EXCELSIOR, YOU FATHEAD!

More Minecraft dark riding

Mon, 07 May 2012 20:29:37 GMT

I've gone and named the dark ride project Jinx, and have added a whole bunch to the 1.5 build:

Fun fact! Maybe! The ivy on the side of the wall was originally in the shape of Tetris pieces but then they grew.

I've also got a small Picasa album up with a current layout map and some construction pics with nifty bits of circuitry.

This little experiment thingo is turning into a spot of fun. There's still a lot to go, but I think I've got a very good idea for the finale.

Minecraft Dark Riding

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 05:26:23 GMT

After checking out the Minecraft recreation of the Magic Kingdom and its fun interpretation of the rides (the Haunted Mansion and Splash Mountain are especially good) I decided to start work on my own Minecraft dark rides. This means learning redstone circuitry and cart physics and the odd way pistons work, so I'm having fun as I go along.

My current project is an experimental sandbox. I'm testing out ideas for visual effects, lighting, piston-activated stunts, and other fun things. I'm using the cart's motion in fun and interesting ways which require long hallways. The opening scene in the main hall shows that the cart takes curves very sharply so I'd like to try and minimize that wherever possible, or at least use the sharp turns to the design's advantage. A quick scene transition, f'rinstance. I also want to make sure everything happens enough within your peripheral vision that you don't have to use the mouse to look around a lot. The little cart that goes by in the main hall sequence is an example of that.

At any rate, my goal is to finish a ride circuit, enclose it in a show building, then create the queue and scenery to give it that good ol' fashioned authentic appearance. Oh yeah, and give it a name at some point.

Here's the video of the latest prototype, unfinished and silent. It gets a little mind-blowing in spots. I'm learning a bit from the murkier video. I'll need to place more lights in certain sections, and embellish certain scenes such as the library. (And give it a proper ending, which I neglected to mention earlier.)

The next project after this will be to create a dark ride with a cohesive story to it, and to build it on a fully seeded and generated Minecraft map. For this experimental project I selected the flat map option when starting out, and didn't realize you can't dig far underground on it. Odd, that. So the next ride, the story of which I'm currently fiddling around with, will be situated on an actual coastline and use the terrain to its advantage.

apologies, schmapologies

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 03:59:58 GMT

The one-T Becket, he's a priest
The two-T Beckett, existentialiste
But I will state a fact - you check it
There's no such thing as a three-T Beckettt.

So that's what we sound like on a post-performance high

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 06:52:20 GMT

A producer from PRX, an online public radio repository, came 'round to the Big Broadcast of 1954 and interviewed me and Neil during one of the nights (I believe our first Friday performance.) The resulting piece, which goes a little into the Byfar Hour's creation and features a frazzled pre-show and manic-exuberant post-show interview, has been put up for all to hear. There's also a bit from the Piscataway Queen sketch recorded from the balcony. (Context provided upon request care of this station.)

Being one of those types who doesn't enjoy the whole observing-oneself thing because of the tiny Wittgenstein on my shoulder constantly second-guessing into my ear, I shall withhold all comments except to say that Neil sounds very clever and good, I think I can live with the adjective "quirky" for this kind of work, and I kindly don't lie this time around about Frank Cyrano being real.

I DON'T KNOW, THEY JUST GAVE ME THIS AIRPLANE

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 06:50:05 GMT

AND THIS VIDEO EDITING SOFTWARE

FLUKE SQUADRON
In speciem fortunae ineptia

LT. JACK SPATULA WILL RETURN IN: THROW BOMBERS AT THE TRAIN

PS YES IT IS A SILENT MOVIE AIN'T NO RIAA LAWYER GONNA SHUT DOWN THIS HERE CIRCUS

Naturally, Berle stole this line for himself

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 06:52:05 GMT

"Milton Berle was responsible for the sale of more television sets than any man living. I know I sold mine, and my brother sold his."

-Joe E. Lewis, as quoted by Earl Wilson

This will never get old

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 08:14:04 GMT

It can be very hard to land a plane in Rise of Flight, but the game is encouraging and supportive.

Any landing you can walk away from...

This one's nearly five years too late, but what the hell

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 10:48:47 GMT

The things one misses when one goes into post-marathon hibernation

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 18:45:29 GMT

Yesterday was the fiftieth anniversary of John Glenn's orbital flight, as well as the twentieth (yeek!) anniversary of the airing of the classic Simpsons episode "Homer at the Bat".

Darryl.
Daaaaaaaarrrryllll.
DAAAARRRYLLL. DAAAARRRYLLL. DAAAARRRYLLL.

Think you used enough dynamite there, Butch?

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 03:59:03 GMT

I've been playing Minecraft since the alpha launch (back when there were chibi anime girls running around instead of zombies -- don't ask) and yet I've never really delved into Creative Mode, where you can play with infinite amounts of material and no threat of death. I prefer to mine my own castles and chop down my own trees to make my own tools, but this means that unless I get really really bored and go mine a lot of iron and redstone, I won't get to play much with some of the more advanced aspects of the game, such as the boxes of TNT what blow up REAL good.

I decided to fix that, and generated a new game world in Creative Mode. Now I could run around placing blocks to my heart's content. I could build a gigantic statue of a man holding pancakes! I could build a house with a waterfall slide! I could make a working subway system!

Or I could blow it the hell up.

First I had to pick a spot in this pristine, newly-generated game world. I'm going to start small in this nice peaceful river valley.

Wanna blow stuff up? First, dig a hole like this.

Fill it with TNT. That's 11 cubes of TNT there all told. I didn't want to use 27 because I thought that would be overkill.

Next, construct an Ingenious Device With Which to Explode Things. My Minecraft mechanization isn't the greatest yet and my methods are extremely clunky, yet effective. Consider the red lines here as electrical wires that also serve nicely as fuses. When this device is lit, it activates the pistons which push the leftmost TNT blocks onto the pile, which are then activated by the fuse you see on the brick at the top. This fuse is lit when the device is activated, you see. Then the whole shebang will blow up.

Yes, you could just set the fuse to light the TNT directly without the pistons and the pushing, but where the hell's the fun in that?!

Besides, you'll want to construct yourself a staging platform from a nice, safe distance away, preferably one with a view. That nice little pond over there helps the view, don't it?

As the moon slowly sinks in the west, we prepare to pull the switch.

And there's the kaboom. I think. Didn't look too impressive, did it? (The game's framerate also dives into the single digits as it tries to calculate each explosion and its effect.)

So I wonder what kind of hole fourteen blocks of TNT produced.

Well! That sure beats digging indiscriminately for a few minutes, eh? Too bad the explosion also took out the Ingenious Device, but those are sacrifices one makes for science.

And yet, I was kind of hoping for a larger explosion. So I thought to myself gee, if I dug a small hole and filled it with a little TNT...

...what would happen if I re-filled the resulting hole?

No, I mean, really fill it.

That'll do.

The rain pours as the Ingenious Device Mk. II is prepared.

But not even the Rain God itself could dampen a TNT explosion. I don't even want to begin to count how many blocks there are in that hole. More than 27, that much I know.

Speaking of holes, FIRE IN THE

Now this is a blast crater! Oh, say, remember that little pond between our initial Ingenious Device and the staging platform? I sort of turned it into a waterfall.

