Solonor's Inkwell

Lots O’ Stuff

Posted on May 13, 2006 by Solonor

For those of you sitting around in your jammies this Saturday morning, here’s a nice long post to read while you sip coffee. And to everyone who has a life: We hateses you!

I’m heading to the Boston area next week, and while I used to tell everyone that I wouldn’t be blogging and “see ya when I get back”, I’m going to be fully computerized and plugged-in. So, blogging will proceed, per usual (not that I’ve been all that regular about it lately). Not only that, but I will be visiting the Big Red House and getting a trendy chef to cook me a yummy meal. Plus, I’ll get to meet the Cynical Ju!

Sgt. Grump found a cool music toy that offers just the right combination of geeky and relaxing: Medieval Music Mixer

Here’s something to make you spit coffee on your monitor: According to the Washington Post, most Americans support the NSA recording their phone calls. Yep. 66 percent of ‘murricans don’t care if their government spies on them. (Of course, only “a total of 502 randomly selected adults were interviewed Thursday night for this survey. Margin of sampling error is five percentage points for the overall results. The practical difficulties of doing a survey in a single night represents another potential source of error.” But still…)

Well, I didn’t get a ton of responses to the character actor post, so how about another one? Over at Slashdot, they’re coming up with a list of their favorite film scientists. I’m gonna have to go with:

Dr. Strangelove: “Mein F

Have a little character!

Posted on May 12, 2006 by Solonor

Over at the blog du ***Dave, he has found a list of 10 character actors who should be in every film. And the only one anyone’s ever heard of is Gary Cole. I wonder if the list is supposed to be limited to current actors, but even at that, it leaves off Steve Buscemi, Ian Holm, Chris Cooper, and many others, I am sure.

So, today’s mission is to come up with a list of our 10 favorite character actors ever.

You can go to our trusty Wikipedia for a definition or a starter list. Plus, there are a few sites that have pictures with their lists, because even though I don’t necessarily agree with the list Dave found, it is true that you would recognize most character actors by face, rather than by name.

Here are a couple lists to start with:

MovieActors.com
What A Character!

Posted in Yo! Listen Up! | 9 Comments

Echospin

Posted on May 11, 2006 by Solonor

This is kinda neat. Echospin has a service that pops up in your browser and lets you download whole albums (in mp3 quality) and will automatically save them to a specified folder, burn them to a cd, or put them on your iPod. I tried it with a free EP from my latest love, Firebug, and it worked great!

“Like Sailors Do” now available for download!

You can now download and save all the songs from “Like Sailors Do,” burn an audio CD, copy the music to your iPod and even print the artwork. Thanks to Echospin, it’s automatic, with just a few simple clicks.

Download “Like Sailors Do” here for only $9.99

Posted in Tunes | Comments Off

Question of the Day

Posted on May 10, 2006 by Solonor

Munster or Addams?

Posted in Yo! Listen Up! | 14 Comments

Look! A new post!

Posted on May 8, 2006 by Solonor

No, I’m not going to start in on what a bad blogger I am for not updating my blog religiously. I’m sure there are other things you can do with your time besides clicking refresh on this page all day. However, I do have a few bits of random spewage to, um, spew today. So, dance and sing and carry on and rejoice in the light of this new post.

Or just read it quietly and keep the “hey, the idiot’s updated his blog for a change” comments to yourself.

DaVinci Code. Let’s sue. Oy vey.

It’s a fricking book, people (and a poorly written one in my opinion). I do think it might be an entertaining movie, and I plan on seeing it eventually. But it doesn’t tear down the walls of Christianity. It’s not going to cause the world to asplode. It doesn’t really even say anything bad about Jesus. People comparing this to derogatory cartoons of Mohammed need to get a grip.

And while I’m asking for sanity… is there some reason we should care more deeply that the national anthem be sung in one particular language or another than in the fact that millions of people around the world are starving to death? Or even more than the thousands of other issues we have to deal with as a nation? Talk about a diversion.

Ok, I will.

Best. Music Video. Ever.

And here’s great news: Doctor Who won every BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards) category it was entered in: Drama Series, Best Show, and Best Writer.

Lately, I’m obsessed with all things Doctor Who (as my poor spouse can attest). I was always a big fan of the original series, but seeing the new series has sent me over the edge in Who-mania. I got all of the original shows on VHS tape from Sgt. Grump, and Whiny and I set a goal to watch the first, last and “best” episode of each of the 7 Doctors (plus the 8th’s TV movie) prior to Eccleston. That’s so Whiny could get properly indoctrinated into the cult.

