Category Archives: Miscellaneous

First The Titanic Simulator,Now You Can Experience Cremation Too!

Public Domain
Public Domain

There are many ways to amuse but one of the weirdest, perhaps most morbid is a Chinese amusement park offering you the experience of cremation. Remember that this is the same country that wants people to experience Titanic sinking by used a simulation that will make you feel like you are in 1912 and aboard the tragic ship. So it seems logical to extend it out further or as the old television show said “One Step Beyond.”

Now you have to ask why anyone would want to go through a simulated cremation? Cremation, as it is normally done, puts a corpse in a super hot oven to reduce the body to ashes. Of course horror movies are full of the trope of having people being tossed into a crematory alive. Unless they are supernatural beings, or from Krypton, they do not survive. The cultural theme park in Shenzhen is the one putting on this morbid thrill ride. According to the Daily Mail, the visitors are put into a coffin (they are called punters) on  a conveyor belt.

They are then carried through a chamber filled with hot air, to simulate the flames used during cremation. Screams and shrieks echo through the chamber, and everyone who tries the ride comes out drenched in sweat. Although whether the sweat is from fear or from the extreme heat has not been made clear. ‘I am never coming back,’ said a number of women on leaving the ride, while laughing nervously. Another added: ‘It was horrifying.’

Others were not so negative but then you have to wonder whether they are shills for the amusement park. I could see kids doing this on a dare, those who have seen horror movies wanting to try it for gag etc. In fact this probably would be popular around Halloween. Now to be clear this is not for real. They use hot air machines set at  140 degrees Fahrenheit along with lights and scary sounds to give the effect (and you are on a moving conveyor belt.) Still it is a pretty morbid idea. If you really want to know about cremation, check out YouTube. Lots of uploaded documentaries that will show (and sometimes in graphic scenes)exactly how cremation occurs.

Source: Tourists Flock To Experience Real-Life CREMATION In ‘Death Simulator’ At Chinese Amusement Park(8 May 2015, Daily Mail)


April Fools Day

cmdytragThere is really no way to fool a Titanic enthusiast. I could mock-up some news reports that Titanic II has been approved and under construction or that some new Titanic artifact has been found. Or that a certain eccentric English gentleman who claims ownership of the wreck went to court recently and convinced a UK court that he, as the lawful owner of Titanic, has final say over its disposition and not Premier Exhibitions. Or that during construction in a building formerly used by the original White Star Line papers were found that positively proves that Titanic was sunk by a German submarine.

None of that would fool a real Titanic enthusiast. Over in China they are building a Titanic exhibit that will not only look like Titanic but will simulate the sinking. That is a true story as bizarre as it sounds. Forget the wax museum approach! We will make you feel the shakes and shudders of Titanic heading to its watery grave. No word if they will air cool the exhibit so you feel the freezing temperature of that awful night. Of course if you are paranormal expert, why not seek out the ghosts? Stories abound of Titanic exhibits being haunted. But why? I mean why hang around an exhibit about the ship you died on? Do you really need a character like the one played by the lovely Jennifer Love Hewitt to tell you to move into the light?

The greatest April Fools Day joke was done by Clive Palmer. He spent serious money to wine and dine the rich about his Titanic II. A ship to look like the old one but with all the new safety features of today. And to make it more like 1912, passengers will truly have that feel with segregated sections and uncomfortable sleeping down on third class (called steerage back then). He had plans drawn up and preliminary tests done. He even supposedly signed a preliminary deal with a Chinese shipyard. Alas it is not come to pass. No construction has started, Chinese workers are unimpressed, and Palmer himself is in a row with the Chinese government. An expensive April Fools Day joke for him.

So today I just give it a pass. There is no fooling a Titanic enthusiast. Because on 15 April, it will be 103 years since it sank. And that is not joke.

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Saturday Retro:U.F.O.(1970)

If Star Trek was the idea of noble adventurers exploring outer space, the show UFO was exactly the opposite. It was about Earth being attacked by an unknown (and never seen in their true form)alien race. At first it is believed they are taking humans for organ harvesting but later episodes suggest a much darker theme: to use the humanoid form to cause all kinds of mischief. These were not kind and cuddly aliens. They were undeniably hostile and it was up to a special unit (funded by world governments but kept secret) called SHADO, which stands for Supreme Headquarters Alien Defense Organization.

The show was dark in theme along with many of its stories. SHADO was led by Colonel Straker (Ed Bishop) and others who made up the special unit. Set in the 1980’s, it displayed futuristic tech in cars, hairstyles, and clothing. Shado had a moonbase, underwater submersibles, and all kinds of other nifty gadgets. They also had SID (Space Intruder Detector) that detected incoming alien spacecraft.

Since most of the world was in the dark about the invasion, SHADO was located underneath a movie studio so that no one would notice people dressed in odd outfits or coming and going at all hours of the day. The show was created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and ran for 26 episodes in 1970 (in the US for two years). It was their first foray into live action. They would make a second live actions series, Space:1999 two years after U.F.O.’s run.

