Sometimes your past just sneaks up on you to say hello.  Here's a bit of mine from 1986...

So, when one goes to a park to listen to some music, read a book and watch one's spouse (and friends) doing some hooping - because 08/08/08 was World Hoop Day - one would expect not to be bothered (except for the people intrigued by the hooping, of which there were many.)  The record had been pretty good up to now.  We'd hooped in various parks in the south Bay Area, and thought little of making the big hoop day meet at the Los Gatos town plaza park. 

Quark is coming to DVD!!!

I remember watching this silly Sci-Fi show back in the 70s, at the height of Star Wars mania (actually the pilot was aired before Star Wars came out) came the adventures of Adam Quark (most likely a pun for Atom Quark...) and his crew of misfits - the logical alien plant/animal named Ficus, the gender challenged Gene/Jean, the Betty clones, and Andy the Android.

Created by Buck Henry, who was one of the co-conspirators behind the highly popular Get Smart, this sereis only managed to last 8 episodes.  For many years, collectors traded videos (sometimes many generations down) just to watch these episodes. Sometime in the 90s the Sci-Fi channel repeated the episodes, but some how the series still failed to get any release on video or later on DVD.

The really funny thing is that in the next issue of Raspberry World, I had contributed to an article of what DVDs I like to see released in the US.  Number one on my list was Quark, and now it's coming out.  Oddly enough, I was also going to include Birds of Prey as well - and that was released as I was putting together the article (though it didn't take 30 years to come out...)

This is the story of where our stuff comes from and where it goes to when we are done with it.  It's not a happy tale, but a cautionary one.  Watch it, and absorb the information. (click the logo to watch it...)

This makes me happy.  I love the Muppets, and Beaker is just great fun, so to make a music video with this clip is perfect.  It's like the Hitler rant about the end of Torchwood that I posted earlier.  It's art!

For more information on the phenomenon (do-doo-do-doo-doo...) of Rick-Rolling click here.

It appears to be an ad for Linux, but it's still an interesting little film...

I was flipping around on the ol' DTV box, checking out what what was available, and I came across this on Pops in Seoul.  I've not seen (or heard) much K-Pop, but this clip had me watching...

George Carlin passed away yesterday.  It was a bit of a shock, but he'd apparently been having heart troubles for a while now.  It never seemed to slow him down - he'd even just performed in Vegas the prior week.

I remember as a kid in the 70s checking out his records from the library - along with the Beatles, Pink Floyd and Cheech & Chong (this explains a lot about me...)  I still can't believe that I could do that, and that my parents let me listen to them (unless they didn't know...)  I could easily attribute my laid back attitude to words, and the multiple uses for them, to George.

It was a major highlight that I was able to score tickets to see George at the Rheem Theater in Moraga back in the early 90s.  It was an interesting experience, as the area was a little more on the affluent side and George's routine suggested that instead of bombing brown people let's bomb the golf courses.  I learned that night the difference between a comedy concert and a stand up routine when George walked off stage until the heckler, who apparenltly didn't agree with him, was taken care of.  The concert then continued.

In 1989, I was introduced to George Carlin the actor.  I wasn't really aware of any previous acting roles for him, as I grew up on the albums.  But seeing him in the cinema in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure was a delight, and later in Dogma as a commercially oriented bishop.  Both were roles that we're probably not written for him, but ones that you can't see anyone else playing.  I recently saw one of his earliest acting roles as the cab driver in Car Wash, and even for the relatively small amount of screen time he had he managed to completely own his character.

The news of his death, however, came quickly on the heels of the announcement that he was to be this year's recipient of the Mark Twain Prize.  I was looking forward to seeing this later in the year, as it's televised on PBS as part of the Kennedy Center Presents series.  I hope they decide to honor him posthumously instead of awarding it to someone else.  I know that part of the appeal is to see the recipient being honored, and it will be odd without him there. 

Speaking of odd... George sent out a press release, in response to being named the awards recipient this year, that read: "Thank you Mr. Twain. Have your people call my people."  It looks like they arranged a meeting...