Kingdom of Heaven and IMDB
Adventure Man and I finished Rome, The Final Season, and weren’t ready to start anything else . . .you know how it is when you finish a really good series?
So today, we sat down to watch a movie I saw on a plane, Kingdom of Heaven, which Adventure Man had never seen. And the truth is the movie was a lot like the movie I saw on the plane, but was so much longer, and so much more full of detail. And – oh what fun – in one of the earliest scenes, I said to Adventure Man “Look! There’s Vorenus!”
“Noooooo.” he denied I had seen Vorenus in the entourage of Orlando Bloom’s Baron father.
Not long afterwards he had to do the ceremonial apology. (It’s a family tradition.)
First he looks over at me to see if I am going to say anything. It’s pretty clear that it really IS Vorenus.
Then, seeing I am not going to lord it over him, he concedes. “Well done, Intlxpatr. You are right. And I was wrong. That is very sharp of you to spot Vorenus.”
(The tradition is that you have to say “You are right, and I was wrong.” But he gave it extra grace by cloaking it with additional flattery.)
(No, he doesn’t really call me Intlxpatr, but I really do call him Adventure Man.)
So now we are watching the back-story, the history behind the movie, and it is fascinating. Earlier Adventureman looked up all the mistakes in the film on IMDb.
You don’t know what IMDb is? It stands for Internet Movie Database, and you can look up all kinds of things about movies or TV series, or your favorite actors and actresses. There is also a list of mistakes, anachronisms or lack of continuity, and we thing this is a lot of fun.
So you put in your title name Kingdom of Heaven and you go to the film page.
Over on the left hand side are all kinds of things you can choose from, including a section called Fun Stuff, under which you find goofs.
Here is a partial list of goofs Adventure Man found at IMDb:
Crew or equipment visible: In some scenes involving horses, modern orange cones can be seen on the ground directing the riders on the path past the camera to follow.
Factual errors: When the Muslims are praying near Jerusalem they are praying towards the setting sun, west, not towards Mecca which is to the south south east.
Continuity: During the battle for Jerusalem, the crescent moon and the star nearby, change positions during a short period of time. First, the crescent is horizontal, with the star a short distance above it. In the next scene, the crescent is on an angle, and the star is where the unlit part of the moon would obscure it.
Factual errors: A few times during the movie, the Muslims are shown praying while the prayer call is being delivered. The prayer call precedes the prayer.
Anachronisms: During the movie, flags from Castilla y Leon kingdom are shown several times. At that time Castilla and Leon were separate kingdoms. They became one in 1230.
Continuity: The size of the hole in the sand made by the sword when Nasir is down after the fight for the horse changes going from large and uneven to even
Revealing mistakes: When the messenger of Saladin is stabbed in throat by Guy de Lusignan. The blood that is squirted outward sprays from the left side of the neck where he was not stabbed.
Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Guy stabs Saladin’s messenger in the throat with a small dagger. When the messenger falls, Guy is holding a bloody sword, rather than his dagger. This is corrected in the Director’s cut, where Guy proceeds to behead the messenger with his sword.
Continuity: At 2:08:09 surrender of Jerusalem, the scar to left and below Bloom’s eye disappears.
Anachronisms: In the Director’s Cut, Sibylla tells her son, soon to be Baldwin V, in his geography lesson, that the King of England is Richard, the son of King Henry. Richard I did not succeed his father until 1189, three years after the death of Baldwin V.
Factual errors: Sibylla claims that she was married to Guy de Lusignan when she was 15 years old. In fact, she was 20 or 21 when she married him in 1180. She had been about 17 when she married her first husband, William of Montferrat, in 1176.
Anachronisms: The so-called ‘Templar’ who attacks Balian before the battle of Hattin (in 1187) wears a white surcoat bearing a black cross: the arms of the Order of St Mary of the Germans (aka the Teutonic Knights). This order was not founded until 1190 at the very earliest.
Miscellaneous: When Balian is building the timber water channel he places the lower level duct on top of the higher one. This should be the opposite way round as in its current state any water running down would run under the lower duct and consequently be lost.
You can read the rest of them (if you care) HERE.
What is cool about buying this movie is that you can watch it again and spot the goofs for yourself, and you can watch all the extra things about making the movie and about the history behind the movie.
We both liked this movie.
