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Carousel
Why do kids enjoy carousel rides so much? Shoot, why do we have so much nostalgia for them as adults? I have no idea. I could probably put together some BS about a cultural memory of horseback riding, but frankly I think it’s just the first amusement park ride a kid is able to go…
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Review: Star Wars: The Crimson Empire Saga
Star Wars: The Crimson Empire Saga by Mike Richardson My rating: 2 of 5 stars As far as Star Wars stories go, it was OK. It goes along with Dark Empire in the immediate aftermath of Return of the Jedi. Everyone’s making their power plays after Emperor Palpatine’s death. I haven’t seen Star Wars VII…
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Review: Tithe
Tithe by Holly Black My rating: 3 of 5 stars Another book from that Humble Bundle that had a bunch of Simon and Schuster YA books. This book was OK. Not my cup of tea, but not bad. As I said in my status updates, Ms Black is pretty good at subverting my expectations. I’ll…
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Review: Star Wars: Dark Empire
Star Wars: Dark Empire by Tom Veitch My rating: 3 of 5 stars As I said in one of my status updates, this is no longer canon as Disney erased the Extended Universe canon when they took over the franchise. I’m not bothered – we comic book fans are used to canon being changed and…
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Two-for-One Racism
I was watching Gold Diggers of ’49 the other day with my daughter as we made our way through old cartoon shorts. That’s how I grew up – on Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and the other WB shorts along with the Disney shorts. Sometimes, late at night, they’d show the black and white cartoons like…
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Throwing Emby into the mix
In my ideal home setup, I’d have computers in every room. I’m not horribly far off, but it’s mostly via old laptops and computers that I’ve retired from regular use or had donated from family members. As more of our movie purchases become BluRay (and with 4k video around the corner), some of those old…
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Aladdin on Broadway
When we went to my graduate degree graduation, it was also Alex’s birthday so we went to see Aladdin on Broadway. It was really good. Danielle and I enjoy Broadway shows, but have not really enjoyed the Disney Broadway shows. Mary Poppins in particular was quite a disappointment. Aladdin, on the other hand, hews a…
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Concerts 2015: Weird Al Yankovic
I’ve been a fan of Weird Al for about 17 years. I used to have the Disney special Weird Al Going Home, but unfortunately, I lent it to someone and never got it back. Yet, in all the time, I’d never seen a Weird Al concert live. Finally, Weird Al came to Baltimore as part…
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Discovering Pogo
This may not be your thing. I’m pretty sure my wife will hate it, but I think Pogo’s work is a perfect example of why culture needs to be free and with less onerous copyright rules. I’m pretty sure all of this is within fair use, but it would take a legal fight for him…
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2014 Blog Stats
WordPress sent me my Jetpack stats email for 2014. Here’s what they said: Post with Most Views in one Day 2014:Β Using Digikam from the Point of View of a Lightroom User (10 Sept – 216 views) 76 New Posts 13 day streak – best streak Day of week with most posts? Wednesday (15 posts)…
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Last.fm 2014 Listening Trends
Once again Scarlett had a hand in determining the year’s winners. However, sometime around June she stopped requesting Disney music all the time, allowing others a chance at the spotlight. Still, while other artists were able to take the top artist spots, I didn’t listen to any one song often enough to undermine the Disney…
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Mascots and Bowdlerization
As I read with my daughter I realize I had forgotten a large part of The Car in the Hat. Also watching the old Disney shorts with my daughter. Both Mickey Mouse and the Cat in the Hat were often jerks before they became mascots for their companies. Now they are goodie two shoes.
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A Year With Ting
A year ago I started using Ting, a Sprint MVNO, as my cell phone provider. A month later I wrote an update as well as a review of my most used apps. Well, now it’s been a year and I’d like to talk about what it’s been like. I started off the year with a…
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Last.fm Listening Trends 2014 Q3
This quarter was a mix of new music, continuing to listen to my music in alphabetical order (by artist), and whatever I happened to listen to on my phone. And that resulted in a little something like this (a lot more ties than usual): 1. The Beatles (243 listens) – For the first time in…
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Today in Itβs A Binary World Blogging History
One Year Ago Today: How Merida was changed from the movie to the toy Five Years Ago Today: No Posts