Want a Free Electric Car? Move to Denmark!
March 31, 2008 by Spotlight-On WM
Filed under ENVIRO, Electric Cars
In a press release from 03/28/07 from Renault,
The Renault-Nissan Alliance actively supports the initiative of Project Better Place, which
announced today its second deployment in Denmark.• Renault will provide Danish customers with 100% electric vehicles at European standards in 2011, providing zero emission mobility while at the same time offering driving performance similar to a gasoline engine. Read more
DOCTOR WHO – Sarah Jane Rides Again
March 31, 2008 by Spotlight-On WM
Filed under Doctor Who, TV SHOWS
The SARAH JANE ADVENTURES, a DOCTOR WHO spin-off, starts Apr 11th here in the US on the Sci Fi Channel.
According to the show’s official site on Sci Fi:
The Sarah Jane Adventures features Sarah Jane Smith, a companion of the Third and Fouth incarnations of the Doctor from the original series of DOCTOR WHO. Elisabeth Sladen reprises her role and is back in action, discovering alien plots to take over the world, or simply helping lost extraterrestrials get home.
Aided by her new young friend, Maria Jackson (Yasmin Paige), and her newly (and genetically engineered) adopted son Luke Smith (Tommy Knight), Sarah Jane has no problem taking on any challenge!
The Sarah Jane Adventures was created by Russell T. Davies, executive producer of the new Doctor Who series. He also serves as an executive producer on The Sarah Jane Adventures, along with Phil Collinson and Julie Gardner.
Save a Forest – Promote Solar Cooking
March 29, 2008 by Spotlight-on WM
Filed under ENVIRO
According to Solar Cookers International:
“Food is easily and conveniently cooked with solar energy as the “fuel” in devices called solar cookers (or solar ovens). Solar cookers are an ideal addition to any kitchen wherever there are predictable hours of sun many days of the year. Solar cooking and baking are easy. Solar cookers are safe around children and provide a great way to learn about and use solar energy. Solar cookers are clean, convenient, non-polluting and easy on the environment. And, for millions of people living in arid, fuel-scarce regions of the world, solar cookers can literally save lives.
Solar Cookers International (SCI) spreads solar cooking awareness and skills worldwide, particularly in areas with plentiful sunshine and diminishing sources of cooking fuel. SCI has enabled 30,000 families in Africa to cook with the sun’s energy, freeing women and children from the burdens of gathering wood and carrying it for miles. Tens of thousands of individuals and organizations — from all over the world — have learned about solar cooking through SCI’s excellent publications and educational materials, and have benefited from SCI’s information exchange networks, research, technical support, and the SCI-sponsored Solar Cooking Archive, the internationally recognized Internet resource for solar cooking information.”
If you’re interested in helping SCI get the word out (and help those in need obtain their own solar cookers), please check out their website. They accept donations and are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with offices in the United States and Kenya so your help is tax-deductible in most cases. The mission of SCI is to assist communities to use the power of the sun to cook food and pasteurize water for the benefit of people and environments.
And think about adding a solar cooker to your own home as an alternative to the usual BBQ. You can either get one from SCI or check out the ones below:
Plus solar power isn’t just for cooking – it works for your home and your car, too. Click below to check it out:
5 eBook Deal: LIVE OFF THE GRID
Includes 1. Build A Wind Generator 2. Bio Diesel 3. Install Solar Panels 4. Build Your Own Home 5. Renewable Energy Solutions For Home, Car And Business .Find Free Solar Panels, Free Off Grid Batteries
Small Business Loans – Helping People Help Themselves
March 29, 2008 by Spotlight-on WM
Filed under ENVIRO, OTHER
I want to let you all know about a cool non-profit that is doing great things: Kiva.
Kiva allows individuals to make $25 loans to low-income entrepreneurs in the developing world (microfinance). By doing so, individuals like you provide affordable working capital for the poor (money to buy a sewing machine, livestock, etc.), empowering them to earn their way out of poverty.
