12 mini-reviews for the short attention span, taken from dark corners of stevenl's video vault:

House of Dracula / directed by Erle C. Kenton (1945, VHS). Lon Chaney Jr., John Carradine, Lionel Atwill, Onslow Stevens, Martha O'Driscoll, Glenn Strange, Skelton Knaggs. Within a few minutes you know this film is going to be very bad and very fun. Elements of past box office success stories were thrown together in a jumble and produced sort of a corny horror stew with no real plot. Dracula, Wolfman, Frankenstein's monster, a mad scientist, hunchback nurse, angry villagers storming the castle, Jekyll/Hyde type transformations, a big fire at the end. Onslow Stevens as the scientist who appears to run a halfway house for monsters has the central role by default, and perhaps this should be entitled House of Relapse. Carradine is not really all that terrifying as Dracula. The fact that Dracula chooses to wear a bowtie is his most frightening trait. Director Kenton made good use of lighting and shadows, and a couple of the special effects involving wolf-to-man and bat-to-man were surprisingly good. My favorite scene was when the scientist, who had been transfused with vampire blood, looks in the mirror and sees-- nothing! There are days when I know how he feels.

12 mini-reviews for the short attention span, taken from dark corners of stevenl's video vault:

Historic Photos of Washington State / text and captions by Dale E. Soden. Nashville, Tenn. : Turner Pub. Co., c2008. x, 206 p.

Whitworth University professor of history Dale E. Soden dug into the photo collections of the Washington State Historical Society and the Library of Congress, his efforts resulting in this book of just over 200 black and white photographs portraying different aspects of the Evergreen State from 1860 to 1959.

The majority of the visuals focus on the occupational history of everyday people and the evolution of Washington's infrastructure. Aside from the Native Americans, there is little coverage here of ethnic or social life history-- that isn't his chief interest. Soden's concentration seems to be on the history of emerging technologies and how they impact the lives of average citizens.

There appears to be a well balanced representation of the geographic regions of the state. OlyBloggers might enjoy the few early pictures of Olympia, including an early shot as if you had stepped into the middle of the street in front of the present day BroHo and looked up Capitol Way (then called Main St.). Even little Elma makes an appearance here.

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12 mini-reviews for the short attention span, taken from dark corners of stevenl's video vault:

Oh.

A dog smoking a cigarette.

I wish I could say, "Now there's something you don't see everyday."

But I can't.

In the distance I could hear a siren. And excited voices. But those sounds all seemed so far away and remote as I focused on the little UML dots. They were attempting to tell me something. I watched them unite as they collectively tried to send me a message. I could only hope I was open-minded enough to accept this gift of great truth I was about to receive. What could it be?

Recently, while in the act of recording a UML I spotted (perhaps it was 373, I can't recall exactly) with one hand while drinking coffee with the other and having a cell phone nestled between my shoulder and as I scrunched my neck, I forgot about the "operating the motor vehicle" portion of my duties and kinda sorta rammed into the back of a semi carrying a load of evaporated milk.

The collision knocked me into a daze. In those unreal silent-film seconds before it dawned on me what had happened, I looked up and saw those little UML dots suspended in air, dancing around my head, mocking me. Free from the grid where I had captured them.

UML's rounded up this time: 031-032, 057, 065, 084, 202, 205, 216, 225, 246, 373, 446, 490, 496, 498, 625, 772, 776, 816, 838, 842, 854, 865, 889, 896, 933, 974.

Here's a handy-dandy grid of the UML's I spotted.

Frequently I have to write down these UMLs while behind the wheel. It isn't easy to do, especially if I'm also on the cell phone and/or drinking hot coffee.

James E. Bradford ran for Governor in 1916, Seattle Mayor in 1918, and later for Superior Court judge. He lost all three elections but remains a tantalizing "what if he had won?" character in Washington State history.

James was born in 1868 on a farm near Rochester, Minn., the son of William and Elizabeth (Comstock) Bradford. His father was from New York, his mother from Wisconsin. He was a Mayflower descendant, a fact used in later political campaigns. As a young man he was active in sports and particularly enjoyed boxing. He graduated from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1891 or 1892, where he had been a member of the Theta Delta Chi fraternity. James became, according to his obituary, "a student of the classics and a widely sought public speaker." With his new degree in hand, he set up practice in Austin, Minn.

In 1900, Bradford moved to Seattle and set up shop. At some point he found employment in the office of the City Attorney for Seattle as a clerk. He lived in a boarding house and some time after 1910 married Lavena Luther, the daughter of the couple who managed the dwelling. Eventually they would divide their residential life between the Claremont Hotel in the cold months and Bainbridge Island during the other half of the year.

12 mini-reviews for the short attention span, taken from dark corners of stevenl's video vault: