MusicALL ALLphabet

And now I begin the 40-song journey through the tracks that begin with the word "All", starting with All by Collective Soul and ending with All You Need is Love.

It's probably a good thing that I go back to work tomorrow.

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Don't Talk During Movies and the Musical Alphabet

Let this story serve as a warning to people who talk during movies.

In other news, I organized the mp3 collection by song title, started at the beginning, and am just letting it play. There's nearly two weeks of music there, and I only plan on doing this while sitting at the comp at home, so this could take a long-ass while.

Sadly, if you have multiple versions of the same song, you have to listen to them all at once. Listening to Adieu from Cowboy Bebop and then immediately following that with Adieu (Long Version) is a bit harrowing if you don't have something else to do at the same time. Also, the album version of Nirvana's About a Girl sucks. That's right, I'm maybe twenty songs in and I've already had two double-ups.

On the other hand, you get some amusing juxtapositions. The list began with KoRn's A.D.I.D.A.S. and went straight into ABC by the Jackson 5. And I'm in a pretty good stretch right now. Just finished Aeroplane (with it's holy-crap-Flea-is-nuts bassline) and then Clapton's After Midnight, and next up comes Sting's After the Rain, After the Thrill Has Gone by the Eagles, and three different songs called Again buy Lenny Kravitz, Janet Jackson, and Alice in Chains.

Fun stuff. I'll point more of the crazy out as I get to it.

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The Computer Gods Hate Me

This Christmas, I did what most young adults are doing.

I fragged an iMac.

Okay, I was able to fix it, but it was a heart-pounding few hours making sure that I could. I was trying to install Windows XP via Boot Camp, and without going into too many details, I formatted the entire hard drive.

Thankfully I had the wherewithal to backup all of my files first. But it wasn't as simple as insert boot-disk-and-reload-operating-system. No, because when I booted up the computer, no matter what disk was in it, it informed me that there was nothing bootable anywhere to be found.

Well, with the Mac OS-X disk I was able to get to the install screen (but only after specifically telling the computer to boot from the disk), and then I thought I was home free, but the installer couldn't find the hard drive.

Problem.

So, I fired up the Disk Utility. It could see the disk, I just couldn't read it. Nor would it erase, repair, or partition said disk. So I spent two hours messing with it until I finally realized that it would work if I unmounted the disk first, then erased it.

And then it was a question of re-installing everything and getting my preferences back the way I like them. So I lugged it into the living room and managed to get it all more-or-less up to speed by the end of the third episode of Band of Brothers.

I attempted to install XP via Boot Camp once more, but this time I checked out the instructions. In my defense, if everything had worked properly the first time, I would have done it right and not lost the entire machine, but it turns out that the only thing the XP installer could see was the entire partition, rather than the 32G virtual partition Boot Camp had set up.

So I ran some updates and we'll see if that fixes it. Unfortunately, attempting to install (even if you Quit at the beginning of the process) makes the machine automatically try to boot from that program, whether it exists or not. Which brings back the "No bootable devices" screen. Nothing freaks you out like plain white type on a black screen. Thankfully, since the machine did have an operating system on it this time, the problem was fixed in about eighteen seconds using the Startup Utility.

So, I now know a great deal more about how iMacs work behind-the-scenes than I ever thought I would--which sort of defeats the purpose of getting an iMac, but whatever.

]{p

Bonus - while writing this post, Abby came into the room to get something and instinctively flipped the light switch as she left. The light switch controls the outlet this computer is currently plugged into. Thank god for autosave.

Going South

Remember when South Park used to be funny? Before it went to great lengths to be topical and satirical.

Somewhere in there, perhaps around season 6 or 7, it kind of lost the funny. Oh, it still had it's moments. But by the time it came around to the 10th season, you could separate the episode list into two groups: gut-busting hysteria, and bland. Column one includes the biting farewell to Isaac Hayes, The Return of Chef and the Make Love Not Warcraft episode. Column two includes... everything else. It is rife with misplaced jokes and unfunny satire. And, ironically, the show seemed to have become lost in it's own pretentiousness.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the two-part episode making fun of Family Guy. I've listened to the commentary, and the big problem they have with FG is that FG relies too heavily on random gags. Fair enough. There are a lot of random and recycled gags in Family Guy. But they're funny gags, and it's not like the show hinges completely on them. Nor are Stone and Parker the only cartoonists to criticize it. John Kricfalusi, of Ren & Stimpy fame, has cited the low standard of artistry (I guess we're expected to go to art school to learn how to draw snot), and, to be fair, I suppose he would have just as many horrible things to say about the construction-paper-amation South Park. Whatever.

But for Trey Stone and Matt Parker (no comments on this, it's intentional) to say that their brand of entertainment is somehow superior because it's gag-free strikes me as just the slightest bit hypocritical. First, let's go ahead and give their definition of a "gag". They describe it as something that's funny for the sake of funny but doesn't have anything to do with the story or plot or characters.

So, I was just now watching The Spirit of Christmas, the original short that launched the series, and the climax is resolved by... Brian Boitano. That's right. Now, I may be walking a fine line here, but "What would Brian Boitano do?" strikes me as... well, kind of a gag. But that was way in the past, let's keep this discussion on topic.

In the two-part Cartoon Wars episode, the real issue at hand is the pictorial representation of Mohammed, the prophet of Islam. This was shortly after the Danish cartoon scandal that had raised the ire of Muslims across the globe, and in the context of the South Park episodes, the writers of Family Guy want to do a joke in which Peter has tea with Mohammed, but the network won't let them and they're preparing to strike. Also, the writers are manatees.

