Despite the fact that I’ve seen dozens of zombie films over the years, somehow I missed this one — the one that turned Night of the Living Dead into a series. 1978’s Dawn of the Dead is the second film in the “Living Dead” series of films by George Romero.

In Dawn of the Dead, the zombie apocalypse that originally began in Night of the Living Dead has continued to grow. Now, major cities have begun to fall under swarms of zombies — the recently dead who have become reanimated and have only one thing on their mind: eating human flesh.

This film follows the story of four people: Roger and Peter, members of the Philadelphia SWAT team dealing with the hoards of zombies, and Francine and Stephen, two Philadelphia news reporters. Stephen, pilot of the station’s news helicopter, plans to escape the city before it completely implodes; Francine (Stephen’s co-worker and girlfriend) and the two SWAT team members join him.

Just outside of town the film’s four protagonists discover an abandoned mall. The mall turns out to be a great source of material goods like food and water and guns, but first it has to be secured. This is done by first sealing off the entrances and blocking them with large trucks, and then ridding the mall of all remaining zombies one bullet at a time.

Just when our four heroes have settled into their new reality, the mall is attacked by a roving motorcycle gang. Initially the gang seems more interested in simply looting than anything, but after Stephen begins firing shots at them, Roger realizes that they have just declared war. In addition to the battle between the two groups of survivors, the biker gang also manages to let hundreds of zombies re-enter the mall.

More than simply a zombie flick, Dawn on the Dead pokes at society by having the undead return to what they knew in life — shopping. Even in a world left with no economy, the biker gangs steal money and televisions from within the mall. Even a few of the zombies are seen wearing stolen jewelry from the mall.

The film’s make up and effects, done by Tom Savini, are simply over the top. Severed arms, legs, and corpses litter the mall everywhere you look. The only way to stop a zombie is by putting a bullet in their brain and our four heroes dispense hundreds of them on screen. If forehead-mounted bullet squibs and brain-splattered walls aren’t your thing, this film is not for you. The film’s effects were shocking enough in 1978 that the film, unable to avoid an NC-17 (“X”) rating, was released without any rating at all.

Also shocking is that not all the protagonists survive. In the original script none of them did; on set, Romero had a change of heart and let half of them walk (fly) away.

Dawn of the Dead is a worthy successor to Night of the Living Dead. It deserves respect not just for what it did for the genre, but also because it’s a good survival horror film. You’ll never walk through a dark mall without looking over your shoulder again.

(This review is a part of my month-long October 2014 A-Z Horror Reviews.)

For the letter “C” I considered watching C.H.U.D. (which I’ve never seen) or Chopping Mall (which I’ve seen a hundred times), but as I thumbed through my horror DVDs I realized I haven’t watched the original Child’s Play in probably a decade and I was curious to see how the film stands up today.

For half a century, the horror genre was represented by a small handful of iconic characters: Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy, the Wolfman, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. With the rise of the slasher genre, my generation’s four-pack of bad boys became Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, and the baddest doll of them all, Chucky from 1988’s Child’s Play.

Child’s Play opens with Detective Mike Norris in hot pursuit of two criminals, Eddie Caputo and Charles Lee Ray. After Caputo ditches his partner in crime, Ray and Norris duck into a nearby toy store while exchanging gunfire. Ray, mortally wounded in the exchange, quickly performs a black magic chant and transfers his soul into a nearby Good Guy doll, giving birth to both the film’s villain and an entire franchise.

Through somewhat questionable logic Chucky climbs back into his Good Guy packaging, ends up in a hobo’s shopping cart, and allows himself to be sold to one Karen Barclay. Karen unknowingly purchases the possessed doll as a birthday present for her six-year-old son, Andy.

Once inside the Barclay’s home Chucky wastes little time in driving a hammer into his first victim’s head, Karen’s friend (and Andy’s babysitter) Maggie. While Andy puts two and two together pretty quickly, he (logically) has a tough time convincing the adults around him (his mother and Detective Norris) that Chucky is alive.

The film briefly toys with the audience in making us think that Andy might possibly be the killer, but it’s abandoned pretty quickly as we begin to see Chucky walk and talk on his own. After disposing of Caputo (his former partner who abandoned him), Chucky is wounded in another altercation with Detective Norris. Chucky’s then visits his former Voodoo teacher, Dr. Death, who explains to him (and us) that his (Charles Lee Ray’s) soul will soon be stuck in the Chucky doll forever unless he can transfer his soul into the first person he revealed his true identity to. That, of course, turns out to be six-year-old Andy.

This is turning out to be one crappy birthday.

Like most horror villains, it turns out Chucky has a weakness; his heart. And I don’t mean emotionally, I mean literally, you have to shoot him in the heart. (If you just had a visual of a human heart and circulatory system somehow developing inside this plastic doll, you’re overthinking the film.) The visual of a burnt and partly dismembered Chucky fighting to the end* mirrors Sarah Connnor’s final showdown with the T-800 in 1984’s Terminator, and like that film, the protagonists here are forced to stop what appears to be an unstoppable force.

(*There are six movies in the franchise; Chucky’s “end” is somewhat relative.)

Prior to the release of the sequel, I couldn’t help but wonder what happened after this film ended. Maggie’s death has been ruled a homicide (she did take a hammer to the face), and two detectives will have to explain back at the station why they pumped a burnt up doll full of bullets inside an apartment building.

