Recently in Miscellaneous Category

I had planned on seeing a movie based on the book Prince Caspian this morning.

Instead, I saw Disney's new movie, called Prince Caspian.

An overwhelming majority of the movie is all wrong. It has to be the least faithful movie to the book of any movie I've seen, that I've also read the book for. And that includes I, Robot. OK, not really. But close.

Three words: Susan, Caspian, Romance.

The plot is basically the same -- Caspian summons the children, children help Caspian defeat Miraz -- but almost all the details have changed. It has the same characters, but that's about it. It's quite annoying, really.

From the very beginning it's all wrong. Miraz is not yet King, Caspian is much older than he should be, the children vividly remembered Narnia even before they got pulled back, Trumpkin's personality is very different, the trees attack the Telmarines, and a huge water monster destroys the bridge at Beruna.

Even one of the most well-known lines in the movie was butchered. Aslan asks of Caspian, in the book, "Do you feel yourself sufficient to take up the Kingship of Narnia?" "I--I don't think I do, Sir. I'm only a kid." "Good," said Aslan. "If you had felt yourself sufficient, if would have been proof that you were not." But in the movie, this is turned upside-down: now the fact that he doesn't feel himself sufficient is proof that he IS sufficient. By that logic, the idiot giant Wimbleweather would have been sufficient for kingship.

But don't misunderstand: the inconsistencies do not begin and end with these relatively minor elements. The battles in the movie never happened; major events happen in the wrong place and out of order; Aslan never appears to anyone but Lucy until the very end of the movie; Peter and Caspian have a conflict that nearly leads to blows; Peter is tempted by the White Witch ...

I don't mind all the changes. Making Sopespian and Glozelle larger parts of the story is fine, although I don't like what they did with them, for example. Even including Susan in more of the action isn't terribly offensive. But the whole story is just twisted inside out.

The movie is fairly decent on its own (although the sense of humor in it is quite poor ... why would Reepicheep say to Trumpkin, "I was expecting someone taller?" And who could not have predicted Trumpkin's response?). But as Prince Caspian it fails miserably because it is barely Prince Caspian at all.

An original love song to the Superdelegate.

Lyrics:

Chorus:
Superdelegate, I don't know you, but I love you
Superdelegate, you make me feel warm inside
Superdelegate, I didn't vote for you
But I really think you're super, Superdelegate

We can't trust ourselves to choose
'Coz we've got so much to lose
So we ask you, please
Protect us from ourselves

Chorus

I will use my voice
I will state my choice
I will stand up and be counted
But not as much as you

Chorus

This is the Longest Concert Evar, starring Pudge. Send requests to concertrequest@pudge.net, or post them here.

A cover of I Want You To Want Me by Cheap Trick. Requested by daviebluff.

This is the Longest Concert Evar, starring Pudge. Send requests to concertrequest@pudge.net, or post them here.

This is the classic Bob Dylan song that was later popularized by Britney Spears.

This is the Longest Concert Evar, starring Pudge. Send requests to concertrequest@pudge.net, or post them here.

This is my own arrangement of the Disney classic. I've always thought this song to be pretty depressing, so, there it is. See my other video of the same song in the Responses.

This is the Longest Concert Evar, starring Pudge. Send requests to concertrequest@pudge.net, or post them here.

Good Friday. Here's my favorite tune for my favorite day.

This is the Longest Concert Evar, starring Pudge. Send requests to concertrequest@pudge.net, or post them here.

I'm back! I hope you enjoyed the first intermission.

To commemorate the last episode of "The Wire," here's my rendition of the theme song, which was written and originally performed by Tom Waits, though my song is sortof a cross between his version and Steve Earle's version with some vintage Randy Stonehill tossed in.

This is the Longest Concert Evar, starring Pudge. Send requests to concertrequest@pudge.net, or post them here.

I was checking out the story that the band REM is releasing 11 videos for its latest song under the Artistic License 2.0. Very neat. Check it all out on the song's web site.

Someone noted that they are not going all the way and offering the audio for free, but of course, it's in the video, so I looked at the audio of the downloaded files: 16 bits, 48 kHz. Slightly better quality than the 16 bits, 44.1 kHz of CDs. Also very neat.

