The Scream Dream Team

Now suppose you find yourself in the all-to-common situation of having to assemble an all-star team of screamers (and we're talking blood-curdling, ear-piercing skull reverberations here). Who do you choose?

My starting five for the Scream Dream Team:

1) Jamie Lee Curtis
Easy. Her performance in the 1978 horror film Halloween earned her the nickname, "The Scream Queen." What's a Scream Dream Team without the Scream Queen being seen .... een. Sorry, wasn't sure how to end that sentence.


2) Macaulay Culkin
When the first image that comes to mind of this kid (creepy guy now) is screaming with hands firmly on cheeks, you know you have a solid vocal chord virtuoso that can belt one out with the best of them. Macaulay Culkin, as Kevin McCallister in the 1990 film Home Alone, defined the scream for a younger generation, adding an essential visual component of wide-eyed gaping shock and horror. And this was only aftershave he applied to his face! Imagine his scream if he saw Dracula or Freddy Krueger or Michael Jackson? Actually, he did see Michael Jackson. The horror.

3) Maria Sharapova
Her loudest grunt on the tennis court measured an ear-drum perforating 101.2 decibels. For those of you requiring some context, 100 decibels is how loud the average car stereo is at maximum volume. Welcome to the team, Maria. Welcome to the team.

4) Fay Wray
The actress who played Ann Darrow in the original King Kong inspired a contest to see who most closely matches her famous scream. Can there ever be a real winner?

5) The Scream
The painting by Edvard Munch. Variety, spice, terror. The opposing scream team would never expect a visual knockout blow like this! Not bad for oil, tempera and pastel on cardboard (seriously, it was on cardboard).

Harry Potter and the Hallows

The road to hell is paved with adverbs.
- Stephen King

This quote appeared in my iGoogle Quotes of the Day box and reminded me of what King had to say about J.K. Rowling last summer during The Anticipation:
(from "Deathly adverbs" by Jan Freeman of The Boston Globe")

Even Harry Potter's most loyal fans would concede that his creator, J.K. Rowling, has a weakness for adverbs. Four years ago, in an otherwise admiring review of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," Stephen King observed that Rowling "never met [an adverb] she didn't like." Harry, he noted, "speaks quietly, automatically, nervously, slowly, and often -- given his current case of raving adolescence -- ANGRILY."

King found this flaw "endearing rather than annoying," but not all readers are so indulgent. In December, when the title of the final volume was announced but "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" was not yet finished, a writer at the online review Blogcritics told Rowling it wasn't too late to improve her style.

"Ms. Rowling, I have a challenge for you while you're still in the editing stage of book seven," proposed M.J. Ryan. "Take a highlighter and mark those adverbs up. Get rid of them. Release yourself, and your readers, from 'Adverb Hell.'" And start at the top, said Ryan: "'Deathly' is an adverb. In the title. How lazy can you get?"

That said, there better be an 8th book. LEGACY AND SERIES CONCLUSION BE DAMNED.

Charlton Heston passes away

I think it's odd for someone like me to be writing about Charlton Heston's death in any serious way. Politically, I tend to hang out on the left side of the fence and generally think we should go gunless in the United States (let's give cops big sticks and just beat people). However, after taking several film classes in college, two films stand out in my memory -- Orson Welles's Touch of Evil and the epic Ben-Hur, both of which I had the pleasure of seeing on the big screen.

Heston played Ramon Miguel Vargas in Touch of Evil. That's right, he played a Mexican. "My name is Var-gahs!" I remember hearing. Very strange and way off-base by today's standards. But seeing Ben-Hur was one of the most exhilarating film experiences I've ever had, and I suppose I should thank Charlton (did anyone ever call him that?) for that performance. Rest in peace you crazy epic gun-touting man. Rest in peace.

