Happy, Happy,

2010.

My best wishes for a wonderful year to all (both of you) my readers.

Ho, Ho, Ho &

Merry Chrismas!



I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday with family, friends and loads of good eats.

Is This the Real Life? Is This Just Fantasy?

Caught in a landslide. No escape from reality

Well this is an escape from reality.

Love the Muppets? (yes!)

Love - or at least like - Queen (yes!)

Well don't say I never give you anything.

Enjoy

Total Eclipse of the Lyrics

Back in the mid 80's I was a huge fan of Bonnie Tyler. I went through the angst thing a bit late in life and this song spoke to me in some totally deep and incomprehensible way:



Well I was thrilled when a friend of mine turned me on to this incredible remake. It has all the depth of the original and will speak to your stupid teenage heart:



You're welcome. Actually thank you RC for facebooking this. It made my day.

Oh and full discloser (This was taken about 10 minutes ago)



Yup, still listening to her.

Merry Christmas

Best wishes to everyone this holiday season.

Eat too much, drink too much and have a great time!


Winter Wonderland 2008 - Holdman Christmas Display from Richard Holdman on Vimeo.

More here

I Get By With A Little Help From My Fred?

I love much of the music of the 1960's, and I think I may have enjoyed Woodstock. Not sure though as I lean a bit more towards psychedelic or pop music from that time, and less towards what I call stoner rock.

Moot point in any case as my Mom wouldn't let me go. Something about only being 4.

One singer I've never been a huge fan of is Joe Cocker. I don't hate him, just not my cup 'o tea.

However I've always hated his version of With a Little Help From My Friends. He trashed a perfectly good Beatles song.

I did, however, presume that he knew the words. Turns out he was singing (literally) his own song.

For your 1969 enjoyment:



Here are the actual lyrics:

What would think if I sang out of tune,
Would you stand up and walk out on me.
Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song,
And I'll try not to sing out of key.
Oh I get by with a little help from my friends,
He gets high with a little help from his friends,
Oh I'm gonna try with a little help from my friends.

What do I do when my love is away.
(Does it worry you to be alone)
How do I feel by the end of the day
(Are you sad because you're on your own)
No, I get by with a little help from my friends,
Mmm I get high with a little help from my friends,
Mmm I'm gonna to try with a little help from my friends

Do you need anybody?
I need somebody to love.
Could it be anybody?
I want somebody to love.

Would you believe in a love at first sight?
Yes I'm certain that it happens all the time.
What do you see when you turn out the light?
I can't tell you, but I know it's mine.
Oh I get by with a little help from my friends,
Mmm I get high with a little help from my friends,
Oh I'm gonna try with a little help from my friends

Do you need anybody?
I need someone to love.
Could it be anybody?
I want somebody to love
Oh...
I get by with a little help from my friends,
I'm gonna try with a little help from my friends
I get high with a little help from my friends
Yes I get by with a little help from my friends,
with a little help from my friends

Ode to Beaker

July 28 update: More here

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I love Beethoven, I love Beaker.

A marriage made in heaven:



Poor, poor Beaker, he never gets a break.

Perhaps you prefer Strauss:

Graphic Humour

I'm afraid that even at my advanced age I'm a big fan of I Has A Hotdog! and I Can Has Cheezburger?

Well the producers of those two sites have another site that I just discovered: GraphJam: Pop culture for people in cubicles.

Basically it's a site full of graphs. Bar graphs, Pie Charts, String charts, charts that I don't have a clue what they are called. But unlike your economics 101 class, these charts are entertaining.

Most refer to pop culture (hence the name), such as song lyrics, or movies. Others seem to be created by people that are pissed off at something.

If you're anywhere around my age it should take you all of 5 seconds to figure this one out:



Looks like this person spent the night at a really dull party:



I couldn't agree more!:



Many of the charts have a "See Cheat Sheet" link that leads to a helpful video. Good thing too as it's the only way I got this one: (clicking on charts will take you back to source)



have a look, it's an enjoyable time waster.

2 Things...

1st thing:

'mercan Costco better than canuck Costco.

Damn Yankees!

[Dooce's photos on Flickr!]


2nd thing:

Funny as shit, with a capital funny: (so very, very NSFW for language. So drag out your headphones)



From the rather twisted mind of Jon Lajoie. For more of his sickness go to jonlajoie.com, click on enter and then on Michael Keaton
(yes Mr. Mom. It'll make sense when you are there. Also, bite me!)

