Five Years, SDMF

Five Long Years

Onward towards forever. Oh, and FUCK YOU FOR ETERNITY, NATHAN GALE!! Also not to ever be forgotten: Nathan Bray of Columbus Erin Halk of northwest Columbus Jeff "Mayhem" Thompson of Texas

Never Shall I Fail My Comrades...

Can someone please explain this?

As we arrived at a local Asian restaurant and were seated at our tables. The above is what I saw. Full-size images provided for close inspection.

I'm wondering if this will post to both blogs now that this phone is linked to both of them. Hmmmmmm...

Windows Live Writer test for Blogger and my blog

I’ve already managed to link my Motorola Q9H to this blog, now I’m attempting to post to my blog without being logged into a browser.

Lets hope it all goes well.  There are many bells and whistles that I’ll be attempting to use/implement/not destroy my blog.  Wish me luck, or whatever.

Power Shift 09

While I argue/fight mostly against the side of government that is set on abolishing civil liberties and making the Constitution obsolete, it cannot be forgotten that there are some very important folks out there who are on the front lines for the environment and the adoption of alternate energy sources.

Not that I'm not for those things, it's just that I choose to put my "energies" to work in other areas. One is no more important than the other, and neither is something to be dismissed. There are those whom I consider my friends that are working endlessly on making Powershift09 the most important event on people's minds this month. They do all of this while studying, taking exams, and working their asses off in their respective areas of study. They, more often than not, sacrifice any type of "free time" to make sure that there is no slack to take up. You have to admire and respect them for their efforts. And make no mistake, they are making a difference.

This is my small effort to get the word out and help my friends in every way that I can.

My hat is off to you guys.

RIP

10.3.93

Lest we forget, our brothers and our benefactors...

June 6, 1944

No exit strategy. Victory at all costs.

No Mission Too Difficult
No Sacrifice Too Great
Duty First
Danger Forward

Memorial Day 2009

Thank you.

Welcome Back...

If you are like soooooo many MS Office 2007 users who absolutely fell on your face with the new interface, have no fear, Old Menus are here. That's right. There's a free plug-in called UBitMenu that restores your old, long-lost friend, the MS Office interface that you loved so dearly.

The kicker is that it doesn't replace the ribbon styled menus of the new Office, it works in conjunction with them. Will this keep you from advancing and not learn the new menus? Who knows. And, more than likely, you don't care either.

You may now return to your previously, less-pissed-off, self.

...Good Day.

'Rest of the Story' Host Became Most Familiar Voice in American Radio

By LINDA ZECCHINO and DEAN SCHABNER
March 1, 2009—

The "most listened to man" in broadcasting passed away Saturday. After more than seven decades on the air, venerable radioman Paul Harvey's folksy speech and plain talk are no more.

Harvey died at the age of 90 at a hospital near his winter home in Phoenix.

His death came nine months after that of his wife, Lynne Cooper Harvey, whom he often called "Angel" on air, and who was also his business partner and the first producer ever inducted in the the Radio Hall of Fame. She died in May 2008 at age 92.

"My father and mother created from thin air what one day became radio and television news," Paul Harvey Jr. said Saturday. "So, in the past year, an industry has lost its godparents. And, today millions have lost a friend."

Harvey's career in radio spanned more than 70 years, and his shows "News & Comment" and "Rest of the Story" made him a familiar voice in Americans' homes across the country.

From his humble beginnings as a teenager helping out cleaning up at a local radio station, Harvey went on to have his broadcasts carried by 1,350 commercial radio stations, as well as 400 stations of the Armed Forces Radio Service, and he was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1990.

"Paul Harvey was one of the most gifted and beloved broadcasters in our nation's history," said ABC Radio Networks President Jim Robinson in a statement released Saturday. "As he delivered the news each day with his own unique style and commentary, his voice became a trusted friend in American households.

"Countless millions of listeners were both informed and entertained by his 'News & Comment' and 'Rest of the Story' features," Robinson said. "Even after the passing of his loving wife Angel in May 2008, Paul would not slip quietly into retirement as he continued to take the microphone and reach out to his audience. We will miss our dear friend tremendously and are grateful for the many years we were so fortunate to have known him. Our thoughts and prayers are now with his son Paul Jr. and the rest of the Harvey family."

