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The last time Sylvester Stallone played Rocky Balboa on the big screen, back in 1990, the first George Bush was president, ''Cosby'' and ''Cheers'' were the most popular TV shows, Blackberry was only a fruit, and if you said ''Paris Hilton,'' everyone knew you were only talking about a big hotel in the French capital.
But after years of promised comebacks, Stallone apparently has lined up the financing to bring back the ''Rocky'' franchise for one more round.
''Rocky Balboa'' reportedly will be the title of the sixth ''Rocky'' -- a co-production of Revolution Studios, Columbia Pictures and MGM.
Stallone told Daily Variety he plans to ''capture the essence of the first couple of films'' and will reprise his role as the Philadelphia working-class hero and former champ, Rocky Balboa -- as well as write and direct the film.
The aging action star also wrote all five of the previous ''Rocky'' films and directed the second, third and fourth movies in the series.
The original ''Rocky'' was nominated for 10 Academy Awards and took home three Oscars -- including best picture and best director for John Avildsen -- on Oscar night 1977. The film plucked the virtually unknown Stallone from obscurity and made him a star overnight -- as well as handing him Oscar nominations for both screenplay and best actor.
In this sixth ''Rocky'' film, Burt Young plans to be back as Paulie, and the music will again be composed by Bill Conti, who wrote the original -- now iconic -- ''Rocky'' score.
According to Stallone, filming is planned for an early 2006 start -- both in Philadelphia and Las Vegas. Yes, Rocky will go back into the ring and Stallone (who's now 59) says he is negotiating with former heavyweight champion Roy Jones Jr. to sign on as his ring opponent, Mason Dixon. The rest of the cast is expected to be filled with unknowns.
Along with reprising Rocky Balboa, Stallone is also busy working on ''Rambo IV'' and expects to then move on to something far more esoteric -- a film based on the life of poet and author Edgar Allan Poe, with Robert Downey Jr. attached to play the title role, in ''Poe.''
Sun Times
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Books with photos that move - Harry Potter-style - may soon be with us. But before that, get ready for boxes of cereal that extol their own virtues via a built-in video display and chocolate bars that flash and flare to attract your attention.
Siemens has announced a new type of color display screen so thin and flexible it can be printed onto paper or foil, and so cheap it can be used on throwaway packaging.
A spokesman for the company, Dr Norbert Aschenbrenner, said the screens would be able to do everything a conventional TV could, albeit with slightly lower quality.
The first examples would be on the market by 2007, Dr Aschenbrenner said.
The technology uses "electro chromic substances … that change their color when an electrical voltage shift charges in their molecules" and the German technology company suggested uses could include medicines displaying instructions in various languages.
"It is also conceivable that small computer games will be on packages or that equipment boxes will display animations that give users step-by-step operating instructions."
However, it is marketers who have shown the most interest.
Tom Harris, CEO of the industry association Point of Purchase Advertising Australia, said if such screens delivered everything promised it would be "absolutely brilliant". "The major brands are always looking for a competitive edge.
"How cheap is cheap going to be is the interesting thing, and there are a few other questions, such as does the packaging keep moving when you get home?"
Dr Aschenbrenner said glossy magazines could incorporate the flexible screens in advertisements, with the cost being from about $53 a square meter. Newspaper supplements (on a slightly heavier stock than normal newsprint) could follow.
How will such a screen get its power? From batteries that are also printed onto the paper, Siemens said.
