Zeus? Thor? or Something More?

https://twitter.com/i/status/1268738637333700608

By now, most of you have probably seen the video in the twitter link below the picture. If not, check it out.  This is the strangest flash of lightning I have ever seen and it leads to a lot of questions. 

My first question is, is this real? The things I've seen in films from Hollywood are so impressive that if I had never heard of CGI, I would think the things I saw on the screen could be real. They have come a long way since stop motion photography.

Assuming this is real, then what? Is this an alien technology? Something which our ancestors may have considered weapons of the gods, like Zeus's lightning bolt, or Thor's hammer Mjölnir? 

Is it man-made? Something like a Tesla Coil, or something else that our science has invented?

What is it's purpose then? Is it a weapon? Is it a new power source? Or maybe a transport beam?

My final question, would echo those of the Anon who ask Q, on June 5th: 

To which Q answered: "Have faith."  

Does this imply divine intervention? I have so many questions, but no answers. "Have faith."

Blind faith? Perhaps we will know one day, or perhaps we shall never know. 

What do you think? Please let me know in the comments below.

And please remember to recommend!

Hulk SMASH!

In 2008, Sega released the game "The Incredible Hulk" for the Playstaion 2. Of course, they released it on other platforms but I won't talk about them, as I have never played those. The game was a tie-in to the Marvel movie of the same name starting Edward Norton. 

As in the movie, Bruce Banner is looking for a cure to his... condition, there are confrontations with General Ross and the Army, with Emil, Blonsky, and at the end a showdown with the Abomination. But the video game throws a few other known opponents from the comics, such as Major Glenn Talbot, the U-Foes, the Enclave, and even Stark's Hulkbuster.

The gameplay is relatively straight forward but it is rather challenging at times, especially the time critical missions. Hulk is very strong, but so are his opponents. But one of Hulks greatest powers (Which the MCU completely ignored) is RAGE - the madder Hulk gets, the stronger he is. There are a lot of unlockable powers and the game features a lot of Easter eggs from other Marvel properties that you can discover. (Ever want to visit the Daily Bugle and show J. Jonah Jameson what a real menace looks like :) )

There are collectable comic book covers hidden in the city (Most of the game takes place in Manhattan), and there are unlockable character skins for Hulk, such as Gray Hulk or Professor Hulk. 

Truth be told, it's not a great game, but for any fan of Hulk it is well worth playing. Even if you just want to "visit a virtual Manhattan, meet new and interesting characters, and SMASH them".

What do you think of  games which tie-in to movies?

Do you have a favorite, like "Lego Star Wars" or "Harry Potter"?

Are you a Hulk fan? Comics? MCU?

Let me know below in the comments.

And as always, please be sure to recommend!

Dork of the Rings, Onion, That Is...

For most of you, if you want onion rings you can buy them at a local diner, in some fast food restaurants, or pre-made from the frozen food section. When I arrived in Germany, I found this was not the case here. I asked some friends for a home made recipe for them, but unfortunately most of my friends weren't into onion rings, or cooking as far as that was concerned. While on vacation, I bought some cook books to find recipes for things that I easily found in America but not so much here. I had to try them out and in the end I ended up throwing one or two together to get this recipe. I hope you like it.

As a side note, this works great with button mushrooms too.

Dork of the Rings, Onion, That Is...

Ingredients:

2-3 Large onions (Cut into 1/3 inch slices and split into rings)

3 cups butter milk

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp sea salt

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

2/3 cup water

1 tsp lemon or lime juice

1 tbsp. vegetable oil (You'll need more for frying)

1 egg (beaten)

1. In a shallow bowl soak the onions in the butter milk for 30 minutes

2. In a second bowl mix all other ingredients until smooth.

3. Heat oil at a medium-high heat. You can do this on the stove top in a shallow pan if you want to use less oil, in a deep fryer (though I've never tried this in one of those 'low oil' ones), but the best results come from using an electric skillet because it's easier to keep the temperature consistent.  

4. Remove onions from butter milk and dip in the batter one at a time, placing them in the hot oil and fry until golden brown.

5. Dry oil from onion rings on a paper towel.

 Enjoy them best warm!

Please be sure to let me know how they turn out for you.

And as always, please recommend!

