« February 2008 | Main | April 2008 »

March 29, 2008

Late to the Party, but No Less Sincere

The new (and last) season of Battlestar Galactica starts on April 4th.

To get you whipped up into a white-hot heat over the premiere, a week or so ago the cast crashed David Letterman's show to read the top-10 list: the top 10 reasons to watch the new season.

Reason #1 to watch this top-10? Number 4 gives us a chance to hear Lee Adama (British actor Jamie Bamber) let his accent slip from bland-US-Midwest to rocking-Brit.

Posted by reparent at 12:49 PM

March 24, 2008

It's Raining... the Horror!!!

The Spouse insists that I share this video with you, as a continuation of my thread on the good & evil being done in the name of grassroots political advocacy.

I will simply say that I firmly believe we have entered the post-ironic age. Watching this video, can you tell the difference between ironic self-parody and sincere advocacy? I sure can't.

Imagine what this means for our oh-so-trendy students! Now we can simply assume that the ridiculous bug-eyed sunglasses they wear with the hideous snowboarder-chic (ha!) winter garb means that they want to uglify themselves up! Trucker hats (which I do still see occassionally on campus) now mean that the wearer really is a no-brow bumpkin.

Life has become just a little bit simpler. And snarkier. Joy.

P.S. If you need a unicorn chaser, I suggest either Grammatically-Challenged Felicitous Felines or, if you're filled with understandable rage at the horrors of the McCain Girls, Kelly's "You Can't Text Message Breakup." They both always make me feel better.

Posted by reparent at 1:23 PM | Comments (0)

March 19, 2008

Must Love Dogs

This blog has been criticized for what some people perceive to be a pro-cat/anti-dog bias. Nothing could be farther from the truth. This blog, and its blogger, loves dogs. So, as a show of good (un-biased) faith, here's two dog videos for your entertainment and edification, both via BoingBoing Gadgets. One features a monomaniacal dachshund, the other a headless creepy-as-hell robo-fido. I'll leave it to you to figure out which is which.

At present I'm working on my book on digital textuality and literacy. But once that gets to a manageable stage, I am absolutely going to start working on something about robots. Crazy, crazy robots.

Posted by reparent at 12:36 PM | Comments (1)

March 17, 2008

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

As I'm not Irish, I won't bore you with blather about Ireland. Let's get right to the drinking and the singing.

First, a classic sketch from The Muppet Show that may drive you to drink:

Oh boy. Second, "The Wind That Shakes the Barley," a classic folk song here in a shattering performance by Lisa Gerrard of Dead Can Dance. The Spouse and I had the rare opportunity to see Dead Can Dance live in concert in DC. Wow.

I know I need a drink after that. Finally, something a little lighter. The Magnetic Fields' "Abigail, Belle of Kilronan," with a video featuring plastic toys. I suspect the Fields would approve.

(Interesting how this turned into a meditation on death and war.)

Beannachtam na Feile Padraig!

Posted by reparent at 9:53 AM | Comments (0)

March 15, 2008

That's Edu-tainment!

I really, really enjoy the "You Suck at Photoshop" videos. I think that's probably because "Donny" manages to be pretty darn funny and I like his voice. I guess I should say something about that last sentence. The Spouse and I were watching The Daily Show a few nights ago and the interviewee was Grover Norquist, sworn foe of "big government" and taxation. Norquist has been a huge force in modern conservative politics, and has quite a reputation.

He's also got the nasal, adenoidal voice of a high school physics club officer. Let's face it, vocally he's no Darth Vader.

"Donny" isn't either, but his voice fits the persona in the videos, and the frequent near-breaks do a nice job to clue us in to Donny's mental and emotional state. (Hint: it's not good.) That's subtext for the videos, and I really appreciate subtext.

All of which is to say, here's the latest in the series:

Another thing I really like about these videos is that they tell a story while they instruct. They're edutainment.

There are other videos, however, that edutain in other, less positive ways. I posted recently about the groundswell of user-generated support for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Grass-roots mass media efforts, however, are only as good as their creators. As we saw in the last Hillary video, the grass may be rooted, but it's not... good. Well, here comes another "hip" effort from Hillary-land. Brace yourselves.