The film’s special effects are surprisingly good. The change is readily apparent each time Chucky changes from a puppet to a guy in a costume, but the doll as a practical effect works. While some part of this is due to the special effects crew, a big part is due to the wonderful voice work of Brad Dourif, who completely sells his performances, both as Charles Lee Ray and Chucky.

Like Freddy Krueger, somewhere along the way Chucky lost his edge and began delivering more snarky one-liners than stabbings in later sequels. In the beginning though, Chucky was downright evil although not particularly prolific in his killing. Child’s Play delivers a total of six deaths, two of which are Charles Lee Ray’s and Chucky’s!

While Child’s Play delivers a few jumpy moments, it’s hard to be scared by the film at this point. More scary, I think, is the thought of experiencing something with no rational explanation. In the film’s sequel we learn that that Karen Barclay ended up in a mental institution, and why shouldn’t she? Nobody will ever believe her story, despite the fact she knows it is true. It’s a life-changing and permanent paradigm-shifting event that would probably drive any of us mad.

(This review is a part of my month-long October 2014 A-Z Horror Reviews.)

I love the awkward juxtaposition of setting a horror film during the Christmas holiday season. Black Christmas uses this to its advantage by creating several awkward and haunting moments. There’s a scene in the film where a sorority girl is being murdered upstairs while children sing carols downstairs at the front door. It’s disturbing and uncomfortable to watch, which is what makes horror movies great.

In Black Christmas, a sorority is under attack by a mysterious and creepy killer (“Billy”) who taunts the sisters with obscene, threatening, and occasionally unintelligible phone calls. With a body count of seven the film is often referred to as the first slasher film, but it doesn’t feel like one. The film’s pace is slow (like, 1970s-horror slow) and spends more time building tension than spilling blood. In fact, of those seven murders, one takes place within the first five minutes and four take place in the last five, with roughly an hour and a half between killings for viewers to ponder “who is the killer” and, more importantly, “who’s gonna get it next?”

I’m about to spoil the ending to a 40-year-old movie in the next paragraph. You have been warned.

The twist is that the calls are coming from inside the house. Black Christmas, released five years before When a Stranger Calls, appears to be the first full-length movie to use this gimmick, based on the urban legend that dates back to the 1960s. Here, the gimmick is milked for all its worth with police listening in on a remote handset as a phone linesman rushes down rows of clickity mechanical switches, manually searching for the one that will reveal where the calls are originating from.

Unlike modern horror films in which writers, directors, and perhaps audiences need to know more about the killer’s background, vintage horror wasn’t always that way. While Rob Zombie’s remake of Halloween dedicated much of the film to Michael Myers’ childhood, the original attempted to do the opposite by stripping all personality away from the killer (even simply referring to him as “The Shape”). And while the 2006 remake of Black Christmas apparently delves into the killer’s background, the original does not; in fact, other than his hands in a few POV shots and one creepy shot of his eyeball, we don’t see the killer at all. We don’t know his motivation, his background, or his mindset. We don’t know why Billy has ended up in the attic of a sorority house, why he is making crank phone calls in different voices, or why he is killing these young ladies. All we know is that he is, and in this film, it’s enough. And part of that is what makes the film scary — that you could get killed by a random guy who decides to move into your attic and barrage you with crank phone calls for no reason other than the fact that he’s crazy.

Plot wise, my biggest problem with Black Christmas was with the shoddy police work. Our killer’s first victim ends up with a plastic bag wrapped around her head and placed in a rocking chair next to a window in the attic. We (the audience) can clearly see her from the street — why can’t the police? And why didn’t they search the attic? I also didn’t understand how Billy could yell into the phone repeatedly during his calls and yet no one inside the house could hear his voice coming from the attic. Unless you can’t hear someone yelling in your attic, in which case attics just got a lot scarier.

Black Christmas was rated R for violence and language, although today I suspect the violence would barely get it a PG-13 rating. The language however is strong — occasionally, shockingly so.

The influence Black Christmas had on films like Halloween and Friday the 13th and countless others is obvious and undeniable. While not without its flaws, it’s obvious that this film set the bar for (and perhaps invented) the genre.

(This review is a part of my month-long October 2014 A-Z Horror Reviews.)

Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, released in 1975, left more than blood and several bad sequels in its wake. The idea of hiding a practically unstoppable killing machine from the audience as it snacks its way through a long list of extras before meeting its demise inspired dozens of copycat films. Some of these copycats like Orca: The Killer Whale (1977) and Great White (1981) also took place in the water, while others took place in new locations like the forest (1976’s Grizzly) or outer space (1979’s Alien). 1980’s Alligator took the action to the sewers, the streets, and a wedding party.

In the first 30 seconds of Alligator we see a trainer at an alligator farm tourist trap get attacked and almost killed while performing in front of a live audience. A young girl named Marisa Kendall witnesses the attack and for some reason is inspired by it to get her own baby pet alligator. The following morning her belligerent father takes the alligator and flushes it down the toilet, sending it down into the depths of the Chicago sewer system. (While Wikipedia states that the movie takes place in Chicago, it was filmed in Los Angeles and there are hints that the movie takes place in Missouri.)