I've Got a Tiger

I never had an imaginary friend, and I don’t remember having any favorite stuffed animal. But for some reason I seemed to be able to identify with Calvin quite well. The boy was mischievous, clever, and curious about the world around him. He wasn’t necessarily a bad kid, but he was no angel. I think quite a few of us can relate to that.

A lot of the ideas he would bounce off of his imaginary friend, were the same ones I would with my friends. Though the responses of Calvin’s pet tiger were often much deeper than mine. The best example of this was when Calvin asked Hobbes “Where do you think we go when we die?” to which Hobbes replied “Pittsburgh”. Now I’ve been to Pittsburgh before, and though it is a nice enough place to visit, I sure as heck wouldn’t want to live there let alone have that be my final destination when I die.

I was first introduced to Bill Watterson’s works in the early 90’s. By that time I was already able to buy books with collections of his comic strips at my local post exchange. After the reading the first page I was hooked and ended up leaving the store with four books.

Calvin, Hobbes, and I spent quite a few of those lazy rainy Sundays sharing a laugh. The boy’s imagination seemed limitless, and if he couldn’t scheme out a plan, then leave it to Hobbes to get the job done. From time to time I have to borrow the books from my son, who has assumed guardianship of them, and just sit back and read them with a hot chocolate in hand. Watterson’s books always seem to cheer me up when I’m feeling down. 

I wonder if my son realizes how close he was to being named “Calvin”. Of course, my wife would have objected, but it was still better than “Anakin” or “Bart” (Simpson).

Did you have an imaginary friend growing up, if so what was yours?

Did you know a kid like Calvin?

Do you have a special "something" you do to cheer you up on dark days?

Let me know in the comments below. And as always, please recommend!

 

Let Me (Poem)

Let Me

My dear, have you ever felt alone?

A desolate isolation of heart and soul,

That maddening haunting feeling

Gripping you tightly in its control?

 

Does the cold make you numb?

Feeling the ice constrict your veins

Secretly yearning for it to end

And release you from your pains

 

Do you still dread the dark?

Jump at shadows on the wall

The deafening silence of the night

How it makes your skin crawl.

 

Has fear stopped you in your tracks?

Too afraid to feel love’s embrace

That you shy away from its call

Forever in search of a safer place?

 

Let me be your guiding star

Let my love be your shield

Let my embrace warm your heart

All my weapons are yours to wield

Tales from the Dorkside Episode V: “I Know What I Did That Summer”

“I remember to this day, the bright red Georgia clay.” 

Never being outside of northwestern Pennsylvania, I couldn’t really picture what Lobo was singing about in their song. Heck, the only clay I’d ever seen was gray. But whatever, I enjoyed singing along just the same.

It wasn’t until I had just finished my junior year of high school that I actually found myself boot deep in South Carolinian red clay.        You see, I had signed up for the Army Reserves split option training program, so while all of my buddies were out at the lake, enjoying the summer, I signed up for 8 weeks of hell.


I’d always heard the phrase “hell on Earth” but I never associated it with any place I’d ever been before, and then I was there… In Columbia, South Carolina - Ft. Jackson to be exact. Only later did I determine that “hell on Earth” was a fitting nomenclature for a couple other places as well, such as: Benning, Bragg, and Eustis (Also known as “Even Uncle Sam Thinks It Sucks). Summer in NW PA can get hot, but it ain’t nothing like the wet hot humid woods in the south. And up until that point, I’d never even heard of a “chigger”.


I had seen basic training as shown in some Hollywood movies of that time, they were predominately based on Vietnam era training. I had a rough idea what to expect, some things had changed, and others had not. The “Brown Rounds” would still cuss and chew you out if you weren’t doing what you were supposed to do, but looking back now I can see the seeds of a PC culture were already sown. With Drill sergeants not being able to swear nearly as much as before, and a strict “hands off” approach.


I bonded with a lot of my fellow recruits from all across the States. Quite a few of them were around my age and mainly NG or AR split options. We shared our stories and experiences and got along well, for the most part. A few had to overcome their biases, but by the end of that summer, we were all the same color – Green.

