Geek Conflicts

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After two incredible trailers which were then followed up by two horrid movies, I really should know better than to put any faith in George Lucas anymore. But then I watch the trailer for Episode III…and, while I hate myself for saying it, damn that looks cool.

I’m fairly certain he’ll screw it up again. But just for a few moments, I’d like to try to believe that it will actually be worth watching.

Update: Jason’s in the same boat (though he put it better than I did…):

Once every three years, the first trailer for yet another crappy George Lucas Star Wars movie is released somewhere to great fanfare. And each time, I watch said trailer and get all excited. It looks great, I’ll say. Maybe it’ll actually be good. My hopes start to rise. And then the movie comes out, Natalie Portman is transformed by Lucas’ awful direction into the worst actress ever, and I leave the theatre disappointed that a cherished childhood institution has been handled in such a piss-poor manner. With the impending release of Episode III and the trailer during last night’s episode of The OC, I have vowed not to get my hopes up. Never again, George Lucas, will you disappoint me.

However.

OMFG THE TRAILER FOR THE NEW STAR WARS MOVIE IS SOOO GREAT AND EXCITING AND THIS MOVIE IS GOING TO KICK SO MUCH ASS!!!

Meanwhile, the other Sci-Fi franchise that heavily influenced my growing years has just announced that sometime in 2007, yet another Star Trek film will land in the theaters.

Again, after the last few films, I really shouldn’t be excited about this.

But I want to be.

iTunes “Ask Why” by Candyflip from the album Madstock…the Continuing Adventures of Bubblecar Fish (1990, 4:16).

Beautiful!

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I’ve decided it’s going to be a good day today. I woke up in a good mood, felt more rested than I have fairly often recently, and there was gorgeous golden sunshine coming in through the windows.

Therefore, it’s going to be a good day.

‘Cause I said so, and I’m God today. :)

Going to? As in, future tense?

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Saw this on Scripting News, regarding “just updated” pings to weblogs.com:

Search Engine Optimizers have discovered blogs, specifically blogspot. We’re going to have to develop some systems for dealing with this.

No kidding? And what’s with the future tense? With the ever-increasing spam attacks over the past year, did nobody stop to think that this might end up being a possibility?

Just struck me as odd.

iTunes “Sheep” by Pink Floyd from the album Animals Trance Remixes (1995, 16:03).

Another convert

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Last week, Seattle was in the midst of an unusually warm spell of weather for this time of year (which doesn’t seem to have ended — it seems we’re in for an early spring this year). With the weather warming up, I’m starting to occasionally bring my kilt to work with me so that I can change before leaving. One of the days I’d done this, I had to head over to one of my job’s other downtown branches to fill out some paperwork.

Yesterday I again had to run by their store after work, this time to drop off a job. When I walked in, the guy manning the front counter waved me over. “Tell you what….”

“Yeah?”

“I saw you in here wearing your kilt. Went out and got one for myself the next day.”

“Excellent!”

“I go past their shop every day, and kept thinking about getting one. Saw yours, and got mine.”

And another man escapes from the tyranny of trousers.

iTunes “Yallah Habibe” by Cirrus from the album Drop the Break (1997, 7:44).

Boom!

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Mt. St. Helens eruption, Mar. 8 2005

Wow. I so want to be able to actually see this happen someday. Not from too close, you understand…but from a nice safe distance. Just incredible.

Mt. St. Helens eruption, Mar. 8 2005

Mashups

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Lately I’ve been getting more and more into Mashups — songs created by taking two or more different songs and “mashing” them together into one. While some aren’t much more complex than the simple beatmatching I did while I was dj’ing, others I’ve found are jaw-droppingly cool, with layers of multiple tracks that really shouldn’t work together as well as they do.

The first one I can remember finding I stumbled across a few years ago, long before the term “mashup” gained popularity. A fairly simple mashup, it laid the vocal track from Public Enemy’s “Bring the Noise” over the acid electronica of Winx’ “Higher State of Consciousness”.

Over the past few months, as the mashup trend has become more and more mainstream, I’ve been able to find a lot of really good stuff, often thanks to links on either Boing Boing or Waxy.

The Kleptones‘ “A Night at the Hip-Hopera“, for instance, combines Queen’s music with a lot of old- and new-school hip-hop. More recently, they’ve released “From Detroit to J.A.“, which plays similar tricks with a ton of old Motown tunes.

DJ Danger Mouse‘s “Grey Album“, combining vocals from Jay-Z’s “Black Album” with The Beatles’ “White Album” got a lot of attention last year, leading to the “Grey Tuesday” campaign. It also led to more experiments with Jay-Z’s vocal tracks, including Cheap Cologne’s “Double Black” album using Metallica’s “Black Album” as the musical background.

The Beatles have proven to be a favorite of the mashup scene (much to the consternation of their record company and the RIAA). DJ BC combined the Beatles and the Beastie Boys to create The Beastles; and ccc just released Revolved, a re-working of their Revolver album.

