Science fair photo bonanza. That post was inspired by this collection of science fair photos, but I enjoyed Beware of the Blog's focus on freaky kids over odd projects. If I had to pick a favorite, "Garlic: The Silent Killer" narrowly beats out "Are you my mother?"

Art Madrid, my esteemed mayor, a big stinking drunk. Police found him collapsed on a sidewalk near a puddle of his own vomit, and decided to take him home rather than cite him. A city employee less than half his age was also intoxicated, and in the driver's seat of a car with the engine running. She also was not arrested. The city council had a special session to discuss allegations of special treatment; my favorite revelation from the meeting (shown on public access television) was that the night Madrid chose to get liquored up and ride shotgun with a drunk, he was a no-show at a traffic safety meeting he was scheduled to attend in that very neighborhood.

Sweeney Todd NOT coming out in HD DVD. God damn it. I actually found myself interested in buying more HD DVDs since Toshiba officially killed off HD DVD than I was when the format was viable. Sweeney Todd, There Will Be Blood, and possibly Into the Wild, if I could find it cheap. But two of the three aren't happening, and I think I'll be fine with renting Into the Wild. I'll just have to be content with my bootleg of Sweeney Todd; if they want to announce an HD DVD release, only to abandon it, and instead keep company with Blu-Ray, I suggest they service them well and hold their custom, for they'll have none of mine.

William F. Buckley, Jr., dead at 82.

NOTE: This video will make absolutely no sense if you've never seen There Will Be Blood. I would say it contains spoilers, but since it won't make sense, you can probably watch it.

Goes on too long and other Oscar movies are shoehorned in awkwardly, but it's still pretty good. What puts it over the top, for me, is that a vast majority of the audience will have no idea what they are talking about. I imagine the standard reaction of the uninitiated would be, "That's just bizarre...I don't know too much about the movie, but one thing I'm pretty sure of, the movie doesn't end with Daniel Day-Lewis screaming about milkshakes." And those people would be wrong, so very wrong.

Oscar-time is again upon us, and for once I've seen all five films nominated for best picture. AMC screened all five movies back-to-back, and for thirty dollars you could see all three, and get all the popcorn you could eat. They've done this for the last couple years, but this was the first year I've actually wanted to see all five best picture nominees, so I decided to give it a shot. It was a bit grueling, watching movies for twelve straight hours (I was in the second row--the theater was completely full--and my neck was straining and my back sore by the end), but it was a credit to all five films that time never really seemed to drag. There Will Be Blood, in particular, did not at all feel like two hours and forty minutes.

The ceremonies start rather soon, so I'll just provide some quick impressions, so that my opinion might reach the Hollywood community in time (I know they were quite worried as to my opinion). Michael Clayton was excellent, and if Tom Wilkinson doesn't win Best Supporting Actor, I must be confused about just what a supporting actor is (in fairness, I haven't seen Hal Holbrook in Into the Wild, and I'm sure he's good, too). There Will Be Blood was also excellent, not really what I expected, though it struck me as the sort of thing I needed time to mull over, not well-suited to a day of binge viewing. The final act was a bit strange, but helped put things into some context, I'd like to see the film again knowing the characters' fate. Atonement was a surprise; I didn't like the book, but the movie wasn't bad. I suppose I didn't like the book because I didn't really care enough about the characters to make the arduous effort of reading worth-while; the movie, in contrast, went down easy enough that getting the payoff at the end was palatable. Still, though, I found myself spending much of my time during the movie thinking about other similar movies I'd rather be watching (I do need to see The Remains of the Day again sometime). Juno was the only film of the lot that I didn't like. Nor did I hate it, I just found it a little ball of nothing that I didn't care much about. It seemed like something that should of come from the Sundance Film Festival around 1998 or so. A dated movie in subject matter and sensibility, trying to make up for it with a faux-Gilmore Girls wit. A few funny lines, but you've already heard them, most likely ("makes his junk smell like pie," for instance, is funny enough to warrant a call-back).

And that just leaves No Country for Old Men. It's by the Coen Brothers, and thus automatically deserves consideration (the audience seemed unwilling to consider the ending; at the final fade to black, the film was met with jeers and "What the Hell?"s). Honestly, while aspects of the ending bothered me, I'm willing to accept that. The film's conclusion is in keeping with the film's themes of nihilism, chance, and impotence. If anything, the ended was rather heavy-handedly foreshadowed, with the bookending coin-flip discussions. So I don't think a different ending would have satisfied critics, and I imagine most of them wouldn't argue the point. For me, a bigger flaw than the ending was the one-damn-thing-after-another plot progression. Just Bardem hunting Brolin for two hours. Which isn't the worst thing in the world. It actually probably would have been better if that dynamic had been kept pure, but of course Tommy Lee Jones' sherrif was integral to the themes addressed. The point of Woody Harrelson's character? I have no idea. But he had a conversation with Stephen Root; anything giving Stephen Root screen time is a good thing.

Ultimately, I was disappointed in No County for Old Men. Probably not a big shock to me, as I didn't like Fargo, and this covers similar ground. But it's not just a Southwestern Fargo, more like the anti-Fargo, with Tommy Lee Jones as an ineffectual Frances McDormond. In any event, not quite my cup of tea, though it held my interest and gave me some food for thought.

My final verdict, having seen the five films: Sweeney Todd should be the winner, but of the five nominated films, I give it to There Will Be Blood. (as for actual predictions, I have a gut feeling there might be an Atonement upset tonight)

UPDATE: Nothing against Javier Bardem, he was excellent. I just don't think he should have won for supporting actor, because he was the fucking star of the movie, no? But whatever, good for him. And good for the Coen Brothers, they deserved the recognition. Just wish it was for a film I liked better (The Hudsucker Proxy should have swept the Oscars).

No Depression magazine to fold. I let my subscription lapse six months or so ago, so clearly am solely to blame (actually, they say sales and subscriptions were fine, and that the changing economics of the indie music scene are mainly to blame). The editors were on NPR to talk about the decision. Sad, sad news.

Reading of "Luann" musical this Monday in Carlsbad. I thought of attending, until I saw it was way up in Carlsbad. Just don't care enough about the comic, one way or the other, to cancel my plans and make the drive. I would drive into the gaping maw of Hell for "Get Fuzzy" or "Mary Worth" musicals, for different reasons, but "Luann" doesn't really fire up the passions.

Samples from the musical soundtrack CD are available from CD Baby, which suggest the musical is far more epically craptacular than the perfectly serviceable comic strip. Just listen to "Aaron Hill," and picture Michael Hitchcock's character from Waiting for Guffman quietly weeping in the audience:

As long-time readers have no doubt noticed, I'm rather fond of the semicolon. So I ask you, where's my New York Times profile?

In case you were wondering, yes, I did deliberately avoid using a semicolon in this post; were I to misuse a semicolon while discussing said mark of punctuation, it would be too much for me to bear.

As I mentioned their last article yesterday, I'll mention now that Ars Technica has a follow-up to their HD DVD article, basically a reminder that there's no official announcement, and an explanation as to why there's not yet an official announcement. Basically, as they suggested in the previous article, they report from their sources that Toshiba hoped to milk the market as long as they could, selling off their existing stock before making an announcement. But now, the thinking goes, that's no longer possible, with the motion picture and consumer electronics industries rapidly abandoning HD DVD. I don't entirely agree that they can't salvage a few bucks off of HD DVD. I don't really know the economics of the matter, but if the factories are already retrofitted for producing HD DVDs, I would imagine that this sunk cost is the primary expense, and that the cost of actually manufacturing the discs is trivial by comparison. Over a million HD DVD players were sold, it seems like catering to that market could offer some opportunity for profit, for a few more months, at least. But again, I don't really know the economics of making an HD DVD, nor the opportunity costs lost by not converting the factories to something more profitable. And considering I only plan on buying one more HD DVD, should Sweeney Todd still come out in the format, maybe other HD DVD owners aren't really in a buying mood (I did recently picked up The Sting, Shaun of the Dead, and a third title I'm not remembering at fire sale prices).

It will be interesting to see how long it takes HD DVD to finally die. As an owner, I hope it takes awhile. I'm not counting on any new releases more than a month out or so, but I don't know how far in advance they manufacture discs...anyone know?

I mentioned Monday that things weren't looking good for HD DVD. I figured things would drag out for a few months, but apparently, if the buzz about the intertubes is to be believed, HD DVD's demise is imminent. Nothing official out of Toshiba, but Reuters and others seem to have things pretty much confirmed. Ars Technica is usually pretty on the ball; they offer some details about the accelerating death of HD DVD. Apparently Toshiba already made the decision to kill off HD DVD even before this week's bad news, but was looking to gradually exit the business and sell off excess inventory. But apparently Netflix and Wal-Mart were aware of this plan, and decided to speed things up on their own, to prevent customers from being burned, and have forced Toshiba to speed things up. So it looks like Netflix did the right thing in dropping HD DVD.

