Anchorhead

TV's Frink said:

I think it's fair to ask how much of his run production is steroid related. Especially given that he's claiming the reason he did steroids was to help keep him on the field

It's not hall-worthy to me, at all. However, for some reason - maybe the (now tainted) home run race - people seem to think he has a chance. The voting has been low for the past four years and talk has always leaned toward it being a message about his cheating. I think it's more of a message that he was average.

He's going to give an interview to Costas tonight on the MLB network at 7:00 PM Eastern. Should be interesting.

Ric Olie said:

It's not the first time I finished second to an..... inanimate object. 

What do you think of McGwire coming clean? I don't mean the admission(everyone knew) so much as the timing. Think he's starting to worry he won't get in the hall, or is it his new position with the Cards?

Sluggo said:

Honestly, I don't care if Star Wars is viewed as good or bad, popular or unpopular.  I like watching the movies...

I think that's why I don't have hate & venom for Lucas or the prequels**.  I don't care even the slightest what our culture thinks of whatever it is that moves me - films, music, my choice of motorcycles, etc, etc - and I  never have.

Truth is, I watch The Conversation much more often than I do Star Wars and The Conversation isn't even a blip on pop culture's radar. It speaks to me, it moves me, and I identify with the character.  It's been an important part of my world since I was a kid.  Culture's view of it - or lack of any view -  isn't part of how it speaks to me or how I feel about it.

** I haven't seen the SEs or the last two prequels, so that also makes it impossible for me to carry any real resentment toward them.

skyjedi2005 said:

The culture has pretty much already came to the consensus the prequels sucked...

Hardly. If anything, the culture has declared them a major success. Star Wars in the realm of modern pop culture is most definitely PT-leaning.

We're on a very narrow-focused board here, so our view is going to be counter to what mainstream culture deems successful & important. Take a quick look at the TFN boards - people are more than happy with the PT. The films we like were given away as an extra, in sub-standard form. We're in the minority here. We're the rebels going against the Empire.

You guys all know my stance, it's even more narrow - the 1977 version of one of the films. I haven't seen Star Wars as an awesome, larger than life presentation since I sat in the theater in 1977. Believe me, I get the frustration - really I do. I just don't have the hate and the venom.

Bingowings said:

xhonzi said:

I like bacon.

 I prefer Fred Ward ;-)

GhostAlpha26 said:

It is nice to hear his side but at the same time he is so incredibly smug.

To me, he doesn't seem smug at all. He comes across as uncomfortable with being the subject of an interview. I got the same impression watching the interviews on the extras portion of the Kingdom DVD.

.

GhostAlpha26 said:

.....If it is what it is as he is saying, then move on.

I sort of get the feeling that he might finally be starting to. He's focused on TV (granted, it's still Star Wars-based, but it's a kid's cartoon), and he's been working on the film Red Tails. It might not be good news for those of us hoping for a proper release of Star Wars77, but at least it may be a slowing down of his weird obsession with trying to revise history. Although, truth be told, he's already contaminated the world of Star Wars to the point where you need Michael Kaminski's book to find your way back to the truth.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/tue-january-5-2010-george-lucas

Starts around 14 minutes. As much as I wish he'd release a proper version of Star wars, it's tough for me to bash the guy too much. He's given me some of my very favorite films - American Graffiti, Star Wars77, & all four Indiana Jones films. He's given me so much more than he's kept from me.

He doesn't seem to sweat the intense passion of what must be millions of fans. I guess you have to let go to a certain extent once your creation becomes a permanent part of pop culture. Two quotes from the interview jumped out at me;

"It's fiction...you can either like it or not like it"

"I thought it was going to be one little movie"

Anyway, an interesting interview and Stewart is funny at the beginning.

skyjedi2005 said:

Maybe he should have stated as his opinion that....

Actually, all he ever states is that his opinions are the only ones which are valid & correct. When someone disagrees, they're wrong.  If they disagree a second time, they're attacking him unfairly. He's always the victim. Textbook troll behavior.

Vaderisnothayden said:

Political discussion is not the purpose of art ....

Incorrect.

