Darkoshi

I finished watching my DVR recording of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade today. It seems to have been raining during the parade as much as during the Paris Olympics opening ceremony.

This commercial was very good:


Video title: “Holiday Night Fever” :60
Posted by: CapitalOne
Date posted: 2024/10/29


This video shows the commercial side-by-side with corresponding parts from the Saturday Night Fever movie:


Video title: John Travolta: Capital One Ad (2023) vs Saturday Night Fever (1977) Movie - Spot the Similarities!
Posted by: BLUX
Date posted: 2023/12/10


Per the date on the 2nd video and another webpage I found, "Who Else From Saturday Night Fever Is In John Travolta's Santa Claus Commercial?, the ad is a year old already! Well, it seemed new to me.

Another fun song, from the Leave it on the Floor movie soundtrack:


Video title: Leave It On the Floor Final Dance
Posted by: George Laston
Date posted: Oct 13, 2015



My other favorite song from the movie:


Video title: Leave it on the floor - Knock Them MotherFuckers Down
Posted by: Chanell La'Sha!
Date posted: Jan 10, 2013

M, the 5-year-old, was watching videos on TV via the Firestick. I don't know if my niece turned it on for her or if M already knows how to turn it on herself. I'd be surprised by the latter as it involves plugging in a power cord, turning on a power strip, turning on the UPS, waiting for the UPS light to stop flashing, then turning the TV on and changing the TV to the correct input Source.... or maybe pressing the button on the Firestick remote does that last part automatically*.

However, M seems perfectly familiar with using the Firestick remote to search for and navigate videos in its YouTube app. She mostly uses the voice-search option to search for specific things**, but also scrolls thru video thumbnails to select items that look interesting or familiar to her.

There were a few videos that came on which didn't seem geared to or appropriate for a kid her age. So I started looking up how to set it up to only show kid-friendly things.

After M left to go get ready for bed, I installed the "PBS Kids" and "YouTube Kids" apps on the Firestick.
I tried them out and found that doing a voice-search (via the mic button on the remote) from within those apps searches content from all the apps rather than just the current app, letting one jump right back out to non-kid content.

So next I created a new "Kid" profile on the Firestick and set it up to have access to a few kid-specific apps including the 2 mentioned above. I connected the YouTube Kids app to one of my YouTube accounts, so as to have access to more settings for it, but I don't see much extra you can do that way vs when not connected to an account.

I've got a PIN set up on the Firestick so the child can't simply switch back from the kid's profile to an adult profile.

Now that I have gotten all that done, I'm unimpressed with the results.

In the Firestick Kid's profile, the voice-search option does not work. You have to search by using the remote and on-screen keyboard to type in the words. I don't think M knows how to spell most of the things she would search on, and even if she does, she would probably have trouble doing it via the on-screen keyboard. Even when typing the searches in, the results don't seem to include content available in the PBS and YouTube Kids' apps. Maybe it only shows content from Amazon? I don't know.

Likewise, the home screen for the Kid's profile seems to only display Amazon content. (I'm not certain as it doesn't say where the content for each item is hosted.) To get to the other apps' content, you have to scroll down and find, select, and open the app.

Within the YouTube Kids app, I don't see a way to set up favorites. This page: Subscribe to channels on YouTube Kids says you can tap on a "Subscribe" button... Okay, some videos do have a Subscribe button. But it's not there for the "Kiya & the Kimoja Heros" videos - those looked good so I wanted to favorite/subscribe them so they'd be easy to find next time. But no luck.


*I just tested this, and while it switches to the correct input Source, now I can't even get the Firestick input on the TV to work again. It seems to be switched off. The power button on the Firestick remote only seems to be turning the TV on and off, not the Firestick. Argh.
Is it that once you reach 45 years old or so, TV and audio technology magically knows it should never work for you on the first or second try, only after multiple tries and/or hours of frustration? I remember how when I was in my 20s, it all made sense, and it usually worked as I expected. Now it's a mess of cables and inputs and switcheroos and switching from the regular TV to something else never works right off anymore.

Earlier today I got out what I thought was a DVD to play an animated movie for the child. It's one I'd bought last year but hadn't watched yet. (The Secret of Kells, part of the Irish Folklore trilogy. In retrospect, it doesn't seem so great for a kid her age. Rather scary and grim.) The disk didn't work in the DVD player. So I thought maybe it had a non-U.S. region code and needed to be played from VLC on a laptop. But VLC locked up trying to load it. I finally realized it was a BluRay disk, not a DVD, so it needed to be played via the BluRay player.

Sigh. I guess the Firestick won't work again until the next time the youngsters come out to use it.

**It seems to work better for her than it does me; it recognizes the things she says better than it recognizes what I say.

This movie looks like one I might enjoy.



Video title: Renfield | Final Trailer [Redband]
Posted by: Universal Pictures
Date posted: 2023/03/23

A couple years ago I watched a funny German movie via FireTV and a German TV app.
It was one in a series of movies. The other movies in the series aren't available anywhere online to stream (for either free or pay). So I ordered the 7-DVD set from a German seller on Amazon.de (I was surprised how easy doing that was), and it was delivered today.

While opening the package, I belatedly remembered foreign DVDs might not play in an American DVD player. I was thinking of the video format being different, like PAL/SECAM vs NTSC. But no, the problem is actually with the region codes embedded on the DVD and with DVD players programmed to only play discs from a certain region. Luckily I have a region-free DVD player which I bought a long long time ago for just this purpose. (I'm curious what foreign DVDs I watched back then; I don't even remember.)

