We all knew this day would come…
By Brian | December 7, 2008
In my mailbox (the actual mailbox, not my e-mail inbox) today:
Sigh…
Categories: Money Talk | 2 Comments »
The Muppets Do Billy Joel
By Brian | December 6, 2008
SamuraiFrog over at Electronic Cerebrectomy points us to this awesome clip of Dr. Teeth & The Electric Mayhem (a.k.a., the Muppet Band) covering Billy Joel’s New York State of Mind:
The clip is awesome for several reasons. First, I’ve never seen it before (and I have the TimeLife issued complete Muppet Show DVDs, so this must have been recorded but never incorporated into a show Best of the Muppet Show DVDs, but this isn’t on it). Second, with the exception of the standard Statler & Waldorf tag at the end, it’s done straight – no anthropomorphic Greyhound Buses or newspapers popping up during the song for our amusement – just the music.
Third, and most interesting to me, they do some really cool things with the song musically. For instance, the bridge is sung in a higher key than the verses, rather than a lower key as Billy Joel recorded it. In Joel’s version, the bridge is a quiet reflection on his time away from New York, and an admission that he misses the rat race and wants back in. The lower key gives us a sense of this “break” from the story. When it’s over, the song returns to a somewhat angst-laden traveler who just can’t wait to get home already, and the key goes back up to reflect the tension.
The Electric Mayhem reverse this to great effect. Floyd sings it as a guy who’s perfectly comfortable being on the road. His travel back to New York is just another Greyhound bus in a string of thousands, and it doesn’t phase him at all. At the bridge, though, the key goes higher as he gets downright mournful (and maybe even a bit annoyed?) about having spent so much time off the road, disconnected from the rest of the world. When his bridge finishes, he sounds downright relieved to be singing about his travels again.
The line to listen for is “Don’t care if it’s Chinatown or Riverside.” When Joel sings it, he means “I don’t care where you take me, just get me there already.” Floyd means it more literally – he really doesn’t care if he winds up in Chinatown or Riverside. It’s just another stop on the tour to him, and he’ll be leaving soon anyway.
I expect this kind of emotional depth from Billy Joel – he’s a consummate artist and a storyteller at heart. But a bunch of felt puppets? Jim Henson and his crew were so much better than anyone else at that genre, it’s staggering. Oh, and we need to remember that there was a real band providing the music off stage, and they had some serious chops too.
Categories: Primetime TV, Words about Music | 2 Comments »
When Film is Free: 11 Things To Do With Your Digital Camera
By Brian | December 5, 2008
Via Glenn Reynolds, a link to eleven cool things you can do with your digital camera that you may not have thought about before:
- Tip #1: Photograph a note with your name, address, blood type, allergies, etc. in case you lose your camera or are found unconscious
- Tip #2: Photograph floorplans, mall layouts or subway maps so you can refer to them as you wander about
- Tip #3: Photograph parking lot signs so you remember where you parked
- Tip #4: Photograph something before you take it apart to fix it, in case you want to remember what it looked like before you started
- Tip #5: Photograph license plates of cars parked next to you in case your car gets dinged while you’re away
- Tip #6: Photograph a particular page in the yellow pages so you can keep the addresses & phone numbers with you
- Tip #7: Photograph potentially illegal situations for use as evidence later on
- Tip #8: Photograph Chinese food menus or complex SKU#’s for on-the-go reference(not quite sure how these wound up together, btw…)
- Tip #9: Photograph a recipe before going shopping for ingredients
- Tip #10: Photograph your rental car to document pre-existing dents, dings, etc.
- Tip #11: Photograph yourself when there’s no mirror available
Each link provides a sample picture and some more detail, so by all means – click around.
For the record, I think some of these are cooler than others. The “photograph some data and zoom in on the picture to read it” suggestions (#2, #6, #8, and #9) seem better served by having an iPhone, Blackberry, or some such device. But if you don’t already own one of those, a camera can make due as described above.