Former President George W. Bush said he and former first lady Laura Bush were saddened to hear of Harvey's death. "Paul was a friendly and familiar voice in the lives of millions of Americans," Bush said in a statement released late today. "His commentary entertained, enlightened, and informed. Laura and I are pleased to have known this fine man, and our thoughts and prayers are with his family."

Bush presented Harvey with the nation's highest civilian honor, the medal of freedom, in November 2005.

Harvey entertained and informed generations of Americans by paying attention to the people and places most others overlooked.

Born in Oklahoma in 1918, he was broadcasting from Tulsa by age 14. His love and respect for simple American values permeated his broadcasts, and he celebrated that life.

"Emporia, Kan., is home to this state's national champion honeymooners: Margaret and Joe Pearson," he said in one broadcast. "Theirs has endured 72 years."

Harvey started working at a local radio station at the suggestion of one of his high school teachers. He started out just helping clean up, but soon was on the air himself, filling in with reading the news or commercials.

After a stint at radio station KFBI in Abilene, Kansas, he moved to KXOK in St. Louis.

By 1940, Paul Harvey's easy wit and laconic speech made him Chicago's most popular newscaster and gave him his own show.

He also settled down with Cooper, whom he had met the year before. Harvey said he invited her to dinner, proposed to her after a few minutes of conversation and from that moment on called her Angel.

Cooper was credited with coming up with many of the programming innovations that became Harvey's trademarks.

Among her ideas were the concepts of including news features within hard-news broadcasts and the humorous "kicker," which became a Paul Harvey trademark. She also developed and edited her husband's best-known feature, "The Rest of the Story."

In 1951, "Paul Harvey News" went national with broadcasts stretching coast-to-coast and reaching millions of listeners each night. Though he broadcast six days a week for more than half a century, it never seemed like hard work.

His gift for drawing in listeners and making them see what he did was an art form.

Harvey explained it simply: "As a boy, I fell in love with words and ran away from home and joined the radio. And it really was something."

By the early 1960's, Harvey was trying his hand at television. He conducted interviews from the floor of the Republican National Convention in Chicago. Angel produced the 1968 television series "Paul Harvey Comments" that ran without interruption for 20 years in national syndication.

But television was not quite suited to Harvey's brand of storytelling. In a medium meant to convey images, his power was in conjuring them out of thin air. He, better than anyone, understood this and said as much in a speech he gave in 2003.

"You trust me to paint pictures on the mirror of your mind," he said, "and I will let you feel such agony and ecstasy ... as you would never be able to feel by looking at it."

Over the years, Harvey won nearly every honor or accolade imaginable. He was named Salesman of the Year, Commentator of the Year, Person of the Year, Father of the Year, and American of the Year. He was elected to the National Association of Broadcasters Radio Hall of Fame and Oklahoma Hall of Fame and appeared on the Gallup poll list of America's most admired men.

In addition he has received 11 Freedom Foundation Awards as well as the Horatio Alger Award. In 2005, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' most prestigious civilian award, by President George W. Bush.

Paul Harvey's particular style relied on exaggerated pronunciation, pregnant pauses, delayed revelations and a staccato delivery. His quirky openings and catchphrases were often parodied -- "Hello, Americans, this is Paul Harvey! Stand by & for News!" -- but his rapt audience ate it up.

This devoted following made him an advertiser's dream: He could as effortlessly weave a pitch into his program as he could capture images in words that lingered in his listeners' minds.

His programs, "News and Comment" and "The Rest of the Story", were carried on the ABC Radio Network and could be heard Monday through Saturday for more than five decades. "The Rest of the Story," a look behind the stories of events and people, was developed and produced by Harvey's only son, Paul, Jr.

At the age of 82, when most broadcasters have long been off the air, Paul Harvey signed a 10-year contract with ABC Radio in 2000. An executive with another network, who had hoped to sign Harvey to a deal, said "Call me when the contract's over so I can try again."

Traug Keller, then president of ABC Radio Networks, explained the rationale behind the 10-year deal.

"Paul Harvey is, without question, one of the most influential Americans of our time," Keller said. "In fact, political adviser and communications specialist Frank Mankiewicz noted that Paul Harvey's name appears most often in lists of the 10 most influential opinion-shapers of each decade since the 1930s."

