Jersey Joe checks out the Action Movie App, where you can use special effects to blow up your friends, fly the USS Enterprise, create natural disasters, and more!
This is a great app. It’s been around for a few years, so I pretty much figured that they had given up on designing more scenes. I was completely surprised when a major update came out in mid-June, so I decided to share it with you.
There are a ton of similar apps out there, but this is the only one with official effects from the new Star Trek movies. The official Action Movie FX app is only available for IPhones, but there are a ton of similar apps for Android devices.
Monday morning, people in the Los Angeles area were shaken awake by a 4.4 earthquake. While earthquakes are nothing new to California residents it still took some of the local news anchors by surprise on live TV. From the local news, to baseball games, to Judge Judy – let’s check out some awesome earthquakes caught on the air.
The greatest reaction to Monday’s earthquake had to be by the KTLA Morning News anchors. While a quake can be starting, should these two have kept a little calmer? You decide in this video that has gone viral…
http://youtu.be/SCJihgO5gmg
In Japan, broadcasters have earthquake warnings down to a science. The second the earth starts shaking, all shows are automatically interrupted by a series of audio chimes and a map, showing the location of the quake, and a computer voice giving viewers instructions.
This video was taken from the day of the big 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan. What’s interesting is not only do we get to see the first warnings about the quake (with live shots of their parliament meeting being shook up) but also at 1:32 we see the local news report as it interrupts the programming and then the quake strikes the studio. Listen carefully to the studio crew’s reactions as well. (It’s subtitled in English).
But it’s not over yet, stay tuned for the most shocking part. At 3:30 the emergency computer kicks off the local news for a tsunami warning. Listen how the alert tone and graphics take a much more serious tone. The computers give viewers an estimate as to where the wave will hit, how high, and how much time they have to evacuate. This tsunami caused massive devastation, including the near meltdown of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant that has left numerous towns abandoned. The live news coverage of the whole event is shocking.
Back in 2010, a magnitude 5.8 earthquake was centered in Virginia, but the effects were felt up and down the east coast. First, it interrupts a live streaming news show in Washington DC…
…and then strikes a live mlb.com webcast from New York. At first, the guy on the right is so focused on baseball stats; he won’t stop talking and really becomes a bigger bonehead with what he says at the end of the event…
One of the most famous earthquakes caught on live TV was during ABC’s coverage of the 1989 World Series from San Francisco. Here’s what viewers saw (including me) from coast to coast as the quake strikes during pregame.
Lastly, only an earthquake can silence Judge Judy in her court. Here’s what happened when a quake strikes as she’s taping an episode. She is so out of there!
While we still can’t predict an earthquake, with everyone now armed with mobile devices, social media, and 24 hour news; video and news of the events go out to the masses seconds after it happens.
THE 411
What: earthquakes caught on TV
Where: mostly West Coast and Japan – but, pretty much anywhere
JERSEY JOE RECOMMENDS:
Having been through the New York earthquake, you almost don’t realize one is happening until it’s already half way over. I’m sure my friends in California who have been through bigger quakes will have a different viewpoint. I’ve only ever been through one and that’s good enough!
That live newscast from Japan during the 2011 earthquake and tsunami is really powerful. It captures the whole event as it happened and I applaud whoever uploaded it for giving us a glimpse of that terrible day. I’m not sure why we don’t have an earthquake warning system here in the US, like they do there. Along with the tsunami warning system, it certainly saved many lives that day. We have Amber alerts, Silver alerts, and the Emergency Alert System, so why not one for earthquakes?
Twenty years ago today I rode out the Northridge earthquake in an old brick apartment building in Hollywood with my new little gray tabby kittens, Shadow and Shade, and then wrote this poem about it:
Kittens and I Get the Shakes
Earthquake train roars, apartment shack shakes me martini, dice.
I naked in doorjamb prop up three floors like Atlas. Tiny grey
Puffball urchin faces, eyes wide marbles, peek from under futon.
Turned out to also be the first night that my now-wife Elise ever spent in Los Angeles, just about a mile away, near Beechwood Canyon and also in Hollywood. We wouldn’t meet until some weeks later, on St. Patrick’s Day. Fate gave us a shared experience, but did not yet bring us together.
As the poem indicates, I’d been sleeping naked when the quake hit early in the morning. I jumped up. The power went out. I always thought standing in a doorway was a dumb idea. I always figured they just told us that so they’d know where to find the bodies in the rubble. So I ran to the front door of my apartment, still naked, and threw it open, to the sound of dozens of other residents running down the hallway toward the back door.
I thought, this is life or death, I shouldn’t care if I run out there naked. But it turns out I did care. So I went and stood in an inside doorway, feeling ridiculous and stupid all the way around.
After the quaking stopped, it took me a long time to find the kittens, peeking out at me from under the futon in my office, with a quizzical and hurt look on their faces, as if they were saying, “What did we do? Why did you make the house shake like that? Whatever it is, we’re sorry and we’ll never do it again!” Which lets you know how traumatized they were, because cats rarely if ever make such a promise.
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JERSEY JOE RECOMMENDS:
