Looking to God

Alien Invasion: Origins

Posted on September 22, 2014September 17, 2014 by Jack Flacco

Aliens have always had a large following among sci-fi fans from every generation to the present. With the “little green men” image conjured from eyewitness testimony of flying saucer sightings in the 1950s, the fear that one day aliens would take over the world came to being. There’s more to this story, though, and as with every Monday Mayhem post, it deserves some study. Let’s have a look at the inexplicable tale to understand from where the alien world domination plot originated.

On October 30, 1938, dramatist Orson Welles, via The Mercury Theater on the Air anthology series, presented his adaption of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds to an unsuspecting radio audience. Other than a brief introduction, the program aired in a news format, lending credence that an actual invasion from Mars was taking place. Many listeners dropped into the middle of the sixty-two minute broadcast to catch simulated news bulletins and interruptions of sorts, terrifying them into running for their lives. The show created panic and hysteria on the eve of Halloween to cause many, days following the incident, to complain to the Federal Communications Commission.

Since then, America has been on high alert.

What some may not know is Welles was not the brainchild to such a realistic method to drama that had unfolded that night. In 1927, a similar incident took place when Adelaide station 5CL in Australia presented another invasion of its people utilizing the same techniques as Welles had used that fateful Halloween eve.

Same news bulletin format, same reaction.

What was the reaction in 1938? Paul White, CBS News chief wrote bedlam reigned. Town switchboards lit with people trying to verify the reports of Martians invading earth. In Cleveland, CBS’ WGAR received calls from listeners in a panic. Despite pre-Tonight Show host Jack Paar’s attempt to calm the masses, people were accusing the famous announcer of a government cover up, a conspiracy of grand proportions. In Concrete, Washington, a coincidental blackout of phone and electrical lines pressed the listening public to flee for lack of communication with friends and family. Local reports spread the word of mayhem in the streets and placed Concrete on the map for all to see.

Within a month, the media published 12,500 articles about the incident. No one forgot that night the Martians invaded Earth. And so, the alien invasion tales came to be.

As a consequence to the broadcast, the American public couldn’t get enough of alien invasions. Subsequent decades produced a litany of movies centered on the genre due largely to the threat of war and communism:

But if anything is true, the influence of an alien invasion couldn’t be more prevalent than in pop culture. Can anyone argue that at least one child does not walk around in an alien costume during Halloween?

Are you familiar with the original War of the Worlds broadcast? Have you listened to it, since it is available free online?

Games I Play

Posted on September 19, 2014May 10, 2017 by Jack Flacco

Sit back and relax, this is not going to be a serious Freedom Friday. If anything, I’m hoping by the time you’ve finished reading this post, you’ll head over to whichever store you like to get your games and try out some of the ones I’m going to list here.

By the title, you should have guessed I play many games on my devices. I say devices because I have several. I have a newer generation iPod touch and a Nexus 7 from a couple of years ago this Christmas. Both are great, but both have their respective stores where I download apps. For the iPod, I get my games from Apple’s App Store. For the Nexus 7, I take advantage of Google Play Store. Both are great and virtually all the games I download are available in both stores.

One thing I won’t comment about is the differences between the stores, devices and games between iOS and Android. Everyone has a preference as do I, but the purpose of this post is to give you an idea what I play.

On that note, I play a lot of games. I’m always with a device in my hand doing something with it and some of the games I play are some of the most popular games on the planet. Does that make me popular? I don’t think so. Yet, I can’t help myself when I indulge in a good game that keeps me entertained for hours.

Makes you wonder when I have the time to write. That’s another story. Nevertheless, here are some of my favorite games for devices currently on the market.

FarmVille 2: Country Escape—This is such a great game. It truly is. I play it every weekend and whenever I get a chance to add to the farm’s development. Here’s how it works. You’re in charge of a farm, you add livestock to it, machines to make things from the produce of the livestock, and you rise through the levels by fulfilling orders. There are orders on a board from the barn, quick sells from the silo, a plane that comes in across the road with orders from faraway lands, and orders from other cool places in your farm. Then there are the recipes like making cakes, granola bars, juices, soups, and all sorts of other delightful edibles. The general idea is to grow the farm and build a healthy economy where you gain experience to rise up the levels to buy even cooler items to play with. I’ve been playing this game for ages and it’s great. I play it offline, but you can also connect with your friends on Facebook to ask for a helping hand. The gameplay is balanced, graphics are beautiful and the economics behind the game top-notch. It’s a great game for light playing while waiting around for folks.