Sadly, it now looks unlikely that I'll be buying Sweeney Todd in HD DVD. Good ol' DVD will be good enough, I suppose. Besides, I managed to download an awards screener of Sweeney Todd off of BitTorrent last night (downloaded in less than an hour). Good enough quality to keep me satisfied for awhile (though again, I can't seem to make it play on my Xbox, and thus my TV).

Uno becomes first beagle to win Westminster. I'm trying to keep Tanner from seeing the coverage; Uno propagates an idealized standard of beauty shlubs like Tanner can't possibly obtain.

Dolly Parton postpones tour, blames breasts.

As I just mentioned in my last post, I am looking forward to the digital distribution of media reaching critical mass. But while I wait, I've been making inroads into controlling my media library on my computer. I recently purchased a 1TB external hard drive, and have begun digitizing my movie collection for use on my iPhone and elsewhere.

For those who haven't tried this, I should mention that it's not like ripping a CD in iTunes. The conversion process takes time; on my old clunker of a computer, it takes almost twice as long go convert a movie into H.264 as it does to watch it. So for the most part, I've just been converting one movie at a time, overnight. And sometimes Handbrake (the program I'm using for the task) freezes up in the process, and I have to start over (again, I have an old computer ill-suited for such modern tasks). So it's a somewhat frustrating task. But the end result is well worth it. I've been impressed with the visual quality of the final product, and especially the audio quality. I digitized some concert DVDs; since I've always found music on DVD to be inconvenient, I rarely watch my music video DVDs, so I figured putting them on my iPhone would breathe new life into them. They look good, but the audio fidelity was what really surprised me, sounding as good as anything probably can on the standard iPhone headphones.

So I've been happy with the results of my digitization project. Trying to get the videos onto my TV has been more frustrating. I have an Xbox 360, and so should be able to stream media via Windows Media Player 11. But despite setting everything up correctly, my Xbox 360 couldn't recognize my computer. After much tinkering, I gave up. But last night, I wanted to watch MST3K while playing poker online, so I wanted to get the show off my computer and onto the TV. So I decided to take another stab at getting WMP 11 to work with my Xbox 360. But upon booting up the software and the Xbox, I found it was now working fine. So all I had to do was set up the WMP library, and I'd be all set. Unfortunately, WMP sucks ass, so it was another two hours or so before I finally got the library under control. But I was watching MST3K on my TV (not playing poker, as Poker Stars turned out to be having issues with sit-and-go tourneys).

So far, so good. But the program I was watching was an, um, archival copy found online, in Divx. WMP didn't have a problem with that. But I'm creating my library in H.264, since that's what the iPhone plays nice with. WMP doesn't natively support the format, but plug-ins are readily available to permit playback. But even with the plug-in, you can't add H.264 files to the WMP library. I've found workarounds online, but one seems rather cumbersome, requiring multiple programs and modifications to the registry, and the other being simpler, but consisting of merely changing the file extension, which would interfere with iTunes, which is where I primarily use the files.

So I've given up on streaming H.264 files to my Xbox 360. When I want to watch a movie in that format, I'll just copy it to my portable USB hard drive, and plug that into my Xbox. Should work fine, but from past experience, I expect some glitch to arise.

So what's my point? Mainly, I'm just bitching that Microsoft seems to make this harder than it need be. But also, I wanted to point out that, even when a company like Microsoft gets their device in the home, through something like the Xbox 360, which doubles as a trojan horse for a Windows Media Extender, getting video onto a TV through these devices is too difficult for the general public, and far from mainstream. Which might be good news for Microsoft's Xbox Live Marketplace, but is bad news for the overall adoption of digital video.

I don't know if I mentioned it, but I bought the HD DVD add-on to the Xbox 360, about six months or so ago. Even at the time, it was clear that Blu-Ray was winning the format war, but the add-on was reasonably priced, having just received a price cut, I had a coupon on top of that, the add-on came with King Kong, and a mail-in rebate offered five free movies. Not the best HD DVD movies available, but either movies I liked, but doubted would benefit from the HD treatment (Casablanca, Blazing Saddles), or movies that should look good, but that I didn't really care about (The Perfect Storm). But the free movies were just enough to make the drive look like a good deal. Especially after taking a look at Netflix, and seeing that they had plenty of HD DVDs for rent.

Overall, I've been happy with the drive. The first HD DVD I watched, other than sampling a bit of King Kong, was the BBC documentary Planet Earth, which was absolutely incredible, and which I almost immediately purchased. So far, that is one of only two HD DVDs I have purchased. The other, Batman Begins, I already owned on DVD, and overall it left me a bit underwhelmed. Standard DVDs look good enough on an HDTV with an upscaling player, for my tastes. So I don't think I'd rebuy DVDs I own in HD DVD (even if the format were not in its death throes).

So, owning the HD DVD add-on, you might imagine I have not been happy to see the recent developments in the format wars. For those not paying attention, HD DVD is getting its clock cleaned pretty well. But I took comfort in one thing: There are still plenty of HD DVDs I want to see available from Netflix. Now it appears that Netflix is abandoning me, too. Now, details are vague, so I don't know if this means Netflix is dropping HD DVD from their inventory, or simply forgoing the purchase of any more HD DVDs. If it's the latter, I'll cope. But if they remove HD DVD from their back catalog, I think I may become an ex-Netflix subscriber. I've been wondering if the public library could handle my DVD needs, and while their selection lags Netflix considerably, I could probably get by, supplementing their offerings with digital vendors (Xbox Live Marketplace, iTunes), piracy, and maybe even the good old-fashioned video store (I miss Kensington Video, and I'm sure they miss me). Or, you know, I could watch the hundreds of unwatched DVDs I've hoarded over the years. In any case, the availability of HD DVD is the main factor that has led me to overlook the fact that I haven't been getting a great value out of Netflix lately (only going through 3-4 films a month or so), and if they're no longer available, I'll probably get my fix elsewhere.

The seeming failure of HD DVD leads one to wonder if I'll purchase a Blu-Ray player. Doubtful. I'd rather watch HD than SD programming, and HD media looks better than standard DVDs, but standard DVDs still look pretty good on an HDTV. So, having spent time with an HD DVD player, while it looks good (especially for nature documentaries), it's not worth a substantial capital investment, in my opinion. Though I have a relatively small HDTV; if you're plunking down a chunk of change on a home theater, a few hundred dollars more for Blu-Ray might be worth it. But for me, I'll wait for digital distribution of HD content to go mainstream.

I'll close with one bit of good news for me on the HD DVD front: Sweeney Todd comes to HD DVD April 1.

Black cartoonists run their own versions of the same strip, to protest the idea that there is one monolithic thing called black cartoons. I read the K Chronicles strip, but since I don't read the other strips, I didn't realize it was part of a movement, until I saw Gadzooky's C.C. post with links to the various strips. Of course, given their point that newspapers are reluctant to run multiple "black" strips, the casual reader can be forgiven for not realizing that this was going on, but then I suppose the ultimate point was to raise media awareness.

I'm sick again. Just a cold. But it's annoying, I've been sick a hell of a lot lately. Had the flu for pretty much all of November. Then food poisoning over New Year's. This cold isn't too bad, but it's still pretty nasty, as colds go. I thought I would go to work today, but I'm glad I didn't; slept in 'til well past noon, and still feel like a zombie.

I was supposed to go to L.A. yesterday with my mom for her birthday, but too sick, so that will have to wait until next weekend. Given the weather, that's probably for the best.

Last.fm offering free streaming of music from all major labels, and a good selection of indies. I'm a fan of Last.fm, more from the statistical side, enjoying the various lists the site accumulates tracking my listening habits (you can see my weekly top ten lists on the right-hand side of this blog, or see my full profile). I really haven't been using the music streaming options they offer recently, even though they've improved over the years, primarily because the speakers on my computer at work suck too much to make listening to music rewarding, and at home, I have access to my entire music library, so who needs internet radio? But this announcement will likely encourage me to spend more time on the site.

Basically, anyone can stream any song available three times. No need to register/log-in, as a cookie on your computer tracks the plays (so, three plays at home, three plays at work, three more plays when you delete the last.fm cookie). After the three plays, you can still hear the song just like you could before on last.fm, by including it on a playlist for a customized radio station (the songs play in a random order, so no on-demand satisfaction, but since this mimics the iPod's shuffle play, it is a style of music listening I and most people are familiar with in this digital age). This is a bit more restrictive than Imeem, for instance, but last.fm has a quality catalog of good-quality mp3s uploaded directly by the label or artist (unsigned artists can upload their own songs and get paid), while Imeem relies on user-uploaded content, which has caused me problems in the past. Also, last.fm seems to have a better relationship with indie labels.

