A Tale of Two Super 8 Stories

Mark V. Moorhead wrote his first novel about ten years ago. It was called Super Eight Days, and it was about a group of teenagers in small-town Pennsylvania in the late ‘70s making their own scary pictures with a Super 8mm movie camera.

After finishing it, Moorhead didn’t do anything with it for several years. Once in a while he would reread a few chapters, and toyed with the idea to turn it into a screenplay.

It was only earlier this year that he learned about J.J. Abrams film Super 8. The flick (produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by J.J. Abrams) tells the story of a group of teenagers in small-town Ohio in the late ‘70s making their own scary pictures with a Super 8mm movie camera.

Moorhead is the first to point out that similarities end there. The movie is a sci-fi thriller (teenagers vs. aliens); the novel is a coming-of-age story.

But Moorhead did something clever – he published his novel as an e-book on Amazon Kindle for a list price of 99 cents ($2.99 international). As he points out: “less than even a matinee ticket to J.J.’s Super 8”.

Slow Dance (Poem)

This poem was written by a terminally ill young girl in a New York Hospital.


SLOW DANCE

Have you ever watched kids

On a merry-go-round?

Or listened to the rain

Slapping on the ground?

Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight?

Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?

You better slow down.

Don't dance so fast.

Time is short.

The music won't last.

Do you run through each day

On the fly?

When you ask How are you?

Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done

Do you lie in your bed

With the next hundred chores

Running through your head?

You'd better slow down

Don't dance so fast.

Time is short.

The music won't last.


Ever told your child,

We'll do it tomorrow?

And in your haste,

Not see his sorrow?

Ever lost touch,

Let a good friendship die

Cause you never had time

To call and say 'Hi'

You'd better slow down.

Don't dance so fast.

Time is short.

The music won't last...


When you run so fast to get somewhere

You miss half the fun of getting there.

When you worry and hurry through your day,

It is like an unopened gift....

Thrown away.

Life is not a race.

Do take it slower

Hear the music

Before the song is over.

Terrorism alert satire attributed to John Cleese

The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent terrorist threats and have therefore raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved." Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross." The English have not been "A Bit Cross" since the

blitz in 1940 when tea supplies nearly ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from "Tiresome" to "A Bloody Nuisance." The last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning level was in 1588, when threatened by the Spanish Armada.

The Scots have raised their threat level from "Pissed Off" to "Let's get the Bastards." They don't have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years.

The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from "Run" to "Hide." The only two higher levels in France are "Collaborate" and "Surrender." The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France's white flag factory, effectively paralyzing the
country's military capability.

Italy has increased the alert level from "Shout Loudly and Excitedly" to "Elaborate Military Posturing." Two more levels remain: "Ineffective Combat Operations" and "Change Sides."

The Germans have increased their alert state from "Disdainful Arrogance" to "Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs." They also have two higher levels: "Invade a Neighbor" and "Lose."

Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual; the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels .

The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy. These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.

Australia , meanwhile, has raised its security level from "No worries" to "She'll be alright, Mate." Three more escalation levels remain: "Crikey!", "I think we'll need to cancel the barbie this weekend", and "The barbie is canceled." So far no situation has ever warranted use of the final escalation level.

John Cleese - British writer, actor and tall person

The flexible epaper phone (PaperPhone) - the future?

Researches have developed the world's first flexible smartphone that could change our life forever.

The PaperPhone is flexible and can be controlled by being bent, written on or used as a touchscreen. Researchers from Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada, Arizona State University, USA, researchers from the E-Ink Corporation determined how people use a flexible device. They built the PaperPhone as the smartphone and tablet of the future.

According to Dr. Roel Vertegaal (director of the human media lab at Queen’s): “This is the future. Everything is going to look and feel like this within five years. This computer looks, feels and operates like a small sheet of interactive paper.”

The PaperPhone uses the same e-Ink technology found in the Amazon Kindle e-reader. The PaperPhone has the same functionality as current Smart Phones: making phone calls, reading ebooks, and play music.

