short fat guy online

I happened to tape this on Tuesday, during Tech TV’s replay of Monday’s The Screen Savers.  Leo Laporte and Patrick Norton are discussing HTIBs (Home Theater in a Box), and they had some interesting things to say about The Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition.
    Yes, I know the audio is a bit out of sync.  There’s nothing I can do about that.  My computer just can’t handle it, apparently, despite all my upgrades.  I’m half tempted to get a Titanium Powerbook, just for the video editing ... that is, if I had two thousand bucks to spend.
    Update [2005-11-14]: I did get a PowerBook.  And a G5 desktop.  And since I still have the original video footage on one of my drives, here’s a new and improved and synchronized QuickTime file rather than the crappy RealVideo stream I had before…

It must seem like I have a grudge against this movie, since I pick on it so much.  I swear I don’t—in fact, I’m probably overly obsessed by it.  But the thing is, I discovered another goof-up in The Two Towers.  First it was last year’s car in the cornfield.  Most recently, it was finding out Liv Tyler showing up at Helm’s Deep.  And now, I just spotted a bit of film equipment showing up in a battle scene.
    Any film is bound to have mistakes and continuity errors, and it’s a testament to the filmmakers that a movie as ambitious as The Lord of the Rings doesn’t have more.  That said, pay close attention to the bottom left corner of this movie clip.  You can plainly see the lens flags of a secondary camera as it dollies out of shot.

Apart from my purchase of a DVD±RW burner, this is a pretty big news story in my short fat world.  Remember when we found out the role of Arwen would be expanded in The Lord of the Rings movies?  There was talk she would be a “warrior princess”, that she would fight alongside Aragorn at Helm’s Deep.  Many purists, myself included, were horrified at the thought that this mostly unseen character in the book would be so drastically altered.  But then it was explained that this was a concept from the old Miramax days and had since been abandoned.
    Nevertheless, Liv Tyler would talk in interviews about how she had taken fight lessons, or a call sheet would be uncovered which showed she had been on the set for that sequence.  Most recently Brian Sibley, author of the movie’s companion books, mentioned he’d heard the computer artists at Weta Digital talking about digitally removing Arwen from Helm’s Deep.  At first he thought this was a joke, but now it looks like they might have been quite serious.  The Council of Elrond.com (by way of The One Ring.net) has spotted Arwen in some freeze-frames from the climactic charge at Helm’s Deep.

    Update: What can I say—I was bored.  I created this animation of the scene in question.  It’s been rumored that Arwen was converted into Legolas in some shots, so perhaps the reason Arwen may show up here (in this 400KB RealVideo file) is because Legolas is in the same shot.

As so often happens when I’m sitting around shooting the breeze with my imaginary friends, the subject turned to old TV shows, specifically old cartoons.  Unlike my friend Chrondar, Lord of the Goatpeople, I don’t really have any favorites.  Sure, I watched cartoons, but I don’t recall particularly liking any, or thinking back fondly on any.  I remember watching Johnny Quest, Scooby Doo, Speed Racer. and Kimba the White Lion, but recent glances ar these shows reveal them to be really crappy.  (Looney Tunes don’t really count since they’re such a standard and weren’t intended for TV anyway.)
    Discussing this further with Giselle, my imaginary French girlfriend (she thinks we Americans are foolish, by the way), I realized that what I really liked about those kid shows were the theme songs.  In some cases, the theme songs were pretty much my whole reason for watching those shows (like the only reason I used to watch Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp was for the swirly psychadelic effects on the episode titles).  One series I particularly liked was on WXON channel 20, in the afternoon.  It show cartoons based on different Marvel superheroes.  The animation was practically nonexistent, but I like each different superhero’s theme song.
    And I spent all tonight searching the Internet for copies of those songs.  I put together this RealPlayer slideshow of those songs.  And I might post some other favorites later.
    P.S. I was going to say my one favorite show I used to watch in the mornings was The Dick Van Dyke Show which channel 9 in Windsor (CBET) used to play; but it just occurred to me that I forgot all about Rocky and Bullwinkle, which is witty and silly enough to still be very enjoyable.
    Update: for those who hate RealVideo files, I redid the Super Heroes Medley as a QuickTime MOV, below…

Why wait till later?  Let’s begin compiling the George W Bush Presidential Library right now.  Here, President Bush articulates his suspicions regarding Iraq’s announcement of “unconditional” inspections.

The leader of the free world finds himself unable to complete a thought when lost within a too complex catchphrase.  He’s probably rethinking that whole folksy witticism policy.  (Footage courtesy of The Daily Show on Comedy Central).