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The Trial Of Han Solo

Star WarsCheck out the Google Video The Trial Of Han Solo, a parody of the TV show Law and Order. What begins as a trial of Han Solo for the shooting of the bounty hunter Greedo turns into a scathing indictment on director George Lucas and the many controversial changes that he made in subsequent releases of the original Star Wars trilogy. The Wikipedia entry Han Shot First gives some good background on that particular change. The video is a bit long (~20 minutes), but it’s pretty damn funny…

via MilkAndCookies

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finetune and Driko’s Lost ’80s Song

I came across finetune a week or so ago and have become addicted. In its simplest incarnation, you pick a musical artist and it generates a song playlist for you based on that artist, similar to the excellent site Pandora. Where finetune differs is in letting you create and maintain multiple playlists of songs, which at any time it can “complete” with similar songs and/or artists. finetune also offers a wide range of social interactions, allowing sharing of playlists, commenting on others’ playlists, and the embedding of playlists onto web pages (like the one you’ll notice in my right sidebar), and more. My finetune page is located here.

I’m continually obsessing over tweaking the playlist Driko’s Favorite Artists, my only “complete” playlist. It includes one track each from my favorite artists; that’s the playlist that is available for listening in my right sidebar. I say “complete” playlist, because for some reason finetune playlists need to have a minimum of 45 tracks before others can interact fully with them.

The 45-song playlist minimum is kind of a bummer, because I have created a playlist called Driko’s Lost ‘80s that only contains 17 tracks, which I believe means that it’s not playable by others (let me know if that’s not the case!). This particular playlist has quite a history, and since I just know that you want to hear about it, here’s the back story ;-): Some time in the late ’80s, I became obsessed with remembering a particular song. The trouble was, I remembered very little about the song, making it extremely difficult to figure out. In the years since, I’ve managed to recall songs that sort of sound right and might even be that lost song. I’m putting all the candidates I’ve thought of so far into that playlist in the hopes that someone will think of something else similar that might be “The Song.” I obviously don’t want to auto-fill such a playlist just to make it “complete.”

It looks like not all of the tracks I’ve thought of are on finetune yet, including: Cambodia by Kim Wilde, Camouflage by Stan Ridgway, and The Runner by Manfred Mann. The vague snippets of info I remember are evident in many of the tracks in the playlist: an exotic sound, often with mentions of foreign countries, and a somewhat rambling main melody in a minor key. More than likely the track was released in the early to mid-80s. Unfortunately, these vague notions may come to naught; for all I know I’ve already found “The Song” and don’t even know it… 🙁

Sorry for the rambling post; it got away from me. Definitely check out finetune, as it’s quite fun. And if you have any idea on that lost ’80s song, please let me know!

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George Takei Responds to Tim Hardaway

Recently, retired NBA player Tim Hardaway stated:

I hate gay people. Let it be known I don’t like gay people. I don’t like to be around gay people. I’m homophobic. It shouldn’t be in the world, in the United States, I don’t like it.

The backlash to this moronic comment was instant and widespread, and the NBA has banned Hardaway from all future events.

Jimmy Kimmel took the high road, enlisting the help of George Takei, who taped this PSA (YouTube video) for Kimmel’s show. I love George Takei (and Jimmy Kimmel)… 😉

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