Dumb-asses.

Insert snarky elitism comment here.

Enjoy and be sure to also check out Ra Ra Riot on Conan.

Mieko on Conan (HD 540p, 80 MB H.264)

I’ve also got the iPod/iPhone compatible clip (35 MB).

Enjoy!

I also made and iPod/iPhone version for all of you out there (download it for iTunes by saving the target of that link).

Enjoy!

A bunch of wonderful pics of people flipping-off Hummers.

(Via Deron Bauman @ Kottke.)

From October 5 through November 16, SCI FI whets Battlestar fans’ appetites every Friday night with Razor Flashbacks during all-new episodes of Flash Gordon. All the flashback clips will be available on SCIFI.COM immediately after broadcast.

These [...] roughly two-minute segments tell the story of young William “Husker” Adama’s rookie Viper mission during the first Cylon war. In addition to fighting for his very survival against relentless Cylon centurions, Adama makes a terrifying discovery that will come back 40 years later to threaten him, the crew of the Pegasus and the survival of the human race.

This footage won’t be shown in the actual primere of the two-hour Razer ‘movie’ that premiers on Saturday, November 24th. Check out the official site for more details. Also: mark your calendars for ‘Awesome’ on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

Some people are not pleased with this.

I am, so far, conflicted. Don’t fuck with my Feist.

Cult TV show Battlestar Galactica will end early next year, the program’s makers have confirmed. The final fourth season of the sci-fi show will be broadcast on U.S. cable network Sci Fi Channel from November. Executive producers Ronald Moore and David Eick released a statement, saying, “This show was always meant to have a beginning, a middle and, finally, an end. Over the course of the last year, the story and the characters have been moving strongly toward that end, and we’ve decided to listen to those internal voices and conclude the show on our own terms. And while we know our fans will be saddened to know the end is coming, they should brace themselves for a wild ride getting there – we’re going out with a bang.”

Well there’s always something to be said for going out with a guns blazing instead of fading away… (Ahem *Lost* cough cough *X-Files* cough, excuse me!)

Plus there’s always the Caprica series!

PS: What’s this about a the Battlestar Galactica movie Razor being about Pegasus before it found Galactica? Wouldn’t that make 6 the only regular cast member in the movie?

(Via IMDb.)

Check the new TV ads.

Woot.

The story takes place between Episodes II and III and it looks to be based on much of the fun and innovative work that Genndy Tartakovsky and co. did for the similarly named Star Wars: Clone Wars animated series that appeared on Cartoon Network. However it looks like they’ll be fleshing out those shorts into a full story (instead of 5 minute segments with just a loose plot). Tartakovsky doesn’t appear to be involved but it looks like they have some of the original voice talents for Yoda, C-3PO, and Grevious (who knows about the rest of the cast though).

I’m always excited to see new Star Wars but it will take me a while to get used to the CG look. I’m disappointed they didn’t keep Tartakovsky on board, at least in an advisory role. I’m also upset that they’re re-telling this story instead of moving all to new ground; I’d really like to see more post-Episode III stuff about how the Vader hunted down the Jedi and how and the Empire rose to dominate the Galaxy (but Lucas is apparently looking into creating just such a TV show so hopefully I won’t have to wait too long).

(Trailer link via http://nvinnyc.com/2007/05/08/3-new-get-a-mac-ads/ Here we go again.

The ‘Choose a Vista’ ad is spot on… even I don’t know what version of Vista to get. Though Apple does technically offer two versions of Mac OS X, the second being Server, the differences between the regular and Server version are clear (and all the versions of Windows they were counting don’t include the sever version).

‘Party is Over’ seems a bit of a low blow for Apple: Sure, you might have to upgrade your computer to run Vista, but the same is true for Mac OS X upgrades sometimes (though perhaps not to the same degree). The bit about software and peripherals not working is hypocritical too, since there are many examples of this on the Mac side. I’m thinking of particularly of the OS 9 to OS X transition and the PowerPC to Intel transition (though the later has been handled quite well considering it’s magnitude).

The ‘Genius’ spot is the best of the new bunch. The Genius Bar is a great resource for Mac owners and there’s not something comparable on the PC side unless you have a ‘PC Genius’ friend with lots of time to hep you. If only there were more cute female genii like the one in the ad!

