Embedded YouTube playlists are working again! Yay. OK, so YouTube doesn’t suck so much, after all.
The funny and fun Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog — which, except for a needless end, I highly recommend — is back online at this link for free viewing.
I go past the Bose headquarters every day on my way to/from work, and a neighbor friend works at Bose. The Wave Music System is known for having more than its share of problems, but I bought one anyway, because it fit perfectly on the porch, and I could get it at a good price through our neighbor — not a factory renewed unit, but factory fresh.
Well, after only six weeks of light use, this is what happens when you try to play a CD. Eric demonstrates. Listen for a different neighbor’s cute, little attack doggies in the background.
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2008/JUL/BoseWave.flv 440 330]
At least the slot loader mechanism works, so the disc isn’t stuck in there. I should be able to get a new replacement Bose Wave without a hassle. This has been a bad summer for product defects.
Sunday we went to the Lowell Folk Festival, in the city where Jack Kerouac was born. While the event was winding down heavy rain hit, but before then I took a couple of videos. For my friends Bismo and Samjay, fans of the Blues, here is Mighty Sam McClain, who was featured in the dance pavilion.
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2008/JUL/SamMcClain.flv 448 336]Eric, who plays the viola, was impressed with the Suhas Rao Ensemble.
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2008/JUL/SuhasRao.flv 448 336]
Comic book fans have been full of talk about the Watchmen movie for quite a while. Time.com just put out an article about the Watchmen preview at the Comic-Con in San Diego, going on right now.
This sort of coverage represents a validation, approval and acceptance of comics that was unimaginable to me as a kid. The catch is, today’s comic books hold no interest for me, in part because I felt when the Watchmen series came out it was the final word on the super hero genre. Writer Alan Moore had succeeded in extracting everything there was to be said about costumed heroes.
The best place to see the Watchmen trailer is the official site, but I’ll post it here for convenience, if you want to avoid all of the Flash animation that’s typical of movie sites.
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2008/JUL/Watchmen.flv 640 272]
Overall, it looks very promising, but the Vietnam scenes have a fake appearance, and Dr. Manhattan isn’t quite as convincing as he should be. Rorschach’s voice is too similar to Christian Bale’s Batman. But all of this can be fixed in post-production. I’m also a bit concerned that if the big climax in the story isn’t handled just right, it will be unintentionally humorous. We’ll know in March.
I have the book by Brian Sibley, the BBC movie based on his original play is waiting to be watched, and on Friday my favorite (excuse me, favourite) radio station, BBC Radio 2, begins airing Ian Richardson’s serialized reading of Shadowlands. We Yanks will have to hope the installments appear on the listen again link.
Saturday note: “Audio stream is unavailable at this time” is what it says here.
It’s working! Go and listen now at that link above.
Considering Jo Stafford’s stellar career and her versatile singing talent, it’s somewhat ironic that she won her only Grammy for a comedy record. Jonathan and Darlene Edwards were the alter egos of Jo and her husband Paul Weston. They were a dreadfully earnest — or earnestly dreadful — lounge act, with Jo’s perfect pitch helping Darlene with her tin ear utterly destroy songs with stunning off-key precision.
You’ll find a wonderfully awful collection of Jonathan and Darlene here on MySpace. The link to Jo’s label, Corinthian Records, is wrong. Use this one instead.
