What Celeb Do You Look Like?

There is a website at which you can upload your photo and it calculates which celebs you look like. The site also can be a tool for charting your family tree. Check out My Heritage. Here are my results:



You can also morph yourself into any one of the celebs you look like. It's quick and rally funny! Just another play on the computer in our "copious spare time!" ;)

"Minority Report" Could Happen

I read a disturbing article in Newsday the other day and have been meaning to post about it. "Homeland Security Exploring Mass-scanning System" describes the federal government's efforts to design a technological means to identify someone who is THINKING of committing a terrorist attack! I don't know if you saw the movie, "Minority Report" with Tom Cruise. It envisioned a future in which, through a combination of science and psychics, they could predict if someone would commit a crime in the future, and arrest them before they did it. I thought it was a pretty laughable movie...that is, until I read this article. Here is an excerpt:

Tools to fight terror?
Federal Homeland Security officials are exploring how technology can help screeners identify people entering the U.S. with "hostile intent" through two different programs:

FUTURE ATTRIBUTE SCREENING TECHNOLOGY (FAST) PROJECT SENSOR FUSION
Seeking a system that could detect deceptive behavior through physiological and behavioral cues including heartbeat, respiration and facial expression. Technologies used could include thermal imaging, infrared cameras and audio and eye-tracking.

PROJECT HOSTILE INTENT
Monitoring facial expressions and other behavioral, speech and physiological cues through video monitors to identify people "involved in possible malicious or deceitful acts" before they commit a crime. Would work in real time and be "non-invasive," without disrupting the flow of passengers.

And did you know this?:
"Behavioral detection is already used by specially trained officers in the Transportation Security Administration - with 273 arrests made as a result since June 2004, said spokesman Christopher White. That detection is done by individuals trained to recognize subtle facial expressions. "We're very encouraged by the program and we plan to expand it," White said."

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

I'm still here!

Yeah, I know...I haven't been around her much lately. I've been busy with writing and theatre. We have three productions coming up: "Hate Mail" next weekend. It's a hilarious spin-off from "Love Letters." Then mid-September, we have "300 Stories of Sag Harbor." But Stacy's and my latest and biggest project is "Homofiles." We've been developing this play [and here is some text from the intro letter we've developed] with the goal of significantly raising awareness and understanding of gay and lesbian, bisexual and transgender life as a normative state; exploring how and why discrimination and violence still exists here; and illuminating what sometimes lies beneath the thin veneer of liberality. The play will be monologue-driven and feature several adult actors portraying a multitude of roles. We plan to use the historic success of “Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues” as the inspiration to create a springboard for dialogue among diverse audiences.

The foundation of the play is built on actual interviews we've been conducting with men and women of wide ranging ages and ethnicities. It will give voice to the various dimensions of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender life in America.

So yeah, that's what I've been up to. And looking for a real job. Since theatre just doesn't pay. Just in case anyone wondered...

Farewell, Harry

And so, the seventh and final book of the great Harry Potter epic tale, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, arrived this past weekend. My copy, pre-ordered since March, landed in my PO box on Saturday, and I couldn't wait to dive in. I had re-read the previous two books in anticipation, and opened the treasured tome Saturday afternoon, ready to lose myself in Harry's world of magic and adventure, good and evil, honor and mischief, laughter and tears.

Simply because of its popularity, I resisted the lure of the Harry Potter phenom. Until, that is, just after the third book, Harry Potter and Prisoner of Azkaban, was released in 1999. It was then that I finally decided to see what all the hubub was about, since it WAS a favorite genre, and picked up a paperback of the first book, the Sorceror's Stone (1997). I read the whole book in one day. There are books that are so good that when I put them down, they scream out to me so loudly that I can barely focus on anything else. JK Rowling's book was just that kind of book. As soon as I finished it, I went out and bought the hardcover of the next one, HP and the Chamber of Secrets and then the third, and I gobbled them up. Now I had to wait a year with everyone else for the 4th book, but I also had the films (that's for another blog)!

With the 4th, 5th, and 6th books, I tried valiantly to make them last, but read each within a day or two, not having the willpower to put them down for long. Rowling's writing style is very nearly hypnotic. Simple, yet elegant. Easy, yet challenging. Brilliant. As was the intricate, epic, seven-years long plot, not including background and set-ups from several previous generations. The themes are mythic, Joseph Campbell would have been impressed: the hero's journey, good vs. evil, human weaknesses vs human strengths. Wonderful messages imparted, better than in the lame fairy tales we heard as children. "It's not your abilities that make you who you are, it's the choices you make." - one of my favorites from the first book. I hear it's already required reading in some schools. I think that's just a beginning.

And so, here we are at the final book. All the questions over these last few years, the guessing...when Harry finally stands against his nemesis, who will walk away? Who among Harry's loyal friends will die? Is Snape, the seemingly evil Potions Master really Dumbledore's man? Or do his actions tell the truth? So many more questions, but these are at the front of any HP fan's mind. It is a testament to Rowling's talent that we have come to care so much for these characters. She has created such multi-dimensional, REAL people of them that we feel we have lived the last 7 years of their lives with them. We have grown to love them as our own friends and family.

I finished the final 3 chapters and epilogue this morning. I cried a lot during the last quarter of the book...yes, I am emotionally invested. I believe that Rowling ended the book the best possible way. There were other ways she could have ended it, but I am happy with this ending. And it is an ending, I believe. I hope she doesn't give in to the fans who are already starting up a campaign for more HP books. I myself look to the future for what Rowling has to share with us. I am hopeful that there are more wonderful tales from the mind that dreamed up the World of Harry Potter. In the meantime, I plan to go back to the beginning...

The Good News and the Bad News...

I know, I’ve been gone quite awhile. I feel like I’ve been sick for months! The day after my birthday, right after my second to last post, I had a very weird episode. For some reason, we still don’t know why, my body became dehydrated (despite the three bottles of water I had already drunk) – my heart rate shot up to the 140s (nearly double normal), my blood pressure was nearly inaudible (they eventually got a reading of 90 over 70), I was exhausted and short of breath. Ended up in the hospital for a couple of days. The good news is, turns out my heart is healthy and strong. What most likely happened is that the dehydration triggered a misfire in my heartbeat that started the whole racing heartbeat and low blood pressure. I'm on medication to keep it that way for now...but we still don't know what made me dehydrated. It's a mystery. THEN I came down with a crummy summer cold last week. So this is why I’ve been MIA. I feel like this week I am finally re-entering the world after a long time underground!

The bad news is...here is something scary I recently learned:

INTERNET DOOMSDAY CREEPS CLOSER
Steve Watson, Infowars.net, Monday, June 4, 2007

“Recent proposals in the U.S. Congress are taking a huge swipe at freedom in America once again by aiming to impose multiple different forms of crippling taxation and restriction on users of the internet.

“State and local governments this week resumed a push to lobby Congress for far-reaching changes on two different fronts: gaining the ability to impose sales taxes on Net shopping, and being able to levy new monthly taxes on DSL and other Internet-service connections. One senator is even predicting taxes on e-mail, reports CNet.”

How did I not hear about this until just now? It's bad enough we have to pay to access the Internet, but now they are going to TAX us to get here? Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.