I’m happy the series is staying strong.

Also check out John Hodgman (PC) on the latest episode of This American Life #329: Nice Work If You Can Get It. It’s even a free podcast download of it on iTunes or direct download MP3 from TAL (but these should only be up until April 13th and there’s only streaming downloads after that) so get them now.

(TAL link via DF)

Update (4/14/06): Looks like Apple forgot to post the third new ad, it’s called ‘Stuffed’ and it highlights all the crappy bundled software you have to pay for to actually use which is installed on most PCs out of the box. The problem is that Apple kind of does this with iWork by bundling a 30 day trial of it instead of giving it away with the computer.

Here it is on YouTube. I can’t wait to see this in HD from Apple.

Update (4/10): Apple has put it up here (or in HD). Nice!

The first episode of the TAL Showtime TV Program broadcast this past Thursday (3/22) night. If like me and most people I know, you don’t have cable, you can check out for free from Showtime (or maybe hit up a torrent).

The first episode, Reality Check was quite good… just the same TAL as ever really. Same moving stories, same great music direction, same Ira Glass… just now with pictures. This all makes sense since the stories for this pilot also appeared on the radio show (to save production costs before the show was picked up). I particularly liked the shots of Ira sitting in the middle of nowhere with a desk and an old mic, it looks like this will be a reoccurring theme.

The official TAL website just got a (much needed) makeover as well with lots of nice new features like RSS feeds and better organization. Be sure to check out this ‘much fuller decription‘ of what they’re trying to do with the TVs show and these previews for the first season.

If you’re still starved for TAL linkage check out this Chris Ware animated clip about using fake video cameras in grade school from Episode 4. Also be sure to listen to the weekly radio show on your local NPR station or via this iTunes podcast.

The first six episode season of TAL broadcasts on Showtime on Thursdays at 10:30 PM ET/PT (see the schedule here).

(Some links via Kottke.)

All the actors and movies (almost all the movies I think) are available on this Flickr set.

Some more details from MacRumors.

My take: Brilliant! I loved John Cusack from High Fidelity and The Dude (can’t call him anything else) from The Big Lebowski but I was annoyed by the (one second) of Cameron Diaz (says a lot I guess). I got everyone from Steve McQueen on up except Burt Reynolds (and I should have got him because I watched Boogie Nights again recently… bad angle I guess).

SCI FI Channel announced that it has renewed [...] Battlestar Galactica, ordering 13 new episodes. Production will resume this summer in Vancouver, Canada, with an eye toward a January 2008 premiere.

Great news… but why only 13 episodes? And what about the movie? And why the wait until 2008?!

(Via Ranchero.)

Nice!

(Via Slashfood.)

It reminded me of this old series of screenshots showing the seven steps required to delete a desktop shortcut in Vista. To be fair, these pics were taken when Vista was still in beta & I had hoped (yes, I’d actually like Vista to be pretty good) that they would fix this issue in the retail release. Apparently they stuck with the “confirm everything” method of security, which just sucks all around.

Update (2/6/08): More on this security from this post by Jeff Atwood (thanks to Andrew Escobar for the link):

The problem with the Security Through Endless Warning Dialogs school of thought is that it doesn’t work. All those earnest warning dialogs eventually blend together into a giant “click here to get work done” button that nobody bothers to read any more. The operating system cries wolf so much that when a real wolf– in the form of a virus or malware– rolls around, you’ll mindlessly allow it access to whatever it wants, just out of habit.

I totally agree with that. Mac OS X does a really good job of only putting up warnings when they are expected and needed, it would seem that in Vista that’s not the case.

Also see the latest round of US ones that came out a few weeks ago. ‘Surgery’ and ‘Tech Support’ are pretty good.

More details and currently un-aired Season 3 episode spoilers here if you want to risk it…

Awesome news!

(Via Cinematical.)

This image is proceeded by a fake IM conversation (in iChat, no less) that goes like this:

Student 1: prof. Reid went off on me again
Student 2: what happened?
1: prof. Reid happened
2: you quoted Fox NEWS again?
1: I gave both sides

Yeah, because you know ‘prof. Reid happens’ when you quote Fox News! Disgusting…

Really, I think that’s enough to keep me from ever watching Fox News (not like there was a chance of that before). I guess I just ‘can’t handle the truth.‘

It appears that the wonderful people working on Battlestar Galactica aren’t content to merely keep putting out the best damn show on TV. They’re going to put the same awesome stuff on the web in a series of webisodes, filling the timeline after the end of Season 2.5 but before the première of Season 3 (Friday 10/6!).