The Who Boys is a mashup of The Who and The Beach Boys — not one of my personal favorites of the mashups I’ve found, but still interesting.

I also just grabbed a torrent of tracks from DJ Earworm that has some incredible work.

So, then, I’m curious about two things.

Firstly — is there anyone else dropping by here that’s been following this trend? If so, are there any mashup artists or particular tracks that you’d recommend?

Secondly — all the “how-to” tutorials I’ve seen for creating mashups so far have been PC-oriented. I poked around a little bit at GarageBand, but it doesn’t seem to be the best tool for this kind of work (specifically, while I can easily import tracks from my music library, there doesn’t seem to be a way to time-stretch or -compress imported audio to ensure that the tempos match). Any recommendations for Mac-specific audio software or tutorials in this realm? I may not actually be able to come up with anything, but there are a couple of ideas floating around my head that might be fun to play with.

iTunes “Policy of Sweet Dreams” by Depeche Mode/Eurythmics from the album www.djearworm.com (2004, 4:43).

International Women’s Day

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Today is International Women’s Day (Updated link):

International Women’s Day (8 March) is an occasion marked by women’s groups around the world. This date is also commemorated at the United Nations and is designated in many countries as a national holiday. When women on all continents, often divided by national boundaries and by ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic and political differences, come together to celebrate their Day, they can look back to a tradition that represents at least nine decades of struggle for equality, justice, peace and development.

International Women’s Day is the story of ordinary women as makers of history; it is rooted in the centuries-old struggle of women to participate in society on an equal footing with men. In ancient Greece, Lysistrata initiated a sexual strike against men in order to end war; during the French Revolution, Parisian women calling for “liberty, equality, fraternity” marched on Versailles to demand women’s suffrage.

Few causes promoted by the United Nations have generated more intense and widespread support than the campaign to promote and protect the equal rights of women. The Charter of the United Nations, signed in San Francisco in 1945, was the first international agreement to proclaim gender equality as a fundamental human right. Since then, the Organization has helped create a historic legacy of internationally agreed strategies, standards, programmes and goals to advance the status of women worldwide.

Over the years, United Nations action for the advancement of women has taken four clear directions: promotion of legal measures; mobilization of public opinion and international action; training and research, including the compilation of gender desegregated statistics; and direct assistance to disadvantaged groups. Today a central organizing principle of the work of the United Nations is that no enduring solution to society’s most threatening social, economic and political problems can be found without the full participation, and the full empowerment, of the world’s women.

So, happy Day to all of you International Women out there. :)

(And, incidentally, this might be a good time to mention that here in the United States, the Equal Rights Amendment still hasn’t been passed. Isn’t it long past time that something was done about this? If we’re going to go amending the constitution, shouldn’t it be for something positive like banning discrimination, rather than institutionalizing it?)

(via Blankbaby)

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are…on DVD!

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Finally!

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is coming to DVD!

I’ve been waiting for this one to come out for years, after having owned two copies of the videocassette in the past and losing them both to friends that I loaned them out to.

March 22nd, this one is mine.

(via Josh)

iTunes “Busy Child” by Crystal Method, The from the album Vegas (1997, 7:24).

Hitchcock

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A few weeks ago, Prairie and I watched Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, and tonight I watched North by Northwest.

Man I’m bummed I didn’t discover Hitchcock earlier.

That’s not to say I’m a complete neophyte — I’ve seen Psycho, Vertigo and The Birds in the past, and some time ago a reader was kind enough to send me a copy of a recent (and very good) Hitchcock biography, but really, I hadn’t seen much of anything of his oeuvre. After reading the biography, though, I went through and added every Hitchcock film that Netflix had available to my queue, and now they’re starting to filter in. This is going to be fun.

iTunes “Shake the Disease (Extended)” by Depeche Mode from the album Shake the Disease (1985, 8:46).

Marriage Equality rally

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Marriage Equality march and rally, Seattle, WA

(Click through for the full Flickr photoset.)

Update: Seattle P-I: Seattle marchers back gay marriage

Hundreds of gay-marriage supporters took to the streets yesterday, marching from Capitol Hill to downtown Seattle in a show of solidarity two days before the state Supreme Court hears arguments on whether same-sex couples should be able to marry.

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Last spring, eight couples sued King County after they were turned down in trying to get marriage licenses. Eleven more couples sued the state in Thurston County, also seeking to wed.
The gay and lesbian couples prevailed in both counties. Tomorrow, the state Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether to uphold the rulings in their favor.
The key question is whether the state’s Defense of Marriage Act, passed by the Legislature in 1998 over Gov. Gary Locke’s veto, is unconstitutional. The law defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

iTunes “Master and Servant” by Depeche Mode from the album Master and Servant (1984, 3:48).