Worked at Terry’s in the morning. A very poor session . . . The most I could manage was a sketch about Galahad having smelly breath.*
*Prompted by my reading out a sketch about a knight using cocoanuts instead of a horse, we agreed around this time to investigate the King Arthur story as a basis for the new film.
— Michael Palin, Diaries 1969 – 1979: The Python Years
Straight Line of the Day: A bottle of whiskey sold for 1.5 million British pounds. In related news…
Bottle of The Macallan 1926 sells for record ￡1.5m
BBC | 10-24-19The Macallan 1926 60-year-old single malt from cask number 263 had been estimated to sell for between ￡350,000 and ￡450,000.
Sotheby’s, which held the auction, did not release the identity of the buyer.
The previous auction record for a single bottle of Scotch was ￡1.2m, set by another bottle from the same cask in November last year.
Sotheby’s described The Macallan 1926 from cask number 263 as the “holy grail” of whisky.
Iconic bottles The cask, which was distilled in 1926 and bottled in 1986, produced only 40 bottles.
The bottle featured at the auction as part of what Sotheby’s termed the “ultimate whisky collection”.
The entire collection of 467 bottles in 394 lots sold for ￡7,635,619 – about double the pre-auction estimate.
The introduction of Also Sprach Zarathustra, the composition by Richard Strauss, was used as part of the opening of Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey”. There’s actually more to that composition. About 58 more minutes than most people usually have heard. You might not have time for it now, but here it is, just in case.
The first performance of Also Sprach Zarathustra was on November 27, 1896, in case you were wondering what brought this up. Now you know.
Old songs are the best.
What’s been on your mind? Got something you’d like to share? A topic to discuss? It’s Tuesday Night Open Thread.
Who wants to start?
Lactose the Intolerant posted this back in 2013. — The Editors
So Elizabeth Warren is planning on giving Hillary a challenge in her bid for President. White guilt compels me to support her. Now is the time for us palefaces to return executive power in this land to the Native Americans, like Elizabeth “Lies-With-a-Fist” Warren. Besides, she is so inept, watching her run would be so much fun. My inside sources are telling me these are some of the concepts/strategies she is planning on using against Hillary in the primaries:
As you may know, I have a fairly large movie library. Well, it’s larger than most people I know. Over 1,500 movies and growing.
One think I like to do is have my movies available to me, both at home and when I’m away from home. I don’t know why I’d want my movies when I’m away from home, but I do. It seems like something I’d like to do.
Since most of my movies — over 1,200 — were purchased from iTunes (or through other services that are part of Movies Anywhere), I have them available on my iPad. They aren’t available on my Android phone though. Well, a little over 700 are (the Movies Anywhere movies), but the rest aren’t.
At home, I’m running iTunes and have downloaded all of my iTunes movies to the computer. I’ve also ripped out my DVDs and loaded the files into iTunes. That’s over 6 TB in video content (that’s movies and TV shows). I’m able to watch all of that through my Apple TV. However, I have to be at home to watch it all — specifically, the content ripped from DVD. I can’t watch my ripped DVDs away from home.
Well, a while back, I tinkered with Plex. It was okay, but iTunes was really easy. Besides, at the time, it worked on Roku, but not on Apple TV. It also won’t play copy-protected content. I didn’t have a single source for all my content other than iTunes, and that was only on Apple TV.
I’ve decided to take a second look at Plex, now. There are apps for Plex on iOS and Android devices, on Roku, on Apple TV, and most other platforms. So, I can play all of my non-DRM content through Plex.
Well, as good as all that is, I still want a single source for everything. I purchase my content — I’ve even purchased the streaming version of content I already had on DVD in order to watch it anywhere — and I don’t pirate content. I just want to be able to watch my content that I bought. I’m not gonna give it to anyone else. I’m not gonna sell it to anyone else. I want it for my own personal viewing.
Since I don’t mind ripping DVDs, I don’t mind removing copy-protection from my personal local copy of purchased digital content. I’m not advocating that others do that, because I know some people that will turn around and attempt to profit from the work of others. Not me. All of my purchases are for my use only.
Anyway, I set up Plex on my Windows desktop computer and copied over all of my DVD movies from iTunes. All of the content I had ripped out from DVD. I did some file renaming to fit the Plex suggested naming conventions. Then a little bit of housekeeping to ensure everything looked good.
Whaddaya know? I had a good working Plex server and movie library of over 200 films. I was almost impressed with myself. Then I saw the names of all the movies. Most of them are not available streaming for a reason. Lots of really bad films — I not only have all of the MST3K episodes, I have as many of the actual movies they riffed as I can find. That’s a lot of really bad movies. Some I got from a “50 Classic Science Fiction Movies” collection. It was cheap for a reason. And I not only ripped out the MST3K-inspiring films, I ripped out all I could (some discs didn’t rip at all but I’m not gonna pursue that; I’m happy with the 45 movies I got from it). So, I got around 300 movies from DVD, and the vast majority are movies I wouldn’t really want to watch anyway.
Still, I’m committed to this. All of my DVDs are now in Plex, and I’ve begun ripping the digital purchases. That includes the first ten seasons of Doctor Who (classic seasons), or at least, the digital releases. Each night, I’ll set up some digital TV episodes to rip, and the next night I’ll set up some digital movies to rip. I’ll probably switch over to Christmas movies and specials this week.