Well, we’ve made it through the demise of Tom Baker (the 4th Doctor), and already we’re seeing the fatal flaw in our plan. By skipping around there are so many gaps to fill in (“Who’s Romana? What’s he talking about? When did the Master show up? What’s a Davros?”) that I spend half the time talking over the show with explanations. So, I spent ~~a couple of hours~~ a little bit of time Saturday going through the summaries at A Brief History of Time (Travel) and making a list of the “must see” episodes.

I think we’ll be caught up in 2025.

Hmm… what else to discuss… oh yeah. I still have a CD for sale. You might actually consider buying one. They make great coasters. Plus, the artwork alone should be work a couple pennies. Anyway, it’s available on Amazon.com and iTunes now (update: they say it’s on iTunes, but I can’t find it).

Yes, I even broke down and created a fricking MySpace account for it.

And finally, if you want my opinion on Barry Bonds and his chase of the all-time homerun record, please refer to the good people of Philadelphia:

Best. Banner. Ever.

Posted in Baseball, Life, the Universe and Everything, Rants 'n' Whines, Sunday Sermon, The Big Screen, Tunes | 4 Comments

You are standing in an open field west of a white house…

Posted on May 5, 2006 by Solonor

Jack White has a new band, The Raconteurs. After listening to the samples, I’m not all that impressed. However, their website is pretty cool… for an old geek…

Posted in Tunes | 5 Comments

And then one Dalek said to the other…

Posted on May 1, 2006 by Solonor

WHINY THE ELDER: I think The Doctor and The Master should team up and fight the Bachelor and his Associate.

PEPPERKAT: Where do you come up with this crap? And WHY???

Posted in Car Talk | 2 Comments

Personality Defect Test

Posted on April 28, 2006 by Solonor

Braggart
You are 85% Rational, 57% Extroverted, 0% Brutal, and 71% Arrogant.

You are the Braggart! Like Muhammad Ali, you would surely tell everyone that you are “The Greatest” whilst bragging incessantly about your intelligence, your skills, and your abilities. You tend to be a thinker rather than a feeler, and combined with your extroversion and arrogance, this makes you someone who probably just LOVES to brag about his accomplishments. Despite this, however, you are a very gentle, tender person and truly care about others’ feelings. You just happen to care more about yourself. Unlike Ali, of course, you are rather rational as opposed to emotional, and you are also much more gentle. But his arrogance and extroversion best reflect the most visible aspects of your personality. Your personality defect is the fact that you are extremely overconfident, extroverted, and perhaps rather lacking in emotions. YOU ARE THE GREATEST! Or so you keep telling yourself every night, in hopes that eventually everyone else on the planet will agree. Well, sorry, we probably won’t.

To put it less negatively:

1. You are more RATIONAL than intuitive.

2. You are more EXTROVERTED than introverted.

3. You are more GENTLE than brutal.

4. You are more ARROGANT than humble.

Compatibility:

Your exact opposite is the Bitch-Slap.

Other personalities you would probably get along with are the Hand-Raiser, the Haughty Intellectual, and the Capitalist Pig.

If you scored near fifty percent for a certain trait (42%-58%), you could very well go either way. For example, someone with 42% Extroversion is slightly leaning towards being an introvert, but is close enough to being an extrovert to be classified that way as well. Below is a list of the other personality types so that you can determine which other possible categories you may fill if you scored near fifty percent for certain traits.

The other personality types:

The Emo Kid: Intuitive, Introverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Starving Artist: Intuitive, Introverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Bitch-Slap: Intuitive, Introverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Brute: Intuitive, Introverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

The Hippie: Intuitive, Extroverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Televangelist: Intuitive, Extroverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Schoolyard Bully: Intuitive, Extroverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Class Clown: Intuitive, Extroverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

The Robot: Rational, Introverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Haughty Intellectual: Rational, Introverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Spiteful Loner: Rational, Introverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Sociopath: Rational, Introverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

The Hand-Raiser: Rational, Extroverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Braggart: Rational, Extroverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Capitalist Pig: Rational, Extroverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Smartass: Rational, Extroverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 70% on Rationality

You scored higher than 58% on Extroversion

You scored higher than 0% on Brutality

You scored higher than 82% on Arrogance