  https://i.imgur.com/0hQjQQq.jpg

CNN about Spot - https://edition.cnn.com/2015/02/13/tech/spot-robot-dog-google/index.html

WALL·E (2008 movie)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WALL-E

I, Robot (2004 movie)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_Robot_(film)

007 You Only Live Twice: Car taken by a magnet

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLAo27BtBJ0

AMD Bulldozer chip analysis

- https://www.extremetech.com/computing/100583-analyzing-bulldozers-scaling-single-thread-performance

Definition of TDP (Thermal Design Power)

- https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/tdp-thermal-design-power-definition,5764.html

Intel Announces Core i9-9900KS

- https://www.extremetech.com/computing/292195-intel-announces-core-i9-9900ks-eight-cores-5ghz-all-core-boost

FX 8350 (AMD product)

- https://www.amd.com/en/products/cpu/fx-8350

Forrest Gump (1994 movie)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forrest_Gump

Marvin Heemeyer (Killdozer inventor)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Heemeyer

That’s Not Canon Podcasts

- A New World Order - https://thatsnotcanon.com/anewworldorderpodcast

- Floof and Pupper - https://thatsnotcanon.com/floofandpupperpodcast

Phil Hartman (supposed to voice Zapp Brannigan)

- https://futurama.fandom.com/wiki/Phil_Hartman

Study: Heavy metal combats depression

- https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-25/study-finds-heavy-metal-reduces-anger-depression/6571820

Let It Go (Epic Metal Cover by Connor Engstrom Music)

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbncFS-HavM

Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang (1964 book)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang

Sam Westphalen - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Theme - Death Metal Version

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OqXIo9ygi8

Murder Ballads (Nick Cave album)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_Ballads

Voyage of the Damned (Doctor Who)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_of_the_Damned_(Doctor_Who)

Shoutouts

27 May 2019 - Kirsty Boden posthumously awarded Florence Nightingale medal by Red Cross for her heroism in 2017 London terror attacks - https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/kirsty-boden-awarded-florence-nightingale-medal-by-red-cross-for-her-heroism-in-2017-london-terror-attacks/news-story/861689d9992d095c1c4796955ad74de3

28 May 1972 – A team of plumbers breaks into the Democratic National Committee Headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. for the first time, bugging the telephones of staffers. This started the Watergate scandal. - https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/watergate-scandal-timeline-nixon

28 May 2019 - Alister Kerr graduates with a perfect GPA - https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/queensland-uni-student-with-perfect-gpa-was-that-guy-during-class-20190528-p51ru8.html?fbclid=IwAR1OmH6g8a-l3ZxAnGLxbbOyLl_DUcjx0bXMBwtBTIMaviRhoKQ5Odle6Vk

Remembrances

26 May 2019 - Kaleb the police dog was part of the Queensland Police Service litter. In his 5 years he has been with the service, he has been part of countless successful tracks and apprehensions. Kaleb like all QPS dogs lived at home with his handler Sergeant Trevor O’Neill and are part of their family and the bond between handlers and their dogs makes them inseparable. Sergeant Trevor O’Neill was absolutely devastated by the loss of his dog, partner and mate. - https://mypolice.qld.gov.au/blog/2019/05/26/death-of-police-dog-kaleb/?fbclid=IwAR3velHYg3PueWjNxXkhJs1rZ5v0RRnQY1ZBkko3eqk0A7_D1lvT3xZwk2I

28 May 1843 – Noah Webster, American lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English-language spelling reformer, political writer, editor, and prolific author. He has been called the "Father of American Scholarship and Education". His blue-backed speller books taught five generations of American children how to spell and read. Webster's name has become synonymous with "dictionary" in the United States. In 1806, Webster published his first dictionary, A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language. The following year, he started working on an expanded and comprehensive dictionary, finally publishing it in 1828. He was very influential in popularizing certain spellings in the United States. He was also influential in establishing the Copyright Act of 1831, the first major statutory revision of U.S. copyright law. He died at 84 in New Haven, Connecticut - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah_Webster

