This story is nothing unlike many of the other cult stories I have heard in the past. However, this documentary provides an intimate view of the people that fall into a life like this. Focusing more on the people around Michael, the documentary does an incredible job of giving us a glimpse of what these people are thinking.

It is unwise for me to simply stare at them for 45 minutes and call them stupid. Sadly, I have done this in the past. I have mocked them. I have laughed at them. I have questioned how people can be so gullible as to follow some loony down his rabbit hole. That is not the point of this post.

Perhaps it comes with age or a more intimate knowledge of myself that leads me to feeling nothing but sadness when I see people so lost and unable to see what is so obviously right in front of them. Personally, I think it comes from a deep need for us to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. A need to feel somehow special in “the larger plan”. Who doesn’t want to believe that we are all just cogs in the machine and that we really matter little in the grander scheme of things? For most of us, the reality is that if we simply cease to exist or never have existed at all it really wouldn’t matter much. Sure your mother thinks your special, but what has the summation of your life brought to the world? This isn’t to say that we don’t attempt to improve the lives of ourselves and others while we are here. This isn’t a mandate to tell everyone to just lay down and die because it all doesn’t really matter anyway. On the contrary. The philosophy is that no one is special, yet we all are. You just have to work for it rather than it being handed to you by some god or some fool claiming that he is god. It’s called personal responsibility. But this is fodder for a much longer post.

I also believe that being a follower in these groups has a lot to do with fear. A fear of missing the boat if “they” just happen to be right. Then after the cult has its hooks in you, it becomes a fear of letting down the group. We are social creatures and we look to others to validate us. These groups tend to get their hooks in you by the appearance of accepting you just the way you are. You don’t have to work very hard for their approval as long as you tow the line. Once you show any signs of questioning the faith, you are quickly shunned. The longer you stay, the harder it is to break free as the ties you had on the outside have been severed and you will quickly find yourself alone again. A feeling that lead you into the group to begin with. It becomes a seriously sad cycle.

In all honesty, it is hard for me to separate a mainstream religions from these types of groups. I don’t believe and I am not stating that mainstreams lead their followers down a potential path to suicide; however, many of the things mentioned by some of these cults are preached from the pulpits of your neighborhood congregations. “It is in your nature to be bad but by the grace of God you are washed clean.” “You can’t do anything but through God.” “You are a sinner in need of redemption.” Don’t they all say this? Don’t many of them focus on this?

Admittedly, these cults take statements like these to an extreme and by “god” they mean some crazy-eyed figurehead that calls himself god. Mainstream religion doesn’t go this far, but the foundations are one and the same. Some could argue that the foundations are similar because these groups usually offshoot themselves from the good ones. But I say that it is these same unproven beliefs that set the stage and therefore mainstream religion is but one footstep away from this type of madness. Until we can acknowledge this, we will never rid ourselves of these types of groups.

Anyway, the latest sighting happened in a Orlando, Florida hospital prayer garden window. My first thought is, “Well… that, at least, makes some sense. It’s not a grilled cheese sandwich or the trunk of a tree.”

The pictures are pretty striking. I can see a relatively clear face in the reflection. However, my first inclination is matrixing. Matrixing is your minds desire to order the world around you (basically seeing shapes in the clouds, but, in this case, light reflection off some glass). Seeing faces in chaos is a very primitive instinct that is believe to have a lot to do with our survival as a species. But this isn’t a lesson in matrixing

Also, notice that the angle of all the pictures is relatively the same and the fact that when the camera is closer to the glass, the image gets grainier and grainier. This leads me to believe that the image is definitely a reflection of the light and requires the viewer to be standing just so in order to see it. Though, in order to be fair, I wasn’t there and I am only basing my opinion off the pictures I have seen.

But regardless of what the image is, I find it really interesting that all of these images of Jesus or the Virgin Mary seem to be replicas of what we “think” these people looked like. Jesus being a tall, thin, white man with a neatly kept beard and long, flowing, black hair. This picture is reminiscent of this description. But is this really what Jesus looked like? I have heard arguments that it probably wasn’t, but who in the heck really knows? I think it is an impossible detail for anyone to really know for sure.

I am not a believer in this phenomenon. I have never seen anything that has really floored me and I am aghast that anyone can wholeheartedly believe in a reflection off of some glass or a burnt cheese sandwich is proof of their faith. My amazement certainly doesn’t end there, but you catch my drift.

However, I have nothing but complete and total compassion for the man who found some comfort in the image as his ex-wife is battling stage-3 cancer. Perhaps this is what really matters and it is the final point of the image anyway. If there is a God and he is behind this, then I say, “Kudos to you, sir… But lay off the cheese sandwiches, will ya? It’s a bit silly!”

