We went and saw Wreck-It Ralph on Sunday afternoon, and it was much better than I thought it would be. Not that I thought it would be bad or wouldn’t be good or enjoyable, but I just figured…eh, kid movie…old video game references…Disney…probably just a “Toy Story” wannabe. Probably for the first hour, that’s true. The game of “spot the game references” was pretty much all-consuming. But then it morphed into a version of the classic Disney “know thyself and ye shall be happy” story that, goshdarnit, ain’t so bad.

To be honest, as much as I love John C. Reilly, Ralph could probably have been played by any number of dudes from Ray Romano to Seth Rogen. He did a fine job, but there really wasn’t much there for him to distinguish himself as a unique voice. What really perked my ears up was the rest of the main cast. Jane Lynch as a no-nonsense, “Call of Duty” type soldier was her typically awesome self. And I don’t think that anyone else could have (or should have) played the over-the-top positive Fix-It Felix besides Jack McBrayer.

I don’t know if Sarah Silverman has done much cartoon voice acting in the past, but if you told me that her part was ghost-played by Tress MacNeille or Tara Strong, I wouldn’t argue. She nailed the mix of sugar rush and smartass that Vanellope von Schweetz needed to cut through the Bratz doll cuteness of her character.

Finally, the biggest surprise of them all was the absolutely dead-on Ed Wynn impression by Alan Tudyk! Yep, that Alan Tudyk…Wash from Firefly. He was great as King Candy, practically chewing up the screen and spitting out the animated Alice in Wonderland’s Mad Hatter and Uncle Albert in Mary Poppins. I never would have guessed it was him.

Sure, it’s “just” another cute Disney animated film that’s good for kids and adults, but I don’t see anything wrong with that.

Depending on the source of advice, I have to write something–anything–every day for at least 21 to 30 days in order to establish the habit. So, here I am writing something.

Yep. This is me. Writing…

Oh, hey! We went to see Cloud Atlas this weekend. It was good. Long and confusing for much of it, but ultimately good.

*whistles*

Yeah, I think I understand now why this blog thing died.

I was perusing blogs and blog-like substances this morning when I came across a post at The Nerdist by Sir Dr. Eric Idle, MBE, DFA, OB/Gyn, wherein he goes on at-length about meeting Brian Cox (who is, apparently, Britain’s version of Bill Nye the Science Guy or something). Professor Cox has a new show on biology coming up soon, and he got Sir Eric to write a version of The Galaxy Song about biological matters. He calls it the Galaxy DNA Song (lyrics included in said post).

But what caught my eye was the fact that this meeting took place in May at the last night of his play What About Dick? I’d never heard of such a thing! Eric Idle, Billy Connolly, Tim Curry, Eddie Izzard and Tracey Ullman on the same stage? Doing bits and songs by Eric Idle? And it’s over?? Hold on a second while I work through my despair.

From the video clips of the actors and the description of the plot (“…(beginning) with a sex toy invented in Shagistan in 1898 by Deepak Obi Ben Kingsley (Eddie Izzard), tells the story of the decline of the British Empire as seen through the eyes of a Piano (Eric Idle) and the story of young Dick (Russell Brand), his two cousins (Jane Leeves and Sophie Winkleman) and their dipsomaniac Aunt Maggie (Tracey Ullman), who all live together in Kensington in a large, rambling, Edwardian novel. And there too are the Reverend Whoopsie (Tim Curry), the incomprehensible Scottish Inspector McGuffin (Billy Connolly) and Sergeant Ken Russell (Jim Piddock) and the case of the Houndsditch Mutilator”), this sounds like more fun than a barrel full of monkeys (mind, that’s not really as fun as it sounds).

Anyway, like all good Python bits, I really don’t have a cute way to end this, so…

2011: 13 posts
2012: 1 (not counting this one)

I knew I wasn’t blogging very much, but this is ridiculous. If you had been following my life in blog form for the past 10 years, you would assume that I dropped off the face of the Earth…or that nothing of even the trivialist nature had happened to me this year.

Nothing could be further from the truth!

• My daughter graduated summa magna cum laude from Florida State this year and is now a permanent non-resident of the Norton household, rather than just a temporary one.
• We had a fantastic vacation trip to Maine in late August/early September with a Revolver reunion and lots of hiking.
• It was the year of The Avengers!
• We hooked up with The Mighty Geek (and watched The Avengers!).
• There’s some sorta election thing going on.
• The Red Sox SUUUUUUUUUUCKED…
• The blog turned 10 in March!
• I freakin’ turned 50 in June!!!!

