LOL! I wonder how they did that……..
NOTE: I didn’t do this. I just “stumbledupon” (haha, that never gets old) it.
Monthly Archive for February, 2007
I saw this a little ago while when my grandparents came to town, and I did some of the review shortly afterwards, and forgot about it. But now I’ve finished it! (Even though it’s really short)
In case you haven’t heard of it, Spamalot is a broadway musical by Python Eric Idol. It’s based on the very popular movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The show has been running on Broadway for over a year, and I believe at other locations before that.
The ads claim that Spamalot is “lovingly ripped off” from Holy Grail, and that’s probably the best way to put it. It has most of the classic scenes (I’m not dead yet, that dude who had both arms and legs cut off and who had orange blood, Camelot, and much more including “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” from Life of Brian) but in addition brings in new storylines and characters
Spamalot doesn’t lose the Monty Python spirit - it’s got the randomness, the silliness and the stupidness of Monty Python skits and Holy Grail. But it also has it’s fair share of originality. It’s new storylines are funny, if not as funny as the “ripped off” ones. But there is singing. Lots of singing.
Spamalot is very enjoyable on it’s own, for someone who has never seen Monty Python, but those people should be aware that this is not the “true” Python. It’s been converted to work for another audiance. But it will still satisfy Python purists with all the classic sketches, songs, and randomness. And that’s because the “conversion” works. You don’t recognize many of the faces, like the Pythons the sketches, but it has a lot of heart of Monty Python along with it, making it worthy of the Python name, even though Eric Idol was really the only one involved. (Actually, John Cleese WAS the pre-recorded voice of God, but that barely counts.)
Spamalot website | Spamalot wiki | Monty Python wiki | The Holy Grail on IMDB
Pretty cool. They’re available in the same colors as the new Nanos, except the black is replaced by orange. And they’re all the same price. Cool.
Ok, not really. But we’re celebrating it today anyway. You see, Warren was on vacation over Christmas, so we never really got a chance to exchange presents. And then Elo and Andrew went to the Carribbean, and other stuff happened, so we haven’t had a chance to get together until today.So even though it’s the middle of February, and there’s no tree - it’s still (sort of) a Christmas get-together.
I just found iJigg on Download Squad, and it’s really a great idea.
It’s like Digg, the popluar technology news site - but instead of users choosing what stories are displayed on the front page by “digging” them, they’re doing it by “jigging” music. There’s very little on there now, and of course the music is all independent, but the things that I’ve listened to in their little (embedable) flash player are really quite good. I hope that this takes off, as it’s a great idea, and a great way to discover (good) new music.
Wednesday resumed the 3rd season of Lost, and I have to say that I’m conflicted. On one hand, it continues to be engaging, thoughtful, and creative, but on the other hand, it’s getting to the point where I look back on Season 1 and ask myself “How did we get here?” It’s literally crazy, the amount of unresolved mysteries. But if you suspend belief, it’s a great show, and Wednesday’s most recent episode, in my opinion, was better than any of the six that aired back in October.
The show’s creators have expressed that they plan to end the show after 5 seasons or so, and that’s great. But I can’t help wondering if there are going to be zombies, and perhaps a NASCAR track on the other side yet-to-be-discovered third island by the end of the season.
We recently purchased three 1GB USB flash drives from Amazon for only $15 each. And they are VERY handy. You can backup any file on your computer onto them and then transfer it to another computer whether it be music, word documents, movies, or even programs. There is a new type of program sort of coming into existence - portable versions of open source programs. Basically, they’re popular open soucre programs like Firefox, Thunderbird, and Gaim optimized to run on ANY computer from a tiny USB flash drive.
PortableApps puts together some of the best there are, in large collection of popular open source programs to use on any computer with USB. (Just about all of the alternatives mentioned in the last post have portable versions.)
Once you install it onto the flash drive (it takes a little while) it runs from a sort of start menu interface from the windows taskbar, and allows you to open any of the programs installed and ready to use, or check your documents and file space. And it also allows you to add more of their portable apps from their website. I currently have 17 apps installed, and it doesn’t even take up half of my 1GB flash drive. Portable Apps rocks.
You can’t directly sync settings between, say, your computer’s firefox and Portable App’s, but you can customize the portableapps version to be just like it, and the same with Thunderbird, so you can essentially access your email and RSS Feeds from your usual interface, on any Windows PC.
This is amazing, and actually a great tool for students - if you need to work on a paper digital word document at school, you just drag it onto the flash drive from your computer, and plug it in at school. In Paris, incoming high school students will actually be given a flash drive next year pre-loaded with open source software.
For the most techies this is all old information, but for other people out there thinking about upgrading to new software from companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Adobe, you may want to take a look at some of these programs.
Web Browser: Mozilla Firefox ($0) vs. Microsoft Internet Explorer ($0)
Although you may not save any money on this one, you’ll save a lot of time and energy. Why? Because Firefox just works. And you’ve GOTTA love those extensions - I mean, they do everything from FTP, to RSS readers, to advanced tab settings. Although the new Internet Explorer, I admit, is a great improvement, I am still convinced that your web experience will be faster, easier, and better with Mozilla Firefox. Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Office Suite: OpenOffice.org ($0) vs. Microsoft Office ($210.99)
OpenOffice.org offers a free, open source alternative to the popular Microsoft Office suite. It includes a word processer, spreadsheet maker and presentation creater in addition to an advanced mathematical program, a free drawing program, and a database program. (It should be noted that as of this posting Microsoft Office has a new version that OpenOffice has not yet mimicked in features, and may not as an essential new feature called “the ribbon” is trademarked. Still, I’ll expect that they will find a way. Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Continue reading ‘Save over $2,000 on free open source software’
