Wild Tangents
Marc talks about life in Nashville, life as a Catholic and life as a geek.

Yes, another one. I can’t believe they’re remaking “The Day The Stood Still“. This is just….wrong….

From the SciFi Wire.

Twentieth Century Fox has staked out a Christmas 2008 release date for its upcoming remake of the classic SF movie The Day the Earth Stood Still, Variety reported.

The movie, which will star Keanu Reeves, was originally slated for May 9, but the film hasn’t begun production yet, with potential strikes looming in Hollywood.

Fox also has three other summer movies in the works, the trade paper reported.

The movie will update Robert Wise’s 1951 original, about the visit of an alien who warns Earth to change its violent ways or face destruction.

Technorati Tags: movies

I must have missed this in my last visit to the greeting card section at Wal-Mart. Maybe that’s because it’s on the way to the aisle where they keep the gourmet chocolate. Who knows. Anyway, it seem that Hallmark has a new line of card that parody the celebrity of certain famous people, including Paris Hilton. Well, I guess Paris wasn’t too happy about a greeting card with her image on it. I think her image has been in a lot more places, but whatever.

According to the lawsuit filed Thursday, the card is titled “Paris’s First Day as a Waitress” and shows a photo of Hilton’s face on a cartoon of a waitress serving a plate of food to a patron. In a dialogue bubble she says, “Don’t touch that, it’s hot.” The customer cartoon asks, “What’s hot?” She answers, “That’s hot.”

The suit says Hilton owns the trademark “That’s hot,” which was registered on Feb. 13, 2007.

First of all, how can she register “That’s hot” as a trademark? I mean c’mon! Plus we get this little snippet which describes the complaints in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit claims commercial appropriation of identity, invasion of privacy, misappropriation of publicity, false representation that Hilton endorses the product, and infringement of a federally registered trademark. The damages would be based on profits from the $2.49 cards, said Hilton attorney Brent Blakely.

Invasion of privacy? In the way she has lived her life and allowed people into her most intimate moments, does she really have any “privacy” left? Besides, I don’t really understand how this is an invasion privacy. Of course I’m not a lawyer….

Yahoo also has a copy of the card you can view it here.

Now my question is doesn’t this really count as parody? I’d love to hear some input on what you think.

Technorati Tags: hilton, law, lawsuit, news, Pais, Hallmark

According to Mr. Jay Garmon, Harlan Ellison would the victor if he and James Doohan got into a fist fight.

Ellison also makes an appearance and gets into it a little bit with Scotty in part 5, calling [Trek] ‘a cop show in space.’ I’m wondering who would win in a fist fight between the two.” Given Ellison’s notorious belligerence and Napoleon complex, my money’s on the writer.

I beg to differ. Mr. Doohan was a member of the Royal Canadian Army, landed on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day and lost a finger in the fighting. I kind of think he would have been more likely to walk away without any limp after that fight.

Technorati Tags: rant, scifi, startrek, tv, youtube

What kind of world are we living in?

A baby sitter accused of allowing a man to have sex with a 12-year-old girl in her care for money was charged with pimping, police said.

What really bothers me about this story (other than the fact it happened in the first place) is the lack of charges against the babysitter. Is “contributing to the delinquency of a minor” enough for what took place? This little girls care was entrusted to the babysitter. She abused that and used the little girl to make money. Shouldn’t some sort of child endangerment or abuse charge be in order. I look at the difference in bonds set between the molester and the “pimp” and I think how can that be. I think they should be closer to the same. Don’t get me wrong here either. I am not saying the guys is being punished too much either. I think whatever punishment he gets, is probably not enough. I just think the babysitter needs to be held a little more responsible for this crime.

Technorati Tags: news, rant

Now this one at least respects as the woman you’ve become Danica!

“When girls see the antics of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, they think that being fun and glamorous also means being dumb and irresponsible,” the 32-year-old McKellar told Newsweek for editions to hit newsstands Monday.

“But I want to show them that being smart is cool,” she said. “Being good at math is cool. And not only that, it can help them get what they want out of life.”

To me it’s really refreshing to see her out there trying to be a positive role model. Trying hell, she’s doing it. I really wish she got more press over this. Unfortunately, a story about “some math geek” probably won’t be top on the list of the CNN’s and FoxNews’ of the world. It’s shame.