28 May 1998 - Phil Hartman, Canadian-American actor, comedian, screenwriter and graphic artist. Hartman garnered fame in 1986 when he joined the sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live. He won fame for his impressions, particularly of President Bill Clinton, and he stayed on the show for eight seasons. Given the moniker "The Glue" for his ability to hold the show together and help other cast members, Hartman won a Primetime Emmy Award for his SNL work in 1989. He voiced various roles on The Simpsons, most notably Lionel Hutz from seasons 2–9 and Troy McClure from seasons 2–10. Other Simpsons characters included Lyle Lanley, Mr. Muntz and minor characters. He also had roles in the films Houseguest,Sgt. Bilko,Jingle All the Way, Small Soldiers and the English dub of Kiki's Delivery Service. He died of homicide at 49 in Encino, Los Angeles, California - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Hartman

Famous Birthdays

27 May 1922 - Sir Christopher Lee, English actor, singer and author. With a career spanning nearly 70 years, Lee was well known for portraying villains and became best known for his role as Count Dracula in a sequence of Hammer Horror films, a typecasting situation he always lamented. His other film roles include Francisco Scaramanga in the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun,Saruman in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy (2001–2003) and The Hobbit film trilogy, and Count Dooku in the second and third films of the Star Wars prequel trilogy. Always noted as an actor for his deep, strong voice, Lee was also known for his singing ability, recording various opera and musical pieces between 1986 and 1998, and the symphonic metal album Charlemagne: By the Sword and the Cross in 2010, after having worked with several metal bands since 2005. The heavy metal follow-up Charlemagne: The Omens of Death was released on 27 May 2013, Lee's 91st birthday. He was honoured with the "Spirit of Metal" award at the 2010 Metal HammerGolden Gods Awards ceremony. He was born in Belgravia, London - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Lee

27 May 1971 - Paul Bettany, English-American actor. He is known for his voice role as J.A.R.V.I.S. and as Vision in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He first came to the attention of mainstream audiences when he appeared in the British film Gangster No. 1, and director Brian Helgeland's film A Knight's Tale. He has gone on to appear in a wide variety of films, includingA Beautiful Mind, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, the adaptation of the novel The Da Vinci Code and many other movies. He was born in London - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Bettany

28 May 1524 - Selim The Second, also known as Sarı Selim ("Selim the Blond") or Sarhoş Selim ("Selim the Drunk"),was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1566 until his death in 1574. He was a son of Suleiman the Magnificent and his wife Hürrem Sultan. The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica article on him remarks that he was "the first sultan entirely devoid of military virtues and willing to abandon all power to his ministers, provided he were left free to pursue his orgies and debauches." He was born in Istanbul, Ottoman Empire - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selim_II

28 May 1908 – Ian Fleming, English author, journalist and naval intelligence officer who is best known for his James Bond series of spy novels. While working for Britain's Naval Intelligence Division during the Second World War, Fleming was involved in planning Operation Goldeneye and in the planning and oversight of two intelligence units, 30 Assault Unit and T-Force. His wartime service and his career as a journalist provided much of the background, detail and depth of the James Bond novels. Fleming wrote his first Bond novel, Casino Royale, in 1952. It was a success, with three print runs being commissioned to cope with the demand. Eleven Bond novels and two collections of short stories followed between 1953 and 1966. The novels revolved around James Bond, an officer in the Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6. Bond was also known by his code number, 007, and was a commander in the Royal Naval Reserve. The Bond stories rank among the best-selling series of fictional books of all time, having sold over 100 million copies worldwide. Fleming also wrote the children's story Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang and two works of non-fiction. In 2008, The Times ranked Fleming 14th on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". Fleming's creation has appeared in film twenty-six times, portrayed by seven actors. He was born in Green Street, London - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Fleming

28 May 1968 - Kylie Minogue, Australian-British singer, songwriter and actress. She achieved recognition starring in the Australian soap opera Neighbours, where she played tomboy mechanic Charlene Robinson. Appearing in the series for two years, Minogue's character married Scott Robinson (Jason Donovan) in an episode viewed by nearly 20 million people in the United Kingdom, making it one of the most watched Australian TV episodes ever. Since then, Minogue has been a recording artist and has achieved commercial success and critical acclaim in the entertainment industry. Minogue has been recognised with severalhonorific nicknames, most notably the "Princess of Pop". She is recognised as the highest-selling Australian artist of all time by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). She was born in Melbourne,Victoria - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kylie_Minogue

