Thursday, January 29, 2004

Sweeney, Sheila on DVD

Sweeney and Sheila on DVD: Oh, this is just the best news so far this year! Two new DVDs will be released on April 20: The 1982 Emmy Award-winning television version of Sweeney Todd, starring Angela Lansbury and George Hearn, and The Last of Sheila, my favorite mystery-thriller film of all time, written by Stephen Sondheim and Tony Perkins and directed by Herbert Ross with a fantastic cast.

Pesky broadcast rights issues had held up the release of the former forever and I carefully protected my precious VHS version, refusing to lend it and only once or twice permitting it to leave my home, always under escort. Good copies are exceedingly rare and often fetch a princely sum on eBay or through trading channels. I'm a bit more generous with my VHS of Sheila, since it is still in print. It'll be grand to have them both on DVD and back in circulation.

Monday, January 5, 2004

Computer Chronicles

This is pretty deeply cool. The Internet Archive has downloadable video archives going back to 1984 of the TV program Computer Chronicles, hosted by Stewart Cheifet. Paging through some of the shows year by year is like unearthing a time capsule filled with some of the people and events that shaped the personal computer revolution. [hat tip to Andy]

Sunday, January 4, 2004

The Pants Came Back

We simply could not be more pleased to discover that Mr. Pants has returned. An hour or so spent skipping through the archives is a testament to how much we've missed it.

Thursday, December 11, 2003

Thanksgiving with Dad and Dogpoet

Dogpoet: "I call my father to tell him I might miss dinner tonight. He asks if I want anything, maybe something to eat? Something to drink? I tell him no, because I feel like hiding, because I feel like suffering alone. I feel guilty, I always feel guilty, about getting sick. Perhaps it is my Midwestern work ethic, so badly bruised after seven years in California. Perhaps it is having HIV. But I feel somehow responsible for my sickness, and a familiar shame settles in along with the chills and the body aches. I feel both punished and overdramatic, like I’m making a big deal over nothing."

Wednesday, December 10, 2003

A Cappella Holiday

A joyful holiday noise: I've raved before here about A Cappella Always, a free, streaming radio station featuring 100% a cappella tunes from the likes of The Bobs, The Blenders, Eclipse, Rockapella, The House Jacks, Tonic Sol-Fa, The Exboyfriends, m*pact, The Coats and others.

But with the present holidays -- Christmas, Chaunukah, Kwanzaa, Ramadan, Solstice, &c -- I'm pleased as punch that my buddy Eric, the site's proprietor, has freshened ACA's sister station, A Cappella Holiday, with a ton of great new holiday fare. Give it a listen. If your ears have been malled by Muzak and it's making you anything but merry, A Cappella Holiday might be the tonic.

If you are a member of an a cappella group, Eric wants to help you reach a wider audience by putting your music in rotation on one of the stations. And if you enjoy listening and want to help him defray some of the site's licensing and hosting costs, why not consider making a modest donation?

Thursday, December 4, 2003

Lexus. Fuck all y’all.

IzzlePfaff: [The] spot begins with shot of upper-middle-class home, aggressively clapboarded. The WIFE enters the house and encounters her not-quite-but-almost paunchy HUSBAND. He's fucking adorable, and knows it.

WIFE: Hi, honey!

HUSBAND: Hi, sweetie! I've got a surprise for you!

Wednesday, November 26, 2003

Fucking brilliant

Fucking Brilliant: I heartily endorse this event or product.

At last, Lance Arthur's words are available in a convenient carry-along edition. Now you can whip this out in public, on buses, planes and trains, whilst on the toilet or in the park... there's nowhere you'll be without a shot of pure Lance to tide you over until his next weird utterance.

Buy this book for yourself. Submit proof of purchase and I'll give you a handjob. Buy them by the dozen to give as holiday gifts and I'll make it a hummer. (Limited time offer, void where prohibited or if you're creepy.)

Go. Buy. Now!

Monday, November 10, 2003

Fleshbot launches

Damn it, people! How do you expect me to ever get any work done if you continue to launch websites so compelling that they demand to be daily reads? Yes, that means of course that Fleshbot, micro-publishing magnate Nick Denton's latest venture, has finally gone live. The pixel-stained wretch fronting this sex-positive porn portal? Our ever-lovin' and ever-literate Jonno. How'd you know we loooove redheads, darlin'?

Sunday, November 2, 2003

For all the lunch ladies

Place to Stand: "Moving between the fourth and fifth grade, I made decision to not use my lunchbox and to buy my lunch everyday with the other kids, forcing me to sit in the cafeteria and interact rather than taking my lunch to the edge of the fence to watch the horses graze."

Chicken Tenderfoot

Bawk-bawk! My good friend ~and one-time lover~ Skot Kurruk makes his debut in the {fray} with a behind-the-counter drama titled Chicken Tenderfoot.

Nobody should ever eat coleslaw, for Christ’s sake, but least of all from KFC. If I were to posit a Sentient Cabbage Universe, KFC would be Pol Pot, and he would carry a fearsome, Galactus-sized goo-gun of whitish slaw-slurry, and when he laughed, cabbages everywhere would tremble. Just don’t eat the coleslaw, all right?

Friday, October 31, 2003

Traumatic Halloweens

Matt has had some Traumatic Hallowe'ens.

Monday, October 27, 2003

Free shots

Palochi: "At the oddest of times, the most superficial things enter our heads. While rolling up the sleeve of my shirt to receive the shot, I find myself scanning the room and notice the higher than usual contingent of muscleboys standing near me. One of which is sitting next to me and has biceps larger than my neck. I begin to angst for an entire three seconds that I might not measure up in the soon-to-be-injected bicep department."