E.M. Forster - "What I Believe"

"I believe in aristocracy, though - if that is the right word, and
if a democrat may use it. Not an aristocracy of power, based upon
rank and influence, but an aristocracy of the sensitive, the con-
siderate and the plucky. Its members are to be found in all
nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secret
understanding between them when they meet. They represent
the true human tradition, the one permanent victory of our queer
race over cruelty and chaos. Thousands of them perish in
obscurity, a few are great names. They are sensitive for others
as well as for themselves, they are considerate without being
fussy, their pluck is not swankiness but the power to endure, and
they can take a joke."

Emphasis Mine

CHARLOTTE AMALIE, U.S. Virgin Islands (CNN) — For three days, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is enjoying some private down time on the island of St. Thomas, a source close to the U.S. territory's Government House in the capital of Charlotte Amalie confirmed Monday.
Watch CNN's Exclusive footage of Sen. Obama on vacation.

Signs of Life

I tried to post on this blog earlier in the week, but it didn't recognize me. And so as the fruit bat of time flies haphazardly through the darkness of life, we find that the the ripe apple of opportunity will always be on the tree of persistence.

Eddie Izzard: Lust for Glorious

The Flies in Winter

A house fly swooped by me just a moment ago. It brought to mind a question that has lingered with me since I was a little kid. Where do flies go in winter? After a graceful stumble through high school biology, I figured they somehow hibernate or cryogenically seal themselves off from the wintry world, waiting for some glorious spring buzzing. But this guy was already dizzily buzzing about a few months too early.

Wikipedia offered an answer (as it always does -- the question is always in the veracity): the fly was pupating indoors, which accelerated its growth and caused it to hatch early in a warm environment.

I might have to use another tidbit I learned from Wikipedia about flies. If you clap your hands a few inches above a fly, it will trigger its flee reaction and likely send it right into your closing hands.

Words Are Flowing Out

And not landing anywhere near this blog, eh? I've decided that I will keep making little posts like this as a way of bringing myself back into full bloggable splendor.

Right!

Terribly sorry about the delay. Caught on the Bound will, in fact, return for a much-heralded 4th season. As you may have guessed (or hoped), funding for the site's production budget was cut in half, so things have been kind of shoe-stringy lately. So, what to do with the $6 in the budget? Chipotle burrito.

In other news, I'm going to throw everything I have in my brain back at this site.

Not as bad as it sounds.

Where did we go? What will we be?

On holiday. Famous, stars of the screen.

Sorry about the lack of posting. The Interwebs was not working at Caught on the Bound World Headquarters for the last few months.

Alright, you caught me in a lie.

You'll have to excuse the brevity of this post - it may become the norm. Brevity is better than nothingevity, though.

LEGO Relativity

M.C. Escher's "Relativity" - the LEGO version!

Go here to see how they did it.

This is the sort of thing I always thought would be cool to make with LEGOs as a little kid, before I realized that my undersea base set didn't include the right pieces (what am I really going to do with this plastic seahorse holding a harpoon?) You know, like the magnetic locking things, LEDs, bricks with studs pointing in multiple directions (clearly used in this model), etc. Now, if you look at LEGOs in the store, you see a Harry Potter set that snaps together with only three pieces. Like Playmobil. LEGO never made enough "creative" sets in which they just give you a lot of cool, useful bricks in colors other than royal blue and fire engine red, and let you provide the imagination.

Well done, here!

Dead? More like...undead!

Caught on the Bound is not dead. No. Don't even think that. It's too painful. It's right here. Stay tuned...in the process of some upgrades and additions (hired goons, new media, extrapolation, hot dogs, etc.) None of this really makes sense right now. But when the time comes, you will know.

I'm Not There

As John said on Obviously Losing,

"I was apprehensive about Todd Haynes' Bob Dylan movie, "I'm Not There," but this trailer has given me renewed hope."



Cate Blanchett, too. I am intrigued to the point of stroking my non-existent beard.

The Cumbrian Spaceman

Regular readers and acquaintances might know of my interest in UFOs and other strange phenomena, but I usually keep that stuff to a minimum here. Why? Because so much of it is complete rubbish. Although I am fascinated by UFOs and definitely believe there must be something more to a lot of the stranger cases, I consider myself a firm skeptic and complete avoider of paranormal/New Age stuff that has no basis in evidence, theory, or proof - you know, science. That's why this intrigues me so much.