Candy Crush Saga—Is there anyone out there who doesn’t know this game? Almost everyone I know plays this game. It’s addictive, fun and challenging. I wouldn’t recommend it for folks who want to finish the game overnight, it’s impossible to do. The way the game works is matching candies on a board three, four and five in a roll. If you match four, a special candy appears to rid whole rows of candy at a time. If you match five, another special candy appears that will give you the ability to rid the board of any candy with which you swap. I’ve said this, and I’ll say it again—it’s addictive. The artwork looks great, gameplay is exciting and levels get progressively harder. Music is interesting as well.

Angry Birds—I can’t believe this game has been around for so long, but it has, years apparently. The goal of the game is loading a slingshot of one bird and flicking it toward a collapsible object made of various materials. Like Candy Crush, the levels get progressively harder, and in some instances, you want to toss your device against the wall. Yes, that’s my gratuitous violence sentence to keep you entertained that much longer. What I like about this game the most is the physics engine behind the awesome cartoon animations. So many times, I think I have beaten the level only to find there is one thing I didn’t kill or break because what I hit does not fall down. And as frustrating as that sounds, I keep coming back for more. That’s the mark of a truly great game.

Your turn, these games keep me entertained during my downtimes. I’m sure you have your own collection, too.

What games do you like playing? What is your preferred device?

Women Who Wow Wednesday

Marie Barone

Posted on September 17, 2014September 17, 2014 by Jack Flacco

In a middle-class suburb in Long Island lives Ray Barone (Ray Romano), sportswriter, with his beautiful wife Debra, and their three wonderful children. Across the street, live his parents.

Women Who Wow Wednesday once featured Everybody Loves Raymond‘s Debra Barone (Patricia Heaton) as the assertive, do-it-all homemaker who doesn’t take lip from anyone, including kids’ activity coordinators who’ve set themselves on a pedestal waiting for her to knock them off. Strong-willed, independent, Debra wears the loving mom moniker well. She also does it all.

Ray’s mom, Marie Barone (Doris Roberts), has the best job in the family. She spoils her kids rotten, except Ray’s brother Robert (Brad Garrett), but that’s another story. Perpetually caring for Frank (Peter Boyle), her husband of forty-five years, she’s learned a couple of things along the way. For instance, toenails don’t magically crawl into the garbage, nor does dirty underwear jump into the hamper all by itself.

A typical day in the life of the Barones goes something like this:

Her “Are you hungry?” line defines Marie as the selfless mom who is always willing to go out of her way to make life comfortable for Ray. Her relationship with Debra is a different matter. To Marie, Debra’s never been good enough for her son. In that respect, she has said less than flattering things about Debra’s cooking “Did another dinner get away from you, dear?” However, make no mistake; Marie loves Debra like her own daughter:

What makes Marie is not her intrusive, critical, overbearing attitude, although some may find that off-putting, but it is her unapologetic nature when defending her family. This is what makes her a formidable opponent, should anyone dare attack The Barones:

And it’s true. She may seem like someone you may not want to be with for long periods, but she certainly knows how to show her love. “Are you hungry, dear?”

Have you seen Everybody Loves Raymond? What do you think of Marie Barone?

Monday Mayhem

Zombie Apocalypse: Alternate Endings

Posted on September 15, 2014September 12, 2014 by Jack Flacco

Every enemy has a weakness. Every foe has a flaw. With zombies, it’s the head. You’ve heard it before. Shoot them pointblank in the face and they will no longer pose a threat.

Photo by Martin SoulStealer [Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.]

But what if a new breed of zombie doesn’t respond to the universal bullet to the temple, then what? What if zombies could withstand a pummeling, and rise again to keep advancing toward a fragile humanity ready for extinction?

We’d all be in trouble, wouldn’t we?

For today’s Monday Mayhem, let’s explore the universe of zombies and their alternate endings. Humans can’t always win.

An Invincible Brain—In the 1978 movie Halloween, Michael Myers is a little boy who grows up to become a possessed psychotic out to seek vengeance against his hometown. Michael withstands a knife to the face and a coat hanger to the eye. Yet, he still keeps coming back again and again. Imagine a zombie with the same talent as Michael. It would be the ultimate opponent to defeat. Bullets would no longer work. Knives would become playthings. The undead would rule the earth and humans would flee for the mountains. There wouldn’t be anyone left after they’d get through with us.