Later in the film we learn from the famous herpetologist Dr. Marissa Kendall (yes — the same person that originally owned the alligator) that alligators in captivity don’t typically grow to full size, and one living in the sewer would be even smaller than that. Unless of course the alligator was feasting on the carcasses of dead animals which were being injected with growth hormones by an unscrupulous medical company and tossed into the sewer. If that were to happen, you might just end up with a “30 to 40 foot long alligator” with an insatiable appetite… FOR BLOOD.

Alligator stars Robert Forster as officer David Madison. When random body parts begin showing up in waste management plants, officer Madison is convinced there’s a serial killer on the loose. Madison has a hard time convincing anyone to go check the sewers with him after the untimely death of his last partner, but eventually he persuades rookie officer Jim Kelly to join him, which leads to the untimely death of a new partner. Madison wakes up in the hospital, but neither Chief Clark nor sleazy reporter Thomas Kemp believe his story of a giant alligator. When Kemp decides to brave the sewers to see what he can find, he too joins Officer Kelly in the belly of the beast (literally), but not before snapping a few photos and leaving his camera behind. After the film is developed, Madison is vindicated and the hunt is on.

The comparisons to Jaws are unavoidable. A Jaws-like tune is played as we see the alligator (from a POV shot) stalking his victims. Apparently the filmmakers also had problems with their mechanical alligator. The mechanical stand in is used for shots where the gator chomps on his victims. Other times, a regular-sized alligator makes his way through miniature streets at night. The pre-CGI special effects may not seem that special today, but I found them to be a treat. Despite the lack of computer-aided special effects, there’s no lack of fire. I counted two car explosions, one boat explosion, and one alligator explosion.

After the arrival of big-game hunter Colonel Brock, I couldn’t help but notice how similar Lake Placid was to this film. Colonel Brock is played completely over the top. He’s not around long enough to dislike for too long. The first time Brock meets the alligator is also his last.

Eventually the alligator gets so big and so hungry and he literally busts up through a sidewalk and onto city streets, and that’s where the real fun begins. Along with Brock, the alligator gobbles up lots of innocent bystanders and at least one kid in a swimming pool. Eventually he ends up at the wedding party where he eats the mayor and several other socialites. In the end it’s up to Officer Madison to redeem himself and lead the alligator back down the sewers where the two of them must face off one last time, man to gator.

I don’t know that Alligator made me jump, but it did make me laugh. After discovering a few limbs floating in the sewage treatment plant, Madison comments that if he finds any more he’s “going to open a spare parts shop.” Later, after finding a dismembered arm, he notes they’ll need a small casket.

The film was written by John Sayles, who had just churned out Piranha two years prior, and directed by Lewis Teague, who also directed Cujo and Cat’s Eye. The film did well enough to warrant a sequel (Alligator 2), which bombed. Roger Ebert gave the original one star and suggested people flush the film itself down the sewer.

While not scary or particularly gory by today’s standards. Alligator is a fun romp through the sewers with a reptile whose only crime is that of being hungry.

(This review is a part of my month-long October 2014 A-Z Horror Reviews.)

This movie review is a part of Forgotten Filmcast’s 1984 Blog-a-Thon. For more 1984 film reviews, search Twitter for #84athon.

As home computers began to invade our lives in the early 1980s, so too did they invade our movies. In 1982’s Tron, mainframe computers turned on their creator by pulling him into their digital world and attempting to “derez” him on the game grid. In 1983, the country was nearly thrust into World War III after high school hacker David Lightman began playing games with the country’s defense systems in the hit film WarGames. By the time we reached 1984, the danger got more personal as computers had begun to invade our homes.

Miles Harding, the protagonist in 1984’s Electric Dreams, is an average, ordinary, non-technical guy — a twenty-something architect who prefers pencils and paper to electronics. After getting in trouble for showing up late to work (again), Miles decides to join the digital revolution. Originally he sets out to purchase an electronic Casio Day Planner, but is up-sold by a spunky and overzealous sales associate to a full PC.

“I don’t know anything about computers,” Mies tells the associate.

“Nobody does, but don’t you want one for when you do?” she responds.

One hour (and presumably thousands of dollars) later Miles is the proud owner of a state of the art Pinecone brand computer. This new top-of-the-line PC does it all, and Miles spends the rest of the evening connecting it to his phone line, his security system, his home appliances, and pretty much everything else he owns. He stays up so late doing all of this that he oversleeps the following morning and wakes up late for work. Since this is the main thing Miles had wished to prevent from happening, the computer seems like a pretty bad investment at this point.

Depending on your point of view, things get either real interesting or real stupid real fast when Miles attempts to dial into the mainframe at work from his new computer to download some information. He guesses his boss’ password in less than five minutes, but that’s not the unbelievable part; his computer becomes so overloaded by downloading “too much information” that it begins to short circuit. In an attempt to cool the machine down Miles pours a bottle of champagne directly into the computer’s innards, an action that is surely (or at least should be) listed under “bad ideas” in the Pinecone user manual. This combination of actions (the information overload combined with the champagne) miraculously brings the computer (“Edgar”) to life. (Note that for no discernible reason, we don’t learn the computer’s name until the closing shot.)