Last.fm's new service is up now, and my very brief exploration of the site was satisfactory. Things look pretty much the same, but much more music is marked as available for streaming than was the last time I visited. Out of my top ten artists, seven are available for full-length streaming (the other three are only available as thirty-second samples, which I believe means I can still hear the full tracks as part of internet radio playlists). Seven of my top eleven tracks (there's a tie for tenth place) are fully playable, and one more is available as a sample, meaning three tracks aren't available in any form. The first song I listened to, however, revealed that things aren't quite as nice as they first appeared. Robbie Fulks' "She Took a Lot of Pills (and Died)" is available, but the version is from a live performance (not his recent live album, which made my top ten of 2007 list, but a random concert available on eMusic), which was disappointing. Better than nothing, but it makes me wonder if a quick glance at the percentage of songs available may overstate how many top-quality albums are available. This problem is exacerbated by the site's focus on singles over albums; all listens to a song by the same artist are lumped together, regardless of the album. So when you look at, say, Johnny Cash's page, lots of songs are available, but you don't know what you're getting until you click. This is hardly a deal-breaker, but it would be nice to be able to choose between hearing, say, "Folsom Prison Blues" recorded at Sun Records or "Folsom Prison Blues" recorded at Folsom Prison.

I'm sure I'll be playing around with last.fm some more in the near future. There's plenty of room for improvement in their catalog, but I'm satisfied enough at first glance that I doubt I'll be going back to Imeem.

John Stewart, dead at 68. He was originally from San Diego, and while he no longer lived here, he died in San Diego working on a new album. He performed house concerts in San Diego fairly regularly, but I never made it out to see him live.

Suzanne Pleshette, dead at 70.

Allan Melvin, AKA Sam the Butcher, dead at 84. He was also the voice of Magilla Gorilla, and appeared on many, many shows. A video tribute can be found here.

So, like last year, I've been dragging my feet on my best-of music list, until I was damn sure no one would still be interesting in such nonsense. But I'm gonna crank this out tonight. In coming up with nominations for the list, I realized 2007 just wasn't that great a year for new releases. A good year for music, for me at least, making some discoveries from the vaults ("Will to Fail" has become my theme song--I was shocked just now to discover I never linked to it), but even coming up with ten albums from 2007 I could get excited about was a challenge. But going over the releases, and remembering some albums I'd forgotten about, things ultimately started looking up, and I was able to come up with a respectable top-ten list, with some decent albums not making the cut (sorry, Lyle Lovett):

#1: Porter Wagoner, Wagonmaster So apparently it will be a tradition that my best-of year-end list will be topped by a dead country legend. Which is fine, as so far they have richly deserved their placement. And for the record, Wagoner was very much alive when I praised the album effusively. I can't really add to that much, except to say, in light of his passing, the album encapsulated his career in the most positive light possible. A fitting coda to a legend among legends.

#2: Pink Martini, Hey, Eugene! Pink Martini's third album suggests they have arrived as an institution, which actually makes the arrival of new material not the earth-shattering news that Hang On Little Tomato was. But still, there's very little not to love here, and Jimmy Scott's guest appearance on "Tea For Two" just makes things that much more magical.

#3: Jon Rauhouse, Steel Guitar Heart Attack The most fun I had with a country album all year. Laid-back western swing, reworked classics and new material. And who knew the theme from The Andy Griffith Show had words?

#4: The Greencards, Viridian Absolutely beautiful bluegrass. The Greencards' output has been so consistent, it's easy to get complacent and forget just how lucky the world is to have an album like this.

#5: Los Straitjackets, Rock en Espanol, Vol. 1 Oddly compelling. It's Los Straitjackets, so of course this is going to be a good album, and the addition of guest artists providing Spanish vocals to cover songs of Anglo hits is a perfect fit to the band. So that I enjoyed the album isn't a surprise, but I was taken aback by just how ingratiating tracks like Little Willie G's take on "Ana" (AKA "Go To Him") are here, and how this turned out to be a much more substantial album than I expected. While still being as fun as any Los Straitjackets album. This could be my favorite Los Straitjackets album.

#6: Detroit Cobras, Tied and True Unlike Los Straitjackets, this album does not transcend the expectations one has for the Detroit Cobras. But that's fine. The rough edges are a bit smoothed out here, but overall it's exactly what we've come to expect from the band, and I for one am glad to have it.

#7: Nellie McKay, Obligatory Villagers Nellie McKay has produced an album here perfectly suited to her sound and attitude. Theatrical and witty, her technical mastery and clever songsmithing (is that a word?) are on full display, and her flaws are somewhat obscured. Sure to please her fans, and keep as fans those of us who found ourself wobbling in her support.

#8: Project: Pimento, Space Age Love Songs It's been four years since their last album, and while Space Age Love Songs isn't as earth-moving as Magical Moods of the Theremin, it does essentially double the number of theremin-based lounge music albums available, which is a good thing.

#9: Robbie Fulks, Revenge The last time Robbie Fulks performed in Southern California, I had other commitments, so I have yet to see him live, but now I have a live album. Live albums aren't the most exciting things, but there is a bit of strong new material, and lots of his classic songs, in both electric and acoustic sets.

#10: Various Artists, Song of America Filling in the last slot was difficult: Lots of albums vied for contention, all notable, but none strong enough for me to expand the list beyond ten places. Lyle Lovett and John Prine both had new albums this year, and I feel bad leaving them off; but while neither was bad, neither particularly grabbed my interest, either, and including them in this list would have felt like an act of pity. Song of America, a boxed-set collection of iconic songs from throughout American history, is certainly hit-or-miss, but the best songs of the bunch are more than enough to encourage me to overlook a few stinkers. Certainly a notable release for the year, and if, like me, you enjoyed Beautiful Dreamer: The Songs of Stephen Foster, I think you'll find a lot to like here, too.

Well, I've been working on this list for about a week, but I think I've found a list I can formally endorse. The top ten of 2007: If it's not here, it's garbage.

I was going to add an Imeem playlist here, but virtually none of these albums are streamable there. They have deals with all four major labels, but the indie situation isn't as bright. Either that, or their filtering software sucks; I noticed recently uploaded songs by Sara Bareilles, for instance, don't stream, claiming they don't have a deal with her label, when I know for a fact they do. Anyway, if you want to hear the albums on my list, I'm sure you know of a way to do so, so good luck with that.

Bobby Fischer, dead at 64.

Steve Job's MacWorld keynote address was today. This is the speech where he rolls out new products; last year, it was the iPhone. Rumors had this year's speech announcing movie rentals on iTunes, an updated Apple TV, a new ultra-light laptop, and possibly an updated iPhone. So when I got up this morning and started reading the liveblogging of the event, I wasn't too surprised to read about movie rentals on iTunes, an updated Apple TV, a new ultra-light laptop, and an update to the iPhone's software. The video of the speech isn't up yet, so I haven't taken in every detail, but about the only surprise for me in those announcements was that every major studio is on board with the movie rental store, with new arrivals due one month after the DVD release (and presumably several months after the pirated digital release). Prices weren't too out of line, $2.99 for back catalog, $3.99 for new releases, and an extra dollar for HD releases. Cheaper than Xbox Live Marketplace, especially for HD content (I refuse to rent a movie for $6), but I'll probably stick with Netflix (even though I often go two or three weeks without watching a Netflix movie, which makes the monthly fee difficult to justify, until a month comes where I go nuts with movie watching). But the fact that all the major studios are involved suggests they may finally be serious about pursuing new digital distribution models (an iTunes subscription model for movies would be very interesting to see).

