Interesting Things I Learned About The Christmas Season

As further proof that yours truly, Joe Lizura has all of his Christmas shopping finished, here are ten interesting things I learned about the Christmas Season on the internet - so I'm not one hundred percent sure they are true, but I think they are.  So on this December 24th, 2013 here are a few things you probably didn't know about the holiday season.

Number one - Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer was created by the department store Montgomery Wards in 1939 for coloring books they gave away in their stores.

Number two - Frosty the Snowman was written by Dick Smith who was in a sanitarium at the time (that explains a lot), and the word Parson in "then pretend that he is Parson Brown" means minister - therefore it actually says "then pretend that he is Minister Brown" ... makes a bunch more sense when you finish ... "He'll say are you married we'll say no man, but you can do the job when you're in town."

Number three - More than 3 billion Christmas cards will be mailed in just the United States alone this year - yikes!

Number four - There are TWO versions of the animated cartoon hit "Rudolf the Red-Nose Reindeer", the first one in which Rudolf does NOT come back to The Island of Misfit Toys and the second version where he does come back with Santa.  The first version only aired once and due to an avalanche of complaints it was changed before it aired the following year.

Number five - Coca Cola was the first company to use Santa in advertising and merchandising.

Number six - In 2012, "Twas The Night Before Christmas" was re-written to remove Santa smoking a pipe.

Number seven - The first state to make Christmas a holiday was Alabama, and the last was Oklahoma.

Number eight - The first Christmas Carol ever written in the United States was in 1649 and is called "Jesus is Born"

Number nine - Stockings began being hung by Chimneys when in Southern Europe a bag of gold was accidentally dropped down a chimney and landed in a stocking that was hung out to dry.

Number ten - What nationality is the Ginger Bread Man?  He is German!

Ta-Da!!  There you have it, ten things that I found on the internet about Christmas that I think are true!

Happy Holidays everyone, Joe Lizura.

Worst Movies of 2013

Okay, so here it is, December 20, 2013 and already the notorious list of worst movies for the whole year has been released.  How do they decide?  Mostly by box office receipts I think, and that would appear to be true MY family hasn't see most of these on the list.

One exception to that was The Hangover part III, which happened to just barely make it on to the list
as the number 10 worst movie of the year.  So what where the rest?  Here they are:

10.  The Hangover 3
9.    Old Boy
8.    Grown Ups 2
7.    The Canyons
6.    Machete Kills
5.    Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters
4.    The Lone Ranger
3.    After Earth
2.    Movie 43
1.    A good day to die hard

Now let me just say right here that there were a couple of these that we really did intend to see, however after hearing the bad review and the bad press, I'm glad we didn't waste our money.  Those movies were The Lone Ranger and and possibly A Good Day to Die Hard.

Otherwise, most of the movies I didn't even know were released - like Movie 43 - What kind of a title is that??

Oh well, so here's the deal - I wish the list wasn't made up until after the Christmas releases come out, because I'm sure there are bound to be a few dogs under the tree there.

Happy Holidays!

Joe
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Liberty Stamp Disbelief

Here are my Joe Lizura (http://linkedin.com/in/joelizura) thoughts from December 4, 2013.  It's been two days now, and I just can't get over the story about the forever Liberty stamps. 

If you haven't heard by now, the version of the Liberty stamp that has been used since 2011 and printed hundreds of millions of times, does not actually have the picture of the Statue of Liberty on it - instead, it has the picture of the Las Vegas statue of liberty from outside the New York, New York hotel on the strip! 

For the life of me I just can't fathom the fact that somewhere, somebody thought it was okay to use a picture of the Statue of Liberty from a Las Vegas gimmicky hotel as the image on an international stamp that is the pride and joy of the United States!  Just how more embarrassing can we get in the eyes of the international community - or even our own!  I can't POSSIBLY be the only one who is absolutely embarrassed by the use of a fake Statue of Liberty on our national stamp instead of the real one!

It's almost like somebody said "Hey, let's use the Las Vegas statue because it looks like Lady Liberty

had a nose job and some cosmetic work on her cheek bones" - and hey why not?  Isn't plastic surgery an absolute trademark of our country?  So what if we don't use the real statue, let's trade her in for a younger, more beautiful one!  Ugh, how embarrassing! And we've been using it for almost 3 years now!

You know what it's like?  It's like telling all of your friends, your wife and kids, and your family members that you're going to Paris for 3 years -- but instead you go to the Paris hotel and casino in Las Vegas for 3 years . . .  AND you send postcards taken in front of the Fake Eiffel Tower and send them out to everyone just like you are in front of the real one!

Okay now, I know there are all kinds of more important problems in the world, but let's face it . .. using a fake Statue of Liberty on our stamps because it looks better than the real Statue of Liberty - and having someone approve it as a good idea -  is beyond my comprehension.

Alright, I got that off my chest - now back to your regularly scheduled web surfing.

Joe
Visit me at the joe lizura official website (http://www.joelizura.com) or follow me on twitter (http://twitter.com/joelizura)

Joe Lizura vs. Black Friday

November 29, 2013, Flagstaff, Arizona.  Well, Black Friday is almost over and I'm happy to say that the score is Joe Lizura (www.joelizura.com) one and the stores zero.  After a long drive from Flagstaff down to Scottsdale to spend a few hours in the shopping mayhem, it actually turned out be fun.  I didn't actually buy anything, but everyone else in the family did.  I did however, get a kick out of the fact that stores were doing their best to out-do one another.  One store was 40 percent off everything, followed by the next which was 50 percent off and that was yet followed by the next one that was 60 percent off! 

It's definitely going to be a great holiday shopping season, but it's going to be a quick one, after all,
Christmas is just three and a half weeks away!  You know what that means . . . Cyber-Monday is going to be crazy!  And tomorrow isn't looking to bad either; I just saw a commercial for 10 dollars off your 25 dollar purchase at Macys!

Shop well my friends, shop well!   www.joelizura.net

Joe Lizura's turkey cooking chart

Happy Thanksgiving 2013!  It's one of my favorite days of the year (although not my actual favorite, which is Halloween) because Thanksgiving brings the family together for the official start of the entire holiday season.  Lot's of football to watch on TV and in some cases snow to shovel! 