The other movies we watched were Ghostbusters 1 & 2. It always makes us laugh.
The Arab Way
My husband and I were very young when we first came to live in the Middle East, back to back embassy assignments, first in Tunisia, and then in Jordan. Before those assignments, we had spent two years learning about the culture, and my husband spoke Arabic and I spoke French. It didn’t matter. We were still woefully ignorant. (And we are still learning!)
People would call us, asking for favors, especially visas and getting their kids into U.S. colleges. We would look at each other in astonishment. How could they think their kids could get into college without passing the tests? How did they think their cousin could get into pilot training when there were other, better qualified candidates? And we learned, that with the right connections, exceptions are made.
We got smarter. We were travelling back in Germany, and wanted to stay in military lodging, but all the rooms were taken. We decided to go get something to eat, and at dinner, I said to my husband “let’s try doing it the Arab way.” He looked at me and said “Whaaaaaattt?”
“Take your orders that say we are with the embassy and on special leave” I told him. “Tell them we just got in, and just need a place for tonight.”
“But they don’t have any rooms!” Adventure Man protested.
“They always hold rooms back for special circumstances, for pilots, for emergencies,” I countered. “Make us special.”
We finished dinner, and felt better with our blood sugars back up. Adventure Man became his charming persona, and we went back to the hotel. He was inside for a bare two minutes, and came back out grinning, and holding a key.
We have learned an important lesson. Yes, there are policies. Yes, there are rules. Yes, there are the way things are done, customs, traditions, inviolable.
But there are also exceptions, and they are based on personal relationships.
Our insurance company told us they would no longer insure our Florida house, too much risk exposure in Florida. We went to a lot of trouble to try to meet a guideline that would allow us to be an exception – to no avail. Yesterday, I spent an hour on the phone with one person who was persistently pleasant in telling me it was not possible. I told her that telling me what a great customer I was, and how they valued our loyalty didn’t ring true when they would abandon us after all our years of being good customers. I didn’t blame her, personally, but neither was I buying all this pleasant stuff, when the bottom line was money, not loyalty.
I hung up the phone with a huge pit in my stomach – this cloud, this worry has hung over my head all summer, and now my worst fears had come true and I would have to seek new, less reliable, insurance. But I decided to put it off until tomorrow, no point trying to do something when you feel really depressed.
Late last night, we were in those early hours of dead-drooling sleep, the phone rang, and it was the insurance representative calling us back. Four hours after our phone call, the phone call which had been “the final answer” she was calling me back to say she had found a way, and our policy was being re-instated.
Thanks be to God! The Arab way worked, even though I wasn’t consciously using the Arab way, probably my thinly veiled anger and frustration and bottom line TERROR had gotten through to her. I thought it was over, but God was working behind the scenes, and a miracle happened.
We are still learning; we still have a lot to learn, and living in this culture helps us continue learning a new tools, additional strategies, for our tool box.
GoogleEarth – and SKY!
OgleEarth, one of the best blogs in the blogosphere dedicated to Google Earth, reports a new beta version of GoogleEarth is now available for download with one incredible difference – it also has views of the heavens, a layer called GoogleSky.
I have a hard time believing Google provides so much to so many – FREE. GoogleSky is awesome.
Here is where you can download the new GoogleEarth (and sky!)
Sex Education Trouble in India
This is from yesterday’s BBC News Asia
(Every country had differences on whether sex education should be taught in the classroom, and if it should be taught, how it should be taught. Our current political administration paid a lot of money to support an abstinence campaign, which proved a failure. So how do we best protect our young?)
Sex education runs into trouble
The Indian government’s recent attempt to introduce sex education for school children has provoked a vigorous debate. In the second of two articles, the BBC’s Jyotsna Singh considers the case against a more open discussion of sex in schools.
The decision to introduce sex education in India’s schools, aimed primarily at creating awareness about HIV-Aids, has generated howls of protests from many quarters.
Many women’s organisations and religious groups as well as several politicians say exposing children to an open debate on the subject, specially in classrooms, will make them “more permissive”.
More than 30% of Indian states have rejected the federal government-supported sex education programme.
The Secondary School Teachers’ Association in Uttar Pradesh state has even threatened to make a bonfire of books if sex education isn’t withdrawn immediately.
Several teachers and student groups have objected to the teaching aid or kit to be used for educating the pupils in the class.
