Innocent Bystanders

The Pupster Boys and Mrs. Pupster have been having loads of fun making videos, mostly clips from characters they create in The Sims, mixed with music in Windows Movie Maker. Since they like to post them on their personal blogs or share them with friends, I’ve been letting them use my YouTube account.

Today I received a sphincter-tightening email from YouTube titled “A YouTube partner made a copyright claim on one of your videos”

Dear impupsterdammit,

UMG has claimed some or all audio content in your video Wake Up Call The Sims 2 Music Video. This claim was made as part of the YouTube Content Identification program.

Your video is still live because UMG has authorized the use of this content on YouTube. As long as UMG has a claim on your video, they will receive public statistics about your video, such as number of views. Viewers may also see advertising on your video’s page.

After I unclenched and began to follow some of the links in the email, I found the situation to be acceptable, and if I may say so myself, handled elegantly. Copyright holders, in this case UMG, provide to YouTube ID files for the material they wish to protect, and YouTube uses a Video Identification Tool to wash all new uploads against the ID files. When they get a match, the copyright holder can choose three courses of action:

There are three usage policies — Block, Track or Monetize. If a rights owner specifies a Block policy, the video will not be viewable on YouTube. If the rights owner specifies a Track policy, the video will continue to be made available on YouTube and the rights owner will receive information about the video, such as how many views it receives. For a Monetize policy, the video will continue to be available on YouTube and ads will appear in conjunction with the video. The policies can be region-specific, so a content owner can allow a particular piece of material in one country and block the material in another.

In the case of Mrs. Pupster’s Wake Up Call The Sims video, USG has allowed the video to remain on YouTube with the addition of Google Ads (which I assume with fill their corporate coffers with untold riches), and will receive tracking and usage information.

It seems like a pretty good application of common sense, and I hope to see more of the same in the future, rather than the heavy handed tactics some other copyright holders pursue.

You know, I had a tough decision: post close up photos of my feet after running and contrast it with a close up of my feet with my orange Crocs, or this.

While this was not a Kafkaesque situation (personally, I’m an O Henry guy), it does resemble the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, only this time, all options are bad.

Enjoy.

Meet Ezra Welch, a 40-year-old guy living in Berlin. He loves Batman so much, he has dedicated everything in his life to the caped crusader.

The collection is a diverse one, ranging from framed movie posters to a utility belt and even a large ceramic cookie jar shaped like Batman. He has even deemed one corner of the collection a “Rogues Gallery” and uses it to showcase Batman’s foes.

Welch, who works at Precision Graphics in East Berlin, doesn’t know exactly how much he has spent on his collection over the years but estimates it is at least $5,000, maybe even $10,000.

Even with all the money he has spent, he says his favorite item didn’t cost him a thing.

“It’s a Batrock,” he says, pointing to a chunk of stone he got during a visit to the cave used to film part of the 1960’s “Batman” TV show that starred Adam West. “It’s from the Batcave. I don’t know if anyone else has something like this.”

Wow. And like all Batman fans, he seems to relish wearing the costume at the wrong and inappropriate times.

Occasionally he will even don a full-size Batman costume, though he prefers to do it to mark special events; one photo on the wall of the “Batcave” features him, fully-costumed, kissing his wife in front of their Christmas tree.

Yeah, but does he molest retired stagehands while wearing it?

The next time you see some guy dressed up in a superhero costume, just remember what really goes on when these guys put on their gear.

Just sayin’.

[WARNING: NAUGHTY WORDS USED IN THIS VIDEO!]

I saw previews for WALL-E last fall, and while I immediately thought that it looked great, and I like everything Pixar has thrown up on the screen so far, I also surmised there was going to be a ‘corporations are evil, humans are the problem, save the planet by recycling before it’s too late’ indoctrinating message to warp the kiddies minds.

Strike one.

The across-the-board tongue-bathing by the critics was another huge red flag for me, they love love LOVE the over-arching save the fragile earth narrative; it must be very effective at re-enforcing their slanted world view.

Strike two.

The Saturday morning weather forecasts all called for rain, heavy at times with possible world-ending thunderstorms and definite yard-work canceling downpours.

*Bonk* take your base family to a movie.

In standard Pixar fashion, there is a short feature before the main attraction. The short Presto is about a self-absorbed magician and his rascally rabbit. It is excellent; a homage to Chuck Jones and his Looney Toons heydays.  Almost worth the price of admission all by itself.

The feature starts with WALL-E on a desolate, trash-covered and abandoned Earth. The back-story is immediately explained by motion-activated, solar-powered billboards: Every store, bank, and industry is owned by Wall-Mart Buy-N-Large, which is somehow also in control of all branches of government and all services. (*grinds teeth*) The Earth has become too polluted with empty packaging from rampant consumerism, so Buy-N-Large builds interstellar cruise vessels to whisk all the humans into space to relax in comfort, while WALL-E and his companion robots take care of tidying up the planet.

At this point I had to stifle the nagging, logical part of my brain, which was trying to interfere with my movie watching enjoyment. “Let me get this straight…we solved all space transportation issues but we can’t figure out garbage disposal?”  I distracted the logic circuits by asking them to calculate the cost of gas, tickets, and snack-bar per family member, then I shorted them out with huge gulps of an ice cold large Diet Pepsi. “Shaddup brain, I’ll read a book later.”

WALL-E looks and sounds like R2-D2 and ET’s love child (the same voice actor portrays all three). He is just a hard-working, blue collar trash compacting machine, who has survived for 700 years through ingenuity and hard work as the last of his kind still functioning.