I'm not sure about everyone else, but it seems that our family (even when I was a kid) could never get an accurate explanation of how many hours to cook the Turkey - No matter who you ask, it's always about things like "Is it a stuffed turkey or unstuffed turkey?",  "Are you cooking it at 325 degrees or 350 degrees?", "Is it a fresh turkey or a frozen one?", and on an on ... but this year, I think I found the perfect chart for cooking - here it is!

For an unstuffed turkey, place the meat thermometer in the thickest part of the thigh, taking care that it does not touch any bone. Roast the turkey until the meat thermometer reaches 165 degrees F. Don't forget to let the bird rest at least 30 minutes before carving to allow the juices to re-absorb into the flesh. You don't want the moisture to drain out.
Roasting times are for a preheated 325 degrees F. oven.

Approximate Roasting Times for Stuffed Turkey
Turkey Weight	Hours
6 to 8 pounds	3 to 3-1/2 hours
8 to 12 pounds	3-1/2 to 4-1/2 hours
12 to 16 pounds	4-1/2 to 5-1/2 hours
16 to 20 pounds	5-1/2 to 6 hours
20 to 24 pounds	6 to 6-1/2 hours
Approximate Roasting Times for Unstuffed Turkey
Turkey Weight	Hours
6 to 8 pounds	2-1/2 to 3 hours
8 to 12 pounds	3 to 4 hours
12 to 16 pounds	4 to 5 hours
16 to 20 pounds	5 to 5-1/2 hours
20 to 24 pounds	5-1/2 to 6 hours

Sad news from the Disney Family

I was sad to learn today that Walt Disney's daughter Diane Disney Miller passed away today at age 79.  Its wonderful to know that a family you have never met has made such a dramatic impact on your life.  Walt Disney was widely credited with creating Disneyland in a large part as something to
give his daughter and we are all better off because he did.

Diane was a very generous woman who gave away millions and millions of dollars to charities and
deserving organizations - exactly as her father would have wanted her too.  Rest in Peace and tell your father "thank you".

Absolutely Awesome - Check it out!

October 3, 2013.  Joe Lizura Blog update.  A very good friend of mine shared this on linkedin today and I wanted to pass it on . . although it's an ad from Intel, the story is really, really cool.  Here is the link:  http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/most-uplifting-ad-youll-see-today-about-15-year-olds-incredible-cancer-research-152827

It's being called the most uplifting ad you'll see - they also should have called it the most inspirational ad as well.  Here is a little bit of the back-story:

Jack Andraka, barely a teenager, decided to develop an early-detection test for pancreatic cancer after his uncle died from the disease. He asked 200 researchers and other experts for help. Only one, a doctor of oncology at Johns Hopkins, provided him with lab space to use after school. At age 15, Andraka succeeded in developing a test that is 168 times faster, 400 times more sensitive, and 26,000 times less expensive than the medical standard.

Intel tells Andraka's story in the ad below. What does a computer-chip manufacturer have to do with his invention? Not much, but Intel is the headlining sponsor—and has been since 1997—of the International Science and Engineering Fair, which gave Andraka its $75,000 grand prize for his work.

The spot, from Venables Bell & Partners (and director Britton Caillouette of Farm League, himself a bone-cancer survivor), is a little self-congratulatory on Intel's part. But it's clever, too. The ad, which proceeds in reverse chronology, might make you feel the same sort of skepticism about Andraka that his idea met—but then you'll feel like a fool when you realize how quite amazing his accomplishment is.

Joe Lizura
www.Joelizura.com

The passing of Tom Clancy

October 2, 2013.  It was very sad to learn today about the passing of Tom Clancy one of our time's best writers, who wrote with such great skill and detail that it made him a natural to have his novels turned into films watched by tens of millions of people all around the world.

Here is a little bit about him and his work from the Associated Press.

NEW YORK (AP) — Tom Clancy, whose high-tech, Cold War thrillers such as "The Hunt for Red October" and "Patriot Games" made him the most widely read and influential military novelist of his time, has died. He was 66.
Penguin Group (USA) announced that Clancy had died Tuesday in Baltimore. The publisher did not provide a cause of death.
Tall and thin, with round, sunken eyes that were often hidden by sunglasses, Clancy had said his dream had been simply to publish a book, hopefully a good one, so that he would be in the Library of Congress catalog. His dreams were answered many times over.
His novels were dependable best sellers, with his publisher estimating that worldwide sales top 100 million copies. Several, including "The Hunt for Red October," ''Patriot Games" and "Clear and Present Danger," were later made into blockbuster movies, with another based on his desk-jockey CIA hero, "Jack Ryan," set for release on Christmas. Alec Baldwin, Ben Affleck and Harrison Ford were among the actors who played Ryan on screen. The upcoming movie stars Chris Pine, Keira Knightly and Kevin Costner, with Kenneth Branagh directing.

 A political conservative who once referred to Ronald Reagan as "my president," Clancy broke through commercially during a tense period of the Cold War, and with the help of Reagan himself. In 1982, he began working on "The Hunt For Red October," basing it on a real incident in November 1975 with a Soviet missile frigate called the Storozhevoy. He sold the manuscript to the first publisher he tried, the Naval Institute Press, which had never bought original fiction.
In real life, the ship didn't defect, but in Clancy's book, published in 1984, the defection was a success. Someone thought enough of the book to give it to President Reagan as a Christmas gift. The president quipped at a dinner that he was losing sleep because he couldn't put the book down — a statement Clancy later said helped put him on the New York Times best-seller list.
Clancy was admired in the military community, and appeared — though he often denied it — to have the kind of access that enabled him to intricately describe anything from surveillance to the operations of a submarine. He often played off — and sometimes anticipated — world events, as in the pre-9/11 paranoid thriller "Debt of Honor," in which a jumbo jet destroys the U.S. Capitol during a joint meeting of Congress.
Earning million-dollar advances for his novels, he also wrote nonfiction works on the military and even ventured into video games, including the best-selling "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier," ''Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction" and "Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent." His recent Jack Ryan novels were collaborations with Mark Greaney, including "Threat Vector" and a release scheduled for December, "Command Authority."
As of midday Wednesday, "Command Authority" ranked No. 40 on Amazon.com's best seller list.
Born in Baltimore on April 12, 1947 to a mailman and his wife, Clancy entered Loyola College as a physics major, but switched to English as a sophomore. He later said that he wasn't smart enough for the rigors of science, although he clearly mastered it well enough in his fiction.
Clancy stayed close to home. He resided in rural Calvert County, Md., and in 1993 he joined a group of investors led by Baltimore attorney Peter Angelos who bought the Baltimore Orioles from businessman Eli Jacobs. Clancy also attempted to bring a NFL team to Baltimore in 1993, but he later dropped out.