SMH
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#10: "I want you to know. Karyn is with us. A West Texas girl, just like me." -Nashville, Tenn., May 27, 2004
#9: "Then you wake up at the high school level and find out that the illiteracy level of our children are appalling." -Washington, D.C., Jan. 23, 2004
#8: "Free societies are hopeful societies. And free societies will be allies against these hateful few who have no conscience, who kill at the whim of a hat." -Washington, D.C., Sept. 17, 2004
#7: "I want to thank the astronauts who are with us, the courageous spacial entrepreneurs who set such a wonderful example for the young of our country." -Washington, D.C. Jan. 14, 2004
#6:"We will make sure our troops have all that is necessary to complete their missions. That's why I went to the Congress last September and proposed fundamental - supplemental funding, which is money for armor and body parts and ammunition and fuel." -Erie, Pa., Sept. 4, 2004
#5: "After standing on the stage, after the debates, I made it very plain, we will not have an all-volunteer army. And yet, this week - we will have an all-volunteer army!" -Daytona Beach, Fla., Oct. 16, 2004
#4: "Tribal sovereignty means that; it's sovereign. I mean, you're a - you've been given sovereignty, and you're viewed as a sovereign entity. And therefore the relationship between the federal government and tribes is one between sovereign entities." -Washington, D.C., Aug. 6, 2004
#3: "I hear there's rumors on the Internets that we're going to have a draft." -second presidential debate, St. Louis, Mo., Oct. 8, 2004
#2 "Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country." -Poplar Bluff, Mo., Sept. 6, 2004
#1: "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." -Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004
About
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More than half-a-century ago, Machal Lalung was thought to be insane and sent to a mental asylum in India's remote northeast
A few months ago, he was set free after the National Human Rights Commission found that healthcare authorities had made a mistake and Lalung suffered only from epilepsy.
Lalung's confinement for 54 years has shocked rights activists and mental health experts in a country where it is not uncommon for people to be branded insane and locked up in homes or asylums for months, if not a few years.
"Machal Lalung's case was not in our knowledge but once it was brought to our notice, we immediately completed all legal formalities to secure his release," Assam's Home Minister Rokybul Hussain told Reuters.
"I am really sorry for him," he said.
That comes as small consolation for the 77-year-old frail tribal man, who was 23 when he was sent to the state-run mental hospital in the Assamese city of Tezpur.
Fifty-four years with psychiatric patients has dulled his senses, made him forget his family, his tribal dialect and even the taste of the food he liked.
His life before entering the asylum is nothing but a blip in his memory. So is the story of how and who brought him to the mental home. Doctors who treated Lalung have retired and records about him are missing.
Today Lalung said he awaits peace in death.
"I feel sad at what happened to my life but there is no use grumbling now. I am just waiting for death," he told Reuters at his nephew's home in Silchang village, about 55 miles east of Assam's main city of Guwahati.
"Initially, I used to miss my family and always begged my wardens to send me home. But they never listened to me," he said with tears in his eyes.
Lalung's only family members -- his father and elder sister -- are dead. He lives with his sister's son who grew up listening to stories about his uncle's disappearance.
It was in fact the nephew who managed to trace Lalung after a man from their village had gone to the same mental hospital for treatment and saw Lalung.
"It was very difficult to stay with insane people in the same room but gradually I got used to it," Lalung said.
Today, despite his poor health, Lalung likes to work in a small vegetable garden outside the house, carrying a spade and a pouch containing a tobacco and betel nut snack to chew.
Although there were many women in the hospital, Lalung never tried to make friends with them or consider marriage.
"Who would want to marry an insane woman?" he asks.
news.yahoo.com
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Next to a lifelike replica of a giant ape head, the believers milled around tables Saturday covered with casts of large footprints, books about nature's mysteries and T-shirts proclaiming "Bigfoot: Often Imitated, Never Invalidated."
While they can have a sense of humor about it, the search for the legendary Sasquatch is no joke for many of the nearly 400 people who came here to discuss the latest sightings and tracking techniques at the Texas Bigfoot Conference.
"It's not a matter of believing, like faith, when you believe in something you can't see," said Daryl G. Colyer, a Lorena businessman who has investigated hundreds of reported Bigfoot sightings in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.
"It's a flesh-and-blood animal that just has not been discovered yet. And I think we're getting closer and closer and closer," Colyer said.
Outlandish theories about the origin of Bigfoot abound, including that it might be an extraterrestrial. Many believe that a towering, ape-like creature descended from a prehistoric 9- to 10-foot-tall gorilla called a Gigantopithecus, and that it now inhabits North American forests.
Hoaxes have been a large part of the making of the Bigfoot legend. California construction company owner Ray L. Wallace donned 16-inch wooden feet to create tracks in mud in 1958, and it led to a front-page story in a local paper that coined the term "Bigfoot."
But there have been more than 2,550 seemingly credible Bigfoot sightings reported in North America the past century, according to Christopher L. Murphy's 2004 book "Meet the Sasquatch."
Murphy believes thousands more witnesses are too afraid of ridicule to come forward.
