In honor of this most festive holiday, where children are taught that going house to house once a year threatening hijinks on those who do not honor their request for free food is okay, I thought I would post a video from a movie that is almost synonymous with “Halloween.” Enjoy.

Today marks the day after the release of Mission: Impossible III, which means it’s also time for the release of Beer: The Movie 2: Leaving Long Island.

I’ve actually been working on this review for about a week, having secured an advance copy of the DVD a while ago. I’ve been trying to figure out, however, how my disclaimer for the review was going to go.

I first figured that maybe quoting a few people who are way more credible than myself would do the trick. People like Robin Leach (”Maximum Hilarity!”) or Caustic Truths Magazine (”That same idiots-with-cameras quality as JACKASS!… Eccentric… Fun to watch. 3.5 stars of 4″). But, you know, I didn’t wanna have to spend time finding the links (Robin Leach’s site is disgustingly hard to look at, let alone go through to find one specific article), so I thought that’d be a waste.

Then, I thought that maybe saying why I my review may not be completely impartial would do it… the internet is full of forgiving people, is it not? And, c’mon, what self-respecting guy with a blog (assuming guys with self-respect actually have blogs) would ignore the release of a DVD created by people he’s friends with and/or is related to? Especially when said friends/family work at the bar said blog-writer goes to every Saturday night, allowing said blog-writer and his friends to drink on the cheap? What sort of cold-hearted freak would ignore that?

Finally, I decided to just skip all that, and write the review as I saw fit. Because, hey, I may not be completely impartial, but I know quality cinema when I see it.

Beer: The Movie 2 Directed By Peter Hoare Starring Rob Ackermann, Nick “Biff” Corrado, Tommy Gutter, Peter Hoare, Chris Lilli, Adam Szachacz, and The Poonman Unrated Released October 31, 2006 Purchase This DVD

[ Continue ]

According to MacRumors, the demand on the (Product) RED iPod Nano is so great that it may push Apple to consider making more things for the (Product) RED line, the first of which is rumored to be the MacBook.

Poorhouse, here I come.

Not to go on a dental rant here, but I have come to despise my teeth in the past few days. More specifically, my stupid wisdom teeth.

I was at the dentist last week, getting a cleaning, when I found out my molars were “impacted.” Given that I have the most retarded teeth in the universe (I’m 23, and still have baby teeth; I kid you not. They’re all capped, though, so that I don’t look like some form of freakishly-deformed 5 year old with a pituitary problem.), I thought nothing of it.

Now, however, the one wisdom tooth that did come in is bouncing down on what I can assume is inflamed gum tissue from one of the impacted molars, which is causing me great pain whenever I chew. Which, of course, means, until I get either the gum to stop being inflamed, or have the molar ripped outta my jaw, I’m gonna have to survive on milkshakes and soup. Not a bad way to live, unless you’re craving a burrito, as I am at the moment.

Basically, the reason I’m posting this for all the flippin’ world to see is that, if anyone has any ideas on how to lessen the pain (besides trying to Listerine-ize this inflammation thing into oblivion), lemme know. Please.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DON’T HOLD OUT ON ME NOW! YEAAAAAAAAARGH!

I’m currently running Ubuntu Linux on my laptop, which is my first venture into the non-OS X/Windows world. After some work in trying to get my wireless card to run with it (which, when I finally found the right forum post on how to do it, was easy), I gotta say, this whole “open source, power to the people”-esque operating system is nice.

Not as nice as OS X, mind you, but that’s ’cause I’m an Apple slut. That, and it’s way easier to install stuff on OS X. I mean, c’mon, I gotta go to the friggen’ terminal (kinda like the DOS prompt in Windows of Yore, but not as evil-lookin’) to install everything? How annoying is that… trying to remember arcane system commands to find the file I wanna install? Total pain.

Anyway, it’s time for me to get back to paying attention in class… more on my Adventures In Linux! later.

A major (and do I mean major) question people ask about iPods is, “If my computer should go down in a ball of flame, is there any way to extract the songs from it so that I don’t have to re-rip my library? And what of all my iTunes-purchased songs?”

Well, now iTunes gives you the option of syncing purchased music from one licensed machine to another via iTunes; all you gotta do there is plug your iPod with the music on it into the machine without the music, go to ‘File,’ and select ‘Transfer Purchases From iPod.’ Done, easy, sweet. But what of the rest of your music?

If you have an Apple computer, it’s also pretty easy to do. All you have to do is download a free program called Senuti (that’s iTunes backwards, for those keeping score), and your music will be extracted with no problems whatsoever.

