Sunday, January 31, 2010

Movie Purge: January

Brother’s Keeper centers on the Ward brothers, illiterate dairy farmers living together in a shack in upstate New York, and the trial of Roscoe Ward, who’s been accused of the mercy killing of one of his ill brothers. The pace of the movie gets bogged down at times, but otherwise it’s an intriguing doc. C+

Two Days In April follows four college football players, each at a different level of stardom, as they prepare for the NFL draft. I thought it was interesting to see not only the physical aspect of readying themselves for pro football, but also the mental preparation and training that’s required of them by their agents.  The best and most gut-wrenching part of the movie is on draft day, as the cameras roll while these prospects count down to either the realization or the shattering of a dream that they've been playing for their whole lives.  Some dreams come true; others remain just that. A-

Forgiving Dr. Mengele is a film about unfathomable forgiveness.  Josef Mengele was a Nazi scientist who conducted inhumane experiments on identical twins at Auschwitz during World War II.  Eva Kor is a surviving 'Mengele twin' who has publicly forgiven Mengele and the Nazis, and the film documents her life and her quest to understand her history and navigate both emotion and circumstance. A

The Atomic Cafe chronicles Cold War hysteria from the atomic age of the 1940's through the 60's.  The film consists entirely of government propaganda film clips, newsreel footage, and military training films.  It's comical now to see how dismissive of atomic warfare the government wanted to appear. The format grows a bit tiresome, so I'll caution that this is for history buffs only.  B-

A Certain Kind Of Death investigates what happens when someone dies and leaves no next of kin.  This documentary may sound morbid, and there are a few graphic scenes, but it really approaches the subject matter of death from a business-like standpoint. What happens to someone who has no one when they die? Who sees to the final affairs? It was darkly fascinating to find out.  A

Coping With Cabin Fever

Eight inches of snow isn’t quite as foreboding as it once was.  But the local news would have you believe that it was going to be certain Armageddon.  In fact, when it snowed 8 inches in our area this weekend, the local news station had a cardiologist in studio to let me know that prolonged snow shoveling could make my wife a widow.  Let’s be realistic here - I’m snowed in, sure, but I’ve got better things to do than shovel snow. I've got 28,000 songs on my iPod, thousands of streaming TV shows and movies on Netflix, and a few shows on DVR that I’ve been meaning to get around to watching anyway (I’m currently catching up on PBS’s “Soundstage” and am confused and curious about Jackson Browne’s physical transition into a lesbian professor).  Has there ever been a better time in history to fend off cabin fever? Here's how I spent my snowed-in Saturday:

  • Found out Saturday morning that yes, Virginia, you can make pancakes with water. I later gorged on Krunchers jalapeno chips. I was a big fan of Krunchers as a kid, and until Friday hadn’t been able to find them in years. The Krunchers brand is back and is now owned by Snyders of Hanover, which will hopefully mean better distribution, so look out world!
  • Held my own personal DVR mini-marathon of Elvis Costello’s “Spectacle.”  This show airs on the Sundance Channel, and Costello may very well be the worst interviewer ever, but his guests are stellar.  I watched the Bruce Springsteen episodes – parts 1 and 2 – and an episode with Lyle Lovett, John Prine, and Ray LaMontagne. Good stuff.
  • Shoveled snow off of the driveway -- didn’t have a heart attack.
  • Read this week’s Entertainment Weekly, which had a good article about the “Fletch” movie franchise.  I had no idea that another “Fletch” has been floundering around Hollywood for decades.  Kevin Smith wanted to do it with Jason Lee as Fletch, but Miramax would never sign off on it.  Zach Braff was eventually cast with another director at the helm, but Braff backed out.  It seems to be a cursed sequel.  The full article is available in the Feb. 5 issue of EW. 
  • Made a bit of progress on a book I’ve been reading, “The Year of Living Biblically,” by AJ Jacobs.  Jacobs chronicles his attempt to follow the Bible as literally as possible for an entire year.  I’ve read mixed feedback on the book, but so far, so good for me.
  • Filled out Mad Libs.  Lots of them. It's great to be an adult now and to have free rein to be as vile or vulgar with Mad Libs as I wanna be. Some of them are really pretty hilarious.
  • Surfed the net and came close to buying this T-shirt. Very close.

  • Polished off a build-your-own six-pack from Total Wine that I had stashed for the winter storm.  There’s usually one dud every time I build my six-pack, but this one was a well-rounded combination that deserves high marks.  The beers in my sixer were:  Monty Python’s Holy Grail Ale, Bear Republic Red Rocket Ale, Great Divide Brewery’s DPA (Denver Pale Ale), New Belgium Mothership Wit, Harpoon Leviathan IPA, and Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron.  All of these were really good.  Most were full-bodied and high gravity, with the exception of the Holy Grail Ale and Mothership Wit, so enjoy responsibly.
  • Wrapped up my snowy Saturday of overindulging on comfort food (lunch was homemade chicken noodle soup; snacks were plentiful and salty delicious) by savoring a pizza that my wife made. It was out of this world. The kicker was a mix of freshly sliced garlic, olive oil, and crushed red pepper that she let mingle together for about 30 minutes before coating the crust with it. I swear I could’ve drunk that oil.

Saturday, January 23, 2010

How To Record Streaming Audio

Most freeware downloads aren't as good as promised and, more often than not, you'll fall victim to the old bait-and-switch--it only performs half-assed unless you upgrade to a paid version.  But recently I downloaded freeware that, surprisingly, didn't disappoint. When I have that rare moment that I get some level of satisfaction from something that normally makes me go postal, I feel the need to share!

