Kitty in the cupboard

Oh my goodness! While preparing to shoot a DIY video, I heard a knocking sound in the cupboard. There was Bentley, standing on top of the dishes! Somehow or other - well, I guess I must have left the cupboard open and he slipped in. Getting him to "slip out" again was another matter, as he weighs at least 14 lbs. (we think, closer to 15 now) and didn't want to come out. Bentley loves to be a part of anything I'm doing, so he often shows up in my videos. And he's always the best part.

How much shock can you take?

Trust no one!

This is one of the weirdest things I've ever heard, and inspired a flurry of paranoid gifs, and even an animation (featuring paranoid stills). I think "politone" is meant to be "polytone", because the only definition of "politone" I can find is:

Politone

Politone may be available in the countries listed below.

Ingredient matches for Politone
Pioglitazone

Pioglitazone hydrochloride (a derivative of Pioglitazone) is reported as an ingredient of Politone in the following countries:
Taiwan

← International Drug Name Search

 To me it sounds like shoe polish, but never mind.

(These do play, by the way. I just like the look of them stuck together. Try playing them all at once.) Anyway, this group, this ENIGMA2000, is very X-Files, very paranoid, very into the mysterious numbers-sequence broadcasts that were covered so well on William Shatner's Weird or What? (and GOD how I miss that show, it was tons of fun. Remember that little chihuahua, and the way he came riding up on a horse?)

I randomly came across this politone stuff and it scared the living shit out of me, so I just had to know more. Pretty soon I didn't want to know more. This is some sort of weird espionage thing, spy versus spy, even though it goes by an innocuous name. Some think it even has a paranormal aspect. There are lots of examples on YouTube of numbers being read out loud, random tones, even bits of music, coming from all over the world. Nobody quite knows why. I keep thinking it's a bizarre sort of Emergency Broadcasting System, a frequency left open in case the world ends and the political bigwigs of the world want to say goodbye.

According to Wikipedia: "A numbers station is a shortwave radio station characterized by broadcasts of formatted numbers, which are believed to be addressed to intelligence officers operating in foreign countries. Most identified stations use speech synthesis to vocalize numbers, although digital modes, such as Phase-shift keying and Frequency-shift keying as well as Morse code transmissions are not uncommon. Most stations have set time schedules, or schedule patterns; however, other stations appear to broadcast at random times. Stations may or may not have set frequencies in the HF band."

It goes on, but we know enough already, don't we? These number sequences would appear to mean absolutely nothing, but they MUST have meaning or they wouldn't still be broadcast after something like 90 years. The Politone guys (for I can't even imagine a chick doing this - these fellows remind me of the Lone Gunmen on the aforementioned X Files) have their own newsletter, so dated-looking that it's even worse than mine for obsolete-looking formatting. None of it makes a damn bit of sense, so it's obvious these guys don't get out much. The photos are about an inch square, and the '90s-font text goes all the way across the screen, so that your neck is out of joint after reading a paragraph.

Anyway. I've written before about how I "hear things" in my neighborhood, particularly at night. It's disturbing. Right now things are quiet, but I have no illusions they will stay that way. It's aircraft, obviously, but WHY? and what, even? Must be the RCMP, but what would they be doing buzzing around in helicopters over my sleepy little town? And if it's the military, God help us all.

I had a thought today - something from Apocalypse Now! flashed into my head, and suddenly I realized there has to be more than one helicopter. Maybe that's why it's so loud? There's a resonant frequency between all of them which threatens to make my skull explode.

I just had to express my paranoia in an animation (below) which I call Cold War One.  It is, mercifully, silent.

There's no place like . . . Izmir

Turkish adaptations of classic movies are always particularly bizarre. Well, bizarre to US maybe, though not to the average Turk. 

As with most of these things, there are no subtitles, but we can kind of guess at the action. I mean, if you haven't seen The Wizard of Oz five thousand times - But I guarantee you, you've never seen it quite like this.

Instead of Over the Rainbow, the movie opens with this:

Let it never be said that corners were cut in this production, but the entire storm sequence is done in animation. Calling it animation is stretching a point, as very little moves in it. The figure of Dorothy is dragged across the screen while the credits roll (or blink on and off). 

The actual storm scene is a bit incomprehensible. It collapses 20 minutes or so of film into half a minute of cheap cartoon.

From what I am able to make out, Mama doesn't make much effort to get Dorothy into the storm cellar, which is located INSIDE the house.

Like the original, this is a musical. Sort of. Sometimes the characters just get up and spontaneously dance. The music is so strange, however. Some of it is traditional Turkish stuff, I guess; some sounds like Little House on the Prairie, but then this thing breaks in:

I wouldn't advise watching the whole thing. I didn't. It's more fun to skip through it. You'll find an atrocity at every point.

P. S. The screenshots from this are uniformly hideous, so I must include a few of them.

Chopsocky: the legend and legacy of Bruce Lee

Oh-hoh-hoh-hoah

Oh-hoh-hoh-hoah

Oh-hoh-hoh-hoah

Oh-hoh-hoh-hoah

[Chorus:]

Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting

Those kids were fast as lightning

In fact, it was a little bit frightening

But they fought with expert timing

There were funky China men from funky Chinatown

They were chopping them up

They were chopping them down

It's an ancient Chinese art

And everybody knew their part

From a feinting, to a slip

And a kickin' from the hip

Everybody was Kung Fu fighting

Those kids were fast as lightning

In fact it was a little bit frightening

But they fought with expert timing

There was funky Billie Chin and little Sammy Chong

He said, here comes the big boss, let's get it on

We took the bow and made a stand

Started swaying with the hand

A sudden motion made me skip

Now we're into a brand new trip

Everybody was Kung Fu fighting

Those kids were fast as lightning

In fact it was a little bit frightening

But they did it with expert timing

Oh-hoh-hoh-hoh, ha

Oh-hoh-hoh-hoh, ha

Oh-hoh-hoh-hoh-ha

Keep on, keep on, keep on

Sure enough

Everybody was Kung Fu fighting

Those kids were fast as lightning

In fact it was a little bit frightening

Make sure you have expert timing

Kung Fu fighting, had to be fast as lightning...