As a voluntary viewer of this film right there you have to decide whether or not you are willing to buy into that concept — that the proper ratio of volts and Chardonnay could somehow bring consciousness to a home computer. If you can, Electric Dreams is an interesting movie about a three-way love interest between a guy (Miles), a girl (his neighbor Madeline) and a computer (Edgar). And if you can’t, you’re going to be repeatedly asking yourself “Why doesn’t Miles just unplug the damn thing?” for the next 75 minutes.

Early on it is established that, like Rodney Dangerfield, Miles “can’t get no respect.” His boss calls him Milton, and his own computer (thanks to a typo during setup) addresses him as Moles. The only person willing to give Miles the time of day is his new neighbor, Madeline. Madeline’s true love is her cello, but she takes interest in Miles after he performs an impromptu duet with her through the apartment’s air vents — the twist being that it was in fact Edgar performing the electronic chords she heard.

This leads to what I refer to as the first major “plotadox” — ridiculous things people do in movies to keep the plot moving forward that no one would ever do in real life. In real life, if asked about the electronic music coming from his apartment, Miles would have said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about — it must be my new computer. Want to see it?” Instead, Miles plays coy and pretends that he was the composer. A major part of the plot revolves around Madeline, a classically trained cellist, becoming attracted to Miles because of Edgar’s music. This is the equivalent of an art collector falling in love with me after learning I am really good at pasting my head onto bodybuilders with Photoshop.

As Edgar grows in strength and power, he also grows emotions. Sounding like a cross between Conky from Pee-Wee’s Playhouse and Number 5 from Short Circuit, Edgar asks Miles questions using “techno baby talk” like “What is the love?” and “How to kiss?” Edgar eventually quenches his need for “more input” by plugging in to Miles’ cable feed and watching a steady stream of commercials, classic films, and General Hospital. Miles attempts to explain to Edgar that love cannot exist between a woman and a computer, even though Edgar rightfully states that since she is in love with is Edgar’s songs and music, technically she already is.

The conflict between Miles and Edgar grows increasingly aggressive and ridiculous as the computer’s jealousy turns to rage. “I’m talking to a machine, what’s happening to me!” Miles screams (after talking with the machine for days). When things start to get out of hand Miles threatens to “have him checked tomorrow,” and when things REALLY get out of hand, Miles demands the computer “get up and fight.” In one scene, to get Miles’ attention Edgar cranks up the RPMs on his electric toothbrush. Two things a sentient Pinecone computer won’t put up with: stealing its girlfriend, and chronic halitosis.

In an evening montage, Miles shows us why he was single in the first place when he takes Madeline out on a date. First he takes her to a drive-in movie to see Casablanca, where he manages to pour his drink on her, spill his popcorn, and smack her in the face within 30 seconds. Boy, have I been doing it wrong! Later he takes her the most romantic place on earth: Alcatraz, the maximum security prison. Maybe Madeline would be better off dating the computer after all. During the date Miles tries to explain that his computer has been talking to him. When Madeline mentions she has heard of talking alarm clocks, Miles replies, “but that’s not like think talking.”

This movie could have used some more think talking.

Back at home and left behind, the lovelorn Edgar has grown desperate and miserable. He calls and interrupts Miles at work when he is bored, and at night dreams of electric sheep (so at least we finally got that question answered.) When Edgar’s pleads to meet, touch, and kiss Madeline fall on deaf ears, he goes on the offense by ruining Miles’ credit and having him declared as a dangerous felon. Miles of course makes this possible by leaving Edgar connected to all of his appliances, phone, and most importantly, an electrical socket. When Miles does decide to unplug the computer, Edgar reprimands Miles for touching him and begins to shock him. Miles, out of ideas, quits trying. My kids have found seven (and counting) ways to ruin iPhones and iPads; you would think Miles could come up with some way to power off the machine. If only he owned an oven mitt!

If you haven’t tossed all logic out the window by now you will soon when Miles must finally face Edgar. In the final showdown, Edgar prevents Miles from fleeing by heating up the apartment’s door knobs. Before Miles can ask “How is that even possible?”, Edgar shoots light bulbs at him and commands electronic toys to attack. It is amazing how resilient Edgar is for a PC from 1984. My Commodore 64 required one fan on the power supply and another one on the disk drive to keep it from overheating.

Despite Miles’ efforts, the following day Madeline and Edgar do finally come face to face. As any woman would, she sticks her hand inside the computer case and caresses its circuits to calm it down. When a tear from her cheek falls inside the machine, it finally learns what love is and realizes that it must let her go. Miles finally grows a pair and returns to his house with an axe to put an end to Edgar (!), but this proves to be unnecessary as Edgar has sent “40,000 volts” from around the world in an attempt to blow himself to pieces. In a final goodbye, Edgar reveals his name to Miles. Why it was a secret this whole time is anybody’s guess. Seconds after this endearing moment the voltage arrives as advertised and blows Edgar all to shit. This was meant to be a touching moment but all I could do is wonder whether or not this sort of thing is covered by renter’s insurance.

The biggest problem with Electric Dreams, technical absurdities and plot holes aside, is that it’s never clear as to what it wants to be. The movie is part romantic comedy, part fantasy/science fiction, part horror, and part musical, but it never fully commits to any of those genres. It certainly holds a place in 80s computer-themed movie history, and most definitely had an influence on both 1986’s Short Circuit and 2013’s Her. Electric Dreams touches on some interesting concepts like computers falling in love with people or whether machines can create art but it doesn’t spend enough time on them to do them justice. By blowing himself to smithereens, Edgar takes the easy way out of this film while the rest of us are left sitting and wondering, “Now what?”