Tom Clancy will definitely be missed.  RIP.

Joe Lizura
www.joelizura.com
www.twitter.com/joelizura

The Strange Reality of Climate Change

Joe Lizura's Blog on October 1, 2013.  I saw a story today, and you'll see the link to it below, and it struck me a little more than most climate change stories I run across on a weekly basis.  For those


Joe Lizura in San Diego

who may know, as an actual Meteorologist, I tend to look at global climate change with a little more of a scientific viewpoint and a little less of an emotional viewpoint.   So to that end, let me just say that global climate change is definitely going on -- but then again it always has been.  Take for example the very ground I walk on every day in San Diego it's covered with Rocks -- round smooth rocks and when you get into the inland valleys, those smooth round rocks (about the size of a softballs) grow larger and larger until they are the size of small bolders and then larger and larger until they are big bolders.  the odd part about the boulders and the rocks is that they are smooth, very much like the kind that you would find at the bottom of a river.  So the question begs: How did about a million round river rocks wind up in San Diego?  Is it from the ocean from way back when this part of the continent was under water?  Nope -- true, it's where the sand came from and the shells that you can dig up in the inland valleys, but that's not where the rocks and boulders came from.  So where then?  The answer is a little surprising, it's from the end of the last Ice Age as this very southwestern part of the land mass is the farthest extreme expansion of the ice.  The rocks and boulders left everywhere are actually rocks and boulders that the ice sheets pushed for a thousand miles, making them smoother and smoother as they slowly got pushed and tumbled and pushed again by the moving ice sheets, until nature smoothed them out like they were forever in a river (which I guess a river of ice would qualify). 

So what's the point?  Just that climate change is ALWAYS going on, and in the scheme of hundreds of millions of years, our mankind is just a blip of a factor in creating or perhaps enhancing a climate change that has most likely been going on for ten thousand years.

That's why you'll never hear me argue that there isn't global climate change, because there is - there always has been - places like the Sahara Desert were once lush landscapes of vegetation and life but are now endless miles of nearly lifeless sand - not because ancient man did anything, but because it was a much longer scale climate change that mankind just happens to have found itself in the middle of. 

That doesn't mean that we aren't making it worse, or making it happen faster, because we are, we definitely are exasperating the problem and rather than waiting ten thousand years to feel the effects, we are likely to feel the effects in 50 years - that's pretty amazing.  So is this story below about what is happening in Alaska - check this out.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — An estimated 10,000 walrus unable to find sea ice over shallow Arctic Ocean water have come ashore on Alaska's northwest coast.
Scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Friday photographed walrus packed onto a beach on a barrier island near Point Lay, an Inupiat Eskimo village 300 miles southwest of Barrow and 700 miles northwest of Anchorage.

 

The walrus have been coming to shore since mid-September. The large herd was spotted during NOAA's annual arctic marine mammal aerial survey, an effort conducted with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the agency that conducts offshore lease sales.

An estimated 2,000 to 4,000 walrus were photographed at the site Sept. 12. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency that manages walrus, immediately took steps to prevent a stampede among the animals packed shoulder to shoulder on the rocky coastline. The agency works with villages to keep people and airplanes a safe distance from herds.

Young animals are especially vulnerable to stampedes triggered by a polar bear, a human hunter or a low-flying airplane. The carcasses of more than 130 mostly young walruses were counted after a stampede in September 2009 at Alaska's Icy Cape.

The gathering of walrus on shore is a phenomenon that has accompanied the loss of summer sea ice as the climate has warmed.
Pacific walrus spend winters in the Bering Sea. Females give birth on sea ice and use ice as a diving platform to reach snails, clams and worms on the shallow continental shelf.

As temperatures warm in summer, the edge of the sea ice recedes north. Females and their young ride the edge of the sea ice into the Chukchi Sea. However, in recent years, sea ice has receded north beyond continental shelf waters and into Arctic Ocean water 10,000 feet deep or more where walrus cannot dive to the bottom.

Walrus in large numbers were first spotted on the U.S. side of the Chukchi Sea in 2007. They returned in 2009, and in 2011, scientists estimated 30,000 walruses along one kilometer of beach near Point Lay.

Remnant ice kept walrus offshore in 2008 and again last year.
The goal of the marine mammals survey is to record the abundance of bowhead, gray, minke, fin and beluga whales plus other marine mammals in areas of potential oil and natural gas development, said NOAA Fisheries marine mammal scientist Megan Ferguson in an announcement.

"In addition to photographing the walrus haulout area, NOAA scientists documented more bowhead whales, including calves and feeding adults in the Beaufort Sea this summer compared to 2012," said Ferguson. "We are also seeing more gray whale calves in the Chukchi Sea than we have in recent years."

Environmental groups say the loss of sea ice due to climate warming is harming marine mammals and oil and gas development would add to their stress.


Well, as I said, global climate change goes on, with or without us, but with us it is going on at a rate that is unprecedented.  There's no doubt that we are going to see the changes in our lifetime - we already are, but I just don't think that we are going to like what we see.

Thanks for reading my blog!  Joe Lizura
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Fire Up The Volcano - Yellowstone Is Even Bigger Than We Knew

April 18, 2013; Looks like we have something even bigger to worry about than we thought! According to a new research report out this week, the volcano that fuels Yellowstone park and all its wonders is even bigger than scientists first thought. 

