A meteor that exploded over Russia earlier this month likely hit Earth after a long trip from beyond the orbit of Mars, scientists say.
Astronomers and the public were caught off guard by the Russian fireball, which damaged thousands of buildings and wounded more than 1,000 people when it detonated over the city of Chelyabinsk on Feb. 15.
But some YouTube-aided detective work suggests that the meteor's parent body belonged to the Apollo family of Earth-crossingasteroids, whose elliptical orbits take them farther than one Earth-sun distance (about 93 million miles, or 150 million kilometers) from our star at some point, researchers said.
Jorge Zuluaga and Ignacio Ferrin of the University of Antioquia in Medellin, Colombia, reached this conclusion after analyzing several videos of the Russian meteor, especially one taken in Chelyabinsk's Revolutionary Square and another recorded in the nearby city of Korkino.
They also took into account the location of a hole in the ice of Lake Chebarkul, about 43 miles (70 km) from Chelyabinsk. Scientists think the hole was caused by a piece of the space rock that hit Earth on Feb. 15.
Using trigonometry, Zuluaga and Ferrin calculated basic elements of the fireball's path throughEarth's atmosphere.
"According to our estimations, the Chelyabinski meteor started to brighten up when it was between 32 and 47 km up in the atmosphere," they write in their paper, which has been posted to the online astronomy preprint site ArXiv.org. "The velocity of the body predicted by our analysis was between 13 and 19 km/s (relative to the Earth) which encloses the preferred figure of 18 km/s assumed by other researchers."
The pair then entered these figures into a software program developed by the United States Naval Observatory called NOVAS (short for Naval Observatory Vector Astrometry), which calculated the likely orbit of the meteor's parent body.
Some other scientists agree that this orbit took the space rock relatively far from the sun at times farther than Mars, in fact. "It came from the asteroid belt, about 2.5 times farther from the sun than Earth," Bill Cooke, of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., said in a statement. Cooke was not involved in Zuluaga and Ferrin's study.
Meanwhile, the size of the meteor's parent object has come into clearer focus, thanks to measurements made by a global network of infrasound sensors operated by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO). These sensors monitor extremely low-frequency sound waves, which are a common product of nuclear explosions.
As the Russian meteor burned through Earth's atmosphere, it generated the most powerful infrasound signal ever detected by the CTBTO network, researchers said. And this signal revealed a great deal about the asteroid's size, speed and explosive power.
"The asteroid was about 17 meters in diameter and weighed approximately 10,000 metric tons," Peter Brown, a physics professor at the University of Western Ontario in Canada, said in a statement. "It struck Earth's atmosphere at 40,000 mph and broke apart about 12 to 15 miles above Earth's surface. The energy of the resulting explosion exceeded 470 kilotons of TNT."
That's 30 to 40 times more powerful than the atomic bomb the United States dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima during World War II. The Russian fireball likely produced the most powerful such space rock blast since a 130-foot (40 m) object exploded over Siberia in 1908, flattening 825 square miles (2,137 square km) of forest.
Preliminary reports suggest that the Chelyabinsk fireball's parent asteroid was composed primarily of stone, with a smidge of iron thrown in.
"In other words, [it's] a typical asteroid from beyond the orbit of Mars," Cooke said. "There are millions more just like it."
The Russian meteor struck just hours before the 130-foot asteroid 2012 DA14 gave Earth a close shave, missing our planet by just 17,200 miles (27,000 km). But the two space rocks are unrelated, researchers say, making Feb. 15 a day of remarkable cosmic coincidences.
And why would that be necessary to remake one of my favorite movies, you ask?
Well, that was my question, which is what prompted me to record and watch this piece of crap.
And yes, I most often review real films not made for tv movies, but I couldn't help but write how bad this "movie" was and how completely unnecessary it was for anyone to remake it.
So here we go...
Airing on Lifetime television, I saw that someone had decided to remake this movie, but use an all African-American cast. I thought perhaps the original play had focused on this race of women, but no, as far as I understand it was not. It was based on a man who lost his sister to diabetes and could not cope with it well so he started writing about it, and eventually it became a play.
So first off, I must mention there were no black people in the original film, which is unfortunate, since the world is full of all breeds, and the south also has many African-Americans. Even the remake had Ouiser's old flame be a white man, although her dog was no longer a St. Bernard, but instead, a black lab...It was not lost on me.
I think the reason to redo something is to put your own spin on it, right? But huge chunks of dialogue were copied, verbatim, for the remake. Just changing the color of your cast, doesn't amount to a big enough difference to allow for a complete regurgitation of script.
Queen Latifah was playing the mother, Sally Field's old role, and she lacked conviction. Her speech about her daughter's death was not moving, not emotional, and nothing special. I have been more convinced from her speeches during a Cover Girl cosmetics commercial. A totally laughably bad character in the hands of Queen Latifah, she was wayyyyyy out of her range.
And don't ask me about the scene right after her daughter dies. You know the part where they're in the hospital and she's telling everyone how to get ready for the funeral then turns and runs out of the waiting room to go get the only piece left of her daughter still living? Well, for Sally Field they showed her driving at dawn to go get Jack, strong, emotional, believable, but in the Lifetime version, Latifah just turns away from her family in the waiting room and starts running through the hospital. It looks like she just forgot to turn off the oven at home and she has no emotion on her face. It plays out really empty, and looks silly. Ugh.
I don't think it's even worth any more talk. I'm stopping my blog right now.
All you need to know is that this version, sucks. The acting was uninspired and lacked heart and feeling.
You don't care about the connections of the women in this film, and I don't think the actors could get the old version out of their heads, which made them just copy what they had seen before.
Rewatch the original or go see the play.
I have a new motto for Lifetime.....
Lifetime.....the channel of nothing special remakes.
0 out of 5 only because a negative is not possible on my scale.
