Hannah, who last sent me questions in 2023, has broken her silence to write

"I was thinking about the post you made on May 17th, 2024, about taking your first COVID test. I remember thinking at the time that there can't be that many people left in the US who haven't taken a COVID test before, and I'm sure the number is even smaller a year later. I know a good chunk of people in the US say they haven't had COVID before (I only know two people who haven't had it) but I just think it's kind of wild that there are people out there who have never even tested for it."

For the record, I still haven't COVID (so far as I'm aware), so add me to your list, Hannah. And I haven't tested since that post in May 2024. But I agree with you, there really can't be many people in America who haven't been tested by now.

Nearly a billion tests had already been run in the US before widespread reporting ended in 2022. According to the CDC, the disease is still killing hundreds of people a week, so I assume testing remains widespread in medical facilities today. If you find someone who hasn't been tested in 2025, they're probably under 3 years old (although they do have tests for babies now, so even untested toddlers seem unlikely given how often rug rats get sick).

Hannah continues

"While I was looking for that post, I saw the one from January 24th, 2025. Why do you know that fact off the top of your head (that 10x more people in the US die every year from cattle than from sharks)? Do you peruse CDC data in your free time? Or did you hear it and then go to the CDC website to corroborate it? Or are you worried about getting killed by a cow? I'm just curious.

I'm flattered that anyone actually reads these posts thoroughly enough to criticize the sanity of my reading habits.

I know lots of facts off the top of my head. I should; I've been collecting them for almost 50 years. (I asked my parents for The Book of Lists for Christmas while I was still in elementary school.)

I'm pretty sure I first heard the cattle death statistic on Twitter, back when it was called Twitter and someone else owned it. And as I am prone to doing, I corroborated the basic veracity of what on the surface appeared to be an outlandish statement before repeating it. (I'm as gullible as the next Internet user, but I don't like repeating lies if I can help it.)

I do like to do research of that sort. Finding facts is fun, even when they run counter to my expectations. So, yeah, I've been known to deep dive in the CDC's data from time to time for giggles, just as I every once in a while wade through the Georgia Historic Newspaper archive when the mood strikes. Is that odd behavior? Doesn't seem so odd to me.

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Today, while casually discussing bulls with my father (as one does), I mentioned that ten times more people in the United States die every year from cattle than from shark attacks. My father asked where I got my data, and when I told him it came from the CDC, he told me the CDC lies about its death numbers and should never be trusted.

I immediately assumed he was talking about COVID, which is a topic he likes to downplay, so I tried to be diplomatic and agreed that the pandemic was chaotic and the CDC was an imperfect organization hindered by politics and could only report what it was told by states like New York and Florida, which were both sued for intentionally misleading the public about COVID cases. I also agreed that the CDC even admitted that their numbers were sometimes flawed (sometimes by man, many thousands) and had to revise their numbers over time based on updated data and data collection methodology. I concluded that the CDC's numbers were probably now as close as we were going to get to accurate numbers and could still be useful.

And he said, "Of course they're correct now. Two people resigned over it."

Whether he was implying that those two noble souls refused to participate in the CDC's malicious miscounting or were taking responsibility for it, I cannot say. Whatever the case, if he was now agreeing that the current data set was useful and could be used for rough analysis why did he say it could never be trusted in the first place?

By this time I had already had enough of his bullshit, and I just couldn't take any more. So I stormed out. Was my response rational? No, definitely not. But it's the best I can do some days.

For the record, if you can believe anything these days, the CDC counted specifically 22 cases where people were killed by cattle in each year between 2003-2008 (in just four states!). Meanwhile, the International Shark Attack File (ISAF) indicates that sharks kill fewer than 10 people globally annually, and only about 1 per year in the US. So I was wrong, you're statistically about twenty times more likely to be killed by a cow than a shark.

Some days I just can't be right about anything.

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Since we're over halfway through the month, I might as well post the films I watched in the first half of November so that I don't get backed up posting them all at the beginning of December (as happened for October/November).

262. Kraken: Tentacles of the Deep (2006)
Film in a nutshell: a giant squid protects an ancient artifact. Seriously, the whole thing was created as an excuse to fill some empty time slot on SyFy's schedule.

