Abandoned Six Flags in New Orleans

1/29/2011

Found this video through Kim Komando. It certainly is haunting. So eerie and hopeless. Reminiscent of Silent Hill and Zombieland, except this is real.

And the song by Godspeed You Black Emperor is perfect, but the video didn't say which one it is. I'll have to go looking for it.  Found it.  It's Sad Mafioso.  I'll definitely be playing this song at Halloween along with my mainstays: the Saw theme Hello Zepp/Zepp Overature, Ozzy's Mr. Crowley and Diary of a Madman, Judas Priest's A Touch of Evil and Judas is Rising, Lordi's Blood Red Sandman, E Nomine's Die Schwarzen Reiter and Mitternacht, Oomph's Unsere Rettung, Eisheilig's Lucifer, and Diary of Dream's Nekrolog 43.


The Estuary - Kaveh Cohen

1/22/2011

I was just playing this in MediaMonkey.  Don't remember where I downloaded it and I have absolutely no idea where I first heard it.  I do remember watching the trailer for Twilight: New Moon and going, "Hey, that's The Estuary!"  I'm still pissed that it's just trailer music and so is not a full song, but I love it anyway.


Mads Langer

1/22/2011

I forgot this was in my YouTube playlist Music I Want.  Let's just say that I shouldn't have.  I'm loving this guy.  Watch these two videos.


The Other Guys

1/16/2011

I missed it in theaters.  Got it for Christmas.  Finally got to watch it last night with my family.  Boy were the characters odd (all of them a bit stupid and absurd) but it was definitely hilarious.

Spoiler: The scene where The Rock and Sam Jackson jumped off a building to chase after thieves was my favorite part.  We were all expecting it to go how it did, but didn't expect the results to be so exceedingly funny.  They were arrogant and thought they were invincible.  And so they slo-mo jumped off a 20-storey building, aiming for the bushes!  There were, of course, no bushes in sight.  At the funeral the Other Guys (Ferrell and Wahlberg) were wondering why, even mentioning there wasn't even an awning to fall on to.  We were still laughing about it this morning.

Pastel Imagination

1/10/2011

I usually say some really dumb things when I'm not sure what someone said, instead of just keeping my mouth shut. Or I think of something really odd even when I've heard them correctly. Hey, it makes life more fun.

In the car on the way home from a party my brother mentioned something about forgetting to shave under his lip, and I said, "I wonder if anyone has hair growing right out of their lips." This cracked up everyone in the car, and after some discussion my brother said I have a vivid imagination. Then after a few seconds thought he changed this to maybe not vivid, but certainly pastel. :)

Llanfair and Chargoggagogg

1/09/2011

I found this amusing. The longest place domain in the world, according to someone at NamePros.com, seems to be llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.com. According to the site, it translates to "The church of St. Mary in the hollow of white hazel trees near the rapid whirlpool by St. Tysilio's of the red cave." Wow, what a mouthful. And how about the Nipmuc name for Webster Lake in Webster, Massachusetts: Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg? According to Wikipedia, it may be the longest place name in the United States and is said to mean "Fishing Place at the Boundaries - Neutral Meeting Grounds." I heard about this one a few years ago and, amazingly, remembered how it was spelled.

Update, 10/11/11: You would think there couldn't be a place name longer and more complicated than those, but you would be wrong. I just learned from @AnneMWatts (fellow follower of @TwoPaddocks, aka Sam Neill) that New Zealand has the longest place name with Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauo-tamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu, which you can see and learn more about here.

If you want to learn about more of the longest things try thelongestlistofthelongeststuffatthelongestdomainnameatlonglast.com. According to them the longest place name is actually the official name of Bangkok: Krungthepmahanakornamornratanakosinmahin-tarayutthayamahadilokphopnopparatrajathaniburiromudomrajaniwesmahasatharnamornphimarnavatarn-sathitsakkattiyavisanukamprasit.

There's quite a bit of other interesting stuff, such as -
longest corn maze: 15 miles, Liberty, Missouri
longest abbreviation: NIIOMTPLABOPARMBETZHELBETRABSBOMONIMONKONOTDTEKHSTROMONT
longest movie title:Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of the Bride of the Return of the Revenge of the Terror of the Attack of the Evil, Mutant, Alien, Flesh Eating, Hellbound, Zombified Living Dead Part 2: In Shocking 2-D

You could get lost here for a quite a while. Have fun, and stay out of that corn maze.

