Sunday, January 29, 2017

OLD TIME RADIO

OLD TIME RADIO - It began in the twenties and lasted until the fifties. Some say later. In a simpler age before media saturated every moment. The big three television broadcast channels you watch today actually started as radio channels. There were comedies and dramas but my favorites are tales of the supernatural and horror. Broadcast radio was free and at the time even more popular than TV. Families rushed home to huddle around the radio in the living room. With titles like The Mysterious Traveler, Inner Sanctum, Suspense and Lights Out; OTR plays feel like sitting around a campfire listening to ghost stories. Want to browse some and have a listen? Do a search for “horror radio plays archive.org”, download the free MP3 and upload to your device. Turn off all the lights and get prepared for a scare! Don’t say I didn’t warn you…


















Sunday, January 22, 2017

STAR 80

STAR 80 - While working at Dairy Queen, Dorothy Ruth Hoogstraten met Paul Snider. He took photographs and sent them to Playboy magazine. The camera loved her fresh faced innocence, she was on her way to becoming a star. She moved to LA, changed her name to Dorothy Stratten and started working as a bunny. The pair married the same year. Soon she was Playboy's Playmate of the Month, and quickly after that, Playmate of the Year. Hugh Hefner secured several guest starring roles in TV and movies for her. Sensing trouble, Hef encouraged her to cut ties with Snider. Her ex felt as if he was losing her. He began to have a private investigator follow her around LA when they separated. After trying to reach Snider for hours he broke into his bedroom and discovered two bodies. Police determined he murdered her, raped her and shot himself. Dorothy was only 20 years old when she died. Her lover at the time, Peter Bogdanovich, was making a movie with her which he struggled to finish. He wrote a book, titled The Killing of the Unicorn. Stratten's rise and fall was depicted in the 1983 film entitled Star 80.


















Star 80

Sunday, January 15, 2017

TOP ASTRONOMICAL MYSTERIES

TOP ASTRONOMICAL MYSTERIES 
1.    Earth’s Solar System has differences that aren’t easily explained, compared to discoveries of alien planets around other stars. Such as the position of the gas giants and a possible as yet undiscovered exoplanet.

2.    The Sun's corona puzzles scientists because its ultra-hot outer atmosphere reaches 10.8 million degrees and coronal heating that occurs in the sun's upper atmosphere.

3.    Cosmic rays flow into the solar system from deep space, the origin and great strength (100 million times more than manmade collider particles) of these subatomic particles is a mystery.

4.    Supernovas are fuel depleted massive stars that blast so bright they outshine galaxies. Scientists want to understand what happens inside a star before the ignition.

5.    Reionization of the universe occurred right after the big bang in an age when hydrogen gas cleared and became translucent to ultraviolet light. These processes are not understood.

6.    Dark energy makes up 73% of the universe, theories state it is pulling the universe apart. Astronomers use it to explain the rapidly expanding universe.

7.   
Dark matter is invisible, has mass--23% of the universe-- but can’t be seen. Its presence is detected by gravitational pull on other objects.

8.    Missing Baryons make up the missing 5% and science suspects they may be found between galaxies in intergalactic medium but can only account for half of this material.










Wednesday, January 4, 2017

SOCIAL MEDIA STATS

Google + stats: 901,879 views as of January 2017


Blogger stats: 566,174 page views as of January 2017


Goodreads stats: 5,181 friends & 526 followers as of January 2017


Twitter stats: 50,100 followers as of January 2017


Podbean stats: 1,773 plays as of January 2017


Facebook stats: 1,674 page likes & 22,000 post likes as of January 2017



Sunday, January 1, 2017

HORROR 2017

HORROR 2017 – We’ll see if 2017 is a better year for horror movies. There’s an abundance of re-makes not worth mentioning unless they have something new to offer. Here’s my short list of (potentially good) films. And a similar link to last year’s post, interesting to note that four weren’t released last year.