Henk van de Goor's Bloggers@large

Ok folks. This had me laughing out loud. Has been action-hero Steven Seagal (57) is getting his own reality show. As it turns out Seagal has been a deputy sheriff of his home community, Jefferson Parish, Louisiana for 20 years. Supposedly he was on active duty in between all the films he shot and the US TV-network A&E picked up on that. Last year announced they begun filming "Steven Seagal: Lawman", a reality show that follows Seagal's on- and off-duty work in the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office.

From the previews you can already see that there is hardly any real action that involves Seagal personally so I expect that an average episode of "Cops" will be better than this show. Still, I'm kinda interested in seeing it. I guess I am a bit masochistic :-) LOL.

What a phenomenal stunt by my favorite TV-show - ever - about cars: Top Gear. This Sunday they started their 13th season with a great publicity stunt. They finally 'revealed' who the infamous "Stig" is. After driving a Ferrari FXX supercar around the track in the best time ever (1.10.7), the Stig came into the studio and took of his white helmet, showing the world his face for the first time. And no - it wasn't Susan Boyle. It was Michael Schumachers face.

But before you run out the house and start shouting "I see dumb people" because you "knew it al along", think again. It doesn't take long to know it was just a stunt. There is no way that Schumacher could do all the test driving because he simply didn't have the time for that. The real reason why he was on the show was simply because the real Stig wasn't allowed to drive the new Ferrari FXX.

Yes, you read that right. There was a good reason for that: simply because the FFX in question is the 30th made and is actually owned by - you guessed it - Michael Shumacher. It's the only black one without a stripe (see this Youtube video for proof).

Strictly speaking and according to Top Gear's own "Power Lap" rules, the record time does not really count! Top Gear always said that in order for a lap time to count, the car needs to be a 'production car' (which the FXX is) and not a one off, also it needs to be able to go over a speed bump and it needs to be street legal - which it isn't. The Ferrari FXX can not be driven on the road!

Yes you can buy this +1 million Euro car, but you can't park it in your garage. You can go over to Italy or somewhere else, but only if Ferrari allows it! The car is not street legal! The car that recorded the fastest lap time on the Top Gear track was the Renault F1 car, at fifty nine seconds (0:59.00), although it was disqualified on the speed-bump rule. As of the end of the twelfth series, the fastest road legal car that met the requirements was the Gumpert Apollo S in a time of 1:17.1.

In fact, there is a separate - unofficial board - of times for non-production cars, such as the Aston Martin DBR9 Le Mans racer.

Anyway: enjoy the video below: chances are it will be down soon because of copy infringement - claimed by the BBC.

After I posted my story about Adam Savage' obsessions, I came across this Google video of him attending the Last H.O.P.E. Hacker Conference (www.HOPE.net) which took place on July, 18-20 2008 at the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City. He basically tells the same story as before (almost verbatim), but what makes it more interesting, is the part where he is answering questions coming from the audience afterwards. If you already saw the other video I posted, just skip to 22:20 minutes, and see Adam answer some questions.

Interestingly, Savage retracted comments he made at another hackers conference where he said an episode exposing security flaws in credit card RFID technology was squelched by credit card company lawyers. In a new statement Adam said:

" If I went into the detail of exactly why this story didn't get filmed, it's so bizarre and convoluted that no one would believe me, but suffice to say...the decision not to continue on with the RFID story was made by our production company, Beyond Productions, and had nothing to do with Discovery, or their ad sales department."

I came across this cool video of "Mythbusters" co-host Adam Savage, in which he is telling - in detail - about a couple of his hobbies obesessions. I didn't know about it, but he would have shared at least one of these obsessions with the late Dutch writer, poet and TV-presenter Boudwijn Buch. I am talking about the Dodo bird. In the video below, Savage speaks about reconsructing the skeleton of a Dodo. As you might - or might not - know, there was no full (reconstructed) skeleton from a single Dodo around, until 2005 (they where reconstructed from different skeletons). Buch also had a weird obessesion with the Dodo and collected many books and other rarities about the extinct bird. Very fascinating stuff indeed.

Now, Savage also tells about another venture of his. The illusive quest to make a perfect replica of the infamous "Maltese Falcon" the object from the famous '41 film by the same name. Savage, who worked (among other jobs) as a prop designer before he joined the Mythbusters team, really is fascinating to look at when he rambles on about the great lengths he went through, to achive his goal.

I must say though; just by listening to him talk rambling on, I can come to only one conclusion: Savage is the poster boy for ADHD ;-)

So sit back, relax and enjoy the ride.

Adam Savage speaks about his obsessions:



(taken from http://www.the-eg.com/)

When I moved to my new home in October, I also got a so-called triple-play deal with my telecom provider UPC. So I got hi-speed Internet access (16mbps), VoIP telephony, and digital TV (on demand etc). Instead of just the standard TV-channels, I also got all the extra channels that go with it. Including SciFi Channel (Dutch version). And boy, did I get hooked.... All my favorite old and new Sci-Fi series are shown there.

But I must confess that the one TV-series that really got me drawn in, is the new Battlestar Galactica. I watched the late '70's early '80's version and always thought it was cool series. I wasn't that enthousiastic when I learned that there was a new version of the series (just like some other '80's series have been revived). I never saw one episode however, until recently when I started to watch SciFi Channel.

To my surprise the new Battlestar Galactica series is fast paced, has a great story-line and is just a joy to watch. I was also lucky that I stumbled right into the start of the first season, when I started watching it. My DVR has been taping every episode since then..

The only problem: I just saw the season 2 finale: "Lay down your Burdens part 2". And now I have to wait till season 3 starts! Sadly the Dutch Sci-Fi channel website has no information whatsoever on when it will pick up again!

What the frak!

I'm going through some major "BSG" withdrawal! Hopefully I can find the series on usenet or P2P.