"We are getting a much better understanding of the volcanic system of Yellowstone," said Jamie Farrell, a seismology graduate student at the University of Utah. "The magma reservoir is at least 50 percent larger than previously imaged."

Knowing the volume of molten magma beneath Yellowstone is important for estimating the size of future eruptions, Farrell told OurAmazingPlanet.

Geologists believe Yellowstone sits over a hotspot, a plume of superheated rock rising from Earth's mantle. As North America slowly drifted over the hotspot, the Yellowstone plume punched through the continent's crust, leaving a bread-crumb-like trail of calderas created by massive volcanic eruptions along Idaho's Snake River Plain, leading straight to Yellowstone. The last caldera eruption was 640,000 years ago. Smaller eruptions occurred in between and after the big blasts, most recently about 70,000 years ago. [Infographic: Geology of Yellowstone]

The magma chamber seen in the new study fed these smaller eruptions and is the source of the park's amazing hydrothermal springs and geysers. It also creates the surface uplift seen in the park, said Bob Smith, a seismologist at the University of Utah and author of a related study presented at the meeting.

The volcanic plume of partly molten rock that feeds the Yellowstone supervolcano. Yellow and red indicate higher conductivity, green and blue indicate lower conductivity. Made by University of Utah geophysicists and computer scientists, this is the first large-scale 'geoelectric' image of the Yellowstone hotspot.

"This crustal magma body is a little dimple that creates the uplift," Smith said. "It's like putting your finger under a rubber membrane and pushing it up and the sides expand."

A clearer picture of Yellowstone's shallow magma chamber emerged from earthquakes, whose waves change speed when they travel through molten or solid rock. Farrell analyzed nearby earthquakes to build a picture of the magma chamber.

The underground magma resembles a mutant banana, with a knobby, bulbous end poking up toward the northeast corner of Yellowstone National Park, and the rest of the tubular fruit angling shallowly southwest. It's a single connected chamber, about 37 miles (60 kilometers) long, 18 miles (30 km) wide, and 3 to 7 miles (5 to 12 km) deep.

Previously, researchers had thought the magma beneath Yellowstone was in separate blobs, not a continuous pocket. The shallowest magma, in the northeast, also matches up with the park's most intense hydrothermal activity, Farrell said. The new study is the best view yet of this zone, which lies outside the youngest caldera rim.
Additional molten rock, not imaged in this study, also exists deeper beneath Yellowstone, scientists think.

The planet is indeed such a marvelous thing, and hundreds of thousands of years from now, just through natural causes, the continent we know as North America will likely bear very little resemblance to what it looks like now.  In fact, if the volcano below Yellowstone ever erupts with all of it's potential, there's a good chance that a big part of the world will undergo a huge change.

blog post by Joe lizura
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Happy to Recommend a Great Movie

Big weekend at the box office for "42", "The Jackie Robinson Story".  Personally I loved it, we saw it Saturday night in a fairly crowded theater and I think everyone liked it because most folks clapped after it was over, which is always a good sign!  Although it wasn't the busiest weekend at the movies, there were some good stories, here's how the weekend shaped up:

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Baseball has scored a rare hit in Hollywood, while another American institution — Tom Cruise — has delivered his latest hit overseas.

 

The Jackie Robinson tale "42" took in $27.3 million to claim the weekend box-office championship domestically, according to studio estimates Sunday.

The film has yet to open overseas, where the sport is a harder sell. But Cruise knocked it out of the park with a $61.1 million international launch in 52 countries for his sci-fi thriller "Oblivion."
That bodes well for the domestic debut of "Oblivion" next Friday. The film stars Cruise as a workman on a devastated future Earth who lands in a battle with aliens.

If "Oblivion" packs in comparable domestic crowds, it will help maintain the action-star momentum Cruise regained with 2011's "Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol." That return to box-office luster came after some fitful years that followed odd turns in his personal life, culminating with the breakup of his marriage to Katie Holmes last year.

Released by Warner Bros., "42" easily beat the domestic start of an established franchise in "Scary Movie 5." The Weinstein Co. sequel opened in second-place with $15.2 million, the smallest debut for the horror-comedy series.

Three of the previous four "Scary Movie" installments had debuts of $40 million or more.
On the other hand, "42" outdid the usual expectations for baseball movies, which usually do modest business at best. Box-office trackers had expected "42" to pull in less than $20 million.
The previous weekend's top draw, Sony's horror remake "Evil Dead," tumbled to No. 5 with $9.5 million, raising its domestic haul to $41.5 million.

The $27.3 million opening for "42" is a record for a baseball flick in terms of straight dollars, topping the $19.5 million debut of "Moneyball" in 2011. Factoring in higher ticket prices, the $13.7 million debut of 1992's "A League of Their Own" would have been on par with "42" in terms of inflation-adjusted dollars.

The film stars Chadwick Boseman as Robinson and Harrison Ford as Brooklyn Dodgers boss Branch Rickey, who brought No. 42 onto the team in 1947 as the Major Leagues' first black player.
"It's a story that has so much emotion to it. Jackie Robinson's life had such an influence on our country," said Dan Fellman, head of distribution for Warner Bros., who noted that all Major League players will wear No. 42 on Monday for Jackie Robinson Day, the 66th anniversary of his Dodgers debut. "Think of what a tribute that is for what he accomplished. Every player wearing 42 on his back."
With generally good reviews, "42" drew in older crowds, with 83 percent of the audience over 25, Fellman said.

"Scary Movie 5" was the franchise's first installment in seven years and had the same lukewarm reception as another Weinstein series that returned after a long lag. In 2011, "Scream 4" opened 11 years after the franchise's last movie and took in just $18.7 million, a fraction of the $30 million-plus debuts for the previous two sequels.

