I download a LOT of podcasts daily (I currnently have 10 solid days of audio waiting for me to listen to and growing) and keep only a small percentage of them. I have so many, that the only way I can manage them and keeping sane is using the EXTREMELY useful iTunessmart playlist feature.
The only problem with this system was that I could not delete the smart playlist items I had already listened to directly from the smart playlist menu, I would still have to sift through iTunes‘ Podcast section and individually delete all the old podcasts…
I’ve FINALLY found a solution, all you need to do to fix this is to select all the smart playlist items that you want to delete and while holding the SHIFT button, hit DELETE. This brings up the regular iTunes deltetion dialog box and presto! Problem solved. This also works from any iTunes playlist, smart or otherwise by the way.
Now, I use Windows, so I don’t know if this fix works for Mac users, but if you run a Mac and have this problems, try this fix and let me know in the comments below.
After watching this clip from Best of Youtube (subscribe here) of a guy texting while cruising down the highway on his motorcycle, I almost fell off my couch. Even though this guy could manage to lean back, text AND drive his bike at the same time without crashing into a wall or another car, I could barely manage sitting on my couch… truly sad, I know.
I think I know at least one person *cough* Tara *cough* who might just get a kick out of this video… or maybe hate me for sending this out. Either way this video is crazy.
Ever since Tim Russert’s passing, I’ve noticed there aren’t that many interesting, exciting and original voices speaking out about politicals. The people that come to my mind that I enjoy listening to are Chris Matthews, Rachael Maddow, Tavis Smiley, Penn Jillette, John McLaughlin, John C. Dvorak (who is a technology writer, but who loves stirring it up interesting with interesting political views) and…. Dan Carlin.
I also found these two videos from Attack of the Show, Gun Apocalypse and Gun Apocalypse 2, where we get to see some of the most extreme guns available. These are some crazy guns that go way beyond necessary, but they look like a lot of fun too.
I love watching Jackie Chan, especially when he seems to lose his mind and do some crazy stunt that you just can’t believe a person could survive, like falling over 50 feet from a clock tower. You also have to love watching his drunken boxing style in Drunken Master and Legend of Drunken Master.
If you have a ton of Styrofoam that you don’t just want to throw out, maybe from packing peanuts or just some disposable plates or cups, you can melt them into seeming nothingness with just a bit of acetone (available at any hardware/paint/walmartesque store) or some nail polish remover… but I’d recommend going strait for the acetone, you get a much cooler (and faster) reaction.
After George Carlin died, you realize just what a loss it is to the comedy world, especially with all the work he did behind the scenes with young up-and-coming comedians. Jerry Seinfeld wrote an op-ed about his friend in the New York Times and I wanted to share it here, which I found out about on a recent Larry King Live (subscribe here) interview with Seinfeld.
After what I thought was a TERRIBLE marketing campaign during the runup to Kung Fu Panda’s release, it took me a while to actually bring myself to the theater to see it. It wasn’t until I saw some of the previews for Tropic Thunder, another movie starring Jack Black, that I got excited to see this film. Below is that promo.
Now that I’ve seen the film, I wish I had gone sooner. This was easily the best Jack Black film to date, with King Kong and School of Rock trailing behind. One of the best moments comes right at the beginning of the film where the first style of animation we see transitions to the film’s main animation style. The way it was done was stunning. It made it very hard to tell that the style transitioning to was animation at all! I was very impressed.
The story was a lot of fun, a definite winner of a kids movie. There really weren’t any adult wink wink nudge nudge moments, but the movie was hilarious so I didn’t mind at all. There were some reviewers *cough* Filmspotting.net (subscribe here)*cough* that thought it was unwise to portray the Chinese villagers as yellow buck toothed bunnies, but I didn’t find it to be offensive or in bad taste in any way. When I was looking for this, I found that in actuality, the villagers were really represented by a few different animals: bunnies, pigs and birds. So I felt this was a real non issue. Seriously though, if you want some great movie reviews, check out Filmspotting.
I really think that if you want to just go in to see a film and spend the majority of the time laughing, this is an easy choice for a film to go see.
Now, I know this is a sticky topic, which is going to get on some people’s nerves, but I took some time to think about this after my cousin Richard let me know about this recent court decision. Even though it is very hard to argue in any wayfor child rapists, I ultimately agree with the majority opinion from the court’s 5-4 final decision.
Hear me out on this, I agree because of the underlying issues surrounding the case, not because I don’t think a child rapist should die a horrible death. Just because I think someone should be killed for committing a heinously crime, like raping a child, doesn’t mean that it should be the lawful to do so.