3rd thing:

Didn't you read the title, there is no 3rd thing.

How Bishopy.....

[Sonsoles Lozano's photos]

One of my favourite bands ever (that no-one has ever heard of) finally has a real professional type video out.



I don't care if you've never heard of them or don't like them. This my blog and I'm only here to plug the stuff I like :-)

But given that, please give them a listen and check out their page

I think they are pretty good

Fruitcake... NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

[ gnuf's photos]

I. Do. Not. Like. Fruitcake!

But then, who does?

It surprises me that there is still a viable market for fruitcake. A Google search brings up about 207,000 hits for fruitcake, and not one of the hits on the first page is negative. In fact one of the links is the pro-fruitcake Society for the Protection and Preservation of Fruitcake.

Sigh

I was perusing the newest videos at Will It Blend when I found this one:


[Will It Blend? - Holiday Hassles]


The fruitcake makes quite the mess.

This video is actually just a glorified ad for Bill Me Later and its subsite Operation Fruitcake

Operation Fruitcake doesn't have a lot of material yet, but it looks promising. Only 3 videos up so far. I like this one:

[Operation Fruitcake - Incinerator]


Just out of curiosity I Googled I hate fruitcake and came up with 266,000 hits. However on closer inspection there seems to be a lot of sites along the line of fruitcake for people who hate fruitcake

Here is a genuine fruitcake hater - bless him!

The I Hate Fruitcake Hate Page

While conducting my in-depth reserch for this post I ran across the videos of Marie Rudisill, "Ask the Fruitcake Lady" from the Tonight Show.

I had forgotten about her videos. Here's a classic:

[This LADY loved CAKE and FRUIT]


And to finish, an anti-fruitcake classic:

[Grandma's Killer Fruitcake]


And btw. A YouTube search for fruitcake gets you 694 results.

A Century In Video - 1912

Some days I just don't feel like myself...



Blurb from the YouTube page:

"Dr. Jekyll transforms to Mr. Hyde, and back again...from Thanhouser Company's 1912 production of Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 classic novel 'The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.'"

The Thanhouser Company Film Preservation, Inc is a company dedicated to preserving old silent film with an emphasis on the films made by the Thanhouser Company. It is run by Edwin W. Thanhouser the grandson of filmmaker Edwin Thanhouser founder of the Thanhouser Company.

Here you can read a brief history of the Thanhouser Company, but basically it was a New York Film company that made over 1000 films between 1909 and 1918.

According to IMDb there have been 44 different versions of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde made between 1908 and 2009. The 2009 version is currently in production and there isn't much info given, except (dear god) that's it's a musical.

And yup, it's based on a Broadway musical - here it is.

Wanna be tortured?



You couldn't pay me to sit through this.

<tangent>

I don't hate all musicals. I would love to see this one.

</end tangent>

Also: Have you ever seen the word Thanhouser used so often in one place? Any place?

Flotsam, And Her Good Friend Jetsam - Part II

Time to clean out some of the crap quality material from my 'add to blog' folder.

[Futurama - Raiders of the Lost Arcade]


I remember all of these games, even played most of them. Even Q*bert (little orange round dude with big nose and no arms who gets off the spaceship near the end of the video). Great episode of Futurama, except for the Rush part - can't stand Geddy Lee.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Put together by Norm Fisher, a Saskatoon realtor. Enjoy the Unbelievably Bad Real Estate Photos Hall of Fame. A slideshow collection of really terrible real estate photos with commentary by Mr. Fisher. After his introduction click on the "run" button, and don't just stare at the screen for five minutes (like I did) waiting for something to happen (d'oh). Keep in mind that this fellow is NOT a professional actor, however I think he created a rather humorous piece.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Queen's hit as performed by "25 of the most annoying voices in the music industry"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Robot Chicken - Calvin & Hobbes: The Untold Story]

via videosift.com

You either know Robot Chicken, or you don't. If you don't know Calvin and Hobbes then you are no longer my friend.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And finally: 112 different ways of saying "Oh my god! There's an axe in my head,"


Enjoy!

Strike - Day 43 (Updated)

From The Blackbird's great strike photo collection:



Great photo, but do you think you could make my ass a little bigger? BTW, I didn't have a clue that my picture was being taken. I came across the pic via RSS feed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Yeehaa, some (potentially) good news:

Negotiations to Resume Next Week

Judy Rogers and Chief Librarian accept CUPE invitation to return to bargaining table

Let's hope this actually leads to something!