But then on the first track, "Studio #1," I noticed some dropouts. I opened the audio file up and saw this:

There are four gaps at about 1:23 (only one shown). This goes on throughought the song (including more gaps later, such as at 2:20 and 2:30).

Each track has different audio, though it is all of the same song. Some of the other tracks with the studio audio are messed up in various ways. Some are totally overcranked. Track 11 might be hork-worthy. Maybe a little soft, but better than a little clipped (or, like track 10, almost completely clipped).

i wish the word "I" were spelled with more letters, so that i could shorten it to "i"

"A Few Words in Defense of Our Liberals" is a combination parody/response to Randy Newman's song, "A Few Words in Defense of Our Country," performed at the keynote for Macworld Expo 2008.

Let me say up front that if you have a problem with anything in here, well, blame Randy, because nothing I said was any worse, or any less reasonable, than what he said.

I am not the musician he is, but hey, I get paid a lot less. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OldToIF5ZGs for the original video for his song, from last January. The slightly different lyrics were posted in the NY Times that same month as an op-ed, at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/24/opinion/24newman.html .

Enjoy! And laugh a little! Just because Randy's ticked off, doesn't mean we have to be, no matter what your political persuasion.

Lyrics:

I'd like to say a few words
In defense of our liberals
Our liberals ain't bad, nor are they mean
The liberal leaders they have
While they are pretty bad
Are hardly the worst this poor world has seen

Let's turn history's pages, shall we?

Take Mao, for example
Why, within the first few years of him
He had criminalized free speech
Ruled from the side of his Forbidden City swimming pool
And presided over the executions of millions of people

A few years later
He outlawed private food production, and millions more died
That's like, single-payer agriculture, or something
That's not a very good example right now, is it?

But here's one
The Eastern European Soviet occupation
Put people in a terrible position
I don't even like to think about it
Well, sometimes I like to think about it

Just a few words in defense of our liberals
Whose time at the top
Could be coming to an end
Now we don't want their love
And respect for their views is out of the question
But in times like these
We sure could use a friend

Hitler
Stalin
Liberals who need no introduction
Fidel Castro, that's right
Liberals think he's so great
Well he took control of Cuba
He jailed and killed thousands of people
Just for speaking their mind
Or being suspected of having one
But hey man, now Cubans are equal
And desperate

A president once said,
"A man has a property in his opinions"
Now you are required to agree to give your property to someone else
It's patriotic in fact, and compassionate
And if you don't play along?
There's the government men with the guns
That's what the Second Amendment is for, isn't it?
That's what it used to be for

The end of socialism is messy at best
And this plunderous state is ending
Like all the rest
Like French automobiles, engulfed on the streets
We're engulfed in the land of the brave
And the home of the free

Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye.

My response to The Davos Question.

http://youtube.com/thedavosquestion

Here's a tour of my studio that some people have asked about. If you want to know the specifics of the hardware and software see the web page:

http://pudge.net/tunes/equipment.html

I finally got my Schrammie! For the complete story, see the original song, listen to the studio version, and watch Ken Schram give me my award. Then finally, watch my acceptance speech.

I wrote the song New Year many years ago, and break it around this time every year. You can listen to the studio version. Here's the lyrics:

It's a new year And it's been a long time It's been a long time since last year It's been a whole year

Well, it gets a guy to thinking
About the time that passes by
Lots of time in one year
365 and 1/4 days

And I can't go back
I can't go back to last year
'Coz there's one whole year between us

365 days
Or maybe 366
I can't remember
It's been a long year

12 months
365 days
8,760 hours
525,600 minutes
31,536,000 seconds
It's been a long year

And it's been a long time
It's been a long time
It's been a long time
It's been a long time
It's been a long time since last year
It's been a whole year

This is the Longest Concert Evar, starring Pudge. Send requests to concertrequest@pudge.net, or post them here.

I've gone and done it and set up my a new site, called <pudge/*> (pronounced "PudgeGlob").

I won't be fully retiring my other journal sites -- I'll still post Perl stuff on use Perl, for example -- but in general, I'll be using the new site for everything. When I do post something to my other journals -- or to Flickr, or YouTube -- it'll be mirrored there. I've already prepopulated it with thousands of posts from my other sites over the past 10 years.