Last month, my friend Mike V sat in for a couple of hours as an "alumni air talent guest host" on WRHU, Hofstra's student-run radio station.  To listen to the show, I'd either have to drive 600 miles to tune it in locally, or I could sit back and listen online - as pantsless as I cared to be.  Problem was, I had missed the first internet airing, and had plans that were pulling me away from listening to the rebroadcast.  This is precisely where MP3myMP3 (a free recording software) saved the day.

I was skeptical of being able to pull this off, but it worked like a champ.  MP3myMP3's program window is simple; think of it as a 21st century tape recorder.  If you've ever used one of those old, clunky tape recording dinosaurs, then it'll all come back to you like riding a bike.  It's painlessly basic and offers so much more than any program with a pricetag.  The bitrate is adjustable too, so the sound quality can be as good as you can get it.  

To capture the audio, all I did was hit "Record" when I left the house and "Stop" when I got home.  It'll record whatever you've got playing through your computer's speakers, so it's ideal for capturing streaming audio from any radio station - great for folks who have moved from city to city and want the familiarity of their local radio.  MP3myMP3 would've been good for satellite radio, but Sirius/XM missed the bus and no longer offer free streaming radio for subscribers. 

I was able to use another free program to edit the large MP3 file.  I cut the hour or so extra that I had recorded before and after Mike's show, and I segmented the broadcast song-by-song for easier navigation (I had to make it more navigable so my wife could skip through the music.  She assessed his first selection by the Dead Milkmen as a "radio trainwreck").  I was able to add everything into Itunes and didn't miss a second.  So thank you, MP3myMP3 for making freeware easy for a change, and thanks, Mikey, for a great show!

Modern Day Freak Show

The Discovery family of television networks is to 2010 what P.T. Barnum was to 1871.  I'm hypnotized right now by TLC's logo burning into the corner of my television, topped with an advertisement for "My Giant Head" (tonight at 9!).  I can't pinpoint exactly when TLC went from educational to exploitive, but consider that "My Giant Head" will be preceded by "Human Spiders" and followed by "Super Face Surgeries."

These days, it isn't really publicly acceptable to display freaks like it was on the old traveling carnival show circuit, but apparently nobody told the folks at the Discovery Health Channel. I present to you the following shows, all playing on Discovery Health this week alone - "I Was Dead," "The Boy Who Bit Himself," "Two Sisters, One Heart," "650 Pound Virgin" (wonder why?), "The Baby Who Wouldn't Stop Crying," "200 lb. Tumor" (to be followed by the less impressive "160 lb. Tumor"), "The Breasts That Changed Color," and, of course, "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant."

This parade of freaks started innocently enough, I'm sure, but began to snowball once midgets were added to the mix. (Yeah, I know. The term 'midget' is now frowned upon, but I'm 6'5"- what's a midget gonna do to me?)  "Little People, Big World," "Little Parents, First Baby," "The Little Couple." Okay, fine. But do we really need a program about "Little Chocolatiers"?  Apparently, the network assumes that its audience believes there's no possible way that midgets could ever contribute to society.  So in its exploitive-thinly-veiled-as-educational manner, TLC features said midgets (or little people or dwarves or whatever) driving, operating heavy equipment, and providing medical treatment - all to validate that they're as normal as you and me.  My wife summed it up perfectly the first time she saw the preview for "Little Chocolatiers" -- "Okay, we get it.  Midgets can do things!"

My real guilty pleasures, though, are the shows about obesity.  Bizarre excess has been an obsession of mine ever since I opened up my parents' 1983 Guiness Book of World Records and saw a picture of the McGuire twins riding their motorcycles. I think I liked (and still do) the comfort of knowing that there were fatter disasters in the human race than me.  Disasters like Manuel Uribe, a.k.a. the "World's Biggest Amigo," whose bedroom wall had to be yanked out so that he could be hauled to his wedding on a flatbed truck.  And Billy Robbins, the virtually immobile half-ton teen who phoned his mother to remind her to swing by GameStop to pick up some Xbox games --while she was out trying to find drinking water after Hurricane Ike. I just don't understand how being unable to get out of bed is not rock bottom for people like Manuel and Billy. When you notice that getting out of bed is becoming increasingly difficult, it seems that you would (and should) recognize that it may be a good idea to cut back on the Little Debbies.  There's no way that becoming bedridden can "sneak up" on someone who outweighs most livestock. But then again, perhaps I'm oversimplifying since these shows always manage to find the husky folks whose entire existence revolves quite literally around what has to be the unluckiest sets of mattresses and box springs on the planet.

Whatever you do, don't be naive enough to think that the brass at Discovery Communications are somehow being socially responsible for airing such embarassingly addictive television. And don't think for a minute that they have anyone's best interest at heart other than their own. Face it -- there can be no real, substantive reason that we should watch a midget operate a backhoe.  And what is the true contribution to society to broadcast a 1320-lb. man's wedding?  These networks can slap compassion and education labels on these kinds of programs all day long, but they're nothing more than exploitation in the name of revenue and ratings.  And yet... we keep coming back for more because we all feel just a little bit better about ourselves when we can shamelessly gawk at those in situations and places "worse" than our own, taking empty comfort in the fact that we're not that bad.