Nope, no gags here.

Family Guy is one of the most successful cartoon in the country and is nothing if not a spiritual successor to South Park, shock humor and all. Why the bile? Why the bile when the excuse seems to be only to make a good point badly? And why does it have to be a two-parter? Pone/Starker missed an incredible opportunity to truly lambaste visual media in general (and Comedy Central in particular) about showing images of Mohammed because they've already done it!!! In the Super Best Friends episode of Season 5, Mohammed was one of the good guys. Not only was it not controversial when it came out, it was still in repeat rotation and, I believe, a clip with Mohammed in it appeared as part of the opening theme for nearly every episode since Season 5, including both of the Cartoon Wars episodes. Wouldn't it have been funny to point that out?

But, really, this is microcosmic of what's happened to South Park. They keep missing the point, and it was really bad in Season 10. Consider the episode in which the kids are endangered by Al Gore on his mission to rid the world of ManBearPig. It wasn't funny. It was making fun of An Inconvenient Truth, but also demonstrated that Park/Stoner had clearly never bothered to watch it, and it was rooted in a faulty assumption: namely that Al Gore jumped on the Global-Warming bandwagon after his failed presidential bid in 2000, despite the fact that he wrote Earth in the Balance in 1992 and has written articles on the topic specifically as far back as 1989. Or Mystery of the Urinal Deuce, in which 9/11 conspiracy theories are lampooned by... the Hardy Boys being... gay lovers????

Okay, well, at least there aren't any gags here either...

So now we have South Park Studios, which offers every episode for free as streaming video. Congrats. I'm all for it. I routinely sing the praises of Hulu. Very forward-thinking. There's just one problem.

I don't care.

I want to care. But I don't. I've heard Season 11 is really funny. Still don't care. Evan has been hounding me for weeks to watch the Pandemic episodes from Season 12, which I finally started this morning. I got interrupted about 15 minutes in and haven't gotten a chance to finish it, but I'm not even sure I want to because so far the entire episode has hinged on this joke that you can't walk ten feet in a major city without tripping over a Peruvian Pan-flute band. Well, I live in a major city, and used to live in an even major-er city, and in my whole life I've run across one pan-flute player at a street festival in Hermann, Missouri--and if you've never heard of Hermann, there's a very good reason for that--and he was not Peruvian. He wasn't even Latin-American.

Here's my beef. I have only one request of comedies: they need to be funny. I like smart, I like surreal, I like topical, but I gotta go out on a limb and say that I don't think any of that works if the funny isn't there as well. And South Park used to be funny. It used to be so very damned funny, right from it's "oh my god, they killed Kenny" origins. Incidentally, Season 5 is the time they killed him off "permanently" and (save the occasional call-back) did away with that running... um... running... oh, what's it called?...

I want to say "running choke" but I don't think that's right. It'll come to me.

Anyway, I've rambled, and I'm made this post far, far too long considering it's bitching about things that aren't, so much, you know, culturally relevant.

Oh yeah, Merry Christmas.

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An Open Letter to Those Who Argue Against an Economic Stimulus Package

Dear Sirs (and Madam):

In regards to your opposition to any kind of government spending on behalf of the people, let me just say this: The Cold War ended twenty years ago.

Drop it.

Regards,
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Wife Revenge

Reasons I would never cheat on my wife.  She would take revenge.

(courtesy of failblog.org)

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Kurt Plugs His Genealogy Site

I got something very special this weekend--a copy of my great uncle Bob's genealogy notebook.

I've never been hugely interested in genealogy, but at some point in the last six months or so I discovered a website called Dynastree.com. Actually, when I found it, it was called "It's Our Tree", but the name change is for the better. It's part social network, but mostly it's just a family tree repository--anyone you invite into your tree can edit it, and it's a fairly intuitive interface.

Finding this website opened up some possibilities to me. Again, family histories have fascinated me, but never really interested me until now. But I had a kind of hokey epiphany about it, suddenly recognizing the extent to which people are connected...

I must pause to give Uncle Bob a few words of praise--his very detailed, going back six generations from myself in some lines. He has photocopies of newspaper clippings, birth, death, and marriage certificates--the man has done some research. And this was assembled in 1994, before the internets were everywhere. He did his work with his own shoe-leather, visiting halls of record, cemeteries and libraries.

So now I'm adding his work to the tree, and it has grown. And it's grown in other ways, too--a new niece, a cousin gets married. Part of me has this silly ideal that a few people in any given family will have the gumption to fill things out as much as they can and it will grow and grow and trees will collide and grow even larger.

I'm also amazed by the real-life drama involved in it. You learn about the uncle who got on a train one day and was never heard from again. There's a clipping in there about a great-great-aunt on my mother's side who was orphaned and adopted at the age of five, only to discover thirteen years later that she had five siblings she never knew about, one of which had never been tracked down, one of which had spent a few years with a rather cruel foster family before running away and living with horse traders for two years, and then traveling the country for ten-odd years doing odd jobs and such.

Long sentence, that.

People disappear. But other people leave paper trails.

So anyway, it's a UK-based site, so it's got a few minor regional quirks (like asking for height in cm rather than feet and inches), but it's worth a look at. I think.

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Spam-a-cide, finale!