At some point I will be more closely integrating PudgeTunes with <pudge/*> -- each song will have its own entry, and I'll generate podcast feeds directly from the new site -- but other than that, it's pretty much set.

This also means my "meta-feed" is going away. If you subscribed to pudge.net/feed.rss, it now just symlinks to pudge.net/glob/rss.xml.

So now you have one place to go for All Things Pudge. ;-)

Enjoy.

This is a great little Christmas song by Rich Mullins.

Sorry my voice is a bit thrashed. I have a cold and it hurts to sing. But the show must go on!

This is the Longest Concert Evar, starring Pudge. Send requests to concertrequest@pudge.net, or post them here.

Christmas Must Be Tonight was originally recorded by The Band, though this version is heavily influenced by The Compassion International All-Star Band's version (sung by Randy Stonehill).

Sorry my voice is a bit thrashed. I have a cold and it hurts to sing. But the show must go on!

This is the Longest Concert Evar, starring Pudge. Send requests to concertrequest@pudge.net, or post them here.

I figured this was a good opportunity to try out my new Yamaha drum machine thingy.

Sorry my voice is a bit thrashed. I have a cold and it hurts to sing. But the show must go on!

This is the Longest Concert Evar, starring Pudge. Send requests to concertrequest@pudge.net, or post them here.

The YouTube "community" has let me down.

Granted, there are some "leave jamie lynn alone" videos, but that is not as funny. She should never, ever, in the context of comedy, be called "Jamie Lynn." Her comedy name is "Britney's sister."

I knew little about The Golden Compass, but then something someone said about it triggered a fading memory, and I grepped my email for "Pullman," the story's author. Here is what I wrote about him two years ago here:

http://www.crlamppost.org/darkside.htm

The same guy, Philip Pullman, also noted (in the Washington Post, Feb 19, 2001, "The Last Word"; an article about how his trilogy for young adults ends in God's death) that in his stories "I'm trying to undermine Christian belief."

So cross Philip Pullman of the list of authors my children might read ...

So let's be clear. The author of The Golden Compass is, in his own exact words, "trying to undermine Christian belief." And he slams C.S. Lews and Narnia in this way:

One of the most vile moments in the whole of children's literature, to my mind, occurs at the end of The Last Battle, when Aslan reveals to the children that "The term is over: the holidays have begun" because "There was a real railway accident. Your father and mother and all of you are - as you used to call it in the Shadowlands - dead." To solve a narrative problem by killing one of your characters is something many authors have done at one time or another. To slaughter the lot of them, and then claim they're better off, is not honest storytelling: it's propaganda in the service of a life-hating ideology.

He believes that believing in heaven as I, and millions of others, do is "hating life."

I will not see The Golden Compass. YMMV.

Video of a car thief stealing a "bait car" set up by the Bellevue police.

At the end, you can even see a bullet bounce inside the car. I think it grazed him. He tried to run over two bike cops, and a third cop shot at him in response.

These days a lot of movie ratings from the MPAA are accompanied by reasons. I was looking at the trailer for In The Shadow of the Moon and it is rated PG for, in part, "incidental smoking."

As if there is such a thing as non-incidental smoking? Smoking is an event and therefore always incidental! But I digress.

What's the dumbest movie rating reason you've seen, and for what movie?

I am ripped up and down on talk radio for the better part of two hours for my offensive song, "Osama Bin Laden, You Ruined My Birthday."

KVI's The Commentators, September 11, 2007

"Osama Bin Laden, You Ruined My Birthday" is played at the beginning of the third hour of the live Mystery Play Internet Radio broadcast.

MPIR Live 09-08-2007

"Osama Bin Laden, You Ruined My Birthday" is played at the beginning of the third hour of the live Mystery Play Internet Radio broadcast.

MPIR Live 09-08-2007

Mike plays Pudge's "Osama Bin Laden, You Ruined My Birthday."

The Gomem Show #59 - Happy Birthday

On Friday or Saturday I recorded the series premiere of "Masters of Science Fiction." Tonight I tried to watch it.

I failed. It's not my fault.

The opening titles were in 4:3 format. I said, "um, how could this not be in HD?" A few moments later, however, the screen expanded to the full HD 16:9. OK, so ABC or the local affiliate just goofed it up.

