My good, good buddy Bob has now combined all the best elements of Bob-Net and The Donkey Show into a new, snazzy, snappy home right here on Tumblr.
Check out what he’s doing over there. It’s smart, funny, timely, and 100% Bob. Which, as those of us who know him know, is a good thing to be.
Jerry Reed has passed away …
Associated Press: Singer-actor Jerry Reed dies at the age of 71
… and he will be sorely missed.
When I got my first DVD player, one of the first DVDs I got was Smokey and the Bandit.
I had everybody over and we watched it and we laughed at its hilarious, good-natured absurdity.
But even though Burt’s performance was (appropriately) cranked up to 11, Jerry Reed was my favorite character with his effortless smile and natural charm.
My friends and I loved Jerry Reed so much, in fact, that several of us took a trip up to Nashville, Indiana to see him perform at the Little Nashville Opry about 10 years ago.
He sang classic songs and told hilarious stories and posed for photos with us:
Put that hammer down in Heaven, son. You will live on forever in your movies and music, and you sure made a hell of a lot of joy while you were here.
Here’s a photo from when I met him:
(Please also click here for my friend Bob’s thoughts on Mr. Reed.)
As expected, the idiots in Georgia who claimed they found a dead Bigfoot body have been proven liars and frauds:
Researcher says Bigfoot just a rubber gorilla suit
One of the guys is a former Georgia corrections officer, and the other guy is a cop on medical leave.
Well, he WAS a cop:
On Tuesday, Clayton County Police Chief Jeff Turner said he has not spoken to Whitton but processed paperwork to fire him.
“Once he perpetrated a fraud, that goes into his credibility and integrity,” Turner said. “He has violated the duty of a police officer.”
At least there’s SOME justice coming out of this whole thing. They’ll never be taken seriously again for the rest of their lives, and that’s awesome, too.
More on the hoax here.
In the meantime, fellow Mulders, don’t lose hope.
Like I mentioned last week, a previously undiscovered population of 125,000 lowland gorillas was recently discovered living in the Congo.
And that gives me out that somewhere out there, in the great American frontier, something is, well, out there.
I believe in Bigfoot.
Remember last week, when I told you Bill Murray was going to jump out of a plane over Chicago?
He did it.
Please go here to see tons more photos; there are some amazing and hilarious shots of Bill before, after and even DURING his big jump.
This is even better than the time Tony Wonder baked himself into a giant loaf of bread to feed the troops!
This one really hurts my heart to write.
Photo by Richard Seaman
The last F-117 stealth fighter made its final flight this week to the Tonopah Test Range in Nevada, where it will be kept with all the others in non-flyable storage.
Flight International: F-117′s final formation fling
My fascination with this beautifully bizarre Lockheed bird will never cease. Adapted from the Have Blue prototypes that Lockheed started flying in secret in 1977, the F-117 was the world’s first aircraft to be virtually invisible to enemy (and, for that matter, friendly) radar. Its precision in combat is legendary, and its presence in our skies will be sorely missed.
Photo by Richard Seaman
The cockpit had to be treated with a special coating to keep radar out, because the pilot’s helmet had a larger radar signature than the entire airplane.
How awesome is that?
Possibly the most.
Photo by Richard Seaman
Two more Lockheed birds, the F-22 and the F-35, will take its place, with the F-22 already in service.
Here are a few photos of the F-22 to ease my pain:
Photo by Richard Seaman
Photo by Richard Seaman
Photo by Richard Seaman
The F-22 has more stealth, power, speed, agility, and firepower than the F-117.
However!
Without the F-117, we wouldn’t have planes like the F-22.
So.
Goodbye, old friend.
Photo by Richard Seaman
I’m going to miss you.
A lot.
The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization continues to build its case against the guys in Georgia who claim to have found a dead Bigfoot (and who further claim that they’ll reveal details about it in a press conference tomorrow):
BFRO: Georgia Bigfoot Body Hoax
What do these guys seriously hope to gain?
Yesterday, I mentioned that the one guy who’s a cop recently got shot in the line of duty.
His police chief isn’t happy about what he’s up to with all this Bigfoot stuff:
AJ-C: Policeman’s claim of Bigfoot sighting a headache for boss
More about this can be found here.
However!
I still — and always will — believe in Bigfoot.
And check out this story:
Time for Kids: Good News for Gorillas
125,000 previously undiscovered lowland gorillas were recently found in the Congo.
That’s amazing!
And it also gives me hope that there are some Sasquatch families roaming the wilds of the United States.
The truth is out there. It’s just not in Georgia.
Here’s another article about the guys claiming to have found a dead Bigfoot in Georgia:
KTVU: ‘Bigfoot’ Trackers Claim They’ve Found Their Prey
I like this story because of the following quote:
Officials from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Resources Division said the largest wildlife they are aware of in the state are black bears and white-tail deer.
