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Holy Crap!

Ever heard of an 80s pop band called “Martini Ranch”? Me neither. But look closely at the video below… you just might recognize one of the band members… and no, I’m not talking about Judge Reinhold, who I believe makes a cameo in the video (and is also credited with whistling on one track on Martini Ranch’s only album, Holy Cow):

Even more amazing than seeing Bill Paxton singing in an 80s art-pop band (after he had a hit as Chet in Weird Science, mind you) is the fact that the above video was directed by none other than… James Cameron! What a crazy world!

Thanks to the Lost In The 80s Blog for the tip about this.

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Today’s The Day!!!!!

After what seems like an eternity, the NFL is bacccccccccckkkk baby! I’ve got the tequila-lime wings, chorizo and Pabst Blue Ribbon ready to go for tonight’s season opener, which pits the Colts against the Saints (or, as an occasional Atlanta fan is required to say… “the ‘Aints”). Ohhh God… Oh God… FOOTBALL I MISSED YOU SO MUCH!

NFL

In case you’re not a football historian, the picture above is of Philadelphia Eagle Chuck Bednari, after he knocked the everlovin’ crap out of New York Giants quarterback Frank Gifford (yep, Kathy Lee’s husband) in a game all the way back in 1960. That hit kept Gifford out of football for 18 months.

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KEN LIVES!

As long as there’s been a World Wide Web, there have been websites publishing lists: “The 20 Greatest Clutch Hitters”, “The 50 Worst Novels Published Since 1980”, “The 10 Worst Kevin Costner Movies”… you name it.

One of the most popular lists is “worst album covers”; it seems like every website on the planet has put out such a list, and almost every single one features this album cover by a guy known only as “Ken”:

Ken - By Request Only

It’s a funny album cover, to be sure. But someone at urban legend debunking site Snopes.com wanted to know if the album cover was real. In this thread at the Snopes forum, many of the objections are laid out: the album doesn’t appear in any copyright, publishing or CD info databases. No other website seems to mention anything about the album, except to put it on their own list of silly album covers. No person or site has ever published a list of tracks on the album, nor has anyone ever seen the back cover of the album. What’s more, the picture of the album cover seems suspect: the album itself seems to be in pristine condition, with no cover wear of any kind on it. Could By Request Only be an elaborate fake?

I’m here to tell you folks that it’s not a fake, and that KEN LIVES!

Continue reading “KEN LIVES!”

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But Can She Sing?

Actress Heather Graham has a video out for a song she’s singing in one of her new movies. Have a listen:

Not bad, I guess. But if I’m going to have to listen to a hot blonde actress sing, I’ll wait for Brittany Murphy’s new album, thanks!

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Virtual Desktops

One feature that Unix-based operating systems have had for years (but Windows hasn’t) is virtual desktops. When you boot up most flavors of Linux, for example, you’ll see an odd feature on the taskbar: a grid, usually with four “buttons” on it. These four buttons represent four virtual desktops. You just click on a button to switch to a different desktop; you can even move windows back and forth between the virtual desktops.

Why would you want a feature like this? Because it allows you to organize your desktops in any way you see fit. Perhaps you’d like one desktop with all of your web applications (web browser, email client, etc.) and another desktop with all your local applications (Word, Excel, etc.). Perhaps you’re working on a couple of projects at once; you can use one desktop for all the windows for one project, another desktop for another project, and another one for your email and web browsing. Or maybe you just want to be lazy at work: virtual desktops mean that you can have one desktop with a browser open to an online poker site, and another desktop open with some Excel documents, so it looks like you’re working. That way, if the boss comes around you can look productive with a single mouse click!

Continue reading “Virtual Desktops”

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A Football Joke…

A Cleveland family of football supporters head out one Saturday to do their Christmas shopping. While in the sports store, the son picks up a Pittsburgh Steeler jersey and says to his older sister, “I’ve decided to become a Steeler fan and I would like this for Christmas.”

His big sister is outraged by this and promptly whacks him round the head and says, “Go talk with Mom.”

Off goes the little lad with the Pittsburgh Steeler jersey in hand and finds his mother. “Mom?”

“Yes, son?”

“I’ve decided I’m going to be a Pittsburgh Steeler fan, and I would like this jersey for Christmas.” The mother is outraged, promptly whacks him around the head and says, “Go see your father.”

Off he goes with the Pittsburgh Steeler jersey in hand and finds his father.

“Dad?”

“Yes, son?”

“I’ve decided I’m going to be a Pittsburgh Steeler fan, and I would like this jersey for Christmas”.

The father is so outraged he, too, whacks his son around the head and says, “No son of mine is ever going to be seen in THAT!”

About half hour later they’re all back in the car heading towards home. The father turns to the son and says, “Son, I hope you’ve learned something today?”

The son says, “Yes, Dad, I have.”

“Good, son. What is it?”

The son replies, “I’ve only been a Pittsburgh Steeler fan for an hour and I already hate you Cleveland bastards.”

God, I’ve missed football!