There was some music, and then a couple of people started talking. But there were no actual words. I waited to see if it was intentional -- would be weird, but you never know -- but sure enough, no dialogue. The surround channels were coming out the mains as well. So just background noise and music, no dialogue at all.

For the entire first half hour of the show, there were no words. After the commercial break at 30 minutes, they fixed it and it worked at the end. Of course, I scanned back and forth to test it: I wasn't going to sit through the whole thing. I suppose I could have used closed captioning, but I just deleted it.

Great way to start a new series.

I see TV channels breaking HD pictures all the time. I haven't watched it in awhile, but I used to try turning on the local NBC affiliate at about 7:15 a.m. to catch the weather: even though the local affiliate does HD, they would switch the beautiful HD weather maps in the national feed to SD almost as soon as they started, then show the local weather in SD too, then leave it in SD sometimes until the commercial break.

The local CBS affilliate apparently can't put their own local graphics on HD feeds, so sometimes coming back from commercials they show SD to show their graphics, then switch to HD.

It's all just stupid. HD is not that hard. Figure it out.

I have 65 episodes of Twilight Zone on the DVR.

Nice new feature on DirecTV HD DVR: hit "play" on the "folder" and it plays all the episodes, in order.

pudge posted a photo:

I don't know when I can trespass, and when I can't.

Seen on Colby Ave. near 23rd, in Everett, WA.

Politics with Pudge: Follow the Law

Ryan Dobson KOR Kast: Show #58

Politics with Pudge: Immigration

Ryan Dobson KOR Kast: Show #54

4Cast plays the "shockingly insensitive" "Osama Bin Laden, You Ruined My Birthday."

4Cast June 3rd 2007

Long before the All-Star Voting thing or Jesux, I was in high school and played one of my best pranks ever.

It was my senior year, and the school's literary magazine was accepting submissions. I submitted a few under my own name. Ironically, the point of the ones they accepted was that imagery and symbolism are nonsense, which was a direct assault on most of the works in the magazine. But that wasn't a prank, I just liked those verses, which happened to be from a song I wrote called Images (live performances by my band available at that link).

I decided (in keeping with the aforementioned anti-imagery in Images) to write the worst poem that I could, and submit it. I don't remember exactly how I decided to write it, whether it was free-from or whether I came up with theme first, but the result was pure crap. I submitted it under a pseudonym, and ... it was chosen for the very last page of the literary magazine, which, as you may know, is normally reserved for the best, most poignant, piece.

When I saw it, I was in English class and I laughed out loud and told a friend what happened. One of the editors of the magazine overheard what I said. She probably still hates me to this day, but man, it was funny.

Without further ado, here's the crappy poem I wrote:

Roofers

closing in, allowed to fall
Night sweeps over the land like the
blanket I pull over my
quavering head.
Things I have done
Dreams
        (nightmares)
                I have acted out
haunt my soul
shout my sin like so many
roofers,
        stepping
                dropping things
                        (nightmares)
                                on the
roof
        (conscience)
sins I have forgotten reform as
debris, falling through the
air-conditioning vent
reminding me
not letting Me
forget
the
        (sin)
                debris.

--Randolph Hsilgne

Pudge's song "You're Clueless" is "dedicated to Boo the waterhole sneak, Stacy for telegraphing the vote, and Cassandra for pitching in with Dreamz."

Suvivor Fans Podcast: Fiji Episode 13

SnC plays Pudge's "Osama Bin Laden, You Ruined My Birthday." They write, "I'm sure that someone will be looking to take offence at this comedy song. Such a rarity on SnC. It just made me giggle - I suspect out of relief that maybe, just maybe we are coming to the end of the obligatory furrowed brows and downcast eyes at the very mention of 11th September. If anyone is or wants to be offended, I would suggest that they are very brave and face it, lots worse things than offence happen at sea. Oh dear, maybe that's offensive too."

Suffolk 'n' Cool 064

Under the Carpet Music plays "Osama Bin Laden, You Ruined My Birthday" by Pudge.

Under the Carpet Music #9

Multiple Sclerosis Blog plays "You're Clueless" by Pudge.

Multiple Sclerosis Blog 0144 - Get a Cluj

The Podsafe Comedy Countdown plays "I Did It Again" by Pudge (and opens with Pudge's voicemail as "Les Moonves").

