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At the last New Years party I overheard a conversation about Morgan Freeman and this independent movie he was involved in and that this movie was well worth seeing.

As I generally liked the characters Mr. Freeman played it was a given that I would have to watch this movie – I had made noted down the title on my smart phone – 10 Items or Less.

Today I finally managed to see it.

Turned out to be absolutely worth seeing, Not only does it tell a great story of a friendship between two very unlikely people, it also brings to the screen beautiful Paz Vega, whom I had just seen in the movie Spanglish.

As I got this great favor from the person whom I don’t remember any more I guess I have to pass that favor on to the world and recommend this movie to the world at large. This film is a few years old so you will not,  most likely, catch it at the movies, but watching it on DVD is actually better. The DVD includes a great documentary about the making of the movie – which took only and incredible short 15 days of shooting – which is an enjoyable experience in itself.

So, put it on your Netflix queue or look for it at Blockbuster. Here is a trailer to water your appetite…

What a difference the music makes!

It is a well known fact in the film industry that the right sound track for a movie can be essential for the success. Just look at the Star Wars Saga – the music, that today so many people know and connect with these movies, is just necessary for the movie, it would not be what it is without that sound track – even though we might not consciously notice it.

The music slides in under the radar, so to speak, and communicates emotions directly.

We all might have seen one, or a few, or many launches of real-world rockets, from the Saturns that brought some dudes to the moon to all the shuttle launches ferrying components into orbit to construct the International Space Station.

Now Mike Interbartolo has posted a video of the ascent of Shuttle Mission STS 129, compiled by the SE&I imagery team at Johnson Space Center from all of the ground, air, ET and SRB assets – and in good Hollywood tradition, has laid a dramatic sound track under the video footage.

That made me get real emotional!

I have this thing for space and reaching new frontiers, so SciFi was always the one genre that got me going. With this video it became real to me that we are actually doing it – right at this time!

If now we could only get the government out of this business to slow things down, then we would be really going. I am sure that without the bureaucrat’s involvement we would not have taken 40 years to get – perhaps – back to the moon, and then beyond. My son might actually realistically consider prospecting on the moon to make a fortune.

But without further ado, here is this great piece from NASA’s JSC…

http://www.vimeo.com/7852885

Here is a little presentation that explains in detail how you can become happy. There are not too many steps necessary reach this goal but all of them are essential and you can’t leave out a single one – so you better watch this little piece of wisdom carefully…

Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.

Thanks, Kathie, for sending me the story of this Wise Old Man.

Synchronicity can be a scary thing.

Having just finished the Iron Web by Larken Rose I ran into a short excerpt from one of Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide books…

[An extraterrestrial robot and spaceship has just landed on earth. The robot steps out of the spaceship...]

“I come in peace,” it said, adding after a long moment of further grinding, “take me to your Lizard.”

Ford Prefect, of course, had an explanation for this, as he sat with Arthur and watched the nonstop frenetic news reports on television, none of which had anything to say other than to record that the thing had done this amount of damage which was valued at that amount of billions of pounds and had killed this totally other number of people, and then say it again, because the robot was doing nothing more than standing there, swaying very slightly, and emitting short incomprehensible error messages.

“It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see…”

“You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?”

“No,” said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, “nothing so simple. Nothing anything like to straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.”

“Odd,” said Arthur, “I thought you said it was a democracy.”

“I did,” said ford. “It is.”

“So,” said Arthur, hoping he wasn’t sounding ridiculously obtuse, “why don’t the people get rid of the lizards?”

“It honestly doesn’t occur to them,” said Ford. “They’ve all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they’ve voted in more or less approximates to the government they want.”

“You mean they actually vote for the lizards?”

“Oh yes,” said Ford with a shrug, “of course.”

“But,” said Arthur, going for the big one again, “why?”

“Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard,” said Ford, “the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?”

“What?”

“I said,” said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, “have you got any gin?”

“I’ll look. Tell me about the lizards.”

Ford shrugged again.

“Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happened to them,” he said. “They’re completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone’s got to say it.”

This great picture of today’s world of rulers and ruled finally prompts me to verbalize my thoughts on Mr. Adams. I do not want in any way diminish his accomplishments, but I think he was a medium channeling all these great pieces of wisdom packed into his books.

I watched, many years ago, after I was already totally enthralled by Mr. Adams nuggets of wisdom, a BBC show with and about Douglas Adams. It presented, amongst many other great info about the Hitchhiker’s Guide and it’s beginnings, some interviews with Mr. Adams. From his statements in these interviews there was no other possibility than that of external influence. The man being interviewed just did not seem to have the capacity to come up with mind-boggling wise answers to the question on how to learn to fly, which is, as any Douglas Adams reader knows,  “You throw yourself to the ground – - – and miss.”

As said earlier, my intention is not to take away from Mr. Adams accomplishments, it just is in a little bit different arena. He was the man who picked up these gems of insight from all over the space-time continuum and packaged them in a form that is – and there is no other more fitting word – mind-boggling.

Just take the quote above – is there still anybody who does not see – at least for a moment – how ridiculous it is that we accept, without revolting, our political system of governmental  lizards that everybody hates but votes for every few years nevertheless?

Back to the scary synchronicities I mentioned in the beginning – for me, finding this parable and reading the Iron Web, all within a few short day, is like an 11:11 event that breaks open the solidity of the universe and slapps the fact into my face that things can be seen very differently.

The following true (?) story can probably be found many times on the internet, but I just have to record it here so that I can find it again when my son gets to that age and I need to jug my memory.

