Month: February 2016

Space Cowpokes

This is an investigation into the connection between westerns and space/sci-fi films. I did a little research and the connection is not even tennuous. It’s a hundreduous! A thousandous even! I don’t know how we didn’t notice, but I can’t find a single Western that does not have a connection to space/sci fi/UFOs etc.

Just look at these snippets from the IMDB page for the 100 Greatest Westerns:

Image of Once Upon a Time in the West

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

Epic story of a mysterious alien with a harmonica who joins forces with a notorious desperado to protect a beautiful alien from a ruthless alien assassin working for the Empire.
Director: Sergio Leone
Stars: Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards, Zurg

Image of High Noon

High Noon (1952)

A marshall, personally compelled to face a returning deadly alien, finds that his own galaxy refuses to help him.
Director: Fred Zinnemann
Stars: Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, Thomas Mitchell, Lloyd Bridges, Horrible Gelatinous Blob

Image of Unforgiven

Unforgiven (1992)

Retired Old West starfighter William Munny reluctantly takes on one last alien, with the help of his old partner and a young man.
Director: Clint Eastwood
Stars: Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Richard Harris, Lrrr
Image of Bad Day at Black Rock

Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)

A five-headed alien comes to a tiny town possessing a terrible laser cannon she wants to keep secret, by violent means if necessary.
Director: John Sturges
Stars: Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Anne Francis, Dean Jagger, Morbo the Annihalator
Image of No Country for Old Men

No Country for Old Men (2007)

Violence and mayhem ensue after a hunter stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong and more than two million dollars in cash on the Forest Planet of Endor.
Director: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Stars: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson, Kneebo Galagat
Image of Broken Arrow

Broken Arrow (1950)

Tom Jeffords tries to make peace between settlers and Borg. He even marries one.
Director: Delmer Daves
Stars: James Stewart, Jeff Chandler, Debra Paget, Basil Ruysdael, T’Atogaar the Glorious
Image of The Magnificent Seven

The Magnificent Seven (1960)

An oppressed Ferengi peasant village assembles seven laserfighters to help defend their planet.
Director: John Sturges
Stars: Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Eli Wallach,  Awah’a’teol
Image of For a Fistful of Dollars

For a Fistful of Cubits (1964)

A wandering gunfighter plays two rival families against each other on a moon torn apart by greed, pride, and low gravity.
Director: Sergio Leone
Stars: Clint Eastwood, Gian Maria Volontè, Marianne Koch, Wolfgang Lukschy, Yeegno the Disaster
Image of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)

A bounty hunting scam joins two men in an uneasy alliance against a Xenomorph in a race to find a fortune in gold buried in a remote space cemetery.
Director: Sergio Leone
Stars: Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, Lee Van Cleef, Aldo Giuffrè,  Vlackno the Terrible

It seems so obvious now! Westerns are Sci-Fi! Sci-Fi are Westerns! Finkle is Einhorn! Now excuse me, I want to go watch Django Fett Unchained. Have a great day! TDC1496

OER16 is 3231 Miles Away

I’ll have to leave now for April and multiply this song by 6.462 (or 3.231 if you go by lyrics and not just the title) in order to get there on time! I made this with the Snipping Tool, Copying, Pasting, Photoshop, Low Mediocre Skill Levels and Just Enough Time to do a Poor Job of It.

Seriously though, I wish I could go.

Well, That Was Easy

Create a treasure map, you say? Well, when I need a map I usually don’t create them myself. I let the Internet do it for me. So I went ahead and Google Mapped for Treasure. And wouldn’t you know it, ‘X’ doesn’t mark the spot anymore, that balloon thingy does.

treasure map 2

Looks like it’s located in an area known as ‘So Many Lakes’. It’s not clear by the map why the area has such a name. I’ll report back when I get there.

Here are my choices for travelling to the treasure

mapdirections.PNG

  1. 529 Hour Walk. I think I’ll try something faster.walk
  2. 141 Hour bike ride. This is more promising. Maybe. bike
  3. 162 Hours by horse. Same route as bike, but have to stop more for hay breaks.horse

So I’m going to go ahead and travel by horse because it just feels right in treasure hunting. I will tread lightly, heeding the warning of crossing through strange and mysterious lands that the direction machine has provided. I will constantly squint my eyes and pan back and forth like a true cowpoke. Looking for poncho-wearing villains, gun-totin’ strangers and other dangers. I assume on the way I will witness things like train robberies, someone tied to train tracks and left for dead, tumble weeds and lonely roads. If you get there before me, save me some treasure! TDC1495

Pony Express? Not in the Great White North

SDExpressHere in Canada, we don’t trust Ponies. They are too cute to not be up to something. Also, we have access to an unlimited supply of Moose. That is why our early postal system was called the Swamp Donkey Express. Moose have the added bonus of built-in antlers to hang your parcels from. That is why there was no postal service in the winter as the antlers are shed. Also, it’s cold in the winter who cares about mail that much?

You were also able to have packages sent by Voyageur, via canoe. And the 2-month Prime service involved the moose in a canoe with the Voyageur. It was very expensive and completely unreliable. Much like my fact-checking. #TDC1494

 

Inventing an Invention

This morning I was tasked by the Daily Create to become an inventor. What I found was, as an inventor, I am not able to invent anything. So I invented The Inventionator. It makes inventions for you by yelling into the input pipe. The next phase will be to become an engineer to engineer this thing, but I also am not able to perform that feat. Let me know if you figure it out! Only $39.99inventionator

 

A Clue into Dr. Oblivion’s ‘Missing’ Status

Now someone like Dr. Oblivion being ‘missing’ should only be seen as suspect. To think that someone could put something over on him is laughable. So it must be by choice that he is missing.

So we have to dig deeper. And I dug deeper. Did I answer any questions? No, all I did was create more. Many more questions. Not many people know this, but you can set Google Earth back in time and see what was going on in, for example, the Old West. It sounds unbelievable, I know, but those Googlers are sharp folk. You have to pay for the premium Google Earth Service.

Anyway, I was looking around the Black Hills of South Dakota on the Google Earth. I had it set to 1847 and I thought I’d have a look at what Ol’ Mt Rushmore looked like before its face lift. And lo and behold, what a sight! Pre-Rushmore Rushmore has a look of familiarity to it. What was and is going on? Have a look.  #tdc1492.

 

Making and Breaking ‘Art’

 

Daily Create: Create a six second stop motion video of yourself producing some type of art.

Mine is the making of a failed project. A few days ago we were to daily create a no-look drawing of a cactus. I tried it. The results were not feel-good ones so I trashed it and didn’t participate. This is an homage to those dark moments. #tdc1489

Week 3 Round Up, Now in Week 4

western misdirectionSo I’m getting behind and skipping some stuff, which I feel is in the spirit of being an open participant. If you’d like tips on how to do this, hit me up.

Here are some excuses: work, family, moving. Good enough.

All I could muster this week (last week) was one blog post about What’s the Story with Stories? and a few daily creates about Chuckleheads, Choices and obviously one about Hoodoo Larue.

That’s all that I produced. All I gave this week. But on the flip side I took a lot. By take I mean I did a lot of reading and took a lot of inspiration from the resources in ‘Yes, But What is Digital Storytelling? These Edupunk guys and gals are pretty cool. I think I just might look up to them. I bookmarked approximately a lot of links to articles and posts and I followed on Twitter anyone mentioned anywhere so that I can come back to these ideas and feel connected to them. I’m on to you.

So it being Thursday of week 4, I’m pulling the pin on week 3. That’s it week 3, you’re done. Head off into the sunset. Week 4 is where it’s at now. See you there!

 

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