This is why my office is cooler than yours:
Whenever some 7 foot tall monster has the back of my favorite neck against the wall, or some twinkie Moon Hoax believer is assaulting my sensabilities, I just remember what Jack Burton or Buzz Aldrin would do.
Then I smile to myself and think that if my own big troubles seem too much to handle, I should walk a mile in someone else’s moon boots.
If you went to BadAstronomy.com and found yourself here, never fear: the BA Blog has moved to its new home at Discover Blogs. The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking and all that) is still online, too.
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
Contact me: The Bad Astronomer "at" gmail "dot" com
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"Reading this book is like getting punched in the face by Carl Sagan. Frightening, but oddly exhilarating."
-- Daniel H. Wilson, author of How to Survive a Robot Uprising
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July 8th, 2005 at 10:07 am
“Wait a minute, wait a minute, I’m a reasonable guy, but I’ve just experienced some unreasonable things.”
I actually bought a Jack Burton tank top at the
Wing Kong Exchange. Great for working out in and for wearing when visiting any number of Chinese hells.
July 8th, 2005 at 10:59 am
I actually have an “Indeed” award from WingoKong.net, but I haven’t put it up yet. BTiLC is one of my all-time favorite movies.
July 8th, 2005 at 11:32 am
Right movie, wrong character. If your troubles are becoming too much to handle, it’s Lo Pan you want on your side.
If the Jedi Council had just hired Lo Pan and put “Neutralize Sith” in the contract, there would only have been a need for one prequel that was 30 minutes long.
And it would be the best 30 minutes of butt kicking, bone vaporizing, soul destroying action ever seen on or off the silver screen. Lo Pan would not only made the Sith his personal [b-word]s, but he’d eat them alive after making them clean his apartment and cook him breakfast, and save their writing souls for a mid-afternoon snack.
Lo Pan: “Shut up Mr Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!”
July 8th, 2005 at 2:05 pm
Go Buzz!
July 8th, 2005 at 2:40 pm
darn, yet another obscure movie I’ll have to see over the summer…ah well, sounds cool!
July 8th, 2005 at 6:00 pm
I want one of those posters.
July 8th, 2005 at 8:17 pm
Wow, each day, I find out Phil and I are a lot alike… except I don’t have a degree, and I’m not a scientist, and I don’t have a website, and… Oh, never mind. Still, BA, I’m amazed at some of the things you & I both enjoy. (My posts on the BABlog may not have shown that.)
BTiLC is one of those films that people either like, or they’ve never heard of it. It’s one that I enjoyed way back when it was new to VHS. Some friends and I had rented it for “bad movie nite,” based upon some of the bad reviews we recalled hearing, but we figured it wouldn’t really be too bad, and maybe even fun. It was much better than we’d anticipated, though definitely hard to classify. It stuck with me for some reason, enough that when I later saw a clearance sale copy of the soundtrack (on vinyl!) at a university bookstore, I snatched it up. Of course, I now have the film on dvd. (Still have that album, too, but I need to fix my old turntable.)
Anyway, interesting combo of “art” in your office. I love it. (I have a drawing of a Space: 1999 Eagle hanging in my computer cabinet at home, but no movie posters… yet!)
July 8th, 2005 at 8:22 pm
Need to clarify something: my statement “…My posts on the BABlog may not have shown that…” refers to the fact that we seem to be interested in a lot of similar things, not to the fact that I’m amazed about us being interested in similar things. I just got home from a long day at work, so I’m less articulate than usual.
July 8th, 2005 at 9:11 pm
CR, I have a half-completed Eagle model right in front of me now.
The Big Trouble poster I bought on eBay for $20 I think. Worth every penny. The DVD of the movie rocks too.
July 8th, 2005 at 11:06 pm
Re: the S:99 Eagle model… That’s great! A couple of years ago, I completed my own model of an Eagle and entered it in a couple of contests. One of the groups posted a pic of it on their website (I hope I copied it down correctly)… http://www.thegluecrew.com/2003show/pics/77.jpg
My Eagle is a re-release of the kit that was available when Space: 1999 was originally on the air, but I know there have been a lot of different ones produced since then… some of them are quite huge in size and in price. Which one do you have?