And yet, that explosion still might not have been big enough for my tastes...

Oh, like you wouldn't try again.

Thank heavens for creative mode, or I'd have been digging up gunpowder and redstone for months.

Takes a long time to fill that much space with that much TNT. Several game days passed as I placed block after block after block

after block after block after block after

okay I think it's ready.

The Ingenious Device Mk. III is prepared.

We take one final look at our special world and its gigantic, TNT-filled hole. Ready when you are, Oppenheimer.

The switch is pulled, there's a loud kaboom, the game freezes for thirty seconds, and I can't wait to see the destruction wrought upon this unsuspecting game world...

Oops.

Unfortunately, this is the same message I receive when I try to re-load that game world. It simply cannot render the hole I have made, deal with water physics in newly-open spaces, and calculate new lights and shadows and whatnot in one fell swoop. You cannot load this game world anymore.

I have effectively destroyed it. With TNT.

There's a lesson to be learned here, and that lesson is never try this on someone else's server. Which I didn't; I played locally, thank you very much, but I just wanted to warn you in advance if you decided it'd be a great thing to share with random Internet people. And don't blame me if your CPU melts. Blame Java. Seriously.

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 07:13:45 GMT

I've written some pretty esoteric and impossible SFX cues in my time, usually ending in something like (I'M SORRY, NEIL) or (HAVE FUN, AMY) but I am heartened to know that Douglas Adams bested me long ago. From the original Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio script, Fit the Sixth, as our heroes encounter the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal:

TRILLIAN (Screams) Look out!

F/X HUGE ARM SWEEPS DOWN AND PICKS THEM UP. THE
      MONSTER ROLLS HIS EYES WHICH TURN RED, GREEN,
      THEN A SORT OF MAUVY PINK. IT RUNS ITS TONGUE
      ROUND ITS LIPS, BLINKS A COUPLE OF TIMES AND THEN
      MENTALLY REGISTERS THAT IT HAS JUST REMEMBERED
      WHAT 10 ACROSS IN THE GALACTIC TIMES CROSSWORD
      WAS TODAY, MAKES A MENTAL NOTE TO WRITE IT IN
      WHEN IT'S NEXT GOT A COUPLE OF MINUTES

CAST (Shouts, etc...)

He would've been 60 a few days ago, that one.

Yub nub!

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:18:05 GMT

So ol' Mr. Egroeg Sacul has gone and announced he's become tired of all these star wars in part due to those rotten Internet miscreants who keep speaking out against his special brand of film revisionism.

“On the Internet, all those same guys that are complaining I made a change are completely changing the movie,” Lucas says, referring to fans who, like the dreaded studios, have done their own forcible re-edits. “I’m saying: ‘Fine. But my movie, with my name on it, that says I did it, needs to be the way I want it.’ ”

Lucas seized control of his movies from the studios only to discover that the fanboys could still give him script notes. “Why would I make any more,” Lucas says of the “Star Wars” movies, “when everybody yells at you all the time and says what a terrible person you are?”

If the "script notes" he's referring to are the Red Letter Media reviews, well, it's heartening to know he at least saw 'em. They do an excellent job of deconstructing the prequel films, devoting an hour to each and explaining exactly why the storytelling failed, when they're not busy stopping the review cold to continue their storyline. (The crazy reviewer character Mr. Plinkett has a great voice and delivery, but the serial killer angle is a digression I just don't get. I do love it every time he offers you some pizza rolls if you email him on his webzone.)

Moving away from pizza rolls, my position on George Lucas' fiddling with the Star Wars series has always kinda been that while I find it kind of sad that a man who once spoke out against film revisionism himself then decided to start making changes to what some folks thought were perfectly good movies to begin with, it's honestly his prerogative. Creative types will always want to tinker with their babies. He has a right to be angry with fan edits, though that's half copyright and half pride there. The films ultimately have his name on it, even if he didn't direct Empire or Jedi (and sadly neither Irving Kirschner nor Richard Marquand are around any more to speak up, if they felt the need.)

It's a matter of adopting new attitudes as time goes on. Lucas' kids came up with the bantha poodoo jokes in the prequels, among other things. And why not? He was making the film for him and his family. Spielberg fiddled with E.T., gave the FBI dudes walkie-talkies instead of guns because he disliked promoting violence in a family movie, but has since reconsidered. He's now restoring the guns for the next release.

So if Lucas decided he didn't like the idea of Han Solo shooting the bounty hunter Greedo in cold blood after all, once he had the technology in the late 90s he could do something about it. Among other things. I thought some of the enhancements were neat but I didn't like other changes such as Greedo and the removal of the Yub Nub song at the end of Jedi (I liked it; haters gonna hate) but I didn't feel insulted. I felt as long as there was still the ability to see the original films as I remembered them in the theaters, I'd be fine.

I still felt that way, though through slightly clenched teeth, when I saw Hayden Christiansen saying goodbye to Luke as a ghost instead of Old Anakin Guy saying goodbye to Luke as a ghost. Okay there was something to do about all that lava scarring and stuff, but you'd think Luke would recognize the older guy (whom he just saw with his mask off, all corrupted and stuff) much more easily than the younger dude hanging out as a blue glowie along with Yoda and Obi-Wan.

Then I defiantly felt that way when I learned the next Blu-Ray release of Jedi is going to have Vader scream "NOOOOOOOOO!" when grabbing the Emperor in the climactic fight scene. Of course. Add the single-most mocked part of the prequel films, beating out Jar-Jar even.

But as long as I still had a way to see the original films as I remembered them in the theaters, I'd be fine. (I was too young to see Star Wars on its original release, but I sure as heck caught both Empire and Jedi first-run. Jedi on opening weekend, even, and it was one of those amazing movie experiences where the entire theater just banded together to cheer everything. Anyway.) Then I realized I didn't know how I could see the original versions (or "as close to", blah blah) again, since I don't have a laserdisc player nor the moxie to try and track down discs. That's the part of revisionism what sucks. Each new Star Wars release is now film canon. Brilliant. Why release several versions and have 'em floating around at the same time? O ALL IS LOST said I, and went to go be all nerd-complainy about other science-fiction franchises such as Doctor Who LET ME TELL YOU WHAT I REALLY THINK ABOUT RUSSELL T DAVIES.

But lo! Salvation. As it turns out there was a 2006 DVD release of the trilogy that did just that and it completely flew under this here radar. Had no idea that had come out! At least, I'd have thought that if I knew, I'd have gotten 'em.

Don't matter now, cause on Saturday I got 'em. Turned out to be a decent present, eh. The first opens with just "STAR WARS"--no Episode IV, no A New Hope--and Han shoots first (heck, Han shoots only.) And later on in the trilogy Luke still air-kicks the dude off the sand barge. All throughout the bad mattes are still there, the missing lightsaber effects on some frames are still there, it's not shiny CGI, and that's how I like it. These releases are as scruffy as the universe they show us. So now that I can go back and see my copies whenever I want, Lucas can do whatever he wants with his copies. Force you, got mine!

Sebastian Shaw approves.

PS. What's the story behind Threepio's silver right leg? I completely forgot.

we are a band of brothers who rally 'round the flag once again

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:58:24 GMT

January Nineteenth, Two Thousand and Twelve.