Self-Healing—Imagine a world where zombies could self-heal from their wounds. The comic superhero Wolverine has the power to self-heal despite a body riddled with bullets or knife slashes to the throat. Take it a step further and ponder on the thought of zombies possessing that same power. No telling what would become of humanity if the guns can’t stop the undead from attacking. Every wound would heal. No one would be safe from the zombies’ destructive path. In this case, it bleeds but we can’t kill it.

Contagious Scratch—The zombie bite is the universal form for spreading the undead contagion. However, what if that was to change? What if the zombie bite no longer posed a threat? What then? What if instead of the bite a simple scratch would prove equally as menacing? No longer would the undead seek to propagate their kind with their teeth, but they would rip through doors with extended arms searching for people to scratch. The rate of infection would rise and the population would suddenly become undead in a matter of days. All because of a little scratch. A Band-Aid won’t help in this case.

If zombies featured invincible brains, self-healing as part of their makeup or a contagious scratch, one thing is certain, there wouldn’t be anyone left to tell the tale. Nevertheless, should humans know in advance of the fundamental shift in zombie behavior, the arms dealers throughout the world would dream of new defenses for the cities and new weaponry to put the undead back in their place—the grave.

What new zombie trait would you find the biggest threat to humanity?

Freedom Friday, Photo Opportunities

Ranger Martin Cover Design

Posted on September 12, 2014May 8, 2017 by Jack Flacco

If someone were to have told me this time two years ago I’d be in the process of releasing my second book Ranger Martin and the Alien Invasion, I would have said they were nuts. And yet, here I am. Another book release. Another cover. I’m not ready to take that yacht cruise I’ve talked about just yet. But maybe one day, when all the work is complete and I’m itching to try something new, I’ll indulge in a little R&R. For now, I only have this story to keep you entertained—this Freedom Friday story about the new book cover.

Original photo I'd shot for the cover — Original photo I’d shot for the cover

As with my first book Ranger Martin and the Zombie Apocalypse, I left the cover design process to the very last minute. It was not because I procrastinated, not by any means, but because I didn’t know how best to represent the story through art. I knew it needed a flying saucer, that was a given. I also knew it had to have a dark sky, again, another given. What kept me from going further was how all the elements would fit with one another in a nice little package.

Like last year, I had to dig deep in my 16,000+ original photos collection in an effort to find a handful of images that would work. Not an easy task. I was looking for woods scenery, but then I didn’t know how the spaceship would fit into the design. I was lost and time was slowly creeping away.

Isolated leaves on green screen

Layered clouds

Added the saucer

The death ray

Finalized version

It wasn’t until I showed my son a few mockups that the creative juices began to flow. He had some amazing ideas and I wanted to incorporate all of them. One of his thoughts involved an onlooker watching the saucer from behind a tree. The forest scene would be reminiscent of those WWII movies where an escaped POW would be observing enemy planes passing overhead in the distance. I knew of the perfect picture and had no trouble finding it.

His next idea included deep dark clouds with a storm raging in the background. For a while, I wanted that, too. I tried adding clouds from a series of photos I’d taken a few years ago, but none them really worked. I ended up tossing the images and drawing my own clouds. Yep, them there are fake clouds, all right.

The last piece of the puzzle was the saucer. In reality, though, it was the first thing I’d worked on.

So begs the question—what did I use for the saucer? Initially, I wanted to throw a Frisbee in the air, take a shot and paste it into the scene. But my lack of motivation and lack of Frisbee prevented me for doing such a thing. I also had a hubcap I could have held from a fishing pole, yet again, my lazy self said, “I don’t think so.”

I eventually decided to work with a sightseeing landmark, cropping it, playing with the lighting, distorting it to have it look like the saucer in my head. The challenge was the bottom. Because the landmark is a tower, I had to erase the foundation and replace the underside with a pattern. Wouldn’t real life be simple if by the stroke of a mouse buildings could disappear? I’d totally replace them with parks and trees. By the way, if you can guess the landmark, I’ll give you the biggest kudos ever.

After I completed the work, I showed it again to my son. He liked it, but there was still something missing. I thought so, too. It needed color. That’s when I added the green ray firing from the bottom of the ship, the same ray featured in the first book of the series. Once I had drawn that, I knew there wasn’t anything left to do with it. I had finished.

And that’s the story behind the cover to my new book, folks. I really hope you enjoyed it, but most of all, I really hope you like the cover.

Did I miss anything? Do you have a question I may have not answered?

Women Who Wow Wednesday

Clara Murphy

Posted on September 10, 2014September 10, 2014 by Jack Flacco

Detective Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) is the cop who had it all, a loving wife, a beautiful son, and a job, even though dangerous, he enjoyed doing. When multiple injuries in the line of duty nearly kill him, science comes to the rescue. Rebuilt from scratch, he becomes a criminal’s worst nightmare. As cliché as that sounds, his life becomes worth living again as an organic robot bent on destroying crime without pity.