31 May 1683 - Jean-Pierre Christin, French physicist, mathematician, astronomer and musician. His proposal in 1743 to reverse the Celsius thermometer scale (from water boiling at 0 degrees and ice melting at 100 degrees, to where zero represented the freezing point of water and 100 represented the boiling point of water) was widely accepted and is still in use today. He was a founding member of the Académie des sciences, belles-lettres et arts de Lyon and served as its Permanent Secretary from 1713 until 1755. His thermometer was known in France before the Revolution as the thermometer of Lyon. One of these thermometers was kept at the Science Museum in London. He was born in Lyon - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Pierre_Christin

Events of interest

28 May 1959 - Monkeys Able & Baker zoom 300 miles (500 km) into space on Jupiter missile, become 1st animals retrieved from a space mission - http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/28/newsid_3725000/3725961.stm

28 May 1961 - Last trip (Paris to Bucharest) on the Orient Express - https://www.onthisday.com/photos/the-orient-express

29 May 1953 – Edmund Hillary and SherpaTenzing Norgay became the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest, on Tenzing Norgay's (adopted) 39th birthday. - https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/features/everest/sir-edmund-hillary-tenzing-norgay-1953/

29 May 1999 – Space Shuttle Discovery completes the first docking with the International Space Station.

- https://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/history/discovery-becomes-first-space-shuttle-to-dock-with-station.html

- https://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/edn-moments/4373970/Discovery-docks-with-International-Space-Station--May-29--1999-EDN

Intro

Artist – Goblins from Mars

Song Title – Super Mario - Overworld Theme (GFM Trap Remix)

Song Link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GNMe6kF0j0&index=4&list=PLHmTsVREU3Ar1AJWkimkl6Pux3R5PB-QJ

Follow us on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/NerdsAmalgamated/

Email - Nerds.Amalgamated@gmail.com

Twitter - https://twitter.com/NAmalgamated

Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/6Nux69rftdBeeEXwD8GXrS

iTunes - https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/top-shelf-nerds/id1347661094

RSS - http://www.thatsnotcanonproductions.com/topshelfnerdspodcast?format=rss

[proplantman-blog]

My Ayahuasca Story (Part 1)

Disclaimer

Regardless of what you may learn in the following text, I encourage everyone to do their own research and come to their own conclusions.

Here are a few of things that I am not...a scientist or doctor of any kind, professional investigator or researcher, spiritual guru or religious leader. I’m a regular guy with a background in making computer games  and now I’m a travel agent specializing in senior group vacations.

I can tell you, however, my adventure is 100% true.

Introduction

I’ve always felt that I didn’t belong on this planet.  That cliche feeling that you just can’t put your finger on, but you can feel it’s weight.  The ghost in tow with one hand on your shoulder.  Come to find out, that ghost was real and I would soon meet it deep in the Amazon jungle of Peru.

Discovery

I had an excellent job with a steady paycheck, a great boss and a lot of freedom. The problem was that there was no challenge to the work and this is the key ingredient for monotony.  I would search the internet for entertainment.  Anything to occupy my mind as the body was on autopilot.

One day I stumbled across the Joe Rogan podcast.  Most of you may know Joe from hosting the TV show Fear Factor.  To his credit, he has been in numerous television shows and movies. He’s a successful stand-up comedian and one of the best commentators in mixed martial arts. In addition to all of this, he hosts a popular podcast called The Joe Rogan Experience.  His guest for this episode was, Aubrey Marcus.

I had never heard of, Aubrey Marcus at the time, but he also came with a lengthy life resume.  He began to tell this wild yarn about traveling to South America to meet a group of indigenous medicine men called Ayahuasqueros and Curanderos (often called Shamans). He was one in a group of seekers who were there to participate in ayahuasca ceremonies.  He went on to speak of this thick, earthy tasting brew they consumed given to them by Maestro Orlando Chujandama (nicknamed The Dragon). Approximately forty-five minutes later he witnessed himself sliding down thorny vines that rends the flesh from his bones. He told of how he saw beetles burrow inside him and then explode. Aubrey would go on to speak about how the ayahuasca medicine told him out right that he would die of cancer.  Paraphrasing, Aubrey, he said “that cancer had run in his family and he was always afraid that that was the way he would perish.”  Apparently, this was ayahuasca’s way to show, Aubrey that humans are more than flesh and bone and death is not the end. This was a preparation for dimensional travel.