Well, it's that special time of year where you can leave leftovers in your car for days on end with no adverse affects.

And I've decided to resume deleting my spam. It's been fun, but I'm bored of it, and that giant number next to my Spam folder irks me so. It leveled off around 620 and then slowly started to climb. It was at 699 when I decided that enough was, in fact, enough.

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Spirit, Meet the Phantom

Reviews for The Spirit are starting to roll in, and it doesn't look quite as bad as I thought it would be.

...Okay, you got me, that's an out-and-out lie. According the reviews, it's every bit as bad as I thought it would be--in fact, it may even be worse, if that's possible. Ain't it Cool News has some links, and Rotten Tomatoes has one review up (it'll take four more before they post a percentage).

So, if you need some good light reading that appeals to your sense of schadenfruede, head over to AIC or RT and check out the new so-god-awful-it's-almost-funny film from Frank Miller.

Actually, what I think is going to be the ultimate end of this ordeal is that it's going to do irreparable harm to the pending Sin City 2. Admittedly, I didn't care for the flick all that much, but I know quite a few people who do. But I think millers taint on Will Eisner's classic proto-noir tale is going to leave a bad taste in everyone's mouths that won't have fully abated come 2010.

Which, full disclosure, I'm eight different kinds of "just fine" with.

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Kiss My Sam Ash!

Holy crap, Amazon sells guitar strings?

What else do they sell?  Guitars?  Check.  Amps?  Check.  Pedals?  Check.  Cables?  Check.

I'm... I'm just... wow.  I might never have to set foot in a music store again.  Do you have any idea how relieving that thought is?

Guitar stores have lost all sex appeal for me.  They have crap selection, are staffed by worthless burnouts, overcharge for everything, and they ask for way too much information when you check out so they can send you their endless catalogs and e-mails.  Once in a blue moon they have a good special, and if you absolutely need to try something before you buy it, then they serve that purpose.  But for shopping--no thank you, I'll take Amazon.

This is perfect for things like strings, they cost half as much and I can get free shipping by purchasing several sets at once--so long as I don't end up in a situation where I need strings right now, I'm set.

This... has been a revelation.

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Crowe Watch: Schnuck's in Bridgeton

The clerk at the grocery called me on the Crowe-resemblance.

And the hits just keep on coming. That's like three in two weeks. Wacky!

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Officer of the Law of Unintended Consequences

So, thanks to my rant about McAfee Virus Scan and Hijackware in general, Google has started posting ads for McAfee Virus Scan and Vista fixes in my adsense boxes.

Seriously, what did we do before irony?

Granted, this is not nearly as funny as the old RockandRollConfidential.com with their Hall of Douchebags.  That site used the term "douche" enough that it regularly got ads for feminine products.  And, even though it no longer updates, it's still a great way to kill about four hours.

HCwDB has managed to avoid this problem by soliciting ads directly, rather than using Google's placement service.  They also cunningly disguise some of their ads as regular intra-site links.  So, it's nice to see that the porn-site revenue model has found it's way into the quasi-mainstream.

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Russel Crowe's In-Laws

I spent the weekend helping my mother-in-law move, during which she told me that she had shown copies of mine and Abby's wedding video to her friends, and they had commented to her that I looked like...

dun dun dun...

Russel Crowe.

Ahh, my ongoing blight of bearing a passing resemblance to a recognizable actor.  The funny thing is that some people are totally floored by the resemblance and others (myself and my wife included) don't really see it.  But it's profound enough that strangers come up to me and point it out.  Weird.  I should totally start a TOFOG cover band... if only TOFOG had ever had any good music.

The same summer that I first was nicknamed "Russel" I had the nickname "Steve" as well.  I was a camp counselor at the time and had shaved my head because... well, I don't actually know why.  But I bic'd it every morning for two months and, being a large-ish dude, reminded some of the campers of the pink-shirted head of security for the Jerry Springer show, whose name is Steve Wilkos (and who now has his own Springer-like show).

]{p(~R.C.^S.W.)

PS: "~" is used as a proxy for "not" in symbolic logic, "^" is used for "or"--the rest I leave you to figure out.

Rock Rocks!

God, it feels good to be a musician again.

The band has been on semi-permanent hiatus for months since Walt left for med-school--and while we certainly can't fault Walt for his choice, it has been slightly depressing to be drummer-less (and there is no hell like trying to find a new drummer).

But Blind Satellite now has a drummer, and we've spent the last couple months practicing and will soon be up to show-putting-on speed.

And damn, it feels good to be a musician again.

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Bat Insurance

So, this conversation really happened a few weeks ago (I've trimmed out some of the non-related conversational bits--Evan and I converse in threads, it seems... no pun intended).  I don't know why I was reminded of it, but it's a great example of me taking a quasi-funny joke just a few steps too far.

me: How's your extended weekend going?

11:54 Evan: I'm going bat-shit insance

  insane

 me: Heh, for a second there it looked like you said you were going into bat-shit insurance

 

 Evan: lol

 me: seriously, I smell entrepreneurship... and also guano.

11:55 Evan: bats really do smell quite foul...

11:56 me: Of course, the real motivator that will put us on the map will be the gaggle of radioactive bats (raised on a diet of Corn Nuts) that we will unleash on the city at the stroke of midnight on New Years Eve

  MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

 Evan: Umm

  .

  ...

  you're scaring me

 me: too weird?

 Evan: a bit

Recruitment Blues

If you've never gone through the agony of hiring someone... you should.  It builds character.

