(via LA Times): Baby is sent through X-ray machine at LAX

A woman going through security at Los Angeles International Airport put her month-old grandson into a plastic bin intended for carry-on items and slid it into an X-ray machine.

The early Saturday accident — bizarre but not unprecedented — caught airport workers by surprise, even though the security line was not busy at the time, officials said.

A screener watching the machine’s monitor immediately noticed the outline of a baby and pulled the bin backward on the conveyor belt.

The infant was taken to Centinela Hospital, where doctors determined that he had not received a dangerous dose of radiation.

[...]

There are also signs posted in English and Spanish at ticket counters and near security checkpoints warning passengers that they must put metal objects, such as cellphones, pagers and car keys, into bins that go through X-ray machines.

“This was an innocent mistake by an obviously inexperienced traveler,” said Paul Haney, deputy executive director of airports and security for the city’s airport agency.

“This is only the second time in nearly 20 years that anyone can recall a traveler mistakenly putting an infant through an airport X-ray machine. Since then LAX has served more than 1 billion travelers without an incident of this type,” he said.

In 1988, an infant in a car seat went through an X-ray machine at LAX Terminal 4. Also that year, officials at Winnipeg International Airport in Canada accidentally sent a 2-month-old wrapped in blankets through an X-ray machine.

The TSA said it is continuing to review Saturday’s incident at LAX.

“We’re trying to figure out what changes we can make, short of putting up signs saying, ‘Don’t put your baby through the X-ray machine,’ ” Melendez said. “We’re trying to determine how we can make this not happen again.”

I remember when I found out that my dad was Santa.

Every Xmas my parents would toss us kids out of their room (that opened into the living room) and we would agree to go to bed and stay there all night. Then they would wrap presents and then, they told us, stay out of the living room so Santa would come.

I knocked on the door, one Xmas Eve and was told it was fine to come in. I needed something, fuck knows what it was, but they said it was fine for me to come in. Except I spotted my father sneaking off with a huge bag of trash, with wrapping paper that my parents never used sticking out of it.

The next morning I saw that paper over the gifts that “Santa” had given us.

It’s not that I ever firmly, 100% believed that Santa Claus came and gave us gifts, but still. You know?

I didn’t let on until I was in college. I mean I never told them when I worked it out or how until then.

Of course we never had a fireplace and I didn’t get how Santa was supposed to break into the apartment and grope around until he worked out that we had hung the stockings on the piano without too much care.

The Beckhams are good friends of the Cruise family. Which is about to lead into something hysterical…

Via Daily Snack:

She [Victoria] will play the missus of an alien leader known as a thetan – which Scientologists claim is an immortal spiritual being present in all humans.

A source said: “Victoria is really hoping to make a go of it in Hollywood.

“This could be the perfect start for her, with good pal Tom Cruise in charge.”

Cruise, 44, will make the film with his own money after all the Hollywood studios rejected the project – and it’s a far cry from Posh’s first role in Spiceworld.

But the 1997 Spice Girls movie is a Cruise favourite and the megastar believes she has “comic genius”. His wife Katie Holmes, 28 today, is helping Posh make it in Tinseltown by inviting her to lavish industry parties.

———

And while having one of the Spice Girls play a thetan will be god damned priceless don’t forget the “1997 Spice Girls movie is a Cruise favourite”.

So yesterday, after brunch downtown, I wandered over to Washington Sq. park and sat and did some reading/editing. While there I looked up at a tree. So far so good, right?

On one of the upper branches I noticed a pigeon on its side. Odder yet was the fact that the bird was balanced in such a way it was impossible for it to have laid there, like that, without falling. So I looked again. That’s when I noticed the very tree colored hawk standing on the pigeon.

The hawk, however, had a small problem. Its foot was stuck in the chest of the pigeon. I mean stuck. It would stand still and look around and then suddenly shake its foot wildly, trying to dislodge the pigeon. It didn’t work. A crowd gathered around the base of the tree. The hawk noticed but kept acting like everything was perfectly normal. That? That isn’t a pigeon. It’s a … a … slipper! That’s it.

After a while the hawk got annoyed with all the attention and flew off to another tree - with a pigeon still stuck to its foot. So this poor pigeon, who had been struggling and still alive, suddenly found itself being carried off by the lungs to a new tree. Tat did it in but quick.

The hawk landed on a new perch and kept shaking its foot. Which is when the squirrel got involved. See this squirrel saw a hawk with what seemed, but couldn’t possibly really be, a pigeon slipper (they were all the rage in Paris, where the squirrel was from) and needed to investigate. Squirrel took half a step up the tree. Hawk fluttered wings with menace. Squirrel took half a step back down the tree. Repeat on a loop for a good five or ten minutes.

Meanwhile, the crowd had moved to the new tree and grown. There were now about 40 people around the tree. The hawk got pissed again and carried its slipper to a large flat lamp post. It sat and shook its foot and then proceeded to slowly and carefully rip the pigeon to bits. Halfway through it started to eat a chunk here and there.

Finally its foot was free. About an hour and a half after it had gotten stuck. The hawk flew off and left half a pigeon carcass on top of a lamp post.

Who needs the Discovery Channel?

So someone abused graphics and used the new Elf Yourself tool and well…

I make the creepiest dancing elf in forever.

First I’ma dance and then I’ma eat your liver.

