Theatre Plans

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The Seattle Times has announced the 5th Ave. Theatre‘s 2005-2006 season. Lots of good stuff coming up, including The King and I, but the one that’s really catching my eye is Sweeney Todd.

I’ve seen Sweeney Todd on stage once before, years ago in Anchorage, and just recently was thrilled to see it heavily referenced in Kevin Smith’s Jersey Girl. Should be fun to get a chance to see it again, it’s just the sort of twisted stuff I get a kick out of.

A bigger stretch for Armstrong and his audiences is a planned 5th Avenue mounting (Oct. 25-Nov. 13) of composer Sondheim and writer Hugh Wheeler’s macabre, musically daring epic about a barber’s bloody one-man crusade against the injustices of Victorian England.

“The show is so layered and amazing in its writing, themes and score,” says Armstrong, who’ll direct. ” ‘Sweeney Todd’ was on Broadway recently in a chamber version, but we’ll have a full orchestra for this. And big theater voices to handle the songs.”

iTunes “Suck (Double Dipped and Plastered)” by Pigface from the album Feels Like Heaven, Sounds Like Shit (1996, 6:17).

Flickr being bought by…everybody?

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For the past few days, rumors have been flying around that Yahoo is buying Flickr.

Whatever the truth of the matter, never let it be said that Flickr isn’t handling the rumors with good grace and a sense of humor. While the general public won’t see anything different, logged-in users are seeing a new logo on the page. Even funnier, the filename for the graphic is gossipgossipgossip.gif.

Here’s a quick look at just what we’ve got, then:

Flickr Gossip

iTunes “Rat Poison” by Prodigy, The from the album Voodoo People (1995, 5:31).

Critical Mass

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Critical Mass, Seattle, WA While I don’t currently own a bike, so I couldn’t join in the ride, I did wander down to Westlake Plaza today to catch the gathering of riders for this month’s Critical Mass ride.

I got there a bit before the official 5:30 gathering time and spent the next half hour randomly walking through the assembled bikers, snapping shots as I went — here’s the Flickr photoset.

One of the guys there had an LED messageboard bolted on to the back of his bike that scrolled the message “CRITICAL MASS www.seattlecriticalmass.org We’re not blocking traffic. We ARE traffic!” as he rode along. I thought this was pretty nifty, so snagged a quick video of it while he was talking with a couple other bikers.

Problems in Critical Mass?Interestingly enough, when I got home, I spent a couple minutes working on cleaning up the audio of their conversation. Apparently there’s been a bit of dissent in the ranks, with a few different factions (with only a 23-second audio clip, I don’t really know what the dispute is about), and these guys were egging on the guy with the sign to step up and take control. Click on the picture to the left to watch the video (704kb QT .mov or 2Mb higher-quality version) and hear their conversation.

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Etch-A-Sketch Tech Support

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Thank you for calling Etch-A-Sketch Support!

Tech Support for Etch-A-Sketch

Q: My Etch-A-Sketch has a distorted display.
A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: My Etch-A-Sketch has all of these funny little lines all over the screen.
A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: How do I turn my Etch-A-Sketch off?
A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: My Etch-A-Sketch has lines that prevent me from doing my art project.
A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: How do I delete a document on my Etch-A-Sketch?
A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: How do I keep from losing my Etch-A-Sketch documents in the middle of my work?
A: Stop shaking it.

(from the OxDEADBEEF archives, via MeFi)

You Ashcroft!

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Too. Damn. Funny.

You’re an Ashcroft! No, you’re the Ashcroft!

Imagine hearing that exchange in a movie — you’d think that Hollywood had come up with a crazy new insult. Well, it turns out that some airline passengers watching the Oscar-nominated film “Sideways” on foreign flights are, in fact, hearing “Ashcroft” as a substitute for a certain seven-letter epithet commonly used to denote a human orifice.

The Post’s Monte Reel, based in Buenos Aires, tells us he heard the former attorney general’s name substituted at least twice in “Sideways” dialogue when he watched the film earlier this week on an Aerolineas Argentinas flight to Lima, Peru. The movie was shown in English and the dubbing was done “in the actual voices of the actors,” Reel reports. Star Thomas Haden Church utters the A-word.

(via MeFi)

iTunes “Time for Me” by Fiction 8 from the album Cyberl@b (1998, 3:59).

Yeah, I’m clueless about these things…

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Okay. So.

Theoretically speaking…

Suppose there was a certain science fiction television show that I was interested in watching (ahem). Also suppose that not only do I not presently subscribe to cable, but I have no intention of doing so, as the amount of time I’d spend watching television in no way justifies the cost.

Now, in theory, it’s supposed to be possible for me to go out onto the ‘net somewhere to find digitized copies of the episodes that I could download and then watch on my computer.

How in the world would I go about this? Where would I look?

Would I need any special software (Mac OS X software, please)?

Any and all advice, hints, or pointers would be greatly appreciated.

iTunes “Skin (Keith Litman)” by Charlotte from the album DJ Mix 2000 (1998, 4:00).

Battlestar Galactica Episode 1

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This is incredibly cool: The Sci-Fi Channel has posted the first episode of Battlestar Galactica season one (not the miniseries that’s currently available on DVD, but the currently-running TV series) on their website, free, uncut, and without commercials.

Just go to the Battlestar Galactica site and click on the banner at the top of the page. You’ll need RealPlayer, unfortunately, but that’s the only downside I can see.

I know what I’m watching when I get home from work tonight.

(via /.)

iTunes “Black Flys pres. Club Flys 1 (full mix)” by Various Artists from the album Black Flys pres. Club Flys 1 (full mix) (1997, 1:13:16).

Now with Markdown

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I’ve just added John Gruber‘s excellent text-processing plugin Markdown to the site, and enabled it for comments as well as for my own use when writing posts.

In short, this means that any of you that are familiar with Markdown’s syntax can now use that when entering your comments, and they will appear on the site properly formatted.

Those of you unfamiliar with Markdown can just type normally, using HTML if you want.

Those of you unfamiliar with HTML can just type your little hearts out. :)

A very brief summary of Markdown’s most common syntax patterns follows behind the cut…

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Hunter S. Thompson

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Seeing all the many varied reports of Hunter S. Thompson‘s unfortunate demise reminds me that I’ve actually never read any of his work.

I’m a big fan of the Terry Gilliam/Johnny Depp film adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and I also have a great 3 of the book. I even used to have a hardbound copy of Fear and Loathing — unfortunately, the only times I opened it were during one ill-considered period where it was a convenient (and seemingly appropriate) place to hide the sheet of acid I was in the process of selling. I may still have the book buried somewhere in my boxes, but I’m not entirely sure.

So, then, a question for those more familiar with Thompson’s work than I am: while Fear and Loathing seems to be practically the only book that ever gets mentioned when eulogizing Thompson, I’m sure he wrote more than that one tome. Any recommendations? Should I pick Fear and Loathing up (or dig through my boxes to see if I can find it), or are there other books that I should search out instead/in addition to that one?

iTunes “Say Hello” by Anderson, Laurie from the album United States Live (1984, 5:01).