So anyways, the announcements were made, it looked like things were wrapping up, and I was a bit disappointed by the lack of surprises. Certainly nothing to compete with last year's iPhone announcement. That's when the announced the closing musical entertainment, Randy Newman. I was half-convinced Steve Jobs was just fucking with me: "Not surprised, huh? How's this for surprising?" Or was the speech simply tailored to every observer, and Randy Newman is whom Steve Jobs knew could sell me a $1500 laptop? In any case, I was glad to see him there. I was especially surprised that he sang his latest single, "A Few Words in Defense of Our Country," which hardly strikes one as an effective jingle. But I was very excited, and this assures that I will be downloading the video of the speech when Apple puts it up. And it was nice that non-Newman fans were exposed to a side of him besides his Pixar stuff. He did sing "You Got a Friend in Me," but prefaced it with his Toy Story shtick that he uses in concert. Certainly made an impression on Gizmodo's livebloggers:

Jason Chen:
Aaaand it’s over. Holy crap. Who knew Randy Newman, the guy who makes the songs your kids play over and over and over again, would sing such crazy crap about our government?
10:41 am ON Jan 15 2008

Jason Chen:
The first song’s over, but now Randy Newman’s just riffing about random stuff. The next song is from Toy Story. Randy says he wrote another song to go with the love scene between Buzz and Woody, but the scene was cut. This guy is blowing our minds right now.
10:39 am ON Jan 15 2008

Jason Chen:
“It pisses me off a little that the Supreme Court is going to outlive me.” What the crap is he singing about? We have no idea. We think he’s gone nuts.
10:36 am ON Jan 15 2008

Jason Chen:
Randy’s singing a song about America, the president, and comparing them to Hitler and Stalin. USA! USA! USA!!!!!
10:34 am ON Jan 15 2008

I would point out that our present leadership is compared favorably to Hitler and Stalin (faint praise, of course). Anyway, always nice for audiences to be exposed to the full scope of Newman's talent (though I think "The World Isn't Fair" might have spoken to more of the audience).

I'm downloading the new iPhone firmware as I write this (just managed to connect to the update server after many, many tries); perhaps I will write about the new features (and my general satisfaction with the phone) in the near future.

UPDATE: Video is up. Newman did a fine job. I mentioned his Toy Story routine; he didn't do that here, just made a one-off joke about Buzz and Woody's love scene.

I was only vaguely aware of the existence of The Bucket List, but was still enthralled with Roger Ebert's must-read review:

The movie, directed by Rob Reiner, was written by Justin Zackham, who must be very optimistic indeed if he doesn't know that there is nothing like a serious illness to bring you to the end of sitcom cliches. I've never had chemo, as Edward and Carter must endure, but I have had cancer, and believe me, during convalescence after surgery the last item on your bucket list is climbing a Himalaya. Your list is more likely to be topped by keeping down a full meal, having a triumphant bowel movement, keeping your energy up in the afternoon, letting your loved ones know you love them, and convincing the doc your reports of pain are real and not merely disguising your desire to become a drug addict. To be sure, the movie includes plenty of details about discomfort in the toilet, but they're put on hold once the trots are replaced by the globe-trotting.

A belated Merry Christmas to you all. I hope you got all you wanted. I was blessed with food poisoning, myself, from some bad shellfish from a Chinese buffet, I believe. Fun times. Gradually recovering, but expect to develop a close relationship with soup over the next few days (a step above projectile-spewing clear liquids within ten minutes of consumption).

A brief note on my own self-centeredness: I drug myself out of bed, tried to watch some TV, and saw the news about Bhutto being assassinated. My reaction was disappointment that I was too sick to stay out of bed, and wouldn't be able to follow the news live. Why does everything happen to me? (I was up long enough to be disgusted that the news channels seemed to have a hard time deciding if a political assassination should cut away from there round-the-clock coverage of the tiger mauling, though)

When I was in high school, a junior, if memory serves, I was watching T.V. one evening, when I flipped by Bravo and stopped to watch a bit of a musical they were showing. That musical was Sweeney Todd, and while I'd missed most of the first half, I very quickly found myself fixated on this show, which was not quite like anything I'd ever seen before. They reran it later that day, in the dark of night, and I taped it, so that I could ultimately watch it more than I have probably watched just about anything else. It was a filmed performance of the Broadway show, with George Hearn and Angela Lansbury, which apparently originally aired on PBS in 1982. I suppose what first grabbed me about the musical was the macabre subject matter and pitch-black take on human nature (well, okay, what FIRST got my attention was Lansbury--"So, just WHAT is the Murder, She Wrote lady putting into that pie?!"). And the music was absolutely fantastic, with an operatic scope, alternating between the beautiful and the visceral, and really put to shame the Broadway smashes with which I was more familiar (I used to love Les Miserables; the last time I listened to it, I was embarrassed for us both). And Sondheim's wit provided just enough of a safe space to keep the show from crushing me.

There was a lot artistically in Sweeney Todd to appeal to me. But I think my obsession with the show was also because I came to think of it as mine. I think sometimes an individual comes across a cultural artifact, so different from the media with which they are familiar, that they virtually fetishize the product, develop an obsession with it, as I did, partly due to its merits, and partly just to celebrate the serendipity by which this item was discovered, and one's horizons were widened (hope that's not too pretentious; I'm not quite sure how to say what I mean here). I'd stumbled upon it unawares, I'd never heard of it (I'd only barely heard of Sondheim), and my friends had never heard of it. And now I wanted it to become a fixture in my life. For close to two years, I watched it virtually daily. Not always in its entirety, but at least substantial segments--"Pretty Girls" through to "A Little Priest," say, or possibly through to Sweeney's version of "Johanna" (I would often just play that song over and over and over again). Most nights before I went to bed, that's what I watched. (It made me question my sanity--It can't be normal to watch the same thing this often, I would fret to myself) In college, the frequency diminished, but it was some time before the tradition died, and still I knew it wouldn't be long before I returned, for weeks, sometimes months, of obsessive viewing. There are other musicals (Urinetown, for instance) I love, but Sweeney Todd's special place in my psyche is, I feel it safe to say, permanent and unique.

So as you might imagine, news of a Sweeney Todd movie was difficult for me to deal with. Tim Burton presenting Sweeney Todd sounded like nothing short of perfect. But things can go wrong, and the thought of a bad Sweeney Todd movie was too much to bear. And even a good Sweeney Todd movie wouldn't be my Sweeney Todd movie. I had come to think of the Lansbury/Hearn Sweeney Todd as the definitive version, and feared change. The Broadway cast album featured Len Cariou as Sweeney, which was a great disappointment on first listen (he's grown on me, but I prefer Hearn's manic rendition better). I'd seen several stage productions, including the fantastic version hosted by the Sledgehammer Theatre, which I saw several times during its two different runs, but even as I acknowledge the talented local actor from that production is quite possibly the best Sweeney I've ever seen, seeing this and any other production only sent me back to the familiarity of my original cassette, or now the commercially-available DVD. I realize part of the point of live theater is that things can evolve and be reinterpreted, but a movie would require much more substantial changes and adaptations. Then there was the whole thing about casting Johnny Depp as Sweeney. That did nothing to diminish by unease.

So as the movie approached, I avoided media coverage of the film. I never saw the trailer, and thanks to my DVR and the writer's strike, only saw the commercial a handful of times; it confirmed that the look and feel of the film rang true, but didn't show enough to pass judgement (Depp never sang). So when I saw the reviews coming in yesterday, it all seemed rather sudden. Much like Christmas really snuck up me this year, I found myself asking myself, Is it really time for me to confront the Sweeney Todd movie? It was, and this afternoon, I did.

And I loved it. Really loved it. Despite its flaws, and yes, it is most certainly flawed. But they got so much right. Yes, it's different than the show I know by heart, but film is a different medium, different enough that I can appreciate it on its own merits. I'll never make the film a part of my life like I did the televised stage rendition, but I still imagine the movie DVD will be played a fair amount when it comes out.

Let's start with what I didn't like. They could have done better than Helena Bonham Carter. By the conclusion of "The Worst Pies in London," I was half-convinced she was going to single-handedly sink the production. She grew on me, and in retrospect I think part of the problem was that the humor of the first song might not work as well on film, requiring the exaggerated acting and audience interaction of live theater. But still, I found her a bit disappointing; she always seemed to be trying so hard when she was singing. Clearly singing is not within her comfort zone. Kudos for trying, and she makes it work, but I think they could have found someone with more musical experience, who could have moved beyond "making it work." But if there was one odd casting choice, it was for the role of Tobias. Newcomer Ed Sanders is fine, but he is a child, looking like he came straight from the cast of Oliver! Tobias is a simple-minded man-child, not an actual child. When he first emerges from Pirelli's wagon, I was in shock. But as the film goes on, and I see how they've changed the role to reflect his age, I thought it was an inspired change, highlighting the class issues that are a sub-theme of the show. But as I started thinking ahead, knowing where the story was going, I realized it wouldn't work. And it doesn't work. It doesn't work at all. I can't say why without spoiling things, so I won't. But it doesn't work.

