Happy New Year/Decade?

Sydney Harbour will light up tonight but a mere 25 kilometres away, hundreds of thousands of people will ring in 2020 under black skies

I've got to say that the signs for a Happy New Year and decade aren't looking good from down here in Australia.
And listening to that guy in 'The Cosmic Keys' podcast You Tube above, the financial outlook for the coming year/decade looks just as bleak.
Cheers and have a Happy New Year in 12 hours (Australian) time ... hopefully.

And at the end of January 2020 it will be the Year of the Rat:-)

UPDATE: January 1st, 2020

Not a good start for the year/decade ahead down here and certainly a bad sign for the years to come.

Smoke from Australia's devastating bushfire crisis has reached New Zealand

The BBC Transfers a HP Lovecraft Inspired Drama Podcast to the Site of the Rendlesham UFO Incident?

I binged listened to a BBC drama podcast, which mixed fact and urban legend with pop cultural fiction, after having just written a post about my frustration of not being able to find something decent to listen to while I did my housework in this post -
750,000 Podcasts (And Nothing On)?

It's very well done and worth a listen to, if like me your interest in H.P Lovecraft stories and the occult (and to a lesser extent in my case UFOs) take your fancy.
There are 23 episodes in the first two seasons combining two podcast series together, and with a third season to come by the sounds of it. 

And in a bit of personal synchromysticism surrounding me listening to the podcast series, I saw that one of the main actors who plays the role of Kennedy Fisher was born on January 26th, which in my part of the world is Australia Day -

Kylie Minogue Stars in the New Tourism Australia Ad which Features the Cape Byron Lighthouse?

Not only was Jana Carpenter born on Australia Day (January 26th), but she is also in a band named Piefinger and in a song titled 'It All Falls Apart' she is seen in the music video as a character called UKe Girl who loses her music pedestal to a guy called Banjo Boy.

Ironically Banjo Paterson was the guy who wrote the lyrics to the much loved and unofficial Australian national anthem Waltzing Matilda.

I also thought it was synchy that Jana starred in a 2007 TV show called 'Superstorm', as I'm reading a Whitley Strieber novel tilted 'The Grays' at the moment.

Strieber co-wrote the novel 'The Coming Global Superstorm', which was made into the movie 'The Day After Tomorrow'.

Nothing in This Book/Film/Story/Magazine/Theory is True, But It's Exactly How Things Are ... or Are THEY?

Starring Jana Carpenter as Holly Zabrieski

And speaking of twisters and superstorms, I found this weird You Tube below starring Jana as herself dealing cards and spinning a Twister game spinner.

I notice that Jana is playing with a deck of 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' cards in that Twister spinner video, too.

Heaven or Las Vegas?

Anyway, synchromysticism aside, the BBC podcast series is well worth a listen to I think, as it does a good job of breathing life back into those old radio drama type shows that were all the rage before TV came into people's living rooms, and puts them into a "true crime" podcast format, which are all the rage right now in our modern "always on our phones" type world.

Disney Conquers the Earthlings?

And yes, they just had to go and mention that four letter word IKEA in that BBC Lovecraft inspired podcast series, didn't they?-(

The Real Horror of Red Hook?

Disney Conquers the Earthlings?

Remember the days of good ol retro TV?

KID (as in just kidding?-)TV?

Santa Conquers the Martians

I was watching an old 1964 movie on Amazon Prime called 'Santa Conquers the Martians', where the movie starts off with Martians kids watching a TV set beaming stuff from Earth, while their parents complain about their Martian kids watching too much Earth TV.
The more things change the more they stay the same it seems:-)
I also happened to pick up a junk mail catalogue from my mailbox and see that my local post office was selling retro TV Christmas tree ornaments for $40 a piece, as well as a heap of Disney movie character ornaments ranging in price from $10 to $20 that you can buy to hang on the tree.

The Higherside Chats Podcast T-shirt

You can even buy a new cell phone at your local Australian post office these days and being a human born in that year the Santa movie was made, I couldn't help thinking just how far we Earthlings have come when it comes to "home" entertainment and technology.

Ironically, I did watch 'Santa Conquers the Martians' on my iPad and not on my TV screen.

I wonder if there is a market for these retro Martian dolls?-)

I also listened to a Mediaweek podcast titled -
Streaming overload: How much should you spend?

And in that podcast was talk about the new DisneyPlus streaming service which has just been launched all over planet Earth and all of the content Disney have acquired from their purchases of other movie studios like Fox and Marvel.
Which made me think back to those Disney TV shows in the late 60s/early 70s where the Disney TV shows had ex(?)-Nazi NASA rocket scientists, like Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun introducing shows about the wonders of space travel.

Santa Conquers the Martians

Back in those days we still imagined that there really could be intelligent life on Mars ... just like we imagined that there might be intelligent life on Earth;-)
These days of course we know that there is bugger all life on Mars and we are still searching for intelligent life on Earth ... as are probably aliens from other planets/dimensions, which would definitely rule out a landing on the White House lawn these days:-)
I also couldn't help thinking that the makers of this 1964 Santa movie were having a crack at the Barney and Betty Hill abduction case that would have been doing the rounds around that time.
The Betty & Barney Hill Case, American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, & Technology?

Betty and Barney Billy (Hill?) being abducted?

Someone made a condensed version of the Santa movie on You Tube (above), if you want to get the gist of the movie.
And some clown has made a You Tube (below) where he sits and watches the movie trying to be even less funny than the jokes made in the actual movie.
He is probably in a padded cell these days I would imagine.

I've also been reading a book I bought years ago when I heard $3,000,000 was paid by Sony to have the book (which wasn't even written when Sony forked out the cash) made into a major motion picture, which as far as I know was never made.
And I couldn't help thinking while reading it just how much influence pop-culture has had on all of our lives and imagination, including Whitley Strieber's .
Who Can You Really Believe on the Web?

And of course, Whitley has had a big influence since the 80s on the stories we like to convince ourselves are true, too.

I tend to take Whitley's "real" stories with a pinch of salt, but I can't help but wonder what makes us humans want to believe in improbable and flat-out BS stories like Santa, Martians and aliens flying around and "choosing" people like Whitley Strieber to save the planet?

I'm not suggesting that there aren't aliens visiting Earth, I'm just saying that there is a lot of BS out there in the pop culture about aliens visiting the Earth.
The Message of the Myth?

Kylie Minogue Stars in the New Tourism Australia Ad which Features the Cape Byron Lighthouse?

Featuring some truly 
iconic Aussie locations?

I guess we all like a good story, no matter how untrue it is, which is why there will always be a Disney and other institutions to take your cash come Christmastime.
DON'T F**K WITH CATS ... or Pia Zadora?

I wonder if Disney will ever purchase 'CATS' for their DisneyPlus CATalogue?-)
CATS Just in Time for RATS?