Well, I did it. Finally finished the last episode of Ken Burns' Civil War miniseries and I cannot say as I have ever passed twelve hours with such rapt attention, even watching as I did in bursts of two or three episodes per night. However, such symptoms have manifested themselves in me as makes me wonder how I ever was able to watch television before. For when I now set fingers to keyboard, I do so in either the voice of a gallant young Confederate or an earnest and committed Union soldier. Sometimes they switch off in mid-sentence, as they just did now. It is altogether unsettling at first, though one gets used to it as one must.

I am further unsettled by the now-constant underscoring brought about by repeated exposure to the same musical motifs throughout the series. These tunes, glorious standards all, are fine and pleasing to the ear when heard for about an hour and a half every week. After lengthy viewing and listening, however, one begins to wonder if the fiddler and the fifer on the battlefield were supposed to know anything other than "The Battle Cry of Freedom" or "The Bonnie Blue Flag". For reasons known only to the heavenly creator, I am blessedly immune from both "Dixie" and "The Battle Hymn of the Republic", but the other two have so insidiously ingrained themselves in my subconscious that every thought I think and daily task that I undertake is now done with a mournful piano piece underneath. Small daily victories become Phyrric; momentary setbacks become lamentable failures. And every finality is set to the chorus with the high harmonies on top, itself a culmination of a slow and sad--but expertly played--build.

Moreover, I have come away from the viewing most impressed with the ability of the people in the middle of the 19th century to write letters of such a constant length as can be spoken to the tune of Ashokan Farewell, a song written one hundred and twenty years later, and reach their natural conclusions just as the song reaches its own. It is as if invisible hands were at work here, bringing the rambles to their most poignant and concise point just as the violin hangs on the note near the end, letting one final thought linger as the song finishes and the screen fades to black. This letter does not work that way. I have tried it.

D. Spatchel
Massachusetts

and please stop that wind, too, while you're at it

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 12:23:54 GMT

A Misanthropic Writer's Prayer

O Lord,
with thy Wisdom vast
and in thy Mercy infinite
Please watch over me and my creations
And lead me not into the temptation
Of searching for Rule 34 of my characters
And may nothing I ever say
Or write
Or do
Ever turn up on TVTropes
With fifteen references to anime
All of which I have never seen
For that
O Lord
Would certainly suck out loud¹

Yours very truly,
Amen

1. In one variant allowed in some states, this line is replaced with "Might be construed as proof positive of the Protestant work ethic". We're working on ratifying it in other states, but they keep telling us our bootstraps aren't pulled up high enough yet.

Talking to buddy

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 06:43:19 GMT

I dislike "cat blogging" in excess and I've probably discussed some of this before, but today Abbie and I had a conversation that I wanted to share. He's fourteen and a half years old, and I've had him since he was six weeks old. In that time we've gone through a lot together, and we've learned how to talk to each other effectively well. I can recognize certain meows of his: the echolocation meow, the "somebody come and play" meow, the "I'm in the room now, at ease" meow, and the "But I want it NOW" meow.

And I've learned how to respond to him in ways that he understands. He's learned his name, and has matched his pitch roughly to the one I use when I talk to him. He also mimics the upward inflection we use when asking questions, though I'm not sure if he's connected that with demands or uses it cause he hears it a lot. He also understands "Okay" and "Go ahead", but probably because they're said in a friendly tone, not like "No" or "Get down", which he'll recognize of course but ignore.

Diane Duane, in her brilliant "Book of Night with Moon" series, holds forth that cat language is a lot more sophisticated than just meows. It also involves body language, posture, location relative to one another, and even eye contact or the lack thereof. And most cat owners will tell you that's certainly the case. (Everyone probably also has a story similar to this one here, so let's hear 'em, gang!)

Abbie's version of please, for example, is a gentle extending of the paw at whatever it is you're currently eating. It's almost a pathetic Oliver Twist gesture, but it also says "I could swipe that stuff outta your hand at any time, and don't you forget it." He also knows the best way to wake me up and get me to do something is swat at a plastic bag, because I will move heaven and earth to get him to Stop Doing That Dammit.

But he has an even more polite version of please: He just sits down next to me and gently headbutts my leg. That can mean either show me attention or take a look at the food dish when you can, you know, no big rush, I can wait for now. For now I said.

He stays gentle for the most part, because beyond the vacuum cleaner fear he's a very relaxed cat. Of course he is. He's an indoor cat who holds court in a purple papasan throne with a catnip plant growing directly above him. It dangles so tantalizingly close he could just reach up and nip a piece off if he wanted, the hedonistic little Caesar.

Today I was trying to shoo Abbie out of a room so I could head out for lunch. He was sacked out on a pillow and showed no interest in leaving. I started by petting him and doing the rump-patting thing, which usually gets a cat right up on their feet so you can gently send them on their way. Abbie, however, was having none of it.

He had a hind paw sticking out as he lay down, so I reached over to grab it and push it over, motivate him that way. Instead, as soon as I took his hind paw he quickly moved his head around and took my hand, very gently, in his mouth. It was not an aggressive move. He's not a regular biter. He did not clamp down, he didn't break the skin, he just grabbed my hand swiftly enough to say "No, man, that's not cool. Back off." I relented and backed off. He let go. Eventually I got him up and he went off to sulk for a bit due to the overall ignominy of it, but I gave him some treats before I left and we were friends again.

I've been watching him walk and he's not favoring the leg, so it wasn't an injury reaction. It was one of those defensive instincts that cats have (the belly is their most vulnerable spot and they'll protect it with their hind legs) but Abbie, at least, showed an admirable display of restraint, a rare feature in a cat who will beg for everything from avocado to bottled water. I guess we know each other well enough after fourteen years that he trusts me to respect a warning, and I trust he won't harm me intentionally.

He's a good fella.

Just so's you know!

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 06:34:20 GMT

I've started up a little journally thing where I'll be posting stuff I find while poking around in Skyrim. Much like my World of Warcraft stuff, it's named Postcards from Skyrim and it's on its own separate site an' everything. Please feel free to add it to whatever reader you use when you want to look at in-game screenshots.

(We just finished playing the Star Wars: The Old Republic beta, so the most current post is all about the adventures of Bob Hoskins in space, but we'll be back to the land of the ice and snow now.)

And yes I know I need to see the new Muppet movie and I will be doing so real soon now all right

EMAIL, WE GET YOUR EMAIL, WE GET YOUR EMAIL EVERY DAY

Sun, 27 Nov 2011 17:46:31 GMT

Good morning,
It is my pleasure to locate your profile and your email on [site I've never been to] as a professional recording studio operator. I am Shawn Michaels from London,I am coming to
your studio there in United State to make a recording of my speech in which I
would be use in a gathering together with my Alumni Member by 23th of
January 2012 here in Bromley,London.I would be inviting a professional
interpreter from China to meet me in your studio in United State for the interpreting
of the speech to Chinese,French,Dutch and Spanish language.

let me know how much you do charge for making a speech recording for two hours
into a CD , as soon as I have the price to have 2hours session with you,I would
go ahead for securing the date with you

Hello Shawn Michaels from London,.

I'm sorry, but we don't take fraudulent cashier's checks, such as the kind you would no doubt insist on paying with in advance, even if you were so nice as to add more to the total on the check for me to "hold for you" while you travelled to my studio there in United State. I would be interested to know where exactly my studio is, since I don't have one. And while I've been to Paradise, I've never been to United State.

