Hideaway video contest winner

Imeem held a video contest with a great band, the Weepies. Michael Warner was the winner. It's got kind of a Miyazaki-ish feel to it, I like.

Ode to (Musical, Sarcastic, Ultraviolent) Joy

My wife Christina and I have an ongoing conversation about the Muppets. We're watching a lot of Sesame Street these days (during our 2 year-old daughter's asthma nebulizer sessions) and we've noticed that the Muppets on Sesame Street aren't as funny as they used to be -- at least not in that sarcastic, subversive way. I still think Sesame Street is a great show, but its creators have moved in a fuzzier, gentler direction than in the early days. (Just watch the classic "Subway" musical number for proof of that -- can you imagine these lyrics being approved for broadcast today?) There are still some great bits being done: witness the new Feist video on the upcoming season of Sesame Street -- you might recognize the tune.



Fortunately, it seems the subversive spirit at Henson Studios hasn't died -- it's gone a bit more underground and is leaking its way out any way it can. In particular it has found a home on YouTube. Great new bits like the one below have been showing up on everyone's favorite video service and they make good use of the staples that have made the Muppets so entertaining over the years: music, sarcasm, and slapstick violence. Perhaps it's a viral campaign for the upcoming Muppet movie? Is it just a way for the Muppeteers to let out some old-school wackiness? I don't care. Just keep 'em coming.

Video Covered the Radio Star

After hearing yet another cover of "Video Killed the Radio Star," I set about figuring out just how many covers are out there. Turns out there are a lot. A perfect use of Amazon's new MP3 widget! I think the Minipops Kids version is my favorite.

Good Gear: SkullCandy Ink'd Earbuds

I have traditionally eschewed earbuds for over-the-ear headphones. Earbuds never seem to fit my ears and I spend half my time repositioning the damn things when they fall out. Headphones, on the other hand, are awkward to carry around, can be uncomfortable in Texas heat, and never provide quite the sound isolation I'm looking for in a pair of really good earbuds. Not wanting to shell out a hundred bucks or more for high end earbuds, however, I opted to suffer in headphone land. Until now.

I'm not sure why I thought these SkullCandy Ink'd earbuds might work for me, but I was attracted by the shiny metal accents and the iPhone-compatible jack connector. (One of the great frustrations of owning an iPhone is that it is incompatible with 99% of the headphone/earbud products on the market by dint of its recessed input jack.) The price ($15) seemed right, though, so I took a gamble. It was only after opening the packaging that I realized the genius inherent in these deceptively stylish earbuds. The silicone earpieces are replaceable and come in several sizes. I'd seen similar adjustable earbuds in the Jabra line of telephone headsets and in high-end stereo products, but not in discount earbuds.

So I thought to myself -- am I a large? a medium? a small? And then I realized -- my ears could be different sizes, and that's why no one set of earbuds ever seemed to fit right.

Sure enough, my left ear snugly fits a small earpiece, and my right ear takes a medium. Now I have a great fitting pair of earbuds that completely block out exterior noise (just ask my office mate) and deliver great sound at a ridiculously low price. I'm going to by a few more pairs to guard against loss or damage. Products this good tend to disappear, so git while the gittin's good is my thinking.

I'm fully aware that I could be completely unaware of similarly great products, so check out Ink'd Earbuds on Amazon and tell me about your favorite headphones/earbuds in the comments.

Time to Pretend

Blake over at Cinema is Dope sent me a link to this trippy video from an unidentified band. (Unidentified to me, anyway. Feel free to clue me in. Update: if I had been paying attention to the first few frames of the video, I would have learned that the band is called MGMT.) It comes from Court 13, the production company that made Death to the Tinman.

It reminds me a lot of those wacky musical numbers that Raquel Welch did for her self-titled bio-film, Raquel!, but with more video effects and less John Wayne.

Watch Time to Pretend.

The Wrong Trousers sing "Video Killed the Radio Star"

So charming I bought the CD.

[Thanks to John Merriman for the link.]

Warner caves in, will sell tunes without copy protection

In today's Austin Statesman, a story about Warner's announcement that it will sell unprotected MP3s of its entire catalog, at first only through Amazon.com.

In February, when Apple CEO Steve Jobs penned an essay calling on record labels to drop Digital Rights Management from tracks sold on the company's iTunes Store, (Warner chair Edgar) Bronfman shot back during a conference call with Wall Street analysts: "We will not abandon DRM nor services that are successfully implementing DRM for both content and consumers."

Super Mario's Sleigh Ride

For those of you who need your holidays and video games mashed together.

John C. Reilly - Walks Hard, Rocks Hard

John C. Reilly was in town to rock the legendary Stubb's BBQ as Dewey Cox, the subject of Jake Kasdan's new film Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. I got a chance to see the film and the performance, and both were excellent. See the full report over at Slackerwood along with some video of the concert.

YouTube Friday part 2 - Paul Anka sings Van Halen

I just heard this Vegas lounge cover version of Van Halen's "Jump" on the Muzak at the coffee shop I'm working from this morning. God bless Google, it identified Paul Anka as the perpetrator within seconds. You can witness Paul Anka singing "Jump" for yourself here, since they've disabled embedding for some reason.

This is but one track on a full album of pop covers called "Rock Swings" -- includes "Eye of the Tiger" and "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Just awesome.

Chris Magyar's interview with They Might Be Giants

The former Tuber diarist writes up a nice long piece about the two Johns for the Santa Cruz Good Times weekly. I kind of overdosed on TMBG in college (I think I went to two, maybe three shows in as many years?) and haven't mustered up a real enthusiasm for the group since then, but it's nice to know that they're doing so well. I particularly liked the Beatles and Monkees references.

Read it at gtweekly.com.