His job is to take the massive mountains of refuse and compact them in his belly into small cubes, which he then stacks neatly in artfully designed sculptures which imitate the unoccupied high rises of the empty city. WALL-E collects interesting bits of trash as trophies, and scavenges spare parts off his long since broken down peers which are laying about.

WALL-E has only his sidekick, a pet cockroach,  and is longing for some more stimulating companionship. He finally gets his wish when a space ship lands and releases a search droid in WALL-E’s area of operation. WALL-E falls hopelessly in love and begins a fumbling, bumbling courtship with the droid, whose default programming is ’shoot first and analyze the debris later’.

The CG animation is very good, and provides enough stimulus to keep the kids entertained and engaged through some of the slower parts. There are a lot of pratfalls and physical type humor, which even the littlest movie goers will ‘get’.  The movie picks up the pace in the last half, when the search droid (EVE) gets recalled to the mother ship and WALL-E hitches a ride.

****SPOILER WARNING*******

(more…)

Woodrow Call: For all you know it invites people to rob us.

Gus McCrae: Well the first man comes along that can read Latin is welcome to rob us, far as I’m concerned. I’d like a chance t’ shoot at a educated man once in my life.

A few days ago, I met a very nice lady who teaches Latin . I asked her if she had seen the movie Lonesome Dove, because I’ve always wondered what the Latin phrase “Uva Uvam Vivendo Varia Fit” on the Hat Creek Cattle Company sign meant. Sadly, she had never seen the movie, and I could not remember all the words off the top of my head.

A few seconds of intensive Internets research later, I came across an on-line exhibit of archived production items from the movie, which is maintained by Texas State University. They have the sign itself, and translate thusly:

The Latin phrase that appears on the Hat Creek Cattle Company sign in “Lonesome Dove” is a garbled corruption, and there’s no direct translation. It derives from the scholia to Juvenal 2.81 which cites the proverb “uva uvam videndo varia fit” This means something like “a grape changes color [i.e., ripens] when it sees [another] grape”

A few more mouse clickys lead me to Clint from Cowboyology, who further explains:

The old proverb, which is used in Lonesome Dove, is more or less equivalent to our “one bad apple spoils the bunch.”

I guess I was expecting something a little more insightful.

Our pal Muslihoon has a big date tonight, and Demone is here to help.
 

Save the Led Zep for the 3rd date.  Everything else applies.

Good luck, we are all counting on you. 

I heard this catchy tune for the first time in a long time over the weekend, and it got the old movie-maker juices flowing.  Unfortunately, after 2 evenings spent making this flick, I don’t ever want to hear it again.   

Our celebrities have been demystified, according to this post by Bmac, and we are all poorer for it.

This insatiable interest in knowing every single mundane detail of celebrities lives has definitely ruined a lot of my own enjoyment of movies, and music. With a camera stuck in their face 24/7, I just can’t escape finding out their idiotic political views, or just how fucking retarded they really are.

This is exactly why studios used to control their stars, and limit and monitor their exposure to the media, so that you could accept a five foot tall freak like Tom Cruise as an action hero, or romantic lead. Tom’s career is over now because he couldn’t shut his fucking ignorant yap.

Actors and musicians depend on you thinking they know something you don’t, and as soon as you find out they’re drooling morons in real life, good luck selling them as a brilliant master of espionage, or a nuanced commentator on social issues through poetic lyrics and music.

This is also why Rock and Roll is dead. MySpace has killed rock. Killed it completely by giving us too much information, and allowing fans to interact directly with their beloved stars.

The Loss Of Mystique « A Fine Line Between Stupid And Clever

We had our county convention (for the “Rs”) a couple of nights ago. I’ve been a county delegate a few times and thought I might take some notes and put them up for an IB conversation starter. This was a unique moment in the Skinny household because Mrs. Skinny was a first-time delegate as well. At our town caucus, they told us the convention would be an 8:00 p.m. affair. We showed up a little after 7:30 so we could talk to candidates and get ourselves situated. Ruh roh. The place was full and some guy was mid-speech and going strong. We asked what was up and were informed it had started at 7:00 p.m. and they had sent letters to all the delegates about the time change. It could have ended up tossed with some junk mail, but we hadn’t seen it. So, rightfully, the alternate delegates had taken our places. I guess we could have stayed and listened anyway, but our sails were a little deflated. We were driving out of town and Mrs. S. saw a movie theater marquee and the show was going to start in one minute. Quick U-turn. An evening without kids isn’t to be given up lightly.

Democracy in action: government of the morons, by the morons, for the morons, shall not perish from the earth. At least as long as I have any say in the matter.

I know there are all kinds of movie lists out there. Give him a few that you like that maybe everyone hasn’t heard of. Five or six? Throw in a guilty pleasure as well.

These are memorable ones for me:

1. Ran (Japanese)
2. Woman in the Dunes (Japanese)
3. Far from the Madding Crowd (1967)
4. A Room with a View
5. Jean de Florette (French)
6. Cinema Paradiso (Italian)

Guilty Pleasure? Under Seige comes to mind–starring the ponytail of justice himself.

Steven Seagal is . . .  Making a Bomb out of a Rubber

I first saw this Internet Film over a year ago. It’s the funniest, most clever amateur film I’ve seen.

I don’t know what they used to edit it or to create the special effects but it’s done very well.

I was reminded of it recently when I saw one of the stars in a trailer for a new TV series. See if you recognize him.

It’s not a YouTube so I hope I get this embed thingy working.

Here’s the link, just in case. Be sure to watch all 6 episodes, including the Directors Commentary.