E. R. Torre is a writer/artist whose first major work, the mystery graphic novel The Dark Fringe, was optioned for motion picture production by Platinum Studios (Men In Black, Cowboys vs. Aliens). At DC Comics, his work appeared in role-playing game books and the 9-11 Tribute book. This later piece was eventually displayed, along with others from the 9-11 tribute books, at The Library of Congress. More recently he released Shadows at Dawn (a collection of short stories), Haze (a murder mystery novel with supernatural elements), and Cold Hemispheres (a mystery novel set in the world of The Dark Fringe). He is currently hard at work on his latest science fiction/suspense series, Corrosive Knights, which features the novels Mechanic, The Last Flight of the Argus, and Chameleon.
Where we live, most people follow masking protocols.
The stores I usually frequent -and there aren’t that many- have big signs which tell people to mask up if they’re going to be in the stores.
At least through today, I’ve not seen anyone flout this.
Today was different.
We went to Target to pick up a couple of things and the store was pretty busy given it is Super Bowl Sunday. I imagine people are stocking up on drinks and chips and whatever other necessities they need and everyone was keeping their distances and everyone was masked.
Except for this couple and their very young (no more than 6 years old or so) child.
The three of them were walking down the aisle of the store completely maskless.
I stared directly at the husband, a huge frown on my face.
I guy saw me and I’m sure he had to see the anger in my face but he just looked away and they continued on down the aisle opposite me.
I gave them plenty of space to pass.
Sadly, I’ve seen some videos from the Tampa area where the Super Bowl is being held and it looks like a pretty large number of people have congregated there. While many of them are wearing masks, I saw all too many partiers going around maskless.
I wonder how many people are having Super Bowl parties at their homes with large groups of people?
I wonder if we’ll see another spike in infections in the next couple of weeks?
Regarding that later question, I suspect there will be another bump.
Too bad.
But not all news is bad.
Over on CNN.com, Harry Enten offers the following:
At the risk of spoiling the article, Mr. Enten offers the following:
The number of people getting the coronavirus is falling, and the number of people getting vaccinated is rising and will only continue to rise as more and more vaccines are made available.
This is a numbers game and these numbers are indeed positive. The number of people getting infected is dropping, though perhaps not enough, and the fact is that each day that passes more and more people will get vaccinated.
Already there is talk about when regular folks will be able to get a vaccine and, the article notes, there has been an uptick of people who say they are willing to get the vaccine.
Perhaps the fog of misinformation is lifting, if only a bit, and in time more and more of these vaccines -whether from Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, or any other companies- will hit the markets and be available for people to use.
I feel like we’re at the edge of a breakthrough and I hope -dearly!- that we’ll see the end results in the next two to three months.
Dare I dream we may return to a form of normalcy -or at least less of a risk- by the end of this very year?
Looks like the first shoe has dropped for the Fox (hardly) News Network.
The Fox “News” Network has for years peddled right wing “news” which was propaganda and, in the last election, several of its opinion hosts talked big about the supposed “fraud” which happened during the election, including saying voting machines by Dominion and Smartmatic were somehow compromised to give Democrats votes.
Welp, Dominion is suing for big bucks against some of the people who made such statements, including Rudy Giuliani and news came that Smartmatic has sued Fox News and several of its hosts for a whopping $2.7 BILLION dollars for defamation. Read all about it in this article presented on CNN and written by Oliver Darcy…
Welp, it does appear this lawsuit has Fox “News” feeling more than a little heat because one of the people included in this lawsuit, Lou Dobbs, who has one of the highest rated shows Fox airs, was unceremoniously dumped (the following article is by Matthew Chapman and was presented on Salon.com)…
Its funny… I recall watching Lou Dobbs when he was on CNN and he seemed, all those years ago, a reasonable enough guy. Mind you, I didn’t follow him religiously or anything, catching him here and there.
