I’m a fan of the work of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, the creators of the famous Thunderbirds. We recently had the pleasure of watching another one of their productions: Joe 90.

The stories of adventure cover terrorists, rescues, and other spy-like threats. The difference? The Most Special Agent is a 9 year old boy.

Thanks to a top secret device, the BIG RAT, Joe is able to be “programmed” with the minds of other people. Need an explosives expert? Just “download” the expertise into Joe.

This concept works very well, as it allows a young boy to be involved in complex situations. It’s also a key to his usefulness: Who would suspect a 9 year old boy? (As a side effect, Joe almost never lies in the program — when the Evil Guy asks him how he’s going to escape — well, by flying that jet, of course! It’s a nice touch, not having the child lie.)

Joe 90 is exactly the kind of program I would have liked to watch as a child: Something that makes a child feel empowered and useful, versus being talked down to.

Some have been critical of the situations Joe gets into. Because the brain patterns are taken from adults, Joe does adult things. He has a gun — and uses it. He drives cars. He flies planes. He’s an explosives expert. A brain surgeon. Some might think that these situations send a “bad” message to children. I don’t agree. I think that most kids can tell reality from make believe. (And, honestly, with all the death and sex on TV these days, I think Joe 90 is pretty tame. It would have been very edgy in 1968, though, when it was originally released.)

And the sets, oh the sets! Typical amazing work. So detailed. It puts current CGI crap to shame. And the team knows what a youngster wants to see: explosions. Wonderfully done expositions, scaled expertly. And just when you think the explosion is done, there is another, and another, and another.

If you are looking for a kids program that adults will enjoy, and that treats kids as humans instead of mindless drones, check out Joe 90.

Joe 90 – The Complete Series

One of my favorite Western science / tech / history programs is now available on DVD. This program, from 1985, is a great introduction to how our culture has evolved over the last 2000 or so years.

Netflix has the program in their library, so you can rent it there. I also found a site that had YouTube links to the programs, along with a good synopsis of each program (unfortunately lacking on Wiki). Check it out here: The Day The Universe Changed

This program was one of the most influential programs a 15 year old science lover could watch. While some parts are a bit dated, and the program is very Euro centric, its history still stands up well. And, amazingly, his discussions about technology and how it affects our lives are just as relevant today as they were almost 25 years ago. Just goes to show, technology may change quickly, but human behavior takes a lot longer.

If you’d like to own the DVD set, you can purchase it at Amazon:

The Day The Universe Changed

While you are at it, go ahead and rent Michael Wood’s “The Story of India”. It gave me a much greater appreciation of the history and culture of what is now India.

I was suprised to see side “D” of this Explosions In The Sky album:

Click to get a closer look.

You can purchase the CD version from Amazon:

If you are looking for some retro BBC science fiction goodness, it’s worth taking a look at Quatermass. I’m talking about the 1950s version, not the recent (2005) remake.

I found out about the set of shows from a mention on a Doctor Who extra (on a Pertwee disc, of course), so I went searching. There are four serials:

• The Quatermass Experiment (1953)
• Quatermass II (1955)
• Quatermass and the Pit (1958)
• Quatermass (IV) (1979)

Unfortunately, trying to find legal copies of the shows has been difficult. The 1979 version is supposed to be on DVD or VHS. The 1950′s stuff, which is what I really want, is harder to come buy. I wonder if some of them met the fate of much of early Doctor Who–video tape reuse. Much of the Troughton era was lost because tapes were recycled, due the the high cost of video tape at the time.

Quatermass II is available on the Internet archive, which is a big win. You can download the 6 individual parts, or the whole thing in one file. I’d recommend watching in parts, with a little break in between each episode, to keep with the “feel” of the original broadcast. It was designed to be a serial, with clifhangers. (Something we forget when we watch the Chicago broadcasts of Doctor Who in the 1980s–since they were all grouped into one program.)

