You never notice the sound effects until they're gone.
Anyone here who grew up with public radio on in the house is probably already aware that "Sound Effects Man," Mister Tom Keith passed away. He was responsible for the noises made by various animals, people, weapons, catastrophes, and especially chickens heard on the MPR program, "A Prairie Home Companion." Hearing that a radio sound effects person has passed on is like hearing that one of the final live orchestras on TV lost its recording studio or something. In an age of MP3 sound clips, having a foley artist on a live radio program was something that was both entertaining and a treasure. I hope the tradition will continue, though given his personal relationship with Garrison Keillor, someone as in sync with the show will be hard to find. Fred Newman is, I believe, still with the show and does the sound effects duties when the program is on the road, so I'm betting he'll fill in (or maybe do both home and away shows?). Anyway, here's Garrison and Tom's arrangement of the 12 Days of Christmas, with an emphasis on sound effects, naturally.
Now let's look at that next great geek getaway. Hobbiton is going to be a permanent attraction in New Zealand, for Tolkienauts who want to open a real circular door and walk the stooped path of Gandalf as he considered why having the giant eagles just dunk whichever Baggins had the ring in Mount Doom and be done with it wasn't a good idea for some reason. It joins several other noted movie sets and locations that are still with us, though such places will probably become rarer and rarer as greenscreen and use of less durable materials becomes more prevalent. So here's a few suggestions for your next travel package:
- Popeye Village. You've probably seen the Robin Williams live-action version of Popeye on cable somewhere, and if you really want to live the spinach-eatin' dream, the town they built for the film is still standing as a theme park in Malta.
- Various "Star Wars" locations in Tunisia. From Lars' Homestead to where the Cantina scenes were shot to just various places where guys with laser swords took swipes at each other, Tunisia has got it all. Please don't feed the Jawas.
- Maine North High School. It's still standing in Des Plaines, Illinois, but you'll have to ask the police, sheriff's department, and lotto employees for a tour if you want to see the (probably completely changed) interior where "The Breakfast Club" and "Ferris Beuller's Day Off" were filmed.
- The major locations from Weird Al's UHF. While none of them are all that iconic, it's a testament to Mr. Yankovic's cinematic vision that he inspired such dedication. And it's kinda cool, too.
- Locations of Stephen King films and inspirations for his stories. To skip all of the background on the blogger, scroll down to "BRIDGETON, MN." I enjoyed learning that (at the time of the post), you could buy a live lobster as carry-on luggage at the Bangor airport.
- Any of the ones on this Google Earth "hacks" site. You need to scroll down through some ads, but if someone on the site has located someplace of interest, you can see satellite photos as well as get directions to make your pilgrimage.
And then there's 85 million years in the past, if you have access to the proper equipment. I promised to stop complaining about "Terra Nova" unless something truly egregious happened, and last episode... it was better than in previous outings. There was a mystery to solve, some goings on with the Sixers, and a glimpse at the seedier side of the Terra Nova colony. We also got some "cute" in the form of a baby dinosaur, which I'm sure won't possibly be a source of "pet dog" jokes and probably an emotional scene about letting something you love go (it's Spielberg, after all). But overall, it was an improvement.
A small break for some hopefully good news: It seems that even giant banking behemoths might occasionally listen to their customers, as Bank of America decided not to charge $5 for debit card use. Of course, this is BoA, and every news program that covered this story mentioned that you might want to make sure they're not sticking it to you somewhere else.
So every so often I see a real-life news story go by that sounds like it belongs in a movie. This next one I envision as either the climax or the set-up-for-revenge event in a dark comedy, probably directed by Kevin Smith: In Florida, some workers from one pizza chain burned down the location of a rival chain. Alternately, it could be one of the new supernatural humor books. I mean, vampires could have been working the night shift and our heroes found out about it through the pizza-courier network, making them leap into action to save us from undead food-prep.
This weekend marks Daylight Saving Time, but Russia opted out. I read elsewhere this caused a bit of confusion, because many mobile phones automatically updated their clocks anyway. My finding that even mildly amusing has apparently caused a chance for snow in our fair city tomorrow. I can't imagine what the East Coast did to make the Russian weather mafia angry, but whatever it was... write that one down; it's gotta come in handy again someday. :)
I can't remember if it's a law that I have to panic-buy a bunch of milk and bread, so I'll go look that up while everyone else looks at this stuff:
- I ran across this flowchart regarding if one were a hipster and ever since the whole "hipster" thing started, I thought such a chart needed one slight amendment.
- The internet shows me many things that I'd never thought to witness, like "The Rock" wearing a Fred Flintstone costume for Halloween.
- There's going to be an MMO based on "The Power Rangers." More amusing are the comments in most of the articles about this game, as they often descend into which exact version (like Super Sentai or what have you) the game is really using as source material.
- Blockage 2 is a game of trying to get your blue block to the exit. That sounds simple now, but just wait a few levels...
- Adding to the custom Monopoly boards we've been seeing of late, there's one free to download based on Bioshock. So if one of your opponents is a girl under the age of 10 and she goes bankrupt, do you get to take her Adam?
- Harold Camping, the guy whose apocalyptic predictions didn't come to pass, says he's sorry. My favorite part of that item is that the TV station's call letters could possibly be pronounced as "'Kay, bye!" in a heavy New Jersey accent.
- For those who feel too tuckered out to do more than just press a single button during a game, here's Asleep Walking. Make your somnambulist pause his stroll with the mouse button or space bar so he escapes peril to snooze another night.
- One of those steampunk candy-haulers I posted about last time has been upgraded and can now retrieve candy for you while you relax at home. It may also find Sarah Connor.
- I knew it was a joke, but I didn't know a site to send your victims to existed. Problem with your computer? Maybe you need to download more RAM.
- It's another game for those font-fanatics out there: Shape Type now has you dragging the handles of control points on the vector shape of a font character, seeing if you can bring it in line with the actual curvature (or lack thereof) of the original.
- Either being able to make steampunk iPod docks to sell on Etsy is easier than it looks or I'm the last person who should own a soldering iron.
- The next "Chronicles of Riddick" movie that was in the works? It's run out of money. Except there's a later article about possible casting, so I dunno.
- I think there's some kind of contest going on for "most awesomely goofiest film with Nazis as the primary villains" and nobody told me. With that in mind, here's (mit einer language warning) the trailer for "The 25th Reich."
- If you've ever seen Rowan Atkinson look irritated, watch how he reacts (as a big Formula 1 fan) to a crash on the track. He really is like that in real life, isn't he? :)
- Other than weird nicknames growing up, I really didn't notice all the hatred towards red-headed people in the world. Famous ginger Ron Weasley barely escaped being murdered by his own "mother."
- A Halloween leftover: Peanuts meets Lovecraft.
- It's been a while since our last turret-defense game, and I can't pass up something with a name like Obliterate Everything. Build up your space station and give it more methods of turning your enemies into atoms.