One of the main objects that has drawn the ire of the protestors is a flip chart, prepared jointly by the Unicef and government-controlled National Aids Control Organisation (Naco) to facilitate the government’s adolescent education programme.
‘Too graphic’
The chart, entitled “Knowledge is Power”, contains illustrations and images dealing with issues related to growing up and relationships in the context of sexually transmitted infections and HIV/Aids.
The chart also contains a chapter on essential skills needed to prevent the disease.
But protesters say the visuals in the chart are too “graphic”.
The right-wing Hindu organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) blames “a Western mindset behind the move”.
“We run about 26,000 schools across the country. Our teachers have studied the curriculum and they find it obscene and objectionable,” RSS spokesman Ram Madhav told the BBC.
“The whole curriculum is designed to suit the lifestyle in Western countries, where there is a general free atmosphere. In our country we live with families.”
You can read the rest of this article HERE.
How Security Police Say “Sorry”
This is from today’s Kuwait Times. I know you are all dancing for joy that journalist and blogger Bashar Al-Sayegh is free, and we as a blogging community can all celebrate his release.
His arrest was a mistake.
It says so in the article. Pay attention! You have to read carefully, because security police speak a language all their own.
This is how they say “I’m sorry. It was a mistake.”
Responding to calls to dismantle the state security department, Rujaib stressed that the department was very vital for any state. “It forms the eye that never sleeps in protecting the nation’s security, in political, social and economic fields,” he explained, pointing out that it existed all over the world.
Asked whether Sayegh’s arrest was meant to convey a message against the freedom of the press, Rujaib stressed that press freedom was fully observed, yet reminded that journalists could be arrested for other reasons. “Meanwhile, police officers could be arrested for any reason as well,” he added, underlining that no violations took place during Sayegh’s arrest. On whether he believed that the issue had been politically motivated by some MPs, Rujaib said, “I am a security official and a politician should answer this question.
Do you think he is implying that there might have been another reason? Does it sound like deflecting blame? I think he is saying “We screwed up. We’re sorry.”
Bekir L. Yildirim Weighs In
This is another comment on the issue of Turkey Blocks WordPress. I really like it when, no matter which side the commenter weighs in on, their comments are to the point, well reasoned, and well presented. See for yourself:
Knowing a bit from the first hand experience with the Turkish judicial system and the bureaucracy , I blamed primarily the system in this ostensibly minor event turning into a saga. It appears now that there is enough blame to go around including possibly the WP which I held blameless so far (see for ex. “WordPress banned in Turkey: a case of throwing the baby with the bath-water“).
Perusing through some of the comments on the matter it appears that some of the commenters have an ax to grind with Adnan Oktar (a.k.a. Harun Yahya) . They make his an issue of creationism versus evolutionism, which it should not be. The position Matt seems to be taking is that it is a free exchange of information in the internet , as parti of fundamental right of free speech.
This is certainly a view held by many including myself in principle. However the matter gets a bit thorny when you get into the limits, boundaries of the exercise of such right. That is why we have caseloads before the courts dealing with issues such as slander, defamation, libel, trademarks, copyrights and so on, -some of which are involved in this case. I am not going to attempt to sort out all the legal and moral issues and heir ramifications in this case. All I am trying o do is to invite all concerned to differentiate between personal dislike for a person, or opposition to his views on certain matters and justice.
I understand the predicament Matt and WP finds themselves in. They see the issue as an undemocratic justice system and an individual with strong arming the system to demand immunity from criticism. They are taking a stand on the side of the free speech. I urge them however to go beyond that reflexive behavior and engage in a bit deeper analysis of what Edip Yuksel is doing , and whether he is going over the bounds vis-a-vis the free speech. He has made a name for himself for attacking various religious persons, institutions and values sacred to others. I do not contest his right to be wrong , but I am also cognizant of the fact that WP does render judgement on suitability of the content of the blogs. The method Edip Yuksel is employing , specifically targeting another individual, and inviting others to abuse the blogging system with multiple blogs directed at the same purpose should also be questioned. WP cannot judge the veracity of all accusations in millions of pages of content, however it can place certain limits such as selection of blog names etc, as it does in the terms of service it is offering. Edip Yuksel and others should also be mindful of the fact that they have the right to free speech but exercising it on WP is a privilege.