The previous low for the "Scary Movie" series was the second one, which opened with $20.5 million in 2001. "Scary Movie 3" had the best debut, with $48.1 million in 2003, though its total domestic haul of $110 million fell well short of the $157 million take for the 2000 original.
"Sometimes, when there's too big of a lag, people lose interest. If it's a 'Star Wars' movie, nostalgia works in your favor. The long lag works in your favor. People are loaded with anticipation," said Paul Dergarabedian, an analyst for box-office tracker Hollywood.com. "Other franchises, if you go too long, they lose that pop and excitement, and it's hard to get that back."

It didn't help that "Scary Movie 5" got the franchise's worst reviews. Critics haven't much cared for any of the "Scary Movie" flicks, but reviews for the latest were almost universally bad.
In limited release, director Terrence Malick's drama "To the Wonder" had a modest start, taking in $130,000 in 18 theaters for an average of $7,222 a cinema. That compares to a $9,074 average in 3,003 theaters for "42."

"To the Wonder" stars Ben Affleck, Olga Kurylenko, Rachel McAdams and Javier Bardem in a dreamlike, poetic musing on love
.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

1. "42," $27.3 million.

2. "Scary Movie 5," $15.2 million.

3. "The Croods," $13.2 million ($25.5 million international).

4. "G.I. Joe: Retaliation," $10.8 million ($15.6 million international).

5. "Evil Dead," $9.5 million.

6. "Jurassic Park" in 3-D, $8.8 million ($1.3 million international).

7. "Olympus Has Fallen," $7.3 million.

8. "Oz the Great and Powerful," $4.9 million ($5.2 million international).

9. "Tyler Perry's Temptation," $4.5 million.

10. "The Place Beyond the Pines," $4.1 million.

There's always something great about going to the moview!

Joe Lizura
www.joelizura.net
www.twitter.com/joelizura

Fired

So I just had to pass along my thoughts about Dennis Rodman getting fired from Celebrity Apprentice because his team made an absolute HUGE mistake on the marketing campaign project they were supposed to be working on.  Let me just say that it's a crazy episode when even Gary Busey comes out looking good!

Here's what happened,

The NBA star and Celebrity Apprentice contestant was fired from the reality show after his team misspelled Donald Trump’s wife’s name, NBC reports.

The two teams were asked to design an ad campaign for Melania Trump’s skincare line, Melania Caviar Complexe. Rodman, who was project manager for Team Power, opted for a large portrait of the former model along with the slogan, “Simply Milania, Simply Luxury," where Mrs. Trump’s name is misspelled with the letter "i" instead of an "e."

Throughout the team’s final presentation, nobody on Team Power noticed the mistake. In fact, they thought they did quite well.

The Trumps were in shock. “I cannot believe that they spelled my name wrong,” Melania said. “It’s all over the place and nobody even noticed. Amazing.”

Trump called Rodman and Trace Adkins into the boardroom to discuss the mishap. Adkins, who was in charge of the graphics, blamed the mistake on the graphic designer and Rodman for signing off on it. The Donald was not impressed with the typo or Rodman’s frequent boardroom appearances and fired the Hall of Famer.

But Plan B, the competing team, had its share of troubles. In its presentation, Project Manager Penn Jillette referred to Melania Trump as the product line’s “spokesman” instead of its creator, however
Melania Trump’s beauty didn’t go unnoticed. Team member Gary Busey said, "Have you ever had your genitalia so excited that it spins like a Ferris wheel on a carnival ride? That's how beautiful she is."

Funny day when you don't know whether to cheer for Rodman or Busey - haha.

Joe Lizura

Here Comes the Swarm

Get Ready East Coasters, here comes the swarm_April 7, 2013.  What kind of swarm?  The swarm of Cicadas that will pester the eastern coast for the summer.  If you've never had the experience of the swarming Cicadas, I can't say you've missed out that's for sure.  When I was a kid, I remember one of the years (usually once every 17 years) of the Cicadas, where there were tens of thousands of these grasshopper-like critters all over the place!

Here is the story from National Geographic - Published March 29, 2013

Periodical cicadas (Magicicada septendecim), the cousins of katydids and crickets, have a unique breeding schedule, and after 17 years of living underground, a large group of them are preparing to fill the skies along the U.S. East Coast, from North Carolina up to Connecticut.

Normally, periodic cicadas spend their lives in complete darkness underground, sucking the fluid out of the roots of trees and shrubs. At the end of their life, they emerge, breed, and almost instantly die, completing a lifecycle that humans have studied for centuries.

 

In the process, however, they annoy millions of people with their constant chirping and, of course, the piles of dead cicada bodies on the ground. While some areas may see no cicadas at all, others in the past have seen millions of cicadas in a single acre. (Listen to the cicada’s love song.)

"It can be like raking leaves in the fall, except instead of leaves, it’s dead cicada bodies," said Dan Mozgai, a cicada researcher who keeps a clearinghouse of cicada information and breeding schedules at cicadamania.com.

 

Cicadas are easy to anticipate because of their extremely consistent mating behavior. Every 13 or 17 years, depending on the population, species of periodic cicadas will emerge as part of a specific brood in order to look for a mate.

The group expected this spring, known as Brood 2, are the offspring of cicadas last seen in 1996. If they follow the same tracks as their parents, they'll emerge in Connecticut, Maryland, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.

The genetic mechanism that prompts periodical cicadas to emerge kicks in every 17 years (or every 13 years for other broods) when the ground warms up to 64°F (18°C).

Some researchers think the timing of a brood’s emergence is a defensive mechanism—appearing at infrequent intervals means that it’s harder for would-be predators like birds and squirrels to anticipate when the insects will be available to eat.

 

Others suggest that the 13- and 17-year cycles, prime numbers in mathematics, help cicadas avoid parasites. A 2004 study from the University of Campinas in Brazil suggested that a cicada with a 17-year cycle and a parasite with a two-year cycle, for example, would meet only twice each century.

But not all cicadas breed on this multiyear cycle. Some, like the tibicen cicadas, work on an annual rotation, leaving them more susceptible to predators like the cicada killer wasp (Sphecius speciosus).

The wasps know exactly when to expect the annual cicadas in late summer or early fall. The wasp lays its eggs on the cicadas, and the larvae slowly kill the cicada and feed off its carcass.

