Anyone who knows me knows – I don’t like heights, and never have. Watching this from the comfort of terra firma is STILL wild to consider. This is the story of the first two guys to have climbed Everest without oxygen, way back in 1978. I recently read the Outside article on it, and found the short movie made at the time (Everest Unmasked), linked below.

It’s about 51 minutes, spends about 12 min giving some of the history and the middle portion details the danger, including two major Sherpa accidents that happened. The last half of the movie is the best part, especially in detailing the two climbers’ final success.

here are two more NOVA links on the topic too, including one from a person involved in the first Everest summit by Sir Edmund Hillary back in the 60’s.

Everest Unmasked – Everest without oxygen (1978) by optimari

candybowl

we had (literally) nosebleed seats that summer when the reunion tour hit Key Arena (as the YT notes show, 7 years *after* this VH1 show), but it was definitely worth it to see one of my all-time fave bands…

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amazing tribute from earlier this summer following KE’s passing…..

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At 40, Voyager spacecrafts still zooming toward galactic achievement

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Oscar-winning actor Martin Landau dies at 89

We too, argued constantly as kids whether Space:1999 was better than Star Trek too – and never came to a consistent conclusion. RIP.

Space 1999 @ IMDB

episodes on YT

hard to believe we were watching that in 1975(!)

candybowl

Saw the new Wonder Woman movie today with kerewin. Definitely one of the better superhero movies out there, albeit the first DC-related one i’ve seen (haven’t seen the Superman reboot, and Superman vs. Batman looked very, very dumb). Hoping to see some of The Flash tv show at some point and the Justice League trailer we saw today looks good – but I digress.

So compared to the 70s tv series with Lynda Carter, naturally this is higher budget and far better special effects. But despite her origin on an island full of kick-ass women in semi-revealing outfits (worn while full-on fighting on foot, horseback and flying through the air at intervals), this movie avoids the usual ‘movie hot woman’ factor in most cases and simply tries to tell a compelling story instead.

The island part could have been a bit shorter, and as per usual, the Germans are the always-convenient bad guys, even though these are WWI Germans, not Nazis. But Diana keeps on kicking ass throughout the movie, both in attitude and action, which just builds until the end (definitely a good thing).

*****SPOILERS******
Now for the other minor complaints – If Diana is a god, why do they need other superheroes at all (given that the story is told in flashback format when it begins with her getting a package from Bruce Wayne while working at the Louvre in Paris)? Much like Thor in the Avengers/Marvel movies – again, if gods are on Earth, why bother with the rest of even mutants or superheroes, period?

I liked the turnaround with ‘Lupin’ (David Thewlis) playing Ares, the god of war, though, and didn’t see it coming, so that was cool.

While we missed any cameos from Lynda Carter (apparently scheduling problems prevented it) it was very cool to see Lucy Davis, whom we knew was familiar but didn’t recognize until we looked her up afterward.

And Chris Pine plays it pretty straight as Steve Trevor, which was a relief – while it’s likely given the time period of the movie being in around 1917 that he’d be definitely trying to keep Diana in check at all times, he doesn’t try to do it in a bad way unlike other male characters might have and he does fairly quickly realize his limitations in comparison with her – he’s not deluded.

All in all, an entertaining movie – I wonder if Gina Carano will show up as a Diana nemesis in a future one?

Other Reviews:
Rotten Tomatoes
The Guardian
IGN

candybowl

RIP – you were a class act, and oh, so very drolllll….! 🙂

Sir Roger Moore dies aged 89

alltime fave Bond car…and villain!

starts slow but good finish…

candybowl

just finished this book, Alex & Me – very interesting read. here’s a short video of what the book is about – Alex, the amazing African Grey parrot! Sadly he passed away in 2007, but his legacy and insights learned from his ‘birdbrain’ – live on.

Alex also made an appearance on Scientific American Frontiers and met Alan Alda – watch the whole episode here. You can fast forward to about 9:59 if you want to just watch Alex.

candybowl

So following on from the previous post regarding touring the Shuttle Trainer at Boeing’s Museum of Flight, here’s the rest of all the ‘plane nerd’ photos from most of the rest of the museum – enjoy!

I have to say, despite no flash, that ridiculous new phone of mine actually takes decent pics…..click on one from the gallery, then click it again to get the high-res version….

candybowl

So for a bday thing, a friend and I went to the Museum of Flight yesterday and specifically to check out the Space Shuttle Trainer they have. When NASA’s Shuttle program ended, there was of course a mad dash by all the museums everywhere to ‘get’ a Shuttle. Boeing’s Museum of Flight naturally wanted one too, but ended up getting something arguably better – the full-on Space Shuttle Trainer mockup that was actually used in Johnson Space Center for hands-on training by the Shuttle crews.

It’s important to note – this is not a flight simulator – rather, this was meant to simulate and train on nearly everything else (equipment, evac, procedures, operations, etc.) – the thing is huge and has a fully-accurate, replica cockpit and crew module underneath, built to full scale.

So regular visitors can go in the main cargo bay and in the tail section, but only special tours (yes, costs extra) can go in the pilot section and the crew module. Naturally we did that!

What follows are pics from the tour. I’ll post all the ‘plane photos’ tomorrow from the other parts of the museum we went to, but the Shuttle tour was our first priority yesterday. Definitely very cool and the tour guide was well-informed. The main take-away for me is simply how impressive a technical achievement this thing is – in one of the movies you can watch (sadly about the Challenger and later Columbia disasters) they note at one point that at re-entry to the atmosphere, the heat outside is hotter than the surface of the sun – boggles the mind. In many ways the Shuttle is a tougher and more impressive achievement than even Apollo was, despite the program not ending up near as ‘affordable’ as they predicted nor as long-lived in the end.

here’s to you, NASA!

candybowl

Click on a gallery pic, then click it again to get the high-res version….