Podsafe Comedy Countdown #40 - All Request Anniversary Special

Politics with Pudge: Trust Me

Ryan Dobson KOR Kast: Show #43

Cram Redgeh plays Pudge's "George Bush is Hitler" while complaining about Pizza Hut service and driving 100 miles on the wrong day.

Living life as a gay DJ in the UK - Episode 8

The Scope plays Pudge's "New Year" to commemorate the beginning of its second year.

The Scope Episode 27: The First Episode of The Second Year of The Scope

Jaycast plays "Just Getting Started."

Jaycast Show 58 (April Fools Day Edition)

"Osama Bin Laden, You Ruined My Birthday" is #2 on this week's Podsafe Comedy Countdown.

Podsafe Comedy Countdown #36 - Parroting Parodies

X-Pat Radio plays "Just Getting Started."

X-Pat Radio Episode 90

The German podcast Daily Pod plays "Osama Bin Laden, You Ruined My Birthday."

Daily Pod #125

A commercial for The Good Shepherd quotes Larry King as calling the movie "the best spy film ever" or somesuch. And why would anyone in their right mind care what Larry King says?

My favorite Larry King moment, the one that perfectly exemplifies all that is wrong with him, took place over two years ago. Here is the unedited opening to the interview:

LARRY KING, HOST: Tonight, once he was Cat Stevens, pop music superstar, singing gentle hits about peace trains and moon shadows. Now he's Yusuf Islam, barred from the United States for suspected ties to terrorists, and he says he doesn't know why.

Yusuf Islam, the former Cat Stevens, is here for the hour with his side of the story that made headlines around the world. It's next on LARRY KING LIVE.

It's a great pleasure to welcome Yusuf Islam to LARRY KING LIVE tonight. He was the great Cat Stevens, knew him in the '60s and '70s for an enormous amount of hits. A wonderful entertainer and a great singer.

He was barred from entering the United States last month because of what the Department of Homeland Security says are concerns about activities potentially related to terrorism. We'll deal with all that in awhile, but first, let's go back a little.

How'd you get the name Cat?

How'd you get the name Cat.

How'd you get the name Cat.

How'd you get the name Cat.

If I ever need a mantra, I think I'd use that.

I am getting a DirecTV HD DVR installed this Friday, hopefully.

I keep all my stereo equipment (DirecTV TiVo, two amp/receivers, 5-disc DVD changer, VCR, tape deck, PowerBook 15" w/ various peripherals, etc.) in the front closet out of sight, with IR junk so I can control it all. A snake of cables goes into (coax, Ethernet, phone) and out of (video, speaker) the closet behind the TV through a small hole in the wall.

I had most of it in a little TV cabinet thingy, with backs and sides, and making changes to the system was a huge pain, so I wanted to do something different. Basically, I am using wire shelving.

So since the new HD DVR is coming this week, I figured, now's a good time to do it all. I pulled everything out, put up the shelving, then hooked it all up again. Took me about eight hours to do it all, and I am sore all over. I'm happy with it.

In preparation for Friday I also put in place the cables the HD DVR will use: component, optical audio, and analog (for use on the regular TV in the other room). As I am not entirely sure what will happen with the coax situation, I am not touching that. I have the phone cable ready except that I need to buy a splitter at Radio Shack tomorrow.

I won't be doing HDMI/DVI because I already have the PowerBook connected via DVI. At some point I'll get an IR-controllable DVI switcher, I guess.

I also already programmed my Harmony Remote control and put an IR transmitter in place, so the remote will be ready right away too. So the installer dude just needs to worry about the dish and the multiswitch situation. I think.

Anyway, this afternoon, when cleaning up, and seeing mutliple unused cables strewn across the floor, I came up with Nandor's Law of Cable Conservation: There is no conservation of cables.

Politics with Pudge: Local is Free

Ryan Dobson KOR Kast: Show #32

Politics with Pudge: Partisanship

Ryan Dobson KOR Kast: Show #30

Politics with Pudge: Why Care?

Ryan Dobson KOR Kast: Show #27

I swung by Blockbuster today. The new "original theatrical releases" of Star Wars episodes four, five, and six were there. I planned on renting, but they have it only for sale. But I peeked at the package. Indeed, the original versions are not anamorphic. They are letterbox. They are, therefore, if you have a nice TV, complete crap.