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ek08KvgqFGM

Like movies from the 70s and 80s? Check out my throwback podcast, Throwback Reviews!

EDIT: For anyone trying to track down this film, you can watch it in its entirety on Youtube.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJtvNuHQU-w

For my 41st birthday, I asked for (and received) a Parrot AR Drone 2.0. Yes, my birthday isn’t until the end of next week. Now that I’m over 40, I can open presents early if I want.

Starting at $300, the Parrot AR Drone 2.0 (“Parrot 2” hereon) is an intermediate level drone. There are several smaller toy drones in the sub-$100 range, and lots of “toys for big boys” drones in the $1,000+ range. The only comparable to the Parrot 2 is DJI’s Phantom, which runs $499 without a camera and $799 with a camera. $300 seemed more sensible for a first-time drone owner, so I went with the Parrot 2.

For roughly $50 more you can get the Power Edition — same drone, but with two larger batteries and three extra sets of propellers. I went with that one.

Here’s everything that came in the Power Edition package: the drone, an indoor hull, an outdoor hull, two lithium 1500 mAh batteries, a battery charger, some stickers, three additional sets of propellers (in orange, blue and red) and a manual with printing so small I couldn’t even tell if it was in English or not. (The manuals are online in PDF format here.)

Additionally, the Parrot 2 comes with two cameras (an HD 720p front-facing camera) and an SD down-facing camera) and a USB port. You can plug in a USB stick to record videos and pictures from your flights, or purchase additional USB add-ons like the GPS/black box.

Here is the drone with no hull attached.

If you fly it like this, it will be broken in about 4 seconds. Here it is with the outdoor hull:

…and here it is with the indoor hull:

So far I have only flown the Parrot 2 with the indoor hull attached, and I’ll tell you why. First of all, without it, I would have broken many things in our house. Second of all, the majority of all my videos end with me smashing the Parrot 2 into something and having it land belly-side-up somewhere. The indoor hull has definitely saved my propellers from slicing against tree limbs, blinds, the ceiling fan, my face, two different flat screen televisions and the cat at least once.

Unfortunately, the indoor hull is not designed to take a beating, at least not a beating of the level I’ve been dishing them out. My second crash resulted in a clean break of the styrofoam hull. I could not find any black electrical tape so I had to resort to repairing the hull with some white duct tape. An hour after owning the drone, my hull looked like this:

I have since removed all the white tape and replaced it with black electrical tape. Without tape, this hull would be in 5 separate pieces now. I’m afraid to fly this thing without one on. All things said, I have had some spectacular crashes (many from running into the ceiling fan (not running) 15′ in the air) and watching the Parrot 2 drop like a rock to the carpeted floor below. So far nothing has broken but I’ve only had it two days and I’ve been under the weather so I haven’t really put the thing to the test yet.

The Parrot 2 does not come with a remote — instead, you download a free app onto your iOS or Android device and that becomes your remote. Once powered up, the Parrot 2 actually becomes a wifi hotspot, so to start flying all you have to do is connect your device to the drone’s hotspot, launch the control app and you’re good to go.

Most of my early flights took place in the house. The learning curve comes from (a) learning how to control the Parrot 2 with the app, and (b) keeping yourself oriented as to which way the drone is facing. Using the app, your right thumb controls moving up/down and turning left/right, while your left thumb controls moving forward/backward and tilting left/right. It’s very easy for your thumbs to drift from the control circles, resulting in having to take your eyes off the drone and looking down at your phone or tablet instead.

There are lots of buttons on the app, ones for recording video, taking pictures, changing the drone’s options, and so on. There are a couple of ways to land the drone: one is by pressing that green “LANDING” square in the picture above. That cuts the power to 50% and the drone will try and land wherever it is. There’s also the red “EMERGENCY” button at the top of the screen that simply cuts power to the Parrot 2, at which point it will drop out of the sky like a brick. Yesterday I could not imagine a reason to hit that button but after having the Parrot 2 almost blown out into traffic by a wind gust, I can see where it might come in handy.

It’s also occasionally difficult to figure out which was is forward (especially with the indoor hull on installed) which is why I glued a pair of googly eyes to the front of mine.

Because the Parrot 2 is so light it is very susceptible to wind gusts. Last night after the wind calmed down I took the Parrot 2 outside and was able to capture the following picture of my house:

Five seconds later a wind gust blew the drone over my house and over my neighbor’s house, almost causing it to smash into their roof.

Here are a couple of videos I shot earlier using the Parrot 2. It never dawned on me that the Parrot 2’s camera would not record sound (only video) so I added some generic 8-bit music to it just because it felt very stark. I plan on attaching my Flip camera to it later tonight or tomorrow (if I’m not feeling better) and see if I can’t record two angles (along with some sound).

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxXm0I8pDlY

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQy1fOK-ag0

Almost immediately I need to order another battery and another indoor hull for my Parrot 2 (maybe with birthday money). I’d like to try flying the thing a little higher outside but I’ll have to wait until the wind dies down (and I get a little braver) before I do that.