It’s time for a new issue of The Footnote!

This is an amazing issue. I was gonna link you to every bit that made me proud to be a part of the site but that would be every single piece. So instead just know that there is an amazing Letters From Heck, a new column by me, a book review by me and mini reviews of 20 movies by D.J. and me. Shit then John Belden has a great column, and new stuff from Dustin and D.J. and Ryan and Miss Biscuit and…

It’s a kick-ass issue. Kick. Ass.

So, you remember Star Trek, I’m sure. Five year missions, green skinned women, borg, lost ships, Captain Quantum Leap - all of it, for better or worse, is Star Trek.

And now CBS is considering a new Star Trek situation. A brand new animated show for the web and made up of short episodes (5 or 6 minutes). Trekmovie.com broke this one, all images in this post are from their site and I am only mirroring them to save their bandwidth.

Let’s move on and discuss where this is going horribly wrong. According to TrekMovie.com:

“The setting is the year 2528 and the Federation is a different place after suffering through a devastating war with the Romulans 60 years earlier. The war was sparked off after a surprise attack of dozens of ‘Omega particle’ detonations throughout the Federation creating vast areas which become impassible to warp travel and essentially cut off almost half the Federation from the rest. During the war the Klingon homeworld was occupied by the Romulans, all of Andoria was destroyed and the Vulcans, who were negotiating reunification with the Romulans, pulled out of the Federation. The setting may seem bleak and not very Trek-like, but that is where the show’s hero Captain Alexander Chase comes in. Relegated to border patrol, Chase is determined to bring the Federation (and a ship called Enterprise) back to the glory days of seeking out new life and new civilizations. ”

Say huh? Star Trek as a dark, war-torn setting? Terminator Trek? I dunno. It just feels so against everything Rodenberry wanted out of the show. And on the one hand I couldn’t care fucking less. It’s Star Trek, it hasn’t been relevant to my life since I was about 11. I haven’t cared about much of anything outside of the original crew.

But still. It nags at me. It’s like doing a Batman movie where Batman is soft and kind and brings criminals puppies to help rehabilitate them. There are things inherent in the setting and creation, ya know? Of course Trek needs conflict, otherwise it would be Next Gen (sorry had to take the swipe) but you can do that without tossing the entire “the future is a place of harmony” concept out as well. There was room to grow. Instead they seem to have chosen to destroy.

More from TrekMovie:

“This new animated series would take place again on a ship called Enterprise, but the old girl has seen better days. Captain Chase’s Enterprise will be a ‘Bismarck Class’ heavy cruiser from the Romulan war and a bit out of date. Her mission will be merely patrolling the border, but Chase chose the Enterprise for a reason. As a student of the Federation’s glory days, he wants to have the Enterprise reclaim her legacy.

Her crew will be a collection of humans and aliens including a chief engineer named ‘Mr. Zero’ who wears an environmental suit to survive. Life on the ship will mirror that of the Federation itself. “The Captain is more forward thinking and wants to go out and do some exploring but half the crew will be against that and want to just protect the border,” says Rossi. Leading the ’stay the course’ faction will be Chase’s first officer, Commander Barric Holden who wants a command of his own and be a bit resentful of the his new captain. Rounding out the ‘big 3′ will be Lt. Kaylen Donal, a tough-as-nails security chief whose team of red shirts are all linked with Borg technology implants called ‘Biomechanical Utility Grafts or ‘BUGs’. The Zero Room team want to see this security squad kick some butt and not just be cannon fodder. Rossi draws the distinction with previous security personnel “they aren’t the hapless pajama wearing guys who get vaporized every time…these are going to be very thoughtful clever bad-ass soldiers.”

Zero Room is, for those who caught the name, the production company hoping to get this puppy off the ground. David Rossi is in the lead on this pitch. The show has no name yet. There are also more images and details to be found on the TrekMovie.com site.

One thing I love is that the production team has said they wanted to go in an animation style that is influenced by Darwin Cooke. If by “influenced” they meant “we like Cooke’s art so we went with standard 1990’s cartooning” then maybe.

Anyway. This is only a pitch, it is far from green lit. I just thought it was interesting how they are trying to move forward: “Rossi then took the advice he got from LeVar Burton on how ‘Star Trek should always be about moving forward and what is next in the human adventure.’ So the team came up with the notion of taking a big leap forward and setting a show 150 years after the time of Picard and Star Trek Nemesis, but in a very different and somewhat dark Trek universe.”

Moving forward partly because of LeVar “Reading Rainbow” Burton’s advice. Well there ya go then. Anyway. Yeah. So. Star Trek. In the future (and isn’t that fun to say). A dark grim future of war and strife and things very un-trek-like.

Who knows? Fuck, man, it could turn out to be fantastic. Maybe this sort of “place shit where it doesn’t belong” will force the ideas that started everything back to the forefront of it. They can assert themselves and make everything stronger for it. I think I’ll hope for that and not hate on this. Try it, who knows if it’ll even make it to production.

What? No!

Underdog: the live-action movie.

Plot Outline: A lab accident gives a hound named Shoeshine some serious superpowers — a secret that the dog eventually shares with the young boy who becomes his owner and friend.

Dear lord. It has Jason Lee as the voice of Underdog, but even so. Look at this poster!

Sheesh! It makes Garfield look decent. Ya know? And then there’s this still of Underdog flying around:

Save me.