Lots of changes involving moving, shortening, or cutting songs. "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd," which bookends the musical and provides narrative throughout, was cut. Probably a wise choice, mostly. I'm reluctant to discuss the ending (and by ending, I mean final seconds), but lets just say I wished they found something to replace the final reprise of "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" with. The Johanna/Anthony storyline is streamlined, their songs truncated or dropped and told instead with more filmic techniques. This I whole-heartedly support; getting through their romance always felt like a chore, and giving Alan Rickman more room to expand on his evil character is a wise approach to the material. The beginning of the second act is shuffled around a bit, with a trimmed "God, that's Good" coming after "Johanna." My main complaint with the songs being trimmed was that "A Little Priest" was quite truncated. Which was probably a necessity. But instead of cutting out some of the career puns (well, they actually did that, too), they cut out the verses that highlight the economic themes and concerns with the class struggle which undergird the story. How do you cut verses like:

The history of the world, my love
Is those below serving those up above!
How gratifying for once to know
That those above will serve those down below!

or: the verse:

The history of the world, my sweet
Is who gets eaten and who gets to eat!
But fortunately it's also clear
That everybody goes down well with beer!

Good stuff. [edit: Oops, on subsequent viewing, I realized I misremembered; the first verse quoted was in the movie. Mea maxima culpa.] So I was sad that was gone. And the whole song doesn't work too well on screen, apparently because they felt that we just couldn't understand what they were talking about unless they showed a member of every profession just as it was mentioned in the song, which just made things feel awkward (and was it just me, or did the fop look more like a pimp).

Anyway, that gets my complaining pretty much taken care of (I intend to see it again Christmas day with my sister and brother-in-law, and I'm sure I'll find more nits to pick). It probably won't take up as much space to say what I like, because it doesn't take much time to say: Wonderful! The look of the film, the sets, the costumes, the cinematography, the blood, all was perfect. By the end of the opening credits, I was already highly impressed. The black-and-white world of Victorian London, sprayed with arterial blood, or the washed-out colors of Mrs. Lovett's fantasy (the existence of a Sweeney Todd movie is completely justified just on the basis of Burton's take on "By the Sea"). A soaring orchestral score, giving Sondheim's music the majesty it deserves. Sasha Baron Cohen as Pirelli, Alan Rickman as Judge Turpin, and Timothy Spall as Beadle Bamford are all inspired choices. And yes, even Johnny Depp as Sweeney works excellently. Within the first twenty minutes, I had forgot my misgivings, only to briefly remember them during "Epiphany" (he can't quite pull it off, but comes close enough to get by). But I'm sure, whatever is lost briefly in one song is more than made up for by the value of the Depp-Burton collaboration.

I am just so happy I enjoyed this movie. I really feared today's trip to the movies would be a soul-crushing experience. But providence is kind, and the film Sweeney Todd is just as tasty as one of Mrs. Lovett's meat pies (you know, the good ones, with the good meat in them, not the awful ones). I really can't recommend this film too much. If you don't know the story, this is a fantastic introduction, and if you do, Burton's pitch-perfect film is a great way to experience it again in a unique way. I'm sure I'll be digging up my Sweeney Todd DVD and getting reacquainted with my old friends Sweeney Todd and his old friends the razors. But before that, I can't wait to see this movie again.

Needless to say, my vote for best picture of 2007 should be quite evident, but in case it needs saying, let me give my choice now: Reno 911: Miami Sweeney Todd.

UPDATE: Added imeem's stream of the movie soundtrack. You'll probably want to wait until you've seen the movie to give it a listen, but it's nice for revisiting the film.

UPDATE #2: Okay, apparently the imeem player above will only play 30-second samples, even if you're logged in to imeem, if you try to stream it from this page. If you click on "launch standalone player," at the bottom of the page (and are logged into imeem), it will open a new window where you can listen to the whole album (as that page doesn't have ads, I don't understand the point of this obstacle to music enjoyment, but whatver, I should be grateful for a free stream of the entire album).

I hit the road last weekend, heading up to Los Angeles to see a presentation of Frankenstein (Mortal Toys) and attend the Museum of Jurassic Technology's Christmas party. I probably couldn't have worked up the strength to drive to L.A. for either event, singularly, but combined they gave my trip purpose.

Frankenstein (Mortal Toys) certainly made the trip worthwhile in and of itself. Mary Shelley's tale, adapted to the stage, then adapted to puppets, cardboard cut-outs, basically, with articulated joints, painted in the style of 18th-century American portrait painting. The puppets were simultaneously simple and expressive, and the stark sets managed to invoke the sublime despite their diminutive size. And the various frigid settings (the Arctic, Mont Blanc) made the show's performance at the Velaslavasky Panorama particularly apt. If you ever have a chance to see a performance of this remarkable show, I highly recommend you do so.

The Museum of Jurassic Technology's party was enjoyable. I always enjoy being there, it's a very peaceful place. It truly invokes the museum's early calling, to invoke the Muses. The Bulgarian folk music was entertaining, and the food was okay, and the curator's dog took a particular shining to me, for some reason (wanting my Apple turnover, I know, but others had food as well, yet I was singled out--I'm special!). I didn't stay too long, as the place was far too crowded for its size, though it is nice to see that lots of people agree with me that the museum is a special place (except for the nasty old ladies who insisted on shouting over the musician standing two paces away so they could continue their discussion of what they had for lunch). As I left the building to go home, I was stopped by two young hipsters, who seemed surprised to see anyone emerge from the storefront (from outside, the museum always appears closed), and started peppering me with variations of what seemed like a simple question, considering I had just left the establishment: What the hell is this place? But, with the exception of the question, "Are there dinosaurs?" (answer: no), I didn't quite know what to say. For a place I have come to bestow an almost holy significance, it is quite difficult to put into words just what it is. There is a very quick reply that immediately comes to mind, but to give that explanation is to once expose the central conceit of the place in a ham-fisted way, and also to narrow it's significance to this one gimmick, defining the whole by one shallow aspect of the part. Though I suppose that all sounds rather pretentious. Anyway, I encouraged them to visit the museum some time, with the promise of oddities and wonderment. And of course I encourage you to do the same, if you find yourself in the neighborhood.

UPDATE: Last time I visited the Velaslavasay Panorama, I didn't share my pictures, which didn't really turn out due to the low lighting. This time, I took some snapshots with my iPhone (did I mention that I bought an iPhone? I have an iPhone), and while the camera in the iPhone isn't the greatest, it actually does remarkably well in low light, so I went ahead and uploaded a few photos of the "Effulgence of the North", as well as one I took from the Museum of Jurassic Technology.

At 9:00 PM PST, the premiere episode of Cinematic Titanic, the new project by the creators of Mystery Science Theater 3000, went on sale. By 9:10, I'd placed my order (too bad they say it won't ship for at least ten days). I figure, for the years of joy they've given me, I owe them that. Having watched the trailer, I'll say I'm cautiously optimistic. I have some reservations, just because I've found Mike Nelson's post-MST3K work somewhat of a let-down (though I applaud him for keeping the spirit of the show alive). I've only seen one of his Film Crew DVDs, and it was enjoyable, being as they chose to riff on a film starring Rue McClanahan as a stripper, but the whole thing had a shooting-fish-in-the-barrel quality (long stretches of the commentary is just Mike and friends reassuring the audience that, yes, they too are horrified by what they see). But the whole Rifftrax thing (downloadable audio commentaries to big Hollywood movies, mostly) never appealed to me--it was the shlocky B-movies and the social commentary they allowed that really drew me to MST3K (especially their takes on short hygiene films; "Mr. B Natural" was a transformative experience in my life).

Anyway, just wanted to let you all know that this product exists. And hey, two members of the Cinematic Titanic crew were until recently keeping their writing chops sharp by working on America's Funniest Home Videos, so you know they're bringing the funny (does my snobbery know no bounds? No, it doesn't).

Slylock Fox has introduced a new character, Carla, Cassandra Cat's cousin. Say what you want about this strip, but Bob Weber, Jr., knows how to give his adult fans what they want (assuming they're fur fetishists, or just kinda weird).

If you're having trouble reading the solution to this little mindteaser, I'm pretty sure she picked that house because, judging from the perspective, it's a cardboard cutout of a house, and she can just walk around it (but the fact that she's using a crowbar suggests the house was perhaps built at a 90 degree angle to the street, so that the appearance of sexy cat-burglars could be enjoyed by passers-by).

UPDATE: I think I may have to add the comic strip My Cage to my daily rotation; any strip that "borrows" Cassandra Cat is just alright with me.

UPDATE #2: Okay, so apparently My Cage and Slylock Fox share a syndicate (King Features), and Cassandra Cat's appearance in My Cage is a joint effort that will continue all week; presumably, Carla is just filling in the for her absence this week, but we'll hope she remains. Apparently, according to Ed Power, writer of My Cage, My Cage characters were going to appear in Slylock Fox as well, but that aspect got nixed. Which is odd; they couldn't have looked any more out of place than the creatures in this recent police lineup.

Ike Turner, dead at 76.

Earl McDonnell, inspiration for dog in Mutts, dead at 18.