Further Info: UFO (TV Series):Wikipedia

Spring Equinox

Solstices and Equinoxes Image: NASAThe Spring or March Equinox is today at 6:45 PM EDT/22:45 UTC. This equinox marks the moment where the Sun crosses the equator and usually occurs between March 19-21 every year. Both the March and September equinoxes are when the Sun shines directly on the equator making night and day nearly equal.

The March equinox is the transition from winter to spring in the Northern Hemisphire but the reverse in the Southern Hemisphere (summer into fall).  Various cultures celebrate March equinox as a time of rebirth. Many spring festivals are timed to coincide with the equinox and some religious events (Passover and Easter) use specific calculations based on the equinox to help determine the exact day of the event.

Though the equinox marks the changing of the seasons, it is quite common for winter effects to continue in many places far until May or even June.


St. Patrick’s Day 2015

It is hard to believe but celebration of the patron saint of Ireland is more boisterous far outside its green shores. While nominally a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the Roman Catholic Church, it has become a major day for people to get together and party. Being Irish is not required but does lend authenticity to saying you are actually a descendent of the Emerald Isle rather than just adopting it for a day.

Of course many Irish left that fair isle long ago. Jobs were few and many people starved. And freedom to starve is not much freedom which is why many Irishmen had to serve in the military of their oppressor. Some came to America as my great-great (and more but you get the point)did to start a new life. He was recruited in Ireland to join the Union Army during the American Civil War. He served two tours, was a musician, and his papers showed he was a tall man. And he started a new life here in America leaving Ireland behind for good. He never went back. My grandfather was often asked because of his Irish last name whether he was Irish.”No, American,” he would say. It was something his grandfather said and was passed down. He never thought himself Irish or Irish American, just American.

St. Patrick’s Day was not treated as a day to get drunk or eat too much food (it is the Lenten season after all). Instead it was simply quiet reflection, a prayer of thanks, and a delicious meal with family. And family is what is it all about. Not about green milkshakes or wearing green, drinking vast amounts of beer. Like Christmas which has its secular and spiritual markers, so it is with St.Patrick. The faithful honor St. Patrick while others have a party. To each his own.

One of the sad remnants though of the migration out of Ireland is that today Ireland, outside of the major and smaller communities, is very empty. You cannot shake the feeling when you see that emptiness how bad it must have been for whole communities to evaporate leaving perhaps just the oldest behind who for one reason or another choose to stay. Today in the United States you can see this process underway in the many dwindling rural communities in the Midwest or in old cities that were once giants in the land slowly shrinking as people leave for other opportunities.

Here is an old tune from the Emerald Isle, known as The Minstrel Boy. The full lyrics can be found here.The tune was quite popular (and still is) and the opening is often heard more than the full song:

The minstrel boy to the war is gone,
In the ranks of death you’ll find him;
His father’s sword he has girded on,
And his wild harp slung behind him;
“Land of Song!” said the warrior bard,
“Though all the world betrays thee,
One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard,
One faithful harp shall praise thee!”

The first is a wonderful rendition using Irish traditional musical instruments. And the second is from a more modern source (and set in the future) from Star Trek:The Next Generation episode The Wounded where the song has an important role. Chief O’Brien uses the tune to remind his old captain of his duty and what he has done.

Beware The Ides of March!

The Death of Julius Caesar,Vincenzo Camuccini (1771–1844). Public Domain
The Death of Julius Caesar,Vincenzo Camuccini (1771–1844).
Public Domain

Today is 15 March and on the old Roman calendar was a day of religious observance to the Roman god Jupiter and other lesser deities. But it is most famous as the date in 44 BC when Julius Caesar was assassinated at a meeting of the Roman Senate. 60 conspirators were involved but the leaders were Brutus and Cassius. Caesar was forewarned of his death by a seer according to Plutarch. And in his famous work Julius Caesar, Shakespeare has the soothsayer say “beware the ides of March” which Caesar ignores and if course he ends up stabbed to death uttering the famous line before death:

Et tu Brute!

 The assassination was a turning point for Rome. It brought about a civil war and ended the Roman Republic. Octavian (later Augustus) would become emperor and the Roman Empire would come to dominate the entire Mediterranean Sea, North Africa, and parts of Europe and Britain. In Julius Caesar Mark Antony gives perhaps the most remembered funeral oration ever done. Most people recall the famous opening line:

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears! I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones; so let it be with Caesar.

 The oration is masterful in that it cleverly turns the people against Brutus and Cassius by showing they were ambitious and not Caesar. By the end the plebeians call them traitors and murderers.

In real life, it was much the same. Antony played them by seemingly supporting amnesty but turning people against them both. Brutus was forced to leave and ended up on Crete, Cassius went east to gather support amongst the governors and to amass an army. Antony and Octavian would clash militarily causing divisions in Rome. This allowed the forces of Brutus and Cassius to march on Rome. However Octavian made peace with Antony upon this news so both forces joined to stop Brutus and Cassius. They met at Philippi on 3 Oct 42 BC. The first battle resulted in Brutus defeating Octavian but Antony defeating Cassius. Not knowing that Brutus had defeated Octavian, Cassius took his own life. At the second battle of Philippi on 23 October, Brutus was defeated and forced to flee into the hills where he committed suicide. Antony treated his body with great respect by having it wrapped his most expensive purple mantle. His body was cremated and remains sent to his mother.

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