I've ranted on it here and here.

Evan's currently ranting on it here, here, and here.  Because he's currently looking for people (read his--they're much shorter than mine).

And my wife tells me that someone she works with sent something back that had "been rebuild" (co-worker's spelling, not my wife's).  I'm assuming the offending party meant "rebilled" and not "rebuilt".

Sad.

In a world that is increasingly reliant on ever-complicating technology, it's too bad that the human race isn't really getting any more sophisiticated.

Alas.

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An Open Letter to the Manager of My Employer's Office Building

Dear building manager:

Using four cheap paper towels to dry my hands, rather than a single sturdy paper towel, does not save you any money.

That is all,

]{p

Submit this to Webster: Hijackware

I've heard more stories in the last month that involve people bricking their computers with McAfee's virus protection. This ranges from the merely unfortunate (a person running McAfee on an underpowered computer), to the somewhat ironically unfortunate (a woman whose husband insists she run McAfee on her underpowered computer, even though he uses AVG on his), and then the downright silly (trying to install an anti-virus program on top of McAfee--this ultimately led to the computer not being able to boot properly).

The names have been withheld to protect the guilty.

How does one describe what McAfee ViruScan does to a computer? Well, it kills performance, takes control of your operating system, and doesn't do a particularly good job of catching viruses--at least, that's what you can find under the "criticism" section of its Wikipedia page. The old joke is that it is, itself, basically a virus, only it's one that you pay for.

Per Evan, if you want to avoid infecting your computer:

1. Never open an attachment that you aren't expecting.
2. Don't use Outlook to check your e-mail (it tends to open attachments for you... and, let's be honest, that program is nearly as bloated as McAfee)
3. Don't go to porn sites.
   

And you're set. Or just install AVG, set it to update and scan once a month. It's free. It's pretty solid. It's bloated, to be sure, but at least it has the common decency to shut off when you tell it to. It also keeps it's tendrils to itself--unlike every other antivirus suite I've run across.

Of course, the biggest problem with these AV programs is that they're obsessively proprietary. If you try to install more than one, they crash your system. Douchebags. And you have a very limited number of people working to improve the software--one of the nice things about open source programs (like AVG) is that they're being updated constantly by a large number of concerned citizens--smart people who want a working anti-virus that doesn't try to take over their PC's.

Why don't they have a "ware" name for this kind of crap? I mean, there's names for everything else. Beerware. Postcardware. Adware. Shovelware. Freeware. Shareware. Nagware. Bloatware. Demoware. Crippleware. But what do you call something that hijacks your computer because it seems to think it knows better than you how to use the damned thing? The terms Hostageware and Ransomware are taken (and mean something else).

How about Hijackware? Who's with me? Hijack has some unfortunate connotations... terroristware... Too on-the-nose? Parentware? Sounds too kindly. Very well, hijackware, it is.

It's important to make the distinction between hijackware and bloatware. Bloatware is... well, bloated. iTunes for Windows (arguably for Mac as well) is bloated. Adobe Acrobat Reader is notoriously bloated (although I think it's gotten better recently). OpenOffice.org 2 was almost unusably bloated, (it too has been fixed--OOo 3 is slick). Big, slow, resource-intensive, burdened with unecessary features that keep the regular features from working optimally. That's bloatware.

But protectware... is that a word?... antivirus software in general and McAfee in particular are not only bloated, but intrusive. You try to turn them off--you can't. You try to uninstall them because you want to switch to a competitor--sorry. You try to surf the internet with the firewall on--try again. But McAfee isn't the worst offender, not by a long shot.

Yahoo! is, I would argue, just as bad. For a job, I once had to install Yahoo Messenger on a computer, and it reset my homepage and installed it's toolbar on my default browswer (and if you ever want to break a browser--star loading it up with third-party toolbars). All this when I installed a chat client! AOL doesn't even make you install the program anymore, you can run AIM in a browswer window. But Yahoo! wants to own your PC.  But Yahoo! isn't the worst either, if only because they narrowly avoided a merger with Microsoft.

Windows Media Player is a great example of the MS hijacking hijinks. I installed it, set it to default--I wanted to try something other than WinAmp, and then I promptly decided to go back to WinAmp. But you can't. You can't uninstall, or set to not be your default; you'd be hard-pressed to even find a freaking properties menu. You have to go and open up WinAmp and then import whatever it is you want to listen to. If you right click on a file and choose "open with WinAmp", Media Player opens instead.

Christ.

You can't uninstall Internet Explorer (and, for the record, IE is the most useless browser in the world). If you delete it from your quick-launch bar, it reappears whenever Windows updates. Which happens every damned week with Vista--and Oh-My-God I could bitch for hours about Vista.

So, I will.

Now, in MS's defense, it's hard to say that Windows hijacks your operating system when it is, in fact, your operating system. But it does try to tell you how to use it, and it does tend to get in its own way, and they have hijacked the computer industry (seriously, try and find any good games that are Mac-friendly). And there are things that Vista does well... surely... but there are three things that it does very, very badly. Which I will demonstrate by comparing them to their Apple equivalents (Yes, Apple fanboy here, and yes, I'm well aware of it's shortcomings--but that's a rant for a different post).