Technorati Tags: news, winniecooper, rant, tv, wonderyears

WARNING: This post may or may not contain what could be considered spoilers for the Watchmen graphic novel and/or movie.  You’ve been warned! (sort of) 

Is it just me, or does this casting write up on Sci-Fi wire for the up coming Watchmen movie have a major spoiler in it?

I don’t think it’s just me.

Technorati Tags: comics, movies, spoilers, watchmen

So Suzette and I are sitting there eating our Dinner. We were having Taco Bell and generally enjoying the food, each other’s company and Jeopardy. That was all ruined when the phone rang. On the other end was someone with what was certainly a far eastern accent trying to sell me Dish Network. Now that alone is not enough to upset me. If I let it really bother me every time someone called during dinner to sell me something, I would spend most of my life bothered. That’s not something I want. No, what got me really bothered was this. While I was desperately trying to say my “good-byes” and “do not call lists” to the guy, the call waiting beeped. If you haven’t guessed it yet, the other phone call was…..oh yes it was…..another accent…another interruption……another Dish Network sale pitch.

Now let me be quite clear on this. I am not in the market for satellite TV. If however I do decide to replace the cable service with something more extra-terrestrial, it’ll be that much harder for Dish Network to earn my business.

Technorati Tags: dishnetwork, rant, tv

Well, what an anti-climax today was. The only real big announcements made were complete duds.

First we have Safari browser for Windows. This has got to be the biggest “what were they thinking?” moment for me since Palm announced the Foleo. I mean really. I’m a die hard Mac user and I don’t use Safari. What makes anyone at Apple think that Windows users will convert in droves to Safari? Most of the people who would even have a clue what they doing by installing Safari on their PC would probably already be hooked on Firefox, or maybe Opera.

The other biggie was that there would be a way for third party developers to develop apps for the iPhone. They would have hooks that would allow access to functions on the phone. So basically the answer is that you can develop apps for that sub-par browser I just mentioned and that’s your way to put your own apps on the iPhone. My first thought was that it was a real cop out. My second thought was that anyone who develops…..at all…..would realize this already. I’m not sure why it was even a topic for discussion at this. It was jsut very disappointing.

A few other things of note were of course the previews for Leopard and some gaming news. The Leopard previews were really cool. I’m really looking forward to it. It doesn’t come out until October though. Apple recently announced that it was delayed due to having to shift some resources from Mac OS development to iPhone development. It makes me wonder where the resources to port Safari to Windows came from. The gaming news was that two major gaming players (sorry, couldn’t resist), EA and ID would start producing Mac versions of their games. This is a good thing. Even with the new version of Parallels that allows for 3DFX support for Windows VMs, I would still much rather play games in the native OS.

Overall though, I considered this Stevenote to be rather lame. To think, I could have spent that time getting a cavity drilled or something along those lines instead of sitting at my desk waiting for MacRumorsLive to refresh. All the Twitter conversation was fun though.

Technorati Tags: Apple, computers, development, macintosh, macosx, software, web

In the long run, I shouldn’t really care. But in the long run when a celebrity does something so stupid that it endangers other people around them (yes even innocent people), I should care. We all should right? So I think she should go to jail. I do have to complain about them making an example of her though. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not like the whiners out there say, “They shouldn’t use her as a celebrity to make an example”. I think they should make an example out of her. These people that so many folks look up to as heroes exist on their celebrity status. Since they are role models, they should be held to higher standard. Paris got 45 days for doing something she have been given a sentence measured in months.

Technorati Tags: news, celebrity

I was just reading this AP article over at the “International Herald Tribune”, whatever that is. It got me to thinking. Now if I were to tell you that I was “taking up” Spanish, what would you assume from that statement? It might lead you to believe that I was trying to learn Spanish, maybe that I was trying to become a Spanish speaker. EIther way, it would probably mean that I was trying to create some association with the Spanish language. Right? Well then what you think of the sensational headline of the article I’ve linked above when you knew it read “World’s Roman Catholic bishops to take up anti-Semitism at 2008 meeting”.

What indeed….

The story of course goes on to talk about how a synod of Bishops next year will discuss way to fight anti-Semitism. But, how many times do you think this AP story has sown up in print, on the internet or in some other form of media? How many times do you think someone saw it and only read the headline? (chuckle chuckle, those crazy Catholics…there ought to be a law!)

Wouldn’t it have been more accurate to say, “World’s Roman Catholic bishops to take on anti-Semitism at 2008 meeting”? But that’s not as sensational. We all know that sensation is what sells the news.

Technorati Tags: catholic, christian, rant