Save the Dayton Arcade

Downtown Dayton's Arcade will be open for FREE tours during Urban Nights on Friday, September 14th. Urban Nights runs from 5pm - 10pm. These tours will be used to promote awareness of the Arcade's current predicament and with the intention of raising money to pay taxes owed through donations and the sale of buttons, bookmarks, and calendars. The tax lien of $318,600.00 must be paid by November 19, 2007, as reported by the Dayton Daily News on July 27th, 2007. Please take advantage of this opportunity to support the Dayton Arcade. It may be you last chance to see what has been one of the most amazing features of Downtown Dayton.

Save the Dayton Arcade

The Dayton Arcade was a vital place in the early 1980's after a long struggle to renovate the facility. I performed there at Christmastime with my high school choir on numerous occasions and frequently enjoyed lunches from the food court and other establishments located in the Arcade. I had my first ever taste of Chinese food from The Mandarin Kitchen, which still does business in downtown Dayton. For a time, there was a wonderful Coca-Cola museum of sorts where you could get genuine cherry and/or vanilla flavored Coke from a fountain... and this was years before Coca-Cola began bottling these flavored versions of Coke. There was a hot dog stand where you could build your own dog with a salad-bar's worth of tasty toppings and interesting ingredients, and there was so much more.

I find it absurd that the Dayton Arcade doesn't have investors knocking down their doors. When 'town center' malls are the biggest thing to happen to shopping since malls were invented, the Dayton Arcade and surrounding area is a perfect, pre-existing location. Local examples of 'town center' malls are the recent expansion at the Dayton Mall, The Greene, and Easton Towne Center. Other plans for similar facilities have been discussed for many nearby locations like Englewood and as a replacement for the space that used to be the Salem Mall.

Downtown Dayton IS a town center and would gain a wonderful boost by working to re-open the Arcade. Town center shopping malls generally have similar features, one of which is an outdoor open space with a fountain. Courthouse Square and it's fountain is immediately across the street from the main entrance to the Arcade. It's a near perfect set-up. The one thing downtown doesn't have that the other locations have is an abundance of free parking, which is a problem. Perhaps Arcade merchants could supply customers with parking vouchers at the point of sale or some other scheme, but many people will already be parked due to their working arrangements, so this discussion is best saved for another time.

The Arcade would be a great supplement to the Shuster Center, the ballpark, the downtown housing boom, Tech Town, and all the other projects currently being discussed for the Dayton area. If I won the lottery I'd buy the place myself.

Help save the Dayton Arcade!

Cloverfield, 1-18-08 monster on DJ DAN WEBSITE?

DJ DAN WEBSITE

Hey, is this a red herring? A wild goose? A prehistoric giant three-toed sloth? The Cloverfield monster?

Three claws ripped open Lady Liberty's back.
Many references to prehistory (dinosaurs, Jurassic Park, etc) in the MySpace profiles.
BS or not, you heard it here first.

another thing about 1-18-08.com

OK, this is just me being a little nit-picky...

It seems as if the photos were written upon AT the party, which presumes someone had a printer hooked up and running, which I've seen done. Or maybe the images were found on removable camera memory following the event, ala the tsunami of 12/26/04* and were written on by those who survived.

Should we call this meta-foreshadowing?

Also, on the party photo of Rob, where he's being given a drink... is the time stamp 12:01 or 12:31? I'm pretty sure it's 12:01.

*Regarding digital storage: I'd never thought about it until the aftermath of this earthquake and tsunami, but there were people right down on the beach who were, presumably, killed. But, their last photos were preserved because of the storage medium providing the world with a uniquely rare first-hand look at devastating events... like a giant monster attack.

Regarding the 1-18-08 teaser trailer

While analyzing the teaser trailer, there have been a few things that seem to bear some bit of further discussion.

The smoke between the buildings does appear to have a distinct 'monster' shape, movement, and even a mouth-like feature. Perhaps it's just in us to see such things. Perhaps the smoke was designed to provide such an illusion. Perhaps a glimpse of the monster was originally intended and this smoke was added to fill the space in which the monster would have appeared. One thing is certain. CGI work has been done to the teaser in the visual area near the smoke.

I can't recall the specific timings, but when we first get a good steady shot of the STOP sign, it is a standalone sign, seeming a bit out of place. Some have even stated that they know the area and there is no stop sign at that location. Later, when we initially see the dot of Lady Liberty's coconut flying toward us the camera has zoomed out a bit, and maybe moved back a bit as well, and the STOP sign has been altered to appear as if it is fixed to a lamp post. The lamp post is the type that has an arm extending over the street with the light attached at the end. The glare from this light, which we already know isn't actually there, just happens to blind us to some of the detail very near what might have been the head of the monster but is seen here as a cloud of smoke. Then, about the time Liberty's head bounces off ABZ-3293 (the parked SUV) the stop sign is visible again (in frame-by-frame) sans light pole.

