Whenever I see Queen Elizabeth, my American mind can’t help but think about the first NAKED GUN movie with Leslie Neilsen ended up on top of her when she fictitiously visited Los Angeles. But a true unappreciated scene of that movie was just how board she was at the fictitious Dodgers baseball game.

Fast forward about 20 years to reality: The Queen was snapped picking her nails just when Great Britain marched into Olympic stadium for the parade of nations, the culmination of excitement for the crowd after seeing all the other member states come in. Perhaps it was all those countries with ‘anias’ or “stans’ that forced the Queen to become tired by the spectacle. She did, after all, jump out of a chopper, right?

Here is the story from Yahoo! Sports on the subject. Even the UK TELEGRAPH said that the Queen and the Royal Family looked bored.

Now it feels like summer

There has been heat wave after heat wave. Droughts abundant. The Mississippi River is drying up and corn crops are obliterated. But it truly didn’t feel like summer until the parade of nations in London. The Olympics will take our minds off of real life for a while.

The irony is these nations that march in together and place their flags side by side often hate each other and are confined to wars with each other. 

We are in the 21st century but yet so many of the people from countries coming in are leaving a homeland of disease, death, and pestilence. 

The modern era is still a stone age for some. 

But the games are beginning..

Tears .. Gold medals .. high drama. High expectations. And high security.

Let there be peace on each for two weeks but a battle in sports! 
Let there be peace on earth after that too. Too hard to ask?

Yea.. I guess so. 

This was the Queen after her pretend entrance. Did they try to make it look like she really did parachute in?

Her cameo in the James Bond style joke is the talk of British papers already.

The Queen’s grand entrance.. 

Olympics British style.. Mr. Bean brings down the house in London

NO TIME FOR TEA! THE QUEEN DECLARES THE GAMES ARE OPEN!

NO TIME FOR TEA! THE QUEEN DECLARES THE GAMES ARE OPEN!

The Games begin. In drenching rains.

Not that I can see it live. Thanks NBC and other media.

AND THEY BEGIN! 

2012 LONDON. Opening ceremony now. Later in the USA time zones

You read that right. While the Olympics opening ceremonies are occurring as I type (4pm on the East Coast of North America) the United States won’t be privy to the might and majesty of the occasion until PRIME TIME. NBC did issue some type of bogus press release high in PR as to why Americans will wait longer than other Earthlings to view the ceremony. 

The real reason, of course, comes down to the traditional thing TV network execs care about: Ratings. Business INSIDER reports on that part of the story.

Maybe you can follow on Twitter. Find your favorite British Tweeter now. It just will lack the majesty of something broadcast on the TEE VEE..

24/7 news cycle? Internet age? 

TIME DELAYS baby. The old meets the new!

Who’s mighty now?

Not so mighty: Mississippi at record lows, forces ligher barges..
Mississippi River dropping in Memphis..
Receding Mississippi exposing historic relics..

The Midwest is suffering its worst drought in 50 years.. Could this be the ‘new’ norm? Will the United States go from bread basket of the world to the dust bowl of the planet? Will the record warmth continue? More and more hot records relative to cold records have taken place for some time.. The past two years have seen many more hot records as opposed to cold records. These recent heat waves have made this drought much worse—after a winter of almost no snow in much of the United States. Global changes are in full effect. Big economic impacts will be coming this fall, expect that at a grocery store near you. The fires that we saw this year may be a new norm, too.. Earth changes will get worse and worse.. Greenland has lost 97% of its ice. Even the highest points in Greenland are melting. Major transformations of landscapes coming—coastal area flooding? worst case could be a massive sea rise? 

But planes still fly and cars still drive. If manmade impacts are the reasons for warming, then humans seem not to care. If it’s the earth itself, humans are in for a wild ride—one not seens for centuries.. 

The drought that is occurring has some ominous signs for our future.. In Illinois, people are beginning to become alarmed with just how dry and hot things have been.. The drought in the United States is also going to cause problems for China..

The drought and constant heat waves that have hit the United States this summer have been only intensifying and shows no signs of receding.. According to one report, the drought size has increased by the ‘size of Texas’..

This summer’s horrid weather will have one extremely negative ramification for this world.. for our wallets.. for us: Food prices will skyrocket until at least 2013..