Then one day he’s gone over to Fox and I pretty much avoid that network like the plague so I didn’t see him at all, only clips here and there, and realized the guy had gone full Trumpian during the Trump “era” (I can’t tell you how much better my blood pressure’s been ever since he’s been gone… whew).
I mean, I didn’t recognize him. He was into all things Trump, praising him for everything and admonishing and demonizing anyone who had even a moderately contrarian opinion of him.
So it comes as no surprise that he’s been roped into the Smartmatic lawsuit… I’m sure there are plenty of clips of him out there warning about nonexistent problems with those -and all other!- voting machines that dared to declare Trump what he was: A loser.
Anyway, over on huffingtonpost.com a bunch of twitter folks have left their thoughts regarding Lou Dobbs abrupt departure/cancellation:
The Friday before the Sunday and the SuperBowl, number LV, featuring the older whiz-kid quarterback, Tom Brady of the Tampa Bay Bucs, versus the young whiz-kid quarterback, Patrick Mahomes of The Kansas City Chiefs.
I like football, at least to a degree, and its always fascinating to watch any sports in general because you just never know what you’re going to get and, also, the results are usually deserved (though you’ll get plenty of salty fans talking about referees… I know, I’ve been there!).
Anyway, what do I think will happen?
While its very tough to bet against Tom Brady, a man who may well be viewed -unless Mahomes or someone else proves better in time- the best Quarterback ever, the fact is that the Bucs are a more flawed team, IMHO, than Mahomes and the Chiefs. It just seems like the Chiefs have more playmakers versus the Bucs.
So my prediction is that the Chiefs will again win (they won last year’s SuperBowl), barring some kind of weirdness.
That’s not to say that I’m rock steady in my prediction.
The Bucs may not be as strong an overall team as the Chiefs but, again, its tough to bet against Brady.
There are plenty of very good films either set within a train or featuring extended sequences involving a train. Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes and North By Northwest (the former took place almost entirely on a train, the later had some great sequences within a train) are two good examples. Others include the first Gene Wilder/Richard Pryor film, The Silver Streak. There’s the original The Narrow Margin, considered by many one of the best B movies ever made. Perhaps Agatha Christie’s best novel, which was twice made into pretty good films, Murder on the Orient Express, takes place almost entirely on the aforementioned train.
Alas, the 1979 film Avalanche Express, which takes place almost entirely on a train traveling through scenic Europe, doesn’t belong in this list.
What a strange, strange film. Here’s the trailer:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=_Po_s0eLA2w
Perhaps no film is known as much for the misfortunes that happened behind the scenes rather than the film itself than 1979’s Avalanche Express.
Both Producer/Director Mark Robson (who is known for, among others, another “train” film, Von Ryan’s Express) and actor Robert Shawboth died during the film’s production. While Robert Shaw appears to have completed most of his scenes, he was quite sick during the making of the film and his dialogue was ultimately almost completely dubbed. Quite badly, I might add.
Oh, and to be clear: There are a few sequences here and there where we see the back of Robert Shaw’s character and I’m assuming that was a stand-in, though there isn’t anything along the lines of Bela Lugosi’s clumsy replacement in Plan 9 From Outer Space. Nonetheless, there is one major plot element missing which I’ll get to in a moment which may be explained because Robert Shaw was no longer around to film it.
The film opens with Robert Shaw’s character, Soviet General Marenkov, having a meeting with his fellow Soviet Union/Communist bigwigs. Among them is Maximillian Schell’s Colonel Nikolai Bunin, who is told to leave the room for a moment while Marenkov talks about how their computer systems are being breached. Marenkov makes some snide remarks to Bunin after the meeting that he was in charge of the security, and then they talk briefly about how to find the mole in Europe.
Next thing we know, we’re introduced to Lee Marvin’s spy group. This group consists of Haller (Mike Connors, the leader or co-leader of this group, its never made terribly clear), Elsa Lang (Linda Evans), Leroy (Joe Namath (!!!!)), and of course Lee Marvin’s Colonel Harry Wargrave.
