| Lawrence Hertzog, a television writer/producer whose work ran from the late 1970s until just last year, died of cancer on April 19th 2008 in Los Angeles, at the age of 57. What with my fannish obsession with Stephen J. Cannell series, my strongest memory of Hertzog is his work as a co-executive producer on Hardcastle and McCormick, Stingray, and J.J. Starbuck, a show he's credited as co-creating with Cannell. As a writer, he contributed episodes to over a dozen different series. I'll also remember him for his work as a producer/writer on seaQuest DSV and as creator/executive-producer/primary writer for the one-season wonder Nowhere Man. He also produced Profiler and La Femme Nikita. His final series was the Sci Fi Channel's Painkiller Jane. http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0381127/ -- his IMDb credits http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117984654.html?categoryid=2993&cs=1 -- Variety obit http://groups.google.com/group/alt.obituaries/browse_thread/thread/53c60417159021db/53c235661e97e0b9 -- text of the L.A. Times obit | |
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| Attended the not-quite-annual Heritage Room Spelling Bee last night at the P.O. Pears restaurant in downtown Lincoln. Becky once again competed in the Bee as one of our Library Staff Association's two sponsored representatives. She came in 3rd place, tying her personal best mark from a few years ago! Congrats, Beck...you got further than I would have, I'm sure! They had twenty contestants, and started with a "free" round in which no one was knocked out, then moved on to harder words as the competition progressed. ( Almost complete list of the words used this year -- under the cut! )One of the special reasons we went to the Bee this year is that it was the final time it will ever be held at P.O. Pears -- the venerable Lincoln eatery actually closed for business a couple of weeks ago, but reopened for one final night to host the Bee one last time. Good thing, too...they had a completely packed house and went out with a bang! [ See my Flickr photoset of the P.O. Pears interior (and some Spelling Bee shots). ] Sigh...just reminds me of the word that knocked ME out of my first Heritage Room spelling bee back in 1988 -- comestible (I spelled it comestable). I've been in four Bees, and can't remember any of the other "knock-out words" I've stumbled over, but I can't forget that first one! :-( My all-time best placement is 7th place...guess I'll have to take my turn next year to challenge Becky's two 3rd places! | |
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| Your results: You are Wash (Ship Pilot)| Wash (Ship Pilot) |
| 65% |
| Malcolm Reynolds (Captain) |
| 65% |
| Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command) |
| 65% |
| Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic) |
| 50% |
| Jayne Cobb (Mercenary) |
| 50% |
| Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic) |
| 50% |
| River (Stowaway) |
| 25% |
| Alliance |
| 20% |
| Derrial Book (Shepherd) |
| 15% |
| Inara Serra (Companion) |
| 10% |
| A Reaver (Cannibal) |
| 5% |
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You are a pilot with a good
if not silly sense of humor.
You take pride in your collection of toys.
You love your significant other.
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Click here to take the "Which Serenity character are you?" quiz...Which | |
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|  Call me a softie, but sometimes I can be "moved" by the oddest things. Including the fates of comic strip characters. For years, I've been more a fan of the organic comic strips than the static -- I've liked strips like "For Better or Worse" or "Doonesbury", where the characters are aging more-or-less in real-time, rather than the vast majority of strips where the characters never age at all. Because this inevitably leads to real-world issues coming to life in such strips, I can get choked up when a comic strip character meets their end. It happened in "For Better or Worse" when Farley the dog was written out of the strip in a sad but meaningful way. And it happens again in "Lisa's Story: The Other Shoe", a compilation of storylines from the Funky Winkerbean strip. I grew up with Funky back in junior high and high school, and have only occasionally touched base with it again in the years since (it's not in my local paper, and I haven't bothered tracking it down on-line). A storyline began in the late 1990s in which Lisa Moore, the wife of the series de facto central character, Les Moore, develops breast cancer. After initially beating the cancer with a mastectomy and chemotherapy, the cancer returned in a new storyline in 2006, after that character has had her daughter (and reconnected with the teenage son she had given up at birth back when she was in high school herself). Writer/artist Tom Batiuk, channeling his own issues after facing a prostate cancer scare, forewarned readers of Lisa's ultimate fate, but reading the entire storyline in an almost graphic-novel format is still a wrenching experience. I have more than one female friend who has faced this battle, and this book's approach to exploring the topic is sensitive, emotional, serious, humorous and frank...all at once. Especially appreciated in this book is an extensive appendix at the back with information on web sites and organizations associated with cancer research, treatments, hospices, grief counseling and other issues for both cancer victims and their families. Thank you, Tom...you brought this issue to your readers in a very effective manner. It's hard to say I "enjoyed" this book, but, in the end, I did. | |
