Misc_Media

Today's media finds, some fun & silly, others far less so.

Image: Saturn's rings, with Janus and a second moon not identified by JPL's caption. (maybe Prometheus, or Atlas). Wow. It just looks completely unreal.

Two videos of echidnas at YouTube: One taken at the Sydney Zoo, with a small child excitedly shouting "Echidna, mommy! Echidna!". And another echidna sighted by the side of the road, snuffling in the dirt.

I have a couple of video clips of otters I took in Seattle a while back, but a quick YouTube search shows there are already lots of clips of otters. I might just do it anyway so I can say I'm videoblogging, which I understand all the popular people are doing these days. Or maybe that was last year. I get so confused sometimes.

Right in the midst of all this superficial coolness and cuddliness, here's Stephen Colbert's appearance at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, in three parts, where he completely rips into Bush -- who's sitting just a few feet away. I don't think Colbert was in top form, quite honestly. The Bill Kristol interview a couple of days ago was funnier, and Colbert seemed a tad nervous at the podium this time. But it's worth watching just to see the Bushes glaring at Colbert, and to listen to the embedded media toadies in the audience tittering nervously after each zinger. Until Colbert took the stage, everyone was having a grand old time, media and government types mingling with celebrities, politicos making mildly self-deprecating in-jokes, and everyone drinking heavily. And then Colbert dropped the proverbial turd in the punchbowl. Nobody was expecting serious satire, and they just couldn't deal. Now the media's pretending the whole thing never happened, and they're shoving the Bush+impostor video in our faces instead, to show us how silly and cuddly George can be. They just never stop trying to make him look good, no matter what happens. They still worship Bush, and I can't begin to fathom why.

Wandering back to more superficial topics, let's visit the perennial blog fave, "What I'm listening to right now". I don't cover music much because I'm a hopelessly square music dork. I don't know who the current hot artists are in any genre, mainstream or otherwise. And I personally have no musical talent whatsoever. In grade school I discovered that I'm able to play woodwinds and string instruments equally poorly, although if I ever tried either again I'd have to practice a great deal just to get back to my previous standards of poorness. I'm not even very good at whistling, truth be told. I'm too cheap to buy music regularly, and I'm no longer in the lucrative 18-34 demographic, so my opinions (such as they are) are absolutely irrelevant anyway.

So anyway, at this exact moment I'm listening to Trance Tuesday #020, the latest weekly mix from TrancePortal.org. It's weird that the same music fits equally well when I'm working out and when I'm grinding out C++ code.

The very latest thing on the iPod is the Failing Records Vol. 3 compilation, music by various local Portland musicians.

The most-played music on the iPod is everything from Dahlia. They are/were the most excellent electronica duo I've ever seen. I missed their New Years show, and I'm not up on what their future plans are (if any). I'm so out of things that I missed a recent appearance by Jen Folker, the duo's vocalist. I never was one of the cool kids, and I guess it's way too late to start now.

Updated: Get your way-too-cute baby squirrel photos here. Awwwww....

tags: saturn cassini echidna echidnas otter otters bush stephen colbert portland electronica trance dahlia