263. Dance Flick (2009)
The Wayans never really stopped making In Living Color. The family just took their parody spoofs into movie theaters and weaved a loose narrative around them.

264. Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! (2004)
I remember wanting to see this when it came out. Sure, it was sappy and predictable, but I was still entertained.

265. M (1931)
Now this film is art! The cinematography is amazing, especially given the film's age.

266. Super Shark (2011)
Poor John Schneider. Last time I saw him, he was playing a man crusading against evil corporations releasing super killer sharks. Here he plays the head of an evil corporation that releases super killer sharks. At least he's not typecast.

I don't want to oversell it, but the highlight of the film takes place shortly before a very, very slow walking tank was employed to attack a very, very slow crawling shark on a beach. A scientist, a colonel, and a boat captain watch a giant shark jump out of the ocean and eat a jet plane:

Scientist: "It flies!"
Colonel: "That's bad!"
Captain: "I need a drink!"

267. Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008)
Greg Evigan steals scenes from The Core while a bunch of actresses I've never seen before reenact scenes from Jurassic Park with a touch of chest-bursting Alien thrown in for good measure. You know, just like the Jules Verne novel.

268. Princess of Mars (2009)
In another knockoff of a big budget film, Traci Lords plays the titular character. (Giggle.)

269. Goon (2011)
This film was released to Video on Demand before it hit theaters in the US, usually a sign of a terrible film. But damn, this was genuinely entertaining and funny. It tries really hard to be a 21st-century Slap Shot and doesn't fall too short.

270. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
I loved this truly great character piece. There is not typically a lot of suspense in John Huston films because justice is always ultimately served. However, the way this film briefly toys with defining the protagonist as a nice twist.

271. Dear John (2010)
The "happy" ending seemed completely out of place, something that a quick internet search confirmed as a last minute studio response to negative preview audience reactions. Where do they find these preview audiences? This movie went on to make a bunch of money, so what do I know.

272. Poseidon (2006)
Everything about remake of The Poseidon Adventure is absurd, but I was always more partial to its sequel, Beyond the Poseidon Adventure, anyway.

273. The Last Man on Earth (1964)
The "vampires" in this movie sure act suspiciously like the zombies in Night of the Living Dead. I'm sure that's no coincidence. (I should also point out that this film has our hero kill his newly befriended miniature poodle just to demonstrate how difficult and lonely it is to be the Last Man on Earth. This is the second movie I've seen this year that "Kicks the Dog" by killing a miniature poodle. To be fair, at least this time it was a vampire miniature poodle.)

274. Tower Heist (2011)
Eddie Murphy is always at his best playing a supporting character, but how did Alan Alda, Matthew Broderick, and Judd Hirsch also all end up in this silly caper flick?

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I was been super busy in September, and as a result, I had the impression that my monthly movie count would be very low. Counting them up, I'm surprised to see that wasn't remotely the case.

213. Horror Express (1972)
Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and Terry Savalas fight an amoral alien menace in an early 20th-century trans-Siberian train. This B-movie was far more entertaining than it had any right to be.

214. Cowboys & Aliens (2011)
If Horror Express was more fun than it ought to have been, Cowboys & Aliens was far less fun than it ought to have been. This big-budget bore-fest started strong before petering out slowly over its final hour. Stay away from this stinker.

215. Portrait of Jennie (1948)
Another recommendation by Grimmy, and, as usual, a worthwhile watch. Part Harvey, part Ghost and Mrs. Muir, it's hard to classify this gothic romance story, a fact that certainly works in its favor.

216. Shark Swarm (2008)
I have no idea how Armand Assante, Daryl Hannah, John Schneider, and F. Murray Abraham wound up in this terrible, 3-hour long tv movie about how evil capitalists are destroying the environment by creating extra-hungry sharks! Well, okay, I know what John Schneider is doing here, but F. Murray Abraham won a Best Actor Oscar once! (If you haven't seen Abraham's tour de force performance in An Innocent Man with Tom Selleck, do yourself a favor and watch that instead of this.)