They’re a sorta/kinda Mission: Impossible group of professionals who are stationed in Europe and deal with the Soviets during these waning days of the Cold War.
Sadly, Lee Marvin was looking rather old for this action role and especially too old to be the Linda Evans’ love interest but there you have it.
While its never explained very well (this might be where a sequence was not filmed due to Robert Shaw’s passing), they are informed Marenkov has defected.
Again, it isn’t explained how we went from Marenkov briefing Communist big-wigs into looking into a mole in Europe to him defecting. If I understand it right, General Marenkov is disillusioned with the Soviet Union’s …uh… terrorist ways?… I think, and Bunin, who he was talking with in the movie’s opening act, is one of the people who are using the Soviet Union’s security apparatus to cause the terrorism. Now that he’s defected, Bunin is after Marenkov and wants to eliminate him.
Marenkov defects directly to Wargrave and his group and they realize that this is a superb opportunity to clean out all of Europe of the worst “hawkish”/terrorist elements of the Soviet Union.
How?
By dangling Marenkov as bait on a trip through Europe by train and then take out all the bad guys as they come after him. Marenkov, as it turns out, wants to be used this way but, again, we seem to be missing a few sequences explaining why he’s willing to go along with this dangerous -to him!- plan.
Avalanche Express was completed by cult director Monte Hellman (Two Lane Blacktop) but the end result is a very odd bird of a film, an action/adventure/intrigue Cold War spy film which features one major sequence that feels like it belongs in your typical 1970’s era “disaster” film.
That sequence, involving the avalanche which the movie’s name is derived from, occurs roughly at the halfway point of the film and, while a decent scene (for its time, anyway) it doesn’t have a lot of logic to it either. The avalanche must be damn slow moving -or coming from a mountain that is literally miles up- for the passengers of the train to both know its coming and then have the time to come up with a way to escape being swept away in the nick of time.
Further, there’s also this sequence earlier on where Bunin’s people stop and have a huge shoot out with those on the train, breaking windows and putting many holes in the train’s body… while the other passengers are still inside!
Once the shoot out and avalanche are done and they reach their destination, its like the passengers have completely forgotten what happened and the train’s bullet holes and broken windows seem to have fixed themselves and they off load as if nothing serious happened to them!
Maybe back in the late 1970’s and during the height of the Cold War, it was a given that riding the rails through Europe involved extreme dangers?!
These are just some of the absurdities you’ll find in this film, and I haven’t even gotten to the very end which features -MILD SPOILERS!- the use of torpedoes (yes, you read that right) and the appearance of one Joe Namath as Leroy, a character that feels like it could have been played by any then semi-popular ex-football players. Hell, if Namath wasn’t available, I’m sure they would have pivoted to O. J. Simpson. It wouldn’t have mattered, truly.
Yet for all its absurdity, Avalanche Express nonetheless kinda entertained me… so long as I let it roll along without thinking too terribly hard about all those absurdities.
The question is: Is it a good film?
Hell no, but with a cast as large and varied as this one, there’s so much stuff to see and enjoy -even for laughs- and given the film’s relatively short runtime (the movie runs just shy of 1 hour and a half) you’re not going to lose too much of your time watching it.
Would I recommend the film?
Only to those who are interested in the actors involved and are particularly interested in seeing Robert Shaw’s final performance.
If you think about it, language is something that’s always in flux.
Certain words may have multiple meanings or, in some cases, may start off meaning one thing and eventually mean another.
Then there are words which may describe something which, in time, becomes irrelevant or forgotten or, perhaps, a word simply falls out of favor with another taking over. Some words simply have a short life-span and are soon discarded. Some can be slang terms that don’t last a very long time.
A good collection of these so-called “lost words” have been collected in this wonderful website:
What’s most intriguing about this website is that not only are these “forgotten” words listed, they are also given dates in which they were used.