First, there's the aforementioned Windows Update. First of all, I don't understand why Windows needs to be updated every week. Second, I find out about updates when they're already downloaded and Vista informs me that it's going to reboot in 5 minutes, unless I tell it to postpone--which it will do, but only for up to 4 hours. The 5-minutes to reboot screen typically comes up when I've been at the computer for 15 minutes or so--just long enough to set up my workstation and open up a few webpages. God forbid I go to get a cup of coffee and take more than 5 minutes while I've got something important on the screen.

Apple updates are just as frequent, but they're optional. You, the user, are informed that there are updates available--you can start them installing, or not. You can choose which updates you want to install (why install Safari updates if you use Firefox to surf the web?). You can let them aggregate and then install them all once a month. Once they're all installed, the computer informs you that it will need to be rebooted and gives you the option to reboot now, or later. And if you chose later, it assumes that you will shut the computer off eventually, and it quits nagging you about it. Also, Apple updates don't cause computers to crash. I've seen Windows updates do that. Today.

Second, the most important security feature on Vista is so annoying that most users disable it. When you try to run a program, it blacks out the screen (which, let me tell you, can be a little pulse-pounding, given Window's track record for crashing) and asks you if you meant to do that? Why does it have to black out the screen to do this? Macs simply give you a dialog box when you install something--and you enter your password. Vista, on the other hand, occasionally screws up your screen resolution settings when it asks you if you meant to run a program that you just started running.

Lastly, there's Vista's namesake--the little switch-between-windows button you've hit a dozen times on accident and never once on purpose.  It's an interesting idea, but is displays the windows at a funky angle that makes individual windows rather difficult to identify.  And it's slow.  And it's unnecessary, frankly, what with the Start bar down at the bottom of the screen (although I would love to be able to move tabs around in the Start bar, but no such luck).  Apple's Expose does the same thing, only better and more smoothly, and benefits from it quite a bit since Mac's have a Dock instead of a smart bar, which keeps track of programs that are open, rather than windows that are open.  And if you start it accidentally, you can undo it immediately, and the whole ordeal takes about half a second of your time.

Those are my big complaints, but not my only.  What about the Sidebar, the glitchy widget-farm that apes Apple's Dashboard, all while taking up valuable real estate?  Or the fact that Vista is the very definition of Crippleware.  Seriously.  There is only one install disc.  No matter which version you "buy", the only difference in what you're getting is the product key and the packaging.  In fact, when you install it, you're installing all features, but it only turns on certain ones based on your product key.

What it all comes down to is a computer philosophy.  Should a computer do what you tell it, or should it tell you what to do?  Now, as hard as I've been on Microsoft in the last few paragraphs, PC's offer you a great deal more freedom than Mac's, they just don't always do what they're supposed to very well and can be a great deal more difficult to use at times.  And, again, an operating system has to dictate the way a computer functions--that's its job.  And none of this is going to matter much longer, not after Google wins the presidency in 2016 and then takes over the world.

But does an anti-virus solution need to tell me how to run my computer?  Hello no... it can sit in it's goddamn chair like the other students and do it's work quietly!

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Well, Technically He's Related, but Only Recently

Kurtharis.com welcomes its newest reader, Bill. Hi, new friend!

We're just inches away from double-digit readership, folks. Thanks for keeping the dream alive.

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Spam-a-cide, part 4

My spam folder is now holding 582 messages and has reached the point where it will start automatically deleting anything 30 days old or older.  Since my spam intake has decreased thanks to some timely arrests in California, 582 (or so) may be a peak.  Once delection kicks in, it should start to drop and then even out around, say, 500 or so, which is impressive, but well shy of the 1500 I'd predicted when I first started this experiment.  And furthermore, I'd be supremely surprised if it manages to crest 600 before the day is out.

I almost wish I'd begun this sooner, because it would have been fun to watch the level decrease from 1500 down to 500 slowly, organically, cathartically.

Whatever.

Bonus rant: how do we know spam is evil?  The first commercial spam was for/by lawyers.

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It's About Damned Time

Netflix video-streaming service is now Mac-Compatible.  However, you still have to download and install a bloated bit of quirky software to use it.

So, nice effort (and the effort is appreciated), but take a lesson from Hulu, will ya?

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Same Bat-Time, Same Bat-Channel

I picked up The Dark Knight this morning--left early to get to Target right when they opened.  Maybe I was a little paranoid.  Yes, I intellectually know that any store would be stupid not to have enough on-hand to satisfy the staggering sales that will accompany this release.  But I still anticipated a line and having to go to three different stores.

Boy was I wrong.  So, without any effort whatsoever, I picked up my two-disc limited edition copy of The Dark Knight in a limited-edition... Batman head... DVD case...

Okay, this is a Target thing, and I thought it was kind of cool before, but now it's starting to bug me.  Like, Transformers made sense to me.  Sure, the DVD case "transforms" into Optimus Prime (although, as Abby cleverly pointed out, it's Optimus Prime as he might appear on South Park).  And then this year for Iron Man with the mask that opens up to reveal the discs--similar to the way the mask on the suit opens up to reveal Tony Stark's face.  Sure, I can go along with that.  But a Batman head as a DVD case for The Dark Knight?  It just... It just doesn't seem very classy, that's all.

Yes, it's a comic book movie, and yes it was a summer blockbuster, but are we really going to give it the same kind of treatment as the fun-but-light-and-comical Iron Man or the fun-but-stupid-and-glossy Transformers?  'Twas a much weightier film than that.  Of course, if it had bothered me all that much, I could have just driven down the lot to the Wal-Mart and purchased it there.  I'm completely aware that I'm bitching about nothing here.  Regardless, I couldn't shake the tinge of disappointment.  And at packaging of all things.  I'm turning into such a snob these days.