Read more
Which One Should You Eat?
March 29, 2008 by Spotlight-on WM
Filed under AUTHORS/BOOKS
Someone’s finally written a book that helps you pick between the foods at various restaurants and from all the choices at the grocery store that LOOK so great (and delicious), that is, until you read the nutrition label… But who has time to read and memorize hundreds of packages, just to get to the right ones for your needs? And what about food at restaurants, where you don’t get a nutrition break-down for each item so you’re eating ‘blind’?
The book’s called EAT THIS, NOT THAT!
Read more
DOCTOR WHO – Starting Apr 18th on SCI FI
March 28, 2008 by Spotlight-On WM
Filed under David Tennant, Doctor Who, TV SHOWS
The powers that be at SCI FI Channel have finally picked a date and it’s April 18th – that’s the day DOCTOR WHO Season 4 will premiere here in the U.S. according to the commercial I just caught. They’ll be starting with the third ‘Christmas’ episode ‘Voyage of the Damned’ starring Kylie Minogue as The Doctor’s companion Astrid Peth (along with a ship named the Titanic) and then they’ll segue into the main Season 4 shows.
This looks to be a very interesting season. I’ve been trying to avoid seeing too many spoilers online, but it’s hard when other countries who get BBC UK have already seen it and can’t wait to share every little tidbit. (Turnabout’s fair play, eh? After all the years the U.S. got shows first and posted their own spoilers everywhere, hmmm?)
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Potential Spoilers of My Own: Read more
Another Great Gone… Richard Widmark Passed Away
March 26, 2008 by Spotlight-on WM
Filed under ACTORS, MOVIES
Richard Widmark, one of my mom’s all-time favorite actors (and very high on my list, too) was probably best known for his portrayal as the insane, giggling killer in KISS OF DEATH – how could you forget it? He passed away on Monday at his home in Roxbury, Connecticut. He was 93 years old.
His wife, Susan Blanchard, would not provide details of his illness which had been on-going and said funeral arrangements are private.
“It was a big shock, but he was 93,” Blanchard said.
Widmark’s first wife, Hazelwood, died in 1997 and Widmark married Blanchard in 1999.
Widmark earned an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor for his role in the 1947 thriller “Kiss of Death.” In it, he portrayed maniacal Tommy Udo, who delighted in pushing an old lady in a wheelchair down a flight of stairs to her death. It was to earn him his only Oscar nomination.
“That damned laugh of mine!” he told a reporter in 1961. “For two years after that picture, you couldn’t get me to smile. I played the part the way I did because the script struck me as funny and the part I played made me laugh. The guy was such a ridiculous beast.”
In an ironic twist, Richard Widmark was a quiet, inordinately shy man who often portrayed killers, cops and Western gunslingers. But he said he hated guns.”I know I’ve made kind of a half-assed career out of violence, but I abhor violence,” he remarked in a 1976 Associated Press interview. “I am an ardent supporter of gun control. It seems incredible to me that we are the only civilized nation that does not put some effective control on guns.”
Widmark was born Dec. 26, 1914, in Sunrise, Minn. His father ran a general store, then became a traveling salesman. The family moved around a bit, from Sioux Falls, S.D., to Henry, Ill., and Chillicothe, Mo., before settling in Princeton, Ill.
“Like most small-town boys, I had the urge to get to the big city and make a name for myself,” he recalled in a 1954 interview.
“I was a movie nut from the age of 3, but I don’t recall having any interest in acting,” he said.
But at Lake Forest College, he found his niche as the protege of the drama teacher and met his first wife, drama student Ora Jean Hazelwood. Their daughter, Ann, married (and later divorced) baseball immortal Sandy Koufax.
During the heyday of radio drama, Widmark’s mellow and distinctive Midwest voice made him a favorite in soap operas, and he found himself in demand at more than one studio, at the same time.