Ben Shahn, Diego Rivera, Käthe Kollwitz, Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Neil Young, Peter Gabriel, U2, Roger Waters, Spike Lee, Oliver Stone, Josef Thorak, Ernst Barlach, and hundreds of others throughout history.

So far* it looks like it's going to be a go.  The film is the new Star Trek, by the way.  Just as you predicted, it's a particularly tough customer, so it has its own thread over there. The members not only had two programs that had worked for most everyone, but they also explained some of the things to look out for - false Titles and false file sizes designed to error out ripping programs that can't handle large files. In fact, that was the case with two programs that failed for me.

*I have the film ripping to my hard drive at work, using DVDFab, I started it before I went home Thursday.  I'll ride in tomorrow and check it.  If it works, and I have no reason to believe it won't, I'll burn the rip back to a DVD and then extract the audio track from that.

Anyway, the site was very helpful and very interesting. I'll keep you posted.

Thanks again.

*Edit*

Worked perfectly. DVD to hard drive, local copy to DVD, MP3 from the copy.

Thanks again, man.

To all; A virtual glass raised in celebration of another trip around the sun.  Later tonight, a real one.

Hats off to you all - still the board I visit most often.  Considering I own, watch, and have interest in only one of the six films, it must be because of you people.  ;-)

See you in 2010

Gentlemen, I'm in need of your assistance. As you guys know, I often rip the audio track from films, so that I can listen to the films on long flights - sort of a books on tape deal, but with film audio.

I've not had any real issues with copy protection. I use DVD43 and it gets me past the protection every time - until now (I think).

I may have reached an impasse this time. I've not been able to read the disc with my usual program, DVD Audio Extractor, so I tried a few others - Decrypter, DVD Shrink, Hand Brake, and DVDtoMP3. The only one able to work around what I think may be copy protection has been Handbrake. I was able to copy the film to my hard drive, thinking I would then extract the audio track. The quality of the hard drive copy is fantastic. However - the chapters are out of order and I'm unable to separate them so that I can reorder them.

Any ideas as to how I can either work around the copy protection for the audio rip, or copy an order-correct version of the film so that I can rip the audio from the local copy?

Thanks in advance.

I don't know if they are all like this, but mine is similar to yours. If I hit stop, then switch to TV for a while, and then go back to the Blu-ray, it picks up where it was before - provided I don't turn off the power. If I hit stop and shut off the power, it has to start over.

I don't know if these are settings that can be changed.  I don't often stop a film once I start watching it, so it's not an issue for me.  About the only time I notice it is if I'm watching TV show DVDs and stop for a break after a few episodes.

ferris209 said:

my side is ....

When we stop having sides and start putting America first - then, and only then, will things start to improve.  The team mentality that is our culture these days - Team first, America second - has done serious damage to our country, our way of life, and our place in the global community. 

Both sides are at fault.  Both sides go out of their way to vote on issues solely out of spite. Each team making sure that the first order of business is to undo what the other team did, then do what they want, usually just the opposite, to send a message - to crotch-grab.  Team first, America second.

When we reach a point where congressmen are yelling "you lie" during a President's speech, we've sunk to high school level behavior. I have no doubt that it will get worse before it gets better. We'll learn this one the hard way.

=====================================

This, my fellow board members, will be my only input in political discussion.  I only threw it out there so you guys would know my feelings on our political & social culture.   Political discussions these days rarely amount to anything more than yell-downs - more of our bravado-driven culture.

Anchorhead said:

Are you looking for that one because you're a fan of Tijuana Brass, or Dolores Erickson?

Ripplin said:

...yes.

Ripplin said:

....and hopefully Herb Alpert's "Whipped Cream and Other Delights" sometime. :)

Are you looking for that one because you're a fan of Tijuana Brass, or Dolores Erickson?

