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

Original content Copyright 2007 Marc Smith
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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

Original content Copyright 2007 Marc Smith
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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

Original content Copyright 2007 Marc Smith
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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

Original content Copyright 2007 Marc Smith
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“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

Original content Copyright 2007 Marc Smith
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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

Original content Copyright 2007 Marc Smith
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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

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

Technorati Tags: news, celebrity

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

Well, I am saddened that three (almost in a row) stories from SciFi Wire are about new plans for remakes. I hate this….

• Goyer Updating Scanners

  Yes, the David Cronenberg classic with exploding heads and Michael Ironside method acting is about to be ruined.

• Get Smart’s First Look

  Yes, the beloved 60′s cult TV show is about to be ruined.

• Barbarella To Be Revived

  As much as I like the band Duran Duran, I never really liked this one. But many folks did. It was a cult classic just like the other two one this list. For all those people that liked it, it’s about to be ruined.

Please Hollywood! Get a new sense of creativity!

Bonus cool points go to anyone who can cite the reference I made in the post title. It’s one of the few good remakes out there.

Technorati Tags: 60′s, 80′s, movies, scifi, tv

The baggage handlers used their employee uniforms and airport identification cards to enter restricted areas, bypass screeners with the bag and board the commercial Delta flight, according to court documents released Wednesday.

While the flight originated in Puerto Rico, it’s scary to me that this happened. Since I fly pretty much every week, hearing this is not what you would call encouraging. I hope these guys go to jail for a long time.

Technorati Tags: airlines, rant, security, stupid

Anyway, there are a healthy number of people who dislike my stylings, but then there are the others. The readers who not only dislike me, but go to great lengths to let me know it. Worrisome lengths. Like, “I know what you drive and where you live, you little commie whore, and I know when your pets go outside,” sorta lengths.

She says it scares her. To be honest it scares me too. I feel for her and her family too. I say that because my wife had a scary situation the other day. My wife sometimes has trouble finding a parking place at Vol State because her first class is rather late in the morning. When she found someone pulling out of a space, she patiently waited for them to clear the space so she could pull in. While she was waiting, someone else drove up and decided that even though she had been there before them, that was their space. Not only did they pull up behind her car and sit their for close to five minutes while she collected her things from the car before getting out, the followed her in their car until she turned down a side walk that does not follow the road. She told me this story and it worries me. I’m the type to worry about sometimes silly things. Hopefully, that’s what this is, a silly thing. Hopefully this pimped out muscle car driven by a stupid coward will never darken the lives me and my wife again. I hope and pray the same thing for Brittney. That these threats she gets are all just silly things that are made by people who are just cowards that are too afraid of their own opinions to even make their names and faces known.

Technorati Tags: Nashville, rant

My, how the world has changed!

I graduated from public high school without…

Ever wearing pants to school
Ever riding a school bus
Ever going a day without PE (from track and volley ball to dance)
Ever going a year without either band or chorus
Ever getting a free lunch
Ever going a day without the pledge and a prayer over the “PA” system
A computer
A cell phone
A pager

I graduated from public high school with…

The equivalent of a college education now
4 years of Latin – I actually translated Beowulf from Latin to English
2 languages (French and Spanish)
Algebra, geometry, trig
Biology
General Science
Civics
American and English literature
World history
Tennessee history
American History
Home Economics
Typing
Band and Chorus
4 years of PE
Public speaking

Maybe that’s why I made 28 on the ACT when I finally took it 33 years after graduation.

I started my first job ….

Still couldn’t wear pants – skirts and dresses only
No copiers – Mimeo??? I still remember the smell. Reports were done on an IBM selectric typewriter using mimeo stencils. You actually had to use a razor blade to scrape the ink off if you made a mistake.
No faxes – we used snail mail
No desk top computers – only terminals from the monster that was kept in the air conditioned ninth floor…the whole ninth floor.
Can you say key punch???
No word processing software – IBM selectrics??
No spreadsheet software – Graph paper…
No ten-key adding machines – comptometers. I must admit that the 10 key came out shortly after I started working.
At my first job I made $2.53 per hour and thought I had died and gone to heaven.

