Jacob and Wilhelm

1. So for two out of the three times I've wished Christy "happy birthday" on this blog - the first comment I've received has been the same. Jacob Grier: "Hey, you didn't wish ME a happy birthday" or some variant thereof. (See here and here.) Just because he and Christy were apparently born on the same day, he seems to think he deserves such congratulations on the day internationally recognized as Christy's birthday. Imagine the nerve!

Just kidding, dude. Happy belated birthday. I'll look into that flower thing....but what do you think the people at Cato will say?

2. Ever heard of the Wilhelm Scream? See, apparently a fair number of sound people in Hollywood are simply uncreative. Either that or they really, really love inside jokes. There's this one scream sound effect recorded in 1951 which has been used in more than 175 films, from Westerns to Star Wars to Lord of the Rings. We don't normally notice a throwaway scream in movies because we are paying attention to something else, but when a bunch of scenes using the same scream are strung together - as in this YouTube video - the results are oddly funny. And just so you don't think this was all made up by some YouTuber editing old movies, here's Roger Ebert describing the scream.