Sadly, I should have listened to my hesitation. This movie pretty much sucked all the way around. The plot was ridiculous. The special effects weren’t very special. The acting was mediocre. Put it this way, it was so bad that even my nine year old son thought it was bad. That is a pretty good indication of how bad this movie was.

In my opinion, the movie was so bad that I am not even going to waste any more energy trying to give any more detail on why this movie was so bad. Personally, I recommend waiting until this movie hits regular television to watch it. Well… actually, I wouldn’t recommend even wasting the time. Some times, things are better left alone and this stinker is one of them.

That’s all I got to say ’bout that.

I was perusing through the music discovery service called Last.fm. On a side note, if you love music and you haven’t used it yet, start. After this gem of a find, I am now sold on it’s usefulness. After all, I found Jeff Buckley’s music just by happenstance.

It’s hard to peg Buckley’s music into a single category. This task gets even more difficult if you listen to his entire collection. My guess is that if your musical tastes are very narrow, you might not find a lot to like because this artist isn’t afraid to drift around the genres like he were changing his shirt. But as each track flows through your iPod, you come to the sudden realization that this cat has some serious talent. It is nothing short of phenomenal.

I am obviously not the Jeff Buckley expert, being that I have only recently discovered his music. But what I lack in time with his music, I make up for in sheer excitement in the discovery. I am so excited, in fact, that here I am punching away at the keyboard writing about an artist I hardly know, doling out my strongest recommendations that you have a listen for yourself. It’s that damn good!

What strikes me most about the man and his music is his incredible ability to sing almost any style of music. I have heard many others attempt the same thing and it usually somehow falls flat. But his voice just seems so capable of just about any genre. However, where I was totally sold on Buckley was his cover of Leonard Cohen’s song Hallelujah. I have heard many artists cover this incredible song. I have had favorite versions before, but Buckley’s rendition blows the doors off all the other covers. Cohen wrote this amazing song, but Buckley makes this song totally memorable.

As for Buckley’s music, it’s just plain interesting. As I mentioned, he bounces all over the genre tree, playing whatever strikes him. You can hear an amazing range of influences from all over the world. He also drew inspiration from some of the great rock artists such as Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and The Who, though you would have to be seriously versed in these artists to really catch the influences. Regardless, what he did, he did it right.

Sadly, this story doesn’t have a happy ending. Jeff Buckley died in May, 1997 when he drown while swimming in Wolf River Harbor, a tributary of the Mississippi river. He died at the age of 30.

But, we still have an incredible collection of music from Jeff Buckley to rejoice in and be thankful for. I, for one, am incredibly grateful for this amazing find.

• Official Jeff Buckley Website

THE ENEMA WITHIN (Confirmed True by Darwin)

May 2004, Texas | Michael was an alcoholic. And not an ordinary
alcoholic, but an alcoholic who liked to take his liquor… well,
rectally. His wife said he was “addicted to enemas” and often
used alcohol in this manner. The result was the same: inebriation.
And tonight, Michael was in for one hell of a party.

Two 1.5 litre bottles of sherry, more than 100 fluid ounces,
right up the old address!

When the rest of us have had enough, we either stop drinking or
pass out. When Michael had had enough (and subsequently passed
out) the alcohol remaining in his rectal cavity continued to be
absorbed. The next morning, Michael was dead.

The 58-year-old did a pretty good job of embalming himself.
Toxicology reports measured his blood alcohol level as 0.47%.

In order to qualify for a Darwin Award, a person must remove
himself from the gene pool via an “astounding misapplication
of judgment.” Three litres of sherry up the butt can only be
described as astounding. Unsurprisingly, his neighbors said
they were surprised to learn of the incident.

http://darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2007-13.html

This movie is yet another adaption of the Richard Matheson novel that shares its title with this movie. As a kid, I had seen the second filmed adaptation of this novel titled “The Omega Man“. This 1971 film, staring Charlton Heston, deviated wildly from the novel; a point I didn’t realize until I had read the Matheson novel several years later. But I have warm memories of watching The Omega Man on television and recall that I really liked it. So there was little question that I was going to see this movie.

Initially I was a bit miffed that the plot line in the Will Smith version changed so dramatically from the book. A tweek here and there is fine with me. But to completely remove key elements from the book, which alters the original meaning, is nothing short of scandalous. I understand that the film producers are trying to weave a tale that is meaningful to today’s audience. But to give the movie the exact title and to change it so dramatically is a bit of a sucker punch in my opinion. I was expecting the book, or rather something close to the book, and what I got was completely different.