For example, there’s the term “krioboly” which is defined as:
Sacrifice of many rams; bath in blood of rams
This term, according to the website, was in use from 1850 to 1882 and, perhaps, at a time when concerns regarding paganism or deviant/immoral religions were more predominant than today.
Such a weird term for something that, today, probably wouldn’t even enter people’s minds!
Here’s a really weird one: Snobographers.
The term, which was used between 1848 and 1966 (It had over one hundred years of use!) is defined as:
One who describes or writes about snobs
I mean, that makes sense but using such a term today? The website offers examples of the use of term in a sentence:
The editors scrapped the society page because it was full of pretentious snobographers.
If you’ve read my posts here for a bit, you’ll likely know I’m a fan of electric vehicles and Tesla in particular.
Mind you, I don’t feel like I’m a “slave” to Tesla and their product but let’s face facts: At least at this point in time and even if you feel Elon Musk, the head of the company, is a troublesome (to put it mildly) figure, you’ll have to admit there is no other car company that even approaches what Tesla is doing with regards to the electric car market.
I have a Model 3 and I love the damn thing to death. It’s the best car I’ve driven/had since I began driving waaaaay back in 1981 or 82, and I’m certain I’ll never again buy an ICE vehicle for myself.
Having said that, there are times when it gets frustrating being an EV fan.
The fact is that even the cheapest Tesla model is still pretty expensive, though they have managed to get the prices within a stone’s throw of the more “average” ICE vehicles. The range isn’t quite as large as having an ICE vehicle, certainly, but again its not all that much behind. Finally, it does take a little more time to fully charge up your vehicle, though Tesla has done a terrific job IMHO with their Superchargers, which allow a refill within 20 or so minutes, depending on how much of a charge you need.
It may be a longer wait than an ICE car, but the only reason to use a Supercharger, at least for me, is when I’m doing long trips so when it gets to the point where I need to charge, I can manage the 20 or so minutes and use them for a bathroom break and/or to get food. Otherwise, I do all my charging from the convenience of my home and its cheap compared to gas.
The other thing which is keeping the EV revolution from becoming much more robust is what is mentioned in the article: Batteries.
The 4680 cells are the new Tesla batteries which will be made by Tesla (their previous batteries were supplied by other companies as well as Tesla built) and supposedly they are much better/longer lasting and quicker charging batteries versus the old model.
But, they do require the proper infrastructure to be built and doing so certainly takes time.
While each day seems to bring something new to the EV market (not just from Tesla) I suspect next year will be an important one.
If Tesla manages to get their battery production fully revved up, there is literally nothing stopping them from pushing out a ton of vehicles to the masses. The more sold, the cheaper, one imagines, and we may all move away from the ICE vehicles we’re using now.
Two new models are noted in the article, the Cybertruck and the Semi, which require more batteries. But if they are finally put into production by late this year and can be manufactured fairly quickly by the next, one wonders what will happen then.
If batteries are plentiful, I suspect we’ll see/hear about a very cheap Tesla car. It will probably be a smaller vehicle, likely one more designed for the European market, but the article notes that they have vans in their sights as well.
Seems like each week that passes, that’s what I look forward to most, getting to the weekend.
It’s not a healthy way to be!
Five days suck and then you’re all eager to get to the end of it for two days of… not doing all that much!
Seriously, as much as I look forward to the weekend, the reality in these times is that it just means taking it “easy” and, if I do go out, it’s just for the bare necessities and then its back to the house to chill.
In the news, it seems the big thing is GameStop and the Redditors who are investing in it, driving its price up, and the “short sellers” -the big hedge funds- who are taking a big bath because they have predicted the fall of GameStop.
Yesterday Robinhood, the Wall Street stock app, and a few others, restricted the “ordinary” wo/man from buying the stock while allowing those big hedge funds to continue buying it unaffected.
