Stars to Watch: Lana Parrilla (Updated)

Wallpaper image from ABC.com (click to embiggen)

UPDATE (02/28/12):

I just thought I'd revisit this little nugget from May 2010. I'm not always right, but I was on this one. My favorite Swingtown star has become a sensation on ABC's Once Upon a Time in the dual role of Regina Mills and of course, the Evil Queen! I'll confess to liking OUaT quite a bit, even though I really only tuned in to see Lana Parrilla. Having only seen her in sweet (yet slinky) roles, I had no idea she could chew the scenery quite so well playing wicked!

ORIGINAL POST (05/29/10):

I'm feeling a little of the pop-culture vibe as I write this. I just watched last night's Miami Medical, the cancelled CBS medical drama.  It took a couple of episodes for me to notice that Lana Parrilla was one of the stars, since her character was so far away from the one I knew her from, that of Trina Decker on Swingtown.

Image (Molly Parker, Miriam Shor, Lana Parrilla) from GrooveEFortune

Swingtown was a drama on CBS last summer, an unusual piece of 70s pastiche with a dollop of taboo sexuality.  Parrilla was not the name "star" of the show, but there is no doubt that she was the most memorable part of it. I say this as a person of the gay persuasion who had much to be fond of with Grant Show, Jack Davenport, Michael Rady, Mark Valley and Josh Hopkins. But Parrilla was really something special.  The cast of Swingtown was extraordinary, and the way they captured middle America 1976 was only equalled by--possibly--the movie Dazed and Confused.  It's a crying shame that the show didn't get a second season pickup.  The cast has scattered to the winds (though only a couple have landed in hit shows), and will likely never be captured in quite that way again.

And it would seem that Parrilla is a little cursed when it comes to landing in a program with staying power. But she will, I'm fairly certain. She's awesome. She's beautiful, sexy, vulnerable and utterly believable.  Here's hoping that she lands on her feet in a new or established show that really puts her on the map. But I'm still hoping to see Trina Decker again, in some form, somewhere.  If they could put the Deckers into a spinoff with straight laced Janet (Miriam Shor), I'd be really excited.

Attention Star Wars Fans: Tatooine Might Exist!

Exist, it might! Two suns it has! Image from Space.com

Okay, not literally, you goofballs. But a planet circling two stars might! How cool is that? I just hope in real life that someone warns Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru before they get smoked by the Empire.

[Excerpt]

Planet Like 'Star Wars' Tatooine Discovered Orbiting 2 Suns

It's a real-life Tatooine. A spectacle made popular by the "Star Wars" saga — a planet with two suns — has now been confirmed in space for the first time, astronomers revealed. . .

Read more (with video) at: Space.com

Thanks to Stupid Monkey Planet for the link.

Upside Down Stars on Elephant, Now on Donkey?

As a graphic artist, I am perplexed by the upside-down stars on the GOP Elephant. They weren't always that way, but it's hard to nail down exactly when, or exactly why the change happened. Lots of people "know" why, as you'll see if you do a Google search. But the answers are either vague or contradictory.

Some even try to say that the stars are not upside down, merely tilted to the right. Piffle. Tilting could be 5, 10, 15, even 20 degrees. The way these are drawn puts the stars perfectly upside down. And at that angle, they could be tilting left as much as right. Perhaps there is something to the conspiracy theory that they are upside down as a sign of distress, as that is what an upside-down American flag represents.

At left is a way to turn the stars right side up, effectively.

Curiously, while reading America Blog, I found that CBS News has done the same trick with the Democratic donkey. This is a symbol that now has no stars, but CBS--for reasons unknown--has inverted stars on the little guy. The official symbols, with only slight changes by yours truly, are at the top of this page. CBS' version is in the excerpt below.

[Excerpt]

69% of Democrats think Obama will be the nominee. He rates higher than McCain and Clinton on "shares values of Americans" from AmericaBlog