I think we learn a lot from this video as it tries to entertain us with a "hip" "rap." First, it teaches us that even progressives feel better when there's a cleaning lady around. Classist, exploitative labor practices be damned -- Hillary, you're our kind of maid. Now get in there and start scrubbing. You missed a spot. Or something like that. (Hint: listen to the opening again if you're lost.) Second, rap has gotten a reputation as an art form of "the people," as it was started by people socially and economically disenfranchised from corporate patronage and privilege. That would make it seem an ideal vehicle for supporting a Democratic candidate for president. But we learn from this video that you need a little something I like to call "talent" to make rap work. And dude, you don't have it.

But there are people with talent out there, who can make anything entertaining and informational in rap form. Sammy Stephens is one such talented man. This video isn't new, but it's informative (and entertaining) to watch it in dialogue with the Hillary rap.

See? It's just like a mini mall. Though to be fair, it may be that Stephens has better material to work with. The "Mini Mall Rap" even works as an acoustic slow jam.

Someone should tell the Clinton campaign.

UPDATE! The Spouse sent me yet another example of Hillary's "supporters" "helping" the campaign. I think at this point even Hillary wishes that someone please make it stop!

Posted by reparent at 4:29 PM | Comments (0)

March 8, 2008

Singing Saturday -- Spektor Spektakular

For this installment of Singing Saturday I bring you Soviet Moscow-born singer-songwriter Regina Spektor, who now lives in Brooklyn. (Read her biography -- it's fascinating.)

I don't remember who first turned me on to Spektor, but I rushed right over to the iTunes store and downloaded "Ode to Divorce." A few weeks later, another Spektor song, "Fidelity," was the iTunes free song of the week. If you haven't checked her out, do so. Some people will draw an immediate comparison with Tori Amos. I see and hear that, but though I like Amos, I like Spektor better. Not sure why, yet.

Here's my favorite Spektor song so far: "Fidelity":

This is the other song I've had in my playlists for a little while now, "Ode to Divorce":

And she's got a new video out, "Better":

There are two other music videos at Spektor's YouTube page, but the one I recommend the most highly is "Samson," a strangely sweet, slightly bewildering retelling of the old story.

Despite insistences by the music industry (boo, hiss, a plague upon their houses) that making music available online discourages people from buying music, I want to run right out and grab her album. And I wouldn't know about her, to know that I want to buy her album, if the videos weren't out there. And if I couldn't watch them compulsively, as I do. There's a lot of crap out there. Spektor ain't that. She deserves our support. I can't wait to see what she does next.

Posted by reparent at 3:07 PM | Comments (1)

March 7, 2008

Wake Up Cat 2: The Return!

Wake Up Cat, possibly the single most awesome video ever uploaded to YouTube, now has a sequel: "Let Me In":

As our fuzzy bringers-of-destruction are exclusively indoor cats, we don't have to deal with this dynamic. Those of you with indoor-outdoor cats -- what do you think? Has Simon Tofield nailed this as well as he did with his first cat video?

Posted by reparent at 3:18 PM

March 5, 2008

The Graphical Presentation of Contemporary Melodic Appelations

Continuing my series of "I-don't-have-time-to-talk-about-this-but-you-should-check-it-out" stuff, I present to you a Flikr stream of images displaying popular song titles in info-graphical form. This one is, I think, my favorite:

But this one made me laugh out loud, too:

Which is not to say that they're all good. Some people really don't seem to understand how charts and graphs are supposed to work. But some do:

Enjoy.

Posted by reparent at 6:23 PM | Comments (0)

March 1, 2008

Moonlighting

You know the economy is in trouble when your own cat begins to moonlight on LOLCat sites. Exhibit 1: a cat who looks suspiciously like my kitty Sabrina, staring at a laptop that looks suspiciously like my laptop:

We suspect, as well, that the grammar and diction also match Sabrina's usual patterns. She is the superior feline intellect chez nous.

Posted by reparent at 11:23 AM | Comments (0)