A quality use of spare time

Now see, I don't know if this guy has a day job, but he's certainly put together a potent example of what can be accomplished with a little creative thinking and time to kill: The Movie Timeline (thanks to Chris at Grist and Jason at Kottke).

The concept is staggeringly simple: It's the total history of the universe, if all movies were true. Yeah, I'm already geeking out.

So. For instance, you can see that the planet Krypton exploded the same year Sonny Corleone was murdered and Harry Lime resurfaced in Vienna. And did you know Phinneas Fogg's journey around the world coincided with the staking of Dracula?

Most interesting is the “future” — unkillable Buck Rogers will emerge from his frozen slumber about the same time the unkillable Jason Voorhees terrorizes a space station. And apparently, the Earth will be invaded in 2020 (dragons), 2150 (Daleks), 2373 (Borg), and 3000 (Psychlos), and in fact has already been invaded many times over... especially in the 1950s.

And 2046 looks to be a big year for Hell in our solar system: The Event Horizon will open a door to Hell in orbit around Neptune at the same time that Hell breaks out (literally) at the UAC base on Mars's moon, Phobos. I'd say 2046 would be a good year not to travel, except that on Earth, the apes will already be running things.

"They were called test pilots, and no one knew their names..."

That's a snippet of Levon Helm's drawling opening narration to the great movie The Right Stuff. I mention it because this week Scott Crossfield was found dead in the wreckage of a small single-engine plane in northern Georgia.

Crossfield was one of the great test pilots of the postwar era, second only to Chuck Yeager in fame and standing. He was the first man to fly at Mach 2, and then Mach 3, and (along with Yeager and other pilots like Jack Ridley and Slick Goodlin) was part of the fraternity of “shit-hot rocket aces” that flew out of Edwards AFB in the late 40s and early 50s — and haunted Pancho Barnes's colorful Happy Bottom Riding Club.

In The Right Stuff, Crossfield was protrayed by Scott Wilson as a quiet, well-mannered civilian pilot — a close comrade and friendly competitor to Yeager. Neither Crossfield nor Yeager were considered as candidates for the Mercury program, and the film makes a point of cutting back to Pancho's dusty saloon every so often, where the aging test pilots sip whiskey and listen in silence to radio coverage of the first space missions.

With Crossfield's death, Yeager is the last of the Edwards AFB “mad monk squad” — Jack Ridley died in a plane crash in 1957, Gus Grissom in the 1967 Apollo 1 fire. Pancho Barnes died in 1975, Deke Slayton in 1993, Gordo Cooper in 2004, and Slick Goodlin just last October.

It's good to know, at least, that Crossfield was still flying at age 84, and (morbidly) romantic to hear that he died in the cockpit like so many of his comrades (classically immortalized as pictures on the wall behind Pancho's bar):

Ho ho, hee hee, ha ha...

Well, I finally pushed the button. Yanked the cord. Pulled the pin. Flipped ze svitch. Broke the glass. Dropped the bomb. Shot the Turk. Swallowed the pill. Blew the hatch. Jumped the shark. Crossed the streams. Snatched the idol. Popped the cork. Called the squeeze. Served the nuts. Tried the shrimp. Smelled the glove.

I quit my job on Friday, just a few months shy of the seven-year mark. For the last six months, this has been a not-if-but-when question (note the approximate age of this site, which I cobbled together during a particularly cathartic screw-you-guys-I'm-going-home moment last fall — this whole thing was originally intended to serve as a creative outlet should I become suddenly unemployed, and now, at last, it shall meet its dessssssstiny).

Truth is, it was a bittersweet decision to make, because I do very much like the people I work with. It's the work itself that has gone sour, and last week the confluence of incoming and outgoing projects came to a point where the gettin' was as good as the gettin' gets. Plus of course, we're sitting on the cusp of summer, baseball's just getting started, I have a stack of books at home demanding attention, a to-see film list a mile long... add it all up, it spells q-u-i-t-t-i-n-t-i-m-e.

