Jarrett House NorthNow with 80% less politics!

Sixty years after its conclusion, World War II continues to provide an inexhaustible flow of stories. While many follow traditional narratives of Good vs. Evil on the world stage, a set of quiet television dramas from England have told a different story:
what does the Last Just War look like from the home front?
Foyle’s War explores [...]

Thanks to a Slashdot poster, here’s a magnificent set of mistranslated subtitles for Revenge of the Sith, also known as The Backstroke of the West. Apparently the English to Chinese to English process turned out some fun translations, such as “the Presbyterian Church” for the Jedi Council. Which is, you know, pretty amazing.
As in, “the [...]

Every now and then I realize I’m at the far boundaries of my hacker cred. Such as when I read the directions for hacking a piece of popular hardware and turn pale. Today it looks like extending the TiVo with low level hack functionality like telnet, etc., requires rebuilding the kernel on the machine.
However, TiVo [...]

I’m in a sketchy Travelodge (well, only as sketchy as the places I’ve stayed outside Tanglewood for our residencies, so not bad, just not the Ritz. Hey, there’s free Wifi.) in Lancaster, PA tonight. Just finished re-watching (for the first time in probably 15 years) Pump Up the Volume, the movie about the deep anxieties [...]

If you followed any links from Jeff Rowland’s copy Overcompensating that I pointed to yesterday, you may already have seen the music video for the Snakes on a Plane theme. Just in case, here it is:

You can also download “Snakes on a Plane (Bring It)” as an MP3, thanks to a bunch of MP3 bloggers, [...]

In our ongoing series of Snakes in a Plane related crap leading up to its opening on Friday (see previous posts on the T-shirt and the TSA alert), I want to touch briefly on the role that Jeffrey Rowland, webcomic author (and owner of TopatoCo and creator of the Snakes Flying a Plane t-shirt), has [...]

Boing Boing: As with gels, liquids: TSA bans mother})(^!#$ snakes from planes. Heh. I give Hollywood a lot of credit, but surely they didn’t arrange a major international terror alert just to promote the movie, did they? Hmm?
Best not to ask. Besides, if they had, the movie would probably be called something else.
From the semi-official [...]

A story that I didn’t get to tell from the Mozart residency at Tanglewood: I walk into the Pittsfield Subway store, having less than 30 minutes to get lunch before a conference call for work. I’m waiting for one clerk to finish my order. The other one, who looks a little like a burgeoning hipster [...]

Just as well the West Wing is over. I’m not sure I believe Jimmy Smits as a president any more than I believe him as Princess Leia’s adoptive father.
Oh, hell. I’m too young to be that grouchy an old fart. I’ll miss the show.

We haven’t had access to a DVR since we got the HD TV, since Comcast doesn’t offer a cable box + HDTV DVR. In fact, we’ve hardly used the main TV setup since we got the HDTV. That’s about to change: we just picked up a Tivo + DVD burner combo from Circuit City, who [...]

William Gibson’s all too infrequently updated blog updated this morning with a quick review of the new movie adaptation of V for Vendetta: “More thumbs up than a Chernobyl pianist.” With a recommendation like that, how can it miss? Gotta get out to see this one.
Of course, I may have difficulty watching Natalie Portman’s character [...]

Nice database of all things Henson related shaping up at the Muppet Wiki. There are already some pretty comprehensive Muppet sites out there, so it will be interesting to see if the wiki format adds anything new. But you have to be impressed with a format that includes a full biography of Mahna Mahna and [...]

Courtesy Boing Boing, the Urban Outfitters version of Charlie Brown’s pathetic Christmas Tree. Someone could bring this to my house at Christmas if they were inclined (hint hint). UO has done a remarkable job of reproducing the pathos of the original animated version, though you have to supply your own security blanket:

However, there is some [...]

Bloomberg: Bob Denver, Star of TV’s “Gilligan’s Island,” Dies at Age 70. Alas, Maynard G. Krebs; I knew him, Horatio. When will we ever find a TV actor who knows who Thelonious Monk is, much less one who name-drops him in character? Like, I’m getting all misty.
Oh yeah, Denver played another guy, too, as his [...]

Tin Man points to the free Lord of the Rings Trilogy slipcase that’s available if you purchased all three extended editions separately. Free, that is, with $3 shipping.
It’s handsome enough, I suppose, but I don’t really know that I need an additional slipcase. The individual DVD sets are packaged elaborately enough as it is.