It’s gonna take me a while to finish this. But, I have been able to do a little bit each day. By the time I’m 96, I should just about be done. Wish me luck!
I was in junior high — they call it middle school now — when I first read about King Tut. It may have even be elementary school. I mean, it was a long time ago, so I’m not quite sure exactly when it was, but I was truly fascinated by the whole thing.
Use to be, when I’d run across some program or documentary about King Tut, I’d take the time to watch it. Of course, over the years, Tutankhamun became the subject of all kinds of theories about how he died and was he a space alien or — okay, I don’t know for sure that there was one about him being a space alien, but you get the idea. Lots of videos about Tutankhamun that ranged from good historical information, to a bunch of myths, to just plain crazy.
None of them capture or bring back what I felt when I read that book so many years ago about King Tutankhamun.
This came to mind because I found out that November 26 is the anniversary of the day in 1922 when Howard Carter first peered into the tomb of Tutankhamun, and when asked if he could see anything, replied “Yes, wonderful things.”
Yes, I did think about the whole Steve Martin thing, but I decided to skip that.
I love history.
Do you have something you’d like to share? A link? A joke? Some words of wisdom? A topic to discuss? It’s Monday Night Open Thread.
What’s on your mind?
Harvey penned this in 2008. — The Editors
I used to really hate Al Qaeda, then I cowered in fear of them and tried to appease them, but now they’ve gone too far and the hate is back again. I’m so full of boiling rage that my skin is starting to turn green and I swear I just heard my shirt rip.
Right after 9/11, I was pissed that lunatic Allah worshippers killed Americans on our own soil. But after these Jokers-without-makeup started killing people for drawing cartoons – CARTOONS! – I figured maybe I should just roll over like a whipped dog before those bat@#$% crazies started looking my way.
So I stopped shaving, changed my name to Al-Harvey, started wearing funny hats, threw a flour sack over my wife, and did my Pilates 5 times a day on a fancy imported rug. I even replaced that Bible under the short leg of the couch with a Koran. Figured I was good to go.
Just to be EXTRA safe, though, I voted for Obama, because all my new Muslim overlords – from Islamic State of Iraq leader Abu Omar al-Baghdadi to Hamas to Ahmadinejad – told me that’s who they wanted as President.
Well, now that I’ve sold out my party, my nation and my soul, it turns out that they’re STILL not happy! Ayman Al-Zawahri (leader of Al-Qaeda ever since Osama got turned into a Tora Bora bloodstain back in 2002) says Barack is just a “house Negro” with a “heart full of hate” and that terrorists now “must continue to harm [America], in order for it to come to its senses”.
I don’t get it. You terrorized me in good faith, and I capitualted faster than Micheal Moore’s diet on National Free Donut Day. I thought we had a deal.
Apparently they have altered the deal. I pray they do not alter it further.
But if they do, well, I have enough guns & ammo to start my own religion in Texas.
And I have a couple dogs.
Bring it on.
Harvey is a non-disabled Navy veteran accidentally hired to fill an affirmative action quota at IMAO.us. He is also the author of such books as “Don’t Be A Pussy: Thompson/Norris 2012” and “Bowing Towards Mecca So I Can Moon It From The Other Direction” (with Enani Si Malsi).
Tuesday, November 25, 1975
{ABC in America had bought Python’s fourth series and reorganized it into two specials. This was Michael Palin’s first look at the proposed edits.}
It started well, with ‘The World’s Most Awful Family,’ which works a treat after the smooth and glossy ABC packaging of the show, but then the cuts begin. The cat-in-the-wall bell push (a big laugh in the studio) is cut . . . In the ‘Montgolfier Brothers’ the words ‘naughty bits’ are bleeped out!
. . .
. . . anything, as Douglas Adams put it, ‘to do with life,’ was single-mindedly expunged.
The cuts which seemed most remarkable to me were in the ‘Neutron’ sketch, when I played the US Bombing Commander who had personal odour problems. The character was in, but every appearance was topped and tailed to avoid all reference to his bodily hygiene. As that was the only original and Pythonesque twist to the character, he just came out as a below-average imitation of George C. Scott.
. . .
The first step as far as we’re concerned is to let as many people in America as possible know that we dissociate ourselves from the ABC sale and, better still, to let as many people as possible know the reason why.
.
Saturday, Nov. 25th, 1978
Embark for George Harrison’s in the Mini.
Arrive at Friar’s Park as the sun has just set. It must be two years since I came here with Eric to complete the mixing of ‘Lumberjack Song’ (or was it three?)
.
Sunday, Nov. 25th, 1979
Take my mother to see Life of Brian. The Plaza is packed. A sell-out. I think she enjoyed it, except for a few qualifications about the ‘Crucifixiion’ ending. . . . Remain virtually incognito and afterwards we slope off to the Dean Street Pizza Express.
— Michael Palin, Diaries 1969 – 1979: The Python Years
Exposing Office Distractions and Effects on Worker Productivity
Phys.org / Nov.21, 2019 / Sara Tubbs, University of Houston
Tank tops.
Use all the trigonometry you want; tank tops are the answer to the mystery.
Office parties being a close second.
This weekend was the anniversary of the publication of Charles Dawrin’s most famous work, On The Origin Of Species. It was published 24 November, 1859. Why is that important? If not for that publication, what would we call Darwin Award winners?
To answer my own question, we’d call them what we call them today: stupid.
The 8th podcast, from 2005. — The Editors