Nevertheless, I really liked this movie. Barring the cavernous plot deviations, I still think the film made me not care so much about the changes and rather allowed me focused on what the film was trying to say. I liked the changes they made in the relationship between Smith’s character (Robert Neville) and the dog. This created the setup for some enduring and touching moments and it helped to finalize the film by solidifying the reasoning for why Robert Neville does what he does in the remaining moments of the movie. The ending, just as in the book, gives insight to the title “I Am Legend”, but their meanings are vastly different. The book juxtaposes our notions concerning who is the real monster while the movie takes on a more literal meaning to the word “legend”. Both are equally good and impactful, but their meanings couldn’t be further apart.

One of my biggest critics is that there were a lot of things they used from the book that probably wouldn’t have made a lot of sense if you didn’t previously read the novel. These points were just left unsaid and it made for a lot of unanswered questions. At these points I kept feeling as though I was missing something and found myself drifting back and forth between searching my short-term memory and the film. This made the experience a bit clunky at times. It wasn’t until I let the movie digest and mesh with my memories of the book that those specific scenes began to click and make sense. I suspect those that haven’t read the book are probably going to get a bit lost at times.

But all in all, this movie was certainly enjoyable and I would recommend it whether you read the book or not. It is the typical Will Smith movie, which is actually a compliment.

At some point along the way, I completely forgot about seti@home. That was until I ran across this digg submission. It links to an article that goes into some technical detail attempting to explain why, with our current listening technology, it is difficult to hear a signal that might be there. The article is worth a read and does make sense.

However, what caught my attention was the fact that seti@home actually caught a signal that scientists felt was of interest. The signal has been named “SHGb02+14a“. Interestingly, it has been seen on three separate occasions. Though it is acknowledged that it could be some natural occurring phenomena or an artifact of the telescope itself, it is the best candidate that the project has to date. Interesting!

• Digg.com: I SETI was an alien
• Damn Interesting: Space Radio: More Static, Less Talk
• Newscientist.com: Mysterious signals from light years away
• seti@home

As the movie started, I was impressed with the 3D. It’s been a long time since I have seen a 3D movie. I believe the technology has come along way since Friday the 13th in 3D. Things were popping out of the screen and it gave you a general sense that you were part of the action. However, the glasses soon became a nuisance. The one size fits all pair doesn’t really work well for me given that I already wear glasses. It’s basically wearing two pairs of glasses for two hours and trying to ignore it. It just doesn’t happen. After a while, I just want to tear the glasses from my face and walk out in frustration.

About 1/3 of the way through the movie I started thinking that the motion capture didn’t look as good as it did in the trailer. I remember being amazed watching the trailer and thinking that I HAD to see this movie. It looked stunning. But as I was there, watching the movie, I found myself often thinking, “It doesn’t look as good as I thought it would.” The animation was touted as being the same technology that was used in The Polar Express, only better. Don’t get me wrong, the animation was good. Probably the best I have seen yet. It was a lot better than The Polar Express. But there were moments that it just looked Shrek-ish to me. I was left a bit disappointed.

Then we have the story itself. The plot was loosely based on the actual Beowulf poem. I had to read the poem in Mr. Hinkle’s high school literature class, so I was familiar with the story. But, to my further disappointment, this screen adaption took many liberties in altering the story line to weave in a modern message. Totally unlike the written narrative, Beowulf isn’t really a hero… he is just a fallible man, corrupt and easily tempted. This isn’t what I understood Beowulf to be. He was a bigger than life superhero who slays dragons and becomes a king. His men respect him because he fights along side of them on the front line. In fact, he is the mightiest and bravest warrior of them all. This movie makes him out to be a sort of chump with a tall tale and a big ego. Though he certainly is brave, he is brash in the act of being brave.

However, I got the message that the movie was trying to convey and it may ring true. But I am kind of getting tired of screenwriters robbing us of our heroes. First, Superman is a deadbeat Dad who refuses to mention his famous tag line, “Truth, justice and the American Way”. And now Beowulf is a boastful looser who happens to be able to kick a little ass when he needs to? What’s next, Santa Claus is a pedophile?

I was disappointed with many aspects of the film, but I didn’t wholesale dislike it. It had its moments and I guess the message was fine if you think about it. But the bottom line is that I just don’t think it was really worth the $15.00 I paid to see it. It was one that I should have just waited for it on pay-per-view.

I guess I just miss the days when there were clear heroes and villains; unlike in real life. But I guess that is why they say that art imitates life. No?