apocalypse now

Edmund Street / Birmingham, England
Yesterday morning I walked out of my flat in city centre Birmingham into - wtf? There was trash strewn everywhere - cars were tipped up on the sidewalks - spray paint graffiti - broken windows. My first thought was - how did I sleep through this - and what the hell happened. As I find out, I walked out of my door and on to the set of a shoot for the new yet-to-be-released BBC series "Survivor" - billed as "One virus. Millions dead. A few Survivors." For a brief moment, I did feel like a survivor.

vegetarians are sexy?

Hester Street / New York, New York
NBC pulled the plug on a PETA pro-veggie commercial planned for the Super Bowl because it "depicts a level of sexuality exceeding our standards," according to an NBC Universal's advertising standards executive. The ad, which carries the tagline, "Studies Show Vegetarians Have Better Sex," shows lingerie-clad women getting "intimate" with vegetables. Perhaps PETA should have lined these experienced guys up instead.

stalag 13

Auschwitz I / Auschwitz, Poland
This was not the set of Hogan's Heroes, the American television comedy from the mid/late 60's set in a German prisoner of war camp known as Stalag 13 during the Second World War. This is indeed the harsh reality of Auschwitz I, the original concentration camp which served as the administrative center for the whole Auschwitz complex - the site of the deaths of roughly 70,000 people, mostly Poles and Soviet prisoners of war. Opened in 1939 on the site of an old Polish army barracks, the camp was initially used for interning Polish intellectuals and resistance movement members, then also for Soviet Prisoners of War. Common German criminals, and other "anti-social elements" of society were also imprisoned there. In 1940, the German began sending Jews there, as well. At any time, the camp held between 13,000 and 16,000 inmates; by 1942 the number reached 20,000.

geico?

On the Trail / Floreana Island, Galapagos
No, gecko. Geckos are small to average sized lizards found in warm climates throughout the world. They were abundant in the Galapagos, especially noticeable on Floreana Island. Geckos are said to be unique among lizards in their vocalizations by making a chirp-type sound in interacting with other geckos. There are estimated to be more 2,000 different species of geckos worldwide. Geckos have have no eyelids and instead have a transparent membrane which they lick to clean. Sort of of like sticking your contact lens in your mouth to clean it when nothing else is available - I guess.

the green hornet

Morningside Park / New York, New York
There has never been a decade quite like the 60's - and one of my memories is The Green Hornet. Originally created as a radio program in the 30's, it became a network television program in the 1960's. And as with most action-type heroes, the Hornet had a comic book stint from the 40's - 90's. My memories are of the tv show. We had just gotten our first color television and, of course, we were devouring everything we could that was being broadcast in color. I remember being told not to sit too close to the box in case it was emitting something bad for children. Anyways, for those not around at the time, The Green Hornet was Britt Reid, newspaper publisher by day who by night goes out in his masked "Green Hornet" identity to fight crime, accompanied by his similarly masked Asian manservant Kato. They drove a car outfitted with all sorts of advanced technical gadgetry, called "Black Beauty". I'm thinking Superman meets Batman. The Hornet typically used an electronic stun gun against his opponents called the "hornet's sting". One would suspect that the popularity of The Green Hornet precipitated the Batman tv series, which appeared on ABC on the heels of The Hornet in 1966.