Universal signs deal with imeem. imeem now has deals to stream music from all four major labels. I like imeem, especially for embedding playlists in this blog, but Wired claims only 30-second samples will be available with embedded players (and sure enough, the playlist they show only has samples); imeem wants you to go to their site and see the ads before you stream whole songs--which makes sense if rumors that imeem is paying a per-song fee and not a percentage of advertising revenue are true. However, Ars Technica's article has an embedded song which streams fine. So I'm hoping that imeem's filters just aren't letting all songs stream yet, but eventually will.

Unfortunately, it looks like imeem's main problem remains: songs are still uploaded by users, so not everything is available, and quality and accuracy isn't always assured. It would be nice if the record labels provided the sites with their catalog, but still, the ability to upload and share with others any major label song is a nice thing to have.

I'm not sure how imeem is doing signing up indie labels; I just checked some previous posts, and it looks like Lee Hazlewood's last album is now streamable, but Porter Wagoner's last album still isn't streamable.

The outpouring of emotion over the passing of Al Scaduto was quite moving. The post breaking the news to the Comics Curmudgeon community has well over 200 commenters sharing their grief (and lest you think it's just people being polite in the face of mortality, the other posts this year about the various cartoon artists passing generaed nothing even approaching this; in fact, I'd say the comments on B.C.'s Johnny Hart ran pretty heavily to the negative). I spent most of yesterday pouring over the comments (until last night's poker tournament, when it was all business), and was a bit surprised how touched I was. But I was moved to see that my experience was hardly unique; I'd never heard of the strip before Josh started including it in his daily snark. I laughed at it, but also marvelled that such an anachronistic strip still exists. Gradually, I came to appreaciate its stylish art and playful language, and also cheered on with the rest of the Comics Curmudgeon community when a CC reader got an idea in the strip. I always intended to send in an idea, but due to it's unstuck-in-time nature, I guess I felt like I had forever to come up with a petty grievence to submit; now, sadly, I see that was far from true.

One thing that was particularly interesting in the comments was that, thanks be to Google, family and friends of Al Scaduto made it to the site, to share their impressions of the by-all-accounts kind and generous man. While their grief no doubt transcends the reaction of internet hipsters, it was interesting to hear his daughter's thoughts about the internet community that latched on to his strip, giving it, to borrow from another, less good-natured site, "a bizarre, ironic cult following:"

My sister Patricia and I (Debbie) have been reading your beautiful words about my father Al Scaduto this morning. When my father was in the hospital this week, I spent some time–the first time really–looking him up on the Internet. I found a site (not this one) that seemed to love him. And when he got out of the hospital, I had planned to show it to him. But then I ran across this site and saw what was being said about him and thought I better not ever let my father know what was going on on the Internet (I am sure it will come as no suprise to anyone here that my father was NOT comfortable in the computer age and wouldn’t have known how to cruise the Internet on his own). But I have changed my mind today. I would give anything for my father to see what you have written about him today. My father was the kindest, most generous, fun-loving person I knew and you all here have honored his memory with your generosity and kindness. So many of you got it right: more than being a great cartoonist, my father was a kind man. My family thanks you. Reading your words gives us great comfort. YOU all are a class act.

Please give the comments a read if you have time, and remember a good man who had a good run and will be missed by all. There's an "American Pie" parody for you in there somewhere, and some fan art, like this (and ain't it the truth; Google News turns up one news story about his passing, and it's in Italian).

Mike Lynch has updated his post with photos and memories of the man. Scaduto's funeral home has a guest book where you can pay your respects (and which notes that he lived in Milford, CT, setting of Gil Thorp--I expect a tribute strip, guy who draws Gil Thorp!).

Al Scaduto, They'll Do It Every Time cartoonist, dead at 79. The Comics Curmudgeon commented on the news, but perhaps a more fitting tribute can be found here, with an anecdote about what a class act Scaduto was. He'll be missed, and it will be one of my disappointments in life that I never came up with an idea fitting for Scaduto to immortalize in ink.

Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner do "Better Move it On Home." Good stuff. Found via Digital Audio Insider.

I checked out Lemony Snickett's new holiday story, The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming: A Christmas Story from the library today. Very delightful, and highly recommended. The story at storytime at the library was about a runaway latke, so apparently Snickett's tale derives from a traditional Hanukah story.

Controversy has been swarming in the video game community since last Friday, as the news leaked out that Jeff Gerstmann had been fired by Gamespot, a video games news and review site I rely on extensively. I first heard the news from this Penny Arcade comic, and upon learning the details (Joystiq seems to be keeping this post up-to-date with the latest news on the subject), immediately lost a lot of respect for Gamespot, and deleted their bookmark, vowing not to return (though I have, to read various posts about this very scandal).

To summarize, Gerstmann gave Kane & Lynch a bad review. Said text review was reedited, the video review was removed from the site, and Gerstmann was fired shortly thereafter. Coincidentally, the Gamespot home page was inundated with ads for Kane & Lynch at the time. The rumors quickly spread that Eidos, maker of Kane & Lynch, pulled their advertising, and pressured Cnet, parent company of Gamespot, to fire Gerstmann. Whether true or not, Gamespot's reputation has taken a major blow.

I hadn't posted about this previously, since there's plenty to be read about the issue online, and I really have no way of knowing if Gamespot really succumbed to advertiser pressure to fire Gerstmann, or if he was fired for legitimate reasons. But Joystiq has now presented a comparison of the original and edited review, and as this will probably be the only objective evidence the general public will have to determine if Gerstmann's editorial freedom was compromised, it's a major discovery. Having read the article, I am now convinced that Gamespot has no journalistic integrity.

The edited review had a disclaimer: "Editor's Note: This review has been updated to include differences between the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions and a clarification on the game's multiplayer mode." So tell me, how does changing the sentence, "So whether you're doing the shooting yourself or hanging back and letting your men do the dirty work, the game is a real letdown," to instead read, "So whether you're doing the shooting yourself or hanging back and letting your men do the dirty work, the game is a real disappointment, especially when you consider how well this same sort of stuff worked in the developer's previous squad-based game, Freedom Fighters." That to me reads more like shoehorning in praise for another of the advertiser's games than clarifying anything.

Several edits involve Gerstmann's criticism of the game for its ugliness, its gratuitous profanity, using lazy cursing for shock value and to avoid crafting gripping dialog. I had much the same reaction to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which makes me wonder if Gamespot's corporate overlords feared similar complaints might be raised against GTA: 4, which will no doubt spend a pretty penny on Gamespot advertising. I imagine Jack Thompson would have a field day, with this evidence that the gaming community will not tolerate dissent on the issue of violence or profanity, were he not too busy being disbarred.

I will say, I don't think Eidos pressured Gamespot directly to fire Gerstmann. They pulled their ads because they didn't want to advertise on a site that says the game is crap. That's reasonable enough. I believe Gamespot themselves made the decision to fire Gerstmann, to avoid future controversy. I don't know for a fact that's what happened. But reading the changes to the review, I can only conclude that their editor's note attached the the amended review was a lie, and thus I cannot believe another word they say.

Bill Cosby forgets to proofread title of his new book, comes off looking like a pervert.

Evel Knievel, dead at 69.

So, my friends, I mentioned here some time ago that I purchased an Xbox 360. I've been meaning to share my reflections on the system, which are overwhelmingly positive--I really thought I was wasting my money when I bought it, but I play the Xbox much more than any other gaming system I own, with only the Nintendo DS even coming close. But I've never bothered to write a review of the system or anything, because it always occurs to me that the limited time I have to devote to video games would be best spent playing video games, not prattling on about them on some unread blog.

But you'll be pleased to know I'll have lots of time to write about the Xbox 360, because I won't be playing mine; yes, if you're at all knowledgeable about the system, you've probably already guessed, but for the rest of you: this evening, I started up the system to play one last round of Guitar Hero II before bed, to discover the Red Ring of Death. Three red lights around the power button which indicates a general hardware failure. I knew about Microsoft's billion-dollar warranty extention to cover the Red Ring of Death, and intellectually I knew it was almost a certainty the console would fail at some point, but still in my heart I believed it only happend to bad people, who sold poisoned milk to schoolchildren. But now it happened to me. So I'll be without Stuntman: Ignition, Lumines Live and Guitar Hero II for the forseeable future. But hey, that just means more time for Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii (and yes, the game's just as awesome as everyone says).

My controller has never seemed to work quite right, so I'm going to get that fixed while I'm at it.

Public libraries: Last Bastions of Legalized Torture.

As a fundraiser for Child's Play, a group of masochists have started Desert Bus for Hope, agreeing to play Desert Bus in exchange for donations. They currently have to play the game for 71 hours.