 

For the periodical cicadas, their temperature thresholds for emergence are getting harder to anticipate. During mild winters, like in 2012, cicadas from Brood 1 appeared in mid-April. Scientists think that this year, Brood 2 cicadas could wait until early May or even later

.

last appeared when Bill Clinton was President will soon be making their presence very well known.

 

So, needless to say, it should be an interesting start to the Summer.

 

Joe Lizura

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A Big Birthday Thanks

Well it's almost the end of my birthday, April 4, 2013 and it turned out to be a pretty nice one.  I must admit that over the last few days I was dreading the day as I've gotten to the point where moving through my 50's just isn't as much fun as I thought it would be - let's face it, the next "Big" one will be the "big 6-0" and who looks forward to that??!!

But after a little Carpe Diem (seize the day) I got out of my funk and jumped into the day - which turned out alright . . . I received a bunch of facebook Happy birthdays (34 and counting) and a bunch of phone calls and balloons and cake!  I even had a few drinks for happy hour with a couple of close friends that have been with me through "thick and thin" and that meant a great deal to me.

It was also wonderful to get my first card from my Daughter who no longer lives at home most of the year (she's in college) - it meant that she was able to do a nice thing that us grown-ups take for granted, and that is getting a birthday card to someone on time.  The same thing goes for my brother and sisters, all of whom called and sent cards - which meant a lot to me as well.

Now it's almost the end of my birthday and I wanted to say thanks to everyone who made my day a special one for me.  Thank you.

Joe
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Making Los Angeles Traffic Move Faster

Here is an interesting thought - trying to make the traffic flow better in Los Angeles.  April 2, 2013_As I can certainly agree, LA traffic is just a train wreck when it comes to organization.  Finally there is a new system in place to make it work better (at least in theory). 

San Francisco may be testing smart self-driving cars, but farther south, Los Angeles is still battling dumb traffic. To speed things up (a bit), the city has synchronized 4,000-something traffic lights, becoming the first city in the world with such a system, the New York Times reports.
One might imagine this would lead to drivers across the city swearing in unison as they hit red lights at the same time, but it's far more complex than uniform timing.

Magnetic sensors at street corners funnel real-time information about traffic flow into a central system, which then predicts where congestion will take place. If tweaking signal times could help traffic move quicker — say, speeding up turnover at an intersection — the software or a human operator makes it happen.

After 30 years in the works, the plan went live in February, and the results of the change are trickling in. Average driving time has fallen — it used to take 20 minutes to drive 5 miles, but now it just takes 17.2. And, the average speed has gone up: from 15 miles per hour to 17.3 mph, the Times reports.
The goal is to raise the travel speed by 16 percent, and reduce travel time by 12 percent, L.A. authorities said when they first introduced the scheme.

In Tennessee, Nashville and its suburb, Brentwood, may get their lights synced as well.
Perhaps this will take off as a partial solution to gridlock across America. However, there are some who argue light syncs aren't a healthy long-term approach to traffic — they just lead to more cars on the road.

All I hope is that it actually makes a difference the next time I am in LA, which is probably going to be in the next few days if all goes well.

San Diego's Joe Lizura
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Joe Lizura Fired His Home Phone

Mark the day, March 31, 2013 as the first full day without my home phone. I had the opportunity to change my cable provider, which is also my internet provider, which is also my home phone and given the fact that they kept raising my monthly fee - So, I decided to make the change.  So I decided to investigate Time Warner Cable and found that they had special plans with Verizon, who happens to be my Cell Phone provider and now I can combine both of the bills into one.  When I spoke with the sales rep (a good 25 years younger than me) he marveled that I "Still had a home phone" (apparently he's only had a cell phone since he moved away from home).

So I thought to myself, hmm, I haven't used my home phone in about 2 months, maybe even longer!  Now for someone my age who ALWAYS had a home phone, it was a tough decision to essentially fire my home phone . . . but, much like somewhere, somebody had to switch out their horse and buggy for a fancy automobile, I decided to leave the old technology of a home phone in the past.

So here we are 24 hours later and I haven't looked back!  Okay so we'll see how it goes notifying all of my relatives, friends and contacts - that'll probably take me the rest of the year! 

Joe Lizura
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Disney Makes A Bad Move

San Diego, Ca March 18, 2013.  Generally Disney is a great company that usually has its finger on the pulse of everything that is good about families, children, entertainment and of course, business. But today's decision to prevent kids under the age of 14 from entering any Disney park without an older person to accompany them is borderline idiotic.  Seriously, it's a virtual impossibility to have every kid escorted by an adult. Unless there is something I am missing about this policy, it seems absurd - according to what I read, Disney will not allow any child under the age of 14 to be unescorted by an oder person in their park.  How's that going to work?  I'm looking forward to seeing exactly how a divorced parent with 3 kids is going to be in 3 places at one time in the park, because I'm quite certain that her 14 year old and 12 year old are not going to want to be on kiddie ride all day with the 5 year old sibling.  Or how about all of those school field trips from the 6th graders?  Let me guess, they'll make an exception there because they won't want to lose the millions of dollars in revenue every year.  Speaking of which, get ready for a tidalwave of season pass holders who won't be renewing because yes, they do drop their kids off at the theme park designed for kids - Helloooo?

All right enough venting, here is a link to the story from USA Today  http://www.usatoday.com/story/dispatches/2013/03/18/disney-world-disneyland-minimum-age-admission/1996111/ 

And the story body: 
Starting this weekend, Disney's U.S. theme parks will ban children under age 14 unless they're accompanied by someone the same age or older.
The new policy, which takes effect March 23, will apply at Disney World in Orlando and Disneyland and Disney California Adventure in Anaheim. Since most youngsters under 14 don't carry government-issued IDs, "the policy will be enforced as guests are entering the park, (with) a visual screening for someone who appears to be younger than 14," said Disney spokeswoman Suzi Brown. If the staffer determines that the guest is under 14, a parent or guardian will be notified and required to escort the child in the park, she said.
The policy was not triggered by "any kind of issue or incident," but was intended to "provide a consistent age of admission and address a question we occasionally get from parents," Brown added.
Families with annual passes, some of whom routinely drop their children off at a park for the day, were notified about the policy change in an e-mail last week.