Here’s a link to the Internet Archive results: Quatermass II on the Internet Archive

To make your search more interesting, the serial “Quatermass and the Pit” was also made into a 1967 movie. It’s also titled “Five Million Years To Earth” in the US release, to make things less clear. Unknowningly, the movie was the first Quatermass we saw. It’s in color and the effects are really very good. You’ll also spot a couple of actors you may know, if you are a fan of 1960s BBC TV and movies.

On the bright side, “The Pit” was one of the more popular serials, so it’s easier to find. You can see the whole 1967 movie (and download it, too) on the Google Video site. It’s an excellent copy. It also looks like the original version, in black & white episodes, is out there too. I need to check that out.

Here is the Google Video link: Quatermass and The Pit (The Movie)

The problem with looking for the series is that there are a lot of bits an pieces out there, and a lot is out of order. The Internet is a disorganized thing. If I find good complete copies of the rest of the serials I’ll let you know. For now, if you just have time for one, watch “The Pit” movie version. It’s classic 1950′s-1960′s BBC science fiction.

Update 1: Looks like you can watch “The Pit” (original) on GUBA. Doesn’t look like it can be downloaded, though. I’ll keep searching.

There are some albums that take some getting into. I felt that way with Kate Bush’s latest, Aerial. There are other albums, however, that you instantly and completely enjoy. “Carried To Dust” by Calexico is one of those albums.

The band has been around for a long time, twelve years I think, but this is the first time I’ve encountered them. How do I describe them? James meets Los Lobos? Manu Chao without the nuttiness? A soundtrack to Fear and Loathing, without the drugs?

The songs drift from traditional Mexican to Southwest America to somewhere else entirely. The intermingling is embedded into the songwriting…a given song will drift from English to Spanish and back to English, without you even noticing it. The Spanish heavy songs are wonderful, everything you’d expect from a solid traditional arrangement (without the ‘crying’).

As an added bonus, it’s a solid album, not a collection of 10 singles. It moves from one beautiful track to the next. Check out the MP3 previews on Amazon if you’d like to hear more. The band site also has a full download of the “Two Silver Trees” track.

This is great music, easily the best album I’ve heard in a long time.

Highly recommended.

Well, I was looking for a new piece of electronic equipment. Perhaps a glitzy iPod Touch with Wi-Fi? A BluRay player? Maybe a PlayStation 3? Wii? In true Ron fashion, I looked to the past for my decision: I got a Stanton T.80 Turntable.

That’s right, with all those digital gizmos out there I went for glorious analog. It should be no surprise to my readers, as I’ve recently bemoaned the loss of the B-Side and the true gotta-sit-and-listen album. You gotta make it hard to skip tracks!

And so my FedEx guy delivered my giant Amazon box full of record player goodness. So many of the remaining (and late 80s/early 90s) players are plastic crap, so I had to go with a DJ turntable with all the little flashing lights. But it’s a small price to pay.

The T.80, unlike less expensive belt drive models, is direct drive. Straight arm for scratching, which I will NOT be doing to my albums! Well balanced arm, adjustable weights. I also like its target light, which is a white LED shining on the needle. It will even play 78′s, which is nice if I pick up some old classical recordings.

Since it’s a DJ table, it’s full manual, so you gotta move the arm on your own and start ‘er up with the big START /STOP buttons. There are two of those, which is for some sort of “dualing DJ” things. Pretty solid, too, at about 25 pounds (outside case is plastic, but bottom is metal). Platter is machined aluminium. Solid feel.

And if you can’t guess what’s playing, click on the below thumbnail. Evelyn’s camera grabbed the playing record quite nicely.

Update: I’d also add that the Stanton T.80 offers digital coax out, if you are so inclined. It also has a switch for Line/Phono, so you do NOT need a pre-amp / amp that has a Phono input. That’s very handy.

I recently charged up my long quiet iPod and was skimming through my collection, all in handy MP3 formt. I own all that music, probably 500 albums, having ripped it from CD back in 2002 after I got laid off from Getronics. Best two weeks I spent. And best use of my Linux Beowulf cluster. Back in my day you made your own MP3s and you liked it!