For those unfamiliar, Desert Bus was part of an unreleased Penn and Teller video game, which eventually surfaced on the internet. The simulator, part of Penn and Teller's mission to create games "stupefyingly like reality," involves driving Penn and Teller's tour bus from Phoenix to Las Vegas. The bus can't go over 45 MPH, and the drive, played out in real time, is 8 hours long. The bus drifts to the right, so you can't just leave it to play on its own. Once you reach your destination, the bus turns around; complete the round trip, you get a point (Desert Bus for Hope, then, is on track to a four-point game, which I assume must be some kind of record). Sadly, it's the best part of the Penn and Teller game.

Wow, I got two quote of the week runner-up nods from The Comics Curmudgeon this week. Dissing on Curtis and Family Circus. What an honor. Of course, without getting one of my ideas in Pluggers or They'll Do It Every Time, all is for naught.

A slide show essay about Charles Schulz' new biography. I don't know if I should link to something with such ignorant statements as "the treacle of A Charlie Brown Christmas allow[s] Peanuts to be remembered as something sweeter, kinder, and more lovable than it truly was." Has Brian Doherty actually seen A Charlie Brown Christmas? Seems like he makes the same mistake with the special as he the one he claims fans of "dancing Snoopy" make with the strip.

A look back at Porter Wagoner. Some nice MP3s there, and some classy album artwork, too (the article is written by the same guy who hunted down the location of Wagoner's Cold Hard Facts of Life album photo shoot, which I've linked to previously).

In addition to the recent passing of Wagoner, I somehow missed the news that Hank Thompson died. Big Rock Candy Mountain has a bit to say about the third Hank of Country's trinity, along with MP3s, while that site's companion site Barstool Mountain looks at the drinking songs of Hank Thompson.

Norman Mailer, dead at 84.

eMusic adds more record labels. I just renewed my annual membership with them (I'm still grandfathered in at their old rates, getting 90 songs a month, instead of the 75 I think you get now at my membership level), despite concerns that, now that indie labels have Amazon's MP3 store, labels might be leaving eMusic in greater numbers; this announcement makes me feel very good about my decision to sign on for a year. Shout Factory? Awesome!

Obama supporters pressured North Carolina to keep Colbert off the ballot.

Lyle Lovett awarded Americana Music Association Trailblazer Award.

Disneyland's It's a Small World ride to close for a ten-month upgrade in January. Why? Because Americans are too fat for the boats.

I'm sick. The timing sucks; why couldn't I be sick last week, when I didn't have anything to do? Went to my morning tutoring session this morning; fortunately, she was sick, too, so I could go home. Had to call in sick to the library, who got all passive-agreesive on me; you know what, if I wanted Halloween off, I would've taken it off, seeing as I am a volunteer and all. If I say I'm sick, I'm sick. Hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow; after last week, I can't really afford to miss more school.

Porter Wagoner, dead at 80. He apparently announced he had lung cancer about a week ago, and was in hospice, dying during the Country Music Hall of Fame induction ceremony.

It is nice that he managed to put out his final album, received to such high acclaim (I was quite fond of the album myself), as his was a reputation that needed some restoration. But considering the magnitude of the impact of his televison show on country music, it was more than fair that he should go out on the top of his game.

The American Masters profile on Charles Schulz airs tomorrow (check local listings). My PBS affiliate is showing it on their HD channel, which is nice.

Amazon has shipped the new biography to me, but I haven't yet received it. I don't want to comment too specifically without reading the book, but it seems strange that so much of the coverage of the biography has focused on the fact that he was unhappy, as though this was a revelation. Have the people covering the biography actually read the strip, or would they just skip the strips that didn't feature Snoopy? I actually found it more interesting, as discussed in Newsweek, that Schulz seemed to cultivate his depression, nursing imagined childhood slights. Perhaps he needed to feel like the tortured artist, as discussed in the New York Times (love the artwork that accompanies that article), or felt he needed a more tragic back story to lend gravitas to his art, in a field not generally taken seriously.

As far as Schulz's family's complaints about the biography, I would not question their perception of their own father, but I haven't heard anything substantial to cause me to question the accuracy of the biography. Schulz's son complains to Editor & Publisher that 28 pages are spent on Schulz's affair, claiming that to be excessive. 28 pages in a 650+ page book devoted to the affair that destroyed his first marriage certainly sounds reasonable to me. He also specifically claims that the author mentions Jeannie Schulz's trips without Sparky, but doesn't mention when he would travel with his wife; it seems to me a similar complaint could be directed to the family's own Charles Schulz museum, which portrays him as a creature of habit loath to travel any further than the Warm Puppy Cafe a block from his home. Again, my opinion will have more weight, I suppose, once I've actually read the book, but the portrait I'm getting from the reviews doesn't seem too terribly different from what I carried away from my trip to the museum. If anything, he's more well-rounded and human.

And kudos to the Wall Street Journal for getting Bill Waterson of Calvin and Hobbes fame to review the new biography.

Mustaches of the Ninteenth Century.

The entire run of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is now available online. I've bitched in the past about Comedy Central's website, so its nice to see that their website is reasonably well-designed and navigatable. I still have the problem I've always had with Comedy Central's website where about one video in three simply will not play; I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that this is due to the site's beta status. The site layout suggests that Craig Kilborn clips will be coming, which the New York Times confirms. Which is great; I never thought I'd see those clips again, and I miss A. Whitney Brown.

Things seem to be improving today, with fire fighters finally able to get in and fight the flames, with the winds improving. Still very hot, though that's supposed to improve tomorrow. But air quality is worsening, and as the winds die down, should actually get worse, as all the smoke blown out over the ocean returns. Only one fatality so far, so at least by the most important yardstick, this isn't as bad as the Cedar fire. Acres burned will certainly exceed Cedar, but I'm not sure about homes lost.

School's canceled for the week. Library reopened today, with limited hours, so I'm about to go in for my volunteer shift. My tutoring session this morning was canceled. No word yet on if work will be closed Friday; being part of the campus, it should be closed, but we'll see.

Felt absolutely awful yesterday, barely able to function, but today I don't feel too bad. Probably because I haven't been outside; we'll see how I feel after I head down to the library (I just heard on the news it's 100 degrees in El Cajon).

I just got back from Qualcomm Stadium, where they are expecting over 100,000 evacuees tonight. Dropped off some water and food, and was happy to see lots of private and corporate citizens were making donations; Costco was bringing in huge truckloads of water. I recommend bringing your own handcart if you bring donations, as it's hard to park very close to gate P, where they're taking donations. Lugging in the water wasn't too difficult, but with the poor air quality, I really felt like crap once I'd hauled it all in (fortunately, a Marine helped me with the last few cases of water).

But yeah, the air is definitely bad. Even here in La Mesa, where the sky is still, inexplicably, blue, the air is deceptively poor. Just going out to breakfast, I found my eyes burning.

Fallbrook is under a mandatory evacuation, now, and parts of Chula Vista have a voluntary evacuation advisory. Solana Beach has been advised to prepare to evacuate. Still, very little can be done to directly fight the fire; the goal now just seems to keep the fire from reaching to the ocean. UCSD, like all schools in the county, will remain closed tomorrow, since it seems extremely inadvisable to leave your home if you don't have to.

UCSD, like many schools in the county, is closed today. The fires shifted dramatically to the west since I went to bed last night, with homes burning in Rancho Bernardo, and large regions to the west of the I-15 have been evacuated. The evacuation area north of the 56 extends all the way to I-5. Sheriff Kolender describes things as "worse than the Cedar fire." I haven't heard of any more deaths, though, which is fortunate.

The odd thing is, while there is definitely smoke here, the air quality in La Mesa isn't bad at all. Driving home from work yesterday, as I passed through Mission Valley, the sky was black to the north and west, but past there the sky suddenly turned clear blue. Things are a bit smokier today, but still fairly blue, though from my back yard I can see menacing smoke in the distance. But nothing like what I'm seeing on the news.

So, the Amazon MP3 store has been open for awhile now. I didn't mention it, because I'm getting bored with the trickle of new sources for DRM-free music, and I wasn't in the market for any music not available from my usual sources. But I did finally make a few purchases recently from Amazon, downloading the two tracks on the Pipettes' American debut that weren't on the original album I downloaded from eMusic, when it was available from them in the States, and also purchasing the new Nellie McKay album, Obligatory Villagers. If you want my opinion, the Amazon store is pretty nice, but nothing immediately game-changing. One-click shopping works fine, but I would prefer the option of a shopping cart; for instance, I would have liked to purchase the two Pipettes tracks in one transaction, and I would like to select my payment method without having to change my default settings. But the price is right, at least when it comes to albums. I think the Amazon MP3 store will be successful, but for online sales to really take off, they need to offer a complete, or nearly complete, catalog. Bring on the celestial jukebox!