So, I'll go out on a limb here... I surmise that even though it's a teaser and not meant to be perfect, someone was paid to go to the trouble of creating visual obfuscation in a key portion of those frames in which we might have been able to see something, using clouds of smoke and a bright light source. Something either was originally in that shot or something is intended to be in that shot when it hits theaters.

Regarding the Call Sheet @ NYmag.com

To my untrained eyes the call sheet could easily be real, and for the purposes of this post, I'll assume so.

Something that's been bubbling on the back burner of my mind for weeks is the Lascano, Platt, & Robbie picture at 1-18-08.com.

From the first time I saw the text on the backs of the photos I noticed that 4 specific letters are smudged. They are located in a spot that would easily allow for us to assume it was a finger smudge, which is why I never bothered to bring it up... but as things have unraveled, new ideas came to mind...

It has been mentioned that Cloverfield probably takes place in a single evening. What comes at the end of a night? DAWN! What three letters are smudged? ANDW, which can be made to spell DAWN [it may have been the word WAND as well but I couldn't be sure]. The call sheet clearly states a DAWN setting for four of the scenes to be filmed. Combined with the rumored title of "Overnight" I think the smudged letters were a clue we all missed until it was too late.

groan, fidget, fuss, and grumble

I'm beginning to hate myself. I've developed a handful of theories about Cloverfield, all of which easily fit within things we know for sure. My dilemma is that these are really good ideas. If my ideas turn out to be unrelated to Cloverfield I don't want to give them up for anyone in the world to steal from me. So, I think I'm going to have to go silent on this topic and just wait patiently for the movie to come out.

BTW, I haven't seen this break anywhere else, so here's something I found... Notice that it appears blogs were being posted before the profiles had even been set up! Sneaky.

20060206! Beth's alleged first blog post (sign-up date hidden)
20060311 Beth's alleged second blog post
20060615! LenaDia's alleged first blog post (sign-up date 20070613)
20061029 LenaDia's alleged second blog post
20061106! HUD's alleged first blog post (sign-up date hidden)
20070107 HUD's alleged second blog post
20070117! Rob Hawkins' alleged first blog post (sign-up date 20070613)
20070214 Rob Hawkins' alleged second blog post
20070313 LenaDia's alleged third blog post
20070315 Rob Hawkins' alleged third blog post
20070408 LenaDia's alleged fourth blog post
20070418! Lil's alleged first blog post (sign-up date hidden)
20070505 Lil's alleged second blog post
20070517! Jamie's alleged first blog post (sign-up date 20070723)
20070531! Hawk's alleged first blog post (sign-up date 20070613)
20070602 Hawk's alleged second blog post
20070606 Hawk's alleged third blog post

20070613* Rob Hawkins' MySpace sign-up date (found in his MySpace blog)
  Hawk's MySpace sign-up date (found in his MySpace blog)
  LenaDia's MySpace sign-up date (found in her MySpace blog)

20070615 LenaDia's alleged fourth blog post (first since sign-up)
20070622 Lil's alleged third blog post
  Beth's alleged third blog post
20070710 Hawk's alleged fourth blog post (first since sign-up)
20070718 HUD's alleged third blog post

20070723* Jamie's MySpace sign-up date (found in her MySpace blog)

20070803 HUD's alleged fourth blog post
20070806 LenaDia's alleged fifth blog post (second since sign-up)

1-18-08/Cloverfield - www.platt.jp

ようこそ！株式会社 プラネット のページへ

Welcome! To page of corporation planet

FACTS: I found mention of the site 'platt.jp' on IMDb. Whois information says platt.jp was created on 2007-02-26. Folks on IMDb's boards discounted this site as part of the Cloverfield mystery because of the date, thinking it was created too far in advance to be connected. Beth's first MySpace blog post (the earliest of all the character blogs) is dated February 6, 2006! Either someone's been planning this for a very, very long time, or they were able to work with MySpace to make these posts appear to be that old.

MUSINGS: I think this site was created for possible use with Cloverfield promotions but may not be used at all. Just as scripts in Hollywood are rewritten all the time, I'm sure the planning for this promotion has had it's rewrites.
Who is Hudson Platt? From his MySpace all we know is that he's a comic book fan and that he's probably the person in a group of friends who often keeps things interesting, though he's primarily just annoying. Perhaps he was rewritten from a previously more important role... or perhaps his family owns or imports Slusho and is responsible for Rob going to Japan? Only the production crew knows for sure.

