It's a wacky world after all

Neil Gaiman nicely pointed to this article by Mark Evanier about the lives of the people that play the characters at Disneyland.

I make some snide comment and it prompts a debate. The topic is whether the tiny tots who visit Disneyland really believe that those huge, non-speaking cloth-and-rubber critters are really Sleepy, Grumpy, Bashful, et al...or if they understand that they're just teen-agers in dwarf suits.

One lady who's been listening in on the conversation insists the kids believe. Another eavesdropper insists that no one over the age of three believes that Donald Duck really exists, let alone that he's six feet tall with eye openings in his beak.

Mr. Goofy/Hook is the expert here. He says, "The kids believe I'm Captain Hook the way they believe the Country Bear Jamboree is alive or that the Flight to the Moon ride actually goes to the Moon."

And they suck me back in again

I know that lots of you didn't like Attack of the Clones (which is my second favourite Star Wars Movie after Empire Strikes Back), but I'm already feeling fairly excited about Episode 3. Seeing how the whole things ties in to A New Hope, watching the rise of the Empire/downfall of the Republic/death of the Jedi will be fantastic and I'm very enamoured with the idea of having a series of 6 films following the life of one person from innocent boy to disaffected youth, through his corruption, evil and final redemption/death. I can't think of anything else that's even remotely on the same scale.

Anyway - the first draft is apparently finishedl:

McCallum added that the story will fit with Episode IV "in some very cool and unexpected ways."

Actors will begin arriving in Australia sometime in the summer (or winter in Australia). But stunt coordinator Nick Gillard has met briefly with both Hayden Christensen and Ewan McGregor in the United States, McCallum said. "Hayden is coming shortly to begin massive rehearsals, stunt rehearsals," he said. "We expect Ewan in the next four to five weeks. He's starting to work on all the fight sequences in the movie, which I think will be extraordinary.

Public Service Gaiman announcement

Neil Gaiman's syndicated address has changed. To read Mr Gaiman, add here to your friends list.

Unsure of what to feel

This journal belonged to someone who died in the September 11th attack. And now it just sits there, last entry on the day before, quite happy and unsuspecting. Someone's life which didn't have any conclusion, it just stopped, suddenly, in mid-step.

Cthulhu's Date

Cool strip gakked from broin

How to download video....

Grabbing streaming Quicktime files is a pain in the ass. Windows streaming media is significantly easier. Open the source the web page. Look for a file ending in .asf or .asx. Enter the URL into ASFRecorder. Three minutes later it's converted it from a stream into a file.

The major advantages of this are :
No need to go to the site next time you want to watch it
You can lend it to your friends
It doesn't matter what your connection is - you cn still watch the high bandwidth version if you're prepared to wait for the download to finish.

You can sometimes do something similar with quicktime files if you check for a file ending in .MOV in the source and simply download that. However, Apple have gotten smarted about this and are now using a redirect inside the .MOV file that points to the actual file. I haven't worked out a way to spot where that's going to yet. If I do, I'll let you know :->