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| Oh, well...Becky and my appearance on KZUM's Booktalk tonight was okay. Certainly not a disaster, but not one of my better radio broadcasts, in my own opinion. Way too many "ums", and since I was the "host" tonight, the number of dead spots that snuck in was really unforgiveable. Becky, in her first appearance on this show, came off much better than I'd say I did...on the occasions when I actually stayed quiet long enough for her to say something. Nice job, hon'. All in all, though, a good experience, and the producers asked us to come back together again in the future if we can find a book we're both interested in reading and talking about!  As to the book itself -- Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography by David Michaelis is an excellent biography of Charles Schulz. I knew quite a bit about him from interviews, and from profiles on 60 Minutes and American Masters, but Michaelis' book strips away a lot of the "legend" and reveals Schulz to be a troubled man. Ignoring his infidelities -- both acted upon and only fantasized about, it was just sad to see how tormented this incredibly successful and idolized man was about the fact that he believed to his dying days that he was unloved and unappreciated. His intense insecurities and bitter regrets about mostly imagined slights would have made any normal person seem sad and small. Instead, they were fuel for the fire that created unforgettable comic strip characters, storylines, and observations. I may think somewhat less of the man now that I know more about him, but that doesn't lessen my love and appreciation for his contribution to my cultural education...and this book definitely helped me to understand the origins and viewpoints of many of Schulz' classic characters. *sigh* To paraphrase something Becky said after we got off the air -- "sometimes the message is more important than the messenger." Thanks, Becky, for appearing with me on air tonight - now we just need to get our hands on a recording so we can hear what we sounded like -- who knows how long it'll be before KZUM turns it into a podcast. And to any readers wondering if they should pick up Schulz and Peanuts -- I recommend it strongly, but if you've got an image in your mind of Schulz as a kindly, loving grandfatherly figure...be prepared to have that image changed dramatically. | |
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| I've felt like the "electronic librarian" in the past few days. On Friday and Monday, I presented a book talk at two branch libraries on the theme of LibraryThing, and I also used Audacity software to record the Friday book talk for eventual release as a podcast on the library's website. My work continues to have me developing content for, and maintaining the look of, the BookGuide readers advisory pages associated with my library system's website, including being the primary content creator for the BookGuide blog, where I post far more frequently than I do here in my own LJ. Tomorrow, Wednesday, 3-12-08, I'll be making one of my occasional appearances on local community radio station KZUM (89.3 FM)'s weekly Booktalk show at 6:30 p.m. That's nothing new...I've been on several times previously. What's new is that this is the first time I'll be on with my wife, Becky. In fact, we'll be the only two commentators on the episode (other than either John or Kit on the soundboard!). Becky's never done the show before, and when I suggested her as my co-host for this episode, the show's producer(s) didn't hestitate to say "go for it." So...the Clarks will be discussing Schulz and Peanuts, the new (Nov 07) biography of Charles M. Schulz by David Michaelis. Tune in if you're local and have an inclination from 6:30 to 7:00. Otherwise I'll make an "afterwards" posting tomorrow night. You can also listen online (via iTunes). | |
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| I was getting ready to put together a "what I've been watching during this tv season" post when I saw that one of my guilty-pleasure shows has been cancelled -- ABC Family's horse-farm sudser WILDFIRE. Not so much cancelled, but allowed to end by the network -- at least producers knew it was coming and are planning a big wrap-up when the final 5 eps start airing at the end of April.
Sigh...it was never "great" television, and at times I seriously wondered why I was watching it. I initially started with it 'cause one of the stars was DS9's Nana Visitor, and it was created and executive-produced by DS9's Michael Piller. And, although I've never worked with horses, I still enjoy watching them race, and the series was set at a family-run racehorse farm.
