Eric James Stone

This is a test of my new script to convert an email into a blog entry. I’m using my camera phone to do this.

To test my video blogging, here is my nephew, who is visiting from Texas.

Since I know I have blog readers who might want to travel between Salt Lake City and Washington, DC, I thought I’d mention that Travelocity is offering probably the lowest fare I’ve seen for the trip: $142.50 including taxes and fees. Don’t know how long the sale will last. (UPDATE: It’s over.)

Now, if I just had a reason to go visit DC…

My brother Jonathan has an excellent post on his blog about McDonald’s and media bias.

Umm… I don’t mean that his whole blog is centered around McDonald’s and media bias. That would be rather obsessive of him. I just mean that he has a post on the subject of McDonald’s and media bias.

Why are you still reading this? Go there!

I’m not going to turn this into a political blog, but I’ve decided that having a separate blog for political issues just isn’t practical. So I will include my occasional political musings here.

[SPECIAL UPDATE: Since I’ve got people coming here while searching for Jonah Goldberg’s column about Buffy and Angel, I’ve decided to help them out by linking to it here. Enjoy. And feel free to look around here after you finish Jonah’s column.]

Tonight was the series finale of Angel.

Going into the seventh season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, everyone knew it was the final season, so the whole season was geared toward providing a conclusion. With Angel, the cancellation was a midseason surprise, so the arc to its conclusion was shorter.

And how was that conclusion?

Surprising in many ways.

A main character does die, but that wasn’t such a big surprise — it’s the third main character they’ve killed this season.

And the very end of the episode… Well, let’s just say it leaves things open for a sequel. Not quite a Blake’s 7 ending.

A couple of blog entries that really made me laugh this week:

Kevin McHenry has the true tale of a student who will probably be called “very bright” only when she manages to set herself on fire.

Jan’s Liahona has the true tale of the teacher who knew what Mozart was thinking.

The Phobos website has finally be updated to show the winners of the 2003 contest.

Here’s some interesting information about the winners that isn’t on the website:

The twelve winners live in ten different states (listed in order of population): California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Utah.

Twenty-five percent of the winners in the 2003 Phobos contest are from one state. In fact, twenty-five percent of the winners live in one county.

And that county is Utah County, Utah — one in Spanish Fork, one in Provo, and me in Eagle Mountain.

Utah County produced as many winners as California, New York, and Illinois combined.

Must be something in the water.

Contrary to the implications made over at Times and Seasons, I am neither a Gorn nor a shapeshifting lizard. And I have photographic evidence to prove it!

First, I have this picture of me about to be attacked by a Gorn:

Is there any confusion in your mind as to which of the two beings is the Gorn and which is me? As Al Borland would say, “I don’t think so, Tim.”

Second, I have a picture of how I would look if I were an alien:

Notice: NOT a lizard. I am not an alien from V, I am an alien from Star Trek.

I hope this clears up any confusion.

I’ve been thinking about songs from movie soundtracks. Not songs from movie musicals, nor songs that characters in the movie sing. (Yes, I think there’s a slight difference there. In musicals, the characters sing their feelings in situations where real people would not actually sing. In movies about singers, however, the character will sing in situations where a singer would sing. See the difference?) Nor am I thinking of popular songs that were then added to a movie soundtrack. I’m thinking about songs that were either written for the soundtrack (”If You Leave” by OMD, for the Pretty in Pink soundtrack) or that were rather obscure until they were put on a movie soundtrack (”500 Miles” by the Proclaimers, on the Benny & Joon soundtrack.)

Then there’s an even more specific category: the soundtrack songs that have the same name as the movie.

So, in the same-name category, I came up with four that I really like:

1. “The World Is Not Enough” by Garbage
   
2. “Footloose” by Kenny Loggins
   
3. “A View to a Kill” by Duran Duran
   
4. “Ghostbusters” by Ray Parker, Jr. (and, post-lawsuit, Huey Lewis)
   

I’m actually hard pressed to think of many more (other than the rest of the Bond themes), and I’m not particularly fond of the others I came up with: “Weird Science” by Oingo Boingo and “Pretty in Pink” by the Psychedelic Furs.

Anyone have other suggestions for good movie songs with the same name as the movie?