Book of Blogs II

Earlier this month, I linked to a project by Tvindy to collect and anthologize some of the better weblog posts by a number of contributing authors. I really liked the idea, and nominated a few entries for potential inclusion.

Tvindy’s hoping for a little more assistance in culling worthwhile posts, preferably posts chosen by regular readers of the participating weblogs, rather than solely author-nominated work.

As readers, are there any posts that stand out in your mind as particularly noteworthy, for whatever reason? They don’t have to be long, or serious, or anything in particular aside from standing out in one way or another. If so, toss ’em in the comments here — if you don’t want to dig through the archives yourself, just throw up whatever details you can remember, and I’ll track it down.

Not only will this help the project, but I’d be interested to see what — if anything — comes out of this.

iTunesConga Fury” by Juno Reactor from the album Bible of Dreams (1997, 8:06).

Post-Melodramatic Stress Disorder

Funny stuff from the Onion

Psychiatrists in select cities nationwide have reported a surge in Post-Melodramatic Stress Disorder cases following the Dec. 22 release of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom Of The Opera.

“We’re seeing a barrage of psychological consequences in those who have been exposed to the violently overblown acting and protracted, heightened emotions in The Phantom Of The Opera,” said Bill Lambert, a psychology professor at the University of Chicago. “After such intense abuse of their artistic sensibilities, melodrama victims are finding themselves plagued by extreme sentimentality, flashbacks to especially torturous scenes, and canned-emotional detachment.”

According to Lambert, a good portion of PMSD sufferers are experiencing distress so great that it is interfering with their jobs as overweight receptionists, struggling fashion designers, and community-theater actors.

“PMSD sufferers walk through their days with the specter of an unnecessary musical number hanging over them like a mask,” Lambert said. “The prelude is constantly playing in their unconscious minds, threatening to crescendo into exaggerated, choreographed action at any moment. Anything can set them off: a chandelier, a strain of saccharine music, a gaudy outfit.”

Okay, okay, I’ll admit it — I actually like The Phantom of the Opera. It goes beyond that, too — I like quite a few of Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s musicals…in fact, I tend to like musicals. I’ve even seen quite a few of them on stage (Phantom, Cats [twice], Jesus Christ Superstar [three times], Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Tommy, Les Miserables).

In my defense, though (if a defense can even be mounted), I couldn’t help it. I’ve been brainwashed!

For a full ten years — some of the most formative years of my childhood, and nearly a third of my life to date — I was a member of the Alaska Children’s Choir (well, first I was a member of the Anchorage Boys Choir, then the Anchorage Girls and Boys Choir, then the Anchorage Children’s Choir, then the Alaska Children’s Choir). As such, I was exposed from an early age to a wide range of choral music, both classical and popular, and of course, the Webber repetoire was well-represented. There’s hardly a song in Webber’s most popular works that I don’t still have memorized, as if I wasn’t singing one piece or another in one of our concerts, I had the soundtrack albums at home.

Some of us just can’t be helped (though on the bright side, I’m probably immune to PMSD).

Of course, while I do like it, Phantom is hardly my favorite of Webber’s works. That honor is reserved for Jesus Christ Superstar, which is not only my favorite of Webber’s musicals, but my favorite musical across the board (though Chess does come in a very close second — pity I’ve never had a chance to see that one on stage). Three versions of the JCS soundtrack show up in my music collection (the original, the 20th Anniversary, and the Resurrection)…one notable version that I don’t own, though, is the actual soundtrack to the motion picture, for as good as the movie is visually, it is by far the worst version I’ve heard from a musical standpoint.

As far as the Phantom movie goes, I’m really not sure if I’m going to see it in the theater or not. As appealing as it sounds (speaking as an admitted fan of the show), two things worry me. The first is simply that Joel Schumacher is directing — but then, he has done things other than Batman and Robin, some of which I actually enjoy (The Lost Boys, Falling Down), so that doesn’t entirely rule things out right off the bat.

The bigger worry is simply that what I’ve heard of the music so far entirely fails to impress me. Admittedly, it’s only snippets in the trailer and 30-second samples on the iTunes Music Store, but the feeling I’ve gotten so far is that it may be falling into the same bin as the theatrical version of JCS, where the movie is fun visually, but disappointing musically.

So far, the reviews aren’t promising, either, as they seem to be boiling down to “if you already like Phantom, you’ll like it, otherwise, find something else to do.”