Oh, well...I won't miss it like one of my all-time faves, but I enjoyed it for its short (4 13-ep seasons) run, and will look forward to the final five eps... | |
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| Talk about somebody who's had a major impact on me as I was growing up! I started "gaming" in 1983 with a bunch of the friends in my local SF club. There was no question what Role Playing Game we were going to play -- it had to be (Advanced) Dungeons & Dragons, created by Gary Gygax. After a bumpy start, our game has been set in the same gaming world for 24+ years (25 in April 2008), and at least two of the original players are still with the group, including ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) mponte1 (another was nebraska_artist). I've been the DM (or GM) for about 85% of the time, giving me no chance to actually role-play my own single character, but conversely giving me the opportunity to create a wild variety of different environments and scenarios for my friends to explore. Our games were always heavily laced with pop-culture and media influences and references -- everything from adventures that were reminiscent of classic Star Trek episode plots, to a fantasy world character showing up with the Greatest American Hero symbol as their family coat of arms. Although my gaming group, the "not ready for Palmdale players" has pretty much slipped into near-permanent retirement now (we haven't had an actual gaming session in probably 2 years), the history of our game is laid out for anybody to read at: History of Peregrine. None of which would have been possible with Gary. I never met him. I never wrote to him. I never read any of his own original novels. But I've spent more hours over the course of the past 25 years playing around in an imaginary backyard that he's responsible for than I can possibly count up. Thank you, Mr. Gygax, for your contributions to fantasy gaming, and for the hours of imaginative enjoyment you have provided me. You may be gone, now, but your influence will be felt for a long time to come. Time for me to make a ritual saving throw roll in your honor. (*rattle rattle*) "20! Of course...what else could it be?!" Tribute at Order of the Stick webcomicTribute at Dork TowerTemporary tribute at the D&D site of Wizards of the CoastThe most quirky element in his passing is that it came on March 4, which for several years now has been set aside by gamers as an annual "GM (gamemaster) Day" -- a day to celebrate fantasy role playing. Seems only appropriate that the most well-known and influential GM should depart the stage on GM Day! | |
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| Okay, yeah, you've already seen it a dozen places in the past few days already, but hey...I like it (even with the glaring spelling error!), so here it is:
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| Ended up skipping my scifi club's Sunday afternoon meeting today to stay home and vegetate. I've got a couple of books I need to make some progress on -- one for work and one for a radio show I'll be doing on the 12th. However, part of my "afternoon at home" was spent on-line. Thus far I hadn't taken the time to watch the Star Trek New Voyages episode "World Enough and Time". But, it's been getting quite a bit of on-line chatter after the script became a Nebula nominee. So...after reading writer/director Marc Scott Zicree's blog entry explaining what makes a "fan production" eligible for a Nebula Award for professional work, and being impressed by all he had to say, I finally took the time to watch this hour-long episode. I'm tremendously glad I did...it's a fabulous production! It only took me a few minutes to get past the "new" actors in the traditional Trek roles. My only complaint was that my RoadRunner connection still apparently wasn't fast enough, as the streaming feed kept hiccuping or pausing. You can check it (and all of the other completed Star Trek New Voyages episodes) out at: http://www.startreknewvoyages.com/ | |
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| Well...had my traditional viewing of this year's Oscar ceremony on television tonight. This was one of those years where I hadn't seen a single one of the Best Picture nominees, but it was still entertaining enough since I had seen some of the films and people nominated in some of the lesser categories. (Yeah! Ratatouille won for best Animated!!)
As always, though, the whole thing was too long and felt overly padded. But then, it was the 80th anniversary, and they really wanted to show clips from throughout the history of the Oscars. There were a couple of really nice clip montages, and the In Memoriam tribute was nicely done (a particular highlight every year for me as I prepared to do my annual Tribute vid for MediaWest).
I don't know if I'm any more interested in seeing No Country For Old Men than I was before it won best picture, but I'll try to give it some consideration. Of course, even winning Best Picture didn't make me want to see American Beauty a few years ago, either! Guess my personal preference for Action, SciFi or RomComs doesn't place me in the mindset of the academy's voting majority...