Anyway, I've been itching to see this movie again for about two months, so I'm psyched... and at the same time, a little sad that I have band practice tonight.  I mean it--I was seriously toying with a trek out to Mid Rivers Mall for the midnight sale at Best Buy just so I wouldn't have to wait until morning.  Were I not otherwise engaged, I'd be all about OD-ing on features and commentary tonight... which I may do anyway.  But no, I'm an adult, I'm too old to be geeking out (erm... well, completely geeking out) over stuff like this anymore.

C'est la vie, no?

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Crowe Watch: Thanksgiving Leftovers

Meant to mention this last weekend (hence the title), but I received word down that grapevine that my aunt was watching A Good Year and couldn't help but notice the similarity in appearance between the film's star and yours truly.

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What Made Him Think a Baby Would Like Drumming?

I'm reprinting this post from my other blog (on MySpace) from December 6, 2007, for several reasons. First, I have since figured out who performed that god-awful version of Little Drummer Boy, second, because I my former MySpace blog isn't very link-friendly, and third, because it's a good post, but it probably merits some editing. So, yes, this is part hubris.

But it's funny hubris.

-K

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There are songs out there whose narrative evokes wonder and interpretation throughout the ages. Who hasn't sought the meaning behind American Pie by Don McLean or The Beatles' I am the Walrus, for example. Songs of such complexity, such compelling story, that they capture the imagination and force the listener to question the deep, resonant meaning at the heart of it.

Little Drummer Boy is not one of these songs. It's pretty straightforward.

And yet, today I heard a cover of it on muzak by a group who seemed to not understand what the song is about, musically or otherwise. And this staggers my brain, because what is there to "get" about it? Little boy plays the drum, gets caught up with a group going to see this newborn king somewhere, sees the baby, emotes, realizes he hasn't brought a gift (which is apparently of some importance where these songs are concerned), plays the drum instead, the child--strangely not angry about the loud noise--who just happens to be Baby Jesus, smiles at the drummer boy and all is right in the world. Yippee. Kind of a stupid, yes. No mention of drums or drummer boys in the source material, but whatever--it's Christmas.

From a musical standpoint, the song is a simple repetition of verses. It has no chorus, but each line refrains to "Parum-pa-pum-pum", which is repeated dramatically at the end of each verse before throwing in one last line to tie the whole verse together. The style is very similar to old folk tunes, the hook is catchy enough, it's a sweet story even if it is complete bunk, and there you have it. If you can't hold all of that in your head, that's kind of sad. If you are a professional in the music business and can't grasp all this, then you need to consider a career change. If you are a professional in the music industry who knows this song, decides to record a version of it to be released commercially, and still don't have any idea what this song is about, then you must be Destiny's Child.

This may be the worst ever Christmas song. This includes Jingle Bells as sung by dogs. Give it a listen. The first belly-laugh is around 1:24.

"Parum-pa-pum-pum" is the equivalent of a chorus for this song, chaining the narrative together and propelling the story ahead, all the while reminding us what the song is about. It should work out nicely for an R&B song, because R&B singers, as I'm fond of pointing out, all forgot what choruses were sometime in the mid-90's. Modern R&B is generally a string of monosyllabic, however heartfelt, sentiments used as vocal acrobatics and cordoned off in blocks that are delineated by the absence or presence of back-up singers. Let it go for about four and a half minutes (or substantially longer if this is an R. Kelly song), against a background loop of... whatever, and you've got a Grammy-winner. It's pretty sad--in fact, just talking about it is making me yen for Boys II Men a little.

Sigh.

And yet, even this crude formula could be applied successfully (and no doubt has) to such a simple song as Little Drummer Boy. The parum's become a vessel that edges the song along, and every third set of parum's becomes an abstract climactic build, perfect for showing off those tuned vocalists and their impossibly accurate back-up singers. Catch your breath and on the next verse, each time getting a little bit crazier, until finally it builds up to one thundering orgasm of "parum" and energy and, erm, piety... then laying back for a smoke with that cathartic final line "Then he smiled at me, me and my drum."

Destiny's Child's rendition sounds very much like someone handed the girls a lyric sheet and said "pretend like you have no idea what this song is supposed to sound like and... we're rolling..." And it's all scattershot, really, they just sing bits of the first verse and a half over and over until they decide to stop singing.

So, the arrangement is out there. And by "out there", I mean "impossible to listen to with a straight face". But the lyrics were what made me laugh out loud. I know what you're thinking--how could anyone screw up the lyrics to a song like Little Drummer Boy? Well, let me explain. First, there's the slight issue of gender identification. This version was sung by females, and frequently "boy" is replaced with "girl" such as in the line "I am a poor boy, too", which is perfectly fine, but it causes some titular consternation. The phrase "Little Drummer Boy" does not actually appear anywhere in the lyrics, but if the narrator identifies herself as female then perhaps that version of the song ought to be called "Little Drummer Girl".

And you know, I don't have a problem with that either. Here's my issue: not only did the singer identify herself as "a poor girl", she also was constantly making references to the drummer boy! As though there were multiple drummers there celebrating the savior's birth! Hell, we brought a whole drum line and coordinated a routine; mind if we play it out in the field there? No wonder there was no room at the inn! There was a marching band conference in town!!

But wait, there's more.

