Archive for the ‘Fun Stuff’ Category

Trailer Park: Aliens

Thursday, June 9th, 2022

I was running around the internet recently (figuratively speaking), and came across a trailer for the 1986 movie, Aliens. Michael Edwards, who made the trailer, had decided to produce a “modern” trailer for the movie. It’s pretty good. I saw the movie when it came out, and this makes me want to see it again.

After watching it, I decided to see how it compared to the original trailer for the movie. Here it is:

Watching the original trailer also makes me want to see the movie again, but it is rather different. After watching both of these, I decided to see if Screen Junkies had done an Honest Trailer for Aliens, and they had. It’s pretty funny.

I loves me some fine snark

Thursday, December 9th, 2021

One of my favorite snarky movie review posts was back in 2000, on a now-defunct blog called At Swim Two Birds, named after a literary novel. It was a collection of reviews of the truly execrable movie, Battlefield Earth. The blogger had collected a series of reviews from newspaper movie reviewers, and linked and excerpted them.

I remember two bits from those reviews. In the first, Roger Ebert said that the director used a tilted camera in some shots because he had seen that other directors used tilted cameras, but he obviously didn’t know why the other directors had used them.

In the second bit, which was in the final review quoted, and the one that made me fall off the couch in helpless laughter, the reviewer, whose name I don’t recall, opened the review by saying that he had held off for a week after the film’s debut prior to writing his review, and that, in cases like this one, where every review was scathing, it was often tempting to say that the movie wasn’t actually all that bad. He said he couldn’t do that with Battlefield Earth, “because I would be lying.”

This is a restaurant review, not a movie review, but I giggled throughout it, and just had an incredibly wonderful time reading it.

I will not be eating at this restaurant.

Some Halloween Music

Sunday, October 31st, 2021

It’s a cold night here, with rain and a chance of snow in the forecast. Here’s a little music for the holiday.

First, a Jonathan Coulton classic.

Next, a Tom Waits song that I was not familiar with.

Here’s the Kingston Trio from 1958 with Zombie Jamboree.

And here’s a version of the same song by Rockapella.

Here’s a song about vampires that I really like. This version is by the composer, but I prefer the version by Small Potatoes. Unfortunately, that one doesn’t appear to be on YouTube.

Of course, we can’t forget werewolves.

I have an old cassette that has a song on it called The Mummy Shuffle, which is all about the love a woman has for Kharis, the mummy played by Boris Karloff. Unfortunately, it only appears on YouTube as the entire tape. This is cueued up to the start of the song.

Road trip report

Tuesday, September 21st, 2021

I was out of town over the weekend. One of my sisters had a birthday recently, and her daughter wanted to host a surprise party for her. It was originally going to be held on her birthday, but it was delayed because my niece’s husband tested positive for COVID.

In any case, I left home last Thursday and drove to Texas. I took two days to travel from Denver to Dallas, which seemed to work well. It turned out that I was the surprise at the party, which was fine. I had a nice visit Friday and Saturday, then left Sunday morning to head home.

On the way out, I went east on I-70, then south from Salinas. My plan for the return trip was to head west, stopping in Amarillo for a meal at Dyer’s BBQ, and stopping overnight somewhere along the way before heading north on I-25 at Raton to get back to Denver. It didn’t happen that way.

I got to Amarillo in time for a late lunch, but Dyer’s was apparently closed for remodeling. At least, there was fencing all around the building, it looked closed, and nobody was parked around it. Disappointed, I grabbed a quick fast-food lunch, then continued on. I was far enough west of the main highway that my GPS navigation decided that the back roads were faster than going back to the highway. That may have been correct, but it meant fewer gas stations and rest stops, which can be important factors for someone my age.

In any case, I got to Raton before dinnertime, and headed north because I wasn’t that hungry yet. I ended up driving all the way from Dallas to Denver in one day, which was not something I’d intended; I just didn’t want to pay for an overnight stay when I was only a couple of hours from home. It took about 13.5 hours total. The last time I’d done a drive of that length was in 1997, when I drove from Denver to San Antonio in one day; about 16 or 17 hours, as I recall.

I spent yesterday recovering; the lack of activity caused pain in my legs and hips, and I had a headache that started sometime Sunday afternoon and lasted until sometime yesterday. If I had it to do over again, I think I’d stop in Amarillo, no matter that it was early afternoon, and find another place for a good meal and get a room overnight. Maybe try that place that has the 72-ounce steak that’s free if you can eat it in a certain amount of time. Not that I’d order that; I know I can’t even consider that kind of massive meal anymore.

Tunesday

Tuesday, November 27th, 2018

Time for some music-related stuff. Thanksgiving was last week, and Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant” is almost obligatory in some circles. Here’s something I ran across, but was unable to spend time on prior to the holiday. Perhaps for next year …

Here’s a nice rendition of Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon.” I listened to it because the name of the group attracted my attention.

Finally, here are two videos that are sequential selections from the same presentation on the Circle of Fifths. I knew parts of this before, but these are very clear and informative.

It’s Thanksgiving

Thursday, November 22nd, 2018

Since it was only my girlfriend and myself today (my daughter and her friends had other plans), I did not cook a Thanksgiving dinner. I did make a couple of desserts: a bourbon chocolate pecan pie and some chocolate rum balls. Instead, we went out. It was fine, and I don’t have the room in my fridge for leftovers from cooking a big meal, anyway.

One thing I meant to do, but never got around to, was to learn this so that I could play it today. Maybe next year.

I’m wishing this YouTube channel had more posts

Monday, August 20th, 2018

I ran across Speech Jammer Storytime a few days ago, and it’s not only fun, it brings back memories. When I was attending the Naval Academy, one of my extracurricular activities was being part of the Brigade Activities Committee, the group that ran skits at pep rallies and pregames.

One particular pep rally skit I remember had me narrating something, with my words amplified and emitted via the loudspeakers mounted on the wings of Bancroft Hall that were on the far side of T-Court from me. There was a noticeable delay between the time I spoke and the time I heard my amplified speech. Because of that, I can really sympathize with this guy:

Yesterday was Star Wars Day

Saturday, May 5th, 2018

I could have posted about it then, but …

Daylight Saving Time funnies

Sunday, March 11th, 2018

Tuesday

Tuesday, February 6th, 2018

A couple weeks ago, I posted a video of ‘Tico, Tico’ that I liked. Since then, I’ve run across some more performances of it that I like. The first one is by Paco de Lucia. He gets pretty fast with his fingers on this. I used to have an LP or two of his. I’m not sure what the short bits that follow his performance are.

Here’s another version that’s pretty fun – it’s by Liberace. He gets some incredible speed in his performance.

Liberace was one of the more flamboyant performers I remember from my youth. I remember Bugs Bunny did a Liberace impression once or twice. Given his over-the-top wardrobe, I wonder if he had the same problem with the IRS that Diana Ross had – they were going to disallow the deductions she took for her stage outfits, but she demonstrated that most of them she couldn’t wear offstage – they wouldn’t allow her to sit down. He couldn’t make the same argument, since he performed sitting down.

Here he is performing ‘Malaguena’ and mugging with Sammy Davis, Jr.

And here’s another version of Malaguena, this time from Chet Atkins.