I'll sleep well tonight...

...knowing that the scientist in this clip "doesn't think" there's any risk of the self-assembling robot technology getting out of control and harming us. Right...

Makes me think of Transformers meet Willard.




Cheers...

Citrus Synchronicity

So we were over at some friends recently and it was a hot and muggy Sunday. They offered us a refreshing beverage of our choice and we both chose ice tea. When my friend was handing my wife her glass, the TV was a playing a promo for the 1960 movie, “The Apartment”, starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine. At the exact moment when Jack Lemmon’s name popped on the screen, my friend (with his back to the TV) asked my wife if she wanted a lemon in her tea. True story.

Cheers...

Synchronicity (cont.)
I have some friends that were celebrating their 40th birthday so we found ourselves at a local restaurant enjoying good food and fine wine until someone, in fact it might have been me, decided to order a round of "jagerbombs" which is essentially 1 shot of Jagermeister and 1/2 can of Red Bull. Although I had heard of Red Bull before, this was in fact the first time that I had ever tried one. Nine days later, I found myself on vacation with my family touring on a bus to the shooting locations used in the movie "The Sound of Music" in Austria. On our way to one of the remote lakes used in the opening scene, the tour guide says "If you now look out the right side of the bus you will see that we are passing the headquarters of Red Bull in Fuschl am See (pop. 1,344)."

Okay - here's a candidate for technology at it's best - Remote Chicken Petting.

Here are two movie related synchronicity events of late:

1) On Friday, May 6, I booked 4 nights at the Hilton London Hyde Park Hotel as part of our summer vacation. On Sunday May 8, I watched Moonlight Mile. In the beginning title sequence there was a splash screen for the film's production company - Hyde Park Entertainment.

2) On Thursday, May 5, I received the DVD of Pollock from Netflix. I ended up watching it on Wednesday, May 18. After watching the movie, I Googled for more info on Pollock and came upon a story from NPR that on May 10 it was announced that a friend of Pollock's had discovered 32 of his paintings in an old storage locker back in 2002.

I have a couple of synchronicity updates but first here's the coolest thing I've seen this week. The gang over at Google have a new beta for maps. It's the closest thing to using paper. Okay so here are 3 updates:

1) My son and I went on a campout the weekend after I posted the Wizard of Oz/Pink Floyd thing. On Sunday morning, the camp director was telling us how breakfast was going to work and she pointed to the cooks in the kitchen window of the dining hall. One of the cooks was a young guy wearing a Dark Side of the Moon t-shirt. I thought long and hard about whether or not to ask him if he knew about the whole Oz/Floyd thing and came up with what might have been his responses:
a) "I have no idea who Pink Floyd is. This was my brother's shirt."
b) "Why no, I haven't. Thanks for letting me know - I'll have to try that."
c) "Duh. Everyone knows that you can watch the Wizard of Oz and turn the sound off and play Dark Side of the Moon and have the music match what's going on."
d) "Dude, my friends and I did that last night!"

It was answer "d" that I was afraid of so I reluctantly avoided asking him although now I wish I had.

2) My daughter and I decided to go out for Valentine's dinner rather than attend the Daddy/Daughter dance this year. We went to one of our favorite restaurants, Rose's, and as we were walking in the door, we noticed a brass plaque that had engraved on it "In Memory of Jack and Emma Rose." While we were eating dinner, a family came in and sat next to our table. They had two girls and were on their way to a different Daddy/Daughter dance after dinner. One of the girls was named Emma and because she was going to the dance, she was wearing a flower on her dress - it was a rose...

3) I was asked to help interview two candidates who had applied as a Jr. High coordinator at our church. I found out prior to the interview that one of the candidates was named Christian and I knew him very well from his time in High School when I helped lead that group. So during the interview, I told him I always ask 3 questions; "What are your strengths, your proudest achievement and your passion?" Following his answers, another leader said that his boss has a question he always asks candidates because it reveals a lot about the person. He asked Christian what his favorite movie was. He answered "The Shawshank Redemption" because he said it was the first movie he watched that made him realize that movies could be more than pure entertainment but could actually have a profound affect on the rest of your life. Someone else asked when he had made the decision to focus on youth ministry and he said it was during his last mission trip to Trinidad in 2004. So a couple days after the interview, I get an e-mail stating that Christian has been offered and accepted the job. I started composing an e-mail to him to congratulate him and let him know I looked forward to working with him when I glanced at the picture on my desk next to my computer. It was taken during my second mission trip to Trinidad in 2001. It was taken from the 2nd floor of the church we were building looking down at me and a bunch of high school kids digging a drainage ditch in an old cow pasture. It's raining very hard and when we saw we were getting our picture taken, someone yelled "Do the Shawshank Redemption!" So we're all standing with our backs arched and our arms spread out and our faces catching the huge raindrops. And standing next to me in the picture is Christian...