Month: January 2009
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Body Fuzion
Hey, speaking of old video and VCR effects, here’s one of my favorite things they’ve ever done on “Saturday Night Live,” “Body Fuzion:” The best part (apart from the music) is how Drew Barrymore looks like she can’t deliver a line without cracking up. Also: “Penthels!”
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Short-term Nostalgia
A few weeks ago, I was at a party, doing what I usually do at parties — looking for a way to work the Sam & Max games into the conversation. Talk turned to Adobe After Effects and all the cool stuff the kids can do with video editing, and I mentioned the “Behind the…
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Fat Man and Little Boy and Jughead
After watching this week’s episode of “Lost” (called “Jughead”), I think I’ve finally figured out the secret of the island: it loves killing unnamed people. If I were a Flight 815 survivor at this point, I’d be going around to everyone who would listen, introducing myself and giving a little bit of my backstory. And…
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A Disquiet Follows My Mid-Season Break
Or, “We Never Said They Had a Good Plan.” So last week was the big return of “Battlestar Galactica” (with “Sometimes a Great Notion”) after months of speculation after a huge cliffhanger and the promise that all our questions would be answered. I didn’t really say anything about it at the time, because I was…
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SPOILER: Caesar dies
This weekend I finished watching the last episodes of the HBO series “Rome.” It’s been a hard road to the end of the series: it was recommended by a friend on here, but it took me a long time to get into it. And they nearly lost me a few times in season 2, because…
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Density Calls
The “Lost” season 5 premiered with a two-parter, “Because You Left,” and “The Lie.” You can tell that they’ve finally mastered the “Lost” formula because they aired two full hours jam-packed with over a dozen characters, eight or nine locations all over the world, multiple flashbacks, a genuinely surprising reveal of a familiar character, multiple…
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On the Air
About two months ago, I did the unthinkable and cancelled my satellite TV service. It was both an attempt to save money as well as a social re-engineering project on myself: I’d gotten so dependent on having live TV that it never even occurred to me I could go without it. It was an essential…
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Team Possible
I wanted to say congratulations to my friends at Disney Imagineering for completing the Kim Possible World Showcase Adventure at Epcot in Orlando. The attraction went into “soft opening”/preview mode last week, and everything I’ve seen online says that it’s a big hit so far. One of the quotes from this article about the attraction…
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iTunes–
Apparently, at some point today (while I was sick in bed waiting and hoping for death to come), Apple announced that it was switching its iTunes store music tracks to DRM-free versions. Fair enough, but nothing special: Amazon has been selling DRM-free MP3 downloads for a while now. And I switched to Amazon about a…
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iList
Because I’m in a year-end list-making mood, and I’ve got insomnia, here’s a handy list of my favorite iPhone apps. All links go to the App Store page on iTunes, so don’t be alarmed. Tweetie iPhone client for twitter.com This is the best twitter client for any platform, as far as I’m concerned. I bought…
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Rags to Raja
Hang on, we may need a last-minute recount on the best movie of 2008, because I just got back from seeing Slumdog Millionaire. Considering it’s been getting near-universal praise from critics and audiences, I hadn’t heard that much about it. I would’ve passed it by if an internet pal hadn’t recommended I see it in…
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Two Thousand Eight
I realize that year-end “best of” posts only make sense for bloggers who get paid by the post (and just barely even then), but it’s a good way to acknowledge that the year wasn’t all bad, and give a call out out to the stuff that was excellent. Plus, it gives me one more opportunity…