At the moment, I’m leaning towards renting — so I can’t be that rabid of a Webberphile, can I? ;)

(via Dad)

A Republican Christmas

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the land,
not a critic was stirring, for stirring was banned.
A thousand brown prisoners, snug in their cells,
all held without charges or tinsel or bells;

And mamma was wrapped in the national flag,
while we sang “Where there’s never a boast or a brag.”
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.

Away to the TV I flew like a flash;
I then watched “Survivor” and reruns of “Mash.”
The fireworks, exploding above the new snow,
gave a luster of objects to people below.

When what saw my wondering eyes in the flashes:
a miniature George Bush and eight tiny fascists!
Their jerseys were blue and said “WORLD DOMINATION”;
I knew right away this was not just claymation.

More rapid than eagles the warlords they came,
as the little Bush whistled and called them by name:
“Now, Daschle! now, Ashcroft! Now Strom, don’t relent!
On, Poindexter, Rumsfeld! on Henry and Trent!

To the top of the globe, while the crowd’s at the mall,
now bomb away, bomb away, bomb away all!”
His sack had a war game for each girl and boy;
his pocket, four billion from just Illinois.

Far up on his high seat the driver did mount,
with more massive weapons than Kofi could count.
And then, I heard sounds from away off somewhere,
the booming of bombs that were bursting in air.

As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
down the chimney old Dick Cheney came with a bound.
He said not a word, nor disclosed his location;
he wiretapped my house in the name of the nation.

Then holding the strings of his little Bush puppet,
he went to the chimney and quickly rose up it.
The sleigh was still running, but Dick didn’t hurry;
gas guzzlers, it seemed, were no longer a worry.

He popped the champagne and exclaimed as he served it,
“The world is now ours, and GOD DAMN, we deserve it!”

(via John)

NNW missing images

NNW Image Bug

This is odd — sometime over the past day or so, NetNewsWire has suddenly stopped displaying images. Images on pages show up fine in Safari, but never load in NNW.

I’ve checked all the preferences I can find in NNW, and can’t come up with anything that might be doing this.

Has anyone else ever seen this, or have any idea how I can troubleshoot this further and figure out what’s going on? I’m stumped at the moment.

iTunesKing Crack” by Dax, Danielle from the album Blast the Human Flower (1990, 2:10).

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince: July 16th, 2005

It’s official, folks: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince will be released July 16th, 2005.

Retail price is \$29.99, but pre-ordering through Amazon currently gets you 40% off, just \$17.99! C’mon, click the links and send a penny or two my way, you know you want to! ;)

Mary Grand Pre will be illustrating the cover again, as she has for all prior books. It’s also apparently “a bit shorter” than Order of the Phoenix.

Year Six is on its way…

(via The Leaky Cauldron)

Anyone in Denver?

I don’t have any definite details yet, but it appears that sometime in mid-February, I’ll be flying down to Denver (on the company dime, no less) for a couple days of meet-and-greet and “team building” events with the other FM staffers in my group.

All I know so far is that I’ll probably be flying down on a Thursday, having some sort of dinner and initial meet-up deal Thursday evening, a day of meetings and site tours and whatnot on Friday, and then fly back sometime on Saturday or Sunday. From the sound of it, it’ll be up to me what day I fly back — though my initial guess would be that the company would only provide hotel accommodations for Thursday and possibly Friday night, so anything more than that would probably be on my own dime, if I can afford it. Never having been to Denver before (at least, not that I can remember), I think it’d be fun to take the extra day or so and do some sightseeing, and maybe see if I can stumble across a decent nightclub or two.

Oh, and have a torrid one-night stand, as long as I’ve got a hotel room at my disposal. ;)

(Ahem.)

Anyway, should be fun, if it all comes through as expected. More details when I get them, of course.

iTunesStories” by Big Hat from the album Inamorata (1992, 3:38).

Private Party

I just got back from The Vogue‘s holiday potluck party — apparently an annual event, though this was the first year I’ve been invited. I’ve got to admit, it’s kind of cool to walk up to a club with a sign that says “Private Party — Vogue Employees and Guests Only” and be able to walk right in.

Lots of good food was there (I brought along some gingerbread cookies that Prairie had made this weekend, which were definitely a hit, being declared “delicious” a few times over the evening), and spent a very pleasant evening chatting with Paul and Ellen (a couple I met through Valindria), Evan (The Vogue’s Saturday night DJ), and Graves. Got to spread a few stories about Alaska, reminisce about DJ’ing with Evan, and geek out with some fun computer talk (including a “Oh, you’re that guy!” comment from Paul at one point).