So last night, I did indeed watch the Oscars, and there weren't too many surprises.
The host was mediocre, like I expected from that no talent guy, but I certainly didn't want to hear him sing.
I did enjoy watching Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Daniel Radcliffe dance and sing, that was fun.
My favorite thing of the whole evening was watching Charlize Theron dance. She was so good and I had no idea.
There were a few nice dresses, some handsome men, you know, the usual.
Jennifer Lawrence falling down was a missed opportunity. If I had been her, I would've let Hugh Jackman help me up and ask him to carry me to the mike....That would've made for a really memorable moment for all of Oscar history.
Otherwise, it's a bland boring show this year. I didn't care too much for the nominees or the films, so I had nothing invested. I was really wishing that Anne Hathaway was not going to win, and that the voters would have come to their senses, but alas, no luck. The voters are just as out of touch as usual. I mean, did they see her in the last Batman movie, totally terrible as catwoman. Or how 'bout, One Day, also, really terrible and a really horrible fake sounding British accent. Ugh, I hate that woman.
Anyways, so there it is.
The Oscars 2013, nothing special.
Maybe next year....
So I'm going to watch the Oscars again tonight, even though I've believed for quite some time that the voters are totally out of touch with what's really good or not.
I don't have any high hopes tonight, and I'm recording it so I can just fast forward through most of it.
We'll see what the fashions have in store for me.
The breakdown: An alien and his warrior protector live on Earth, hiding from bad guys that ran them off their original planet years ago. The alien teen is special, gifted with some powers that were only granted to 9 children. Children one, two, and three have already been chased down and killed and he is the next to die.
So on this alien planet, an invading species comes in and destroys their home world. Nine kids that are highly gifted are given protectors and sent to Earth to grow up and hide from the bad guys. The children grow to teens, but soon the bad guys are on Earth and start killing them off. Number four is forced to move from place to place in the United States, trying to stay safe. His warrior protector works hard to keep him alive, but the teenage boy is getting tired of never being able to stick around long enough to make friends, or have a real home.
When they move to a small town in middle America, the boy finds a girl he likes, and makes a friend in an outcast at his high school. Slowly he makes ties that he wants to keep, even though, him and his protector find out their lives are at risk, yet again.
I knew I wanted to see this movie, but I had no idea what it was really about from the preview.
It turned out to be really good and I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would.
I can easily recommend it, even though, for some reason, it got terrible reviews.
3 and 1/2 out of 5 for being interesting and a unique idea that makes for a good film.
I don't even know where to start with this game.
I've had it for almost year knowing that once I finished it, there wouldn't be anymore to the story and that was a very sad thought. I enjoyed Mass Effect 2 so much, that I didn't want it to end. I knew I missed out on the first Mass Effect because it wasn't previously available on the Play Station 3 (now it is, but I still don't have it.) But not having played that first one, really didn't affect my enjoyment of the game and I didn't feel lost (ok, maybe the tiniest bit here or there, but not enough to really notice.)
I have already reviewed the 2nd one in a previous post. I loved it and said it was the best game I had ever played, and I sincerely doubt that another game will ever come along in my lifetime to beat that one.
And I wasn't the only one raving about ME2. It seemed everyone I knew loved it and it got glowing reviews.
So when the 3rd and final one came out, there was a lot of expectations, a lot of anticipation, and also a lot of fear that it would not live up to all the hype.
I, personally, expected a lot, but also thought if the second one was as good as it was, that this one would be just as good. Being that this is the last installment in a series of 3, it had to be final. It had to be epic, it had to be, and I knew people would die. The second one is still my favorite, only because, if one of my crew died, I knew I could go back and change a decision somewhere to save them. I didn't have that chance in this one, and it was painful to see some of my crew go.
The second one was epic, thrilling, entertaining, and funny sometimes. It was a great mix and even included the chance at romance with almost anyone in the game that was a major character. It was a fun ride and I thoroughly enjoyed it. When it was over, I just played it again and again, trying out different things to see what was different. I walked away knowing it was the best game I ever played, and would never forget it.
While it was mostly fun and thrilling, it also had a few touching moments.
The third one was thought-provoking and powerful. It has a lot of moments that might make you well up with tears. I certainly shed quite a few throughout the story. You have to make some heart-wrenching decisions that determine whether entire species are saved or lost forever. You have to sit and watch while people or alien races around you die and there's nothing you can do to save them, I'm talking millions of people, and worst of all, I had to watch my love interest slowly die after he tried to protect me.
It is simply an amazing story to watch unfold and to know that you're story is different than other players, due to your individual choices makes it that much better of an experience, personal to you, and like no one else's.
At first I felt a bit embarrassed being so emotionally connected to a video game, but I thought, a story is a story. And a good or great story like this one, is great to find. Whether it be a book, movie, television show, and yes, even video game - a great story makes you feel things, it makes you care about the characters, it makes you invested, no matter how hard you resist.
The characters are incredibly well detailed, well thought out, well crafted, and each one, important to the story. Every single one is different and interesting. Some get under your skin, some make you laugh, some make you cry, and some even make you fall in love with them. The villains are easy to hate and good at being bad asses. The good guys, of course, are heroic and flawed as well, just as real people are, but you always root for them to accomplish their mission.
The cinematic quality of this story rivals real films. The framing of shots, cinematography, the animation, and score are all excellent Story line is better than most movies, I'd say 95% of today's movies cannot touch how good this story is.
I could go on and on about how fantastic this all is, but I've realized I haven't told you the plot.
Let's get to it!
From the last Mass Effect, you, Commander Shepard, put together a varied and talented team from all over the galaxy to fight a mutual enemy that no one believes is real....The Reapers. Believed to be a myth, no one ever thought all life throughout the universe would be threatened by these huge entities. While collecting your team in the last game, you are also trying to raise the alarm to anyone who will listen that the Reapers are real and they are coming to destroy us all. Of course, no one listens, and by the end of the game you are proven right with the final shot of ME2. (I am not spoiling the game for you, by the way, so no hate mail please.)