Categories: Random Acts of Blogging | 1 Comment »
Everyone’s Coming Down (on) Rosie…
By Brian | November 29, 2008
Flipping through the on-screen guide just before Thanksgiving, I noticed that Rosie O’Donnell was launching a new variety show on NBC. The originals in this format were all just before my time, but since I never turn off an old Carol Burnett rerun, I hit the “Record” button on my DVR, figuring I’d get back to it at some point.
Well….the reviews are in:
James Hibberd’s The Live Feed: “There’s a notion that the climate is right for the genre to make a comeback. I guess we now know what not to do, thanks to Rosie.”
The New York Times: “Ms. O’Donnell can be very funny, but she didn’t try very hard Wednesday night. . . Lame jokes are part of the holiday variety genre, along with campy production numbers featuring sexy dancers and cute little children. Celebrity score-settling, on the other hand, belongs to the self-obsessed blogging Facebook generation. Ms. O’Donnell, who frequently takes out her frustrations in a video diary on her Web site, would have been better served leaving herself behind and sticking to the classics.”
Matt Roush: “If the TV variety format weren’t already dead, the ghastly ego trip of NBC’s Thanksgiving-eve turkey Rosie Live would surely have killed it.”
LA Times: “‘Rosie Live’ may enter the realm of unsolved mysteries, along with the fate of Amelia Earhart and the design team of the pyramids. O
Categories: Primetime TV | 2 Comments »
Happy Linksgiving!
By Brian | November 28, 2008
On this festive holiday, we here at I Should Be Sleeping present a series of cool links for your clicking pleasure…
- The Visual Dictionary – JPEG images of common words, allowing you to create graphical representations of words & phrases. The header of this post is a quick example of what it can do.
- The Motivator– An oldie but a goodie. Create one of those motivational posters you see popping up every once in a while…
- The Best Card Trick in the World – Some guy on YouTube who believes he has invented a simple, but impressive, card trick that anyone can do
- The Best Card Trick in the World – Revealed – Some other guy who has figured out how to do the card trick and explains it to you. Slowly. While smoking a pipe.
And especially for those of you who will be traveling this holiday season, a series of airport/airline related links, brought to you by an e-mail I got from CNET.COM:
- Flightstats.com– Type in an airline and a flight number, and get a consolidated page of data about the flight, including real-time map, and information about it’s originating airport and destination airport.
- Security Wait Times– A useful site from our friends at the Transportation Safety Administration. Who knew? As advertised, I thought this was going to provide me real-time updates on how long the security wait was at each terminal in each airport throughout the country. As it turns out, it provides historical averages based on day of the week and time of day. Not quite as useful, but still pretty handy if you’re not a frequent flier.
- Free Wifi Wiki– A wiki containing lists of airports with free wifi. I can’t vouch for the completeness or accuracy of this, but it’s a good idea. Know of one that’s not on there? Add it!
- Jeffs & Quist’s Air Power Wiki – Another wiki, this time listing where to find power outlets at each major airport. Again, don’t know how complete/accurate it is, but if we all pitch in, it’ll only get better
So, there you have it – some links for the holidays. Happy Turkey, everybody!
Categories: Random Acts of Blogging | 3 Comments »
Obama Enshrined on the Gridiron
By Brian | November 28, 2008
Hat tip to Kushol Gupta, source of all marching band-related info, for this picture of the mighty Bethune Cookman Marching Band (motto: “Who?”)
Kind of random, but you’ve gotta admit – kind of cool…
Categories: Random Acts of Blogging | Comments Off on Obama Enshrined on the Gridiron
You Like Me! You Really Like Me!!
By Brian | November 28, 2008
My friend and colleague, Ilya Burlak of Burlaki on the Thames has conferred upon me the “I Love This Blog” award:
His rather flattering nomination reads as follows:
Brian at I Should Be Sleeping is a man of many interests and a great wit, with a curious and critical eye and a disposition for distilling complex issues into easy to understand concepts. His serious fare is moving and insightful and his lighter stuff is tongue-in-cheek hilarious. I know him in person, too, and he is a great guy to share company with.
Right back atcha’, Ilya. I really appreciate the kind words.