Thank you, Georgia Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Resources Division, for your cracker-jack contribution to this curious mystery!
More on this as it unfolds, kids.
(I think I’m going to write some Georgia D.N.R.W.R.D. comics to compete with the B.P.R.D. comics about Hellboy’s friends at the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. Can any of you draw?)
And I’m not talking about the European country recently at war with Russia.
I’m talking about the American state just two notches on the map below my own.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, well, just click the headline:
Normally I’d be quitting my job right about now and driving down there to see what’s going on. I’ve had a lifelong fascination with things like Sasquatch, the Loch Ness Monster, ghosts, Martians, etc.; if there’s been a book written about it, I’ve checked it out. I’m a Mulder through and through.
But this sounds fishy, and some of the details are intriguing.
First of all, one of the men who “found Bigfoot” is a cop who’s on leave after being shot at a shootout at a Krystal restaurant, which is like the southern version of our own dearly beloved White Castle.
Can you imagine getting shot at a Krystal AND finding Bigfoot in the same lifetime?
Not so fast.
Take a look at the official website of the finders:
The fact that they’re already sending out press releases and arranging press conferences makes this sound more than a little suspect.
I mean, if you found Bigfoot, would you present the DNA evidence at the Cabana Hotel in Palo Alto, California?
Because that’s what these guys are doing this Friday at noon.
Here’s my favorite quote from the press release:
Extensive scientific studies will be done on the body by a team of scientists including a molecular biologist, an anthropologist, a paleontologist and other scientists over the next few months at an undisclosed location.
Ha! That reads to me like, “A molecular biologist, an anthropologist, a paleontologist, actor Dabney Coleman, Southwest Airlines Senior Vice President of Marketing Todd Sandusky, the ghost of Conrad Bain from television’s Diff’rent Strokes, and some other science-type people.”
Oh, and these guys own a company that offers Bigfoot expeditions.
The story has been picked up by international media.
Competing Sasquatch watchers at the BFRO (Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization) are calling this a hoax.
If it is indeed a big bunch of poppycock, what do these guys hope to gain? Why would a cop be involved in something that will destroy his public reputation if/when it turns out to be fake?
I want to believe more than anyone. Believe me. But this sounds like some kind of half-baked publicity scam. I’ll eat my words if I’m proven wrong, but come on. You don’t find a dead Bigfoot and put it in a freezer and then put it on your suspicious website and announce press conferences. Unless you’re these guys, I guess.
Whatever.
I guess we’ll hear more about it if the press conference happens on Friday.
And if these guys are lying, I hope somebody sews their asses to their faces.
The Aliens in Aliens …
The Terminators in the Terminator movies …
The dinosaurs in Jurassic Park …
The monsters in Monster Squad …
The scissor hands in Edward Scissorshands …
The amazing armor suits in Iron Man …
My favorite movie monster of all time, the Predator …
… and so many, many other memorable creature characters were created by Stan Winston, who lost his battle with cancer on Sunday. He was only 62.
I go to the movies to be entertained and to be taken away, and guys like Stan Winston are a big part of why I love movies so much.
He was a master craftsman who still believed in doing things the old-fashioned way at a time when too much of Hollywood is relying far too heavily on shoddy computer effects. Stan built his special effects from the ground up, and they never looked anything less than entirely real (and often flat-out terrifying).
Please check out this massive tribute to Stan on Ain’t It Cool, and thanks to our friend, fellow blogger and one-time house guest Kyle for sharing the sad news with me yesterday.
We’ll miss you as much as we’ll miss your work, good sir, and I’m so glad we had you for as long as we did. Like a true legend, you will live on forever through your work.
Kids, we’ve got a situation on our hands.
The word “chockablock” is making a comeback.
If you’ll take a look at the previous post about the Hulk premiere, you’ll see that Tim Blake Nelson used it in one of the videos.
Just days before this, Harrison Ford got all chockablocky about the Jack Ryan franchise over at CHUD:
Ford Says “Cracking,” “Chockablock” Whilst Discussing Jack Ryan Revival
I mean, check out this quote:
“[Jack Ryan's] a character that I think you could revisit acknowledging the passage of time and his increasing age. It wasn’t age dependent; that character and his experiences were chockablock full of recipes for ripping good yarns, so that’s a character I wouldn’t mind revisiting.”
“Chockablock full of recipes for ripping good yarns.”
Amazing.
Why don’t I say things like that?
Probably because, until this week, I had never heard the word “chockablock” before, and now some of Hollywood’s best actors can’t stop using it.
Who will be next?
I vow to you, my Loyal Readers, that I will seek out and post all uses of “chockablock” in the mainstream and entertainment media.
And then I’ll figure out what it means.
More to come.
And I need your help on this.
So feel free to keep your eyes and ears open, too, if you’d like.