Good luck with this policy.

Joe Lizura
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A Heart-Melting Story

This has to be one the most amazing and touching stories that I have ever seen.  March 10, 2013.  Here is a story about a reunion between a gorilla and a billionare that will melt your heart.  Here is the link, be sure to watch the video, it's incredible. http://news.yahoo.com/watch-wild-gorilla-reunite-man-saved-him-video-191705855.html

What does a billionaire casino owner have in common with a wild gorilla? That sounds like it could be the opening line of a cheeky joke, but in actuality, what they have in common is a very heartfelt bond.

Damian Aspinall may be a billionaire casino owner, but he's also the founder of The Aspinall Foundation, a conservancy group dedicated to supporting global wildlife. Among its myriad conservancy projects, its most outstanding endeavor may be that it rehabilitates and reintroduces once captive gorillas back into the wild.

For Aspinall, one of those gorillas in particular, a youngster named Kwibi, captured his heart. The conservationist personally raised the animal for several years before setting him free in the Foundation's million-acre reserve in West Africa.
Five years later, Aspinall traveled back to Africa in order to check on Kwibi, who was now a fully-grown adult. The following video shows their touching reunion.

What’s of particular note is that conservationists on the reserve warned Aspinall that Kwibi had previously attacked the last two people who came in contact with him.
Nonetheless, it’s clear that this gorilla viewed his former protector with a higher regard than he had towards other human beings. And more surprising than abstaining from an attack, showed an attachment to him even five years after their last meeting.

 

It's not unheard of for wild animals to form bonds with their protectors. Anna Julia Torres, a well-known animal conservationist in Columbia, often cuddles with the lions she keeps on her nature reserve. But Torres sees her animals daily, while Aspinall hasn't been a presence in Kwibi's life for some time.

The work of the Aspinall Foundation and others like it are crucial to gorillas' survival. These animals remain on the precipice of extinction due to the presence of so many man-made threats, not the least of which is rampant poaching.

Human industry continues to view them as things, commodities to be bought and sold, or simply discarded. But as we continue our destruction of gorilla populations unabated, videos like this one demonstrate that these creatures have their own internal lives—ones which are very much worth honoring and protecting.

Joe Lizura

Google Site Submissions

I found a great site from Google for submitting any web address to Google for search engine optimization.  Here is the link - http://www.googleguide.com/add_url.html  after yout get to the site, just fill in the URL being sure to use the "http" and click submit!  It's that easy - check it out.  I even used it to submit a new site of mine, www.joelizura.net.

Joe Lizura
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Taking a Break From Facebook?

It's finally happened, people are spending less time on Facebook.  San Diego, February 7, 2013.  There's a new study out that says people are spending less time on Facebook!  Well, I'm not so sure about that because I have a couple of friends who seem to be taking up the slack for most of the rest o us!  But you know what?  I think it's true.  Remember a few years back when all there really was to do on social networking was to be on facebook?  My kids are prime example, they used to spend most of their time on facebook, but now they have so many other options that just by default they don't spend as much time as they used to on it.  Fortunately facebook is the best at what they do and everyone will stay with facebook . . . as long as they continue to stay the best.

Here's the info on the story link and the actual story.  http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/most-facebookers-have-taken-a-break-from-the-site-study-finds/?WT.mc_id=TE-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M291c-ROS-0213-PH&WT.mc_ev=click&WT.mc_c=207984

Facebook is the most popular social network in America — roughly two-thirds of adults in the country use it on a regular basis.
But that doesn’t mean they don’t get sick of it.
A new survey by the Pew Research Center‘s Internet and American Life Project, conducted in December, found that 61 percent of current Facebook users admitted that they had voluntarily taken breaks from the site, for as many as several weeks at a time.
The main reasons for their social media sabbaticals were not having enough time to dedicate to pruning their profiles, an overall decrease in their interest in the site, and the general sentiment that Facebook was a major waste of time.

About 4 percent cited privacy and security concerns as contributing to their departure. Although those users eventually resumed their regular activity, another 20 percent of Facebook users admitted to deleting their accounts.

Of course, even as some Facebook users pull back on their daily consumption of the service, the vast majority — 92 percent — of all social network users still maintain a profile on the site. But while more than half said that the site was just as important to them as it was a year ago, only 12 percent said the site’s significance increased over the last year — indicating the makings of a much larger social media burnout across the site.

The survey teases out other interesting insights, including the finding that young users are spending less time overall on the site. The report found that 42 percent of Facebook users from the ages of 18 to 29 said that the average time they spent on the site in a typical day had decreased in the last year. A much smaller portion, 23 percent, of older Facebook users, those over 50, reported a drop in Facebook usage over the same period.

Facebook’s biggest challenge revolves around figuring out how to continue to profit from its rich reservoir of one billion users — and a large part of that involves keeping them entertained and returning to the site on a regular basis. Most recently, the company introduced a tool called Graph Search, a research tool that promises to help its users find answers on everything from travel recommendations to potential jobs and even love connections.

Lee Rainie, the director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, which conducted the survey, described the results as a kind of “social reckoning.”
“These data show that people are trying to make new calibrations in their life to accommodate new social tools,” said Mr. Rainie, in an e-mail. Facebook users are beginning to ask themselves, ” ‘What are my friends doing and thinking and how much does that matter to me?,’ ” he said. “They are adding up the pluses and minuses on a kind of networking balance sheet and they are trying to figure out how much they get out of connectivity vs. how much they put into it.”

Joe Lizura

Etch a Sketch creator passes away

February 2, 2012.  Joe Lizura Blog.  A sad day today as the news came out that the creator of the Etch a Sketch has passed away in France.  Anyone who was a child in the 60s and 70s grew up playing with the Etch a Sketch.  I remember when I was about 5 and I had to spend a week in the hospital, my parents brought me the one toy I couldn't live without - my Etch a Sketch.  Long before we had video games we used our imaginations to create countless sketches on that thing.  I remember playing with that toy like it was yesterday!  I also remember when I finally put it aside for good when my family got it's first video game - the game was Pong.  Rest in peace Mr. Cassagnes.  Here is a link to the story:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57567306/inventor-of-etch-a-sketch-dies-in-france-at-86/

Joe Lizura
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Fired Up about this story!