The series, titled ‘The Resistance’ will be released in ten short episodes every Tuesday and Thursday night until the première of Season 3 with the first one up right now for your enjoyment.

I’m planning on saving them all to watch in one go before the première, so don’t spoil any secrets for me. Also, obviously, don’t watch this if you haven’t finished Season 2.5 yet (or started watching the series at all); you know who you are (and you should be ashamed of yourselves).

TAL & Ira Glass are simply amazing. I was worried it might mess with the formula of radio (I once ‘saw’ Ira talk in a pitch-black theater for 10 minutes and it was awesome) but I have confidence that they can make it work.

But if the shows are on Showtime, they won’t be free on the internet like the radio program, I guess? Damn. Well there’s always BitTorrent or iTunes.

(Via Kottke.)

The venue was a rather nice concert hall that apparently has something like four stages on different floors so that they can put on different events at once (or have a variety of different music themed rooms) for parties. The layout of the stage that Mike was on was very similar to the House of Blues in Hollywood (though the general atmosphere was much better). Basically it was a stage about a bit narrower than a basketball court in a square room about half again as large and square with a balcony that overhung the floor in the back. The floor was just open for standing except for some small tables along the walls on either side along the walls.

The opening act, Orenda Fink was very mellow, it seemed very similar to Cat Power, and consisted mostly of Orenda singing and occasionally playing some guitar with her band-mate (missed her name…) playing keyboard and doing backup vocals. I might have expected this given that Orenda is half of the band Azure Ray. However, Orenda’s music lacked the mix of strings and piano with the synthesized sounds that I found very appealing about many of the songs on Azure Ray’s most recent album, Hold on Love. Don’t get me wrong here, I really like mellow music but it didn’t match with what I was expecting from someone opening for Mike Doughty, who is definitely not mellow. They did do a very nice cover of The Flaming Lips‘ Do You Realize that worked especially well with just keyboard and vocals.

True to form Mike Doughty started off his set joking around with the wordplay, “The name of my band is the name of my name!” before introducing himself. This attitude, which carried on throughout the concert, kept the audience engaged and excited throughout his set. At one point, after breaking a string and holding up his guitar by the slacking wire he proclaimed “I would get a backup guitar, but everyone seems to love the drama.” He also made up extravagant names for his drummer Pete McNeal that became more flourished with each telling; what stated with “Raul” became something like “The Duke Raul Ledgebar von Faren; a mysterious man cloaked in enigma and mystery” by then end (I wish I remember exactly what it was because it was even better than that). In another humorous moment during the show, the upright base player, Scrap Livingston, delivered the random “Scrap-Fact” of the night (which was: “The shortest verse in the bible is ‘Jesus wept.’”).

The band’s performance was excellent with a precise, yet free flowing style that complemented musical style very well. I was particularly impressed when, while Mike changed his guitar string, the band, consisting of the aforementioned Pete & Scrap as well as Dan Chen on keyboards improvised a tune that morphed into the next song of the set as Mike finished tuning. In another part of the show, Mike ushered the rest of the band of the stage for the “Show Within a Show” were he played a few songs from his earlier solo effort Skittish & Rockity Roll albums (his newest album Haughty Melodic was first recorded with a full band) as well as St. Louise is Listening, a Soul Coughing tune.

Another part of the praise I seem so desperate to heap up is how great Mike treats his fans; before the last song of his encore he announced that he’d be signing stuff after the show at his T-shirt booth. True to form, he showed up twenty minutes or so after the set ended eager to actually talk to each of us there, pose for pictures, and sign all kinds of merchandise. This provided me an excellent opportunity to give him a DVD of Battlestar Galactica Season 2 Part 1 since the whole band apparently loves the show. Mike’s response when I gave him the disc: hand’s it to his manager(?) and says “Guard this with your life!” A man after my own heart… sigh… I hope you enjoy every minute of it Mike.

For your curiosity/ammusment, some pictures from the show are available on Mike’s Blog.