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My Next-Door Neighbor Died Last Night…

So last night the missus and I were sitting in bed playing Point (a card game similar to Briscola) when we suddenly heard the “beep-beep-beep” of a “reverse gear alarm”… you know, the kind usually found on big trucks. Since we weren’t expecting a construction crew in front of our building at 11PM, we got up and looked out the window… only to see two ambulances, a North Carolina state trooper and several civilian cars with emergency lights on their dashboards.

Apparently the old man next door had died. Members of his family soon showed up, one of them in almost uncontrollable tears. Eventually a small white minivan pulled up. I’m assuming that it was the medical examiner, since the guy driving the van got out, pulled a gurney from the back of the van, and then put an empty body bag on the gurney and wheeled it in the neighbor’s townhouse. Eventually he came back out with the body and put it in the back of his van.

So after this happened last night, I was itching to write a post about it. Originally, it was going to be something along the lines of “ding-dong the witch is dead” from The Wizard of Oz. I say that because back when the Old Man first moved in, he and I went around and around about my “noise”. If, after 11:00PM, I decided to watch a sedate BBC documentary about birds – much less anything with explosions or car chases – you could always count on the Old Man to bang on the wall, or come over the next day to complain. One time he even came over and challenged me to a fist fight over my so-called noise (even though he couldn’t specify what noise or when it happened). That instance was so bad that I wrote a letter to the HOA. Apparently the letter set off a chain of reactions that led to him getting his medications changed; after that he ceased giving us so much trouble.

So instead of saying something crass, or something that I don’t really mean, allow me to just say requiescat in pacem, Old Man. I hope you’ve found peace, wherever you are.

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I HATE Notre Dame!

Georgia Tech vs. Notre Dame 2There are two college football teams that I truly hate. One of them is the University of Georgia, mainly because they’re in-state rivals of my favorite team, Georgia Tech. The other team I hate is Notre Dame. No real reason, really… In fact, the reason for the hate is lost in the mists of time. But just like everyone else in the United States that isn’t an Irish fan, I truly despise Notre Dame. Hate them with every ounce of my being. Each and every atom that makes up me hates Notre Dame too.

That’s why it’s totally awesome that Georgia Tech beat the hell out of Notre Dame today! Final score: 33-3. Notre Dame tried all three of their quarterbacks, but nothing worked. Hell, they were held to -8 yards rushing! The filthy Irish committed at least three turnovers by my count. Hell, one ND player was even ejected from the game for headbutting a GT player. As the AP story about the game notes, “it was the worst opening-game loss in Fighting Irish history”. And I loved it!

And come to find out Appalachian State beat Michigan, too? Man, what a AWESOME day for college football!

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SONGS I LOVE: “Down In The Park”

Tubeway ArmyIf you know any 80s music at all, you’re probably heard British artist Gary Numan’s single “Cars”. To be honest, I don’t care for that song very much; it’s one of those songs I only marginally liked back in the day, and now that I’ve heard it a million times, I’m just friggin’ sick of it.

However, before Numan became a solo artist, he led a modestly-successful band called Tubeway Army. Their first album – Tubeway Army – was guitar-heavy and sounded like most of the other “Britpunk” that was around at the time. By the time Tubeway Army’s second album, Replicas, was released in 1979, the band had changed.  Numan had changed his name from Gary Webb, and had gotten heavily into synthesizers. What had been your basic three-chord punk band had been transformed into an early synthpop band, and a dark one at that. Numan seemed to be trapped in a paradox: on the one hand, he was readily embracing new technology in his music; at the same time, it seemed to scare him. Just like Simple Minds’ “Real to Real” (another “Song I Love”), Numan seemed to be deathly worried about machines taking over the world and removing humans from the equation. And no song illustrates this better than “Down In The Park”.

Lyrically, the song is completely dystopian. It tells the story of a world where androids called “machmen” rape and kill humans for sheer entertainment – much like like the days of Roman gladiators… only this time humans are pulling for the machines to win. The humans have numerically-named android friends (“Down in the Park, with a friend called Five”) that accompany them to a club called “Zom Zoms” to watch the carnage. If it sounds to you like something straight out of a Philip K. Dick novel… well, you’d be right. The whole atmospheric feel that the song evokes is just creepy. It’s like an entire Sci-Fi movie in one three minute song. Have a listen for yourself and tell me what you think:

[audio:tubeway.mp3]

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Photoshop Basics: “Tinting” Photographs

For the past couple of years, I’ve put together my own version of Madonna’s Ray Of Light album. It included the full album, as well as a few B-sides and outtakes from that era.

Recently though, I downloaded a disc of Ray Of Light demo tapes. I decided to create Ray Of Light: The Ultimate Collectors Edition. The thing was, I wanted something special for this new 3-disc set… something distinctive. So I decided to change the artwork.

The original album art:

Ray of Light, original cover

My version:

Ray of Light, edited cover

“Tinting” a picture like this in Photoshop is amazingly easy and only takes a couple of minutes. To do it yourself, just follow these simple instructions:

Continue reading “Photoshop Basics: “Tinting” Photographs”