Monday 31 August 2015

M&M: The Terminal

Dear reader,

considering the growing number of refugees coming over to Europe, it probably makes sense to watch the movie The Terminal from the year 2004 once or again.

In it Tom Hanks plays Viktor Navorski, who comes from the fictive Krakozhia to America. But due to a revolution in his country, he's seen as stateless. With no proper passport, barely able to speak English, he's unable to travel further in America, nor allowed to fly back to his country. Viktor Navorski is stuck at the JFK airport. But he's not idle. He tries to make himself comfortable at the airport and find a job to get something to do. But because he has no passport, many don't want to employ him. So he needs to be creative and find things to do on his own, to get money to at least pay for food and something to drink. Only when builders are working on a wall and Navorski finishes the wall in the middle of the night, he gets employed. Other foreigners befriend with him (one Afroamerican, one Latino and one Indian). He also befriends with the stewardess Amelia Warren (Catherine Zeta-Jones). He even invites her to, believe it or not, an actually quite romantic dinner at the terrace of the airport!

Then the revolution in Krakozhia ends and Navorski can finally leave the airport. Before he flies back to his home though, he's got a task to finish from his father. He had found a picture of 57 Jazz legends in a newspaper and set himself the goal to get an autograph from all of them. Only one, that of Benny Golson, is missing. Will Navorski be able to find Golson after his long stay at the airport and finally get the autograph? See for yourself!

Probably not always quite realistic, but still with lots of heart and humour, this movie is a nice pastime. Like I hinted at the beginning, because of the growing number of refugees and asylum seekers, it's still up to date even in these days.

Until next blog,
sarah

Thursday 20 August 2015

Sleeping multi media and interactive

Dear reader,

with the tags/keywords sleep and sleeping problem, which I included here, you'll find my previous entries on what helps me when I want to go to sleep fast. Assuming I think about those methods. I want to make the entry today a multi media and interactive one.

For one thing, I'd like to introduce you to Holmes (actually a promo for the second season of "Elementary" with Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu) the clip shows a series of methods of how Sherlock wakes up Joan in all sorts of different ways, although all of them could generally just be called "mean". The clip is meant as a sort of "When you've got problems waking up, use the Holmes system". Here's the clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-aB2hU3axc

Fans of Benedict Cumberbatch certainly know the radio series "Cabin Pressure" by and with John Finnemore. He suffers repeatedly from insomnia, which lead to the piece "Insomnia Ballad" in his other radio series "Souvenir Programme". Here's the original (roughly 2 min. 19 sec.):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrYGSlEmt_I

Of course there are fans, who create their own version and publish that. I find that the musical is so well done, that I want to share it with you, too. It's a bit less than 3 minutes long and you can find it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzSqubuZ7H8

And the interactive part? Well, that's your turn. What do you do, when you can't fall asleep? Or what could you suggest for others, who can't fall asleep fast or who can't fall asleep well? Anything is welcome, from music you like to listen to, to videos you have created to help others. Post it in the comments.

Until next blog,
sarah

Thursday 13 August 2015

One hell of a city

Dear reader,

American readers of my blog may know the town of Centralia in Pennsylvania. I want to shortly introduce it to everyone else in this entry. No, I haven't been there ever. I haven't been to America ever actually. But I found out about it in a documentary on television and think it's pretty impressive.

Centralia is a very small place. According to wikipedia, effective 2010, the town only had 10 residents. In 1986 it had been "over 1,000 residents" (German wikipedia). The reason for so many residents moving, are the fires underground since 1962. Yes, you read correctly. The residents of Centralia lived from anthracite coal mining. This coal caught fire and burns ever since in the mine pits underneath the town. Anthracite coal burns long and steady. That's why tries to extinguish the fires failed, because the fire ate its way through the barriers. Now they stopped trying to extinguish the fires.

There are two theories (on the German wikipedia page) on how the fire started. In the documentary only one was mentioned. Members of the members of the volunteer fire company wanted to clean up the town landfill, so they burned it all up. The landfill was relocated to the abandoned mine pits, which didn't have coal anymore. But the fire went also to the pits with coal.

Another theory is that the coal just selfignighted. Scientists, according to the German wikipedia, suspect that the 15 km² fires will probably burn on for another 100 to 200 years. (According to the English wikipedia 1.6 km², 400 acres and about 250 years of fire.) Although the quality of the air isn't worse than that of Lancaster, a place further away, the residents were asked to relocate. The last residents though have "permission to stay in their homes for as long as they live", as can be read on wikipedia.

Centralia has its own homepage, among pages is an article Weird Centralia, which discusses just how weird or not, the town actually is. Check it out! There are also some funny pictures of people taken in cracks on the street with smokes coming from the cracks.

Until next blog,
sarah