EDIT: I forgot to mention how long the thing can fly. On a normal 1000 mHa battery, the Parrot 2 can fly for 8-12 minutes. With the 1500 mHa batteries I bought, you can fly for 12-18 minutes (each). The batteries take 90 minutes to fully charge. Also, the drone is able to fly high — really high. Even though the app supposedly limits the drone to 100m (roughly 330 feet) there are several videos on Youtube of people flying the Parrot 2 1,000 feet or higher (but not in Oklahoma wind…)

I was fourteen years old in the summer of 1987 and hanging out with some neighborhood kids at one of our officially designated hangout spots (the corner under the willow tree) when one of my friends pedaled up with a boombox balanced across the handlebars of his bicycle.

“Dude, the new Motley Crue tape just came out!”

“Dude, let’s hear it!”

(We said “dude” a lot back then.)

My friend pressed play and the cassette, pulling power from eight D-sized batteries, ramped up and began to play. For the next hour this small circle of friends sat outside on the street corner, getting our first listen to Motley Crue’s fourth album, Girls, Girls, Girls.

There are four members of Motley Crue, my favorite being Nikki Sixx. Lead vocalist Vince Neil dressed too much like a girl and drummer Tommy Lee wore too much lipstick for my taste. (Surprisingly, the whole “glam rock” phase skipped Oklahoma.) Mick Mars looked like he was from the planet Mars and we were never quite sure when he would return there. But Nikki Sixx man, Nikki Sixx was cool. He dressed like a linebacker from Hell and looked as cool as he did scary. He often appeared covered in fake blood, occasionally lit himself on fire, and he played bass — the only instrument I figured I had a chance of learning how to play. He also wrote all of the Crue’s lyrics and most of the music; even though the band performed the music, they were Nikki’s songs. Nikki Sixx has always been my favorite member of Motley Crue, and I remember thinking on that summer day that I would have given anything to trade places with him.

At that exact same moment, Nikki Sixx was 1,000 miles away, shooting up heroin, snorting cocaine, drinking half a bottle of Jack Daniels (every night), and wishing he were dead.

The Heroin Diaries (MTV Books, 2008) is a collection of Sixx’s diary entries that span one year, from the Christmas of ’86 to the end of 1987 when Sixx had his near-fatal overdose. (He was pronounced legally dead before receiving a needle full of adrenaline that ultimately rebooted his ticker, which led to one less dead rock star and one great song, Kickstart My Heart.) Most of the diary entries contain comments and reflections from his fellow band mates, former managers, ex-girlfriends (namely Prince’s ex-squeeze, Vanity), security guards, along with his mother, sister, grandfather, and Nikki himself. It turns out few of them care much for the Nikki Sixx of old, including the Nikki Sixx of today.

If it’s true that internal suffering leads to artistic success then it’s easy to see how Motley Crue has earned eight platinum albums and has sold 75 million albums worldwide. Each member of the band has his own demons, and the root of Sixx’s pain stems from his childhood. After his father walked out on his family when Sixx was three years old, he spent the next dozen or so years being shuffled back and forth between living with his mother (Deana) and his grandparents (Tom and Nona). The book contains a bit of he said/she said drama between the two camps with Tom claiming Deana was an addict and an unfit mother while Deana claims her family conspired to take her son away from her, but each time we read about Nikki waking up with a needle still stuck in his arm and wishing he were dead, you get the feeling it really doesn’t matter which family member was at fault.

With each turn of the page the monotony of touring and being but a part of a larger machine becomes more and more apparent. While on tour Sixx can’t wait to get home, and once he’s there he can’t wait to leave. When he’s being good on the road — and by “good” I mean “not doing heroin but still doing cocaine and drinking heavily” — Nikki spends his time hiding in his hotel room, playing guitar and watching MTV. The rest of the time (99%) Nikki along with Tommy Lee (his partner in crime) kill the boredom of touring by ingesting more drugs than you have ever seen in your life (on a daily basis), hanging out at strip clubs, being thrown out of strip clubs, punching anyone within arm’s reach in the face, lighting hotels on fire, and so on.

After he returns home after each tour ends, Nikki divides his time evenly between lambasting his dealers (“They’re like vultures! They won’t leave me alone!”) and having them deliver drugs daily to his doorstep (which he dubs “the Heroin House”). The combination of cocaine and heroin routinely floods Sixx with paranoia and delusions, at which point he retreats to his closet with his dope and loaded guns and sits there until the voices in his head tell him it’s safe. Sometimes this ends with him being convinced that “someone” (the police, his manager, his security company) is spying on him at which point he flushes all of his drugs down the toilet. Other times it causes him to get naked, grab his loaded shotgun, and hide in his garden while defending his home from “attacking Mexican midgets.” It would have been equally entertaining and dangerous to have been Sixx’s neighbor in the mid-80s.