The researchers predict that the technology will spell the end of paper and printers. They foresee a paperless office where everything can be stored digitally and people can stack these new computers on top of each other like sheets of paper.

The Flipback Book – the latest book format from Holland goes international

In September 2009, Hugo van Woerden, CEO of the Christian printing house Jongbloed, introduced a new book format at the Manuscripta exhibition. It quickly became all the rage in Holland, where it since sold 1m copies

The format is a "flipback" (in Dutch “Dwarsligger” which has wonderful double meaning – just asl your Dutch friend or drop me a line).

The flipback is a sideways-bound book with a lie-flat binding. It is printed on onionskin (think bible pages) and it size easily makes it fit in a shirt. Most importantly, it is optimized for easy one-handed reading, which makes for perfect reading during rush hour.

After successfully conquering the Netherlands, Flipback is going European. The Spanish publisher Ediciones B is launching the Flipback in Spain under the brandname Librinos.
France will be next, and the flipback will reach UK shores in June 2011 when Hodder & Stoughton will launch a selection of 12 books with a price tag of £9.99. Titles will include David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas and Stephen King's Misery.

It seems that readers take to this new format. So will it be an addition to the current formats or a threat to e-books? Time will tell, especially once the flipback book format conquers the US.

Cool book report - author unknown

Students at a local school were assigned to read 2 books, 'Titanic' and 'My Life' by Bill Clinton. One student turned in the following book report. S/he pointed out that they were nearly identical stories. The teacher allegedly gave the pupil an A+ for this report.

Titanic: Cost - $29.99
Clinton: Cost - $29.99

Titanic: Over 3 hours to read
Clinton: Over 3 hours to read

Titanic: The story of Jack and Rose, their forbidden love, and subsequent catastrophe.
Clinton: The story of Bill and Monica, their forbidden love, and subsequent catastrophe.

Titanic: Jack is a starving artist.
Clinton: Bill is a ???? artist.

Titanic:In one scene, Jack enjoys a good cigar.

Clinton: Ditto for Bill.

Titanic:.During the ordeal, Rose's dress gets ruined.
Clinton: Ditto for Monica.

Titanic: Jack teaches Rose to spit.
Clinton: Let's not go there.

Titanic: Rose gets to keep her jewelry.
Clinton: Monica' s forced to return her gifts.

Titanic: Rose remembers Jack for the rest of her life.

Clinton: Clinton doesn't remember Jack.

Titanic: Rose goes down on a vessel full of seamen.

Clinton: Monica.. Ooh, let's not go there, either.

Titanic: Jack surrenders to an icy death.

Clinton: Bill goes home to Hillary - basically the same thing

Pecunia non imprimit

Remember when officials with the Treasury and the Federal Reserve touted the new dollar bills' sophisticated security features? They include a 3-D security strip and a color-shifting image of a bell, designed to foil counterfeiters. Amazing, non?

But lo and behold! At a time that the US government needs to responds to a economic downturn in a troublesome financial era, there has been a major hiccup. The new money is so high-tech that the presses can't handle the printing job.

Due to a problem with the presses, the federal government had to shut down production of the new $100 bills. It also had to quarantine more than 1 billion of those bills in a vault in Fort Worth, Texas. This amounts to $110 billion more or more than 10 percent of all existing U.S. cash (which is estimated at $930 billion).

"There is something drastically wrong here," one source told CNBC. "The frustration level is off the charts."

Up till now, more 1 billion unusable bills have been printed incorrectly. Some of the bills creased during production which created a blank space on the paper. Since correctly printed bills are mixed in with the flawed ones, it’s hard to sort the good from the bad. By hand, it would take between 20 to 30 years to weed out the faulty ones. Needless to say, the federal government is looking for a mechanized system to get the job done.

In case you wonder, the printing job itself cost around $120 million. It will (literally) go up in flames.

The moral of the story? It takes money to burn money....