Gerry Charlotte Phelps

Reunion With Christian the Lion

Christian the Lion- Reunion!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Xr1pWzoLvT8

So these two people raised this lion cub who they named Christian, and sadly he got too big for them to take care of so they decided to release him to live as a wild lion. Well, in this footage, a year has passed and it looks like Christian's adapted to living with a pride of lions when his old friends come back to visit him.

They had bought him as a cub at Harrod's in London in 1969.  They kept him in the basement of the furniture store where they worked and played soccer with him in a nearby walled churchyard.  Christian rode sitting in the back seat of their Bently, and went to restaurants with them.  He never harmed anyone, but he was getting very big.  So they arranged for him to be re-introduced to his native Kenya by the famed Adamsons (subjects of the film "Born Free".)  This old film was taken when they returned to visit him.  Christian comes out of the wilderness, sees them, gallops toward them, and this is what happened then.  You see Adamson, then Christian's lady friend comes up toward the end.

Christian the Lion - the full story (in HQ)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=adYbFQFXG0U

There have been over 12 million hits on these films of Christian and his old friends.

Christian the Lion *Reunion* !

http://youtube.com/watch?v=h7VkiL_PW6U

Finally - TODAY hosts check out a video showing Christian and friends.  Funny.

Iran's "Good Will" Let Surge Succeed - Pelosi

Here's the link to the video.  2 minutes.  http://stuckon-stupid.com/2008/05/30/nancy-pelosi-credits-the-goodwill-of-the-iranians-for-the-success-of-the-surge-in-iraq/

(Hat Tip to stuckonstupid.com)

"Beware of Imposters"

 

What kind of imposters impact you?  For myself, I have to beware of imposters like "low-calorie" brownies or Big Macs.   

Then there are more serious imposters.  Temptations are very big imposters..  They promise to be something great,  then turn out to be "the pits!"

But what kind of things, people or groups are imposters that YOU try to beware of?

From Nice Deb at http://nicedeb.wordpress.com/2008/04/10/beware-of-imposters/.

(Hat Tip and many thanks to Jennifer D. Schreck)

Time for a Laugh Break!

                   (Image from sentinel.phpwebhosting.com)

Just take a minute.  This will make you laugh until you cry and shout.  No kidding!  Click here.

Here is the story behind this:

CAR ACCIDENT IN TEXAS...PRICELESS!!

Turn up your sound, and click on the link.

This accident happened in the Dallas - Ft. Worth area and you must listen to it.  It is a phone call from a man who witnesses a car accident involving four elderly women.

It was so popular when they played it on CHUM FM that they had to put it on their website.

The guy's laugh is contagious.  If you close your eyes and picture what he is watching, it is even better than a video clip!

(Hat Tip to Fritz Parker)

New Invisible Tanks

Now you see it: How the tank might look with background images beamed onto the side  (Look closely at the back of the tank.  It's not all there, or so it would appear.  Just a faint haze)

                             (Image from dailymail.co.uk)

Reported by The Daily Mail, UK, on 10-30-07, here.

New technology that can make tanks invisible has been unveiled by the Ministry of Defence.

In secret trials last week, the Army said it had made a vehicle completely disappear and predicted that an invisible tank would be ready for service by 2012.

The new technology uses cameras and projectors to beam images of the surrounding landscape onto a tank.

The result is that anyone looking in the direction of the vehicle only sees what is beyond it and not the tank itself.

A soldier, who was at the trials, said: "This technology is incredible. If I hadn't been present I wouldn't have believed it. I looked across the fields and just saw grass and trees - but in reality I was staring down the barrel of a tank gun."

How the technology works in a combat situation is very sensitive, but the MoD is believed to be testing a military jacket that works on the same principles.

Breakthrough: The MoD's 'Q', Professor Sir John Pendry

It is the type of innovation normally associated with James Bond, and the brains behind the latest technology is the MoD's very own "Q" - Professor Sir John Pendry, of Imperial College London.

He said the only drawback was the reliability of the cameras and projectors.

But he added: "The next stage is to make the tank invisible without them - which is intricate and complicated, but possible."

Eerie Color Photos of WWI and Czarist Russia

Did you know there was color photography back during WWI?  These amazing photos give an unexpected peek into the world your grandparents, great and great-great grandparents saw, almost 100 years ago.