Along the way, you make a ton of little and big decisions in ME2 that come to fruition in this game, so I made my choices carefully, and also found myself attracted to one particular character and started a love relationship with him, and only him. Truth be told, I liked a couple male characters, but I'm always loyal to one person in real life, so that's how I decided to be in the game as well. Like I said earlier, I felt a bit embarrassed to be emotionally invested in characters in a video game, but I've been doing some research. Turns out the creators of my love interest in the game were specifically aiming to make him attractive to women. I'm glad I found this out, makes me feel like they were trying to get me to notice him, which, I really did. The character they made was quite intriguing. I read an article where they showed his inception and how they drew him, his look, the way his look evolved. It was fascinating.
So, ME3 starts off well, with you on Earth working for the Alliance (a human military operation based on planet Earth) doing day to day stuff. You're still trying to get people, especially people of power, to listen to your concerns about the Reapers coming, and while you are trying to still succeed at that, Earth is suddenly under attack by the Reapers. They are huge individual spaceships, incredibly dangerous, and almost impossible to kill. They land on Earth and start destroying everything in their path, collecting people along the way and killing massive amounts of others. The people they collect become mere shells of their former selves, and are slaves to the Reapers who either kill or collect more people. You are forced to leave Earth behind as the attack has just barely begun. You truly are the only hope of saving Earth, and the galaxy, and you must leave your home to stay alive and defeat them once and for all.
Throughout ME3 you meet up and sometimes re-recruit your old team from ME2. Whoever was still alive at the end of ME2 you will see in one way or another during the course of the game. You may not get to work with them again, but you'll get an update as to what happened after the end of the last game and where they are headed. I finally got to see what my previous decisions affected and now it makes me wonder who I could've saved, had I made different decisions. People died in this game due to what I decided previously but I went with the only information I had at the time, just like you do in real life, and you only learn they were mistakes after they are made.
Anyway, after you've got all the help you can get with teammates, and other alien species, the final fight comes around and it is a doozy! I died several times in the last hour of the game from all the biggies I had to fight.
And then, the part I was dreading came around, the end.
The end of the game was a little of what I expected, but a lot more spiritual and gut-wrenching then even I thought it could be. I was very satisfied with the ending and it was spectacular to watch.
I will talk about the ending down at the bottom of the article so as to not spoil it for anyone who hasn't played it yet. And if you haven't played it, you're missing out on a phenomenal, epic, moving story that you will never forget, I promise. This story would be on my short list of recommendations of things to do before you die, that's how fantastic this story is. I am not kidding you. It. Is. That. Good.
Mass Effect 2 got a 5 out of 5.
Mass Effect 3 is no different, 5 out of 5.
For both I'd give it a 100 out of 5 to give you an idea of how much I loved both.
PLAY THIS GAME PLEASE!!!!
It's so breathtaking, beautiful, and amazing. It's gripping, emotionally charged, and fascinating.
Anyway, here's a look at one of the trailers for Mass Effect 3. Watching it will not ruin anything for you, story wise.
HERE COMES ME TALKING ABOUT THE END OF THE GAME SO, IF YOU HAVEN'T PLAYED IT, I REALLY SUGGEST: DO NOT RUIN THIS FOR YOURSELF. PLAY IT AND THEN COME BACK AND READ UP ON THIS.
For me this is how the end of the game went.
I chose the middle option, or the "green" option as some people call it.
The choice of organic life and artificial life combining DNA.
To me, this did not mean that everyone instantly became cyborgs. I interpreted it as over time, people could mate with robots and have hybrid children. And artificial life became independent and able to have children of their own, if they chose to. It made it a real possibility for Joker and EDI to have a sexual relationship, and have offspring, when before it was impossible. But, upon seeing Joker's eyes shining bright electric light, and his skin has the quality of a green shining microchip, I realized, it really is an instantaneous reaction of organic and artificial life living in one body of all entities. Cool idea, but that's the only look you get, so I wonder how that works.
I knew the "child" was something the A.I. downloaded off of Shepard's memories to have something familiar appear to her and be less scary. I'm imagining the Catalyst was something beyond human comprehension and needed to appear as something the viewer would not be afraid of and something recognizable.
I actually thought the catalyst was the highest advanced alien ever in the galaxy, something that was organic, strictly living on a higher plane than ours, some race that had evolved over eons that didn't become robotic, but in the game, Shepard referred to it as an A.I. In truth, the child is an AI that created the Reapers to control the advancement of organic civilizations getting too far advanced; thus killing any civilization that was capable of making artificial life smarter than who created it. The Reapers, every 50,000 years, go through the galaxy to clean up advanced civilizations. The AI is engaging in God like behaviors and preserving itself as well as organic life, but it's a moral dilemma. I'm a bit torn. I mean, of course it's not a good idea that organic life wipes itself out by creating robots that gain independence over time and start a war, but at the same time, killing all those innocent people because of what one entity thinks will happen in the future is not fair either.
It's interesting to consider that this AI is controlling everything, literally everything in the galaxy. Something that had to be created from an organic civilization somewhere long long ago.
The AI said that the created always rebel against the creators and the creators are always going to lose. Certainly something to think about...I mean this game is making a statement about humanity, life, and intelligence, it's not just a video game. It's a warning of making artificial life so real that it wants to take our place and becomes smarter than us. That eventually, all organic life would fall at the hands of what it created and there would be no more humans, no more organic life forms anywhere. Very interesting to think about.