That, among other things, triggered lawsuits and general fury. Things got hot enough for the CEO of Robinhood to show up for an interview…
Now, I don’t pretend to be some Wall Street wizard, but I’ve been following this for a few weeks now, before it blew up in the media proper. I’ll admit, I’ve gotten into Robinhood and I do have some stocks -I got really lucky and bought a decent, though not terribly huge, amount of Tesla stock before it really blew up- and I’ve been curious about what to invest in and do frequent Reddit…
…ergo…
…I knew about the rising tide of GameStop “retards” (as the investors jokingly call themselves) who are determined to “hold the line” and keep GameStop’s stock up while inflicting pain to the Hedge Fund managers who are trying to short the stock.
I have no particular love for Hedge Fund managers and don’t feel betting on a company to fail is a particularly noble way of earning money.
Yet I’ll be very blunt to those who are inflating the price of GameStop: It will come down eventually. The fact is that the company, a so-called “Brick and Mortar” gaming store, is on the decline. Like many businesses which have also suffered (like bookstores, comic book stores, and music stores) the fact is that many people now download their games and the convenience of doing so, IMHO, will eventually lead to these stores’ end.
It’s inevitable, in time.
What will happen to all that money people on the “streets” have invested in those stocks?
I dunno.
Even today they still talk of “holding the line” and not selling what they’ve bought but, eventually, there will come a point when that will be done, no?
Then what?
Seems to me there’s a big problem going on with Wall Street and I really, really hope history isn’t repeating itself. Back in the 1920’s, there was a time of elation (interestingly enough, it followed the so-called “Spanish Flu” pandemic which hit around 1918) and Wall Street was riding a high… like it is now.
However, there came the crash and it was bad, leading to the Great Depression of the 1930’s.
I wonder if we can fix the problems we’re currently seeing in Wall Street before we reach that sort of critical point.
More anxiety in this age of anxiety, no?
Anyway, its Friday and I’m going to try to have a nice one.
Hope you guys out there do so, too!
POSTSCRIPT:
As I was writing the above, Johnson & Johnson released the findings of its vaccine. Unlike the Pfizer and Moderna ones, this vaccine requires only one dose versus two.
You can read about these findings in this article by Lauran Neergaard and Linda A. Johnson for the AP:
J&J said Friday that in the U.S. and seven other countries, the single-shot vaccine was 66% effective overall at preventing moderate to severe illness, and much more protective — 85% — against the most serious symptoms.
There was some geographic variation. The vaccine worked better in the U.S. — 72% effective against moderate to severe COVID-19 – compared to 57% in South Africa, where it was up against an easier-to-spread mutated virus.
Now, while it may seem like this is a bit of a disappointment, an 85% efficacy against the moderate and severe COVID-19 symptoms is a pretty damn good result for a one-shot vaccine.
While many will likely still prefer the two shot vaccine, if this one is available and it only requires one shot, it makes for a very nice alternative.
We need to get people vaccinated and we need to get them vaccinated fast to get back to “normal”.
Yesterday came word -and images!- of the new “refresh” of Tesla’s Model S and X vehicles.
For those unaware, the Model S is their high end sedan and the Model X is their high end SUV. The new versions of these vehicles will look like this…
To those who are into these cars, the exterior differences in the new Model S and X versions versus the old are subtle yet, IMHO, make it look even slicker.
The bigger, more obvious differences lie in each vehicle model’s interior.
Here’s the old interior of the S and X…
And here, ladies and gentlemen, is the new interior…
Wow…!
I have to say, I’m very impressed with the new “space age” look, which IMHO instantly makes the not bad looking previous interior suddenly look very old and clunky. I would quickly add, however, that I wonder about that steering wheel. Here’s a closer look…
Sorry for the red circles in this image -these circles are NOT on the actual steering wheel!- but this image, taken from Teslarati, is the closest I could find of the new steering wheel. The red circles were put on the image to show off the additional controls which are on the steering wheel, including turn signals and windshield wiper controls.
As I said above, I wonder about the steering wheel, mainly how well it can be used versus a more typical circular one. Then again, I suspect Tesla has tested this new steering wheel quite a bit before going with it, so I’m hopeful that it works.