Give my best to your Alumni Member.

OCCUPY STOCKBRIDGE

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 03:33:38 GMT

iTunes just crashed and we're waiting for it to come back up is what we're doing

This song is called Alice's Restaurant
It's about Alice
and the Restaurant
But Alice's Restaurant is not the name of the Restaurant
That's just the name of the song
That's why I called this song Alice's Restaurant

You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant
You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant
Walk right in, it's around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
And you can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant

Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago
was on
Two years ago on Thanksgiving
When my friend and I
went up to visit Alice at the Restaurant
But Alice doesn't live in the Restaurant, she
lives in the Church nearby the Restaurant
in the Belltower
with her husband Ray
and Facha the Dog

and livin in the Belltower like that
they got a lot of room downstairs
where the Pews used to be in
havin all that room
seeing as how they took out all the Pews
they decided that they didn't have to take out their garbage
for a long time...

We got up there
we found all the garbage in there
and we decided it'd be a
friendly gesture for us to take the garbage
down to the city dump

So we took the half a ton of garbage
put it in the back of a red VW microbus
took shovels and rakes
and implements of de-struction
and headed on toward the city dump

Well we got there
and there was a big sign
and a chain across the dump
sayin CLOSED ON THANKSGIVING
and we had never heard of a dump closed on Thanksgiving before and
with tears in our eyes
we drove off into the sunset
looking for
another place to put the garbage

We didn't find one...

Til we came to a side road
and off the side of the side road
was another fifteen foot cliff
and at the bottom of the cliff
was another pile of garbage

And we decided that one big pile
is better than two little piles
and rather than bring that one up
we decided to throw ours down

That's what we did

Drove back to the church
had a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat
went to sleep and didn't get up
until the next morning
when we got a phone call
from Officer Obie.

He said Kid,
We found your name on an envelope
at the bottom of half a ton of garbage and
just wanted to know if you had any information about it
And I said Yes sir, Officer Obie
I cannot tell a lie
I put that envelope under that garbage.

After speaking to Obie
for about forty-five minutes on the telephone
we finally arrived at the Truth of the Matter
and said that we had to go down
and pick up the garbage
and also had to go down and speak to him at the
Police Officer's Station.

So we got in the red VW microbus
with the shovels and rakes and implements of de-struction
and headed on toward the Police Officer's Station

Now friends
there was only one or two things that Obie coulda done
at the Police Station
and the first was that he could have give us a medal
for being so Brave and Honest on the Telephone
which wasn't very likely
and we didn't expect it
and the other thing was
that he could've bawled us out
and told us never to be seen driving garbage around the vicinity again
which is what we expected

but when we got to the Police Officer's Station
there was a third possibility that we hadn't even counted upon
and we was both immediately arrested.
Handcuffed.
And I said Obie, I don't think I can pick up the garbage
with these handcuffs on
He said Shut up, Kid. Get in the back of the patrol car.

And that's what we did
sat in the back of the patrol car and drove to the
quote
Scene Of The Crime
unquote

I want to tell you about the town of Stockbridge Massachusetts
where this happened here
They got three stop signs
Two police officers
and one Police Car
but when we got to the
Scene Of The Crime
there was five police officers
and three Police Cars
being the biggest crime of the last fifty years
and everybody wanted to get in the newspaper story about it
and they was usin up all kinds of cop equipment
that they had hanging around the Police Officer's Station
They was taking plaster tire tracks
foot prints
dog smelling prints
and they took twenty-seven eight-by-ten
color glossy photographs
with circles and arrows
and a paragraph on the back of each one
explaining what each one was
to be used as evidence against us

Took pictures of the Approach
the Getaway
the Northwest Corner
the Southwest Corner
and that's not to mention the aerial photography...

After the ordeal we went back to the jail
Obie said he was going to put us in the cell
said Kid, I'm going to put you in the cell
I want your wallet and your belt

And I said Obie, I can understand you wanting my wallet
so I don't have any money to spend in the cell
but what do you want my belt for?
He said Kid, we don't want any hangings.

I said Obie, did ya think I was gonna hang myself for littering?

Obie said he was making sure
and friends Obie was
cause he took out the toilet seat
so I couldn't hit myself over the head and drown
and he took out the toilet paper
so I couldn't bend the bars
roll out
roll the toilet paper out the window
slide down the roll
and have an Escape

Obie was making sure
and it was about four or five hours later that Alice

Remember Alice?
It's a song about Alice.

Alice came by
and with a few nasty words to Obie on the side
bailed us out of jail
and we went back to the church
had another Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat
and didn't get up until the next morning
when we all had to go to Court.

We walked in
sat down
Obie came in
with the twenty-seven eight-by-ten
color glossy pictures
with circles and arrows
and a paragraph on the back of each one
and sat down

Man came in, said All rise
We all stood up
and Obie stood up
with the twenty-seven eight-by-ten
color glossy pictures
and the Judge walked in
sat down with a seein eye dog
and he sat down

We sat down
Obie looked at the seeing eye dog
and then at the twenty-seven eight-by-ten
color glossy pictures
with the circles and arrows
and a paragraph on the back of each one
and looked at the seeing eye dog

And then at the twenty-seven eight-by-ten
color glossy pictures
with the circles and arrows
and a paragraph on the back of each one
and began to cry

cause Obie came to the realization
that it was a typical case of American Blind Justice
and there wasn't nothing he could do about it
and the Judge wasn't going to look at
the twenty-seven eight-by-ten
color glossy pictures
with the circles and arrows
and a paragraph on the back of each one
explaining what each one was
to be used as evidence against us

And we was fined fifty dollars
and had to pick up the garbage in the snow
but that's not what I came to tell you about.

Came to talk about the draft.

They got a building down New York City
It's called Whitehall Street
Where you walk in
you get injected
inspected
de-tected
infected
ne-glected
and se-lected

I went down to get my physical examination one day
and I walked in
I sat down
got good and drunk the night before
so I looked and felt my best
when I went in that morning
cause I wanted to look like the All American Kid from New York City
man I wanted
I wanted to feel like
I wanted to be
the All American Kid from New York
and I walked in
sat down
I was hung down
brung down
hung up
and all kinds of mean nasty ugly things
and I walked in
I sat down
and they gave me a piece of paper
said Kid, see the Psychiatrist, room 604.

and I went up there
I said Shrink,
I want to kill.
I mean
I wanna
I wanna kill.
Kill
I wanna
I wanna see
I wanna see blood and gore and guts
and veins in my teeth
Eat dead burnt bodies
I mean kill
Kill
KILL?!
KILL!!

and I started jumpin up and down yellin
KILL!! KILL?!
and he started jumpin up and down with me
and we was both jumpin up and down
yellin KILL!! KILL?!
And the Sergeant came over
pinned a medal on me
sent me down the hall
said You're our boy
didn't feel too good about it

Proceeded on down the hall
gettin more injections inspections detections neglections
and all kinds of stuff that they was doin to me at the thing there
and I was there for two hours
three hours
four hours
I was there for a long time going through all kinds of mean nasty ugly things
and I was just having a tough time there
and they was inspecting injecting every single part of me
and they was leaving no part untouched

Proceeded through
and when I finally came to see the very last man
I walked in
walked in sat down after a whole big thing there
and I walked up and said What do you want?
He said Kid, we only got one question:
Have you ever been arrested?