So the other endings that I didn't choose:
I couldn't destroy all artificial life thinking of EDI and the Geth. I had earlier chose to save the Geth over the Quarians so, to me, that wouldn't have made sense at all. (But in this ending, if your military strength is high enough, Shepard lives at the end, the only ending to play out this way.)
I didn't want to just control the Reapers either and die without going on somehow, so that wasn't the best option for me either.
Although, I do have to say once my love interest died, I wanted to die at the end of the story too, so that hopefully, they would've had us together somehow in the afterlife together and make it a "happy" bittersweet ending. But I was always sure Shepard would sacrifice her/himself to get the job done and save Earth, and the galaxy.
But, I'm still happy with the powerful ending they gave. I'm glad at least some of my crew survived, even though they had to start all over again on a new planet with no ship and no mass relays. I'm glad I saved the galaxy and Earth, but sad that so many races are stuck where they were during the battle since all the relays got destroyed, and some can never go home. Earth, after all, is not a planet that all the species can live on, due to different pressure, diet, and breathing problems.
Yes, I saved the world and the galaxy from the Reapers. That's what I was born to do in that game. My sole mission. I completed my destiny, but I just wished I could've saved my love interest too.
I do have a few small concerns that could've been easily fixed in the game.
I created a relationship with Thane. At first, he had decided to die in battle since he had a terminal illness without any cure developed to save him yet. When you meet him, he's trying to kill a target and thought he would die in the process. He was fine with that, but upon meeting Shepard and hearing of her upcoming suicide mission, he decides he must help, and will probably die that way. When you start romancing him though, his thought process changes. He finds his son and finds a new possible, love of his life. He's suddenly afraid of death and losing people that are precious to him. He wants to live as long as possible by the end of ME2, but at the beginning of ME3 he's gone back to his old thinking. Suddenly, he's resigned to death again, and there's nothing you can do to change that. I don't like the flip flop of his character, he should still be fighting to stay with you and stay alive. Plus, I hear other characters that you romance get these little date like moments in the game, with Thane, you don't. A brief, but meaningful playfulness at the Citadel hospital is all you really get while he's alive. A sex scene that isn't, and then he gets mortally wounded trying to protect you and others. Due to his disease he cannot be saved, and why not? Really because the BioWare people decided you have no say in the matter. The cure the Hanar are working on does not come into play, a transplant talked about in ME2 does not factor in, new advancements in medi-gel and medicine talked about in ME3 also does not factor. You watch him die in the hospital next to his son, who donated blood, but it just wasn't enough to save him. You are powerless (and a bit stoic about it on screen in the game, bothered me...) absolutely powerless in the game to help him. Why not fight next to him in the scene where he got stabbed? Why not have him last at least long enough to fight next to me in the final battle? Why couldn't he die later on in the game, or not die at all after he gets help from the Hanar?
I know it all sounds like I'm going bonkers over little details, but Thane was the love of my life in that game. I got really excited at seeing him in this game and looked forward to his scenes. Just a bit disappointing to me, a big Thane/Shepard fan. Plus after he dies, no one on the Normandy gives you any acknowledgment that he died. No one says how sorry they are for your loss. The only one who does say anything about his death was the man that killed him, and he taunts you with it. Pretty insulting to me.
Anyway, you do get a posthumous email from Thane on the Normandy after you return. He tells you how deeply he felt for you and it is special. I did read it a few times through tears to catch all of it, it was well done and meant a lot to me, but I wished for more interaction with him while he was alive.
Despite these missteps, I still loved the game and will probably play through it a few more times, now that I have the add-ons I thought I had already, plus the extended cut of the ending. I know they're coming out eventually, with another Mass Effect game, but from what I understand, it is not going to be a continuation of Shepard's story. I will have to look forward to whatever is to come from the BioWare people in the future.
It's such an amazing game!
Released: 2012
Drama
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Starring: Denzel Washington, Don Cheadle
Running Time: 138 minutes
Rated: R
The breakdown: After a pilot saves an airplane from a deadly crash, the investigation into the cause leads to some disturbing discoveries about the man himself.
I rented this movie and had really wanted to catch in theaters. From the preview I thought the story was going to be that the pilot was a good guy and just blacked out or something after the crash and didn't remember how he saved the plane.
The trailer, I thought, was completely deceiving after seeing the actual movie.
What the story really went like was this:
An asshole alcoholic, who likes to snort cocaine as well, just happens to be an airline pilot. He's terrible to his ex-wife and he never speaks to his teenage son. He sleeps around and it seems there is nothing redeemable about his character. You see the entire plane crashing scene, you know exactly what happened. Most of the movie is showing what an asshole he is to other people and how he can't control just about any of his urges, to drink or otherwise. His problems really come to light after the crash investigation starts.
What this movie really is, is a failed attempt at a character study. The directing was not bad, the acting was not bad. The story is not believable, and the character does something completely out of character by the end of the movie. You never care about the main character or his problems. I ended up feeling cheated, and disappointed. I had so looked forward to seeing this one. I was bored at times, by how long some of the scenes went on to hammer home one certain point. The main character was impossible to like, root for, and one dimensional.
This was not a good movie and I cannot recommend it. I don't know why Washington was nominated for this performance, I'm sure there was a lot better that year. If you want to see a great character study movie, I recommend "The Wrestler".
Anyways, skip this film. Don't waste any time on this depressing, highly lacking "drama".
1 out of 5 for me caring about one of the side characters, and good acting (though it didn't lead anywhere unfortunately.)
I finished Mass Effect 3 late last night and am still trying to process it all.
It was an epic series, with a powerful ending that really made me think.
I'm working on a review tonight, but it's a complex story.
I'll post it up in the upcoming days.
My husband was misinformed and went to the source directly to find out the truth.
I told him not to believe the rumors, but it really is the case that the info he heard initially was wrong and he shouldn't have to worry about losing his job or getting his pay reduced.
