Extreme Days {Movie Review}

Extreme Days is a great movie about four best friends from childhood and the trip of their dreams. At least, that's what they want it to be. It, of course, turns out to not turn out like they had planned as life throws them a few curve-balls along the way. Matt is by far the best part of the movie. His lines are truly memorable. There is also a sweet classic Japanese fighting scene in the film. I, of course, can't say I agree with everything in the movie, but it is very entertaining, and there is nothing particularly crude included. Guys will be guys, though, as is evidenced in the fire-ball gas scene. Word of warning though: don't watch this movie if you are looking for something serious. It is definitely all about enjoying life.\

2 out of 5 stars.

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Builder discovers "priceless" Tolkien postcard

Pretty amazing! =) 

By Mike Collett-White
LONDON (Reuters) - A demolition man stripping a fireplace from the former home of "The Lord of the Rings" author J.R.R. Tolkien stumbled across a postcard to the writer dated 1968, and hopes to sell it for a small fortune.

Stephen Malton, who runs Prodem Demolition in Bournemouth on the south English coast, was working in the house in the nearby town of Poole before it was bulldozed to make way for a new construction project.

"Before we demolish a house we do an internal strip out," Malton said Tuesday.

"One of the main features was a fireplace, and upon removing that we came across three postcards. The third one was a postcard dated 1968 and addressed to J.R.R. Tolkien."

Malton said research on the Internet suggested that the carved wooden fireplace with marble inlay, a feature of the house when Tolkien lived there from 1968 to 1972, was already worth up to $250,000.

"To tie in both the fireplace and the postcard, we are talking about a price of around $500,000 for the combined pair," the 42-year-old told Reuters by telephone.

He contacted the Tolkien Estate, which manages the author's copyrights, and said that they had given him the all clear to sell the fireplace and postcard. The estate could not immediately be reached for comment.

Malton said he would probably sell the items at auction, although according to local newspaper the Dorset Echo, he has already had an offer from a Tolkien enthusiast in Belgium.

The postcard was addressed to Tolkien at the Miramar Hotel in Bournemouth, where he and his wife Edith often stayed.


It is from "Lin," which Malton believed could be fellow fantasy author Lin Carter who wrote "Tolkien: A Look Behind 'The Lord of the Rings,'" published in 1969.

Depicting a scene from Ireland, it reads: "I have been thinking of you a lot and hope everything has gone as well as could be expected in the most difficult circumstances."

Malton was not sure what the "difficult circumstances" might be.

Tolkien had achieved fame by the time he moved to Poole in 1968. His epic "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, already popular before the hugely successful film adaptations appeared, was published in 1954-55.
He remained in Poole until his wife's death, when he moved back to Oxford. Tolkien died in 1973, aged 81.

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Researchers open secret cave under Mexican pyramid

I actually  visited Teotihuacan about five years ago. The Sun Pyramid is one of the ones I climbed. Amazing.
 

By Miguel Angel Gutierrez Thu Jul 3, 12:22 PM ET

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Archeologists are opening a cave sealed for more than 30 years deep beneath a Mexican pyramid to look for clues about the mysterious collapse of one of ancient civilization's largest cities.

The soaring Teotihuacan stone pyramids, now a major tourist site about an hour outside Mexico City, were discovered by the ancient Aztecs around 1500 AD, not long before the arrival of Spanish explorers to Mexico.

But little is known about the civilization that built the immense city, with its ceremonial architecture and geometric temples, and then torched and abandoned it around 700 AD.

Archeologists are now revisiting a cave system that is buried 20 feet beneath the towering Pyramid of the Sun and extends into a tunnel stretching for some 295 feet (90 meters) with a height of 8 feet.

They say new excavations begun this month could be the key to unlocking information about the sacred rituals of the people who inhabited the city, later dubbed "The Place Where Men Become Gods" by the Aztecs who believed it was a divine site.

"We think it had a ritual purpose. Offerings were placed at the very end of the tunnel as part of the pyramid's construction process," Mexican archeologist Alejandro Sarabia told Reuters.

"We want to find out why the Teotihuacan people sealed it and when," he said.

Sarabia said the tunnel was first discovered in the early 1970s but it was closed soon afterward, and most of the information about it was lost when the archeologist who found it died.

Teotihuacan is Mexico's oldest major archeological site and during its heyday in 500 AD, the city was home to some 200,000 people, rivaling the size of ancient Rome at that time, according to archeologists.

Today, it is surrounded by encroaching slums spilling over from the outskirts of Mexico City, but swarms of tourists still visit the giant 212-foot (65-meter) sun pyramid each year to celebrate the spring equinox festival marking the sun's return to the northern hemisphere.
  (Writing by Mica Rosenberg; Editing by Eric Beech)

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Surf's Up (Movie Review)

Well, I haven't done a movie review in awhile. Now that summer is almost over I thought I should do some in case you are wondering what to see before the summer is gone. What better place to start than with a surfing movie?