And I proceeded to tell him the story of Alice's Restaurant Massacree
with full orchestration
and five part harmony and stuff like that
and all the
and he stopped me right there
and said Kid, did you ever go to Court?

And I proceeded to tell him the story of the the twenty-seven eight-by-ten
color glossy pictures
with the circles and arrows
and a paragraph on the back of each one
and he stopped me right there and said
Kid, I want you to go over
and sit down on that bench
that says Group W...

NOW, Kid!

And I
I walked over to the
to the bench there
and there is
Group W's where they put you if you may not be
moral enough to join the Army
after committing your special crime
and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly looking people on the bench there was
Mother Rapers
Father Stabbers
Father Rapers
Father Rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me!
And they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys
was sitting there on the bench
And the meanest ugliest nastiest one
the meanest Father Raper of them all
was comin over to me
and he was mean 'n ugly 'n nasty 'n horrible and all kinds of things
and he sat down next to me
and said Kid, what'dya get?
I said I didn't get nothing
I had to pay fifty dollars and pick up the garbage

He said What were you arrested for, Kid?
and I said Littering
and they all moved away from me on the bench there
and the hairy eyeball
and all kinds of mean nasty things

until I said And creatin' a nuisance
and they all came back
shook my hand
and we had a great time on the bench
talkin bout crime
mother stabbing
father raping
all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the bench
and everything was fine
we was smoking cigarettes and all kinds of things
until the Sergeant came over
had some paper in his hand
held it up
and said Kids,

thispieceofpaper'sgotfortysevenwords
thirtysevensentences
fiftyeightwords
wewannaknowdetailsofthecrimetimeofthecrime
andanyotherthingyougottasay
pertainingtoandaboutthecrime
Iwanttoknowarrestingofficer'sname
andanyotherkindofthingyougottasay

and talked for forty-five minutes
and nobody understood a word that he said
but we had fun filling out the forms
and playing with the pencils on the bench there and
I filled out the Massacree with the four part harmony and
wrote it down there just like it was
and everything was fine and I put down the pencil
and I turned over the piece of paper
and there

there on the other side
in the middle of the other side
away from everything else on the other side
in parentheses
capital letters
quotated
read the following words

("KID, HAVE YOU REHABILITATED YOURSELF?")

I went over to the Sergeant
said Sergeant
you've got a lotta damn gall to ask me if I've rehabilitated myself
I mean
I mean I mean that just
I'm sitting here on the bench
I mean I'm sitting here on the Group W bench
cause you want to know if I'm moral enough to join the Army
burn women kids houses and villages
after being a Litterbug

He looked at me and said Kid, we don't like your kind
and we're gonna send your fingerprints off to Washington
and friends
somewhere in Washington
enshrined in some little folder
is a study in black and white
of my fingerprints

And the only reason I'm singing you this song now
is cause you may know somebody in a similar situation
or you may be in a similar situation
and if you're in a situation like that
there's only one thing you can do
and that's walk into the shrink
wherever you are
just walk in
say Shrink,
You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant
and walk out

You know if one person
just one person does it
they may think he's really sick and they won't take him
and if two people
two people do it
in harmony
they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them

and if three people do it
three can you imagine
three people walking in
singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant
and walking out
they may think it's an Organization

And can you
can you imagine fifty people a day
I said fifty people a day
walking in
singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant
and walking out
and friends they may think it's a Movement

And that's what it is
the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacree Movement
and all you gotta do to join
is to sing it the next time
it comes around on the guitar

With feeling.

So we'll wait til it comes around on the guitar here
and sing it when it does.

Here it comes:

You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant
You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant
Walk right in, it's around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
And you can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant

That was horrible.
If you want to end war and stuff you got to sing loud
could put a lot
I've been singing this song now for twenty five minutes
I could sing it for another twenty five minutes
I'm not proud
or tired

So we'll wait til it comes around again
and this time with four part harmony and feeling
we're just waiting for it to come around is what we're doing
all right now

You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant (excepting Alice)
You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant
Said walk right in, it's around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
And you can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant

da da da da da da dum
at Alice's Restaurant

-Arlo Guthrie

Helpful hints to win the game

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 21:54:10 GMT

SKYRIM DRAGON DENTISTRY
A TUTORIAL

Step 1. Approach patient and climb on head.

Step 2. Prepare extraction instrument and instruct patient to open wide.
Some clipping may occur during this step; this is a normal part of the procedure.

Step 3. Proceed with extractions.

Step 4. Schedule follow-up appointment as soon as possible.

and if there's a record scratch sound effect in the trailer so help me

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 21:56:30 GMT

Variety is reporting that David Yates, director of the last few Harry Potter films (honestly, was I the only one who really thought Alfonso Cuaron did a great job?) is "teaming up" with the BBC to make Doctor Who a movie.

Yippee! Zowie! The Doctor who is not Peter Cushing and his companions on the big screen! Let's read the article together, you and I, and thrill to the exciting developments to come!

Yates, who directed the last four Potter films, told Daily Variety that he is about to start work on developing a "Doctor Who" movie with Jane Tranter, head of L.A.-based BBC Worldwide Prods.

Okay, Jane Tranter worked with Russell T. Davies on the New Who. I took a liking to her after reading Davies' production diaries, if only because she had the common sense to turn down some of Russell's more embarrassingly bad ideas. Onward and let's get to the good parts like MAYBE IF K-9 WILL BE IN IT! I LIKE K-9!

"We're looking at writers now. We're going to spend two to three years to get it right," he said. "It needs quite a radical transformation to take it into the bigger arena."

Well that's a bit of a comedown. I never like hearing that an established series needs a "radical" kind of anything. And Doctor Who doesn't. Want to make an exciting and fun Doctor Who movie? Get Moffat to write, get Matt Smith and anybody who's around after the Christmas special. (I have yet to watch the second half of this season, by the way, and I've studiously avoided spoilers so I don't know anything that's happened since Spring) Have them run around for two hours thwarting alien menaces in a solidly-crafted story, and you'll have some damn good sci-fi. People are going to want to see the characters they know and love.

Maybe I'm overreacting just a little bit. Maybe I'm taking "radical transformation" out of proportion. Maybe all Yates really wants to do is change the theme tune, you know, put some heavy bass under it or something. Or maybe he'll make the Cybermen glow orange. Let's see.

Yates made clear that his movie adaptation would not follow on from the current TV series, but would take a completely fresh approach to the material.

"Russell T. Davies and then Steven Moffat have done their own transformations, which were fantastic, but we have to put that aside and start from scratch," he said.

wait

what

DOES THIS MEAN WE WON'T GET K-9?!

Now that's a pretty spectacular disappointment and specific to boot! Time was all someone had to do to irk the masses was say "Hey I'm making a movie of a favorite sci-fi/fantasy property" and we'd descend like howler monkeys (we are legion; we are hyperbolic) to cry "It won't be the same! It will suck!" More often than not we were vindicated. Hello, I, Robot. Other times really everyone was pleasantly surprised with how well it came out. Hello, Lord of the Rings. But David Yates here doesn't even set a "might not suck" bar. He simply kicks it to the ground with a Reboot implication. Yeah, don't think like he won't. Phrases like "completely fresh" and "start from scratch" are pretty damning.