For several hours, Aubrey spoke of his mystical journey.  What really caught my attention, other than the fantastic story itself, was the manner in how he told the story.  It was with complete respect and graciousness.

I began to search Joe’s lengthy list of guests to see if, Aubrey had ever done another one of the podcast.  Sure enough, he had. He told another tale of his multi-dimensional adventures with ayahuasca and the deep lessons and concepts that he had learned from the experience.

Continuing the search, it wasn’t long before I stumbled upon, Graham Hancock. Graham is a particularly interesting character. He is a British reporter turned author in both fiction and nonfiction.  He is probably best known for his 1995 book, Fingerprints of The Gods. In this book, he suggests that terrible cataclysms devastated Earth thousands of years before the Sumerians or ancient Egyptians. That perhaps mankind had a much more advanced civilization annihilated by these cataclysms and we have become a “species with amnesia.”

His 2015 follow up book, Magicians of The Gods presents geological and archeological evidence supporting his cataclysm hypothesis.

Like, Aubrey, Graham has appeared on many episodes of the Joe Rogan podcast. On this episode, he courageously spoke about his abuse with marijuana and how ayahuasca told him that he must stop using it. As most would, he ignored ayahuasca’s message and began using marijuana when he returned to England. Upon his first inhalation, he found he physically could not continue and was forced to quit cold turkey.

Magic potions. Astral travel. Advanced lost civilizations. I was hooked!

More to come!

[profgandalf]

Can Humor Be Holy?

A few years ago I was disturbed by an idea presented in Milan Kundera’s Book of Laughter and Forgetting. "Laughter” he writes “belongs to the devil because laughter happens when the meaning of things is subverted."  Now I, as a Christian, want to believe--in contrast to this--that laughter is firmly in the domain of Heaven because “all good things come from Him” (James 1: 17).  (Also I love to laugh although my enjoyment of something is hardly a measure of its healthfulness. I love coffee but doubt it will be in Heaven.) Still. if you’ve read my article about “Hallowing Halloween,” you know that my central argument is that Halloween should be used by Christian to mock the claims of supernatural power claimed by Satan and his followers.

Kundera has a Point:

That all being said, I must admit Kundera’s point.  Humor functions to undermine, to tear down, to prick someone’s bubble, to reveal the weakness of a position or stance.  That’s what it does: it points to the absurd and holds it up for ridicule. “All comedy,” according to John Cleese, “is critical.”  (For an excellent exposition on this see this short video in which he is featured.) This, however, may make many of us uncomfortable. First off we know that humor has been used to destroy or at least devalue what many of us thought of as being sacrosanct.  Sexual purity, love of country, the role of the father within the family are all concepts which have been held up for ridicule in contemporary comic media.  It should be noted that these ideas do not lose support because they are intrinsically weak but because there are so many who espoused them who were less than successful.  Their foolishness gave the humor a recognition of truth. Ralph Kramden, Fred Flintstone or Peter Griffin when bellowing that he is the head of the house is all the more absurd since each represents a class of men who may claim that without fulfilling it. Furthermore in argument the rhetorical tool of mockery is recognized as profoundly effective even when there reason provides little to advance a cause.  

”Senator, Your No Jack Kennedy”

Witness the famous line “"Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."   This put-down was a remark made during the 1988 United States vice-presidential debate by Democratic vice-presidential candidate Sen. Lloyd Bentsen to Republican vice-presidential candidate Sen. Dan Quayle.  It was devastating and yet in no way met the actual observations Quayle was making.  

Still as noted by Wikipedia “Bentsen's comment was played and replayed by the Democrats in their subsequent television ads as an announcer intoned: "Quayle: just a heartbeat away." It proved sure-laugh fodder for comedians, and more and more editorial cartoons depicted Quayle as a child (Saturday Night Live actually used a child actor to portray Quayle in several sketches.” (”Senator, Your No Jack Kennedy”)

Isn’t it Just Mean?

