What is a celebrity?

With the recent announcement of the passing of Steve Jobs, I am reminded of what I considered to be a celebrity. Many years ago Albert Einstein was looked at like a rock star. A man who educated the world to a new science that many of us today take for granted.  Newspapers and film crews all across the world reported everything he did. The man who changed the world. But today the world has changed but not the way it was meant to be.

Over the years since Einstein, America in particular, began to celebrate what they considered to be popular. That has evolved to the point a girl named Snooki on a music cable show is more popular today than Martin Luther King Jr. Just looking at the magazines by the cash registers at grocery stores clearly shows what is considered popular now; unwed teen mothers, a war between Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie, unfaithful spouses and who’s sleeping with whom now.

Over the years of medical cures, traveling to the moon and other planets, overcoming social injustice people are more concerned on what Lady Gaga is wearing today or if there is a new sex tape of Kim Kardashian. Ichiro Suzuki breaks baseball records what feels like every season but it means nothing compared to the press and publicity professional athletes get for using steroids or the University of North Carolina for taking impermissible benefits and multiple academic misconducts. Doing what is immoral or bad is now rewarded with fame while those who accomplish great things for the better of a society or culture are forgotten by the next commercial break.

I do not watch the Emmy’s or the Oscars nor do I care who wins. It’s basically Hollywood millionaires rewarding themselves. But the real celebrity who helps that industry become even more popular was also attacked by that same industry. George Lucas. He has created more technologies for the movie industry than any other person or company to date. Just reading about all his accomplishments on digital recordings, sound, special effects, etc. has Hollywood create movies that years ago would be impossible to do. CGI effects like PIXAR which was one of his creations, has created amazing works of art for movies and TV shows.

All the while as George Lucas was just getting started, Hollywood bosses and unions were pushing him away. But now they can’t live without him or his technology. But during the Oscars its more on who is wearing the most revealing dress, who is with whom. And while nearly every other speech is a political attack on a politician or program, the whole event feels like it is promoting itself for the next line of movies coming out soon. All the while the man who brought new life and spirit to the industry is ignored.

Steve Jobs is another man who in a normal world would have rock star statues like Albert Einstein. Starting a company from scratch, he has accomplished so much and revolutionized many technologies that years ago were unthinkable. Even coming back to the company he started years later, his ipod, iphone and ipad has moved technology and the lifestyle of people more forward in this area than any other.

There are many other famous celebrities all over the world that by today’s standards are nobodies. Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr., Thomas Edison, Claus von Stauffenberg, Jonas Salk, The Wright Brothers are just a few real celebrities with rock star statues. But the only thing that people really care about today is what Justin Bieber is doing. We basically worship the millionaires while it’s the poor people saving the world from itself.

Shaniya Davis Getting Justice

Shaniya Davis (5 years old)

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A judge has cleared the way for prosecutors to seek the death penalty against the man accused of raping and killing 5-year-old Shaniya Davis in 2009. Superior Court Judge Jim Ammons made the ruling this afternoon. Mario Andrette McNeil, 31, is one of two people charged in the girl's death. The other is her mother, Antoniette Davis, 27. McNeil is charged with first-degree rape, first-degree kidnapping and first-degree murder. Antoniette Davis is charged with first-degree murder, rape of a child and human trafficking.

 District Attorney Billy West told the court today that prosecutors did not plan to seek the death penalty against Antoniette Davis. Shaniya was killed and her body was dumped along a roadside in Harnett County in 2009. Shaniya was reported missing Nov. 10, 2009, by her mother, who was living in the Sleepy Hollow Mobile Home Park off Murchison Road.

 A few days later, police discovered surveillance video from a hotel in Sanford that showed a man holding Shaniya in his arms while waiting for an elevator. Police later identified the man as McNeil, who turned himself in to police Nov. 13 after the video was released. McNeil admitted to kidnapping the child, police said. Shaniya's body was found Nov. 16 off Walker Road, which is off N.C. 87 near the Carolina Trace community.

Antoniette Davis (mother) /  Mario Andrette McNeil (asshole) 

009 RE:CYBORG

Anime director Kenji Kamiyama - who first rose to prominence thanks to his work on Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex and has since become one of the most reliable and successful directors in the biz - has announced his next feature with an extended promo video.

Kamiyama will be returning to the world of cybernetic action with a big screen version of Shotara Ishinomori's manga 009 Re:Cyborg. The story follows a group of nine cyborgs, each of them created by a shadowy organization for use as weapons against humanity. The group turns on their creators to protect the population instead, using the powers given them to fight their creators.

Mamoru Oshii created a short film based on this same material recently and the original manga has already spun off multiple films and anime series in the past. For a taste of Kamiyama's spin on things take a look at the video below.

Obama Fried Chicken

Chinese media reports that Kentucky Fried Chicken is taking legal action against the management of “Obama Fried Chicken” on grounds of trademark infringement. A store bearing the “OFC” livery – complete with Obama’s likeness replacing that of the Colonel – reportedly appeared in Beijing, causing rapid reverberations online and an almost equally rapid response from KFC proper, which vowed legal action. The store was apparently the work of one of China’s notoriously innovative entrepreneurs, in this a case a university student, and had not yet opened.

