Well, dear readers, how many here have ever eaten shortnin’ bread? I ask you, where else on all the Internet can you find such a question? Nowhere, that’s where. Actually, that little now-politically incorrect verse was running through my mind for no reason whatsoever. I personally have never had shortnin’ bread, so I’ve asked the question and will await the answer. In the meantime, it’s quite late, it’s been a long day and most of the day was presented in Sensurround. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, yesterday was a day presented in Sensurround. That is because at eight in the morning heavy equipment arrived at the house next door and within minutes it felt like a major earthquake was happening because said heavy equipment was removing an entire house. A mere six hours later where once was a house there was nothing. They then enclosed the nothing with a fence and now there is nothing and a fence. I think they still have cleanup work to do, but I called the construction company’s office and they told me it wouldn’t be much longer. So, I assume at some point another construction company will come along and begin constructing a monstrosity next door. And there will be six months to a year of noisy noise and obnoxious machinery and workers and then some entitled, rich TV creep will come waltzing in with his family and not give a crap that his new neighbors had to endure all that whilst he and his family were living somewhere else. But, I will make certain that he and his family know EXACTLY how his neighbors feel, oh, yes, I will make certain he and his family know EXACTLY how his neighbors feel. Thank goodness I am not writing a novel right now, or I would have gone over there and committed a homicide. I did try to do a little work, and then I had a lunch meeting with Ted Detweiler, who really is very excited to be playing Harry Schechter in The First Nudie Musical. Amusingly, Cason got an e-mail from a big theater agent who’d never bothered to get back to him or to submit any of their clients. The e-mail basically said that they didn’t feel any of their clients were right for the project. The fact that they sent the e-mail AFTER our casting sessions were finished and the response came AFTER Cason tried four times to get a response caused me to write a patented BK e-mail, and it was a good one, just as you knew it would be. I basically told them that since I knew and had worked with many of their clients that I would take exception that none of them were right for my show and that I felt they weren’t acting in their clients best interest. I then gave a little history lesson about me, the film, the show, and the kind of person I am, i.e. that I would doubt I’d ever hire one of their clients for anything after being treated with such disrespectful disregard. But these people are so uppity they probably laughed at it – only their clients suffer, and if any of them ask me why I won’t see them for anything I’ll be more than happy to illuminate them. Maybe then these sickening agents will learn to act like human beings. I did some errands and whatnot, and then went to Fry’s to discuss exchanging my new TV for another new TV. My sales guy was there, and we talked about it and he suggested I do the exchange, the reason for the exchange being these weird sort of flashlight-like beams of light from all four corners of the screen that are very obvious when the screen is being viewed in a dark room and there is a dark scene or black corners. It’s a really hard decision because I love the image quality so much, and the colors are so vibrant and amazing, and I don’t know if the same-sized LCD version will have that amazing color and brightness. But he had a good idea – the new TV will come. We’ll plug it in, I’ll put in a couple of Blu-Ray titles that looked especially good on the TV and we’ll see if I’m happy with the brightness and vivid color. And if I’m not, they’ll simply take the replacement back to the store, and I’ll live with the little flashlight beams which, eighty percent of the time, are not really a problem. But if the LCD has the brightness and the color values, then I’ll keep it. We know for sure that the flashlight weirdness is peculiar to the LED and has to do with the way the lights are positioned. Since there are a lot of complaints about it on the Internet boards, I’m sure Samsung will ultimately address the problem. So, today will be an interesting test – the TV should arrive around two-thirty or so. I’m very impressed with Fry’s and the way they deal with customers and their efforts to please.
After that, I came home and watched a motion picture entitled Clear and Present Danger, starring Harrison Ford as Jack Ryan. I’d only ever seen the first Jack Ryan film, The Hunt For Red October, which I didn’t really love. But I thought this film was quite good, it moved right along despite being two hours and twenty-two minutes, and Mr. Ford is always fun to watch, and my old acting compatriot Donald Moffatt is superb as the President of the United States. The Blu-Ray is really excellent – sharp, great color, and filled with excellent detail.
After the movie, I moseyed on over to my designer’s home environment, where I saw the progress on the completely redesigned Kritzerland site. The new design is very easy on the eyes, very clean, and I think everyone will be very happy. I wish he was a little further along, but he’s got the structure down and that’s the hardest part – he’s now just building the pages for each of the titles and frankly we don’t have all that many. The hope is that by next week he’ll start putting in the coding so that all the pages link, and he’ll create a new version of our shopping cart – paypal has a much newer and much easier cart now and there won’t be all that palaver for International customers and everything should work very smoothly. After that, I came home and watched some more Blu-Ray samples, so I could have certain images and their brightness, color, and sharpness in my head for the new TV test.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below whilst I have a little break before Sensurround happens again in the morning.
Today, I have to buckle down Winsocki and write the second set of liner notes, proof the first set of liner notes, do track titles and credits for both releases (the mastering is happening this weekend), I may do the long jog, I may eat something amusing, I will do a TV test and make a decision on which TV will be the keeper, and then I’ll try to have a nice, restful evening.
Saturday, Mr. Handy Man is coming to re-organize some stuff in the garage. Since he was here last, some more boxes have happened and there is a bunch of electronic equipment that has gone from the house to the garage and is just sitting there like so much fish. I’m also going to have him reorganize some closets in the house so that I’ll have more room.
Sunday, I’ll be supping with our very own Miss Alet Taylor, and then next week will be busier than busy.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do the long jog (maybe), write, do a TV test, eat, and then relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Friday – what is currently in your CD player and your DVD/video player? I’ll start – CD, Elmer Bernstein’s soundtrack to Airplane. DVD, a Blu-Ray festival. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, and hopefully where you live things are not being presented in Sensurround.