But, let’s say you’re a Windows user? You’ve gone to the store, and seen the programs that cost up to $20 to do what you need (links for which can be found at iLounge, if you’re so inclined to pay for such things). Although $20 isn’t really that bad, I’m a poor college student… I can’t afford lunch, let alone software that will do an operation that, in all likelihood, I will need to do once.

Good news is, you don’t have to pay to do this. In fact, it’s a little known secret that it’s almost the easiest thing in the world to get your music back. And I’ll tell you how, after the break.
The one caveat is that, by clicking the link to continue or reading past this point, you are agreeing that you will not hold eD! The Musical (or, more specifically, me) responsible for how you use this information. I’m relaying instructions on how to get your music on your computer after something happens to your machine to make you lose your files… I’m implicitly saying that this is not a tutorial on how to get music off someone else’s iPod to your machine so that you don’t have to pay for music. The songs cost $0.99 per track… throw down the money and do it all legal-like. But, if you don’t, and you get caught and sued by the RIAA, you can’t whine that I told you how to do it, so it’s my fault. So there, nyah.

[ Continue ]

Today, we got a video from Countdown With Keith Olbermann, dated October 23rd, featuring Mr. Olbermann’s commentary on a new G.O.P. commercial that is both funny in execution and frightening that someone, somewhere, may actually buy this crap.

One of my favorite pseudo-horror movies of all time is Evil Dead 2, part of the ‘Evil Dead’ series by Spider-Man director Sam Raimi and true man’s man Bruce Campbell. It’s the heartwarming story of a boy, his chainsaw, and the Necronomicon, with a whole lot of other weird stuff in there, too.

Now, Evil Dead has become a musical, which is being performed in New York City. As a bonus, the producers of the show are holding a contest to give away tickets to the sold-out November 2nd performance, which will feature a Q&A session with my personal hero, Bruce “Chuck Norris Ain’t Got Nothin’ On Me, Sucka” Campbell.

So, click the link below, and good luck… but, hopefully, not more luck than me.

Apple has updated the MacBook Pro line of laptops to include Intel’s new Core2 Duo chips. Check ‘em out and, if you’re super-rich, how’s about buying me one?

Anybody?

…Didn’t think so.

According to MacRumors (and several other Apple rumors sites), Jon Lech Johansen, a.k.a. “DVD Jon,” has reverse-engineered Apple’s Digital Rights Management (DRM) format, FairPlay. He has formed a company to license the DRM, to allow other music stores to sell DRM-Protected material that can be played on an iPod.

DVD Jon, for those of you who don’t know, started off his life of notoriety by releasing a crack for the copy-protection on DVD’s, hence his nickname. That, however, was free. This, now, is a joke.

No legitimate music store (RealPlayer’s Rhapsody, MusicMatch, Napster, etc.) will pay for a license to allow their music to be played on an iPod; if they wanted it, they’d develop it themselves, like Rhapsody did. But that’s not the part that makes me wanna slap DVD Jon with his own shoes… the fact that he’s trying to make a profit off of something developed by another company, that he essentially stole.

It’s not as if it’s hard to get around the iTunes DRM, anyway… you wanna play the music you bought in the iTunes Store (iTS) in more than five computers, or play it on something that’s not an iPod? Fine! Burn a CD of it, re-rip that CD, and, before you know it, you have instant DRM-free music on the cheap.

What people aren’t seeming to grasp in the forums that I’ve been reading is that DVD Jon is not allowing for the death of the DRM… he’s twisting it so that someone else’s DRM will work with your iPod. Instead of thrusting a stake through the cold, black heart of the perceived evil that is DRM, he’s given it new life. He’s made the monster even harder to kill by giving every idiot with a music store access to his, and that’s not what all these people that are shouting to the heavens of DVD Jon’s glory are understanding.

Even worse, as pointed out in post 57 on the MacRumors forum, if these sub-standard DRM-encrypted tunes screw with your iPod, who is gonna get the blame? Apple. It may not be Apple’s product at fault, it may be the stupid files you’re loading it with, but 9 times out of 10, the person who sees themselves as being “wronged” in that situation will label the source of their agony the Apple corporation.

But, odds are, it won’t be a big deal in a few weeks. I’m sure Apple will release iTunes 7.0.2 with an updated version of FairPlay, which will kill this idiotic issue where it stands, hopefully leaving DVD Jon with no extra income whatsoever.

Hey, a guy can dream, can’t he?