Women Who Wow Wednesday presents Clara Murphy (Abbie Cornish), RoboCop’s wife who stands by her man during his darkest days.

This 2014 film, a remake of the 1987 hit RoboCop featuring Peter Weller as crime’s mechanical nemesis, contrasts the original by delving into Alex’s relationship with his wife who ultimately makes the man inside the armor better. A better man. A better husband. A better cop.

After his injuries, all Alex has on his mind is the thought of his wife, and if she’d accept him for the new man he has become. Clara doesn’t have to think about it, he will always be her husband. Her willingness to overlook his appearance and go beyond the shell makes her responsible for Alex’s future actions as a powerful crime fighter.

Beyond being Alex’s wife, she’s also her son David’s inspiration, leading him to accept his father’s new life. Through her constant vigilance of David’s welfare, she manages to protect and guide the boy without her father’s presence in his life, always reminding that his father loves him, no matter what.

Clara’s role doesn’t end there. Her bravery surpasses all expectations when she stands in the middle of a street, stopping RoboCop’s motorcycle as it screams toward her. For months, she hadn’t had contact with her husband and she wanted to know where he had been hiding. The man in charge, Dr. Norton (Gary Oldman), kept Alex from her, but she couldn’t deal not having access to him. When she stands in the middle of traffic with her hand out, she does it knowing she could lose her life in the process.

The hardest thing Clara has to endure is not knowing. Not knowing what happens to her husband in the care of Dr. Norton. Not knowing if she’ll ever see him again. And not knowing if Alex would be the same person as he once was when they first met.

Clara’s strength comes from inside. Where others would have given up on their spouses, she stayed with him through it all without ever wafting from her center.

If there ever was a character with the resilience to fight back, Clara Murphy is that character.

If you’ve seen it, what did you think of the movie RoboCop? How does it compare to the older version?

Monday Mayhem

Alien Invasion: Shifters

Posted on September 8, 2014September 8, 2014 by Jack Flacco

The best aliens are the ones we don’t know who they are. Does anyone remember The X-Files? Remember how this grand conspiracy swept the show, yet the audience didn’t have a clue as to what was going on? We know, but we don’t know. We think we have it figured out, but it changes. Maybe.

The X-Files' Scully and Mulder — The X-Files’ Scully and Mulder

Monday Mayhem has always been about zombies and aliens. From the beginning, I outlined the focus right from the first few posts. There is a plan at work here. Have you figure it out yet?

All right, as I’d mentioned, the best aliens are the ones who we haven’t a clue who they are, what they want, and their motives for doing what they do. Let’s talk about The Thing. A story that scares the sweet nothings out of me, the 1982 film introduces us to an alien that changes forms as it kills its prey. To make this real, imagine your best friend suddenly behaving strangely, turning into someone you no longer recognize. Apart from the fact that in real life we do have friends like that, my tongue is firmly planted in cheek as I write this, it would be a devastating thing to live through.

Those aliens who take our form are far worse to fight than those who you see coming.

Another example is the symbiont alien that affects Peter Parker in the 2007 movie Spider-Man 3. Amplifying Peter’s negative attitudes, the alien changes him into someone who is an exact opposite of who he is. Again, this is a far worse enemy than those detestable aliens from Independence Day. Because we can’t see their real form, we have our imaginations to rely on, pondering what happened to our friends in the interim.

It doesn’t end there. The 1956 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers is one of the scariest movies to watch on a cold Friday night. It presents as its stage a small town overrun by alien duplicates of its citizens—another opportunity for aliens to show their ingenious and devilish ways when assimilating a nation. What makes this story unique is its reference to communism, but I won’t get into that.

The last, but best of all examples of aliens attempt at taking over the world in human form is the TV miniseries V. The gist of the story goes like this: alien ships appear in the sky and by all accounts, they come in peace, wanting to share their technology with humans and their advancements. Little does anyone know that beneath their skin lies a monster so incredible that I can’t bear to spoil the story for you. You’ll just have to watch it to find out what I mean. This is must viewing for alien aficionados.

Wouldn’t it be interesting if shape-shifting aliens do exist? The world would make a whole lot more sense given how people change once they receive money and power. I won’t use example here, but I’m sure you can come up with your own.

What do you think? Are we living in a world already filled with aliens impersonating humans?

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