Quantum Leap: Al At The Game

Beal's at work. I'm guessing he's bopping around Wikipedia on his lunch. Whatever he's doing, he sent me this just before I'm going for mine:

Strange Fact About Quantum Leap:

"In the second season episode "All Americans", Al notes that he is watching Super Bowl XXX and that the Steelers are three points behind. The game did in fact feature the Steelers, who trailed the Dallas Cowboys by exactly three points at two different points in the game. This is notable because the episode was filmed over six years before the game actually took place."

This doesn't surprise me since Quantum Leap could only have been real. I've never woken up in a white room, leading me to believe I've never been 'inhabited' by Dr. Sam Beckett. Since the year when Dr. Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap Accelerator (and vanished, I might add) is now past, I no longer will be (he can't travel forward in time, only backwards and forwards within his own lifetime from the point of being born until the point of stepping into the Quantum Leap Accelerator (and vanishing.))

This 'rule' was broken a couple of times in the televised representation of Quantum Leap, but they were really important times. I don't think that would apply to anything that could happen in Derby, to me, now. However, it is important to note that although the 'episodes' in the series were only ever (in my recollection (swiss cheese memory? it could be...)) set in America or Vietnam, this is only down to the bias of American Television Stations and/or American Television Executive Producers. This doesn't mean that a person in Derby could not have been affected in some life-affirming/heart-warming way by the real Dr. Sam Beckett, at some point between the fifties and 1995-ish.

Do you remember waking up in a white room?
Were you ever approached by a man with a rainbow calculator and a cigar?
Have you ever suspected someone close to you to be acting 'strange' and making pets and small children act equally 'strange'?
At any point in your life, have you, or someone you know, ever walked into a room wide-eyed and muttered "Oh Boy!"



Please write to:

Time Travel Opportunists
The Statue Of the Boy on the Ram
Main Centre in Derby
Wednesday 12/3/1992
Anytime between 12:01PM and 12:02PM.

Knight Rider In Derby On A Leap Year Friday

This week I passed my driving test. I continue to be very happy about it, even now, five days hence.

Today it is raining, and it is cold. I need to go to the Post Office. Not the one five minutes walk away, but the one on the other side of town near the train station where all your parcels end up when they inevitably don't fit through your nostril of a letterbox and the postman still hasn't figured out that your front door bell doesn't work. That one. And it's raining. And it's really cold. Siberia cold.
Northern Norway (recently inaugurated) Seed Bank cold.
Ice sculpture of Jack Nicholson in the maze at the end of The Shining cold.

The car is parked about five minutes (walk) away in the opposite direction of the train station. It occurs to me now that Knight Rider really had no clear domestic application in Los Angeles (is that where it was set? Well, if not, this applies to anywhere where one could wear an open leather jacket with nothing underneath and not get a cough) beyond showing off, and the novelty of having a car with good old dry English charisma to keep you awake on long journeys, or break the tension when your adrenaline level and chance of dying is high.

Were one to have Kit (the name of the car in Knight Rider) in Derby, on a rainy Friday in February on a day that only exists once every four years, one could use the small 'fob' that comes with your keys to request Kit to come and pick you the hell up. Then you could vent spleen on how cold it is:

Me: "Blimey it's cold."
Kit the car from Knight Rider: "Good afternoon Biff. I can confirm that it is indeed 'cold'."
Me: "It's flipping deep space cold."
Kit: "The current temperature in deep space is -500 degrees centigrade. The correct term for this level of cold would be 'sub-zero'. It would be incorrect to compare the outside temperature here with that of deep space."
Me: "Right."
Kit: "Where would you like to go today Biff?"
Me: "Post Office please."
Kit: "The Wardwick or Midland Road?"
Me: "Midland Road please, Kit."
Kit: "Has the postman still not figured out that the bell doesn't work?"
Me: "No, not yet."
Kit: "What an absolute tool."

Brand Name Dilemma

15:01

It is Friday at one minute past three in the afternoon.
I am working in the internet in my front room.
It has started raining. It's gone dark. Like there's been a powercut in the sky. I didn't have the light on, but now I can't see anything.
It's snowing as well.
I am moving the laptop monitor towards my notebook to read my list of things to do. I really can't see a thing.
I hope this isn't permanent.
I'm putting the light on.

365 Films: January

I made some resolutions when 2007 became 2008 (this took approximately two days).
Looking at the list, most of them are actually tasks. Not tasks...more like projects. Definitely not targets.
One of these projects is this one: to watch 365 films in 2008.

I like films. That's one of my reasons for doing it. If I didn't like films I probably wouldn't bother, unless I really wanted to like films. Even then 365 of them is not a little extreme (that's one a day).

I don't think I saw enough films in 2007. That's another reason. I am a hoarder. I hoard and collect things. This isn't exclusive to objects. It applies also to things like 'knowledge' and 'culture'. I wouldn't mind staying in a bit more in 2008. I was out a lot in 2007. There are many reasons.

Here are the films I watched in January (there are 31 days in January and there are 31 films in this list, which means I'm on target.) I enjoyed every single one of these films:

1. Dirty Dancing, 2. Before Sunrise, 3. Before Sunset, 4. Sense & Sensibility, 5. Twenty-Four Seven, 6. Blade Runner, 7. Meet The Fockers, 8. All Quiet On The Western Front, 9. The Great Train Robbery, 10. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, 11. Who's That Knocking At My Door, 12. Survive Style 5+, 13. Primer, 14. Zodiac, 15. I'm Not There, 16. Tideland, 17. Elf, 18. Spellbound, 19. The Beat That My Heart Skipped, 20. Rain Man, 21. Falcons, 22. Helvetica, 23. Inner Space, 24. The Last Kiss, 25. Spiderman Three, 26. Zeitgeist, 27. Cinema Paradiso, 28. Lives Of Others, 29. Bubba Ho-Tep, 30. Shopgirl, 31. Hallam Foe.

Some of these films I had seen before, but that isn't an issue. But if I watch any of them again in 2008 they won't count. That's the rules.

This CD

I cannot work, for this CD is too beautiful.
I am at home. I am working from home. I should probably turn the CD off...
This CD is too beautiful to turn off.
I will probably just sit here and let it finish being beautiful by itself.
I am staring at the screen of my computer where I am 'working'
But I am not using my eyes
Because this CD is too beautiful.

Thankyou ( or On The Enjoyment Of 'Elf')

Thankyou John Favreau for directing the film 'Elf'.
Thankyou David Berenbaum for writing the film 'Elf'.
I would also like to thank Susie Farris for casting Will Ferrell as Buddy (the Elf) who I found very funny, and Zooey Deschanel who is an angel.
Zooey Deschanel is also a very good singer, as well as being an angel, and also a fine actress. She was in another film called 'All The Real Girls' that I enjoyed and watched twice.
I also liked the fact that Peter Dinklage was in it who I saw in the film 'The Station Agent' (which I also enjoyed).

Thankyou also to Beal for lending me the DVD.
Elf.