Yay! Good news for once.
We really didn't need to go out for a late Valentine's Day celebration tonight for dinner, especially considering that he might lose his job, or get a big salary cut, so we went to Classic Slice for pizza.
They are one of my favorite pizza places here because of the Milmac n' Cheese specialty pizza.
Granted, I would've been fine without spending money for dinner, but my husband wanted to treat me anyways.
Not what I expected, but not bad either.
My husband might lose his job, or otherwise be pushed out of it by lowering his pay....
He's all upset. I just see it as an opportunity to move away from here and go back home for good, finally.
We'll see what happens.
Wow! Space is so awesome, and so is mother nature.
I was astounded to see the footage from Russia today when the meteorite hit there this morning.
Absolutely amazing!
By JIM HEINTZ and VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV | Associated Press
Russian meteorite caught on tape; injuries reportedKABC – Los Angeles 0:56A meteor hit over Russia's Ural Mountains on Friday, causing sharp explosions and reportedly injuring …
MOSCOW (AP) — A meteor streaked across the sky and exploded over Russia's Ural Mountains with the power of an atomic bomb Friday, its sonic blasts shattering countless windows and injuring about 1,100 people.
The spectacle deeply frightened many Russians, with some elderly women declaring that the world was coming to an end. Many of the injured were cut by flying glass as they flocked to windows, curious about what had produced such a blinding flash of light.
The meteor — estimated to be about 10 tons — entered the Earth's atmosphere at a hypersonic speed of at least 54,000 kph (33,000 mph) and shattered into pieces about 30-50 kilometers (18-32 miles) above the ground, the Russian Academy of Sciences said in a statement.
Amateur video showed an object speeding across the sky about 9:20 a.m. local time, just after sunrise, leaving a thick white contrail and an intense flash.
"There was panic. People had no idea what was happening," said Sergey Hametov, a resident of Chelyabinsk, a city of 1 million about 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) east of Moscow.
"We saw a big burst of light, then went outside to see what it was and we heard a really loud, thundering sound," he told The Associated Press by telephone.
The meteor hit less than a day before asteroid 2012 DA14 is to make the closest recorded pass by the Earth for a rock of its size — about 17,150 miles (28,000 kilometers). But the European Space Agency said its experts had determined there was no connection — just cosmic coincidence.
The meteor released several kilotons of energy above the region, the Russian science academy said. According to NASA, it was about 15 meters (49 feet) wide before it hit the atmosphere, about one-third the size of the passing asteroid.
Some meteorite fragments fell in a reservoir outside the town of Chebarkul. The crash left an eight-meter (26-foot) -wide crater in the ice.
The shock wave blew in an estimated 100,000 square meters (more than 1 million square feet) of glass, according to city officials, who said 3,000 buildings in the city were damaged. At one zinc factory, part of the roof collapsed.
The Interior Ministry said about 1,100 people sought medical care after the shock wave and 48 of them were hospitalized. Most of the injuries were caused by flying glass, officials said.
There was no immediate word on any deaths or anyone struck by space fragments.
Meteors typically cause sizeable sonic booms when they enter the atmosphere because they are traveling so much faster than the speed of sound. Injuries on the scale reported Friday, however, are extraordinarily rare.
"I went to see what that flash in the sky was about," recalled resident Marat Lobkovsky. "And then the window glass shattered, bouncing back on me. My beard was cut open, but not deep. They patched me up. It's OK now."
Another resident, Valya Kazakov, said some elderly women in his neighborhood started crying out that the world was ending.
Russian-language hashtags for the meteorite quickly shot up into Twitter's top trends.
Lessons had just started at Chelyabinsk schools when the meteor exploded, and officials said 258 schoolchildren were among those injured. Amateur video footage showed a teacher speaking to her class as a powerful shockwave hit the room.
Yekaterina Melikhova, a high school student whose nose was bloody and whose upper lip was covered with a bandage, said she was in her geography class when a bright light flashed outside.
"After the flash, nothing happened for about three minutes. Then we rushed outdoors. I was not alone, I was there with Katya. The door was made of glass, a shock wave made it hit us," she said.
Russian television ran footage of athletes at a city sports arena who were showered by shards of glass from huge windows. Some of them were still bleeding.
Other videos showed a long shard of glass slamming into the floor close to a factory worker and massive doors blown away by the shock wave.
The vast implosion of glass windows exposed many residents to the bitter cold as temperatures in the city were expected to plummet to minus 20 Celsius (minus 4 Fahrenheit) overnight.
The regional governor immediately urged any worker who can pane windows to rush to the area to help out.
Meteroids are small pieces of space debris — usually parts of comets or asteroids — that are on a collision course with the Earth. They become meteors when they enter the Earth's atmosphere. Most meteors burn up in the atmosphere, but if they survive the frictional heating and strike the surface of the Earth they are called meteorites.
The site of Friday's spectacular show is about 5,000 kilometers (3,000 miles) west of Tunguska, which in 1908 was the site of the largest recorded explosion of a space object plunging to Earth. That blast, attributed to a comet or asteroid fragment, is generally estimated to have been about 10 megatons; it leveled some 80 million trees.
Scientists believe that a far larger meteorite strike on what today is Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula may have been responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs about 66 million years ago. According to that theory, the impact would have thrown up vast amounts of dust that blanketed the sky for decades and altered the climate on Earth.
The meteor could have produced much more serious problems. Chelyabinsk is an industrial town long held to be one of the world's most polluted areas, and the area around it hosts nuclear and chemical weapons disposal facilities.
Vladimir Chuprov of Greenpeace Russia said the Russian government has underestimated potential risks of the region. He noted that the meteor struck only 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the Mayak nuclear storage and disposal facility, which holds dozens of tons of weapons-grade plutonium.