Indeed, the first DVD of the set did not play in our American DVD player hooked up to the big TV. It does play in the region free player. But I couldn't get the subtitles to display. When I watched the movie online, it had subtitles. The movies feature characters speaking a Bavarian dialect with heavy accents (which is part of the fun), but I need the subtitles as otherwise I can barely figure out half of what is said.

I'd prefer to play the DVDs on my laptop too, as then I could play them either at my house or Qiao's without lugging around a big DVD player.

My laptop does! have a built-in DVD drive which I'd half-forgotten about. After having some initial difficulties, it seems that VLC (the program) can! (or sometimes can?) play DVDs regardless of their region code. But the subtitles weren't working in VLC either.

I finally see on the back of the DVD case where it says that Discs 2-7 have closed captioning, but apparently the first disc doesn't. Weird. But that's ok, as Disc 1 is the one I saw already.

So now I want to try playing the 2nd DVD to see if its subtitles work.

But now I CAN'T EVEN FIGURE OUT HOW TO GET IT OUT OF THE PLASTIC DVD CASE!!! AAAAAAARRRGGGGGGGGHHH.

The first DVD on the left side of the case had one of those buttons in the middle you can push to release it. The other 6 DVDs in the case don't. I tried prying the DVD up from the side, but that made it bend dangerously. I don't want to break it. Jeez. The case doesn't have any instructions on how to get the discs out. Is there a special tool for this? I don't see any tool included in the case.

And now it is after 3am and just GAH.

..

OKAY. I got it OUT:
The center holder part has a hard plastic cylinder surrounded by 5 hard plastic tabs and a gap on one side where there is no tab. You need to put your thumb on the gap side and put your fingernails under the opposite edge of the DVD (and pull upwards a bit on the same-side edge of the DVD with your other hand too) and pry it up that way.

And FINALLY, I have the subtitles working. YAY.

Now I just have to deal with my laptop's audio issues, and finding time to actually watch the movies someday.

Even though this movie trailer doesn't really grab me as it only shows bits and pieces, the comments make it sound superb. I might go watch it in a theater this weekend.



A few of the YouTube comments:

Just saw it. This was not a movie. This was a Modern Masterpiece. Please go experience this in theaters. 10/10. 5 Stars. We aren't going to get another movie as spectacular as this for a LONG time.
---
Just came out of a prescreening and IT WAS AMAZING. This isn't a modern masterpiece, it is literally a CINEMATIC LANDMARK. I hope A24 works their asses off to campaign and promote this for more people to see, and for award bodies to recognize. Through the entire movie, me and everyone in the theater was laughing their asses off in one scene, and then they hit you with a deeply touching scene that could make you cry. The absolute craftsmanship of this movie is nuts, it might be a little weird but i assure you, if you just let yourself into it, you will be absolutely love this movie
---
This is a movie that's a thousand times better than its trailer, because all the absurd, hilarious, emotional and surreal stuff just simply cannot be depicted in a 3min trailer.

"Kick Ass 2" played on TV while I was doing some other things and half-watching it.

One of the villains in the movie is called "Mother Russia", played by bodybuilder Olga Kurkulina. I like how she looks. Muscles! Her face makes me think "female Jackie Chan, and blond". And her abs, her abs! She wears a dorky comic-book-style outfit in the movie, but it actually looks quite good on her: https://forosdz.com/temas/batman-vs-mother-russia.175156/

More cool photos of her:

https://www.paradigmartistmgnt.co.uk/olga-kurkulina

https://www.girlswithmuscle.com/66176/

https://www.girlswithmuscle.com/773826/

https://www.pinterest.com/bylifeconfused/olga-kurkulina/

It's only been 19 years since it came out, but I've finally watched the Lilo and Stitch movie (I'd wanted to for a long time). I enjoyed it.

I know there are several more movies and a TV series - I saw an episode of the latter once. At this rate it will take me decades to watch the rest, if ever.

.

I went grocery shopping yesterday. When I got home, I realized that all the fruit I bought was orange. Loquats, a papaya, a mango, a satsuma mandarin, apricots.

https://www.tor.com/2020/05/20/love-cant-make-you-a-villain-how-she-ras-catra-helped-make-sense-of-my-heart/

I haven't seen She-Ra and the Princesses of Power which that page talks about. But the page also mentions Thor & Loki.. now, this isn't related to what that page talks about, but it made me notice the similarities between the characters Thor/Loki/Hela (from the movies) and Caramon/Raistlin/Kitiara (from the DragonLance books).

I'm not the first to notice it; the Wikipedia page on Raistlin even mentions it:
Hellers calls the twin brothers Caramon and Raistlin the series's most compelling characters: "Caramon is a large, powerful, goodhearted, slightly childlike warrior; Raistlin is a sickly, complicated, mysterious, morally iffy magician. The dynamic feels like it's lifted straight from Thor and Loki, and that archetypal resonance is what Weis and Hickman are obviously shooting for. And almost entirely hit."

This is a very nice non-cover tribute song. Along with a great clip of the movie, which makes me want to watch the whole thing now.



Video title: 'Singing and dancing in the rain' original song by 'Hennesea'
Posted by: anna watts
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6jkE8UoTJs
Date posted: Mar 10, 2012