100th Anniversary of the Titanic sinking

100 years ago today the Titanic, so-called unsinkable by some, sunk, taking around 1500 lives down to the bottom of the ocean.

A century is a long time and all the survivors from that voyage have passed on but it's important to remember what happened that night. Maritime safety forever changed afterwards due to the horrible loss of life. In the aftermath the International Ice Patrol and the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea were established and are still in operation today.

On such an important anniversary there are understandably many Titanic-related events going on. "Titanic" the movie has been rereleased in 3D. While I thought the whole world went mad in 1997, it wasn't a bad movie, just not one I thought should be rereleased in theatres or made 3D.

There is also a memorial cruise, duplicating the journey and menu of the original ship. Some passengers are descendants of survivors and victims of the sinking of the ship. Some will be dressed in period costume, experiencing food from the menu on the original ship and a group of musicians will finish what the original group was playing as the ship sank. This voyage thought, has had its own share of issues

The most disappointing part of this anniversary is that some people apparently didn't know the Titanic was a real ship. They thought the James Cameron movie was fictional which makes me headdesk every time I think about it. Seriously! Check out this link for examples of people discovering the Titanic wasn't just a movie.

RIP Tony Curtis

Thank you for making me laugh Tony. You will be missed.

RIP Paul Newman

I was going to post about seeing the Snowbirds last weekend but instead I woke to hear that Paul Newman had passed away.

There's not really much that I can say other then I love you very much Paul. You will be missed.

George Carlin 1937 - 2008

Today the last bastion of the seven digit dialing area in BC has fallen. From today on, you must dial the area code of a number, even if you're phoning your neighbour next door to double check what the weather's doing.

This, I feel, is ridiculous and yet necessary. Apparently too many people own cellphones and I myself am guilty of this. These cellphone numbers leave little room for land lines, at least that's what I understand the explanation to be. For now, I am pouting about this problem because despite being stupid, there's nothing I can do about it.

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Why does everyone from the Golden Age keep dropping like flies? It's starting to creep me out.

George Carlin passed away yesterday. I used to watch him every week on "Shining Time Station" when I was younger. He played Mr. Conductor, a very wise and powerful engineer. Sort of like Gandalf for trains. This was how I was introduced to him. He was in a show with talking trains and a jukebox of tiny little puppets that coveted giant five cent pieces. It was only after Ringo, yes that Ringo, replaced him and I grew up that I understood he was actually a comedian.

He exposed the idiotic truths of the world, showed us how ridiculous we really are and did it in a funny way. The list of people who have done this and been successful is very short. The world is a less funny place now. I'm going to miss you and your seven little words George.

Here's one of my favourite clips of his, exposing the truths of baseball and football. And you know what, he's right.

Cyd Charisse 1922 - 2008

Cyd Charisse died today at the age of 86. I'll never forget the first scene I saw her in. It was from "Singing in the Rain" The legends from the Golden Age are slowly disappearing until what remains is their work. For that, at least, I'm thankful.

RIP Heath Ledger

This news hit me like a kick in the chest last night. All I could do was stare. My brain basically melted out my ears and I could hear myself saying "What!" What?" over and over again.

The reason I think this was so shocking to me and perhaps the rest of the world is Heath Ledger was not a "tabloid" actor. He wasn't a party hardy, a drugs and alcohol man. I expected him to have a long life, long career and couldn't wait to see how his acting roles evolved over time. In fact, I'm looking forward to seeing "The Dark Knight". At first I didn't think Heath Ledger was a logical choice for the role of the Joker but the more I heard and saw, the more I was convinced. I thought if he 'hit it out of the park' he'd become a major star. But now it looks as if that movie will be his last complete project.

I think I understand a little of how others may have felt when James Dean died or when John Lennon was killed. In fact when I first heard about Heath, I immediately thought it's just like James Dean (even though it wasn't) It's not news you expect to hear and when you do it's as if someone's slapped you and you didn't even see the hand coming.

I'm going to miss all the movies he'll never make. Is that weird, missing something that never existed? I guess what I'm trying to saying is, Heath I'm going to miss you.

RIP Deborah Kerr 1921 - 2007

When I heard about the death of Deborah Kerr I let out a little gasp. The reason being that I have this undying affection/obsession with classic movie stars. Whenever one of them leaves us for good I feel the link we have to classic movies slipping farther and farther away.