We were in our last weeks of training when it was announced that we would go to the field and learn to build a bivouac. Drill Sgt. Smith was driving, which surprised me as I had heard that he had narcolepsy and would fell asleep spontaneously if he didn’t take his medication for it. So there we were, 10 of us loaded into the back of a deuce and a half, and Drill Sgt. Smith in the cab all by himself. About 10 minutes into the ride, the truck started to swerve. We all laughed because we were sure that the Drill Sgt. was screwing with us. But it happened a couple times, so one of the older RA recruits and squad leader decided to peek around the canvas. The panic in his eyes was enough to tell us, this was no joke. So he crawled around the side of the truck and pushed our slumbering Drill Sgt. Out of the driver’s seat to bring the truck to a stop. I’m not sure what happened, if he forgot to take his pill, or if the dosage was changed or what. We waited there with “sleeping beauty” until the next truck came along and the platoon leader assigned one of the older recruits to drive us to the training site.

When we got there we were split into groups of two and told to build a bivouac with a foxhole and guard it all night. So my buddie “Chief” and I looked around for the perfect spot. We found a nice patch of brush for cover and relatively soft sand to dig in. We spend the whole afternoon digging the whole and looking for things to help us camouflage our position. When the attack came, we were completed unprepared. It wasn’t opposing forces, it wasn’t the cadre, it was an army of fire ants!  Apparently our foxhole was dug a little too close to an anthill we overlooked when scouting our spot. Needless to say, neither one of us got much sleep that night.

When morning finally arrived, we were tired and hungry and just wanted to get the hell out of there. I had just finished patting down the last of the sand that filled our hell hole, when I noticed “Chief” walking around in a daze. I thought oh no, he had a reaction to the fire ants! I sat him down and tried to talk with him as he stared at the ground. When he finally found his voice, he asked me something which nearly brought me to tears…

“Have you seen my Kevlar?” (Helmet)


I hope you've enjoyed this episode of "Tales from the Dorkside".


Be sure to recommend, if you did.


Thank you

Somebody, MCFA! (Make Comedy Funny Again!)

(Sorry about the flash)

As I may have mentioned a time or two before, I live in Germany and have been here for quite a while now. I’ve come to love and respect many things that Germany has to offer such as the beer, the history (I’m referring to pre-Nazi history), the old castles and churches which have stood over a thousand years. But regardless of how long I have been here there are somethings which I still, and probably never will understand or embrace. One of those being German comedy.

When I first got to Germany, my German friends tried to introduce me to a whole slew of German comedians. At first I thought maybe it’s just the language barrier, so as my German improved I watched them again. No that wasn’t it.

Maybe it was the cultural references, after all I didn’t get here until after the fall of the wall and in school they tended to revolve around Nazi German history when referring WWII. So I didn’t know much about Germany after the Marshall plan. So I made an attempt to learn about what the Germans watched on T.V. and what music they listened to primarily from the 60’s through the 80’s. No, I still did not find German comedy funny.

So I went back to watching American comedies, but unfortunately I could only watch them on German T.V. or in movie theaters dubbed in German. At this point, my German was good enough that I knew what was being said, but it was still really annoying because I knew how the actor’s real voice sounded, and if the Germans used a voice actor that sounded nothing like the original voice it was distracting. (Eddie Murphy was a prime example, as his “German” voice was very high pitched and shrill)

When the Big Bang Theory first aired in 2007, my family in the States told me how funny it was, so naturally I was excited when they finally started showing it in Germany. Except for Johnny Galecki, who I had last seen when he was a child in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, the actors were all new to me. So I didn’t think I would have a problem watching it in German. But there was another problem…

I watch an episode with my wife and could not understand what my mother could think was funny here. There was a couple situations that were funny, but for the most part it really wasn’t. So we watched another one, same thing. It wasn’t funny. It wasn’t until I saw an episode in English that I understood why.

The Germans didn’t understand the original jokes, they couldn’t get the cultural references, and they just ended up trying to rewrite the dialog so a German could understand a funny situation, and they failed miserably. I have since stopped watching anything from American television that has been dubbed in German. I only watch series in the English language on streaming services, but now it’s getting harder and harder to find something to laugh with or about. (Even in English)

Somebody, MCFA! (Make Comedy Funny Again!)

Have you ever had the feeling that something seemed to be 'Lost In Translation' in a movie or a show that you were watching?

Have you ever seen German funny comedy?

What was your favorite comedy series?

Do you still watch T.V.? and if not do you miss it?

Let me know what you think in the comments below :)

And please remember to recommend!