Days Weeks and Months Stats
WordPress knows what it is doing, and knows what WordPress users want. They know what I want even before I know I want it.
Like sometimes I might idly wonder “I wonder if every month my readership builds?” but I don’t even wonder enough to write to WordPress and ask them to do it. But they read my mind, and they do it anyway!
So today WordPress has introduced a new feature Days, Weeks and Months. (They called their article Good Charts Come in Threes). When you are looking at your day-by-day statistics, you can also click on Weeks or Months and see the broader trends.
Has my readership been growing? Yes, but it’s not a steady upward curve. I had a huge peak in December, with all the Thanksgiving and Christmas recipes.
And those old favorites are still racking up the numbers!
Christmas Divinity Candy gets a respectable number of hits every month, along with Mom’s Fruit Cake Recipe and Mayonnaise, Aioli and Rouille.
When I blog on social or political issues, I get a huge number of hits for a day or two, and then maybe one or two a month, as people look for specific articles later.
A big all time stat builder, however, and a big surprise to me, was Tudo’s Vietnamese Restaurant in Pensacola.
The Robin Pope Safari series:
Hiking with Robin Pope in Zambia, Part 1
Hiking with Robin Pope in Zambia, part 2
Hiking with Robin Pope in Zambia, Part 3
Hiking with Robin Pope in Zambia, Part 4
I wrote that series back in October, when I had been blogging barely over a month, and no-one noticed. Then, all of a sudden, in June, someone spotted it and published it in their newsletter. How did I know? All of a sudden this obscure series had hits that climbed as I watched. How funny.
What totally strikes me as funny is that the immediate response is no indicator of the long term response, and so I am also very thankful to WordPress that you can click on a specific post and track it’s popularity over it’s life-history. That’s where you find the above surprises.
And I still really like the ability to take a look back over the previous seven days, and the previous 30 days. The posts YOU think are the best are not always the posts with “legs”, i.e. the posts that will continue to get hits long after they are published.
WordPress, Woooooo Hooooooo. You totally ROCK.
Embed Your Google Maps – EASY!
I am totally wow-ed! Did you know that the Google Earth and Maps team has its own blog? I am blown away.
The most recent entry today is YouTube-style Embeddable Maps. How cool is that? Maps you embed are clickable, dragable and zoomable. The step by step instructions are given. Woooo Hooooooooo!
Here is where to go:
You’ll be having fun for days!
New From Google Book Search!
You know, big guys make me nervous. Sometimes, they get a monopoly, and throw their weight around, making you and me pay more for less and less service.
Not Google.
I love Google. I love Google searches, I love GoogleEarth, and oh man, I love Google Book Search. And this is so totally cool – look what they are coming up with now!
Google Book Search in Google Earth
Monday, August 20, 2007 at 11:54 AM
Posted by Brandon Badger, Product Manager
Did you ever wonder what Lewis and Clark said about your hometown as they passed through? What about if any other historical figures wrote about your part of the world? Earlier this year, we announced a first step toward geomapping the world’s literary information by starting to integrate information from Google Book Search into Google Maps. Today, the Google Book Search and Google Earth teams are excited to announce the next step: a new layer in Earth that allows you to explore locations through the lens of the world’s books.
Now when you turn on the “Google Book Search” layer in Google Earth (found in the “Featured Content” folder in the “Layers” menu), you’ll see small book icons scattered around the globe. When you click on one of the book icons, a pop-up balloon will display a snippet of text from one of Book Search’s public domain books that references that location. You’ll also find links to the Google Book Search page for that snippet so that you can learn more about what it has to say about the city or town.
For example, let’s say that you’re interested in Detroit, Michigan.
You can find out more by clicking here.
Have fun!
(Sorry, can’t write more! Have to go do some book searches! Thanks, Earthling!)
Apples and Honey Mustard
This is one of my favorite mid-morning snacks. It also works as a last-minute delicacy you can set out when friends show up unexpectedly. As good as it tastes, I hate to tell you, it is also good for you.
Slice apple into eighths. Cut out seeds. Mix 1 Tablespoon honey (some great Yemeni honey is best) with 3 Tablespoons mustard. Place in small bowl, arrange apple slices around bowl, serve! Did it even take 5 minutes? No!
Use a good mustard:
Monsieur Fallot’s mustard is, amazingly, available in Kuwait at the Sultan Centre stores.
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