A father passing by his son’s bedroom was astonished to see that his bed was nicely made and everything was picked up. Then he saw an envelope, propped up prominently on the pillow that was addressed to ‘Dad.’

With the worst premonition he opened the envelope with trembling hands and read the letter.

Dear Dad,

It is with great regret and sorrow that I’m writing you. I had to elope with my new girlfriend because I wanted to avoid a scene with Mom and you.

I have been finding real passion with Stacy and she is so nice.

But I knew you would not approve of her because of all her piercing, tattoos, tight motorcycle clothes and the fact that she is much older than I am. But it’ s not only the passion… Dad, she’s pregnant.

Stacy said that we will be very happy.

She owns a trailer in the woods and has a stack of firewood for the whole winter.  We share a dream of having many more children.

Stacy has opened my eyes to the fact that marijuana doesn’t really hurt anyone. We’ll be growing it for ourselves and trading it with the other people that live nearby for cocaine and ecstasy.

In the meantime we will pray that science will find a cure for AIDS so Stacy can get better. She deserves it.

Don’t worry Dad. I’m 15 and I know how to take care of myself.

Someday I’m sure that we will be back to visit so that you can get to know your
grandchildren.

Love,
Your Son John

PS. Dad, none of the above is true. I’m over at Tommy’s house.

I Just wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than a Report card that’s in my center desk drawer.

I love you. – Call me when it’s safe to come home.

Sarah Jones, in her TED talk,  gives a great demonstration on switching identities. When held a (funny) mirror we get a chance to reflect (that’s what a mirror helps to do, right?) on what we do in real life.

Mostly we switch identities without consciously controlling it. When the cop stops us we might go into the little-innocent-boy identity, or when the kid is annoying too much, we play the big nasty bully. Sarah Jones reminded me that this switching of identities can indeed be controlled. I had an early experience with this when a well knows show host and comedian went over a map of Germany and gave a weather report for all the different areas in the appropriate dialect for the area – and there are quite a few for such a small country.

This impressed me so much that I was able to mimic some of the dialects and mannerisms. By doing this for myself I learned that I had to become a person from that area and then it was actually very simple to be credible. I did not get all the dialect-specific words right and probably missed some of the nuances of the dialects but as long as I was a person from that area it worked.

Sarah Jones is definitely a master at that – here she is…

What a beautiful song – so take five, relax and enjoy!

Never forget what this is all about – it’s not running after fame and fortune, it’s about enjoying the “Right NOW” where all the rest of the world can handle its own affairs for a little while…

A little while back I reported on Laura Trice’s TED talk about the importance and power of thank you, of validation. Delivered right a thank you looks really simple but as with all very true facts it appears so simple yet is often so hard to attain. This talk is a very good demonstration of what it teaches, look at the ease with which Ms. Trice walks the talk at the end. I personally don’t know many people who can blow you away with a simple thank you like she did.

Today another video came across my desk that actually caused me to revisit Ms. Trice’s talk. It delivers the same message in form of a short film and be prepared to be moved…

We are proud today to be able to offer you instand religious enlightenment.

Sounds pompous?

OK, I admit, it’s a bit far fetched, but isn’t seeing an apparition often the start of a religion? Isn’t the perception of something not belonging to this world is a clean sign that that there are things beyond what we perceive?

Real work is done in this department and over there at Universal Serenity it’s now started for sure, but for the instant gratification society here in the US we have a goody.

See this image below. It has four little dots in the center – this is where the universe will break apart, so start at these points for maybe half a minute…

Done?

Now look at a blank wall, see a circle of light appear first, and then ….

(This one found amongst other amazing phenomena at GeZi World.)

“Change” seems to be all the hype right now. Even the presidential campaign was won with this slogan. There seems to be so much people don’t like and want to change (or have changed for them) that simply using ‘change’ as a buzz word will get attention.

Now mostly change is not really what we want. Maybe we have something in mind that is so far beyond everything we can imagine, that simple an end of the current situation looks appealing. But, in my own experience, the universe has a strange kind of humor. It tries to comply but if the goal of the change is not clearly specified we will get a change but the new situation might not be what we really had in mind – hidden back there in the crevices, afraid to verbalize.

Let’s take a look at politics right now – we will have a president that will implement change – he did not say what the change will be so this is a pretty smart move as now everybody has a very own version of that change he or she envisions in mind and thinks that’s what will come. And if that’s not what will get implemented then it becomes obvious why not – because it was never even promised. And something is always changed, so the promise is kept.

If we want a situation to be different we have to be specific in what we want the outcome of the change to be otherwise the change itself will be the outcome and this is certainly not what we want. It reminds me of the sign at the bar stating “Tomorrow free Beer” – obviously attractive so that patrons return, but of no consequence and cost for the proprietor – he is keeping his promise.

In other words – change is not what we want and we have to be honest with what we actually want, take away the attention from what is and see the outcome now. Remember Mahatma Gandhi’s quote “You must be the change you want to see in the world” with the stress on BE.

Change has become an emotionally loaded word and the following video is definitely a prime example. It made me cry (in a positive way, I might add)…

This is from Playing for Change, a project to ‘bring change’ through music. I can imagine that this project could benefit from clearly stating what the outcome will be after the change is accomplished.

Other videos on this foundation’s web site do show what the change will be – eduction, building, improving situations through music, etc, so the outcome is stated and the video with it’s emotion caused me to look, so I guess it all worked out OK.

keep looking »