APOLOGY: I'm not a fan of all the random speculation and I don't mean to add to it. It just troubled me that the IMDb forum was so quick to dismiss the site. To me, the page has the right 'feel' for this project. Any thoughts?

Cloverfield, or whatever... factsheet

OK, I've gotten a bit wrapped up in this Cloverfield business. Cloverfield seems to be the primary codename for the untitled JJ Abrams monster movie due out on 1-18-08.

Catch-up: The teaser trailer for this movie was shown before the Transformers movie and showed us a going away party for 'Rob', who is leaving for Japan, being interrupted by a monstrous howl, an earthquake, and a power disruption. The partygoers head for the roof to try and see what's up. A monstrous explosion shakes the land once again, raining debris for miles around. The panicked partyers head indoors presumably for shelter, but then rush out into the street where another howl is heard followed by a strange throaty whistling noise. At this point an object can be seen hurtling toward the partyers. The object crashes into a building and continues down into the street, smashing parked cars and coming to rest in the middle of the road. At this point we see that the object is the head of the Statue of Liberty. The teaser ends with the date "1-18-08" and some production credits.

As it happens, that date turned up as a website, 1-18-08.com. This site featured a photograph of two women, side by side, framed in such a way as to show only half of each woman's face. They are looking upward and appear to be stunned by whatever it is they are seeing. Eventually, and as I write this, a total of 5 photos have gone up on this site. These photos are not static images. They are displayed using Flash so that the viewer may rearrange the photos and even flip them over. All of the photos are time and date stamped. Two of the photos are from the party and the other three photos appear to have been taken during the monster attack. There are messages written on the back of the two party photos including which gave up some names of the other characters. Someone was wise enough to look for those names on MySpace and turned up 7 characters, all linking to one another and no-one else.

So, I've been trying to monitor their MySpace blogs, comments, pics, and video pages and noticed that some of the profiles were either placed some time ago or they were made to appear as if they were placed some time ago. Here's a quick link list to their profiles:
MySpace.com - www.myspace.com/jamielascano - Jamie Lascano's name found on back of pic.
MySpace.com - www.myspace.com/robbyhawkins - Rob Hawkins was going to Japan.
MySpace.com - www.myspace.com/beth_mcintyre - Beth McIntyre seems to be Rob's girl.
MySpace.com - www.myspace.com/lily_ford - Lily Ford seems to be JJ Hawkins' girl.
MySpace.com - www.myspace.com/hudsonplatt - Hudson "Hud" Platt is a friend.
MySpace.com - www.myspace.com/jj_hawkins - Jason "JJ" "Hawk" is Rob's half-brother?
MySpace.com - www.myspace.com/marlenadiamond - Marlena Diamond is a friend.
In the last couple of days there have been new friends added to some of these profiles along with new comments and a blog entry by Hud (a fan of comic books) about the X-Men.

To backtrack a little bit, there was another clue in the teaser trailer, and possibly some yet to be discovered clues, mainly, "Slusho!" Slusho is a drink that has appeared in Abrams' show "Alias" and possibly in "Lost" as well. The site slusho.jp seems to hold a lot of 'Cloverfield' related information that has yet to be properly interpreted.

Speaking of interpretation... a lot of really silly ideas have been mentioned by people who have misinterpreted available information.

• Talk of lions lead to the idea this was a Voltron movie, which it is not.
  
• Some believe this is a movie about 3 biblical monsters (Behemoth on land, Leviathan in the sea, & Ziz in the air) based on Slusho information about sea creatures and whales (Leviathan) along with a duck (Ziz) and a horse (Behemoth) and Slusho page backgrounds to go along with each. While there isn't enough available information to completely discredit this rumor there is an equal lack of information to confirm it.
  
• Based on the '3 monsters' rumor others have guessed at a "Rampage" movie, from the old video arcade game. Again, I'm really certain this is not a Rampage movie.
• Finally, Chthulhu fans seemed to think there was some possibility this was a movie based on the works of H. P. Lovecraft, but anyone really familiar with his work would see that what we know of this movie bears no real resemblance to Lovecraft's stories.
  

A lot of other sites have cropped up pretending to be connected to the untitled JJ Abrams project, but most have been quickly and easily exposed as fakes. I won't bother mentioning questionable items here because such posers simply don't deserve any sort of recognition.

Abrams stated at Comic-Con that 'we' should have a monster icon like Godzilla. Therefore, my guess is that this is a completely original monster, as original as giant monsters can be nowadays, and may have roots in anything and/or everything mentioned above, but this will be a new look at whatever it turns out to be.