(no subject)

As most of you know, I don't read High Fantasy. Brust and Pratchett are very notable exceptions, but other than those and the occasional book that slips through the crack (the last of which was Stoddard's The False House a few years ago), I just avoid it like the plague (and my reaction to most high fantasy is similar -- I break out in a rash, get achy, and eventually throw up; I suspect that I may be allergic to elves and dwarves).
( Read more... )

Dar preview!

http://www.darwilliams.com/vlp/flashplayer.html


has previews of a bunch of songs off her upcoming album, The Beauty of the Rain, even if BN.com and Amazon don't acknowledge it.

MP3 randomness

One of the great things about having 1122 MP3s on my work box is setting iTunes on random and re-discovering stuff I haven't heard in ages.

I just went from LL Cool J's "Goin' Back to Cali" to Moxy Früvous's "Kick in the Ass" to Paula Cole's "Road to Dead." I'm happy. :-)

(no subject)

I think Shannon Wheeler's next creation should be Too Much Toffee Man. Not as hyper, but he makes up for it with bad teeth.

Justifcation of Christmas songs

Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan singing "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen."

Atheist or not, I know a thing of beauty when I hear it.

GBS and Oysterband

You know, I love Great Big Sea. I think they're a great band, talented as can be, and are certainly one I never mind having in my CD player.

But I really wish that they'd never covered "When I'm Up, I can't Get Down."

Because I now automatically place them in the same category as The Oysterband.

And that's just not fair.

It's like Muhammad Ali fighting Superman. Or Bonnie Raitt sleeping her way through "You Got It." Or Gus Van Sant remaking "Psycho."

I don't want to think of Ali as a guy who can get his butt kicked. I don't want to think of Bonnie as a mediocre cover artist. (I'm willing to think of Van Sant as an inconsistent hack with more luck than skill, but that's an exception.) And I don't want to think of GBS as a band that can't hold a candle to Oysterband.

Incidentally, I've got no problems with the Oysterband's cover of Bruce Cockburn's "Lovers in a Dangerous Time" (or BNL's cover of that song). A cover can be a fine thing. But it can cross the line when the cover forces a comparison.

Anyway, I still love GBS. But they're no Oysterband. No one is.

Worst. Movie. Ever.

So, Browsing through the Tivo listings earlier this week, I noticed something called The Mangler 2.

Now, The Mangler, for those who don't remember, was the mid-'90s movie starring Robert "Freddy Krueger" Englund, directed by Tobe Hooper (of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Poltergeist, and Salem's Lot fame), and based on the Stephen King short story. It was about a laundry pressing machine that was possessed, and was just as bad as it sounds. It pretty much ended Hooper's career as a film director, and deservedly so. It flopped miserably, and certainly should never have spawned a sequel. But it did, and since the sequel had Lance Henriksen in it, as well as the always-easy-on-the-eyes Chelse Swain (Bonnie from THe Virgin Suicides) and and Daniella Evangelista, I told the Tivo to record it.
( spoilers, although not really, because this film was so fucking predictable, it just can't be spoiled by any information I reveal. Really. )