OK, I know this might seem WAY off-topic, but I feel it ties in with cool office space stuff. (Some people might say “geeky” instead of cool… oh, well!) Anyway, it’s kind of fun to have a lighter topic to talk about once in a while!
July 8th, 2005 at 11:22 pm
Hey, I just noticed something on that poster of Buzz in your office… look at the top of the poster in your photograph… could those be multiple banks of studio lights?! Aha, proof that the landings were faked!
Of course, I’m JUST KIDDING, everyone! I know it’s light reflecting off of the poster’s top edge. (Hmm… I wonder if my little joke will actually misinterpereted as a serious point by any real HB’s. That would teach me to kid around!)
July 8th, 2005 at 11:23 pm
Wow, that looks *great*. Nice work. I just have the AMT re-issue.
But if I’m going to brag (and it’s my website, so I must one-up you), I’ll say here that in 2000, Catherine Schell invited me and my family to her bed and breakfast in France. So there.
July 9th, 2005 at 7:17 am
If you’re familiar with “Orbiter” by Martin Schweiger, I’ve built a 3D Eagle model for it that you can fly around… there are a bunch of different versions with different flight models.
July 9th, 2005 at 8:14 am
Arroooga! Lava Lamp alert!
July 9th, 2005 at 9:21 am
Thanks, BA! (By the way, the two blue anime spaceship models behind the Eagle are also mine.) Oh, and I bow to your one-upmanship… sheesh, that pretty much buries me! I did meet & talk to sf author Timothy Zahn once (nice guy), and later that day walked by actor Walter Koenig, but that’s it for celebrity stuff for me.
On the other hand, BA, you said Ms Schell invited you to her b & b… did you actually go?
As for Frying Tiger’s “Orbiter” Eagle, that sounds cool. Seems like different people love to make all sorts of different add-ons for that simulator… I’d seen some screen caps someone posted of another AMT model: the Galactic Cruiser Leif Ericson (shown flying by the ISS).
July 9th, 2005 at 10:46 am
I wish I could have gone. But France is a looooong way away. I had a major crush on her in my Space:1999 days, and meeting her at the Space:1999 con in 2000 was very cool. I wrote about thta on my website: http://www.badastronomy.com/fun/travelogs/space1999.html
July 9th, 2005 at 1:50 pm
OK, BA, I am officially jealous. Where I work, we have boring yearplanners and sometimes experiment plans on our office walls. I guess it’s tough to encapsulate the cool/fun aspects of biochemistry in a single image. OK, yeah, there’s the DNA structure, but I work with proteins not DNA.
BTiLC was not only an exceedingly fun movie, it opened the way into the mass market for a great many other kung-fu-style movies. Without BTiLC (and, of course, Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain), there would have been no Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (inter alia).
I remember Space:1999 only vaguely. I can’t remember any details, but I do remember enjoying it immensely, and I remember being very jealous of a friend who had the die-cast Eagle toy. That must have been around 1980, I guess.
July 9th, 2005 at 2:36 pm
Great movie.
I do miss those red boxing gloves you installed on Buzz.
July 9th, 2005 at 11:24 pm
For the uninitiated:
Just take if from ol’ Jack Burton on a dark and stormy night…
When some wild-eyed eight foot tall maniac grabs you by your neck and taps the back of your favorite head up against a bar room wall and looks you crooked in the eye and asks “Have you paid your dues?”
You just stare that big sucker back in the eye and do what ol’ Jack Burton does at a time like that… “Have you paid your dues Jack?” “Yes sir, the check is in the mail.”
July 10th, 2005 at 10:04 pm
Is it getting hot in here or is it just me?
July 27th, 2005 at 9:50 pm
I had heard about good ole moon walker Aldrin giving a sucker punch to that nut but I never thought I would ever hear it!
Neat!
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