I do not believe in the merits of the death penalty anymore, so the idea of narrowing the scope of when it can be used is something that I agree with. The point was made by Justice Anthony Kennedy, that the penalty of death is not a proportional punishment for a crime which does not result in the death of the victim, which is another point I agree with.
I also do not believe having prisoners spend an average of more than 10 years on death row (which has been the case since 1995) is a humane way to treat a prisoner, it certainly doesn’t give the death penalty the perception of being a deterrent to violent crime with such a long time from conviction to execution either. I am not advocating leniency with these prisoners by releasing them or anything like that, I just believe that instead of sentencing them to death, sentence them instead to over 100 years in prison without bail or the possibility of parole.
One of the reasons behind these long stays on death row is no doubt the length of time the appeals process is for these inmates, but the right to appeal (and the advantages potentially available) is another reason for being against the death penalty. We are coming up with new technologies all the time and we hear of people being exonerated for crimes previously convicted of based on things like new DNA evidence. Once you put an inmate to death, there is no way to bring that prisoner back if it is later discovered that the person was wrongly accused, but if sentenced instead to spend their remaining days in prison, then an appeal could then be made at any point in the future to release the wrongly accused if new credible evidence surfaces.
I know there are many arguments both for and against the death penalty. Let me know what you think about this recent decision or just about the death penalty itself.
OK, now that I’ve probably thoroughly depressed you with this weighty topic, I need bring to you as a treat a very apropo to the above topic. The Onion just came out with another hilarious video (subscribe here) that just so happens to involve both the Supreme Court and the death penalty.
Watch as a brave voodoo doll tries to save its fellow voodoo dolls from harm. If you can, try and check out the high quality version to get a feel for some of the amazing detail work that went into this!
Enjoy a visually stunning 4 minutes created using Maya and After Effects.
Oh, by the way, as of this week, full episodes of both The Colbert Report and The Daily Show are now available at hulu.com for free! Check it out and spread the word!
It’s hard to believe that it has been 14 years since we last got some Wayne’s World, but you can watch the video from MTV here as well as watch the entire award show if you like as well, the whole show is available online.
If I didn’t think this was so likely to become a real product option, I’d find this funnier, but as it is, I’m a bit afraid that it isn’t too far from being a viable option sometime in the near future, especially after seeing the World of Warcraft South Park episode!
MUTO is an amazing visual experience. This short film by Blu was created using stop motionanimation in Buenos Aires to painstakingly create this 7min short film. I’ll let the film speak for itself, just check it out.
There are currently only 3 excerpts (1, 2, 3) available and some movie stills, but this is an interesting project that you should check out. I can’t wait to see what the final 2 hour movie will be like.
Enjoy
Dany
I would give credit to where I heard about this art project from, but for the life of me I can not remember which podcast mentioned it recently. If anybody knows, can you leave a comment or email me about it, I feel bad not attributing where I found out about this from.
After watching the movie, there are a few interesting things of note. I was worried thinking about seeing Harrison Ford (65 years old) as Indy again, but from the first scene, when he picks up his hat, he just exudes Indy. My only problem with Indy was best stated by Alex Albrecht on The Totally Rad Show (subscribe here) when he wished they hadn’t turned Indy into an invincible superhero and I completely agreed with that sentiment after the refrigerator scene. Another issue I had was with the heavy handed use of CGI… especially unnecessary/bad CGI.
The movie was definitely fun to watch (how can Indy NOT be fun to watch?), but the movie wasn’t exciting, there were no real edge of your seat moments. There were times when it felt more like I was watching The Da Vinci Code, Sherlock Holmes or National Treasure, than Indiana Jones which was disappointing.
Even with all that going against it, I still had a good time at the theater, but the person I saw it with fell asleep a couple of times (remember that not exciting quality I mentioned earlier?). I did love watching how Spielberg was able to create an incredibly violent movie, but because most of the gun violence takes place off camera, it seems like a much lighter movie than it really is, it always amazes me just how effective leaving things to your imagination is for a film maker, instead of showing every bit of violence and gore possible,
I started this page because I got tired of sending out emails with links, pics and vids to huge list of recipients. If you enjoy any story, leave a comment about it. If you really enjoy it, subscribe to the RSS feed so you can always stay up to date!
If you want me to add anything, email me:
master1228 [at] gmail.com, post a comment or just throw something at my head!
Oh, if you actually subscribe to any of the podcasts I periodically recommend, leave a comment about it to let me know (and if you don’t end up liking it, let me know that too).