"You see one of these things and it changes your whole perception of reality," said Craig Woolheater, the office manager of a Dallas company who co-founded the Texas Bigfoot Research Center in 1999, five years after he said he saw a hairy creature walking along a remote Louisiana road.
Colyer and others estimate that about 2,000 are in North America today, reclusive nocturnal animals living in thickly wooded areas with waterways, eating meat and plants and making nests out of trees and brush.
Pictures and film footage are often disputed, such as the 1967 footage of a creature walking near a California creek. Most evidence centers on hundreds of casts of footprints collected since the 1950s.
Jimmy Chilcutt, a retired fingerprint analysis expert for the Conroe Police Department, said many of the hundreds of prints he examined belonged to a primate, but not a human, ape, gorilla or chimpanzee.
Like Chilcutt, other well-respected professionals have come forward to say such evidence should not be dismissed.
"To me it's still an open question, but here's some evidence that warrants some serious consideration, so give it a chance," said Jeff Meldrum, associate professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University who has studied more than 150 casts of footprints. "This is not a paranormal question; it's a biological question."
Yahoo
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A RACY new magazine that gives boys sex tips and encourages them to drink beer
has been criticised by parent and family groups.
Explode is a new monthly magazine aimed at boys aged between 12 and
17.
It features pages of scantily-clad women, a regular monthly picture spread
titled "Your mate's big sister of the month" and a raunchy "sealed section" with
sex tips and stories.
A media release sent by publisher Pacific Magazines on the eve of the
magazine's launch on Wednesday described it as a "fresh, bold and edgy"
publication aimed at boys from 12 to 17.
But Australian Family Association spokesman Bill Muehlenberg accused the
publishers of exploiting children.
"They should be ashamed of themselves," he said.
A story in the magazine's "sealed section" features a diagram of the female
body with arrows pointing out the eight most sensitive areas.
Another article teaches readers how to undo a bra using one hand.
Mr Muehlenberg said the magazine should be banned.
"He labelled as "irresponsible" a feature titled "Life's great firsts" that
instructs readers to learn to love beer or risk being a social outcast.
Victorian Parents Council spokeswoman Jo Silver said the magazine was trashy
and immoral.
But adolescent psychologist Michael Carr-Greg, who writes an advice column in
the magazine, said the benefits of getting teenage boys to read outweighed the
moral concerns.
"There is also a lot of valuable information and advice as well," he said.
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It was a scene straight out of The Fugitive, minus Harrison Ford and
the Hollywood ending.
Daniel Willard Rhodes, 31, of Largo spotted the helicopter against the dark
sky late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning. The police were moving in,
he thought, so he dived into a storm drain near 113th Street and Walsingham
Road, the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office said, recounting Rhodes' version.
On his hands and knees, he crawled through a dark maze of water-filled storm
sewers, reaching a storm grate about three-quarters of a mile away, deputies
said. Then he was stuck, unable to find his way back, unable to jimmy the grate
at Seminole Boulevard and 122nd Avenue.
Night became morning.
And no one was hunting for Rhodes - at least, not the Sheriff's Office. The
two warrants for his arrest - one for driving on a suspended license and a
second for a probation violation - were not the type to generate a large-scale
manhunt.
About 9:10 a.m., Rhodes spotted someone walking by and shouted for help. The
passer-by called 911 and Rhodes' brother, David.
The man-in-the-sewer 911 call brought a large-scale response from Seminole
Fire Rescue, Sunstar Ambulance, Pinellas County utilities and the Sheriff's
Office.
Once the grate was removed, Rhodes had a lot of explaining to do. He told
deputies he chased his dog into the sewer. He gave his name as David Rhodes, not
knowing that his brother had already arrived at the scene.
Deputies said they confronted him with this coincidence, and Rhodes, holding
his shirt drenched in foul water, 'fessed up. He said he thought the police were
on to him, deputies said.
Rhodes was arrested on a charge of obstruction for giving his brother's name
and put in the back of Deputy Don Klase's cruiser.
"There was a good aroma coming from the back of the car," Klase said. "I
advised him that we're going to give him a shower once we got to the jail."
Rhodes, who remained in jail Friday in lieu of $5,500 bail, could not be
reached for comment on how his cell compared with the sewer.