Take this line for example: "Then he smiled at me, the little drummer boy smiled at me!" The artist here seems to not realize that Jesus and the Little Drummer Boy are TWO DIFFERENT PEOPLE! So there's Jesus, freshly born, curled up in swaddling clothes, wailin' on the skins like John Bonham... it doesn't work. But the clincher, the laugh-out-loud-and-piss-your-pants part of the song came earlier. At around 1:24.

"Shall I play for him? parum-pa-pum pum, rum-pa-pum-pum... every night."

Every night?

Did someone think this Christmas carol was a bit short on sexual tension? Happy birthday Jesus, I'm your present! What the hell kind of nonsense is this? I know that people "love" Jesus. I get that. But I don't think they mean sexually. But what the hell, suppose we accepted that on faith as well--that someone out there might be sexually attracted to their "messiah". It's vaguely creepy, but I can understand how it might happen. But someone sidling up to a newborn infant Jesus--days old--and wanting to get all freaky with the savior? Really?

Seriously, you cannot go mixing religion and pedophilia like that! It won't fly.

At least, not in the Protestant Church...

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Christmas Sleigh?

Has anyone made a Holiday slasher film called Secret Santa yet? Because someone should.

Seriously.

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The Na's Have It

I was thinking the other day about all the songs out there that use "Na-na-na" instead of lyrics at some point, and not only are there quite a few of them, but many of them are popular.  So below is what I could come up with off the top of my head.  Anybody think of anything else?  Stipulation: I'm looking for lyric substitution.  Something where a good old fashioned word would have worked perfectly, but the artists instead decided to go with "na".  So while Master P's Make 'em Say Uhh would work, I wouldn't count Welcome to the Jungle, because that's more of a stutter.

So here's what I came up with in ten minutes, definitely all in a classic rock vein:

• Hey Jude by The Beatles
• Land of 1,000 Dances by Wilson Pickett
• Crocodile Rock by Elton John
• Hush by Deep Purple (although the Kula Shaker version is better)
• Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye by Steam (arguably the most gratuitous example on this list)

Honorable Mention:

• Tom's Diner by Suzanne Vega
• Anything by Sha Na Na

Thoughts?

Prop 8, the Musical on Funny or Die

Stuff like this is why I totally love the internets.  Watch this, right now.

I tried to embed it, but it was getting cut off at the right edge.  Something to work on, Blogger.

Anyway.

You couldn't have done anything like this ten or fifteen years ago.  But here, a group of people in response to something in culture were able to, in a month, write, stage, cast, and shoot, edit, and distribute a short film with A-List actors in it (okay, and several B-listers as well).

Also, it's hilarious.

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Zelda Reflections

I finished The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess over the long weekend.

The only other one I've completed is the original 8-bit LoZ for the NES, and I only beat that in the last year and a half or so, thanks to the Wii's virtual console. Abby can attest: before even loading up Wii Sports, I got online and downloaded Zelda and then beat it over the course of the next few days. And now here I am, finishing off Twilight Princess. But what about all the chapters in between?

Well, I haven't played any of the handheld titles, which are numerous.  Link's Awakening, the Oracle games, The Phantom Hourglass, The Minish Cap, and a few others, I think.  No, I stick to the console stuff, generally.

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, along with Mario, suffers from awkward-sequel-itis. In the case of Super Mario Bros., the sequel was so brutally difficult that, rather than export it to the U.S., Nintendo of America decided to localize the hit Japanese title Yume Kojo: Doki Doki Panic and replace the character sprites with characters from the Mario-verse. Which is why SMB2 feels so out-of-place compared to it's predecessor. Similarly, Zelda II got a gameplay redesign that proved to be... unpopular. Suffice it to say, if you love all Zelda games save one, it's Zelda II.

Also, why is "adventure" singular?

A Link to the Past is supposed to be one of the classic Z-games, and I've got it for the SNES, but the few times I've booted it up, I just couldn't get into it. If I ever get up the gumption to just plow through it, I'm sure it'll be great. See also: Majora's Mask.

Ocarina of Time is great, and, unlike Sonic or Mega Man, the transition of the franchise to 3-D was a genuine upgrade. It's also one of the first games I that I can recall ever eliciting a genuine emotional response--in this case, fear (it was a fight with a giant spider, one in which I had entered a room without knowing what to expect and then looked up to see the evil arachnid approaching). However, the part of me that longs to get through a game without consulting a walkthrough locked horns with the would-be completionist in me, so I end up getting pretty far in and then giving up out of frustration. I'll finish it one of these days, though.

And as for Wind Waker, I just got bored of it. Never mind that the GameCube Controller blows, the game just gets dull--you wander around in a boat forever. I'm far enough into it that I could probably just go fight the final boss and be done with it. I probably should, before I completely forget the controls.

What is it about these games that compels me to start them, though? Is it the weird semi-spiritual story? Yes, the stories can be interesting, but they all basically follow the same pattern: Zelda (named after F. Scott Fitzgerald's wife) is the princess of Hyrule and is kidnapped by a pig-beast named Ganon. You play as Link, a left-handed youth in a green tunic who must find the master sword, go on an epic fetch-quest to find... something, and then defeat Ganon and save the princess/day.