217. Salt (2010)
I told my brother that I had missed the dialogue at the end of this film because I had to go to an online meeting, so I couldn't tell if she was fleeing or sanctioned. But he said that he saw it 2 years ago, listened to the dialogue, and couldn't tell then, either. So maybe the ending is just open to some interpretation.

220. 42nd Street (1933)
The prototypical "we're putting on a Broadway show" movie. Fun but not deep.

221. Real Steal (2011)
They finally remade Over the Top with robots. Sadly, this is not a better movie.

222. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011)
Trey said I shouldn't be allowed to count this movie because I missed the beginning and the end, and what I did see I openly criticized as pointless and unsatisfying. But he had to admit that I had at least been present for most of the movie and could recite the story, even if I didn't like it.

I've got as many more to go, and I'll get to them later in the week.

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While I'm about the last person that you would expect to hear spouting theology or philosophy (I'm too damned secularly cynical to spend much time with intangibles such as hypothetical situations or metaphysical postulations), but sometimes things happen which make even me wonder "why?" In this particular case, that thing was the discovery of this cover:

But it's not quite the "why" you think it is. I understand the obvious "why." This is Action Comics #456, cover dated February 1976, so it was released around December 1975. It just so happens that the biggest grossing movie of 1975 was, as you can probably guess, Jaws. No big surprise there. Superman never misses a chance to get in on the action. He's dealt with all of the great political and social events of the 20th century, from nuclear proliferation to illegal aliens (from space, 'natch) to women's liberation to the Olympics (of space, 'natch). Why just a few short years after this issue, Superman will enter the ring with World Heavyweight Boxing Champion Muhammad Ali (in space, 'natch).

Now the odd part of this all, and what makes me wonder "why," is that I decided that I liked that Action cover so much, I was going to use it in today's blog post. And then a brief research turned up the fact that Jaws was originally released on June 20, 1975, exactly 33 years ago today. Great Caesar's Ghost!

Now, was this a happy cosmic coincidence? Did I know, perhaps subconsciously, that Jaws was released on June 20 before I started prepping this blog entry? In any event, I'm sure I'll never know because I'm not going to investigate. No one has ever said, "I'll solve the fundamental workings of the entire universe, and then I'll understand aliens, ghosts, and Celene Dion," without rounding the bend. It's the investigation of situations like these that lead to mad scientists and super villains, I tell you.

Oh, and don't worry about Superman. He's been effortlessly beating up sharks since 1939. His boat is already plenty big enough, so to speak.

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I have a friend who is absolutely in love with Oscar Goldman, the eternally inappropriately sunglassed chief of the U.S. government's Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI) and boss of United States Air Force Colonel Steve Austin, the world's only Six Million Dollar Man. Because of this man-crush, I'm frequently subjected to long marathons of Six Million Dollar Man episodes, one of the most boring shows known to mankind. As an unwilling participant in the misadventures of Steve Austin, I've learned quite a few things about how poorly the United States handles its scientific secrets and how world-famous NASA moon astronauts spend their free time.

For those of you who may not know, Col. Austin was chosen for bionic implants after he crashed a NASA test plane. Sure, we may have the technology, and technically we can rebuild him, but why would we want to? It's an expensive procedure to waste on a fellow who can't even properly land a plane. (By the way, $6,000,000 - six million with an "M" - in 1973 translates into nearly $30,000,000,000 - thirty billion with a "B" - in 2006 when adjusted for inflation using NASA's own inflation calculator. That's approximately how much money the world's second richest man, Warren Buffet, recently gave the world's richest man, Bill Gates, to spend on eradicating pandemic diseases. I suppose that no one told him that he could have purchased bionic limbs for the same cost.)

Presumably, Austin's particular disfigurement was perfectly compatible with the potential bionic replacement surgery that the OSI had already planned for a future accident victim, but I'm really not sure why they chose Steve Austin. Austin is demonstrated, even in the pilot episode, to be a laid-back, sunrise-watching, skirt-chasing, self-indulgent pacifist. Hardly a prime candidate for the job of "patriotic super-spy." In fact, Austin will even lament the implementation of his bionics, calling himself "less than human." Steve, last time I checked, being faster than a speeding bullet and more powerful than a locomotive does not lower you to "less-than-human" status; laying in bed and complaining about how good you now have it does.