As for the music itself, one could live a full and complete life without hearing the two new songs on the Pipettes album (the less said about "Dance and Boogie," the better). As for McKay's album, I've only listened to it once, so I can't pass definitive judgement. I will say, her politics can get a bit tiresome, due to her tendency to create straw men arguments to attack in her lyrics (the fact that I share her politics only makes it more aggravating). But other than that, it's a very interesting album, and musically is quite compelling, obviously influenced from her experience on stage as Polly Peachum. Like her first album, it will no doubt take me many listens to digest. But it's quite an improvement from her last album (though to be fair, I only heard the leaked version, not what was ultimately released). I recommend it (and for those unfamiliar with her, I highly recommend Get Away From Me).

One dead in San Diego fires. It also appears that the Santa Ysabel fire has overtaken the Potrero fire, with over 3000 acres burned.

Fire consumes 2500+ acres near Potrero, 70 miles east of San Diego. I've called around town, and elsewhere there's no sign of smoke, but apparently the Santa Ana winds are funneling the smoke right to La Jolla. The air quality is reminiscent of the Cedar fire of 2003, though not nearly as bad--soot doesn't seem to be making the 70 mile trek, so it's just smoke we're dealing with, and I rather doubt I'll find an inch of ash on my car when I leave work today. But it is still quite poor air quality here in La Jolla, and I anticipate things will be getting worse in the near term; this is really the first day of the Santa Ana, and already two fires are burning in the county. Should various fires start meeting up, as they did with the Ceder fire, things could be unpleasant.

Slate asks why The Office sucks so badly this season. And I agree, this season has been pretty bad so far. Tonight's episode was an improvement, but the office-centered antics left me a bit cold. I was happy to return to Dwight's farm; I can't say I enjoy those scenes, exactly, but I appreciate the mindset from which such scenes emerge. But having Pam and Jim there to so blatantly gawk at the freaks just made things feel tawdry and cruel.

In my opinion, the new season sucks because Michael has been lobotomized the same way Dwight was last season. I'm waiting for the episode where Dwight falls down a well, and Michael waits up for the Great Pumpkin. Really, the whole driving-into-a-lake thing was just too much.

Joey Bishop, dead at 89.

A few comics I enjoyed recently:

Get Fuzzy: perhaps the first time Satchel knew real fear.

Wondermark: Tomorrow's Memes, today. Of course, Bears in Ill-Fitting Hats never go out of style. The Russians knew this:
Okay, so the hat was on the human, I just wanted an excuse to share the video.

And, of course, I have to mention Slylock Fox and Cassandra Cat. I think Cassie looks quite fetching in her housekeeping garb. The Comics Curmudgeon has weighed in on her most recent appearance, as has Reynard Noir. I'll just add that, if it means more Cassandra Cat goodness, I whole-heartedly approve of the approach, evident in this strip, of depicting Cassandra flirting with various police personnel, while the crucial clues that prove her undoing are out-of-frame. It makes things easier on the eyes, and torments innocent children trained by the strip to look for hidden visual clues. A real win-win. Of course, it would be even better if the clue was out of sight because it was stuck to Cassie's ass, which would of course explain the glassy-eyed stares of Slylock and Max (at least Max has the decency to hold his hand to his chin, feigning thoughtfulness and concealing the drool). I'll gladly sit through weeks upon weeks of aliens as long as the strip keeps eventually giving up the goods. And that is all I will say about that, since I seem to have sceeved myself out a bit. But I'm sure that's nothing that can't be cured by watching the Russian magical realism bear video a few hundred times.

UPDATE: I got so flustered by that darn cat, I forgot to mention Gil Thorp: Turns out not only is the team's new quaterback unbearably lame, he also killed a guy. Gotta admit I didn't see that one coming. The story sort of lost steam after the big reveal, but the depiction of a (obviously drug-fueled) wrestling accident was pretty sweet. But please, if you decide to follow Gil Thorp, don't go it alone, go to This Week in Milford. That site somehow got me through the entire "Rock and Roll Carol King"-gets-threatening-or-at-the-least-rather-unpleastantly-negative-letters-from-a-young-Ben-Franklin storyline relatively unscathed, and I'm sure it can help you, too.

Do magicians "own" their tricks? This article reminded me of a spat last year between Ricky Jay and Eric Walton, which raised the question, who owns old magic tricks? Or rather, who gets credit for their rediscovery.

Did I mention how disappointed I was I didn't know about Ricky Jay's L.A. performances until after the fact? I did, of course. But I'll bitch about it again, since it still bums me out to no end. His collection of broadsides is on display in L.A., however, and I still have time to check it out.

Colbert is running for president. I'm a bit uncertain about this. I enjoyed watching him, on the interview circuit promoting his book, goad various interviewers into asking him if he has presidential ambition, only to act agog at the question, like many a candidate before him. But an actual campaign just seems gimmicky. I'm tempted to mention Pat Paulsen as a cautionary example, but it's hard to fault someone for following in the Smothers Brothers' footsteps. So godspeed, Colbert.

An update regarding my failed water cooler: I gave up on finding a home-filtered solution. There are some coolers available that will filter tap water, but require plumbing, which isn't available where I wanted to keep the cooler. I looked at home delivery, finding Sparkletts to be the best deal, at $30/mo. for 20 gallons/mo., including cooler rental. I was almost willing to pay that much for convenience, but a $20 set-up fee and two-year committment led me to decide to just buy a water cooler from CostCo, and get filtered water from the store by my old high school for thirty cents a gallon. The cooler was a tad expensive, but doing the math, I come out ahead after seven months (maybe eight; the five-gallon jugs were more expensive than I thought), and then I should save some twenty-odd bucks a month going forward. And the water from the store tastes pretty good; definitely better than what the Brita filter produced.

So I'm satisfied with the solution. I miss the convenience of the Brita water cooler, but filling up jugs every two weeks or so isn't so bad, and given that there is an improvement in water quality (it has got that oddly-too-clean, sterile quality to it, but that I don't mind so much), I don't mind a minor inconvenience.

In other water news, I got a notice in the mail that my water district will begin fluoridation next month, after having fought the move for years, going so far as requesting not to receive funding in order to avoid adapting fluoridation. But apparently Helix has given in, and the Communist attack on our precious bodily fluids takes another step forward.

eMusic has some free tracks available highlighting what's available over at Daytrotter. Checking out the site, I was greeted by the music of Smoosh, whom I mentioned favorably when I saw them open for the Pipettes, and who have several free songs available on Daytrotter. Their stuff on Daytrotter's pretty good, and the site seems to have a lot of music available (I already had some Casey Dienel tracks from the site, somehow, even though I'm pretty sure I've never been to the site before); one would probably be well rewarded for spending some time in their archives.

Larry Craig vows not to resign, even after guilty plea upheld. When the story first broke, he said he was not guilty, not gay, but said he would resign. Now he's a demonstrable liar on one point, but expects us to believe that he is most certainly not a dreadful homosexual. I just don't understand why he would want to put himself through further humiliation. Just leave D.C. and take your pension with you, and put this behind you.

I take no position on sex in public restrooms, but a Senator who thinks he can plead guilty to a sex-related crime and no one will ever hear about it lacks the judgement to be a Senator.

A few years back, I bought a Brita water cooler. It's like one of those coolers you would get from Sparkletts, but instead of having to have bottled water delivered, you just fill up a jug with tap water, and the cooler filters it and keeps it cool. Very handy, and more environmentally friendly than bottled water. Unfortunately, last night it sprung a leak, right after I had filled it up, spilling three gallons of water onto the kitchen floor. Quite a mess. Since I had just filled it, and there was still water in the cooler's reservoir, I just figured I put the bottle back on wrong somehow, so I put some more water in the bottle, and watched it for awhile, but soon I discovered there definitely had a leak in the machine itself. I don't know where the receipt is, but I got it about two years ago, and I think there's about a 50/50 chance the warranty has expired (and without the receipt, I'm hosed either way). No big deal, I thought, since the thing wasn't that expensive ($80 or so, if memory serves), but now I find the product appears to have been discontinued. Maybe they leak too much. But I can't find a suitable replacement for this unit. There are coolers that just take tap water, which I could live with, but without the filtering, why not just drink from the tap? Which I guess is what I'll end up doing, but if anyone knows where I can find a discontinued Brita water cooler, let me know.

The Atari 2600 is 30 years old this month. Makes me want to break out one of my classic-gaming anthologies and fire up some old-school Atari, and wonder how I ever found those games fun.

And speaking of Atari anthologies, when are we going to see E.T. in one of those collections? That I would pay for. They could do a super-deluxe version, sort of like the Showgirls DVD. Can video games be so-bad-they're-good?