Ages ago I bought a couple of odd things in Tower Records in Dublin - odd little creatures that came in a little plastic egg called 'The Stack Pack'.
I particularly liked the little red guy - up on top there in the image - and he sits on top of my computer monitor. When I opened up the egg to take him out there was a little insert with a drawing of him inside, which I liked almost more than the toy itself.
Today when I was checking up on what was going on at the Clamnuts blog I followed a few links which led me to the site of the creator of these guys, Tim Biskup.
Sorkin is the man who previously brought us the West Wing, but don't expect the West Wing here - it's not as smart as the West Wing.
But it's really good fun.
Yeah, it's entertaining, even if at times a but schmaltzy - but hey, the West Wing suffered from that too.
Several familiar faces in there, quite a few from the West Wing.
Mathew Perry is great (I didn't once think of Chandler), and Bradley Whitford's performance is just as great as in the West Wing - but his character is a bit Josh-like, just not quite as well written.
Check out this intro - and if it reminds you a little of Network News, rest assured they at least acknowledged that by referencing it themselves!
Damien got me thinking about the shows I used to watch when I was young and can barely remember them... The one that got me thinking was his Manimal clip, reproduced here:
This immediately reminded me, for some reason of Alias Smith and Jones:
And then Sapphire and Steel popped into my head:
Which reminded me of the Greatest American Hero:
How could I forget Remington Steele:
But there were other shows I used to watch that I can't remember - just snippets in my head. One had a psychadelic intro of two guys falling through time and space or something...
Oh, and one of my favourites, though it used to scare me to death... The Incredible Hulk. I still ove it and have several of the TV movies and episodes on DVD!
update: Conor O'Neill left a comment on Damien's blog linking to this:
Which I would have said was the one I was thinking of above but there's no psychadelia... hmmm, I think it was two older guys anyway, I'm not sure it was a kid - but I think it was the same kind of premise. Anyone any ideas?
update: Worzel Gummidge used to scare the hell out of me.
update: Conor O'Neill to the rescue - in the comments here he suggested the show I was thinking of with the two guys falling through space and time was 'The Time Tunnel'. I think he's spot on. I couldn't find any clips exactly as I remembered, but this is close, the two guys are right and I remember the titles - also the 60s type psychadelic stuff I vaguely remember is in the background on the Wikipedia page Conor sent me to:
I want to see Babel, the new film by Alejandro González Iñárritu who directed Amores Perros and 21 Grams.
It features, among others Brad Pitt, Gael García Bernal and Clifton Collins Jr.
"Tragedy strikes a married couple on vacation in the Moroccan desert, touching off an interlocking story involving six different families."
The user comments on IMDB seem very positive, which would indicate to me that it is as good as it seems from the trailer. here's an extract from one user comment I found encouraging:
If you – like me, and so many others – found 'Crash' (2005) offensively finger-wagging and dumb (its inherent message was: "Racism is bad."), Alejandro González Iñárritu's Babel will make it up to you with refreshing intelligence, respect for cultures and crisp acting. The plot outline is difficult to do justice in one sentence but much like Crash it explores culture clashes in life by navigating multiple interweaving story lines.
The other day I had a song stuck in my head, I knew it was Nick Cave but couldn't remember what song it was as it was only fragments of the verses that were knocking around the inside of my head. I knew it was something a bit older and this prompted me to listen to some stuff I hadn't listened to in ages as I tended to listen to the more recent material of late.
Anyway, in listening to his older stuff I discovered that on the album 'From Her to Eternity' there is a cover of 'In the Ghetto'. WTF? How did I not notice that ever before since I have the album for years and years and years??? Maybe I knew at some point and then forgot. I do that sometimes. Anyway, here it is, courtesy of YouTube:
Just found a brand new clip on YouTube of Jimmy Scott. Only one up there. Wish there was more...
I saw Jimmy Scott play recently - he was amazing. This clip does not do him justice, and it ends rather abruptly, but if you haven't heard him before maybe it will encourage you to seek out more of his stuff. I bought the cd advertised on the left and can vouch for it's excellence. Buy it using the link on the left and I get .00003 cents or something.
I came across these cartoons, xkcd.com, somewhere recently - maybe Bif put me on to them, I can't remember. While there are a few cartoons doing the rounds which share a similar style at the moment, it doesn't take from the fact that these are still really funny.
First of all this one made me laugh, and made me decide to adopt the phrase...
This one, along the same kind of lines in a way also made me laugh:
This one I like a lot because it shows I'm not the only one who considers these things, which I really thought I was:
I also just realised that reading xkcd.com cartoons is greatly enhanced when you realise that hovering over the images reveals further insights into the toons via the alt tag text. Also Firefox cuts off long alt text at a certain character length or something so I had to switch to IE for full viewing pleasure. Annoying.
I have not replicated the alt tag greatness in this post when I was hotlinking the images. I assume because xkcd.com gives the url of the image under each cartoon that he encourages hotlinking and will not shame me online for doing so. Hope hope.
Go to xkcd.com for the full viewing pleasure experience. Start with this great one if you like, which also has a great alt tag!
Ages ago I bought a couple of odd things in Tower Records in Dublin - odd little creatures that came in a little plastic egg called 'The Stack Pack'. 