Are You 'havin' a Laugh?

1/09/2011

My brother still hasn't seen the extraordinarily hilarious series Extras, even though I made him buy it over a year ago during Christmas shopping, and it came out in 2005.  So I guess I'll just have to send him this video.  Maybe it will remind him that he needs to pop this into the PS3.  And if you've never heard of it, this is one of the best scenes. 

The Stupid Things I Say

1/09/2011

"I need the bathroom.  But who cares?  There's a brownie."  Yup, I said this.  And it made my brother almost spit out his beer because it was so unexpected.  He said that sentence had to never have been said before and then Googled it.  As you can imagine, there were zero results for that exact phrase.

Caprica's Final Five Episodes

1/08/2011

Of course we forgot to set the DVR, so we missed the first one.  And now the turd sandwiches at Syfy, in their infinite wisdom, aren't playing it again, only streaming it on their site.  Yay, everyone, let's gather 'round the 15-inch screen of an old laptop and watch a stuttering, laggy version of a great show that was given no chance in this age of if it isn't an immediate hit you better axe it, even though now more than ever there are too many shows to choose from and it takes time for most to grow an audience.  I envision the last four episodes of Caprica taking up space on the DVR for weeks until we both finally watch "Blowback" separately online.

The Syfy people really are starting to disgust me.  Before it was just a mild annoyance that they had hardly anything original to watch, but now it's more like an intense hatred.  And I don't include their original movies; let's just pretend that those don't exist.  There have been quite a few series that I love, but it seems like every time they come up with a new show they get soon rid of an older one...or two.

Obviously I don't know their situation, what they can acquire to air and such, but it's like they actively try to be awful.  They were supposed to be all about science fiction (and a bit of fantasy laced with scifi), at least I assumed so by reading and what I thought was comprehending their name.  I only remember some repeats of Star Trek, Star Trek: TNG (which I think is still currently playing), and a marathon of select episodes of Quantum Leap a few years ago.  I don't recall any movies besides the various Star Treks, though I think there were a few commercials.  I think they might have shown Starship Troopers.  Up next is Star Trek Nemesis and - oh, you've got to be kidding me - another original movie, Mega Python vs. Gatoroid.

Hey, if I'm lucky, maybe it's just a terrible nightmare where this kind of ten miles below the bottom of the barrel stuff is acceptable, Ghost Hunters isn't a serialized dramedy, and wrestling is considered scifi.  Someone please, please wake me up!

Here is "Blowback," the first of the final five episodes.


If the video no longer works you should be able to find the episodes at Sidereel.

Doctor Who
2011 Trailer
Series 6 Preview

1/07/2011

The Doctor (Matt Smith) ~ "I can go anyplace at any time"
Amy Pond ~ "Except where he's trying to go."

Finally got a chance to watch Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol and saw the best teaser trailer ever for the show.  It is hilarious.  I was thinking about them taking a trip to the US after Series 5 ended.

And here's the commercial for the 2011 season.

THE WALKING DEAD
A Zombie Show to Love
Season 1 Thoughts

1/06/2011

Image copyright AMC

For those who haven't yet watched those saved episodes of The Walking Dead on your DVR, or those who thought it would not be very good at all, every positive comment that you've heard is true.  And good thing it was so short; I wouldn't have caught up before the end was spoiled for me.

Doctor Who
Shattered and Scattered
Fan Videos

1/06/2011

I found Muse a few years ago because of the Doctor Who video "Scattered (Tenth Doctor)" from Harmony Vids. The quick editing is perfectly timed to "Map of the Problematique" and nicely combines both the frenetic and quietly dramatic sides of the show.  If you've never seen it, David Tennant was an amazing Doctor: so real, hilarious, and heartbreaking.  I'll watch him in anything now.

(Update: 10/9/2018) Just going back through all of my posts, updating the fonts and titles. I went through everything and got to this one, my first ever post about Doctor Who. Didn't remember I'd shared "Scattered." I had to update the link because it was broken. Harmony Vids hasn't been online for years. Fortunately, it was at Youtube, where I also rediscovered "Shattered," which I would consider a companion piece. Truly emotional, this one.