These photos are so incredible that I have taken the liberty of posting the entire post from the phenomenal blog of Frank Warner at http://frankwarner.typepad.com/free_frank_warner/2007/10/1910-in-color-a.html.  Here then is Frank Warner, guest blogger.  (Click on photos for enlargements)

_______________

1910 in color: A peek into Russia before Communism

Did you see the Seriously Cool web site’€™s remarkable photographs of France in the First World War? The big surprise is that the pictures are in color.

To me, the photos are as if the Internet suddenly gave us a time-travel portal to major historical events. Color pictures of 1917. Who knew?

The photos are real, and they are not colorized. They were taken using an early color film process.

Tsarist empire. That same web site has even older color pictures of Russia, also stunning. These are around 1910, and they also give you the sense you’€™re seeing something you couldn’€™t possibly be seeing.

They’€™re Russia before World War I, before the Red Revolution overthrew Tsar Nicholas II (1868-1918). The pictures show us some of Russia’€™s most beautiful churches and cathedrals, usually in the sunshine, often in the most idyllic settings. You wonder if this is old Russia, or the land of Oz.

Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii took the pictures for the tsar.

There is graceful St. Nil Monastery, a study of blue on blue on Stolobnyi Island in Lake Seliger, northwest Russia. There is the ornate Cathedral of St. Nicholas, atop a green hill in rural Mozhaisk, Russia. There is a panoramic shot, with a depth of color, showing us the city of Tbilisi, Georgia, including the Metekhi Cliff on the Mtkvari River.

You can study these pictures and wonder what life was like that distant time in these remote locations. The scenes are so sunny and romantic it’€™s hard to imagine anyone could have been unhappy. Even color film can’€™t record unrest.

What were the Russians and Georgians of 1910 thinking on those green hills and under those blue skies? How many were stirring against the tsar? How many imagined a revolution or what would follow?

And just out of curiosity, what do these places look like today? Send postcards!

Frank Warner

Click here to see the rest of the color photos of 1910 Russia.

Click here to see the color pictures of the First World War.

____________

Thanks, Frank.  What a terrific post!

Did you see the Seriously Cool web site’€™s remarkable photographs of France in the First World War? The big surprise is that the pictures are in color.

To me, the photos are as if the Internet suddenly gave us a time-travel portal to major historical events. Color pictures of 1917. Who knew?

The photos are real, and they are not colorized. They were taken using an early color film process.

Tsarist empire. That same web site has even older color pictures of Russia, also stunning. These are around 1910, and they also give you the sense you’€™re seeing something you couldn’€™t possibly be seeing.

They’€™re Russia before World War I, before the Red Revolution overthrew Tsar Nicholas II (1868-1918). The pictures show us some of Russia’€™s most beautiful churches and cathedrals, usually in the sunshine, often in the most idyllic settings. You wonder if this is old Russia, or the land of Oz.

Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii took the pictures for the tsar.

There is graceful St. Nil Monastery, a study of blue on blue on Stolobnyi Island in Lake Seliger, northwest Russia. There is the ornate Cathedral of St. Nicholas, atop a green hill in rural Mozhaisk, Russia. There is a panoramic shot, with a depth of color, showing us the city of Tbilisi, Georgia, including the Metekhi Cliff on the Mtkvari River.

You can study these pictures and wonder what life was like that distant time in these remote locations. The scenes are so sunny and romantic it’€™s hard to imagine anyone could have been unhappy. Even color film can’€™t record unrest.

What were the Russians and Georgians of 1910 thinking on those green hills and under those blue skies? How many were stirring against the tsar? How many imagined a revolution or what would follow?

And just out of curiosity, what do these places look like today? Send postcards!

Frank Warner

Click here to see the rest of the color photos of 1910 Russia.

Click here to see the color pictures of the First World War.

____________

Thanks, Frank.  What a terrific post!

1910 in color: A peek into Russia before Communism

Did you see the Seriously Cool web site’€™s remarkable photographs of France in the First World War? The big surprise is that the pictures are in color.

To me, the photos are as if the Internet suddenly gave us a time-travel portal to major historical events. Color pictures of 1917. Who knew?

The photos are real, and they are not colorized. They were taken using an early color film process.

Tsarist empire. That same web site has even older color pictures of Russia, also stunning. These are around 1910, and they also give you the sense you’€™re seeing something you couldn’€™t possibly be seeing.

They’€™re Russia before World War I, before the Red Revolution overthrew Tsar Nicholas II (1868-1918). The pictures show us some of Russia’€™s most beautiful churches and cathedrals, usually in the sunshine, often in the most idyllic settings. You wonder if this is old Russia, or the land of Oz.

Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii took the pictures for the tsar.

There is graceful St. Nil Monastery, a study of blue on blue on Stolobnyi Island in Lake Seliger, northwest Russia. There is the ornate Cathedral of St. Nicholas, atop a green hill in rural Mozhaisk, Russia. There is a panoramic shot, with a depth of color, showing us the city of Tbilisi, Georgia, including the Metekhi Cliff on the Mtkvari River.

You can study these pictures and wonder what life was like that distant time in these remote locations. The scenes are so sunny and romantic it’€™s hard to imagine anyone could have been unhappy. Even color film can’€™t record unrest.

What were the Russians and Georgians of 1910 thinking on those green hills and under those blue skies? How many were stirring against the tsar? How many imagined a revolution or what would follow?

And just out of curiosity, what do these places look like today? Send postcards!

Frank Warner

Click here to see the rest of the color photos of 1910 Russia.

Click here to see the color pictures of the First World War.

____________

Thanks, Frank.  What a terrific post!

So This Bird Walks Into A Store...

A seagull has turned shoplifter by wandering into a shop and helping itself to crisps, here and here. 

The bird walks into the RS McColl newsagents in Aberdeen when the door is open and makes off with cheese Doritos.

The seagull, nicknamed Sam, has now become so popular that locals have started paying for his crisps.

Shop assistant Sriaram Nagarajan said: "Everyone is amazed by the seagull. For some reason he only takes that one particular kind of crisps."

The bird first swooped in Aberdeen's Castlegate earlier this month and made off with the 55p crisps, and is now a regular.

Once outside, the crisps are ripped open and the seagull is joined by other birds.

'Fine art'

Mr Nagarajan said: "He's got it down to a fine art. He waits until there are no customers around and I'm standing behind the till, then he raids the place.

"At first I didn't believe a seagull was capable of stealing crisps. But I saw it with my own eyes and I was surprised. He's very good at it.

The seagull takes the crisps outside and eats them

"He's becoming a bit of a celebrity. Seagulls are usually not that popular but Sam is a star because he's so funny."

A spokesman for RSPB Scotland said: "I've never heard of anything like this before.

"Perhaps it tried some crisps in a shiny packet in the street, and was just opportunistic one day at the shop when it saw what was inside.

"As everyone knows, gulls can be very quick and fearless, and clearly this one is no exception."

He added: "We'd discourage people from feeding gulls though, as gulls in towns generate lots of complaints every year, and the availability of food is the only reason they live in urban settings."

(Thanks and a big Hat Tip to Fred and Gene Hannah)

The Funniest Thing You Ever Saw!

                            (Image from historyforkids.org)

This is from Jay Leno's Tonight Show.  The guests are a woman and the chicken she saved from drowning by using CPR.  She is a born comic and had Jay and Terry Bradshaw in laughing fits. 

(I tried to watch this while snacking.  Don't do that!  Big mistake.  She had me laughing until tears ran down my face.  Better put that sandwich down first!)       

Clich here on Chicken CPR to see the video.

(Hat Tip and big Thank You to LeeAnn Clark.)

Lion Kisses Woman

         Woman Gets Hug, Kiss from Lion

                Link to the video is here

(Image from moonagewebdreams.blogs.com)

An African lion seems to have struck up a close friendship with the woman who saved his life.

Through the bars of his cage, an African lion named Jupiter stretches his giant paws around the neck of Ana Julia Torres and plants a kiss on her puckered lips...

Monster Pigs Shot in the U.S.

              Monster Pig Shot by 11 year old Boy

                      (Image from prosandcons.us)

1050 lbs, 9'4" from tip of snout to base of tail, shot on 5-3-07 by 11 year old Jamison Stone in east Alabama on a hunting preserve, Lost Creek Plantation, outside of Anniston, Alabama.  More photos can be seen on a website put up by his father, at www.monsterhog.com. 

   "Hogzilla" is to be the subject of a new movie

                 (Image from en.wikipedia.org)

"Hogzilla" was shot and killed in Alapaha, GA on 6-17-04 by Chris Griffin on Ken Holyoak's farm and hunting preserve.  First alleged to weigh 1000 lbs. and be 12 feet long, a later estimate was 800 lbs. and 8 feet long.

                                          Now - the Big Daddy

                               (Image from en.wikipedia.org.)

This is a 1100 lb. ferral (wild) pig shot by Bill Coursey in Fayetteville, GA 1-5-07, here.