There's something quaintly primal about them, though.  At it's heart, every Zelda game is a simple morality tale.  The mythology of the series revolves around three artifacts called TriForce that were left by the gods to maintain balance in the kingdom of Hyrule.  The TriForce represent "Courage", "Wisdom", and "Power", and these are associated with our three recurring characters, Link, Zelda, and Ganon, respectively.  Now, consider the story behind the first game:

Ganon has stolen the TriForce of Power and kidnapped Princess Zelda in an attempt to gain the TriForce of Wisdom.  Zelda, however, has hidden the TriForce of Wisdom throughout the world and commanded her servant to find a hero that can challenge Ganon.  The servant finds Link and charges him with rescuing the princess.  Link, who has the TriForce of Courage, explores the world and gains the TriForce of Wisdom.  By combining the TriForce of Wisdom and the TriForce of Courage, Link is able to overcome the TriForce of Power and thereby defeat Ganon.

Now, re-read it, only this time, skip over every instance of the phrase "the TriForce of", and the morality tale becomes apparent.  Observe:

Ganon has stolen Power and kidnapped Princess Zelda in an attempt to gain Wisdom.  Zelda, however, has hidden Wisdom throughout the world and commanded her servant to find a hero that can challenge Ganon.  The servant finds Link and charges him with rescuing the princess.  Link, who has Courage, explores the world and gains Wisdom.  By combining Wisdom and Courage, Link is able to overcome Power and thereby defeat Ganon.

The games tweak the formula.  Sometimes Ganon steals Power, sometimes it's given to him by the gods and he has been corrupted by it.  But it always comes down to the same thing.  Power cannot acquire Wisdom by force, but cannot rule without it.  Wisdom, however, summons Courage, and Courage is bolstered by it.

Enough philosophy.  Playing Twilight Princess has given me an appreciation for level designers though.  The puzzles (there's some combat, but the game is mostly puzzle-based, and even a great deal of the fighting has something to do with puzzles) were just counter-intuitive enough that it was intellectually rewarding to solve them, but I didn't have to look anything up and think "oh, how the hell was I supposed to come up with that solution?"  And towards the end they were getting pretty bizarre (to open door, first turn into a wolf, then use your "sense" ability to see that there are ghosts all pointing at a picture--turn back into a human and blow up that picture with a bomb and the door will open), but the game preens you for weird puzzles throughout.

Of course, this appreciation was greatly-informed by playing Portal and going to the commentary nodes (yes, it's a video game with audio commentary) and learning how much the levels were tweaked in order to get game-testers to do things like look at the ceiling, and the fact that the first 2/3's of the game is basically training you for the last third.

I digress.

Another thing that struck me about Twilight Princess was the level to which non-Link characters aid you throughout the story, particularly Midna.  Traditionally, Link is an emblem of solidarity--a hero chosen by the gods, as it were, to face down Ganon.  But there's more emphasis on cooperation in this game--and Midna, the little twilight-imp that acts as your guide and narrator, does a fair amount of fighting on your behalf.  Still, given the epic nature of the worlds and the Tolkien-envy of many of the characters, I can't help but think that Link should be leading an army or something.

Still, all in all Twilight Princess impressed me.  It's solidly put together with lots of varied gameplay.  The sword combat feels good, and the Wii controls are fairly intuitive.  The pointer-controlled retical was a godsend (I hate aiming with an analog stick) and made the bow-and-arrow and boomerang and such much easier to use.  The more complicated fighting controls were introduced slowly (as you "find" them), which made them easier to adopt and incorporate into your combat tactics.  Horse controls were quirky, but the thing actually behaved sort of horse-like.  Additionally, there was a dollup of horseback combat, which I found oddly engaging.  Controls and combat as a wolf (oh, yeah, you spend a lot of time as a wolf in this game) was also solid and engaging, although I prefered Link in his human form.  The magical-musical-instrument gimmick (i.e., the namesakes of both Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker) were scaled back, and I have no problem with that.  The bosses were huge and the final fights did a good job of incorporating the various weapons and tactics you'd acquired throughout the game.

And it looked great, and there was always something to do.  It never slipped into Grand Theft Auto-style sandboxery.  That is, you always knew where you were supposed to go next.  The devices that keep you from venturing onto parts of the map you don't need to be just yet never feel overly contrived.

I'm anxious to see what the next Zelda title is going to look like.

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Cyber Monday

Happy Cyber Monday to you all.

For folks like me who despise the public and shun the light, today is our day to celebrate exuberance by shopping online.  Me?  I disdain retail shopping experiences much as the next (although they are sadly still necessary for staples); my Holiday shopping plan for several years now has included "avoid any mall at all cost".  Three years of working in a chain that doesn't close on Christmas will do that to anyone, I guess.  So, Amazon.com, here I come.

Interestingly, the Monday following Thanksgiving doesn't actually have much significance in terms of online sales--as part of the joy of shopping online is the ability to do it "wheneverthehell".  The Monday following Thanksgiving was a bigger deal three or four years ago when fewer people had broadband connections at home and did much of their shopping at work.  Nowadays, Thanksgiving day itself sees a great deal of traffic.

I've gotten a good toe-hold on my shopping, and I'll do more later this week (today is payday), but I'm a bit flummoxed on gifts for some of my family members--and I really don't want to get gift cards for everyone this year.  I used to be quite good at picking out gifts--and I took pride in having all or nearly all of my shopping done before Turkey Day.  I'll see if I can reclaim some of that in the next few weeks.

As for Abby and myself--we've already exchanged part of our Christmas gifts, and we'll exchange any future gifts as they arrive, which may or may not be before Christmas Day.  We're pretty laid back that way.

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