Other fast food companies have also been flattered by such imitators as McDnoalds, to say nothing of Apple’s recent and decidedly creepy discovery of an entire chain of replica Apple stores… link here 

No actions have been taken with another infringement involving a Japanese singer named Gackt over the naming of his latest album 'Are you fried Chickenz' with the bands name 'Yellow Fried Chickenz'.

Pink Pepsi / Energy

 web link here
Limited flavor for the Winter season

Strawberry and milk flavor

Halloween Banner

Again my wife drew another Halloween banner picture for me.

Wendell, North Carolina

Living in a small town like Wendell is pretty nice. I for one live outside the town limits. Going to work each morning and watching the deer run through my back yard as I make my way to the car, cats sleeping on top of the car and the trees around it as the dogs chase after the deer. From time to time I have caught a opossum sleeping on our back porch.  The part my wife hasn’t gotten use to yet is all the bugs and mosquitoes. They really love biting her. She does love watching the lighting bugs during the summer but after all these years of living here, she still feels like she is in a scary movie if she has to go outside at night and hears strange noises coming from the woods.

The town of Wendell is small but big in heart. When the Food Lion grocery store opened up was cause for a celebration. The store has been remodeled and expanded numerous of time due to the size of the town’s population increasing. A McDonalds opened up not too long ago and just recently went through a remodeling due to so many people trying to even get into the parking lot let alone the service counter was three feet from the front door. 

The local post office is by far the greatest post office I have encountered. And I had to deal with post offices in California and New York with much dread. But here in Wendell they call us if we receive a package. As soon as I go inside the post office they immediately retrieve the package all without asking for the name on the package, they know its for us. And that is due to my wife’s nationality of sorts.

You see, looking at the demographics of the racial makeup of the town of Wendell, it’s not surprising to see that our family sticks out so easily. My wife is Japanese and with our two boys makes the town of Wendell list us as 0.02% of Japanese residence. And to be honest we stick out very clearly in this town. The majority of people who live here are whites, then Blacks or African American depending on your level of political correctness followed by Hispanics.

We clearly stick out in this town. But unlike ALL those Hollywood movies we haven’t experience any negativity or people showing up in front of our house in white sheets burning a cross. This whole area is a farming community. Nearly everyone lives works, or have relatives who deal with farming. With that, the people here have a strong since of family values here. A lot of people around here are more concerned about getting work done, raising the kids right and enjoy what God has given them.

When my wife started living here she had all these ideas of what Southern living was like. Just by all the movies and TV shows showing its stupidity of what Southern people are like. It did take her a while to get use to hunting season and listening to guns going off into the night and early morning. But every negative or persecution she was ready to experience never happened. People waved at us, saying hello, a true Southern hospitality.

Over the past few years the town has been growing ever so slowly compared to larger cities but in a way that’s good. People around here like it nice and quiet. A majority of the stores in town are closed by six PM and even during the night the whole place is as quiet as a mouse. The morning and afternoon times have created rush hour traffic with backups, people unable to turn onto main and side roads as well as the recent move by the town council to lowering the speed limits inside the town to handle the congestion.

The one big thing going for the town now is a TV show called Lizard Lick Towing that comes on the TruTV Network. Lot of us around here watched it for a while but quickly got bored watching it as we kept seeing a lot of people we know on the show. And many of them talked about being paid to act that way for the cameras. The place is also a car dealership called Wendell Auto Brokers located at the corner of Marshburn Road and HWY 97. I pass this way a lot as does many of my relatives who work the fields near there.  Check their business reviews before buying a car from there.

The local Police are always nice and friendly and on constant patrol. Except early mornings when one of them is resting is his car across the street from McDonalds while playing Solitary on the computer. Those screens are clearly visible from the road when it’s still dark outside. People are nice and friendly, Anyone seen doing anything strange will quickly call the police and the next door neighbor to watch. I even sat on my front porch and watched a guy get a speeding ticket. I knew the guy and called his on his cell phone while the police was writing the ticket.

The town is a modern day Mayberry and in many ways I hope it never changes. A by-pass road going around the town would help alleviate the traffic backups through town would be perfect but that could be a problem as more and more houses are being built just outside the town limits leaving all these new home owners having to drive through town to get onto the freeway. I enjoy the smell of weekend cookouts from the neighbors; watching kids playing throughout the town and surrounding area testifying on how safe the area is; looking out into my backyard with my kids in the early morning as deer, raccoons and opossum walk across the yard are just a drop in the ocean on how I feel about living here.

My wife is a city girl and after living here for over ten years now and she still haven’t fully gotten used to it yet. Too quiet and dark during the night, bugs everywhere (mostly on her), animals walking all around our yard and constant phone calls from my family wanting to know how we are doing and if we need anything. Not saying Okinawan families are not close as her family calls every week but my family calls just about every other day.

In all, Wendell is a nice quiet town. Not too big or small and still full of Southern values; God, family and local sports.