I've personally only seen Deborah in three of her movies: "The Prisoner of Zenda", "From Here to Eternity" and "The King and I", I still feel that she made a big contribution to the movie industry.

In "From Here to Eternity" Deborah and Burt Lancaster snog in the sand while the tide rolls over them. The scene itself is white hot and apparently I'm not the only one with this opinion. The MPAA banned photos of the kiss with the surf washing over Lancaster and Kerr as they thought it was too erotic. Many film prints had shortened versions of the scene because projectionists would cut out frames as souvenirs.

The thing about this scene is that with Deborah Kerr the public had come to expect to see her as a virtuous woman, a mother, a 'good girl'. And yet here she was, playing against type, having an affair with a man her husband worked with. It shows her true strength as an actor, to be believable in a role you might not be able to imagine her in.

I'm sad that she's gone but I'm very happy that she left something behind for us to remember her by.

RIP Peter Jennings

This has been sitting and waiting to be posted and now it's finally done so I apologize for lateness and untimeliness of this. It seems that these days my ignorance in all things Canadian is being shoved in my face. I only regret that I found out this information after he had passed on.

But when I did find it out I thought I was on the other side of the looking glass. I mean, wasn't Peter Jennings the face of American television? The CNN "dude"? Now, I don't watch CNN so I wouldn't know if he mentioned his roots or not but this came as such a shock to me. At the same time, why go work for the US? Yes, that's where the jobs and the money were but then it's as if you're reporting on a forein country for a foreign country. Now the US isn't exactly foreign but they do things differently there.

His father, Charles Jennings, was the "most prominent announcer for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC)". Now personally, I think the CBC has the greatest news radio in the world, the BBC having the greatest news tv in the world.
So of course, Charles' son had to do him one better and become the youngest ABC Evening News anchor at the age of 27. I think it would have been better if he'd stayed with CBC but ABC offered him the job so...

The other nightly news anchors from CBS and NBC were Walter Cronkite and David Brinkley, the big pitch hitters of anchordom... the anchorites... they were really great news anchors. Jennings left the anchor desk in 1968 and was sent to Rome to become a foreign correspondent. One of his accomplishments was establishing the first American television news bureau in the Middle East. He stayed there and served for seven years as ABC News Bureau Chief in Beirut, Lebanon.

So because he played niced, Jennings was put back in an anchor position for A.M. America, where he delivered five-minute newscasts from Washington. Everybody kept saying how he was a great foreign correspondent when he was in the US because he delivered a perspective of seeing every issue from the outside, originally being Canadian.

I never watched ABC news and I didn't know Mr. Jennings well but from what I've read and from the number of news personalities that attended his funeral, I would say he was a great reporter and a great Canadian. Mr. Jennings we will miss you.

RIP James Doohan (Montgomery Scott)

Well I have some sad news and this is especially sad for Canadians. James Doohan, a native of BC, the man who played Montgomery Scott and (usually) safely beamed Captain Kirk around the galaxy, died on Wednesday. He was 85.

My parents were big into Star Trek but I was raised on Next Generation and 'Earl Gray tea, hot'. But my parents had watched the original and I was first introduced to it with the Tribble episode (note to self: Tribbles = large vet bill).

I loved his accent and the number of times he yelled into the intercom to Kirk, "The ship, she canna' take it captain!"

He was a D-Day veteran, a captain in fact but was badly wounded by a German machine gun. After this he moved on to study drama in Toronto before becoming that famous ship's engineer. He had a difficult childhood with his father being an alcoholic.

Now I was interested to learn that the fictional birth place of his character was planning to erect a plaque in his honour. Scripts of the cult science fiction series reveal that Mr Doohan's character, Montgomery Scott, was born in Linlithgow in 2222 and that his parents still lived there. Now, West Lothian Council is planning to erect a plaque in the town in tribute to the actor, a Canadian D-Day veteran. At least, I was interested until I learned that they were only doing it for commerical reasons to attract tourists. I'm sure Scotty would be ashamed of his home town. Some people just have no respect for the dearly departed. Councillor Willie Dunn said: "Star Trek is a cult classic which has thousands of fans all over the world and I am one of them. A local link with Star Trek could help attract even more visitors to West Lothian in the future."

Mr. Doohan's wife Wende says that his ashes will likely be flown into space on the Falcon 1 rocket. We'll miss you Scotty.