The good Col. Austin had both of his legs replaced with bionic limbs that could propel him at speeds up to 60 miles per hour. His new bionic right arm could lift several hundred pounds effortlessly. His destroyed left eye was replaced with a camera that could provide a 20x magnification. And all of these modifications were made without reinforcing his hips for the jostling of the extreme vibrations while running, his spine from the torque created while lifting cars, or his skull from the frequent "karate chop" knockout blows to the head that every thug, hitman, and Soviet spy would employ to incapacitate him. That's good medicine.

Most disturbing (and far-fetched) is the premise that these bionic enhancements are powered by self-contained atomic generators in the arm and legs. That alone should be a far more spectacular accomplishment than the bionics these generators power, but it is frequently played down during the shows. In a typical nuclear reactor, radioactive decay is harnessed to heat water for energy generating steam-powered turbines. This makes Steve either radioactive or full of hot air, maybe both. It's possible that since you never saw Steve water his legs, his generators were a new kind of atomic power unfit for anything other than making metal legs move really fast. In fact, I don't recall anything else during the run of the show using the power of these generators in any other way. Nuclear power was instead frequently shown to be a dangerous tool demonstrated by way of several near reactor meltdowns, missing atomic devices, and the destruction of the Bahamas via a nuclear warhead (detonated by Steve himself). Were we supposed to be subtly fooled into believing that Col. Austin was extra-dangerous because of his nuclear powered limbs?

Once fully healed, Steve Austin was put to work as a super spy in order to pay the government back for his new Top Secret "Security Clearance Level 5" super powers. (On a USAF Colonel's O-6 salary, which I estimate was probably slightly less than $20,000 in 1973, including his NASA and super spy bonuses, paying back those $6,000,000 would probably have taken a mere 600 years.) He refused the job at first and has to be tricked into dueling with the Russians for the location of a stolen American warhead. (I know it doesn't sound like something that someone can be tricked into, but Col. Austin does not list "Mensa Membership" anywhere on his bizarre resume.) Reluctantly, Steve agrees to be OSI's poodle, and soon found himself battling Russians, foreign terrorists, mobsters, assassins, robots, moonshiners, rogue archeologists, other bionic men, crooked cops, rockstar groupies, imposter Steve Austins, telepaths, mountain lions, earthquakes, aliens, sharks, and John Saxon.

As a secret agent, Steve reflected James Bond's frequent misunderstanding of stealth and low profiles. Col. Steve Austin, astronaut and college football star quarterback, was widely recognized throughout the world, destroying most chances for subtlety. I suppose that super speed and strength don't naturally lend themselves to guileful subterfuge, but then neither did Steve's fashion sense. (Button up that shirt, Steve!)

What little camouflage Steve did possess was often lost when Steve would capriciously reveal his enhancements to anyone within earshot. He simply couldn't resist the opportunity to jump over a 10-feet tall fence or race an automobile. Steve, here's a super-spy tip: using the line "I eat a lot of carrots," to explain away how you were able to read a car's licence plate several hundred yards away in the dark isn't going to stand up to any real scrutiny. Steve's indiscretion became so widespread, even Monday Night Football host Frank Gifford who supposedly played college ball against Steve Austin in the early 1950s was therefore naturally entrusted with knowledge of Steve's top secret enhancements. (Guest stars always found out about Steve's abilities. William Shatner, Farah Fawcett, and Gary Collins among others all were entrusted with some of the nation's most classified information. They were a trustworthy bunch, I'm sure.)

So Steve Austin was a lousy pilot and an incompetent spy. Based on the fact that the only female interest that he could keep was a fellow American bionic slave/spy, I'm guessing he was probably a poor lover, as well. In one episode, Steve even admits to a crippled boy that he fumbled a lot as a football player. It should be no surprise that Oscar sends Steve to the ends of the earth (which generally looked suspiciously like southern California) on pointless suicide missions; he has to be hoping that one day, Steve won't come back. I sure do.

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