Archive for category Entertainment
Happy 40th, Sesame Street!
Posted by Brad in Parenting, Television on 10 November 2009
In honour of Sesame Street’s 40th anniversary, here are some classic videos.
Do you know where your copy of 1984 is?
I know where mine is: in my car.
However, had I purchased 1984 for Amazon’s Kindle I would have woken up this morning to find that it had been deleted.
You don’t own the ebooks you buy for the Kindle. Anybody telling you different is a fool.
Of course, it was irony of ironies that the books in question were written by George Orwell. A corporation reaching into your home in the middle of the night to remove things you thought you’d purchased? Eric Blair is spinning in his grave.
Canadian Indie in TV commercials
Posted by Brad in Music, Television on 02 June 2009
We were watching Numb3rs last night when an ad for the Honda Insight came on:
The song is the excellent “See You On The Moon” by Great Lake Swimmers.
Also appearing in a car ad is Holy Fuck, whose song “Lovely Allen” can be found in this Chrysler ad:
Free Sub Pop sampler on Amazon
Geof points out this free Sub Pop sampler of eleven songs from various Sub Pop artists, including Fleet Foxes, Flight of the Conchords, and Canadian indie stars Handsome Furs and Chad VanGaalen. Go grab it!
2009 Shakespeare In The Park Auditions
The Hilo Community Players are holding auditions for the upcoming production of The Taming Of The Shrew. Directed by Randy Raphael, the 2009 Shakespeare In The Park production will be set in the early 1950s.
Auditions are to be held at the Puueo Community Center in Clem Akina Park on April 10 and 17 at 6pm, and on April 11 and 18 at 2pm.
If you’re a budding thespian or want to help out with the production, show up!
Bad Television Station Names
Posted by Brad in Bad Baby Names, Television on 18 March 2009
This one’s too obvious to pass up: Sci-Fi Channel is renaming itself Syfy.
Seriously. This BNET article has a bunch of examples of tweets sent in response:
Not a good idea. Could be Stewpyd
Sci-fi channel is rebranding itself as #SyFy? so obviously ludicrous it must have been formed by consensus.
Actually, I’m going to start calling Sci Fi Channel “siffy”. As in “syphilis”. As in “neurosyphilis”
Just conducted a quick experiment: It took 5 pages of search results to find a positive response to #SciFi -> #SyFy name change.
Will they back down? Pepsi reversed track on its Tropicana generification after tons of negative response. It’s hard to find any positive comments on Sci Fi’s blog post about the rebranding.
Well done, Sci Fi. Friends and I joke that perfectly good names need more Y’s in them, and you’ve taken that joke and run with it!
Colbert on Iceland
When you watch it you’ll understand why I’ve posted it.
U2 at ‘Imiloa: A Review
Yesterday I received an invitation to see a sneak preview of the ‘Imiloa Planetarium‘s upcoming Friday Music Show featuring the music of U2. Produced by the Clark Planetarium, the “digital dome experience” features “U2’s timeless classics and modern hits, set to lighting and animation effects using the latest in CGI and laser technology”.
U2′s timeless classics and modern hits are there. Lighting and animation effects using the latest in CGI are not. The CG effects look incredibly dated — watch the trailer and tell me that those effects aren’t at least ten years old. Everything I saw looked like it could have come from a video card demo CD from 1995. Honestly, the videos could have just as easily come from a computer graphics class’s final project. I can see it now… “your final project is to take a U2 song and make some graphics for it. Don’t worry if the graphics don’t fit with the song, everybody loves flying through tubes when they’re in a planetarium!”
And if it wasn’t 3D computer graphics it was something out of an iTunes visualizer — except those usually have some kind of musical feedback so they change with the music. Not so the U2 videos, the effects were essentially random.
The video for Sunday Bloody Sunday really stuck out. It was CG, but in an incredibly ham-fisted over-the-top with symbolism kind of way. Kids playing chess and the pawns explode? Kids being stamped into soldiers on an assembly line? Isn’t that all a little cliched? And again the CG, it’s old! Seriously, it’s on the level of Anniversary, a CG short produced for the National Film Board in 1989! And that had more charisma and style!
I don’t remember seeing the “latest in … laser technology” either.
The only two things I can say about the whole thing is that the songs were good (although the sound quality was lacking) and that it was free.
I’ve found one other review and his verdict was that it was crap.
My verdict: save your money and go see a movie in the theater instead.
U2 at the ‘Imiloa Planetarium opens on 9 January 2009. Shows are Friday nights at 7:30pm and 9:00pm. Admission is $8 for members and $10 for non-members.
Albums I Loved In 2008
After Geof’s list, I decided to come up with my own list of albums I loved in 2008. Here are the criteria:
- I added it to my iTunes library in 2008.
- The album rating is higher than three stars.
- Over half of the songs on the album are rated, because I haven’t rated every song in my library yet.
That said, here are the albums I loved in 2008, along with sporadic commentary:
- Arcade Fire – Neon Bible: Epic and overwhelming.
- The Dave Brubeck Quartet – Time Out: How could you not like 5/4, 9/8, 6/4, and switching between them all?
- Explosions In The Sky – All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone
- Explosions In The Sky – The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place
- Massive Attack – Mezzanine
- Metric – Grow Up and Blow Away
- The New Pornographers – Challengers: “Adventures In Solitude” is one of the best songs ever written, and the rest of the album holds up to it.
- The Prodigy – The Fat of the Land: “Narayan” is the best song on the album, and it unfortunately gets less play than “Firestarter” or “Smack My Bitch Up” or “Breathe” or “Minefields”, all of which are excellent tracks in any case.
- Radiohead – OK Computer
- The Smashing Pumpkins – Siamese Dream
- The Tragically Hip – Day for Night: This only shows up because I re-ripped it because of a faulty rip.
- The Weakerthans – Reconstruction Site: “Plea From A Cat Named Virtute” makes me happy.
- The Weakerthans – Reunion Tour: “Virtute the Cat Explains Her Departure” makes me sad.
- Various Artists – CBC Radio 3 Sessions Volume 3: Mixed, and awesome, bag of Canadian indie.
There you have it!
Announcement of the year
This showed up in the Announcements section in the Trib‘s classified section:
AE Living Being speaking-
voicingz on Solar
Calendar 10th week
7th dae, year 2035
(January 1, 2009)
“…SupAErsAEdAEnz
WhrAEt…”
“…(Superseding Writ)…”
affirming confirming
“CORPORATION-S” is-are
non-eisting “ARTIFICIAL
BEING-S” therefore is-
are in fact void now as
in the beginning here- in
Godz Kingdom. Therefore
in face All “DEBT- Debt”
to- from- for- by
“CORPORATION-S” is-
are Void- “PAID IN FULL”
here- in All Encompassingz
Living Beingz- Godz Body-
Kingdom
Got that?
-
You are currently browsing the archives for the Entertainment category.
recent photos
Recent Comments