Anyway, with awards come responsibilities. In this case, these:
- Post the award on my blog.
- Link to the person who gave me the award.
- Nominate at least 4 others.
- Leave a comment on their blogs so they can pass it on.
#1 – check. #2 – check. #3:
- The Vast Jeff Wing Conspiracy: Jeff Porten provides a mix of politics, technology, and general wackiness that basically served as a template for this blog back in May of 2005. We agree on almost nothing politically, and can often be found proving that point repeatedly in each other’s comment forums. My only complaints with Jeff’s blog are these: first that he doesn’t post enough, and second, that his RSS feed is broken, so I’m often late to the party on his newest posts. Get right on that, Porten!!
- Defective Yeti: Matthew Baldwin, contributor to the Dallas Morning News, is one of the funniest guys on the web. And, as they say about Arizona in the summertime, it’s a dry wit. Beyond that, describing it is an exercise in futility. Just go check it out, why dontcha…
- Indexed: Jessica Hagy perfects (invents and then perfects?) the art of symbolic commentary with Indexed. A blog written entirely as charts & graphs on index cards, the humor and insightfulness to space ratio is incredibly high.
- Lifehacker: The holy grail of tips & tricks. Mostly about technology, but occasionally about work, life, etc.. I read it for the technology tips. A great feeder source for my Cool Links page, as well as the occasional piece of freeware that does something super-useful and/or super-awesome.
- Whatever: Gotta give a nod to Scalzi. I used to be a frequent commenter on his site, but dropped off completely after one too many run-ins with the proprietor (John and I don’t mix well, and it led to him saying some not-so-nice things about me in the public forum of his blog. As he often says – his blog, his rules – but that doesn’t mean I have to participate if I feel uncomfortable). Anyway, the fact that I don’t write there doesn’t mean I don’t read there, and John is an excellent writer who always keeps my attention, even if it involves biting my virtual tongue now & again.
I hasten to note that two of the blogs I read most often – Burlaki on the Thames and Simple Tricks & Nonsense are not on the above list because they either nominated me, or nominated each other. It strikes me as silly to turn this into a circular, mutual admiration society. That said, they are two excellent blogs, and if you’re looking for something great to read on a regular basis, you can do much worse than to check those guys out.
As for #4 – I agree with Ilya, that’s kinda stupid. A comment on their blogs would, by definition, be unrelated to whatever entry I commented on. So, I’ll just count on one of them (Jeff) reading about this here, and hope the other three check their ping-backs. If not, another accolade goes by the boards. So sad…
Categories: Blogging about Blogs | 4 Comments »
Not Dead Yet
By Brian | November 26, 2008
From a comment by michaelh on the excellent blog, Indexed:
Son left home at age 10 for a week at computer camp, called 0 times, came home to mom
Categories: Random Acts of Blogging | Comments Off on Not Dead Yet
Did the $20 Bill Predict September 11th?
By Brian | November 24, 2008
Erica Kaiser, a friend for many years, sent me another one of those “classic spam” e-mails, containing the twenty similarities between Lincoln and Kennedy. You know the type. I typically scan them and then delete them. But this one had some new stuff at the bottom which literally made me catch my breath. I’m sure I’m over-reacting and no, I don’t have some grand conspiracy theory cooking, it’s just the way this thing unfolds (bad pun as you’re about to see…) is altogether creepy. Click below the fold (another bad pun. Trust me, you’ll see….) for the creepy, breath-catching conclusion.
Categories: The World Wide Weird | 3 Comments »
She just won’t go away, Part Two…
By Brian | November 23, 2008
Sarah Palin pardoned a turkey this morning in Alaska, and then gave an interview about how good it is to be back in Alaska, where the media spotlight isn’t so bright, and people aren’t constantly looking over her shoulder to make her look stupid.
While she was discussing this, the guy over her shoulder was slaughtering turkeys with a grinding machine of some sort. The video is, of course, priceless:
(Hat tip: Wonkette)
Categories: Political Rantings, The World Wide Weird | Comments Off on She just won’t go away, Part Two…