Anyhow, I flipped over to my collection of Kate Bush and cycled through some of her B-sides. Now you youngsters out there might not know what a B-side is. In ancient times there were things called records, many of which were 7″ singles. One side had the main track, the other side had a bonus song which didn’t appear on the full album. They are often called “bonus tracks” these days, if you can find them at all.

Now a lot of these B-sides were just filler. Maybe alternate versions of a song, maybe something that was just good enough to fill up the empty side of a record. But some artists, like Kate, wrote some amazing B-side songs.

You have tracks like Under The Ivy, a two minute piano piece which allows you to focus on her voice. There’s Be Kind To My Mistakes, a fast moving song about love and secrets. And you have one of my favorite B-sides from The Sensual World, I’m Still Waiting. Burning Bridge, Not This Time, Ken — this woman writes better B-side songs than most bands entire albums.

Of course, I’m biased. I’ve been collecting her music for a long time. I have albums in multiple formats. Hounds of Love? Do you want the US CD, the Japanese CD, the UK vinyl, the tape, or the Japanese vinyl? I’ve probably forgotten some formats.

You think I’m crazy to collect multiple vinyls? Well, take a look at my Japanese Kick Inside and compare that to the US album cover. You tell me which is better.

But my point in this: there was a huge collection of really wonderful music, hidden away on the backs of 7-inch 45s and on EPs. Now it’s a single song here, a song there. Pick and choose. Ninety nine cent sound bites. No continuity. No fun. How are the music nerds going to do side by side compares of Hounds of Love to Hounds of Love (Alternative). You miss the whole evolution of a song and the craftsmanship.

And the poor album. That’s another great loss. Gone is wonderful album cover art, in all of its wonderful hugeness. And gone is the idea of making an album. An integrated cohesive collection of songs. That took real art, and now much of what we have is a song or three.

Do me a favor, dust off that old record player and put on a real full length LP album. And listen to that record from start to end, only pausing to flip. Don’t “skip tracks” but really listen and appreciate the work the artist put in (or didn’t) to make that record. You’ll appreciate music that much more.

We were watching Fahrenheit 451 the other day. I’m amazed at how a movie filmed in 1966 can still look so fresh and vibrant. For those who have not watched it, this movie is based on Ray Bradbury’s 1953 novel “Fahrenheit 451.” Roughly it’s about a society that has banned all written form of books, essays, papers, and such. A society depended on audio and pictures as a form of communicating and learning.

There is a scene in this movie that all of a sudden I got chills and for a moment I had flashbacks. This really frightened me. The scene takes place at the home of the main character Montag and his wife Linda. Linda is very excited when Montag arrives home from work. She quickly get dinner served and tells Montag of her great opportunity to be an actress. she is thrilled that ” Cousin ” has selected her for tonight’s play. ” Cousin ” is a regular T.V. personality that these people in this environment watch with regularity. Kinda like are today’s prime time shows such as American Idol and what not. Well as Linda and Montag watches the play unfold and at one point the actors in the program looks dead on to the television viewers and ask Linda, what should we do {blah blah blah }? Linda sitting on the living room floor is so excited and looks over to Montag as if “help me, I don’t know what to say.” Montag signals her to reply but by the time she turns to the screen the actors have taken her reply. Amazing techology!?! So, the story goes on… you’ll need to see this for yourself.

This ” Cousin ” reminded me of a show when we lived temporarily in Puerto Rico called “SUPER XCLUSIVO” with it’s main personality being a hybrid lifesize female puppet named ” La Comay” and her co-male personality Hector (not a puppet). The similarity of ” Cousin ” and ” La Comay ” is that everyone tunes in religiously. La Comay even has her own fan website. I’ve seen very little of La Comay show and from what I observed I noticed that it slightly different from ” Cousin ” La Comay uses combined format of tabloid, journalism and humor. Puertorican loves this combined format. It’s pretty entertaining and at times it brings to surface the ills of our society. In an Island were people are oppressed regularly their venue of expression has made this show a success.