New words to my vocabulary over the years.
Computer
Personal computer
Cell phone – I actually had one of the first. The battery was bigger than a bread box.
Byte and all the mega, giga, etc., that goes with it.
Microwave oven
Cable TV
Remote control – Yes we actually had to walk over to the TV to change the channel or adjust the volume.
Garage door openers. If you had a garage, you had to stop, get out of your car, pull open the door, drive your car in, then pull the door back down. Why do you think so many houses were built with carports?
Terrorism – It was a word, but it didn’t have quite the same meaning as today.
Blow Dryer
Curling Iron
Microdermabrasion
Illegal alien – People who came into this country from all over the world were immigrants…and the vast majority were legal.
Politically correct – I’m really tired of this word and all the angst it causes.
Cruise control – Hard to get in a 57 Chevy
8 track player – Couldn’t get that on a 57 Chevy either
DVD – Again, 57 Chevy may not be the perfect venue
Compact disc
VCR – If you wanted to see a movie, you actually had to go to a movie theater
Digital anything
Interstate highway…the “long and winding road”…usually two lane
The Beatles – speaking of “long and winding road”
The Rolling Stones
The British Invasion – of the 1960’s
Flower Power
Hippie
Yippie
Groovy
Cool
Anything that plays music other than a vinyl disc called a record album.
Significant other – Either you were or you weren’t
Paradigm change– duh??? Please.
Peter Principle – Seen a lot of that
Employees as associates – Again with the PC-ness
Quality management – assumes you have quality to manage in the first place
Watergate
Iran-Contra
Sex – as Bill Clinton defines it.

Leave a comment if you think she needs her own blog….

Technorati Tags: blog, employment, family, history, interesting, politics, rant

Technorati Tags: 30Rock, alcohol, driving, DUI, car, rant, SNL, tv

This is of course a joke, since the last three main characters that got killed off in Lost were played by actors who had just been charged with DUI. But, driving under the influence is no laughing matter. According to MADD, there were 16,885 alcohol related traffic deaths in 2005. That’s more deaths than our military has suffered in the whole time since we entered Iraq. It’s a national tragedy. It’s bad enough that someone would put their own life and limb in jeopardy, but a drunk river also puts everyone else on the road at risk too. We’re talking about people who have not been part of the party. If we could just be more concerned about other folks safety than we are about how we’re going to get our car home, maybe that number would be a little lower.

A man who grabbed a 14-year-old girl’s arm to chastise her after she walked in front of his car, causing him to swerve to avoid hitting her, must register as a “sex offender,” the Appellate Court of Illinois has ruled.

No way…

The trial jury accepted Barnaby’s version of the story, but found him guilty of unlawful restraint of a minor – a sex offense under Illinois law.

Uh….OK….

Trial Judge Patrick Morse ordered registration reluctantly, acknowledging it was “more likely than not” Barnaby only intended to chastise the girl. “I don’t really see the purpose of registration in this case. I really don’t,” Morse said. “But I feel that I am constrained by the statute.”

Give me a break……

This man, who all parties involved including judge and jury say did nothing sexual with the girl being forced to register as a sex offender. If there was a requirement that all people who do moronic things have to register as a moron, that would make more sense. Well, I say that it would make sense in that case maybe. But what would be the point? Wouldn’t everyone be registered? Which leads me to my biggest concern about this case. If this becomes a common occurrence, don’t we run the risk loosing the legitimacy of the sex offender registry?

Go read the story and then come back and tell me what you think.

WorldNetDaily: Man grabs girl’s arm – now he’s a sex offender

Technorati Tags: illinois, law, news, politics, judges, rant, stupidlaw

I’m not really sure if I specifically targeted for stating my views, or if this is just random. Either way, this is the firs time I have tried to post a comment on NIT since last night (about 14 hours since). So I just don’t get it. For a site that is trying hard to build community, I don’t understand why they have initiated such unfriendly tactics. I don’t really see where I did or said anything abusive in my comments on the post in question. So really I don’t know if someone feels I did something wrong or if I am just some unlucky SOB that got stuck in a software malfunction.

UPDATE: My comment did finally go through, but I had to re-write it, which was still a big inconvenience.

UPDATE #2:Brittney has posted a response to this post here. My faith in NIT has been renewed.

Technorati Tags: nashville, web

Britney Spears has removed K-Fed from her MySpace friends list.

Being removed from someone’s Myspace friend list is the end of the world. I know this for a fact because I was removed Avil Lavigne’s list. It hurt so bad. I thought I would never be able to move on. But eventually I got to be added to the friend list for Murphy’s Bar in Memphis. Now I can drown all my sorrows in nice pint of Guinness.

Technorati Tags: Britney, K-Fed, music, pop, news

Bluehost does not and will not tolerate adult material of any kind on our servers. Sometimes profit comes second and personal responsibility and ethics come first. I am not telling other hosts to not provide adult hosting services, but I wish that they would come to that conclusion on their own.

What do I say to that? I say kudos to Mr. Heaton! It’s wonderful to find someone out there that will not let the almighty dollar dictate how he runs his business. Don’t get me wrong, I know thaat Mr. Heaton is in this business to make money. It’s just that I am proud to be the customer of someone that refuses to compromise his own moral judgement in order to make a dollar.

Bravo Mr. Heaton! Bravo Bluehost!