Not able to join the Army in 1943 because of a punctured eardrum, Widmark began appearing in Broadway plays. His first was a comedy hit KISS AND TELL. He was appearing in the Chicago company of DREAM GIRL with June Havoc when 20th Century Fox signed him to a seven-year contract. He almost missed out on the KISS OF DEATH role.
“The director, Henry Hathaway, didn’t want me,” the actor recalled. “I have a high forehead; he thought I looked too intellectual.” The director was overruled by studio boss Darryl F. Zanuck, and Hathaway “gave me kind of a bad time.”
Among the movies he made once KISS OF DEATH made him a star: THE STREET WITH NO NAME, ROAD HOUSE, YELLOW SKY, PANIC IN THE STREETS, THE HALLS OF MONTEZUMA, and another of my mom’s very favorites, the Samuel Fuller film noir PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET.
In 1952, Widmark also starred in DON’T BOTHER TO KNOCK along with Anne Bancroft, Jim Backus and Marilyn Monroe. He told an interviewer years later regarding Monroe:
“She wanted to be this great star but acting just scared the hell out of her. That’s why she was always late – couldn’t get her on the set. She had trouble remembering lines.”
“But none of it mattered. With a very few special people, something happens between the lens and the film that is pure magic. … And she really had it.”
Widmark even managed to make his mark in television: MADIGAN, originally a movie which came out in 1968 with him in the title role as a loner detective, was converted to television and lasted one season in 1972-73. It was his only TV series.
Goodbye to another great screen, stage and television actor of the Golden era. (I grew up watching his movies and now he’s gone – Man, I’m REALLY starting to feel old!)
Not a Cookbook, but a Tastebook
March 13, 2008 by Spotlight-on WM
Filed under AUTHORS/BOOKS
Check it out – someone’s finally figured out that most cookbooks follow the old 80/20 rule: out of 100 recipes, there’s probably only 20 you really enjoy and will make over and over, that is, if you’re lucky. Most likely there may be only 10 or so in each book that you can use.
So you end up buying 5 or more cookbooks just to get 100 great recipes. With cookbooks running about $15-35 each, that’s $75-165 to get what you want!
I think it’s neat that Tastebook has found a way for you to finally let you put together your own customized cookbook with all YOUR favorite recipes in it, all for only $34.95. You can pick and choose from their 25,000 tried and true recipes, or mix and match with your own to create a truly personalized culinary treat. Plus you can add favorite photos to the book. And as your tastes change or grow, the book can change with you.
Looking for a gift to give friends or family or want to create a collectible that you can pass down from generation to generation? A Tastebook definitely makes a great gift. You can even make ‘themed’ Tastebooks for the big events in your life – weddings, anniversaries, baby showers, family reunions, bridal showers, and more.
Check out this great Thanksgiving Recipe book:
Harry Potter Book 7 – Split Personality?
March 13, 2008 by Spotlight-On WM
Filed under AUTHORS/BOOKS, MOVIES
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, aka Harry Potter Book 7, may get more screen justice than ORDER OF THE PHOENIX: David Heyman, producer, is expected to announce that rather than trying to chop the last huge book down to movie size, two movies will be made of HALLOWS to accommodate the entire last installment in the J. K. Rowling book series.
Read more
Starting to Get A Little Paranoid…
March 12, 2008 by Spotlight-on WM
Filed under OTHER
First my site goes splat over at Yahoo right after I get it all nice, mostly the way I want it, but right before I get a complete backup. So I move it over to BlueHost and make sure I have a backup. Suddenly they have a major internet pipeline that services them go down, causing my site to be unavailable to me for about 2-3 hours, either to look at or restore if need be. (Supposedly 85-90% of the rest of the world still had access according to tech support – just not me, so having a backup didn’t make a difference this time…!)
If I were a suspicious person, I’d either think someone was out to get my site or my site suffers from Typhoid Mary syndrome – killing hosting servers/hardware right and left.
Hmmmm.
BWAHAHAHAAAAHA (Okay, now that’s out of my system, back to thinking of what else to post that the internet can kill at its leisure…)