Many people of faith also wonder if tearing things down fits into the life-style consecrated to holiness a life-style supposedly epitomized by love, a goal that all serious believers are supposed to be aspiring towards.  Isn’t laughter, they wonder “by its very critical nature mean?” The reader may recall Buzz Lightyear’s suspicious confusion in Toystory, when facing Woody’s laughter over him not realizing he’s not a Space Ranger, not living in a world where aliens exist. “Your mocking me aren’t you?”  He doesn’t lie it and I for one felt a little bad for him.

(Side Note: My family finds this scene especially hysterical, pointing at me since apparently I periodically miss the ludicrousness I am revealing in my own behavior.) 

“Clueless Buzz” as the creators of the Toystory series call him does have his world crash down upon him and it is traumatic.  But the fact is that the befuddlement depicted is that of anyone who does not realize that he or she is being absurd. He is guilt of affectation not from hypocrisy but from ignorance.

Henry Fielding says that humor should be used to mock individuals out of affectation so that they will be better people.  But that means that the motivation of the comic must be wholesome.  What may be of some concern Buzz’s case is that the humor is not being used to improve him, but is instead being used by Woody to bring him down.  Oh sure he’s delusional and one can argue that having a true understanding of one’s self is vital for effective living (“You ARE a toy!”) But what is the real final intent of the mockery?  To put him in his place.

Keep in mind that in this scene Woody is using humor as a weapon against the toy who has replaced him in his high post in Andy’s affections as well as his room.  So does Buzz deserves this treatment because of his arrogance and self delusion?  It is interesting to note that in the film Woody finds himself cast out of Andy’s room because his own dark agenda is revealed.  And this “weaponization” is perhaps the point. 

Humor is a Weapon

Weapons are not always evil.  As a gun owner I affirm this. But they are always weapons. If gun can be used to stop evil perhaps wholesome humor, exists because some ideas deserve to be shown to be the absurdities they are. As I said in my article of Halloween, Satan’s Rebellion is a doomed farce and he knows it. But the struggle against evil requires weapons.  So, like it or not, humor is a weapon and perhaps a necessary one.

But when or how does one use a weapon?  Potentially a consciousness comedian might be like a consciousness objector.  The later asks “Can one use deadly force to do good?”  The first should wonder “Is it suitable to hold up others or things up for scorn?” Humor, it must be remembered, is a kind of force, a potentially dangerous one. It has recognized as such since ancient times.  However I affirm that it can be used in this way and still be Holy. Others may feel differently just as good people disagree with me about guns.

Weapons Must Be Used with Care

In the Stanford online Encyclopedia of Philosophy  John Morreall in his article on the “Philosophy of Humor” reminds readers that while “Aristotle considered wit a valuable part of conversation (Nicomachean Ethics 4, 8), he [also] agreed with Plato that laughter expresses scorn. 

Wit, he says in the Rhetoric (2, 12), is educated insolence. In the Nicomachean Ethics (4, 8) he warns that ‘Most people enjoy amusement and jesting more than they should … a jest is a kind of mockery, and lawgivers forbid some kinds of mockery—perhaps they ought to have forbidden some kinds of jesting.’  Morreall goes on to say “These objections to laughter and humor influenced early Christian thinkers, and through them later European culture” (”The Philosophy of Humor--Humor’s Bad Reputation.) 

This may explain why a blogger when posting an analysis of the concept of the laughing Jesus completely admits that the whole concept of a laughing Jesus is actually a “newish” concept (Check out Happy Jesus, Part 1:  ) He even goes on to quote  G.K. Chesterton

“There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth.”  -G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (1908)

Did Jesus laugh as the above opening painting suggest?  But at what?  Would he find anyone falling on a banana peel funny or would his empathy always make him go “aww” when a disciple missteped on the rocky Roman roads of the Holy Land? Did he think that watching Peter bubbling in the water as he sank under his own doubt hysterical?  I do, but did He? What about the look of incredulity of his disciples’ faces when he revealed himself as alive after stopping from the road to Emmaus?  And do you find the images of a teethy Christ which I found when looking for this article’s main painting, a bit creepy?  I confess I did.

This brings up another aspect of humor separate from the recognition of it as a powerful weapon.  