Street view named desire: Google broke its promise

Google got caught illegally obtaining street view information. It told regulators it would delete the data. Google said sorry when it admitted that it didn’t delete some of what it said it would..

Street view named desire: Google broke its promise

Some rough storms rolled through my mountains and maybe your mountains or skylines too. Hope all is safe, they were vicious..

New information: James Holmes sent his notebook to his psychiatrist detailing plans on how he would massacre a movie theater.. it went unopened in the University of Colorado since July 12

If true, this is very unsettling..

New information: James Holmes sent his notebook to his psychiatrist detailing plans on how he would massacre a movie theater.. it went unopened in the University of Colorado since July 12

Olympics, 2012 style

It’s tough to put on a show in the modern age. Sure, the Olympians are trained and ready and they even have thousands of condoms at their disposal, but it takes a flag mishap to cause a major diplomatic fiasco before the games even begin (officially)

So here is how things went down. As a soccer match between North Korea and Columbia was set to begin, the South Korean flag was mistakenly displayed. The North walked off the field and wasn’t seen for an hour. When the game delay was over, they went on to win 2-0. 

The National Olympic Committee offered up an apology to the newly married Kim Jong Un. No word on whether he is on a honeymoon..

The USA beat France 4-2, no one walked off that field.

And Lil’ Kim Jong Un is not a bachelor anymore.

Olympics, 2012 style

Interesting new wrinkle in the Internets: YouTube wants your full name when you comment on videos

Who needs SOPA or PIPA when you have Youtube!

Interesting new wrinkle in the Internets: YouTube wants your full name when you comment on videos

Thank you so much for mentioning Fine Art ... i'd never heard of the site before, so happy to be able to listen to old Art Bell shows. I fell in love with show many years ago, and one of my favorite episodes is "Mel's Hole". Again, thank you!

Thanks for reading, number one. 

As far the FineArtStream.com, it’s a great website. 24/7 Art Bell.. nothing can beat that. I often listen and place myself back in the time when the show was on, wondering what I was doing.. and contemplating how I have changed and how life has changed since then. But the more it all changed the more it was the same.

Read your site a bit today, too.. Love the poetry.

I started the book

The book I am writing. I will update as I go..

Hope it is worthwhile in the end.

An amazing summer melt.. should we be worried? Satellites recorded an unprecedented rate of ice sheet melt in Greenland this month. Over the course of four days in July virtually the entire surface melted—an area larger than at any time in more than 30 years of satellite observations.

Should we be worried?

Yes.

An amazing summer melt.. should we be worried? Satellites recorded an unprecedented rate of ice sheet melt in Greenland this month. Over the course of four days in July virtually the entire surface melted—an area larger than at any time in more than 30 years of satellite observations.

JAMES HOLMES WAS GIVEN A $26,000 FEDERAL GRANT

JAMES HOLMES WAS GIVEN A $26,000 FEDERAL GRANT

what's your deal?

Wow.. finally a philosophically great question. What indeed is my ‘deal.’? I don’t know. What’s yours.. what is anyone’s? As a matter of fact, what is a ‘deal’? Deal or no deal? … TBA at a later date.

Penn State Pride.. Happy Valley.. welcome to the new world

Happy Valley couldn’t be sadder today. Penn State University has been hit with unprecedented penalties by the NCAA.

The ‘death penalty’ was not imposed on the football program, but it may as well have been.

The NCAA ordered:

• No bowl games for four years


• Scholarships reduced from 25 to 15


• $60 million fine


• 14 seasons of football victories from Paterno taken away

The online world.. the cable television world. .the sports world.. the bars of America.. all will be talking about today’s news concerning Penn State. Few will talk about the victims of sex scandals. 

We will.

Jerry Sandusky was accused, prosecuted, and convicted of systematically using a charity to get underprivileged kids into his sex ring. He showered with them, and brought them to his house to rape them. The underage boys were also not helped by the University and Joe Paterno after a cover up ensued because top officials wanted to protect the name and reputation of the school… and now, due to their actions for years, the reputation of Penn State and the football program lays in ruins. Yes, this is why these penalties were imposed. 

This is why.