Turn your personal conviction about protecting sea turtles and marine and coastal ecosystems into direct action. Join and support the Sea Turtle Survival League or learn about simple actions that you can take, no matter where you live, to help sea turtles survive.

Consider becoming a Turtle Hero Volunteer. The Turtle Heroes program relys on the talents, skills, and efforts of individual volunteers. While CCC may occasionally announce special events, each volunteer determines their own level of participation by finding, registering and gathering materials for local events. Some common tasks include staffing an information booth at festivals; passing out literature at special events; and hosting an educational booth at local schools. We encourage everyone to choose the activities that best suit their unique abilities: we know people who care about sea turtles are an innovative and dedicated group with much to offer.

My wife and I just watched a cool show about sea turtle conservation. They mentioned the Caribbean Conservation Corporation & Sea Turtle Survival League and a cool program where they track sea turtles by satellite post the results online. Click here to check it out.

If you are interested in turtle conservation, download STSL’s Sea Turtle Conservation Guide and check out NESTS (Neighbors Ensuring Sea Turtle Survival).

Tonight, we finally got to see The Fantastic Four. After getting a lot of shoulder shrugs from folks who’d seen it, I expected to be somewhat underwhelmed. Thankfully, that was not the case. Don’t get me wrong, this film was not Batman Begins or even Spiderman or X-Men, but I think it was an almost perfect Fantastic Four film.

For starters, the FF have always been a throwback to the golden age of comics. While I never was a huge fan of the book, I appreciated the characters and their longevity. And truth be told, I’ve always had a soft spot for Ben Grimm a.k.a. the ever lovin’ Thing. At the core, the FF is a story about family and this is portrayed perfectly in this film. The cast pulls off the tense, but tight-knit family dynamics of the FF in a very subtle, real way that pulls the viewer in and makes you root for them. Roger Ebert complains, but this just shows the film is not targeted for general audiences, but rather loyal FF readers.

That said, there are some quibbles about the film’s take on the origin stories, particularly that of Dr. Doom. And, I am sure some folks will whine about the fact that Alicia Masters is black in the film. However, like the costumes in the X-Men films, I think minor changes to the continuity are OK if they make comics more accessible to a new generation.

Effects and fight choreography were excellent. My only beef is that The Thing should have been a bit more “larger than life”. The costume/prosthetics were amazing, and allowed Michael Chiklis to really act inside out. So, the complaint is not that the suit is not well-designed. Rather, the problem is scale. As shot, it is 80% scale “The Thing”. That said, Chiklis was perfectly cast as Ben Grimm. I love Chiklis in general, but he was born for this role.

Overall, I liked this film and recommend it to both comics fans and general audiences who like a good action adventure yarn.

So, I had this brain fart today. Wouldn’t it be great if one could find a cross-platform tool which would allow offline blogging? That would be HUGE. Immediately, I started sketching out the features list in my head. Then, after discussing it with my wife, I decided I ought to do a little research to be sure I was not reinventing the wheel. As it turns out, many others have tread this hallowed ground.

After checking out a variety of options, I settled on ecto. In fact, this post is the first delivered through ecto. I’ll be playing with it a bit more this week and hope to offer a full report by weeks end. In the interim, post comments if you have any alternatives to offer.