A chemical weapons disposal facility at Shchuchye also contains some 6,000 tons (5,460 metric tons) of nerve agents, including sarin and VX, about 14 percent of the chemical weapons that Russia is committed to destroy.
The panic and confusion that followed Friday's meteorite crash quickly gave way to typical Russian black humor and entrepreneurial instincts.
Several people smashed in the windows of their houses in the hopes of receiving compensation, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.
Others quickly took to the Internet and put what they said were meteorite fragments up for sale.
One of the most popular jokes was that the meteorite was supposed to fall on Dec. 21 last year — when many believed the Mayan calendar predicted the end of the world — but was delivered late by Russia's notoriously inefficient postal service.
The dramatic event prompted an array of reactions from prominent Russians.
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, speaking at an economic forum in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, said the meteor could be a symbol for the forum, showing that "not only the economy is vulnerable, but the whole planet."
Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a nationalist leader noted for his vehement statements, blamed the Americans.
"It's not meteors falling. It's the test of a new weapon by the Americans," the RIA Novosti news agency quoted him as saying.
Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said the incident showed the need for leading world powers to develop a system to intercept objects falling from space.
"At the moment, neither we nor the Americans have such technologies" to shoot down meteors or asteroids, he said, according to the Interfax news agency.
Jim Green, NASA's director of planetary science, called the back-to-back celestial events an amazing display.
"This is indeed very rare and it is historic," he said on NASA TV. "These fireballs happen about once a day or so, but we just don't see them because many of them fall over the ocean or in remote areas. "
Well, today was a day off of working out, thank God.
And my husband had to work today, so nothing special, other than exchanging cards for us.
I made him dinner and sent him off to work this afternoon.
We'll have to celebrate the holiday on Sunday afternoon or evening.
Hope your day was nice!
So my husband and I planned on celebrating the holiday at a nice new restaurant.
Upon looking at their menu again last night, I decided it just didn't sound good.
So I looked up the hours of our favorite restaurant, and they closed at 3 pm for the day.
So then we decided on a close by pizza place, and waited until we were hungry to call and place an order.
They are closed on Tuesdays until April.
Ok, so I ended up making dinner myself and not doing anything special really.
There's always this weekend to try and celebrate it late.
We'll see what's open then.
I'm a bit absent from my blog today.
Working on the taxes. : (
So far done with federal, but still have 2 states to do.
Wish me luck.
They always make me nervous.
Well, today it's 90 minutes of hard yoga.
I struggled with it last time, even though, I'm pretty good at yoga, or so I thought.
Let's see how much better I do today.
Wish me luck.
Released: 2006
Drama
Director: Sofia Coppola
Starring: Kirsten Dunst, Jason Schwartzman
Running Time: 123 long LONG minutes
Rated: PG-13
The breakdown: This is supposed to be the biography of the young queen of France, Marie Antoinette. The movie is based on a book titled, "Marie Antoinette: The Journey" by Antonia Fraser, though I'm sure the book is much more enjoyable then the movie was.
I knew I wouldn't like this movie, most likely, but I gave it a chance anyway. Sofia Coppola should never be allowed to be involved with another movie, in any fashion, ever, EVER again. This movie could have easily been realistic, and it could've been more serious, and it could've been much shorter, by like 40 minutes.
There's a ton of scenes that are completely unnecessary like showing her running through fields, playing with animals, and eating, and shopping, and gambling. A lot of the scenes looked like an Eternity cologne ad instead of a movie, and it dragged on and on.
The real story of Marie was that she was born into royalty in Austria (by the way, in the movie, maybe a handful of people spoke with an appropriate accent, but central characters did not.) When France and Austria needed to solidify there new arrangement of being friends, Marie was given to Louis XVI as a bride at the age of 15. She left everything and everyone behind in Austria and lived in France.
After her wedding, it was expected she produce a child right away, but it took them 7 years to have a child, and it turned out to be a girl. She had a few miscarriages, a couple more kids, and one more that was probably not Louis'. She began partying, eating expensive foods, spending lots of money, gambling, and most likely cheating on her husband from an early age (maybe 17). Awhile after living there, the king died and her husband took over, and she became queen. Eventually, the French people were tired of not being able to eat or have any sort of livable life and the French Revolution happened where they stormed the place where the king and queen lived. The poor state of the French finances were not solely caused by the queen, but she certainly didn't help matters.
The movie ends when the angry mob shows up at their house and they are running off in the night for safety, so her and her husband's trials and executions are not shown. (That was what I was most interested in, in this story, but I was sorely disappointed.)
As far as facts go, the movie is mostly factual, the acting is fine, the wardrobe is divine, and the animal actors, adorable, but it's a crappy movie. Here's why:
The entire movie's soundtrack is current popular rock and roll, or pop music. Very distracting from the story and totally takes you out of the time frame.
There's many unnecessary scenes. I've already spoke of these with dialogue-less moments showing the queen doing various meaningless things.
My idea is, if you're doing a film and want it to be taken seriously, then do it right, otherwise, why make a movie at all?
The slow pace and unnecessary scenes, make the film really unbearable to watch and easy to dislike.
Forget this one please.
1 out of 5 for a beautiful wardrobe and some great locations.
Released: 2005
Drama, Romance
Director: Ang Lee
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Heath Ledger
Running Time: 134 minutes
Rated: R
The breakdown: A story about two cowboys who fall in love one summer in Wyoming and what comes after their time together on Brokeback mountain is over.
I had heard a LOT about this movie from several different sources before I ever saw it.
It was a "gay cowboy" movie. "It wasn't gay, it was a bisexual movie." "It wasn't bisexual, it was about straight men who fell in love with each other." "It was about two humans, regardless of their gender or sexual preference that fell in love, like 2 souls who bonded." In all actuality, both main characters sexual preference is completely ambiguous, so it's up to the viewer to decide what their orientation's are, and if that's even important to the story. To me, it was not.