Still, overall, I'd give tonight's awards show an overall score of B- ... decent host (Jon Stewart), no idiotic heavyhanded political statements, and not very many slow spots throughout the show. It's just too bad I didn't really care about any of the nominated films! | |
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| I've been lax about posting new stuff lately, so at least I'll recycle a couple of memes that came to me from a friend via e-mail. I don't like spamming friends' e-mail inboxes, but I've got no problem with posting these kinds of things as blog entries. This is the second one which came to me from my long-time friend, nebraska_artist. ( Getting to Know 2008 meme under the cut ) | |
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| I've been lax about posting new stuff lately, so at least I'll recycle a couple of memes that came to me from a friend via e-mail. I don't like spamming friends' e-mail inboxes, but I've got no problem with posting these kinds of things as blog entries. This one came to me from my long-time friend, nebraska_artist. ( Four Things meme under the cut ) | |
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|  Because of: dead (5x) pain (4x) dick (3x) death (2x) and drugs (1x)What a screwy system. Let's see...if I write a posting about my Uncle Dick, who didn't end up dead from a recent operation, but was probably taking lots of drugs for the pain, is that gonna skew the results? Thanks to thefannishwaldo for pointing me towards this! | |
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| Last week, I won a batch of home-made chocolate chip cookies from Suzanne Beecher, the brains behind DearReader.com, with the provision that I had to take a picture of myself (and anyone I shared the cookies with) enjoying them, preferably by dunking them in a glass of milk. I'm not really much of a dunker, and I've been under the weather lately, so I haven't had a chance to go share them with my folks. So...it'll just have to be my wife and myself for this shot! If you haven't tried DearReader, I encourage you to do so. Check with your local library system to see if they offer this free service. If they do, you can sign up to receive partial chapters of books in your e-mail each Monday through Friday. By the end of the week, you'll have had a good sampling of a new (or relatively recent) hot title, in any of a dozen different genres. You'll also have the chance to read the daily column by DearReader founder Suzanne, and put your name in the drawings for free books, contests, etc. And, boy, does she like to bake and give away free cookies to her readers! Yum! | |
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| In my ongoing quest to find out why my back/hip/leg/knee continue to give me problems, the next step was to get an MRI taken of my lower back this past Friday. Fortunately, the results came back negative -- no slipped, ruptured or bulging discs. So, now, it's on a neurologist to see if he can figure out the source of all the pain. Of course, he can't see me until the first week of March. Sigh.. The only interesting part of this whole process has been all the new pieces of equipment I've had the opportunity to try out for the first time. </sarcasm> | |
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| Becky was surprisingly willing to join me for an afternoon hike today along the Mo-Pac East Trail, starting at the parking lot slightly south of "O" on 84th St. This was the first day in a couple of weeks that we've had reasonably comfortable temperatures -- it was about 46 degrees while we were hiking. This may not sound like much of an accomplishment, but for me it was tremendous! ( see the reason why under the cut )And we ran into a friend of ours near the end of our hike -- Brian Harrifeld -- one of our friendly competitors in the floral events at the Nebraska State Fair every year (and the brother of one of Becky's oldest friends at the library). He was checking out the condition of the trail to see if it was good enough to go running on. It wasn't. | |
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| Hmm...amusing, interesting and somewhat depressing. Sigh...now I have to listen to 10 more months of all their blathering... 95% Barack Obama
93% Hillary Clinton
93% Bill Richardson
91% John Edwards
87% Chris Dodd
80% Joe Biden
76% Dennis Kucinich
73% Mike Gravel
52% Rudy Giuliani
45% John McCain
35% Mitt Romney
32% Mike Huckabee
24% Tom Tancredo
22% Fred Thompson
20% Ron Paul
2008 Presidential Candidate Matching QuizSeen on margec01's LJ | |
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| I've been having an interesting time entering in all the books I've got on shelves around my home into my LibraryThing account. I just crested 1000 books this evening, and I'm probably only about 1/2 done with all the books I still currently own, let alone going back and entering in all the books I've read but no longer own. The good news and bad news is that I'm seriously surprised to see how many of the books on my shelves are ones that I've never read yet! (I'm using a TBR tag on those, and out of 1000 so far, over 300 fall into that category). I'm also enjoying looking at my friends' LT listings. If you're among them, stop by and add me as a friend there as well! | |
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| Seen originally in my friend thefannishwaldo's account...  RULES: Put your iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc. on shuffle. (I had to use my iPod, with only about 40 albums loaded into it, 'cause I don't keep much in my iTunes on a permanent basis - but for some reason my iPod likes to repeat John Denver songs over and over!) For each question, press the next button to get your answer. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS. IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY?" YOU SAY?
Leningrad HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?
Don’t Close Your Eyes Tonight WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
Dreams HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
No Bravery WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
End Title [Henry V] WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
The Black Pearl WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
Day is Done WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
The Throne Room WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT OFTEN?
20th Century Fox Fanfare With Cinemascope Extension WHAT IS 2 + 2?
White Sail WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
The Death of Bardolph WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Falling Out of Love WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Say Goodbye to Hollywood (ironic, considering my annual “tribute to dead actors vid”!) WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Luke and Leia WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Dearest Esmerelda WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
Historian’s Introduction to Act 2 WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
The Last Battle WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST??
Superman WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR?
Four Strong Winds WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
Adagio for Strings, Op. 11 WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
Pot Pourri WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS? Like a Sad Song Follow these easy steps! 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:RandomThe first article title on the page is the name of your band. 2. http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album. 3. http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover. 4.Use your graphics program of choice to throw them together, and post the result as a comment in this post. Also, pass it along in your own journal because it's more amusing that way. | |
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