mgroves

I decided to read Pygmalion this weekend, and of course I had Rex Harrison in mind while reading.

So enjoy this video! By the way, I was reading the comments for the video, and I think I agree that Hugh Laurie would make an excellent Henry Higgins, assuming he can sing.

And don't think this has anything to do with my wife being away for a week either.

This is the Weekend Update for the weekend of March 14th through March 16th.

Missed the last Weekend Update? Check out the Weekend Update archives.

What do you get when you cross a howler monkey, Indiana Jones, and Michael Jackson?

You get this video. The person "singing" is none other than mgroves.com's own minywheats, so enjoy.

Look for a cameo appearance from my adorable niece as a backup singer.

That's pretty much what happened this weekend. Also, I now have the largest collection of music based video games in North America.

One other note: all those videos that I painstakingly edited and uploaded for the Best of Futurama series? Yeah, most of them have been removed. Sheesh! Well, I still have the originals, so I will try to get them uploaded someplace else before the next DVD is released.

This is the Weekend Update for the weekend of February 15th through February 17th.

Missed the last Weekend Update? Check out the Weekend Update archives.

Friday was my youngest sister's 16th birthday party. Oh, but it was ridiculous. A lot of that repetitive, pedestrian club music that the kids seem to like. Let me just go on record and say that "Sold-juh Boy" is perhaps the worst song ever recorded.

Soulja Boy up In dis ho
Watch Me Lean And Watch Me Rock
Super Man Dat Ho
Then Watch Me Crank Dat Robocop
Super Fresh, Now Watch Me Jock
Jockin' On dem Hatas Mane

Okay, fine, but what it actually sounds like is "flibba wollsa taark kashyyyk, wad me win id wad me ro, supahmandatho, hurrby q'apla so po"

For more information about Souljah Boy, please watch this video.

I spent a lot of time on homework this weekend. I've got exams and papers coming up on the schedule like nobody's business.

I installed a new shower head last week, but it was leaking like crazy and never really looked right, so I took it back and bought a different one. The plumbing gene does not run in my family, and I'm no exception. However, the Moen shower head installed in literally 30 seconds and even came with it's own thread-seal-tape stuff. I highly recommend them.

I played a lot of NiGHTS for Wii this weekend (it's been shelved for a while because of Super Mario Galaxy). I have to say that the more I play this game, the more I agree with the mediocre reviews that the game got. Unlike the Saturn version, this game tries to be too many things. Instead of just solid, unique NiGHTS gameplay, you also get some 'vehicle' levels and platforming levels that don't even involve NiGHTS. The cinematics and story are kinda creepy, sappy, and make me uncomfortable (like the Elebits story). However, I think the potential is there for a real break-out sequel that's comparable in quality to the original if Sonic Team learns from their mistakes. And don't get me wrong--the plain old NiGHTS levels are great fun.

I was introduced to a "new" band through several different channels in the last month.

They are an English ska band called "Madness", and though that may not ring a bell, I'm sure you've heard one of their songs before.

First, when I was in Philadelphia, a friend took me to this great toy store in New Jersey called The House of Fun. You should definitely go if you are ever in the area. But anyway, they have this Madness song on their website:

Madness - House of Fun:

Okay, good. Not a bad song. Next, I came across a video for another Madness song on Youtube. I hadn't connected the two songs yet. This song got me really interested in the band.

Madness - One Step Beyond:

So finally, after looking them up on Wikipedia, I searched for a Greatest Hits album. And guess what, there was one more Madness song that I had heard before, and you probably have too.

Madness - Our House:

So I finally connected all of these fine songs to one source, and now I have a new band on my playlist!

Project 86 is coming to the Al Rosa Villa in Columbus, Ohio.

And I'm going. See you there?

Do you remember the 8 things that Rick Astley is never gonna do?. Seth MacFarlane does.

Rick Astley will never:

1. Give you up
2. Let you down
3. Run around
4. Desert you
5. Make you cry
6. Say goodbye
7. Tell a lie
8. Hurt you

Shamelessly stolen from a random post on 4chan.

Development of Amarok 2.0 is well underway now. At long last, all you poor bastards using winamp or iTunes will find out what it's like to use a -good- media player.

Winamp was good back in the day, when mp3 collections were small and single playlists were king, but it's long since fallen apart with its clunky collection manager and miscellaneous oddities. iTunes is,... well it's iTunes, and it's bad enough to make mac users want winamp clones.

Enter Amarok, something Linux/KDE users like myself have enjoyed for a few years now.

It's got the only media manager I actually like. You tell it where to find your music, whether it be on a hard drive or a removable device, whatever. It lets you browse and search however you like by tags, or just browse the filesystem. No music gets added to your library if you don't tell it to, which is something winamp and itunes used to do that bugged the hell out of me. Then it has its context window displaying information about the song, lyrics, wikipedia pages on the band / album / title. It's fully extensible with scripts, useful for transcoding songs and albums. It works well with most any portable mp3 device imaginable (and can use the aforementioned transcoding scripts to convert as it transfers). And it ties in with last.fm to suggest songs for you to listen to, and even use that information to build playlists for you with its nifty 'dynamic playlist' feature, which constantly appends relevant tracks as you listen.

It's a wonderful music app, and with 2.0 on the way, it'll soon be available on windows and OSX as well. Huzzah!