Usually when I see two actors, or actresses kiss on screen playing gay or lesbian characters, I always wonder what it must be like for the people (who are usually straight) to play those roles. I must confess, I thought of that for a moment in this film, but then forgot about it. The story is gripping enough and the acting is good enough to make you forget such personal thoughts and just escape into the story.
You are overwhelmed by the chemistry of the 2 main characters and their troubles, and their love life is all you care about. You certainly want them to stay together, but life and themselves keep each other at bay.
So, here's the plot.
During 1963 western America, two cowboys are applying for a ranching/herding job in the mountains of Wyoming. They both get hired and are sent up to Brokeback Mountain, an isolated, but beautiful place, where they will move and watch over a large heard of sheep for the summer.
After a short while together, it's obvious that they get along well and that something extra is brewing. When one makes an advance on the other, there's a bit of resistance, but eventually acceptance, then finally a strong bond of friendship and love.
When they find that the job has been cut short due to the boss calling them back before severe weather moves in, they are both angry and disappointed. When they do part ways, both are heartbroken.
They live in different states and each ends up with a wife and kids. But after 4 years, one finds the other and they agree to meet up again. This starts a pattern of them getting together and heading off to Brokeback Mountain again every few years. This also continues the lies to their families and partly for one, the lies to himself that this can't work in that time frame's society.
This was a complicated movie that was done flawlessly. It certainly struck chords for me with past relationships in my life and regardless of sexual orientation, it is a universal love story that really doesn't need the sexual preference titles. Love is love, and parting with the one you love, no matter what the cause, is difficult and terrible.
The cinematography was utterly beautiful, the acting was superb, the story was engrossing and just didn't let you go. You had to know what was going to happen with these two men and if they'd ever be together again permanently.
It's obvious that one character was more accepting of the homosexual relationship then the other. Although, in the other character's defense it seemed his father told him the story of a homosexual man getting beat to death and then showing him the body that certainly made the little boy afraid of being gay. They both struggle with finding the time to get together as their separate lives have made it difficult to leave their wives and kids to sneak away with each other. Society wasn't nearly as open and accepting as they are today back in the 60's and 70's, but we still have a long way to go even from today's viewpoints.
I thoroughly enjoyed this film as it was a great love story and extremely well done.
SEE THIS ONE!
5 out of 5 for being utterly brilliant and beautiful.
Released: 2012
Horror
Author: J. L. Bourne
Pages: 336
Publisher: Permuted Press
The breakdown: The third, and possibly last, book in the zombie series by J. L. Bourne. This book tells of what's left of the government and how they are trying to find a cure for the zombies that have taken over the planet.
It's hard to talk about this book without giving things away, especially if you haven't read the first two.
First, I'll recap by saying the first two were about a single soldier of the U.S. Military that discovered his world turned upside down by a vicious illness that turns people into zombies. He tries to survive the best he can, and makes friends along the way, making his group of survivors, bigger and bigger.
In this book, the way the stories are told changes. It's no longer just our lone survivor and his group of friends. It's also what's left of the government, special ops teams, and a few other groups that's best left out for your enjoyment of the book.
I can say, this was probably my favorite of the three since this was action packed and had lots of good ideas in it. I'm not sure so many others will like it.
I have read others reviews of it, and they mention how the ending is a bit abrupt, and that's true....It seems the ending was a bit rushed, but if there's another book in the series, perhaps that will smooth out the ending of this book. It didn't bother me, to tell the truth.
The ending leaves room for another book, of course, and after I read the end, I did need to go back and reread a few other parts. But overall, I liked the book and the series. I would easily recommend it to anyone who likes to read, or zombie stories.
Released: 2012
Animated
Director: Rich Moore
Starring: John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman
Running Time: 108 minutes
Rated: PG
The breakdown: A video game bad guy from the 80's wants desperately to be a good guy for once and feel like a hero to someone.
This bad guy named Ralph that's supposed to be like Donkey Kong from the 80's goes around wrecking a building in a 1980's 8-bit game. There's Fix It Felix who goes around and fixes everything that Ralph wrecks and that's the whole game. Somehow the game has endured at the local arcade and one day Ralph realizes it's his game's 30th anniversary. He lives alone in a dump while Felix lives in a high rise apartment complex and is loved and adored by the tenants that have their stuff fixed by him. Ralph sees that that night, the tenants are throwing a big party and no one invited him. He goes up to the penthouse and demands to be included, although, no one really wants him there. He ends up ruining a few parts of the penthouse and embarrasses himself. He leaves and goes to the equivalent of Grand Central Station for the arcade games. There he can hang out with other video game characters and finds himself intruding on another game entirely. One where the main objective is to be a space soldier fighting off space bugs. The prize is a gold medal which he wants badly to prove to the people in his own video game that he too, can be a hero, or good guy. He ends up messing up that game and rocketing into, yet another game called Sugar Rush. In this game, the world is full of candy and players compete in homemade cars to race to the finish line. This is where most of the movie takes place.
While the movie is super colorful and very nostalgic, it does not hold a place as one of my favorite Pixar movies. Part of the unfortunate part of the movie is the casting of the very unfunny Sarah Silverman as the female lead. She's annoying and stupid in real life, and in the movie her character is annoying and immature, though her character is a kid so I'll have to admit most kids are immature. I think another unfortunate part of the movie is, if you're going to do something nostalgic, do it all the way. They do show some familiar characters like Sonic the Hedgehog, the ghosts and Pacman from Pacman, the Tapper game, and a few others, but I feel I would've enjoyed even more old 80's game references. The little touches often make for the best pieces of the movie and the use of some characters only moving in 8-bit squares or making a couple of doughnuts be the cops is cute and memorable. I didn't laugh as much as I was hoping for, but overall the movie was ok. It's not one of the ones I want to own, or see again, but if you like Pixar movies, you'll probably like this one.