Sadly to say, there are those who would like to keep people ignorant and oppressed even in this modern day.
The thought of one day our society moving in such a direction is concerning and yet there has been and will be idividuals who do whatever it takes to keep such a thing from happening.

By the way, apparently Frank Darabont who directed The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mille has planned to remake Fahrenheit 451 for release sometime either 2008 or 2009. It will be interesting to see his perceptive although I think the 1966 version is quite good.

With oil prices running a muck and most Americans finding themselves financially shortchanged, you wonder why our airwaves more recently are talking about hybrids or hydrogen vehicles when in reality the idea of alternative fuel / resources were being developed or in production since the late 1800′s.

Then you may ask, why did the electric vehicle disappear? Well, either you are driving one or a passanger in one — gasoline power vehicles. Ponder on the forces or situations that made the electric vehicle disappear not only in the late 1800′s, 1960′s, 1970′s, and 1990′s. The story of a fuel efficient electrical vehicle manufactured by General Motors called the “EV1″ and the journey it’s temporary owner had until they had to finally departed is an experience to be shared and an awareness for us all.

In my opinion, Director Chris Paine and his staff present severals prespectives from multiple sources in a fair way. He provides the stories of these vehicle, the people who leased them, their experience, the automaker industry, the government and other players. Also, check out the special feature it contains more goodies.

Here’s a pictures of some of the electric cars that could have been:

1) 2) 3)
4) 5) 6)

1) Thomas Edison 2)1901 Electric Ambulance  3) CitiCar-Vanguard-Sebring
4)Tropica – Renaissance Cars, Inc  5)EV1 – GM 6)RAV4 – Toyota

Luckily there are other manufactures that are interested in Electric Vehicle:

A) B)

C) D)
A)Tesla Roadster B)Fetish – Venturi C)ZAP Xebra Sedan & D)ZAP Truck Xebra PK

To learn more about Electric Vehicle and alternative energy visit:

Plug In America or The Electric Auto Association

Oh, there is one gentleman that really caught my interest his name is Stanford Ovshinsky. Self-made, has approximately 200 patents and a successful business in alternative energy. Sadly to say his wife Iris passed away in 2006. To learn more about Stanford Ovshinsky check out the article from WISE – PBS Alan Alda in Scientific American Frontiers here.

I finally saw Rosie Perez documentary titled, “Yo Soy Boricua, Pa’Que Tu Lo Sepas!” 
This is her directorial debut in which she goes in search of her indentity as a Puerto Rican American citizen.  In this process she not only begins to learn of her family’s history but also the history of Puerto Rico and it’s relationship with the United States.  I journeyed with her from New York to the island itself to Florida and back to New York.  I learned more about the conflicts between the languages, culture, education, work, belief, government and people interactions.

Til this day, I find myself caught between worlds and I understand why Rosie made this documentary except that even now I still feel the same way.  I think a lot has to do with where you’re raised and from where on the island your family lived. 

Luckily for Rosie, she has family members willing to share their stories unlike my own.  I have heard a little here and there but most family members wish not to discuss, are too old to recall or are no longer living with us.  I am aware that my family has a rich history and that there are a few family members with very interesting lives who’s story remains untold.

This sadden me because I’m neither here nor there.  No matter how hard I work, excel, educate or how giving and sincere I am — I’m forever being judged not by who I am but by what I am and the colour of my skin. 

Puerto Rico and Puerto Rican are like an exotic mystical story.  Some American knows or think they know Puerto Ricans and even the younger generation of Puerto Ricans think they know when in reality it is bits & pieces. These bits and pieces are at times quite misleading.  I’m glad that Rosie did this project because it gave me more information and yet it left me with more questions.

It’s true what Rosie said growing up in a Puerto Rican home there is a level of pride that you can’t help but to yell out, ” Viva Puerto Rico, Yo soy Boricua.” 

I’m proud to be an American and live in this great land of opportunities. 
There is a tune that express not only myself but how most Puerto Rican feel. 
It’s called, “En mi viejo San Juan.”