Not a bad way to spend an evening, all told.

iTunesHan Solo Returns (At the Court of Jabba the Hutt)” by London Symphony Orchestra, The/Williams, John from the album Star Wars Trilogy: The Original Soundtrack Anthology (1983, 4:09).

Quick Review: ‘Salem’s Lot

Part of Prairie’s scheme to familiarize me with Stephen King’s work has included renting some of the many adaptations of his work to film. Quality varies, of course, but when they’re good, they’re good, and when they’re bad, it’s generally fun to look at the differences between the original story and the filmed version and see what went wrong.

This past weekend, we went with a recent TV miniseries version of ‘Salem’s Lot.

It started out rather promising, with a strong cast (Rob Lowe as Ben Mears, Donald Sutherland as Richard Straker, Rutger Hauer as Kurt Barlowe, and James Cromwell as Father Callahan), and the first half of the show was overall fairly well done — while there were definite alterations made, due both to moving the story to the small screen and updating it for a modern setting, most of them weren’t very troubling, and the tone of the film was dead on.

There were two definite “What??” moments in the first half, though. The film opened with a scene (Ben attacking Father Calahan and hospitalizing both of them after a fall out of a second-story window) that was not anywhere in the book, and had Prairie and I both quite confused, as it didn’t seem to make any sense for either of the characters — though we decided to give the film the benefit of the doubt, and see where things led, especially when the next few scenes covering Ben’s arrival in the town were handled quite well. Also, the doctor was combined with another character in the book, which ended up drastically changing his character for the worse. That bothered both of us, as he was one of the nicer characters in the book.

Other changes were more acceptable, though — various characters being combined, slight tweaks here and there — and most of what we noticed were differences in interpretation. For instance, we had each pictured Straker as far more slick and smooth, and very politely menacing, while Sutherland played him a little more wild. Still, the feel of the book was captured quite well, so even with the slight changes, things seemed to be going fairly well.

Then we hit the second half, and things suddenly starting going downhill. Mark, the boy hero of the book who survives in large part due to his childhood innocence and open acceptance of ghoulies, ghosties, and things that go bump in the night, is made far more cynical and something of a troublemaker, robbing his character of many of the qualities that allowed him to survive through the book. The changes made to the doctor’s character continued to eat away at our perception of him, making him far less sympathetic.

But the real crimes were in the sudden and drastic deviations from the plot of the book as the movie drew to a close. Ben’s encounter with Hubie Marsten in the old Marsten house is substantially changed, and ends up being nowhere near as creepy or effective as in the book. Susan’s death, one of the big moments for Ben in his struggle to deal with the situation, doesn’t happen when it should, instead being pushed into an absolutely ludicrously silly final confrontation near the end of the movie. Father Callahan goes from being a very interesting and ultimately tragic figure to being little more than evil and rather dumb. The vampire “dusting” effects are just silly — surely they could have found another way to distinguish their vampire deaths from those of other shows without having the vamps suddenly levitate towards the ceiling and explode into glitter. And Barlowe’s final moments are just laughable.

In the end, it was one of the more disappointing adaptations I’ve seen, simply because it seemed to start so well — to have it take such a drastic turn for the worse was more frustrating than if had simply been bad through and through from the start.

iTunesKiss, The” by Cure, The from the album Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me (1987, 6:14).

Odd Movie Combinations

I saw a couple movies in my Netflix New Releases feed that made me laugh today…

Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood OrchidAnaconda plus Adaptation? It’s actually a sequel to Anaconda, has gotten worse reviews than the original (which is amusing, as I hated the original), and I’m sure it has absolutely nothing to do with Adaptation, but the idea of trying to combine the two amuses me.

Alien SpeciesAlien plus Species? Aside from both being sci-fi/horror films featuring creatures conceived by H.R. Geiger, they’re not really that similar, and this just looks like a generic sci-fi flick. The cover image (here it is on Netflix, Amazon apparently doesn’t have one) even looks like they’re ripping off the martian attack machines from the old film version of War of the Worlds.

Some days it really seems like we’ve run out of original ideas.

iTunesLover Boy/Lover Girl (B[Eat Me Up])” by Lords of Acid from the album Lover Boy/Lover Girl (2000, 5:36).