Harvey's voice was carried on more than 1,200 radio stations, 400 Armed Forces Network stations that broadcast around the world and 300 newspapers.

The program also aired twice daily on the Internet, bringing the wit and wisdom of Paul Harvey to a whole new audience.

All told, with more than 25 million listeners tuned in each week, Paul Harvey was the largest one-man network in the world.

A Chicagoan throughout his life, Paul Harvey resisted offers to move the broadcasts to New York.

"That would never have been a good choice; I would have lost touch with so much of the country had I done that," he told The Chicago Tribune in 2002. "From here I think I can see the world with a wider lens."

Fellow broadcaster Bob Sirott summed up Harvey's longevity to The Tribune succinctly and simply: "He stands for the America that sits west of the Hudson."

Good day, Paul Harvey. Good day.

I miss you, my brothers.

I'll run harder tomorrow, because you cannot.

One of the greatest, ever.

I post obits here regularly. Sometimes I miss one or two; sometimes I pass over some. Today, I feel as though I have lost a family member. His influence upon me at an early age cannot be ignored. Even my love for open-wheeled cars was born from his imagination.

I am not a number, I am a free man!

Rest Easy, Number 1

Patrick McGoohan dies at 80; TV's 'Secret Agent' and 'Prisoner'
The actor often played villains on TV and in movies. But he gained his greatest fame as the TV spy John Drake. He also won two Emmys for 'Columbo.'
By Dennis McLellan

January 15, 2009

Patrick McGoohan, a two-time Emmy Award-winning actor who starred as a British spy in the 1960s TV series "Secret Agent" and gained cult status later in the decade as the star of the enigmatic series "The Prisoner," has died. He was 80.

McGoohan, whose career involved stage, screen and TV, died Tuesday at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica after a short illness, said Cleve Landsberg, McGoohan's son-in-law. The family did not provide further details.

It was the height of James Bond mania in 1965 when McGoohan showed up on American TV screens in "Secret Agent," a British-produced series in which he played John Drake, a special security agent working as a spy for the British government.

The hourlong series, which ran on CBS until 1966, was an expanded version of “Danger Man,” a short-lived, half-hour series on CBS in 1961 in which McGoohan played the same character.

But it was McGoohan's next British-produced series, “The Prisoner,” on CBS in 1968 and 1969, that became a cult classic that spawned fan clubs, conventions and college study.

Once described in The Times as an "espionage tale as crafted by Kafka," "The Prisoner" starred McGoohan as a presumed British agent who, after resigning his top-security job, is abducted in London and taken to a mysterious prison resort called the Village.

Known only as No. 6, he is interrogated by a succession of officials who are known as No. 2. But he refuses all methods of breaking him down to reveal his past or why he resigned, and he repeatedly makes failed attempts to escape.

The seemingly idyllic village contains "seeing eyes" that monitor activities and signs such as "A Still Tongue Makes a Peaceful Life."

McGoohan co-created and executive-produced the series, which ran for only 17 episodes, as well as wrote and directed several episodes.

In a 1967 interview with The Times, he described the series as "Brave New World" stuff.

"Nobody has a name, everyone wears a number," he said. "It's a reflection of the pressure on all of us today to be numbered, to give up our individualism. This is a contemporary subject, not science fiction. I hope these things will be recognized by the audience. It's not meant to be subtle. It's meant to say: This little village is our world."

Of the enduring cult status of the series, McGoohan once said: "Mel [Gibson] will always be Mad Max, and me, I will always be a number."

McGoohan, who reportedly turned down an offer to be the big screen's original James Bond, appeared in films such as "The Three Lives of Thomasina," "Mary, Queen of Scots," "Silver Streak," "Escape From Alcatraz," "Scanners," "Ice Station Zebra" and Gibson's "Braveheart," in which he played England's sadistic King Edward I.

In his review of "Braveheart" in The Times, critic Peter Rainer wrote: "Patrick McGoohan is in possession of perhaps the most villainous enunciation in the history of acting."

As a guest star on Peter Falk's TV detective series "Columbo," McGoohan won Emmys in 1975 and 1990.

Falk once described McGoohan, who also occasionally worked as a director and writer on the "Columbo" mysteries, as being "mesmerizing" as an actor.