The Cumbrian Spaceman is a good, mysterious case that might have a simple explanation. The only problem is that no one has yet found one.

In 1964, an English firefighter took this photo of his 5 year-old daughter after she gathered wildflowers on a picnic. The man claims that there was no one anywhere near the girl or behind her when the photo was taken and that there was an "electric" feeling in the air, similar to the conditions of an approaching thunderstorm. Oddly, livestock that would normally be grazing all over the field were huddled together in one corner.

Other than these peculiarities, nothing strange was seen at the time the photograph was taken. Upon development, however, it looked as though a figure was standing behind the girl. No one noticed anything at the time. Is the figure wearing a spacesuit? Is it a blemish? Light effect?
Kodak labs had the photograph and negative analyzed, and couldn't find any explanation. In fact, they used the photo in an ad campaign offering a lot of cash to anyone who could explain it. No one has. Any ideas?

(Click the photo to enlarge)

More info here

535 Foot Slip 'n Slide

Exactly what the title of this post says. YES.

Check it out.

Receding Headlines: Sssssnake Edition!

Ex-astronaut testifies in love triangle case

Interesting how "ex-" and "love triangle" often appear in the same sentence, astronaut or not.

Georgia says it fired at Russian plane this week

US Government asks that Peach State notify them ahead of time before launching future assertions of states' rights - oh! THAT Georgia!

Colombian warlord violates deal, faces extradition

You'd think warlords might have ways of getting around the establishment.

Kids' food fussiness may be inherited (AP)

"And to my little nephew Timmy, I leave my distaste for weird green specks in soup and my hatred for leafy vegetables"

Man accused of biting girlfriend's snake (AP)

There you have it. Is it funnier that it happened in N. Ireland?

US general: Pullout a 'step backward'

That's....that's what a pullout is.

China declares 'war' on tainted products

Kind of like how we declared 'war' on 'Terror,' but easier to regulate. Wars on words are a cool trend, soon we'll have "War on Unrequited Love" or "War on Peace" or "War on Rye, Hold the Mayo"

Resume Gods Beware

It's kind of nice to have the whole college and college admissions process behind me. Why? Aside from the obvious relaxitude and chill factorial, I don't have to go along with the latest trend in admissions: authentic imperfection. Yes, the hip thing now is for people to not puff up their resumes, but to show themselves as flawed, reflective, Bob Dylanesque, keep-on-keepin-on slices-of-life rather than invincible Resume Gods.

The idea is cool, but now admissions-types are saying students are starting to "fake" authentic imperfection. I attempted to draw a diagram of those last three words and how they relate to each via cross-modulation and some sort of logical circle-of-fifths, but my brain did one of those rare "that's enough" gestures that made me stop.

So I guess the college admissions game continues to be one of honest deception (?). Back in my day, a kid just had to have heart and smart! Not this new-fangled "average" poseuring.

I better get out of here before this post becomes even more incomprehensible.

Hello, Kiddywinks!

On the whole, I would describe my sense of humor as something akin to eating a burrito only to discover afterwards that you never removed the wrapper. Digestive incredulity aside, I've discovered that, for some reason, I never tire of seeing the late British comedian Rod Hull and his sidekick puppet, Emu.

Telebefuddling

Conversation with a telemarketer I recently had:

"Hi, may I please speak to Mr. Kevin Curran?"
"Speaking."
"I'm calling to offer you the chance to upgrade your current student loan plan to Platinum, we..."
"I'm sorry, did you say Platinum?"
"Yes, if you would like to upgrade..."
"Great! Is it actually made of platinum?"
"Um, well, we'll just need you to confirm your..."
"Sorry, the plan, it's made of platinum?"
"Umm...let me check here..."
"Sure, no problem. So...how did you get my information?"
"OK, it's just called 'Platinum,' would you still like to--oh, it's on the computer screen here."
"Cool. Well, I guess we're all set then. Thanks a lot!"
"Thank you very much....oh! If I could just have you confirm your..."
"Bye!"