Doctor Who is a British institution and beloved television show for decades, and there's one good reason why: It's constant even in the face of changes that would faze other television programs. Actors and actresses (including leads) come and go, show runners switch off, the TARDIS keeps looking different inside. It's a show all about change, but it's been constant in that change. It has built a robust universe with strong characters, recurring villains, and species who have been allowed to develop on their own as characters.

Doctor Who has become one grand epic story, and while some chapters have been better than others and okay, there might have been some slight fiddling with the canon, it's still an amazing work all around. A lot of really clever and talented people have worked hard on this story over the years and starting from scratch, doing away with their universe entirely, is an insult to their endeavors.

It seems to me that while Yates can cloak his intentions with "It's an artistic necessity! Honest!" what he really wants here is Michael Bay blockbuster grosses. Take a franchise that people have heard of, turn it into blow-up-real-good entertainment for the PG-13 demographic, then go swim in your Scrooge McDuck money bin. And there's nothing wrong with blow-up-real-good entertainment, but you don't have to ruin Doctor Who to do it.

A Very Swell Update

Sat, 15 Oct 2011 06:43:00 GMT

RADIO PROMO TIME HERE COMES A PROMO

"HI! Join me, Frank Cyrano, and some of your Byfar favorites as we join the Ultrasonic Rock Orchestra's amazing Rock & Roll Circus for one night only, tomorrow, October 15th, in Arlington's own Regent Theater. We'll performing a favorite Byfar Hour routine before your very ears and eyes in between amazing sets of rock and roll, including the Beatles' "Abbey Road" in its ENTIRETY. Live! The doors open at 7:30, and you won't want to be late!"

I heard them perform at tonight's dress rehearsal/press night for the first time and I was completely blown away. The URO is a group which would technically be called a cover band, but by god they transcend that phrase because they do it right. I'll give you an example:

The late and very sadly missed Brad Delp, formerly from the band Boston, last fronted a band called Beatlejuice which specialized in performing live versions of Beatles studio tracks. That is, the sound they performed for you live, on stage, sounded as close to what took the Beatles numerous takes (and other post engineering wizardry) to get on recorded media. They were playing live versions of studio tracks every night. That is no small feat.

You should have heard their Strawberry Fields Forever. Should have just heard it, man. (Beatlejuice still tours if I recall correctly, so I guess you can.)

I mean, there are plenty of cover bands, some just barely hanging out in small dives (who can honestly do quite well when they're sincere; I made the acquaintance of two guys in central Florida this year who just played for the hell of it and damned if it didn't sound good over $1.50 drafts) and others which just play whatever the hell the front man likes and you better know your Moody Blues, dammit. But Beatlejuice, and the Ultrasonic Rock Orchestra as well, reject the notion that all you need to make covers is a good fake book and a drummer who can sort of kind of do the fills well.

Instead, what these discriminatin' cover/tribute/(there needs to be a better word) groups recreate the music. For as reals as they can get. This does not mean they're doing an exact imitation -- their Beatles songs, for the most part, are completely free from Liverpudlian accents. (Though some backup vocals just sound better when they're nasally and Northern, and the URO makes it a point to include 'em when needed.) When they do David Bowie songs, you don't get a Bowie soundalike, but you get someone with the vocal intensity and just right vocal range for him. Their final encore song at the dress rehearsal tonight was Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain", and my god but if Sal, one of ten vocalists singing that evening, didn't channel Lindsey Buckingham's intensity and anger in his "And if you don't looove me nooow" parts.

I think I might have mentioned they're good. And you should hear their Strawberry Fields Forever. You should just hear it, man.

When accuracy does count, they are spot-on musically. The drummer, who I presume is right-handed unless I was looking at it wrong and I might coulda been, had Ringo Starr's fills down flawlessly. (The thing about Ringo was that he was a left-handed drummer playing on a right-handed kit, so he had to come up with these fills he could start with his strong hand... which naturally is the weak hand for righties. Can be difficult to play. At least, that's what I remember from Beatles Rock Band.) The URO drummer got to the drum solo during the second half of Abbey Road and we cheered for him.

The most amazing part about the drummer is that, when the band shifts from group to group, he just slides right into the style of whatever drummer is needed: from Ringo Starr to John Bonham for some Zeppelin to Keith Moon when they get into the Who. Amazingly versatile, and just a little bit of a showboat. He does a snare roll, then flips his drumstick in the air during the second verse of Killer Queen. (Oh, and one of the guitarists has that Brian May sound down like nobody's business. Glorious.)

Meanwhile, there's a ton of people on stage in varying forms of dress, almost equally split male-female, so there'll be somebody there you'll enjoy looking at no matter what. And they're dancing, and singing in incredibly tight harmonies, and it's great.

I was backstage with my Byfar Hour cohorts working on the sketch script when they came in to do a final warmup. Someone went searching for a D and finally found it, and they launched into a chorus of Fat-Bottomed Girls, with exactly tight Queen melodies (albeit with a slightly different arrangement for more voices.) Those of us observing wisely as a third-party refrained from singing along, knowing that what we were here for wasn't to throw that high harmony on top, like you do. But that was okay, because they all hit the harmonies so fine and so sweet, all you could do was just listen along in admiration and appreciation. Lordy, it was sweet.

Meanwhile, one of the vocalists is in a cast because he broke his ankle, yet he still manages to rock out. That's love of the craft right there.

Anyway, we performed last year's "Marblehead Murder Mystery" slightly altered to be a dialogue for two with sound effects from a third, owing to cast availability. It was politely (all right, it was well) received, T.F. Guy did a wonderful job with the sound effects, and some folks were laughing throughout which made me feel good. We were even sought down in the auditorium later on by two younger fans who really wanted to let us know how much they enjoyed the Byfar Hour comedy. I mean, I think one of 'em jumped two rows of chairs to get to us. That was... really flattering, to be honest. Hooray for accessible comedy! They'll be in the audience tomorrow night when we perform at their opening night show. The full Byfar cast required will be peforming, including Tom Champion as Boris Karloff, and it's going to be incredible. Gang, let's make sure we sign some autographs for 'em.

So if you've got nothing going on tomorrow night, and you're near Arlington, I sure hope that you have plans now. And if you are busy tomorrow night, they're gonna be doing this kind of thing for the next few Saturday nights, so you've got plenty of options available. And please, for the sake of us fine fun artists who like to do awesome, do try to shatter those preconceptions of Arlington being beyond the Berlin Wall that is the Mystic Valley Parkway. It so is not, Arlington's a lot closer than Davis Squarians often think (I've been guilty of thinking that myself) and that intersection is so not Checkpoint Charlie. Although it really is annoying. But you'll make it through just fine, I swear! Or take the Shortcut near Johnnie's Foodmaster!

The Regent's an easy five-ten minute drive up Mass Ave -- you drive Mass Ave a lot, don't you? -- and it's even on several bus lines, including the 77, which goes by so frequently Elwood Blues would hardly notice it if he lived nearby. And there's decent parking around if you do insist on driving. So do come on down to see the URO, and to see us, if you can. You're going to have so much fun it's worth crossing that line what reads "Here There Be Dragons."