I'm still feeling the aftereffects of the anxiety attack that accompanies walking away from a perfectly spendable paycheck. But those knots are already subsiding, and the anticipation of open seas ahead is making me downright giddy. I'm whistling a lot. Smiling entirely too much. People at work are starting to loathe me, I fear.

No immediate plans to hit the streets in search of a new gig. I have a lot of writing to tackle first. A lot of day games to see. A lot of dog-walking to do. And I should at least give cabin fever half a chance to set in and do its work (right, Brooke?).

I distinctly remember, oh so long ago, referring to August 23, 1999 as the Mother of All Mondays — which by projection and extrapolation means May 5, 2006 will be the Father of All Fridays.

And it bears committing to print here that none of this would be possible if Maus wasn't the greatest wife and the most supportive partner on Dog's Green Earth. A drunkard's dream if I ever did see one.

Break out the sweatpants and the canned beer — it's slothin' time!

Not-so-good Friday

April 14. The worst day there is.

I have loathed April 14 ever since the 5th grade — it was the day that evil scientist welded an excruciating contraption of torque screws and barbed wire onto my teeth. I looked forward to that day with dread, and look back on it now with disgust.

Since then, I have been in the ghoulish habit of noting the historic bleakness that accompanies this day:

April 14, 1846 - The Donner Party leaves Springfield, Illinois, on their ill-fated and gastronomically notorious journey to California.

April 14, 1865 - President Abraham Lincoln is assassinated by John Wilkes Booth — ironically, on the very day he establishes the Secret Service.

April 14, 1912 - The RMS Titanic strikes an iceberg in the North Atlantic.

April 14, 1935 - On "Black Sunday" the Dust Bowl states are hit by an apocalyptic dust storm, the worst in U.S. history.

April 14, 1944 - The English cargo ship Fort Stikine explodes in Bombay Harbor, killing more than 1,000 people.

April 14, 1970 - One of Apollo 13's oxygen tanks explodes en route to the moon, forcing the crew to make an emergency return to Earth.

April 14, 1986 - One-kilogram hailstones (the largest ever recorded) fall on Bangledesh, killing 90. Same day: Ronald Reagan orders a retaliatory bombing strike on Tripoli and Benghazi.

I don't know what day they actually nailed up Jesus, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if it was on the 14th.

April 20 also seems to be a particularly nasty day (Hitler's birthday, the Waco standoff, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Columbine massacre), so maybe April 14 is really the kickoff to a historically unpleasant week. If nothing else, you have Tax Day stuck right in there.

When we were planning our April wedding four years ago, I gave Maus only one condition: Under no circumstances were we getting married between April 14 and April 20. We chose April 26, which seemed like a reasonably safe distance, and has worked out quite well for us. After all, I have nothing against April itself — on the contrary, the month that brings with it Daylight Savings Time and baseball's Opening Day (often on the same day) is much beloved by me.

But here we are, April 14, and here in Seattle the temperature has dropped to February levels. The pleasant sun we enjoyed earlier this week has given way to steady, cold, stinging rain. I woke up around 5 this morning with a migraine headache. The car nearly ran out of gas on my drive in to work. The pump at the gas station broke down while I was refueling. When I finally got to work, a well-meaning coworker greeted me with an energetic bear-hug/Heimlich-maneuver, making my throbbing head swell up to three times its normal size. I may throw up at any minute.

And it's only 10 AM.

April 14. I'm telling you, get to your bunkers and cover your heads.

Delivering against brand

Finally, a site with a wholly intuitive UI and perfectly utilitarian delivery against the promise of its brand identity. Some forward-thinking entrepreneur identified an unanswered consumer need and filled it, cleanly and directly, grabbing all the low-hanging fruit and dominating the information-brokerage market for a qualified and growing customer segment:

IsLostARepeat.com

There, you see? Now I know what I'm doing tonight.

Are? You? Kidding?!

It cannot be. Either I'm stuck in a permanent hallucinatory state and all of this is nothing but a complex, layered delusion, or it's the apocalypse.

Consider the actress's qualifications:

The director told the Indo-Asian News Service he was first impressed by Hilton when he read an article in which she said she'd refused to pose nude for Playboy.

Just like Mother Theresa!