Let’s kick things off with a little something from a far flung prep week on Stargate: Atlantis’s Quarantine…
Remember the scene? We require a steel for throwing, a tempered glass for breaking. The existing wall has to be re-finished so that it looks convincing on camera and, of course, we need to add the climbing pieces. There’s a note for both Paint and VFX reminding them that green lino will be required on the floor since the long drop down will be a visual effect.
I didn’t recall – until reminded by this handout – that the Stargate: Continuum wrapped perhaps weeks before we went to camera on Quarantine. There’s mention of the cargo hold (where Baal makes his grand entrance) and the Achilles Bridge/Deck that had to be removed, to be replaced by a high stunt climbing wall.
Recalling the Keller/Ronon isolation scenes. Tempered glass (because we don’t want our actors stepping on the real thing). There’s the reference to the 02-cylinder gag and specific placements for the various elements as they are moved around the room.
The “gak box” to the right of the door is, again, a reference to a mass of wires/crystals/general techy innards McKay can fiddle with in an attempt to get the door open. A nod to continuity makes reference to a larger version the hero plant “Rodneyana villosa” from Tabula Rasa. The best prop is, of course, the bag of manure for McKay’s “pillow”. Label to read “100% Organic Manure”. It’s nice to know Rodney was resting his hand on the pure stuff and none of that synthetic crap.
Where Sheppard ends his climb. There is a note to possibly reinforce the rail. The last thing we needed was for our hero to complete the hair-raising climb, go to hop over the rail and have the thing collapse on him and send him plummeting. Tempered glass for breaking – and potted plants for throwing.
The episode’s most unlikely hero, Radek, makes his infamous vent climb, crawl and tumble. Let’s hear it for the Zelenka!
Moving on to the News of Note:
Following yesterday’s blog entry about writing, here is Cracked.com’s tips for punching writers block in the face: http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-tips-punching-writers-block-in-face/
Finally! Iranian scientist claims to have invented ‘time machine’ – Telegraph
NOW they’re worried? It’s about time. Broadcasters worry about ‘Zero TV’ homes – Yahoo! News
From the “Oh, you noticed” department. Tech upstarts threaten TV broadcast model | Reuters
Teen has eaten nothing but ramen for 13 years! And has the health of an 80-year old! Teen’s Strange Ramen Addiction | Healthy Living – Shine from Yahoo! Canada
My Causes of the Week:
Heather Weiand’s dogs were seized from her home for presumably biting a neighbor while she and her husband were out despite the fact that the dogs were left padlocked in their kennels on their property. From Change.org: “On the date when the alleged incident took place, as well as every other day, the dogs were contained in their crates inside their locked home. When the family is home and the dogs are outside they are leashed or on leads. There is NO possible way they were involved! What is even more shady is that they asked to have bite impression the dogs to prove they weren’t involved, but were told “it’s too late for that the bite has already started to heal. In TWO HOURS?!” Help out these poor dogs by visiting their facebook page: Help Save Kannon, Thunder and Sarge
Facing a similar predicament is PTSD service dog Dutch: Save Dutch
Today’s entry is dedicated to blog regular and birthday boy Jeff W!
Other news of note – K-mart wants you to ship your pants:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I03UmJbK0lA
😆 😆 😆
das
Here’s something that will open your eyes a bit Joe. Not sure if you’ve heard of this story, it mostly stems from the North Korean problem, though I suspect it’s more a case of the child being a complete and utter racist/bigot. I shake my head at this video in all honesty.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oOW6QJfeoo
Japanese girl wishes death on Koreans, and rants about them in public. Says it all. Notice the Japanese police just standing there like idiots lol
Although most Japanese aren’t racist, as with any country, you get a small minority that spoil it for the rest, videos only a minute long.
Nice entry, How is Jelly today?? vet visit??
We’re not a zero TV home. We confirmed the antenna still works for the super-bowl. Probably won’t next year, but that’s then.
Youthful tendency disorder, that was funny on many levels.
I thought it weird the article about Ramen talked about the sodium and fat in the noodles right away. That is so the least of the problems with that diet. Gnawing on some salt pork would be the healthiest snack she’s had at this point.
Cool Atlantis diagrams!!
Psst. It’s the 12th!
@Joe:
Thanks for the dedication! Tonight was pretty good…dinner at Sushi Station and then back home for presents. A good evening with family all around.
And thanks for the Atlantis plans, especially Quarantine…one of my favorites!
@Skua and Airelle:
Thanks for the birthday wishes! It’s been a good one!
I loved Quarantine, it was a great episode! And thanks for the article on writers block! I both laughed and felt reassured. Now to try and turn my crap into something that works!
@JeffW: Belated Happy Birthday, Jeff! Sushi Station – haven’t been there in years but I recall that the sushi conveyor belt was a lot of fun!
@Joe: Thanks for the plans! and the term “gak box” – I really like that one.
Joe: I was watching Stargate SG-1 Enemies, I was wondering, why did the SG-1 team start wearing safety glasses? Was this because of all the use of the firearms and blanks or was it written into the script? Curious monkeys want to know.
Randomness: I don’t want to excuse bad behavior, but I understand that North Korea has been known to kidnap Japanese citizens for extra ordinary long periods of time. They have supported and hidden terrorist groups that have committed acts of terrorism against the Japanese people.