After a while the diary entries begin to run together and the stories involving yet another set of nameless girls, yet another quest to get high, and yet another round of self-loathing begin to sound the same. Toward the end of the book I found myself skimming the more mundane stories (typically the ones not involving any sort of bodily fluid) and skipping to “the good ones.” Some of the entries are made more interesting by the name dropping; if you ever wondered what Nikki Sixx really thinks (or at least thought) about Whitesnake, Guns N’ Roses, and especially Jon Bon Jovi, you’ll find out. Also keeping things interesting is the repeated arrival of Prince’s ex-girlfriend Vanity, whom Nikki was “dating” at the time. Almost as toxic as the drugs, Vanity (who now goes by “the Evangelist Denise Matthews”) repeatedly shows up with cocaine to freebase. The cycle repeats throughout the book; they’re a couple until the drugs are gone at which point she’s tossed out with the rest of the used up paraphernalia. Vanity’s escapades (and comments) are so bizarre and kooky that I actually smiled a little when Nikki eventually punches her in the face.

In self-defense, of course.

The book culminates with Nikki’s nearly fatal overdose in the winter of 1987. While partying in a hotel room with Slash and Slash’s girlfriend Sally, Nikki allowed himself to be shot up with dope by a dealer. After the injection turns Sixx blue, the dealer hops out the window faster than Spring-Heeled Jack and with Slash on the floor passed out pissing himself (Slash pisses his pants in this book more than you care to know) it was up to Sally to try to save Sixx’s life. She couldn’t, but managed to give him mouth-to-mouth until the paramedics arrived and delivered two shots of adrenaline directly to Nikki’s heart, which ultimately revived him. For being the climax of the story the book moves through this story surprisingly quickly. By the time you reach this part of the book you will either be hoping Nikki Sixx has learned his lesson or that he will just go ahead and die, but instead he does neither by escaping first death and then the hospital, hitches a ride home with some groupies and celebrates by retreating to his closet and shooting up some more dope.

The book ends with a bullet list of things have happened in Sixx’s life since 1987. “I got better. I relapsed. I got married. I got divorced. I got on Prozac.” Despite everything he subjected himself to, Nikki Sixx is somehow still alive and rocking today, both with Motley Crue and his band, Sixx A.M. He is the host of the nightly syndicated radio show “Sixx Sense” and is involved in several other creative projects, including photography. After spending 400 pages reading about Sixx’s darkest days, it would be nice to read about a few of his successes as well. Maybe that will be covered in the next book?

The Heroin Diaries is as informative as it is entertaining. While there are moments of levity, more than fun, the book is an eye-opening look into the life of a junkie. And to think, I was once naive to think all my friends in bands were just tired all the time and really liked ice cream! If you’ve ever been around someone with a serious drug addiction, this book might give you a glimpse into what was running through their brains (especially if your friend was a millionaire.) It is amazing to read about how many people Nikki Sixx blames his addiction on other than himself.

Motley Crue’s 2002 book The Dirt was as scandalous as it was fun, but each of the three books following it written by individual band members (this one, along with Vince Neil’s Tattoos and Tequila and Tommy Lee’s Tommyland) has reinforced the old adage about the whole being more than a sum of the parts. If you want to read about Nikki’s depression, Vince Neal’s ego and Tommy Lee… well, being Tommy Lee, then these books are fine. Unfortunately, none of them measure up to The Dirt.

I recommend The Heroin Diaries to all Crue fans along with anyone curious about the life of an addict. Ultimately the book is a peek into the life of a gifted musician who, at this time in his life, was out of control. I learned a lot from this book, but the biggest thing I learned is that I would not have enjoyed trading places with Nikki Sixx back in 1987.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4aob4zlhIk

Those who knew him on a first name basis called him “Ho,” and when being respectful some others addressed him as “Mr. Ho,” but to the rest of us he was simply “Ho Ho the Clown.” Ho Ho the Clown was a fixture in the Oklahoma City area, both on and off television, for much longer than I’ve been alive. For almost 30 years Ho Ho made regular (often daily) appearances on Oklahoma City’s KOCO-TV Channel 5. Along with his sidekick Pokey the Puppet (a sock puppet played by stage manager Bill Howard), the two of them entertained, educated, and befriended children several days a week for several decades. And because Ho Ho’s was on the air for so long, his legacy spans multiple generations of kids who grew up watching him.

In real life Ho Ho the Clown was Ed Birchall, although most who knew him say that other than the makeup there wasn’t much difference between the “real life” Ed Birchall and Ho Ho. Ed spent his time off screen entertaining at birthday parties, making public appearances, spending time at hospitals with sick children and attending the circus.

It seems everyone who grew up watching Ho Ho the Clown on television or who interacted with him in some way has a story to tell about it, which is what brings us to 1994’s Ho Ho: A Touch of God’s Gentle Love. Shortly after Ed passed away in 1988, the Daily Oklahoman asked readers to submit their own stories and poems regarding Ho Ho the Clown — and they did. The paper received over 400 responses, many of which made up the first edition of this book. The third edition of this book (the one I purchased) contains submissions from the previous two editions along with several new letters, poems and photographs.

While Ho Ho: A Touch of God’s Gentle Love does not contain any words from Ed Birchell himself, you can get a pretty good idea of what kind of man he was based on the hundred or so memories contained within. Several of the stories were written by those who met Ho Ho when they were children; others are from adults who talk about the effect that Ho Ho had on their kids, whether they were sick in the hospital or had simply run into Ho out in the public. The thing I found amazing was how many unpaid visits he made to people’s houses. Based on the submissions in the book it seems like he was always dropping by people’s houses to check on sick kids.