Because they're \m/ DRAGONS OF ROCK. \m/

PS. You better take an extra pair of socks with you, because they're going to rock the first pair off. Maybe even the second. Bring a few rolled up into little balls, just in case.

This, by the way, marks the point every production cycle when things officially become Fun. There may have been struggles before, and there may be struggles later, and I may not exactly have loathed every second of work attached to the project beforehand -- this Fun demarcation point is positive all around. It's the part where I start telling myself "This is what I do. I do this." and then do it with a grin on my face. We've got an amazing show this year, I really hope you can be a part of it, and now we start yammering about it quite a bit.

Saturday, August 1, 1981

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 14:22:07 GMT

"Ladies and gentlemen: Rock and roll."

And we never looked at music the same way again.

MTV Bingo calls: Dutch Angle, B&W, "Live" Set, Abstract Background, Chroma Key, Dennis DeYoung

LiveJournal, after careful consideration I have come to the conclusion that your post editor sucks.

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 05:30:49 GMT

The first thing you ought to know about Goliath, the new-for-2012 roller coaster at Six Flags New England, is that Six Flags went through a bit of bankruptcy last year and has been gasping financially ever since. While it will be adding brand-new coasters to some parks in 2012, they've been on an aggressive ride-swapping campaign to save costs. Last year Great Adventure in New Jersey ripped out the Great American Scream Machine (oh Ron Toomer I am so so sorry), sold it for scrap, and then moved over the stand-up coaster Chang, which had been SBNO (Standing But Not Operating) at the closed Kentucky Kingdom park. They painted it green, called it Green Lantern, and hey presto Great Adventure has a new ride. Next year, Iron Wolf, B&M's very first roller coaster and another stand-up, will be removed from Great America in Chicago and sent to Six Flags America in Maryland under the name Apocalypse. Six Flags America will in turn demolish one of their white elephants, the ill-fated Typhoon Sea Coaster, for the privilege.

Apocalypse is a perfect name for that B&M stand-up, by the way, because unless you board the train and bend your knees slightly while they raise the bicycle seat up to fit you, the ride will be so painful you'll wish the apocalypse would hurry the hell up already.

The second thing you ought to know about Goliath, the new-for-2012 roller coaster at Six Flags New England, is that it is indeed another proud member of the Six Flags ride swap program. It is currently at Magic Mountain in California under the name Deja Vu, and it looks like this:

Image found at parkz.com.au as you can see, though I'm hosting a copy on my own. Just saying.

Deja Vu is a Vekoma Giant Inverted Boomerang coaster. You sit below the track and your legs dangle and you better not be wearing flip-flops. It's a boomerang, which means you start by going backwards up a lift hill. At the top your train is released and you head back down, speeding through the station, going through a cobra roll and then a vertical loop before heading up a steep spike to stop near the top. Then you head backwards down the spike, back through the loop and the cobra roll, through the station and you brake on the lift hill.

The ride has a 177' vertical drop and the inversions are a hundred or so feet tall. Sounds pretty exciting, and it certainly is a big structure, if garishly painted. The Giant Inverted Boomerang coasters were very unreliable when they were first built, and when they broke down, they'd more often than not just stay down. I believe Vekoma finally handled all the technical problems with the ride, so hopefully SFNE won't be getting a busted-ass coaster cause that would be a real jerkwad thing to do.

The third thing you ought to know about Goliath, the new-for-2012 roller coaster at Six Flags New England, is that the park has another coaster in its line-up named Flashback, and it looks like this:

Flashback is a Vekoma Boomerang Coaster. You sit in cars on top of the track and for some inexplicable reason the restraint system involves a rubber hockey puck between your legs. (I am not making this up.) It's a boomerang, which means you start by going backwards up a lift hill. At the top your train is released and you head back down, speeding through the station, going through a cobra roll and then a vertical loop before heading up a steep spike to stop near the top. Then you head backwards down the spike, back through the loop and the cobra roll, through the station and you brake on the lift hill. Wow! I sure am glad I didn't have to type most of that again! Thanks, Ctrls C and V!

This boomerang only has a 116' drop and the model is so ubiquitous in theme parks everywhere that once you've ridden one you've pretty much ridden them all. There are over fifty of them world-wide ("How many have you ridden?" "Too many") although this particular coaster is the only one I know which inexplicably features hockey pucks between your legs. Seriously. I have no idea what they were going for here, unless it's to keep the harnesses from smacking down so much or something. I don't know. Forget it, Jake, it's Six Flags.

The fourth thing you ought to know about Goliath, the new-for-2012 roller coaster at Six Flags New England, is that they won't need to demolish Flashback to make room for the ride. Nope, they'll instead be taking out a water flume called Shipwreck Falls and putting Goliath in its place. Here, I'll show you part of the park map:

See? Shipwreck Falls is there on the right in the square number 74. And wouldja look at that! To the left of Shipwreck Falls, in the square numbered 73, is... huh. Flashback.

So Six Flags New England is installing a larger, inverted version of a roller coaster they already have, a model which has already been replicated to the point of mind-numbing madness, and they are placing the two right next to each other.

One of them was formerly named Deja Vu, and the other is named Flashback.

I don't think anybody will notice.

Actually I think it's grown, self-indulgent but still has, its moments

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 10:14:09 GMT

The CW network, the result of those star-crossed WB/UPN network breeding experiments in the mid 2000s, has given the MBTA a lot of good money to make sure that I know that 30 Rock, which is now old enough to be syndicated but still not old enough to drink, will be appearing on their Boston affiliate five times a week.

They have done so by placing brightly colored posters around the subway system which feature headshots of the wacky main castmembers, each headshot accompanied by a really lame attempt at a zingy slogan. It wants to be perfect marketing drivel: Enough references to connect with existing viewers, but not enough to alienate potential newcomers. The only problem is the plan. The poster sure hopes that "What the what?" appearing over Tina Fey's smiling face will compel me to rush to the set at whatever time the CW is airing the show, but I don't think it'll happen. Ditto "You don't know Jack!" above Alec Baldwin. (They could only find contextless catchphrases for two out of five characters so the other three, including poor Alec, are represented by generic wackiness.)

At least they're not in word balloons or thought bubbles.

But of course this is not the focus of the poster. Nay, in order to design a successful poster you need something eye-catching and big, something that the kids today would say "pops". Like a slogan. A big slogan! But short, if it's going to be big. And it will be!

Why, if you were clever enough you could even come up with a cool, catchy, popping-and-locking slogan that plays off the show's name, maybe even a pun which has never, ever, ever graced the top of an amateur media review. In order to make it really eye-catching, however, and skew the ad demo towards pedants and other people whose teeth involuntarily grind themselves to dust when they see really crappy grammar, all you have to do is think really hard for twenty seconds and then squeeze out something like this, which I will faithfully recreate for you now with all punctuation and line breaks intact:

30 ROCK,
ROCKS!

Do you hear all that machinery whirring away? Those are the dynamos I just hooked up to the graves of Strunk and White. Our power needs are now met well into the next decade.

I was all set to prepare an amusing little dialog set in Marketing (scenario: Idiotic hypothetical questions from management force plucky copy writer to add needless punctuation) but I could not come up with a situation which could even vaguely justify the useless comma. Yes, "30 ROCK ROCKS!" on its own line like that looks weird and redundant, but that's what the line break was for.