The other very intriguing thing about the new refreshed models is hinted at in the photograph which shows the entire front dash. If you look closely at the monitor, you’ll see that there’s a picture of The Witcher III: The Last Hunt video game on that monitor.
The new refresh models will have the ability, it would appear, to play any PC games!
For more information, read this article by Katie Wickens from pcgamer.com…
Oh, and for those in the back seat who want to play games and don’t want to stretch their bodies forward to look at the monitor in the front…
Wow.
This is why Tesla, IMHO has such a bright future versus other car making companies.
Yes, having a full on PC gaming system within a car may seem silly, but damn if that isn’t an interesting add on. Already you can go on the web or play a pretty good group of games (including some arcade classics like Asteroids and Centipede!) while sitting around your car and otherwise doing nothing, but to now have the ability to play the latest high end video games?
Sheesh!
Anyway, if you have a bunch of cash just lying around doing nothing and are thinking about getting a new car, you may want to consider the new Teslas!
Yesterday President Joe Biden had a news conference where he addressed the COVID-19 situation and, especially the issue regarding vaccines.
The bottom line from President Biden is: There were more vaccines ordered by him through Pfizer and Moderna (they currently have the two vaccines which are available in the U.S., though there are a few others which are in the process of being approved) and he anticipates that by May or later in the Summer/Early in Fall the U.S. will reach a point where enough people have had the vaccine -hopefully!- that we will have reached herd immunity.
Or, as ex-President Trump said, “Herd mentality”…
…yeah…
I’m so very glad we’re done with that… uh… individual. At least for the next four years and -hopefully, redux- forever.
In the mere week that Joe Biden has been President, the government and its various offices sure do seem to be operating at a more normal and efficient way. Let’s be clear though: Not everything has been solved nor is the nation suddenly and completely on the right track. It just seems to be operating more… normally now. Without all that craziness.
If it continues this way and the COVID-19 threat is indeed dealt with, perhaps people will come to realize its good to have a government run by serious people and not shoot-from-the-hip would-be stable geniuses who are knee deep into conspiracy theories while cozying up to strong arm leaders of the world instead of our regular allies.
I don’t know about you, but I’m pleased to not having heard the term “fake news” in quite some time.
Anyway, with President Biden giving an estimate for when things could be back to normal, I fully expect there will be plenty of criticism along the way there and especially if his predictions are off.
And he should be criticized if that is the case!
But at least now there does appear to be a bit of competency that was lacking and I’m really hopeful that things might finally improve.
Hard to believe its been nearly a year now that we’ve been living with this Virus. Truly it’s been longer, but things got really serious in March of last year, if memory serves. That was when it was clear the COVID-19 virus was very much in the U.S. and the first closings began.
If indeed it takes through Summer to reach herd immunity, we’re talking nearly a year and a half of living under this strain.
So a couple of days ago the novel I’m currently working on seemed to somewhat come together after several months of working on it.
Finally!
I wish I could offer some kind of short cut to coming up with a story but the reality is that, at least for me, its a tough process that involves so much daily thought and consideration…
For me, at least, my novels have to have a special something to make them come together and be worth pursuing. At the risk of sounding really obnoxious, I want to say something with each book. I want readers to have some very complete work which has its beginning, middle, and end which, if I’ve done things right, will leave you, the reader, satisfied.
Hopefully, more than satisfied!
I want the work to linger in your mind, at least for a little while, and maybe get you curious enough to try my other works.
When writing, I want to create something that intrigues me and which I feel would intrigue me if I were walking through a bookstore looking for something to read.
For my current novel, I have what I consider a terrific start but wasn’t too sure of the middle and ending.
What’s changed is that I’ve now got an ending I’m quite happy with and which eases -and creates!- problems. On the one hand, I now know where it is I’m going to with this book. On the other hand, I have to come up with some juicy stuff to fill the middle of the book. I already have a few things so let’s see how it goes!
