HAPPY NEW YEAR! “One if by land, two if by sea, three if by music!” Andrew Sandoval‘s British Invasion Tour is coming to Boston! Thursday, February 26th. Denro and I will be front and almost center at the Wilbur Theatre to see and hear Peter Asher, Chad & Jeremy, Billy J. Kramer, Denny Laine (is in my ears and in my eyes) and members of the Searchers and the Hollies. This is going to be a fab show, for sure!
I was not late getting into streaming video. The day Netflix said I could stream on my PC in early 2007 I installed the browser app. Roku introduced its first player in mid-2008 and, once I saw it was going to hang in, I bought one in early 2009 and put it on my Sony 32″ SD TV with an S-Video cable. After replacing the TV with a 40″ HDTV Samsung in the sun room I bought a Roku 2 XS and moved the Roku player to the projector, where the receiver accepts only coaxial and optical digital audio. And that is one of the reasons why, as of this Christmas Day, I am saying goodbye to Roku.
The XS has been good, but Amazon’s pre-release offer of $20 for the Fire TV Stick was too good to pass up. So that’s on the Samsung now. Downstairs, on the projector, I used the old Roku player until getting a new Sony Blu-ray player a year ago. The Roku is extremely slow and only goes up to 720p, so I streamed Netflix and Amazon on the Blu-ray, but the Sony network is very annoying because there are often lengthy delays in starting online playback, and sometimes the connection fails to come up altogether.
So, acting on a $70 deal from Amazon, there is now an Amazon Fire TV downstairs. I have no interest in updating my Dolby Digital receiver to one with HDMI switching, and the XS doesn’t have optical audio, but the Fire TV does. As an early and enthusiastic supporter of Roku I don’t feel good about leaving them, and if they hadn’t dropped optical audio I would have bought a Roku 3. But circumstances, and pricing, being what they are, I am now deeper than ever in the Amazon ecosphere.
Four years ago (FOUR?) I posted Slade’s 1973 recording of “Merry Xmas Everybody“. Slade kept another Glam Rock Christmas record from reaching the top of the British Pop charts that year, from Roy Wood’s band Wizzard.
A couple of months ago I did a post with some Nick Lowe songs. Terry Gross had Lowe on Fresh Air yesterday.
Hearing Lowe’s new song “Christmas at the Airport”, it reminds me somewhat of the more recent compositions by Neil Innes.
I love the Tintin-inspired cover for the article about the hunting of Internet trolls in the latest issue of MIT Technology Review. I don’t care for the anonymous trolls that post obnoxious comments to news articles and forums, but I see a big difference between them and the trolls that target individuals for harassment and personal ridicule. At the very least they deserve to be outed.
Actually, I won’t be going to see Louis C.K. this time around, but he sent this message announcing some upcoming appearances:
Dear getter of this.
Hi. It’s Louis CK writing you. Do you remember me? I’m a professional standup comedian. Today I am writing you because I’m going to do some shows in January to wrap up this year’s touring schedule before I begin production on season five of my series.
Here’s where I’ll be playing…. (I put those three dots in to give you a minute to collect yourself before you read this list of 3 cities)
Chicago Theater (January 5th and 6th)
New York MSG (January 7th)
LA (January 11th)https://louisck.net/tour-dates
Tickets are as always 45 dollars all in. Except at MSG we have some tickets for 25 and a few for 65.
New York State has laws which prohibit us from forcing out of town ticket buyers to pick up their tickets in person which is something we do in order to reduce scalping and price gouging. Therefore If you are trying to buy tickets to the MSG shows and you are outside of a 200 mile radius, you won’t be able to. This is because we think you might be buying the tickets just to resell them. If you are a fan from out of town who is getting lost in the cracks of this system please email tickets@louisck.net and we will try to help you get tickets.
I hope you make it to one of the shows.
Happy new year. Happy holidays. Happy life. Happy family. Happy pets. Happy elephants.Louis ck.
If you have never seen an episode of “Louis” watch “New Year’s Eve” from a couple of a years ago. It’s one of the finest half hours of television I have ever seen. It starts with some great comedic slapstick, as shown in this excerpt, but then it takes some amazing twists and turns. Caution: here there be bad language.
P.S. Another message from Louis came in one minute ago (Can you tell I’m not at work this week?):
Hello many people mostly concentrated around the New York area. How’s that for personal? Actually that’s how I greet everyone I say hi to even in person. Better to be correct than accurate, I never say.
Well. Here I am writing you again because after I put a show on sale at Madison Square Garden yesterday, darn it to heck if it didn’t go and sell out in one day.
So I’m adding a second show on the next date they had available which is one week after, January 14th.
You can buy tickets to that show now. Here.http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/1D004D96F1F88394
Most tickets are 45 dollars but we have some for 25 and 65 also. With no additional fees.
As with the Jan 7th show, if you are outside a 200 mile radius- you will not be able to purchase tickets. We do this as one of many methods to monitor and prevent scalpers. Out of state people can email tickets@louisck.net and have a chance to still get a ticket.
We have implemented several scalper prevention methods, and have and will invalidate tickets if it fits into criteria that is usually associated with scalpers- so anyone buying from a scalper site, be wary as those tickets can be invalidated at any point.
Well that’s about it. I wish you a very happy new year. Sincerely. It’s too bad people have to add sincerely when they say nice things. But really, sincerely, happy new year.
Louis ck