Humor is Often at Odds with Cultural Norms and Culture Shapes How We See It

Part of our discomfort of Holy Humor (and Jesus finding us funny) is that laughter has very little to do with how we traditionally view Christ.  Cultural expectations are powerful.   And understanding culture is a vital when talking about humor.

The aforementioned Kundera, for example, started life under the repressive regime of Communist Czechoslovakia, a nation at the time ruled by a system in which the authorities claimed to be good but crushed any who apposed it.  Any humorous criticism of the state would be branded as evil, a stance he personally embraced.  Thus, he is by inclination wanting to side with the rebellious.

Orthodoxy maintenance never has a sense of humor. (In another novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Kundera presents a character named  Sabina who admits to her distaste for parades, explains her feelings as being because in her Communist past children were forced to parade.  This stands in contrast to her all her western friends who love parades both official and for causes.) In The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Kundera sees the forces of Heaven as not being specifically always supporting the good but as powers which are concerned with maintaining God’s creation.  Thus, they are always by nature preserving never tearing down. Heaven keeps rules, Hell breaks them.  The trouble for us here on Earth is that we know that there are some rules which need to be broken.This is not an especially new idea

Kundera, in some ways, is articulating the ideas of the 17th century British poet William Blake who saw the active, dynamic poet organically as being rebellious in contrast to those in culture who are submissive and sedative as being Godly.  Specifically he was trying to explain why for many readers Milton in Paradise Lost is so compelling but somehow is less so in Paradise Regained:

The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels & God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it. (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell ca. 1790–93)

The trouble then comes down to the basic assumption that goodness is supposed to be non-aggressiveness, submissive, and un-confrontational, but does any of that actually describe Christ?  The answer is a resounding no. 

Humor a Weapon in A Holy War

I will concede that humor, like any weapon, can be misused.  I have seen it done so.  I will also admit that humor has been an effective tool to make me laugh at what I should not.  Sexual promiscuity is destructive and making jokes about the break down of a family’s moral structure should not be funny.  However none of that takes away from the profoundly healthful and important role holy humor has in our world.  It is a weapon against darkness.

Henry Fielding began his ground-breaking work (today called “a novel”) on a belief in the moral value of humor.  In his Preface to Joseph Andrews, part of his first great comic novel, Fielding argues for the moral importance of humor--tying it in to what he as a neo-Augustine would have considered the height of art, the classics,  He describes his work as  the “Comic Epic in Prose.”  He makes it clear that for him there is only one worthy target for humor, that of human folly in affectation:

The only source of the true Ridiculous (as it appears to me) is affectation. But tho’ it arises from one spring only, when we consider the infinite streams into which this one branches, we shall presently cease to admire at the copious field it affords to an observer. Now affectation proceeds from one of these two causes; vanity, or hypocrisy: for as vanity puts us on affecting false characters, in order to purchase applause; so hypocrisy sets us on an endeavour to avoid censure by concealing our vices under an appearance of their opposite virtues. and tho’ these two causes are often confounded, (for they require some distinguishing;) yet, as they proceed from very different motives, so they are as clearly distinct in their operations: for indeed, the affectation which arises from vanity is nearer to truth than the other; as it hath not that violent repugnancy of nature to struggle with, which that of the hypocrite hath.

And so Fielding perhaps best calls the best of what Holy Humor is.  It is a weapon that should be aimed at the folly we all carry within us.  Cleese in the above cited video mentions what he calls the most inclusive of jokes; “How Does one make God laugh?  Answer: Tell him your iron clad plans.”  CS Lewis in his epistolary novel The Screwtape Letters (which Cleese actually performed in the audio book version of) indented his “book as a fairly humorous work, Lewis's goals included both reflections on the nature of evil and an effort to create a different portrayal of the Devil than the sort normally seen in pop culture. Screwtape has practically No Sense of Humor himself, and comes across as a sort of cranky cosmic killjoy” (TV Tropes “Screwtape letters”)  Humor is a great weapon which is especially dramatized as Screwtape in a rage at being a source of entertainment to the patient’s love interest (the kind of woman who would find ME funny) turns himself into a worm.. In Christ’s hands and in ours humor should be used to laugh us out of our own folly and the diabolical forces who attempt to use it.