Media

Jacob is writing recaps (on Television Without Pity) for True Blood. Hoooray!
Trust me when I say that most every time, reading Jacob’s recaps are better than watching the show itself. If I could just get a few Youtube snippets of Bill’s smoldering eyes, that’s all I’d need.

And can I just say that I vehemently disagree with the location of the fangs in the True Blood vampires. They have them as the maxillary lateral incisors, not the maxilary canines. I disagree with this location - they look funny.

Damn, I wish I could show you the cold opening for Ghosts of the Sungrasso. Maybe I’ll film it on my camera so I can share it with you. It’s SO awesome. Read about the musical references here.

Painstakingly transcribed, here are the first few minutes of the show:

[Somewhere over the Bermuda Triangle, 1969]

{Major Tom’s spaceship hurtles towards the earth}

Major Tom: I can’t keep it together, Doctor Venture. I’m sorry about the TVC-15.

{Jonas Venture stands on the deck of his ship}

Jonas Venture: Tom, I’m not worried about that tin can. I’m worried about you!

MT: I’ve got a message for the Action Man.

{Venture looks across the deck towards the Action Man}

JV: He’s listening, Tom. Go ahead.

MT: I’m happy, hope you’re happy too. I’ve loved all I’ve needed love.

{Action Man cries}

JV: Don’t talk like that, Tom. You’re gonna make it. Fight it!

{Tom lets go of the controls and visibly relaxes.}

MT: I’m feeling very still. I think my spaceship knows which way to go. Tell my wife I love her very much.

{Venture looking more and more upset}

JV: She knows!

JV: Ground control to Major Tom. Your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong! Can you hear me, Major Tom? Major Tom!

{Major Tom’s ship crashes into the ocean.}

AM: Ashes… to ashes.

I was inspired to dress up as The Action Man for Halloween one year, but I thought it was just too random for even most of the hardcore fandom to get.

Here’s what David Bowie looks like on The Venture Bros.

How soon will he be asking for the keys?

Henry’s favorite new toy.

First time ever

Now with some experience

Meant to post this ages ago when Cristin gave me this fabulous old Doctor Who comic.

Isn’t it awesome? It’s awesome.

I love especially reading the letters to the editors in these old magazines. In this brief note, some crazy person explains just exactly how to knit the scarf that the fourth doctor wears.

Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuper crazy person, but you gotta admire the dedication. This is pretty much equivalent to all those lovely people who made Jayne’s hat, which also doesn’t suck.

Henry’s started vocalizing. This is pretty cute.

So for like, ever, I’ve had these Lord of the Rings tapes in my house. I thought that the tapes were The Lord of the Rings trilogy in audiobook form. The tapes belong to my brother.

Having never read the books (but seen the movies), I thought I’d like to read the books finally. I started listening to them last week and realized that they couldn’t possibly be the entire books on tape, because there are only four tapes per book. I’ve never read the books but I think they’re quite a bit longer.

So it turns out that this series is a Mind’s Eye production of a radio adaptation of the books, produced for public radio back in 1979. It reminds me of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy radio production from the BBC ages ago. It’s got a cast of characters each performing their different parts, with background effects and a bit of a soundtrack. It’s amazing there’s even an article on the Wikipedia about it, but I guess that shouldn’t surprise me, the intersection of two geeky worlds.

Anyway, the serial is unbelievably hokey. I stopped after two tapes. Actually, the fidelity is so bad that I can’t hear the low sounds if I’m on the highway, so that didn’t help matters. But really not very entertaining to me. At least not from my modern perspective.

It looks like the tape (and CD) version is still out there for sale.

Don’t forget to set your DVR to catch David Bowie on SpongeBob this weekend!

From BowieNet (October 5th):

Above is the very handsome and really rather important Lord Royal Highness, special guest star of upcoming SpongeBob SquarePants episode: SpongeBob’s Atlantis SquarePantis.

Apparently, when David Bowie was first shown preliminary sketches of LRH, he exclaimed: “That’s great, I wish I had dreamt up that look back in 1974!”.

One nod Lord Royal Highness makes to the real life Bowie is the subtle touch of one green eye and one blue, though, as David has been at pains to point out in the past, his are not actually different colours.

Anyway, we’ve been telling you about this episode since David Bowie first expressed his excitement in his online journal, (exactly a year ago) at being given the opportunity to voice the part of LRH. (10.05.2006 NEWS: SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS IN NEW BOWIE JOURNAL)

As you know, (05.21.2007 NEWS: ATLANTIS SQUARE PANTS TO AIR IN NOVEMBER) SpongeBob’s Atlantis SquarePantis airs on the eleventh of next month, (more detail of broadcast schedule nearer the time) with the DVD of this episode being made available, in North America at least, just two day later on the 13th.

Aside from the DVD there are already a couple of books available relating to this episode, (that’s one on the right, above) not to mention a plethora of games for pretty much every gaming platform, on sale from the end of the month.

As the man himself said in aforementioned journal: “Watch out. Or at least watch.”

I love Ruth. Check her out in this short clip of geeky costumes. You’ll be sad if you miss this.

Here’s my tip for the Geeks Are Sexy “How to” Contest.

This tip is for iPod Shuffle users. The problem with the Shuffle is that there is no way to control your music while you are listening to it. The Shuffle has two settings - either shuffle and straight-through. Typically, most people listen to it on shuffle setting. However, if you use a little smarts when importing your music into your Shuffle, you can use the straight-through setting to your advantage.

I have all of my music ripped to FLAC, so it’s not compatible with iTunes. That means I have to convert my music from FLAC to MP3 in order to import it into iTunes. I use this to my advantage.

When I convert the music, I make sure that the file naming convention is Artist Name first, then Song Name second. Then I import the music into iTunes and onto my iPod.

Now, when I am listening to music on my Shuffle, if I decide I want to hear more of a particular artist (say, for instance, David Bowie), I can just set the iPod to the straight-through setting. Because the files all start with the same name, I can hear all of the songs of a particular artist at one time, even though I’m listening to my “You ain’t got no control” Shuffle.

Hope you like it!