Saturday, September 27, 2003

Fan Treks

New Star Trek too: There are new voyages still left in the old girl, apparently. A group of fans of the the original Trek TV show have banded together to create new adventures for Kirk, Spock, Uhura and the gang, over at Five Year Mission. The first episode is planned for December, but there's an attractive trailer online now.

Of course, they'll have to play catch-up to the folks who created the Starship Exeter, and who are planning two additional adventures in the coming year.

May the Great Bird of the Galaxy bless and protect these noble and geeky voyagers. Good fortune may favor fools and ships named Enterprise, but I hope it protects the dedicated fan from Paramount C&D orders too.

[Hat tip to Mitch Wagner for the Five Year Mission heads-up.]

Thursday, September 25, 2003

Safari Enhancer

(Don't) cache me if you can: Safari became my primary web browser shortly after its release and there are only a few features missing, seldom used but handy, that I expect will be made available in a subsequent release.

One nettlesome thing, though, is that Safari doesn't provide very fine control over the web cache at all. In particular, this interferes with some web-based bulletin boards, personals systems, web mail and other applications that serve dynamic information. Too often, Safari pulls old information from its cache, even when newer data is available; there's currently no option to expire the cache or to force Safari to always get the newest edition of a page.

Fortunately, there's a free third-party utility called Safari Enhancer that at least allows you to turn off caching altogether. It also provides some handy tools for removing the brushed metal interface features, importing bookmarks, setting default text and color options and more.

Wednesday, August 20, 2003

Wonderland

Get us out from under: My stars! Fire up your invisible plane, grab your golden lasso and Feminum bracelets!

Why? Because you'll want to set aside a few hours to browse Wonderland. It is the exhaustive Wonder Woman and Lynda Carter website. Pay special mind to the many, many audio files, including several dance mixes of the kicky theme music from the TV show. And there are about eight million photo galleries. Forget that Bezos bozo and his book store. This site is the Amazon dot-com you simply must check out. [Hat tip to Jase Wells, the cutie patootie.]

Tuesday, August 19, 2003

The Colon is Coming!

Check your insides out: I can't believe I forgot to mention this; it's only been on my calendar for weeks. The Colassal Colon is coming to St. Louis this week, tomorrow until Saturday at Keiner Plaza. It's amazing, and must be seen to be believed.

Unfortunately, I've let time get away from me and I won't be able to carry out the fun participatory plan my buddy Eric belatedly thought up when he crawled through the Colon in Los Angeles in June, namely to "craft some giant, poodle-sized paper maché corn niblets to leave behind." Ah well.

The CC has another purpose, of course, beyond creepy, crawl-through fun: It's a stunt to raise awareness of colorectal cancer. But that aside, hey, big colon! See you there?

Ambiguously Gay Duo

What are you looking at now? One of the highlights in recent years of the otherwise increasingly disappointing and irrelevant Saturday Night Live was the cartoons of Robert Smigel. Foremost, of course, was The Ambiguously Gay Duo, whose thrilling short feature adventures are available for download in QuickTime format. Go Gary! Go Ace!

Sunday, August 10, 2003

Keep Watching the Lights

Keep Watching the Lights: There is nothing, and I mean nothing I've been looking forward to more over the past few months than the start of repeats of The West Wing on Bravo except the debut of the summer action-thriller CrossWalk on the web.

It even comes with its own trailer, desktop wallpaper and production stills gallery. If you see only one web-based digitally-produced short film this summer, make it CrossWalk.

On the other hand, it doesn't have a nifty Concentration-style game to promote it. Bravo, Bravo.

Sunday, July 27, 2003

Julia’s Rants…and more

She'll be back: Dennis Miller who? When it comes to fantastic rants, nobody but nobody beats Designing Women's Julia Sugarbaker. Island Bill, proprietor of Mermaniac uncovered this cache of some of Julia's finest oratory, which is part of a much larger, excellent Designing Women Tribute site (and a companion site for current cast news and projects).

My favorite Julia rant -- and it's hard to choose only one -- is more of a retort, but I love it all the same. It's from the episode "Killing All the Right People", which was just re-run on Lifetime last night, wherein Julia confronts an old friend and client about her hypocrisy regarding AIDS:

Alma Jean, get serious! Who do you think you're talking to? I've known you for 27 years, and all I can say is, if God was giving out sexually transmitted diseases to people as a punishment for sinning, you would be at the free clinic all the time! And so would the rest of us!!

But I love 'em all, and there are plenty of other great quotes from the series transcribed here.

If you're a big Designing Women fan, you'll not want to miss the Designing Women Reunion on Lifetime tomorrow night, followed by an airing of the show's original episode and cast favorites. In addition, although the series isn't planned to be released in full-season installments, a DVD called The Best of Designing Women will be released in September.

Sunday, July 20, 2003

PVR Madness

The revolution will be TiVoed: My buddy Matt has launched PVRblog to talk about all matters related to digital video recorders such as TiVo, Replay and others.

It's certain I'll be following this regularly, particularly as I've added a TiVo upgrade to my list of projects to be accomplished as time and money permit.

Saturday, July 19, 2003

80s TV Commercials

Clap on, clap off: A couple of months ago, I linked to Retromedia.tv, a collection of RealVideo clips from 70s and 80s TV shows, commercials and network bumps.

Yesterday, I discovered another cache of boob tube nostalgia at X-Entertainment, featuring a whole slew of 1980s commercials, including the Princess of Power 'Swift Wind' Doll, the Clapper, American Express, Rolo and Activision's fantastic Atari 2600 game, Pitfall. There's even a trailer for the truly awful Leonard, Part VI. [hat tip to MISC Media]

Wednesday, July 2, 2003

You can see forever

You can see forever: Introducing Queerday, a daily roundup of news and features from around the web and the world.