You can't even worry about the line break forcing the brain to ignore redundancy like that classic "PARIS IN THE THE SPRING" exercise, because each line is printed in a different color. And besides, if your brain ignores redundancy, then you're going to read the slogan as either "30 ROCK" or "30 ROCKS!" Or maybe just "30" if you're a real stickler. I'm not sure if the color scheme is kind to the colorblind, but strike the "Maybe colorblind people won't get it" theory from your Overthinking List anyway because there's absolutely no way that kind of consideration could have been paid to this project. Hell, I've probably spent more time complaining about it than it took 'em to make it. (And that includes the time they spent using the little freehand lasso tool in Photoshop around each headshot.)

I do still believe in the glory of the noble, common-sensical cubemonkey in the face of ignorant middle management, and I also believe deep down in my heart that there was at least one person involved in the creation process who knew that this was wrong. This is why my scenario involved a creator type (who naturally is correct!) who gets cajoled into adding what he or she knew was an ignominiously placed comma and in doing so gives up, oh, I dunno, either Artistic Integrity or Personal Principles, you pick, in exchange for job security.

I would finish with a pithy little quip suggesting that the CW expand its ad budget so it wouldn't have to outsource its poster work to Mrs. Prelutsky's 8th grade graphic design class, but honestly that would only serve as an insult to Mrs. Prelutsky's 8th grade graphic design class.

Oh, who am I kidding, absolutely nobody over there noticed or gave a good goddamn. And it's just a stupid extraenous comma, for crying out loud; the least of the poster's worries. It's not as if the ad copy had included, say, the phrase "would of". Or ethnic slurs. Those who are smart enough to catch it should presumably be cool enough to let it slide. But it's late, I can't sleep, I'm already grumpy, probably entering a manic phase, and this kind of cranky nitpicking is what you do on the Internet so I'm doing it. The ad campaign is all in vain, anyway; I couldn't even tell you which channel number the CW network is on over here.

Tomorrow, let me tell you how I really feel about that thing I saw/ate/heard/slept on.

Why wait? Moses, what is up with LJ's new editing window? Minimal vertical space between lines and arrow keys that don't work the way they're supposed to. Sure, up and down arrows move up and down lines, but they always take you to the beginning of each line, even if there's text above or below that you're trying to move the goddamn cursor to. It's wholly counterintuitive and incredibly annoying, but it's an understandable enough design mistake. If made by someone who had never used any kind of word processing software before.

Road Movie Quiz Results I think

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 01:20:53 GMT

Hey, remember when I posted pictures of movies whose first frames involved a road and asked you, the reader, to guess 'em? Well, I almost didn't remember, but man was it a tough quiz. So tough we hid in abject shame for a month and then some, as you could tell. Anyway, instead of giving hints and encouraging you to try further, which would have been cool if I'd done it in a timely fashion, here are the answers. Many of you got the bonus poodle right away, so good on you! I promise my next SUPAR FUN QUIZ TIEM won't be so tough and instead more, um, SUPAR FUN.

1. True Stories (1986)

piezocuttlefish, davidglasser and zrblm all guessed it. David Byrne makes a film based primarily on headlines found in the Weekly World News, sets it in Texas, and gets John Goodman to sing. Really. The result is all very much the Talking Heads' song "The Big Country" set to film, as Byrne drives around in a convertible making wonderfully innocent comments about suburbia, and the musical numbers are excellent. See it if you can.

2. The Italian Job (1969)
Forget the idiotic remake with Mark Wahlberg, this film is where it's at if you want to see Mini Coopers driving around a city doing things that Mini Coopers should not do. Seriously, the last ten minutes of the film is, as Jeremy Clarkson would say, one of the greatest car chase sequences... in the wuhhhld. People have recreated it in stop-motion Lego animation, it's so great. Quincy Jones' funky and happy score does not hurt, either.

3. Repo Man (1984)
See that car in the distance? It's a-comin' with something pretty intense in the trunk. Repo Man was all about desolation and the automobile, and this wide opening shot is awesome. By the way, you may notice a lot of films with roads in them start in a desert. Not sure why.

A lot of people guessed this was Raising Arizona, which was a very good guess. I would have happily used that film in this quiz, only it doesn't open on a road. Imagine that. (The brilliant title card, however, does. But that would've given it right away.)

4. Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Yeah, everybody remembers the opening graveyard scene and "They're coming to get you, Baaa-bara" and all that. But, well, they had to get to the graveyard first, and this is the lonely road they took.

Props to read_alicia, who guessed (and this is verbatim) "My Grandma's vacation slides from Uxbridge, Kansas, Home of the World's Dumbest Dog and Largest Shoney's". Good answer! Good answer! I also would have accepted "In Cold Blood: The Home Movies."

5. Bagdad Cafe (1987)
This film, which inspired a short-lived CBS series starring Whoopi Goldberg and Jean Stapleton, is about an older German woman who finds herself stranded in the American southwest and ends up living at the remote hotel.

Bagdad Cafe is German, which explains why the cinematography and design is incredible. I mean, look at this shot. Look at it. Look at the angles of the car doors and the haphazard shack on the right. Every thing is meticulously set up, yet it looks like the whole scene just happened. The rest of the film is just like the first frame.

A tip of the theoretical hat to coho29, who guessed A Boy and his Dog. That's another film I looked at when putting this thing together, and it begins with a nuclear explosion. I briefly considered a rousing round of "Guess the Film by its Opening Nuclear Explosion", but decided it'd be just a tad bit annoying.

6. Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
This one is a little fudgy: Technically the film opens with a montage of the 60s set to "My Favorite Things", then the title, and then an epigram from Samuel Johnson, which then gets quickly wiped away (this screenshot is set mid-wipe) to the big red beast roaring down the road.

coho29 got it and so did read_alicia, although she spelled it Los Angelos. Half marks for the fear and loathing, admirable as it was. (At least she didn't guess My Own Private Idaho, which she did for most of the other pictures.)

For the record, the Samuel Johnson epigram went like this:

He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.

Thompson used it in the book, and Terry Gilliam used it in the film.

7. The General (1926)
Well, it's a road, all right! A lovely opening shot to Buster Keaton's brilliant film. If you ain't seen it, you owe it to yourself to check it out sometime. Even damn Yankees will be Confederate fans if only for the duration of this adventure.

8. Carnival of Souls (1962)
Nobody even tried on this one (except for our friend Alicia, who guessed "Three Easy Women") which is understandable. Like Night of the Living Dead, it's a cult film where the opening shot really doesn't mean much. Except for the fact that the ladies are soon to experience a bit of a shock which sets the story in motion, but that's just details, details, details.

A certain Crow T. Robot remarked on the next film that "every frame looks like somebody's last known picture", but damned if this shot doesn't have that quality, too.

Bonus Poodle: Manos, the Hands of Fate (1966)
Yes, yes, yes. Very well done, all of you. Magic Mirror, tell me today: Which of my friends got it right on this play?

I see mmcirvin and off_coloratura and aliiyf; I see lbmango and I see read_alicia of course (with David Lynchian overtones in her answer.) Phew!

Join us next time when we find something better to do with opening film shots! And see some of those films in the answers if you haven't. This has been a Mark Goodson-Bill Todman production.