But did you see any of that in this space? No. And why not? ‘cuz I’m a lazy ass who posts everything on Facebook instead of putting it in his blog where it belongs.

I’m not totally knocking FB (and it’s definitely not its fault I’m lazy…it’s just an enabler). The FB is good for communicating with family and friends. It’s just not a substitute for sitting down and writing several paragraphs about life, the universe and everything.

So, from now on, I’m going to make a distinct effort to write some little piece of crap in this blog…just like in the old days. When blogs were blogs and Facebook was MySpace. Now, get offa my lawn, ya durned kids!

Happy New Year!

Last night the Doctor Demento Funny 25 gave us our annual update to the madness that is the Top 100 (or so) Demented Hits (from Funny 25′s) – 1974 to 2011. The great Luke Ski took this year’s top spot and added “Snoopy the Dogg” to the tie for #95 at the bottom of the list. He was a force this year, not only by taking #1, but by appearing with Cirque du So What on “Elevator” at #22 and collaborating with Dan of Flat 29 on #13′s “WalkingSilly”.

It was kind of a strange list with several returning songs from past years, including the obligatory “Dead Puppies” and “Fish Heads” along with “Wet Dream,” “The Ballad of Irving” (last seen 20 years ago in 1991), and “Amish Paradise” (returning for the first time since 2000). “Irving” moved up to the 13th spot in the Top 100, passing Julie Brown’s “The Homecoming Queen’s Got A Gun” and Weird Al’s “Amish Paradise” skipped “My Dead Dog Rover” and “The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny” into #35.

But the big news for Top 100 fans is that “Fish Heads” finally moved ahead of “Dead Puppies” as the all-time Number One song on the chart…the very thing the good Doctor Demento stated as fact years ago that set me on my annual quest to calculate its truth. It wasn’t before, but it is now.

Here’s this year’s list from DMDB.org along with some fun links.

#25 Dead Puppies - Ogden Edsl Wahalia Blues Ensemble Mondo Bizzario Band
#24 If You Want To Say Fuck, Say Fuck - Steve Goodie
#23 L. A. Dream - Henry Phillips
#22 Elevator - Cirque du So What?
#21 The Ballad Of Irving - Frank Gallop
#20 Horizontal Surfaces! - Sean Morey
#19 Amish Paradise - “Weird Al” Yankovic

#18 We Love Boobs - The Boobles
#17 Wet Dream - Kip Addotta
#16 How Do You Spell Quadaffi Khadafy? - Wally Wilson
#15 Charlie Sheen - Power Salad
#14 Atheists Don’t Have No Songs - Steve Martin & The Steep Canyon Rangers
#13 WalkingSilly - the great Luke Ski f/ Dan of Flat 29
#12 Fish Heads - Barnes & Barnes
#11 Avada Kedavra - Steve Goodie w/ Nuclear Bubble Wrap

#10 Street Meat (You Keep Tauntin’ Me) - Mike Phirman
#9 Help Me, Vodka - Robert Lund & Spaff.com
#8 When Will You Die - They Might Be Giants
#7 Super-Powers - Insane Ian
#6 You’re An Old Lady (Who Used To Be Hot) - Flat 29
#5 Perform This Way - “Weird Al” Yankovic
#4 Four Chords - Axis Of Awesome
#3 Global Warning - Throwing Toasters
#2 If I Could Be Weird Al - Moneyshot Cosmonauts

#1 Snoopy The Dogg - the great Luke Ski

Haven’t done one of these things in a while. NPR did a strange mash-up of science fiction and fantasy novels that inexplicably left off some great and popular young adult titles (like Harry Potter) and sometimes used collections as one novel and sometimes didn’t. Combine the whole “popularity contest” nature of the thing, and it’s a real mess of a list. Some of these I’ve never heard of. But it’s a list!! So, I’m in.

Bolded the ones I’ve read and added some notes.