January 23, 2013.  Holy cow!  Check out this story!  Let's hope it true, a hybrid car that can run on air?  Check it out:

London, January 23 (ANI): If you have ever grimaced at your never ending petrol bill and dreamed of a car that runs on fresh air, your prayers are about to be answered.

French car giant PSA Peugeot Citroen believes that it can put an air- powered vehicle on the road by 2016, the Daily Mail reported.
Its scientists say it will knock 45 percent off fuel bills for an average motorist, and when driving in towns and cities costs could be slashed by as much as 80 percent because the car will be running on air for four-fifths of the time.
The system works by using a normal internal combustion engine, special hydraulics and an adapted gearbox along with compressed air cylinders that store and release energy. This enables it to run on petrol or air, or a combination of the two.
Air power would be used solely for city use, automatically activated below 43mph and available for '60 to 80 percent of the time in city driving'. By 2020, the cars could be achieving an average of 117 miles a gallon, the company predicts.
The air compression system can re-use all the energy normally lost when slowing down and braking. The motor and a pump are in the engine bay, fed by a compressed air tank underneath the car, running parallel to the exhaust.
The revolutionary new 'Hybrid Air' engine system - the first to combine petrol with compressed air - is a breakthrough for hybrid cars because expensive batteries will no longer be needed.
Cars fitted with Hybrid Air will be about 1,000 pounds cheaper to buy than current hybrid models.
For more than two years, 100 elite scientists and engineers have been working on the air-powered car in top-secret conditions at Peugeot's research and development centre at Velizy, just south of Paris.
Hybrid Air is the centrepiece of Peugeot chief executive Philippe Varin's efforts to restore the fortunes of the historic car maker.
The revolutionary system will be able to be installed on any normal family car without altering its external shape or size or reducing the boot size, provided the spare wheel is not stored there.
From the outside, an air-powered car will look identical to a conventional vehicle. (ANI)

Joe Lizura

Joe Lizura San Diego Travel Tip

January 1, 2013. Here's a very useful article for saving money on flights, whether it's San Diego or any other city, this study points out the best number of days in advance to book you airline flight.  I've also found that having your email on some of the travel notification sites also helps you lock in a low fare when they are having those 24 or 48 hour fare sales.

Here's the story.  Bargain-conscious travelers have been trying to answer the question for years and are still stymied: How far in advance do you have to book to get the best airfare?

According to new research by CheapAir.com based on the travel site's review of 560 million airfares, the optimal time to book a domestic flight is 49 days in advance. If you're flying overseas, you should book almost three months -- 81 days, to be precise -- before you travel.

Too much planning for you? Don't worry. While the average domestic flight was the cheapest 49 days out, it didn't start to rise dramatically in price until about two weeks before the departure date. But if you wait until the day or two before you want to travel, get ready for some serious pocketbook pain. Domestic flights that would normally cost less than $400 jump to about $625.

Notably, it's also bad for your pocketbook to book too far in advance, according to CheapAir. People who booked 210 days before the flight ended up paying an average of $475 for a domestic ticket. There are exceptions and caveats, however. If you're booking for a high-traffic time, like Thanksgiving, it can make sense to book well in advance. The optimal time to buy a flight for Thanksgiving weekend in 2012, for instance, was 96 days in advance.

If you're taking an international flight, by contrast, you might score a real bargain by being spontaneous. For example, the best price CheapAir found for a Los Angeles-to-Tokyo flight was when the traveler booked one day before the flight.

Other factoids of note: Booking a flight on a Tuesday or Wednesday is not likely to save any money. But flying on a Tuesday or Wednesday will.

And, of course, while this study focuses on average ticket prices, there are a lot of one-time deals that can make booking at any given time either a bargain or a bust. CheapAir tries to deal with the frustrations of variable airline pricing by offering a customer payback program. If you book a flight through the site and find that your specific itinerary has dropped in price, it offers you up to a $100 credit for another flight. And what if another airline offers a better deal in the meantime? Unless you're traveling on one of the rare airlines, such as Southwest, that will allow you to change your ticket without penalty, you're out of luck.

Nothing quite like saving money!   Joe Lizura

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A Truly Fantastic Story

On January 5, 2012 San Diego's Joe Lizura wrote.  This is truly a fantastic story about an incredibly successful man (and his family) who rose from poverty and and a lack of education at the age of 13 to one of the wealthiest men in the world.  It shows that anyone can succeed - it's always determination and hard work that will help. 

This is a definite "must read" story to start out your new year:  http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/zara-co-founder-increases-wealth-22-2b-2012-182819240.html

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the 100 richest people around the globe boosted their net worth by a collective $241 billion over the last 12 months. As of Dec. 31, 2012, these tycoons controlled a combined $1.9 trillion of the world’s wealth.
The biggest winner in 2012 was Amancio Ortega, founder of the Spanish retail conglomerate Inditex SA, says Matt Miller, editor of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index in an interview with The Daily Ticker.
Ortega increased his wealth by $22.2 billion in 2012 – more than the entire fortune of Alisher Usmanov, Russia’s richest man. The massive jump in Ortega’s fortune can be attributed to the 66.7% rise in Inditex SA stock (like most wealthy people, Ortega's wealth is "paper money" i.e. stock holdings).
One of the best-performing companies in the Inditex SA umbrella is Zara, a popular women’s clothing retailer that sells the latest fashion trends at affordable prices. Ortega and his ex-wife started Zara at their Spanish home, designing and stitching together the fabric with help from family members.
Zara has now become a hugely profitable fashion empire with retail storefronts in every major metropolitan city.
Ortega, the third richest person in the world with a net worth of $57.5 billion, grew up poor in Spain and had to drop out of school at the age of 13 to earn money. But Ortega’s rags to riches story is not unique, says Miller. He estimates that three-quarters of the world’s billionaires are self-made.


Joe Lizura
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