Only yesterday, I asked if there was anything cooler than drinking whiskey from Blade Runner themed glassware.

And I thought not.

I was wrong, though. You can drink whiskey from Blade Runner themed glassware with a Death Star ice cube.

Of course, it may be a better match with the roller rock glass.

Hey! It’s Friday!

You know what that means?

It means that here at the Morning Coffee, we thought it was a good time to remind you that quitting can be good for you. Particularly, we think, with a weekend ahead.

Russian Orthodox Vader is by, or at least from, Dmitry Dyachkov. (Warning – that links you to Facebook, which is likely safe for work, but definitely evil.)
Webcomic is Dinosaur Comics.

We mentioned it back in June, but it’s worth mentioning again now — on Sunday, exactly one year after her first night back at home after giving birth, Karen will run a half-marathon.

It’s very impressive stuff (you should support her), and I’ll be there cheering … and taking photos.

I took some photos at a 10 km race this past summer — I meant to snap some photos of a friend, but of course I somehow managed to completely miss him running by. There were still plenty of photos of other runners, however. With the race coming up this weekend, these photos seem a suitable lead-in to this weekend’s race.

When photographing a race, of course, I first get the lead runners:

Once the leaders are photographed, I continue to snap away at those following. These photos are usually thrown out, but sometimes I get something pretty good:

Men and women usually race together, but are counted separately. I keep my eyes open to get the leading lady, though sometimes she can be lost in the crowd:

Once this is done, we get to the masses, and I begin looking for interesting people and situations.

For instance, some people insist on running with their headphones in. I understand why people do this in training, but a race is about more than your own running — it’s about the course, the fans, and the other runners too. It seems wrong to wear headphones while running. But some people do. And for some reason, I found a group of these people clustered together:

Of course, most of the remaining photos are of runners in costume (“fancy dress”, as they say here in England).

First, you get those in lightweight costumes that are unlikely to much impact their performance:

Then you move on to those with more elaborate costumes:

Finally, towards the back of the pack, you find people racing in costumes that make you wonder how they do it. I admire these people:

One last photo before we’re done — the obligatory black-and-white arty photo with the runners out of focus:

Don’t forget to donate to Shelter in support of Karen by clicking here, and come cheer her on in Hyde Park this Sunday.

All photos by Mr. Topp. Photos were taken at the Ascics British 10K London Run on July 10th.

George Lucas is releasing all six Star Wars films on Blu Ray. This shouldn’t really be news — it’s actually more surprising that there was no six-film-Star-Wars-Blu-Ray-boxset before now. We would have anticipated that such a thing would have hit the shelves years ago.

And because Lucas is remastering his films for a new format, as usual, he cannot help but tinker with them. This continues to be endlessly puzzling. Touching up the special effects so they don’t look dated in high definition to viewers in 2011? OK. The more drastic changes that Lucas builds in that mark significant departures from our cherished childhood memories? Not so much.

But still, very little surprise. The man has a track record.

And then I find George Lucas speaking out in 1988:

A copyright is held in trust by its owner until it ultimately reverts to public domain. American works of art belong to the American public; they are part of our cultural history.

People who alter or destroy works of art and our cultural heritage for profit or as an exercise of power are barbarians, and if the laws of the United States continue to condone this behavior, history will surely classify us as a barbaric society. The preservation of our cultural heritage may not seem to be as politically sensitive an issue as “when life begins” or “when it should be appropriately terminated,” but it is important because it goes to the heart of what sets mankind apart. Creative expression is at the core of our humanness. Art is a distinctly human endeavor. We must have respect for it if we are to have any respect for the human race.

These current defacements are just the beginning. Today, engineers with their computers can add color to black-and-white movies, change the soundtrack, speed up the pace, and add or subtract material to the philosophical tastes of the copyright holder. Tomorrow, more advanced technology will be able to replace actors with “fresher faces,” or alter dialogue and change the movement of the actor’s lips to match. It will soon be possible to create a new “original” negative with whatever changes or alterations the copyright holder of the moment desires. The copyright holders, so far, have not been completely diligent in preserving the original negatives of films they control. In order to reconstruct old negatives, many archivists have had to go to Eastern bloc countries where American films have been better preserved.

In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be “replaced” by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten.

There is nothing to stop American films, records, books, and paintings from being sold to a foreign entity or egotistical gangsters and having them change our cultural heritage to suit their personal taste.

I accuse the companies and groups, who say that American law is sufficient, of misleading the Congress and the People for their own economic self-interest.

I accuse the corporations, who oppose the moral rights of the artist, of being dishonest and insensitive to American cultural heritage and of being interested only in their quarterly bottom line, and not in the long-term interest of the Nation.

The public’s interest is ultimately dominant over all other interests. And the proof of that is that even a copyright law only permits the creators and their estate a limited amount of time to enjoy the economic fruits of that work.

There are those who say American law is sufficient. That’s an outrage! It’s not sufficient! If it were sufficient, why would I be here? Why would John Houston have been so studiously ignored when he protested the colorization of “The Maltese Falcon?” Why are films cut up and butchered?

Attention should be paid to this question of our soul, and not simply to accounting procedures. Attention should be paid to the interest of those who are yet unborn, who should be able to see this generation as it saw itself, and the past generation as it saw itself.

I want that George Lucas back. We can bury the new one in a landfill with all the Star Wars Blu Ray discs.

Photo: The inofficial Imperial Troop-Camp, by Kristina Alexanderson.