"There are many very, very talented people in this business, but there are only a handful of genuinely original people," Falk told the Hollywood Reporter in 2004. "I think Patrick McGoohan belongs in that small select group of truly original people."

He was born to Irish parents in the Astoria section of Queens, N.Y., on March 19, 1928. Some months later, his family returned to Ireland, where he grew up on a farm before moving to Sheffield, England, when he was 7.

In the late '40s, after working a number of jobs, he became a stage manager at Sheffield Repertory Theatre, where he soon launched his acting career.

In 1951, he married actress Joan Drummond, with whom he had three daughters, Catherine, Anne and Frances.

In 1959, he received a London Drama Critics Award for his performance in a London stage production of Ibsen's "Brand."

On television, McGoohan also starred in the short-lived 1977 medical drama "Rafferty."

Sharif Ali, McGoohan's agent, said McGoohan had been writing and had two acting offers on the table before he died.

"He really didn't talk much about his illness," said Ali. "We were too busy talking about his future; he was excited to get back to work. He had so much more to give."

In addition to his wife and daughters, McGoohan is survived by five grandchildren and a great-grandson.

Patrick McGoohan, an actor who created and starred in the cult classic TV show "The Prisoner," died Tuesday in Los Angeles after a short illness. He was 80.

His son-in-law, film producer Cleve Landsberg, announced the news Wednesday.

McGoohan starred in the 1960s CBS series "Secret Agent," and won two Emmys for his guest appearances on the detective drama "Columbo." Most recently he appeared as King Edward Longshanks in the 1995 Mel Gibson Academy Award-winning film "Braveheart."

But he was most famous as the character known only as Number Six in "The Prisoner," a 1968 British series about a spy who resigns from the intelligence service, only to be abducted and held captive in a mysterious haven known as The Village. There his overseers strip him of his identity in their attempts to glean information, while thwarting his attempts to escape.

Prior to "The Prisoner," McGoohan starred in "Secret Agent" (also known as "Danger Man"), which debuted in 1964, and whose memorable theme song seemed to speak of the hazards facing the characters in both series ("They've given you a number, and taken away your name").

McGoohan's agent, Sharif Ali, said Wednesday that the actor was still active in Hollywood, with two offers for wide-release films on the table when he died. "The man was just cool," Ali said. "It was an honor to have him here and work with him. ... He was one of those actors, a real actor. He didn't have a lie."

Born in New York on March 19, 1928, McGoohan was raised in England and Ireland, where his family moved shortly after his birth. He had a busy stage career before moving to television, and won a London Drama Critics Award for playing the title role in the Henrik Ibsen play "Brand."

He married stage actress Joan Drummond in 1951. The oldest of their three daughters, Catherine, is also an actress.

After "Secret Agent"'s success," McGoohan pitched to producers the surreal and cerebral "The Prisoner" to give himself a challenge. McGoohan also wrote and directed several episodes of the series.

Although only 17 episodes were made, it became a cult favorite, and its cultural impact continues, as evident by his guest appearance playing Number Six in a 2000 episode of "The Simpsons."

The show is being remade as a series for AMC to premiere later this year.

"His creation of 'The Prisoner' made an indelible mark on the sci-fi, fantasy and political thriller genres, creating one of the most iconic characters of all time," AMC said in a statement Wednesday. "AMC hopes to honor his legacy in our re-imagining of 'The Prisoner.'"

Later came smaller roles in film and television. McGoohan won Emmys for guest spots on "Columbo" 16 years apart, in 1974 and 1990.

His film credits include "Ice Station Zebra," the 1979 Clint Eastwood film "Escape from Alcatraz," the John Grisham courtroom drama "A Time To Kill," "Silver Streak," and "Scanners." He also starred in the 1963 Disney TV film "The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh," playing an 18th century English country priest who thwarts the king's minions as a disguised avenger.

His last major role was in "Braveheart," in what The Associated Press called a "standout" performance as the brutal king who battles Scottish freedom fighter William Wallace, played by Gibson.

In his review of the film for the Los Angeles Times critic Peter Rainer said "McGoohan is in possession of perhaps the most villainous enunciation in the history of acting."

McGoohan is survived by his wife and three daughters.