Lots of goings on at Central today. It was black & white day with all encouraged to dress in those colours, a puppet show about farmer Sam and his farm animals that go on strike, Our Friday bbq and a reading by Poet Laureate George McWhirter.

We also created a human wall around the library with everyone doing the 'wave' with their picket signs and later spelling out the words "Let's Talk" on the north plaza.

I didn't bring my camera today. But as usual 2shoes took some super pics of all the happenings

And if you're interested there is a benefit concert tomorrow to help raise $$$ for our hardship fund.

Local bands and supporters have come together to hold a benefit concert for the group this Saturday, September 8th, 2007 at the Maritime Labour Auditorium at 8:00 p.m. (Read More)

Here's the poster: (click to embiggen)

11 ~ 11 ~ 11

Spinal Tap rocked at the Life Earth concert. Well worth watching.

Here is a YouTube video from the Wembley concert. For better quality go to the London Concert Page on Live Earth and scroll to Spinal Tap in the "now playing" box on the left. Worth the watch.

Big Bottom (Played with every bass player @ the concert)



There were many other great performers there as well. All the concert footage can be accessed with the above link by choosing the country from the bottom of the page.

Enjoy.

This Post Goes To 11

Spinal Tap is reuniting:



How cool is that!

Nothing But The Original For Me? (Part II)

I've never been a fan of Nine Inch Nails. In fact I don't think that before last year I could have named even one of their songs.

Then I discovered (via I don't remember) Johnny Cash's cover of Hurt:



and I loved it with a capital L.O.V.E.

So I decided to give the original a shot:



Sorry man, but it leaves me cold, cold, cold.

Of course after I discovered the Cash version I had to buy this album:


1955-2003: Legend Of.

When I was young(er) I would never had admitted to liking Johnny Cash, but now, of course, he's cool again. And frankly I don't give a shit anyway.

But back to my main point (I do have one, I do!)

I did discover one version of Hurt that may just compete with the Johnny Cash version.

From the Man in black to the amphibian in green:



A little "pitchy" perhaps (Damn you Randy Jackson) but certainly filled with feeling, and not a few disturbing images.

Oh, and if you haven't visited it yet, and you like Johnny Cash, then I really do suggest his web site. The audio section has some 20 songs that you can listen to online - great for instant Johnny Cash radio @ work

The Dead Leading The Dead

I've never been a big Elvis fan. There are a few songs of his I like, but generally I can take him or leave him.

But last night, for the first time in my life, I felt sorry for Elvis.

For the 4 of you who haven't heard about it. Last night on American Idol, Elvis sang with Celine Dion, and it was VERY VERY SAD!

It was some sort of CGI thing, or a hologram, or perhaps, Satan. In any case I'm sure that somewhere Elvis is crying.

I'm not going to post the video here because 1. I don't hate anyone that much that I need to inflict that kind of pain on them, and 2. Fox has already had at least two versions of the video pulled from Youtube due to copyright infringement.

But here is a shitty (both for content and quality) screenshot.

Don't worry, your retinas will eventually heal.





Can you tell my true feelings for Celine?

Last time we were in California visiting relatives, my husband"s aunt mentioned to us how much she loves Celine Dion. Hubby replied - "That's great, you can keep her"

I think she is solely responsible for every "Yes" vote during the Quebec referendum.
Makes me proud to be a Canadian.

Nothing But The Original For Me?

Generally song remakes suck! It's pretty rare that a cover is better than (or even as good as) the original. And there are plenty of people that agree with me. Just have a look at this site: Second Hand Songs, or this even better one: The 20 worst cover songs in pop music history.

But I found an exception.

You may be familiar with this because the remake was used for a commercial for the video game "Gears of War". For me the remake blows the original out of the water. It's weird because I actually really like Tears for Fears and before this song had never heard of Gary Jules.

Well here are the two videos, you decide.

Mad World

Original by Tears for Fears



Cover by Gary Jules

Passover Celebration Fun (Updated)

In celebration of passover I give you this link:

peeps for passover

A beautiful photo show explaining the ten plagues.

10 edible plagues

10 sugary plagues

10 very pastel plagues

sweet, sweet, plagues

No-one likes a messy matzos, here a tip!




And I'll finish this off with a little music from the fab Barry sisters.


Happy Passover everyone

(And thanks to Dooce for the peeps link)