Eugene Allen Movie

Who’s Eugene Allen?

He worked as a butler in the White House for 34 years and recently sold the movie rights to his story to Columbia Pictures.

There’s a small writeup about it here, but the Washington Post has a much nicer write up here which comes with a nice photo gallery.

Two parts of the story stood out.  He had the same birthday as President Ford, and Mrs Ford was the only one who remembered it at the time.  Also, Nancy Reagan invited him to eat at a state dinner with her and her husband right before he retired.  He said he was probably the first butler to ever be invited to a state dinner.

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Bag of Randomness

  • I can’t tell if I’m getting sick or is it just allergies.  You just gotta love North Texas when it comes to allergies.
  • Watched a Robert Ballard special on the National Geographic Channel the other night.  It turns out when he said he was looking for the Titanic, he was actually looking at submarine wreckage for the Navy.  He worked out some sort of deal with the Navy did did allow him to hunt for the Titanic after he finished working for them.  It was really fascinating.
  • How old is the Internet?  Link
  • Who says you can’t combine bowling and archery.  Link
  • I was watching the news about the fall in the Dow Jones Industrial Average last night and an analyst stated, “It’s as if the last 11 years haven’t happened.”  That put things into perspective for me in how far the Dow has dropped.
  • I can’t believe the heads of the big three automakers went to Washington asking for money and not being able to explain how much they need and what exactly would they do with it.  Comic
  • A tiny mechanic.  Link
  • SisterGeeding in the the David Letterman audience the other night.  Before the show he took questions, but never called on her.  Too bad, because she had a really good question: Do you already have a guess for what kind of pie your mother is going to make for Thanksgiving?  In case you don’t know, every Thanksgiving Letterman has a satellite feed to his mom’s house and he tries to guess the pie that she made.
  • Happy Goat.  Link
  • WifeGeeding noticed that the Arm and Hammer box that we put in the fridge use to say replace after 3 months, but now it says 30 days.
  • MC Hammer needs to be on Dancing With The Stars.
  • The new Cowboys stadium in Arlington keeps getting all these high profile events, and I can’t help but what a shame it is that the Stadium isn’t located closer to downtown Dallas and Victory Park.
  • I can only name three of the Jackson Five: Michael, Tito, Jermain.
  • But I can name all of the seven dwarfs.
  • 40 Best TV Theme Show Songs of All Time.  Link
  • There was an episode of Cheers where Cliff was trying to name the seven deadly sins and confused them with the seven dwarfs.  The thought of that scene still makes me laugh.
  • Here’s a somewhat interesting article on NFL sideline technology.
  • I’ve notice stores are starting to move towards the cattle call method to have customers check out.  That is, all customers stand in one line (as opposed to multiple lines for multiple separate registers) as a greeter tells them which open register in a line full of registers is available.  It may be more efficient, but I do feel like I’m part of a herd.
  • A blog about stores that have open signs but are clearly closed.
  • This map made me laugh.
  • A darn cute picture.  Link
Posted in Goofy, Sports | 6 Comments

Maybe he had the fish

That’s a reference to Airplane! just so you know.

Co-pilot had breakdown, flight attendant helped land jet

DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) — An Air Canada co-pilot having a mental breakdown had to be forcibly removed from the cockpit, restrained and sedated, and a flight attendant with flying experience helped the pilot safely make an emergency landing, an Irish investigation concluded Wednesday.

Full Article – Updated with correct link

There’s no mention in the article if the co-pilot ever played center for the Los Angeles Lakers.

And when I read this part of the article, I couldn’t help but think what was going through the heads of the passengers.

The Air Canada pilot then asked flight attendants to find out if any passenger was a qualified pilot.

Posted in Goofy, Interesting, Pop Culture | 2 Comments

Filmmaker Turning His Glass Eye Into A Video Camera

If you find yourself in a conversation with Toronto filmmaker Rob Spence a few months from now, remember to smile — you’re probably on camera. Today at the 6Sight Imaging Conference in Monterey, Spence will discuss how he’s turning his prosthetic eye into a wireless video camera — and his plan to turn the eyes of George Orwell’s Thought Police back at Big Brother.

Spence, 36, lost vision in his right eye at the age of 11, when he was shooting cow patties in Ireland with his grandfather’s shotgun and the gun backfired. He wore a patch for most of his life, until finally having the eye removed a few years ago and replacing it with a prosthetic. Adding a camera to the prosthetic was the logical next step, said Spence.

Full Article

And if you are interested, he has his own blog.

Maybe I should get a video camera installed in my wife’s glass eye – it will be more material for the blog.

And yes, I know this is the second glass eye post this week.  I’ve reached my quota for the month.

Posted in Interesting, Personal | 2 Comments