It’s a shame she cannot separate the North Korean people from the state and it’s elite rulers who have committed atrocities against the North Korean people, who starve while their childish dictator, his family and military brass feasts. It’s a shame China doesn’t roll in and clean house of the regime, or invite the whole family and friends over and “have an accident”.
Loved Quarantine! One of my favorites! All these designs are very cool. Using the same rooms all over again for different scenes and the viewer never realizes. I guess the people who had to keep changing out the furniture and other stuff where pretty busy. Who’s job was that? So interesting…
@Mike from Canada – I didn’t see it as about North Korea. It seemed like racism against Koreans, with some kind of focus on blaming Koreans daring to live near her for the intensity of her hatred.
And I don’t even want to label it as hatred against only non-Japanese. It takes an extreme disregard for the feelings of anyone to subject people on the street to that kind of language and in this context that includes mentioning Nanking. I bet she hates Japanese puppies, too.
what is it with all the dog haters? Such stories disgust me. And if it keeps up, I am going to run out of places I can visit. Can’t do New York because of the megalomaniac running the place, can’t do Belfast because they put down a dog, sheesh. How depressing.
One thing of note. Did my 10k today. Jogged far less of it than planned. Memo: practice jogging more on the hard, unforgiving pavement and less on the relatively soft track before the next race.
@Randomness. That level of racism is a bit out of the norm for Japanese, but based on my adoptive mother, a lot of Japanese are indeed a bit racist. I know that it took me quite some time to get over my father marrying a Korean after my mother’s death, and that was knowing how illogical that was! But like every other people, the Japanese do have their extremists, and it looks like you found a video of one of those.
hope it’s a good weekend for everyone, and that the weather is sane.
http://news.yahoo.com/jersey-prime-seats-tonights-aurora-borealis-173500846.html
~~Looks like Das can see the northern lights tonight of this article is true
Pass this superhero movie link on to Cookie, will ya?
http://screenrant.com/comic-book-superhero-movies-tv-shows-history-pauly-155733/
No idea how I ended up on that part of the internet. Totally wasted day here. This kind of thing usually starts with cracked.com.
@das:
That K-mart video is brilliant! Hadn’t seen that. I love entertaining advertising.
Within the ramen noodle article is a link to a TED talk about the difference between digestion of Top Ramen noodles versus homemade ramen noodles (which is supposed to served as a proxy for the difference between the effects of “processed foods” and “whole foods” in general on the body). For a TED talk, it’s remarkably inane. It’s presented as if it’s scientific (rather than an isolated finding of only anecdotal significance) and as if the findings have any scientific validity or predictive value. But the whole project and presentation was done by an artist, not a scientist, and one with a predetermined conclusion she set out to prove (that “processed foods are bad”), rather than a hypothesis to test (“Are processed foods any worse for human health than unprocessed foods?”). Then at the end, after she’s supposedly proven that processed foods are bad, simply because they are broken down more slowly in the stomach than homemade foods, she concludes that “artists and scientists should work together more often!” Yeah, okay.
Has scientific literacy really sunk so low in our culture? How do we fix this?
Uhh… Quarantine. I don’t like this episode, and for another friend of mine it was the episode where he gave up on Atlantis.
For me it was the McKay regression, where he’s suddenly early Season 1 McKay.
For him it was the fact that the glass on Atlantis breaks so easily, glass on a city that’s designed to enter and leave the atmosphere and fly through space. The idea that this city can only exist with its shield (something that apparently drains ZPM’s very quickly) was just too much of a leap of logic for him (and I agree with him). I mean, the slightest flicker of the shield and everyone dies to exposure to hard vacuum. And even if the city can be sealed without the need for a shield, someone trips and goes through a window and suddenly the city is exposed?
Bad episode.
Thanks for the diagrams….very cool, Thank You Again! I loved Quarantine, I thought it was a very thought-provoking episode that made you think about how dangerous it is to just be in another galaxy and on another planet etc. I can’t believe some people stoped watching the show because of this episode and alike. I’m sorry some people felt that way. I loved every episode! From SG-1 Episode 01 to Atlantis Season05 Episode20, to Stargate Infinity,to SGU,…..I Loved them all. I had to realize that not all episodes should be the same feel. Some have to hit those hard subjects that alot of fans don’t want to think about……..like, Whats the “real” dangers if this truly existed? Those episodes we show our beloved characters vulnerabilities.It rounds them out and makes them into “real” Human-beings. Everyone has thier own darksides they don’t want to let out, they don’t want anyone to see that they aren’t immortal in a sense.(this is just like real life) I love it! lol Maybe my opinion is completely wrong but it truly makes sense to me and also helps me look at my own reality in a better way. Truth is stranger than fiction and fiction seems to help me understand the real world that much better. lol ……really it does! On another note, It’s good i don’t have powers such as superheros etc. I would be wanted for ALOT of murders. lol Mostly, Animal Cruelty would drive me to it. Animal abuser would tragically (ha!) meet their ends in manners that they treated the animals. It really sets me off to hear such things as this story. Where they wouldn’t do a teeth-cast(?) to prove whether they are innocent or not. 2 hours? wow! It really makes me so angry when people are too sorry to do their jobs and try to save a life, especially an innocent life! When i hear of such cases in which the system is pathetic and the government workers are even more pathetic. It really proves that they are the exact reason our countries and this world is in the shape it’s in. I’m up for a jail-break to free those innocent dogs……how bout you? If only i could….if only i could.
Love the set pictures.