Back To The Present

Posted on October 21, 2015 by Chronicles of a Blogaholic

“Now, if my calculations are correct,
when this baby hits 88 miles an hour,
you’re going to see some serious shit!”
Dr. Emmett Brown

Back to The Future Day

One of the best movie series of all time is Back To The Future. My two favorites are the first and third of the series. Some of you diehard BTTF fans may recall in the second of the series Marty and Doc travel to October 21, 2015.

Today, almost thirty years after the second movie was made, we are wondering, how much of the future did Robert Zemeckis get right?

In some cases, Zemeckis’ 2015 isn’t too far from reality. For example, we don’t have hoverboads yet, but Japanese car company Lexus recently unveiled a prototype for a real, rideable hoverboard. A company called Arx Pax in California is also working on its own version. Unfortunately they both rely on magnets, so are unlikely to be able to fly over water like Marty’s.

How about wearable technology? Marty’s future kids wear headsets at the dinner table to make and receive calls and watch TV. With the introduction of Google Glass in 2013, and gaming headsets like Oculus Rift in the works, virtual reality is not far off, and Microsoft’s recently announced Hololens more than a passing resemblance to Junior’s goggles.

How about video calls? Marty’s video call with his co-worker Needles seemed like a futuristic dream, but with FaceTime and Skype now staples, the video call has evolved from a business medium to an essential of everyday life.

What about hands-free gaming? While we don’t see it in the film, kids at Cafe 80s mock Marty for having to use his hands to play an arcade game, implying that Xbox Kinect-style gaming is the norm in their 2015. And guess what, it is.

How about the iPad or tablet computers? When Doc meets Marty by the clock tower, he is brandishing what looks like an iPad-style tablet computer. Today, tablets are commonplace with 233 million units expected to be sold in 2015.

What about fingerprint recognition? Most of us don’t use it to get into our house, but fingerprint recognition is now a major part of many people’s lives, being used on several smartphones to unlock them or pay for items.

Then there was the famous self-tying shoes. Marty’s self-tying trainers were one of the weirder inventions features in Back to the Future II. Nike designer Tinker Hatfield has confirmed he and his team are working on a consumer version of the shoes, complete with self-tying laces, and hopes to have them ready for sale by the end of 2015.

Sure, there were a few things that Zemeckis got wrong. Such as flying cars and power clothing but I must admit, Zemeckis not only made a great film but showed us what the future had in store for us. Bringing us back to the present.

Shine On

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Posted on October 19, 2015 by Chronicles of a Blogaholic

“Most gulls don’t bother to learn more than the simplest facts of flight
– how to get from shore to food and back again.
For most gulls, it is not flying that matters, but eating.”
Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Feeding the seagulls on the Esplanade.

Study in Black and White

Posted on October 18, 2015 by Chronicles of a Blogaholic

“I guess I’m old-fashioned, but I love black and white films.
They bring me back to a simpler time in my life.”
J R

Study in Black and White

Shine On

Ruff Competition

Posted on October 17, 2015 by Chronicles of a Blogaholic

“I’ve always said money may buy you a fine dog,
but only love can make it wag its tail.”
Kinky Friedman

Ruff Competition

Every year hundreds of canines and their human companions travel to Indianapolis, Indiana to compete in the North American Flyball Championship.

What is flyball you ask? It’s the canine equivalent to the horse steeplechase event. The North American Flyball Association, Inc. (NAFA) was established in 1984, when 12 flyball clubs in Michigan and Ontario banded together to guide the development of flyball in North America.

Flyball got its start in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when a group of dog trainers in Southern California created scent discrimination hurdle racing, then put a guy at the end to throw tennis balls to the dogs when they finished the jump line. It didn’t take long for the group to decide to build some sort of tennis ball-launching apparatus, and the first flyball box was born.

Herbert Wagner is credited with developing the first flyball box, and apparently he did a flyball demo on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson that got a lot of people’s attention. Subsequently, the new dog sport for dog enthusiasts was introduced in the Toronto-Detroit area by several dog training clubs. After a few small tournaments were held in conjunction with dog shows, the first ever flyball tournament was held in 1983.

Today, there are over 400 active clubs and 6,500 competing dogs, NAFA, a nonprofit organization is recognized as the world’s leading authority on flyball and the sport’s top sanctioning organization.

If you want to see the dogs in action, here’s a short documentary about the sport and the ruff competition.

Shine On

Oscar Wilde

Posted on October 16, 2015 by Chronicles of a Blogaholic

“Education is an admirable thing,
but it is well to remember
from time to time that nothing
that is worth knowing can be taught.”
Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde

He was an Irish playwright, poet, and novelist who is best known for The Importance of Being Earnest and The Picture of Dorian Gray. Famous for his biting wit, and flamboyant dress, Oscar Wilde became one of the best-known personalities of his time.

Born on October 16, 1854 in Dublin, Ireland, he studied at Trinity College, and at Magdalen College, in Oxford. Shortly after graduating from Magdalen he published his collected poems in 1881, when he was just twenty-seven years old, and was awarded the Newdigate prize for his poem, Ravenna.

While Oscar was touring London in 1881, he was introduced to Constance Lloyd the daughter of Horace Lloyd, a wealthy Queen’s Counsel. Constance was four years younger than Oscar, and was well-read, spoke several European languages and had an outspoken, independent mind. He proposed to her, and they married on 29 May 1884. They had two sons in quick succession, Cyril in 1885 and Vyvyan in 1886. With a family to support, Oscar accepted a job revitalizing the Woman’s World magazine, where he worked from 1887-1889.

The next six years were the most creative period of his life. He published two collections of children’s stories, The Happy Prince and Other Tales, and The House of Pomegranates as well as his first and only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. The novels implied homoerotic theme was considered very immoral by the Victorians and played a considerable part in his later legal trials.

In the summer of 1891, Oscar met Lord Alfred ‘Bosie’ Douglas, who was well acquainted with Oscar’s Dorian Gray novel. They soon became lovers and were inseparable until Wilde’s arrest four years later.

In April 1895, Oscar sued Bosie’s father for libel as the Marquis had accused him of homosexuality. Oscar withdrew his case but was himself arrested and convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to two years hard labor. Constance took the children to Switzerland and reverted to an old family name, Holland.

The year he was released from prison, Oscar wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol, a response to the agony he experienced in prison. It was published shortly before Constance’s death in 1898. He and Bosie reunited briefly, but Oscar mostly spent the last three years of his life wandering Europe, staying with friends and living in cheap hotels.

Sadly, he was unable to rekindle his creative fires. When a recurrent ear infection became serious several years later, meningitis set in, and Oscar Wilde died on November 30, 1900.

His short stories, plays and poems continue to inspire millions around the world as well as famous quotes written by Oscar Wilde.

Shine On