;-)

Oh man, where do I begin?. All original Genesis, including all the very rare early releases (doubles on most), 45s, EPs, Promos, box sets of interviews used by radio stations, etc. Nearly the same with Yes, The Beatles, McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo, Steely Dan, Pink Floyd, Roger Waters solo, Dave Gilmour solo, Supertramp, Eagles, Springsteen, Doobie Brothers, America, King Crimson, U2, Billy Joel, & many I can't think of just at the moment. Also, more original soundtracks than I can count - Live And Let Die (first album I ever bought), Jaws, Star Wars, Alien, and on and on. Literally hundreds of albums on vinyl. If I had to guess, 300 LPs, 100 singles.

All of it - lost in a flood about 15 years ago. You learn to say goodbye to stuff and move on. Nearly all has been replaced on CD, but it took years. Some things were never made on CD - radio box sets, some EPs, etc - so they're just gone.

Oddly enough, there were actually two pieces that did survive. My original copy of The Pros And Cons Of Hitch Hiking & the soundtrack to Alien. Pros was out being museum mounted (a type of preservative framing), and Alien was stored in a plastic container at the top of a closet. I still have both.

So, in answer to the original query; Not only can I list my vinyl collection - I can show it to you. ;-)

*Edit* Not long after that, realizing how it can all go away in a matter of hours, I had the soundtrack to Alien converted to CD (it wasn't available at the time). So, here I am 30 years later, still listening to the very same Alien soundtrack, complete with the same pops I've been hearing since 1979. In fact, I shall listen to it now.

xhonzi said:

Anytime I learn more about a celeb's personal life, I usually find that I wish I hadn't. 

That's how I am. I quit worrying about the real person a long time ago and I sometimes go out of my way to make sure I don't learn anything about them. I don't want the character ruined, so I stay clear of the real person. There are only two or three actors who I bother reading interviews with and it's only because I inadvertently found out they weren't self-absorbed assholes. It doesn't take much for me either, one bad interview and you can get a sense of who they really are.

I have two friends who are close to the business - one is in it actively and the other was for many years. The stories I hear about what uber-headaches the actors are behind the scenes - disappointing, to say the least.

doubleofive said:

There can be no "prequel person" response to this.

There will be - but only because TFN members are the fans who think & believe whatever Lucas tells them to think & believe. I've perused the forum a few times over the years. The level of denial and delusion is disturbing. But I digress....

doubleofive said:

You cannot defend a movie without a protagonist, introduction, plot, or sense. As weird as some of the off topic wanderings, you can't ignore that every point he made was right on the money, though maybe could have been put more eloquently.

In a nutshell, that's the reaction I had to Phantom when I saw it. It had no core and no direction. It made very little sense and was (for me) very uninteresting. It felt & looked like a bunch of ideas that never made it past the rough outline stage - as though Lucas just filmed his own hand-written ideas & notes, with no idea of how to connect them - or the realization that some of them shouldn't have been kept.

It seemed more like a bunch of vaguely related vignettes hooked together. For me, there was no emotional involvement what so ever. The fact that the acting was laughably bad certainly didn't help either.

I agree with Double0 also that this video would be taken much more seriously and have more impact if it were polished. It's a touch too home made to generate the kind of discussions it's capable of. However, it is right on the money in it's assessment.

Bingowings said:

Clearly Anakin/Vader was never originally the main focus of the saga

Even more to the revisionist point - it wasn't Anakin\Vader until Lucas had writer's block while trying to come up with the second film.  It wasn't even a saga. It was a film that they hoped would break even. If it had been a pre-planned saga, Lucas wouldn't have hired at least two writers (Foster & Brackett) to try and come up with an idea for a second film. Their two stories aren't even remotely similar.  Pre-planned? - hardly.

There may be something to this whole Phillies thing after all. ;-)

C3PX said:

In an ideal world, none of us would feel the need to "escape" in some artificial way.

For me, baseball is much more than an artificial escape. It's an appreciation for, a sort of connection to, a skill I don't have. As well as a deep interest in a contest of differing strategies. It's also a connection to the history of the game. It's hard to explain to people who don't feel it.

Interesting that video games have come into the conversation because I feel about them the same way several people here feel about sports. I don't get the devotion or interest. Sitting in front of a computer monitor for hours seems as uninteresting to me as going to a baseball game would seem to some people.

Not to mention, sitting in front of your monitor playing a video game - you have to cook your own hot dogs. ;-)