That was prohibitive and gladly we went with a more Jules Verne containment suit look, so we used perspective and mirror tricks inside the helmet to keep the head disappeared. We are not using opticals or digital. We just angle the helmet and the reflections, and we created a magnifying glass bubble, so you feel there is more empty space in the helmet than there really is. And then we built the suit to show a fishbowl head and it looks very 19th century." In the creature shop, we were able to see what Guillermo was talking about when we were shown Johann's mechanical head, which looks a bit like the head of Robby the Robot, his mouth replaced by metal flaps that move mechanically whenever he speakshis voice being provided by German actor Thomas Kretschmannbut then smoke gets pumped into the glass domed helmet with lights inside to create the illusion of Johann's gaseous state.

What's on TV Tuesday night

10 p.m. (ABC) "Primetime: What Would You Do?" John Quinones is the anchor of a new series that tests how people react in different situations. For instance, tonight's episode includes a segment where a devout Muslim woman wearing a veil is denied service by the owner of a popular bakery. The owner wants to kick her out. Will anyone come to her defense? In another, someone out to dinner notices their good friend's husband with another woman. Should they tell?

8 (NBC) "The Biggest Loser." This just isn't fair. One of the couples is surprised with a trip to Las Vegas, where all-you-can-eat buffets rule.

Council adopts meters

The Flagstaff City Council approved on 5-2 vote a controversial plan to reintroduce meters to 400 on-street parking spaces.Voting no were Rick Swanson and Scott Overton. For some downtown merchants, the plan represents the culmination of two years of work with the city carefully plotting a solution to a downtown parking crisis that they say is slowly strangling their businesses."We are pleased with the positive vote from the council after two years of collaboration," said Mark Lamberson, owner of Mountain Sports Downtown.Lamberson has said his business struggles to survive downtown, saying he has to compete with Internet-based retailers on prices and his customers have to compete with downtown employees for parking spaces.He plans, along with several other business owners, to reimburse customers with tokens for the meters so that they will come back in the future.But for opponents of the Downtown Management Plan, the solar-powered, multi-space parking meters will represent gravestones, marking the deaths of uncounted downtown businesses.John Denune, owner of Thunder Mountain Traders, told the council Monday night he was opposed to the $1.2 million plan.

moon phase info

Those twisters were spawned from a deepening area of low pressure that moved from the Rocky Mountains into the Upper Midwest. CLICK HERE for official archived weather maps from Wednesday, April 3, 1974...select day 4 from the drop down list on the upper right. That weathermaker was part and parcel of the La Nina pattern the nation was locked into at the time. Interestingly, the winter leading up to that disastrous event was mainly warm and mainly wet (sound familiar?). Bowling Green saw no measurable snowfall in the winter of '73-'74 until February 8th, when 1" fell. It's worth noting that the 1" or less of snow in our area last week turned out to be the first measurable snowfall of the season for many. Now I don't know about you, but I cannot help but seeing some irony there.

The early '70s featured some very active weather in this region.

RIM announces BlackBerry platform enhancements

Phone Scoop reported on the RIM announcement that BlackBerry owners will be receiving updates for their devices that adds enhanced functionality and security. These new software updates will be phased in over the first half of 2008 and if you buy a new device in mid to late 2008 it should have the updates already installed.

The updates include enhanced messaging and collaboration, simpler management and support for IT departments, enhanced security, and expanded application support. End users will primarily see the enhancements in messaging that include integration of DataViz's excellent Documents To Go product for viewing and editing Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files, remote search for older messages no longer on your device, free-busy calendar lookup of coworkers, HTML and rich text email support, and IBM Lotus enhancements.