1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien

2. The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams

3. Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card [started to read it, but didn't get far]

4. The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert [the movie ruined it for me...every time I tried starting Dune, I got stuck on images from the movie and couldn't continue]

5. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin

6. 1984, by George Orwell

7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury

8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov

9. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley

10. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman

11. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman

12. The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert Jordan

13. Animal Farm, by George Orwell

14. Neuromancer, by William Gibson

15. Watchmen, by Alan Moore

16. I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov

17. Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein

18. The Kingkiller Chronicles, by Patrick Rothfuss

19. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut

20. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley

21. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick

22. The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood

23. The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King [actually in the middle of this one]

24. 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke

25. The Stand, by Stephen King

26. Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson

27. The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury

28. Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut

29. The Sandman Series, by Neil Gaiman [got sidetracked and left it; gotta get back to this someday]

30. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess

31. Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein

32. Watership Down, by Richard Adams

33. Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey

34. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein

35. A Canticle For Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller

36. The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells

37. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne

38. Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keys

39. The War Of The Worlds, by H.G. Wells

40. The Chronicles Of Amber, by Roger Zelazny

41. The Belgariad, by David Eddings

42. The Mists Of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley

43. The Mistborn Series, by Brandon Sanderson

44. Ringworld, by Larry Niven

45. The Left Hand Of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin

46. The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien [I tried...I really did...]

47. The Once And Future King, by T.H. White

48. Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman [another one I need to get to soon]

49. Childhood’s End, by Arthur C. Clarke

50. Contact, by Carl Sagan

51. The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons

52. Stardust, by Neil Gaiman

53. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson

54. World War Z, by Max Brooks

55. The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle

56. The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman

57. Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett

58. The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson

59. The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold

60. Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett

61. The Mote In God’s Eye, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle

62. The Sword Of Truth, by Terry Goodkind

63. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy

64. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke

65. I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson

66. The Riftwar Saga, by Raymond E. Feist

67. The Shannara Trilogy, by Terry Brooks

68. The Conan The Barbarian Series, by R.E. Howard

69. The Farseer Trilogy, by Robin Hobb

70. The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger

71. The Way Of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson

72. A Journey To The Center Of The Earth, by Jules Verne

73. The Legend Of Drizzt Series, by R.A. Salvatore

74. Old Man’s War, by John Scalzi

75. The Diamond Age, by Neil Stephenson

76. Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke

77. The Kushiel’s Legacy Series, by Jacqueline Carey

78. The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin

79. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury

80. Wicked, by Gregory Maguire

81. The Malazan Book Of The Fallen Series, by Steven Erikson

82. The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde

83. The Culture Series, by Iain M. Banks

84. The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart

85. Anathem, by Neal Stephenson

86. The Codex Alera Series, by Jim Butcher

87. The Book Of The New Sun, by Gene Wolfe

88. The Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy Zahn

89. The Outlander Series, by Diana Gabaldan

90. The Elric Saga, by Michael Moorcock

91. The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury

92. Sunshine, by Robin McKinley

93. A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge

94. The Caves Of Steel, by Isaac Asimov

95. The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson

96. Lucifer’s Hammer, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle

97. Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis

98. Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville

99. The Xanth Series, by Piers Anthony [read some of this]

100. The Space Trilogy, by C.S. Lewis

It’s been less than a month since we unplugged the cable TV and started feeding straight off the internet fire hose. So far, the experiment has been a success, but it hasn’t been without its bumps and bruises (assuming you can call such a “first world” problem of how to watch primadonna women plan their weddings in the bitchiest fashion possible a “bruise”).

First, we switched from Bright House’s preferred internet service, Road Runner, to Earthlink on the strength of reviews about Earthlink’s superior support and the fact that the sales guy didn’t try to bullshit me into paying more for a “turbo” service that isn’t any faster than regular cable. And, miraculously, despite both services coming from the same provider and through the same equipment, we’ve seen the frequent drops of service we were having under RR disappear (except for the mix-up in canceling the TV service when they cut off the internet too). If there is a speed difference between RR Turbo and plain old Earthlink, we haven’t noticed it, and it’s not like we’re light users…with a TV that is totally internet driven and up to four PC’s and a couple of smart phones and guest laptops using the ‘net at once.

For hardware, we’re using the Xbox 360 that we’ve had for games since 2006 or something. We had already been using it for Netflix viewing over the past couple of years, so it was all set up. But, after surveying the content landscape, there was a severe gap that needed filling, and when Apple dropped the price of its Apple TV  to $99, we got one.

For content, we have Netflix for the movies and seasons of shows on DVD and Hulu for current TV shows. (Hulu Plus is required for running it through the Xbox, but you also need a way to see the stuff they mark as “web only”…that’s where PlayOn comes in.)

PlayOn is for anything on the web that has a video feed but that’s not on Hulu Plus or Netflix, including Hulu, CBS, and a bunch of other sites. There are plugins for lots of extra sources at playonplugins.com

We bought the Apple TV for anything we absolutely can’t live without or wait until it gets on DVD (like Doctor Who). As a side benefit, it also has Netflix, and the YouTube channel has gotten a lot of use.

The Good

We are watching less “crap” TV just because it’s in front of us, and we’re not using it for background noise, just having it on for the sake of it. That actually took some getting used to, as I’ve been in a house with a TV that’s almost always on since 1962. We are also watching shows we might not have noticed, like the British show Misfits (which we love), and catching up on series that we somehow missed, like 30 Rock (which I can’t believe I never watched before). We’re not missing our regular morning dose of the Daily Show, lacking in new things to watch (like Wilfred) or feeling left out.

The Bad

We are now really dependent on the internet connection being up and good. We haven’t had a lot of the drops that we used to, but there was the incident where Bright House shut off the internet by mistake (just in time to miss the first episode of Torchwood). And currently we are sitting Xbox-less thanks to our Live account being hacked. Finally, we don’t usually care if a show is in HD, but video quality (with some exception) is not going to satisfy pickier people.

The Ugly

I’m a geek, so having a bunch of different devices to entertain me is not a problem. However, I want to make the experience as easy as possible for the rest of the family. Yes, we’re saving money, but it shouldn’t have to be a chore to figure out which device and service to use for the particular show you want to watch.

Unfortunately, I haven’t found a good all-in-one alternative, yet. As mentioned before, we need Apple TV to be able to rent things that aren’t available for free elsewhere, but Hulu doesn’t play on Apple. Meanwhile, the Xbox has all the other services, but they are on separate menus that aren’t all uniform or easy to follow (not to mention the $50 annual fee for Live and the threat of getting hacked). I tried using Windows Media Center to at least get everything onto one menu, but PlayOn doesn’t want to work through it for some reason.

I looked at Roku to be an alternative to the Xbox, but for some reason they are in a feud with PlayOn. PlayOn says they have a user-created channel that works, but any mention of PlayOn in the Roku forums is immediately stifled. Without PlayOn, you have Hulu Plus but none of the “web only” shows. Boxee has the opposite problem. It will play web-only Hulu, but it doesn’t support Hulu Plus.

I also looked at the Sony Internet TV Blue-ray disc player with Google TV. While we could use a blue ray player, the reviews aren’t glowing and the price tag of $300 kinda eats up the savings we’re wanting to see from ditching cable.

So, on balance, everything is good. Still looking for that magic cable/DVR replacement that plays all available content and is cheap.

So, um, yeah. Yesterday was our 25th wedding anniversary. Can you believe it? Someone has put up with me for over a quarter of a century!

To celebrate, I got picked up from work (down to one car temporarily thanks to a car crash by Pepperkat for those who don’t follow along on Facebook…) and we went to IHOP! Woo!!

Actually, we’re hopping in the car Friday morning, and we’re not coming back for just about the rest of June. Just the two of us driving about and seeing the sights. We’re going up to Chattanooga, first, then winding through the Blue Ridge Parkway for a few days before landing in Washington, DC, for a week. We’ll spend a couple days in Williamsburg and one in Charleston on our way back. Should be pretty fun. The only schedule we have is the pre-booked hotels. Other than that, we’re freeeeeeeeeeee!

When I did a mini-relaunch of the blog and posted my first song in years, I figured there would be bumps, but I didn’t expect to get sent out of town three weeks in a row. That, combined with a lengthy practice session for a bell choir concert last weekend, kinda took the wind out of my sails.

Anywho, I’m back home for the foreseeable future, and I’ve got a stack of tunes lined up to record. In case you were wondering.

Osama bin Laden is dead. Pretty much gave up the thought of ever seeing that happen.

While ascribing all the evils of the last 10 years to one guy seems naive, Osama triggered death and war and a host of terror-inspired curbs on freedom that we’re never going to wipe away with his death. Good riddance. It’s guys like you that make taking Jesus’ commandment to love your enemies nearly impossible.

What disturbed me last night were the cheering throngs in the streets.

We didn’t win anything.

I started to write something similar, but Michele’s post is better than what I would have said. Granted, I’ve got “Ding! Dong! The witch is dead!” running through my head, but this isn’t your favorite sport team’s championship. This is the end of an expensive, bloody manhunt that might have meant something concrete years ago. Now, it’s just a symbolic act of retribution that doesn’t change much. Stop acting like the thugs in the streets on September 12, 2001, who cheered the attack on innocents and felt righteous doing so. Now is the time for quietly remembering all the lives lost over the last 10 years either due to this man’s minions or in the pursuit of justice.