I almost didn't watch Surf's Up because I thought it be lame, ho-hum, and just another penguin movie...kindof along the lines of Happy Feet (which this movies does reference, much to my amusement).

Surf's Up was funny, entertaining, had good graphics, and I actually like the story/moral for the most part. Not that I can say all of the movie was entirely appropriate, and there were some parts they could have cut out, but it was certainly worth seeing. They also got the right people to do the voices (which is, naturally, a big asset). Part of what made the movie was the filming technique used to get the "documentary" feel, and the way they recorded the dialogue.

Oh, and I don't care what their little disclaimer said about none of the events or people bearing similarity to real life unless it be coincidental. I mean, two of the characters were playing "themselves." But that aside there were obvious references to real events that took place as recorded in the surfing documentary Riding Giants. And since I'd seen the documentary it made the movie that much more enjoyable.

2 out of 5 stars.

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Poll: Voters Don't Know Barack Obama Pro-Abortion, John McCain Pro-Life

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
July 14, 2008
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Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A new poll finds half of voters don't know that presidential candidate John McCain is pro-life on abortion or that Barack Obama is pro-abortion. The survey shows that, when pro-life voters know that information, they support McCain by a three-to-one margin.

A new poll from the Pew Research Center finds voters are more interested in the 2008 election than they were the 2004 election, but they are less informed on where the candidates stand.

Pew finds that just 52 percent of voters rightly identify Obama as pro-abortion ("pro-choice" in the poll's terminology") and only 45 percent know John McCain is pro-life on abortion.

A stunning 38 percent of voters don't know where either Obama or McCain stand on the issue of abortion. Some ten percent wrongly identify Obama as pro-life and 17 percent think McCain supports abortion.

This information gap is important and a subsequent question shows whichever side of the abortion debate can frame the candidates first will likely help one of them win the election.

Among pro-life voters who know where the two candidates stand, McCain trounces Obama by a whopping 70-24 percentage point margin. Surprisingly, Obama has a one percent lead (43-42 percent) among pro-life voters who are uninformed about their abortion positions.

On the other side, pro-abortion groups will be working overtime to educate their supporters as well.

That's because Obama leads 71-24 percent among pro-abortion voters who know where the two candidates stand and he has a much smaller 48-40 percent lead among pro-abortion voters who don't.

The Pew poll also found that Democrats and Obama supporters are much more energized about Obama than Republicans and McCain backers are about McCain.

Compared with previous election cycles, voter engagement is up among all demographic groups, but has increased more among voters under age 50 than among older voters.

Uncharacteristically, the youngest voters -- those under age 30 -- are at least as knowledgeable, and in some cases more knowledgeable, about candidates' positions on abortion than are older voters.

The Pew poll found younger voters are more likely to know where the candidates stand on abortion than older voters, evangelicals were more likely than Catholics, and white voters were more likely than black voters to know -- especially concerning McCain.

One pattern that differs from previous surveys of political knowledge is that younger voters are significantly more knowledgeable about the candidates’ positions than are older voters. For example, 60% of voters 18-29 correctly say that Obama is pro-abortion, compared with just 51% of those ages 50-64 and just 41% of those ages 65 and older.

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Missing MA Lighthouse Shows Up In ... CA?

Missing Cape Cod lighthouse located in Calif.

Jun 5, 2008

WELLFLEET, Mass. (AP) — Local historians for decades thought the 30-foot tall lighthouse that once overlooked Wellfleet Harbor had been taken down and destroyed in 1925.
Turns out, it had just been moved to the California coast.
The fate of the cast-iron tower was uncovered last year by lighthouse researchers and reported by Colleen MacNeney in this month's edition of Lighthouse Digest.
MacNeney told the Cape Cod Times in Wednesday's edition it was her most exciting discovery.
Wellfleet historian Helen Purcell says the discovery of the lighthouse at Point Montara, 25 miles south of San Francisco, was a genuine shock.
MacNeney says she discovered correspondence that proved the lighthouse, first erected in 1881, had been moved by the Coast Guard from Wellfleet to Yerba Buena, Calif., and eventually to Point Montara.
There is no known documentation explaining how it was moved across the country, MacNeney said.
But Jim Walker, chairman of the Cape Cod Chapter of the American Lighthouse Foundation, speculates that because it is metal, it could have been disassembled bolt by bolt, with the pieces then transported by rail.
The lighthouse is still used as a navigational aid and a hostel.

A lighthouse at Point Montara is shown in Montara, Calif., Wednesday, June 4, 2008. According to lighthouse researchers, this lighthouse was first erected in 1881 overlooking Wellfleet Harbor in Wellfleet, Mass. and had been moved by the Coast Guard from Wellfleet to Yerba Buena, Calif., and eventually to Point Montara. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)


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