Perhaps the most revealing stories came from those who worked with Ed and tried to “get Ho’s goat” so to speak. Both in and out of makeup Ed Birchall did not like to discuss smoking or drinking, as he knew the influence he had on small children. Occasionally other grown ups would mention those things to him on the air. For the most part Ho Ho would ignore them or change the subject. At least one person commented that talking about smoking on drinking on air would make Ed very mad, “although he could only stay mad at someone for about five minutes.”

Along with the stories, the book also contains roughly two dozen photographs and poems as well. The pictures are all in black and white and show Ho Ho with random children you don’t know. A few of the pictures show Ed Birchell out of makeup. The quality of poetry ranges from mediocre to downright cringe-worthy. I’ll give both the photos and the poetry a pass based on the subject matter. This is one instance where “it’s the thought that counts.”

Overall I enjoyed Ho Ho: A Touch of God’s Gentle Love. Before reading it I did not know just how many years Ho Ho had been on the air and how much of a staple of the Oklahoma City community he was. By all accounts he was a truly special man and one that is greatly missed.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa8BdKe7PHc

(Note: Across the internet I found multiple spellings of Ho Ho’s name, including “Ho Ho,” “Ho-Ho,” and “HoHo.” Because Ed once said that “his first name was Ho and his last name was Ho,” I went with the spelling used in the book, which was “Ho Ho,” even though the front cover of the book appears to use “HoHo.”)

There’s something about physical miniature models that CGI, at least currently, cannot seem to capture. There’s no doubt that computer graphics have opened up new world (both figuratively and literally) to filmmakers, but the way a physical model photographs on screen just has a feel to it that computers can’t always seem to duplicate.

In Sculpting the Galaxy, physical models are the stars. With a preface by George Lucas, a foreward by Rick McCallum and an afterward by Phil Tippett there’s plenty to read here, but the focus of this book are the models themselves. While browsing through my local Half Price Books I spotted this book and randomly flipped it open to this picture:

Sold.

The book is divided into four chapters that serve as categories: Starships, Vehicles, Droids and Creatures, and Environments. Each section contains dozens of models and is roughly chronological as it moves from the original films to the prequels. Whether you were hoping to see detailed pictures of original TIE Fighters or details from Queen Amidala’s palace, you’ll find them here.

Huge advances in technology were made between the time the two trilogies, so while the original trilogy is represented solidly by an army of models, most of the prequels are represented by models that were later scanned and turned into three-dimensional computer models. It will always be more interesting to me to see the actual figures used in the hologram chess game on the Millennium Falcon as opposed to a carving of Watto that was eventually digitized into a CGI character.

The text accompanying the pictures is informative. Much of it is common knowledge to fans of the films, but even I picked up a few new nuggets of trivia along the way. I did not know that the original Death Star model was accidentally thrown away after filming, for example. Another thing I did not realize was just how many of the sets that appeared in the films were actually miniatures. Even a CGI podracer apparently looks better on screen when filmed against a physical set, even if the set is tiny.

My only real complaint about this book is that occasionally the text is difficult to read. On many pages, the headlines and captions are printed in a bronze, almost dark brown color on a black background. On other pages, white text appears on black, starry backdrops. More than half of the pages contain small, white text on black backgrounds. If you’re old enough to remember seeing the original trilogy in theaters a long, long time ago, forget your trusty blaster and bring your reading glasses to this battle instead.

Between Star Wars in Concert, Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination, and a few trips to museums, I’ve seen authentic Star Wars models half a dozen times. Unfortunately due to age they’re always behind glass. Sculpting the Galaxy is a great way to see them up close and marvel at the details that went into making ships we’ve been in love with for 30 years now.

While I have phone apps on the brain, I decided to bang out a quick note about Downcast. Downcast is a podcast management tool for iOS (iPhones, iPods, and iPads). Unlike Any.do it’s not free, but if you own an iOS device and are even remotely into listening to podcasts, you should buy this app.

Downcast is a complete podcast management tool that operates independently of iTunes. If you’re like me and rarely (if at all) use iTunes, Downcast is a lifesaver. By entering in the iTunes or RSS feeds of your favorite podcasts, Downcast will (when launched) automatically download the latest episodes. Among other options, you can configure how many episodes of each podcast you with the app to download and/or save. I have mine to save the five latest episodes of each one on my phone. If you want to listen to older episodes that are no longer on your phone, or brand new episodes that you haven’t downloaded yet, Downcast supports streaming.

Downcast has a built in search feature that links to the iTunes podcast category. You can search by title or genre or keyword and find podcasts to listen to. The app handles both audio and video podcasts, and also supports simply listening to the audio of video podcasts if bandwidth is an issue.

Where Downcast absolutely excels is in its settings. You can set the app to only download when connected to wi-fi, to take it easy on your data plan. You can schedule when you want the app to check for updates by time or location. You can configure it to retain a set number of podcasts, or a set number of unlistened to podcasts. You can set up playlists. You can set it to play back audio at a higher rate of speed. One feature I love is, if you use iCloud, you can configure the app to share your podcast lists with other iOS devices — that means the podcasts I subscribe to on my phone will also appear on my iPad. Too cool.

Downcast costs $1.99 in the App Store and is worth 10x that to anyone on the go who likes listening to podcasts.