2 and 1/2 out of 5 only because I know how good Pixar movies can be, so this one falls short of something like Toy Story or Finding Nemo.
Located in the Bay View area of Milwaukee, this place is one restaurant in a group of four, owned by the same company.
My husband wanted to take me here, so I looked at the menu online and thought I would find some stuff tasty.
Turns out, I didn't like most of what we ate enough to ever want to go back.
For starters, we ordered the pork sliders on pretzel buns. The buns were good enough, the pork was tender and juicy, but the sandwich was topped with some Asian coleslaw. Yuck, ruined the whole thing. It was mainly carrots topped with soy sauce. Too much on one little slider.
For my entree I settled on a turkey sandwich and a side of white chicken chili. While the turkey itself was good, the sandwich was slathered with some sort of secret mayonnaise sauce which ruined it. It was layered with Swiss, turkey, lettuce, tomato, and way too much of that sauce on every piece of bread. It was stacked high and too hard to eat without trying to take it apart into smaller sandwiches and making a mess.
The chili was more like soup, and very thin on beans and chicken, nothing like what I expected.
My husband got his usual, which is a steak salad and he enjoyed it as he always does.
Overall, not impressed and I won't go back again, even for my husband. It was like everything was almost good, but one too many things ruined the item.
So yesterday it was Yoga, which I thought would be easy.
I was sooooo wrong.
Not easy at all, but in the end it was relaxing at least and gave my sore muscles a bit of a massage.
Today it was legs and back.
More agony, but I'm sticking with it.
Just wanted to update you all.
Released: 2011
Drama
Director: Tate Taylor
Starring: Emma Stone, Viola Davis
Running Time: 146 minutes
Rated: PG-13
The breakdown: A young aspiring writer breaks out of her conventional socialite role and helps expose the civil injustice of African American maids in Jackson, Mississippi during the 1960's.
A young girl in the 1960's just graduated college and is back at home in Jackson, Mississippi. This is a very small and mostly racist town at this time in history. The girl wants nothing to do with men, so she doesn't have a boyfriend or husband, but she wants a career as a writer. She applies to the local paper and ends up getting a cleaning how to column. With humble beginnings, she wants to ask the all African American maids to help her with cleaning questions. She finds one that is willing to help her and they get along well enough. At first, it's just cleaning, but then the writer sees an opportunity to tell the house cleaners stories of the white families they work for. She promises they will not get in trouble since she'll change all the names. The writer sees more and more of how society is not treating the help, or African Americans right and wants to make a difference.
The story was based on a book, and though the movie is good, to me, it didn't feel genuine enough and relied to heavily on stereotypes to tell its story. Emma Stone did a good job and so did some of the actors, but I find the storyline a bit overdone and predictable. It's trying to be a tearjerker for tearjerking's sake. It was just a bit above average, but slow paced.
3 out of 5 for having some cute stories and good acting, but overall just good, not great.
The day a lot of fans have been waiting for has finally arrived!
Puppy Bowl Sunday!!!!
The 9th one if you're counting.
And it should be adorable.
Who else is watching this instead of the boring Super Bowl this year, or in addition to it?
I would care about Super Bowl if there was a team I could root for, especially my own home team, but since there's two really crappy thuggish teams this year, I could care less.
GO PUPPIES!
Made it through plyometrics (jumping exercises) today and didn't feel sick at any time.
But I am really sore from yesterday and tired from today.
Count day #2 down!
Ok, so I've gained about 60 pounds in the last 5 years since I got married.
I ballooned from 136 to 193.
I'm terribly out of shape, but I'm going to fix that.
I lost 35 pounds before I got married in a year, I can do that and then some again.
The first plan was to buy an elliptical while I was away from home for 3/4 of the year, so I didn't have
to go out into the frozen wastelands to the gym. That's impossible for me, since I've discovered that good ellipticals are 1000's of dollars. Plus they weigh a ton on their own and I live on the second story of a very weak house.
So I needed something else, something cheaper, but intense enough for me to lose the weight.
I decided on the P90X system that I've seen advertised on tv for years.
I've done Tae Bo, Denise Austin, worked out at the gym, did spinning classes, yoga classes, an extra hard yoga/martial arts hybrid class called Kataflex, done a mini 6 week boot camp at the gym as well.
I'm pretty familiar with fitness knowledge and what I'm supposed to do.
I've also never been so out of shape in my entire life, this is the heaviest I've ever been and I hate it.
So today I started working out with P90X. You need all types of weights, a chin up bar or cables to do pull ups and chin ups, and a lot of determination.
The first day on the classic plan is chest and back, plus the ab ripper.
1 hour and 16 minutes of hard, intense exercise with a little intense warm up and cool down thrown in for keeping yourself from getting injured.
During the warm up I was tired. 30 minutes into chest and back I was ready to vomit. Very tired by the end of the first segment. Then it was abs time. VERY hard, since my abs are some of the weakest parts of my body. I couldn't even do all the moves they did, but I kept trying and kept moving. I did my best so I have nothing to be ashamed of, but it does show me how very out of shape I am.
They do recommend being in better shape then I am at the beginning of this program, but I'm in it now, and I'm not giving up until my first 90 days are done. By then, I'll be back home and I'll go back to the gym for awhile to give myself a break.
Even if I did want to repeat my 90 days they have two variations other than the one I'm doing now, so I won't get bored. They also recommend one week off where you don't do anything to let your body heal from the stuff you've been doing for the past 3 months before you go for another round.
I'll keep you updated with my progress as we go along.
Today I weighed myself in at 189.8 lbs. this morning. By the afternoon I weigh about 192-193.
My waist is at least 41 inches and that's way too much for my height.
Wish me luck.
