Oh, there’s something about an album…
September 20, 2013, 10:49 PM
How many of you were aware that there was an album made for Today’s Special? I’ll bet that many people in the United States were not aware of it. I was initially made aware of it in the late 1990s, and have been able to listen to it in its entirety. Recall that when I was going to my first polar bear plunge, I was singing along with the Today’s Special album in the car. Certainly, there’s been a lot of discussion about Today’s Special over the years, with a lot of it coming from this website. But most of that has been about the television program itself, rather than the various other things that go with it. After all, the show itself is the main product, and distributed most widely. Additionally, since the show originated in Canada, produced by a Canadian television network, I don’t believe that any licensed merchandise for the show ever made it to the United States. Thus I’ll bet that many don’t realize that the album exists, and I’ve definitely never found a review of it anywhere. So with this entry, I’m going to review the album.
Giving the album a listen, it seems that the album was released around the time as the stage show, which was shown on television as the episode “Live On Stage“. No songs from episodes dated 1985, 1986, or 1987 appear in the album. In addition, no songs original to the stage show are performed on the album. However, where applicable, those songs on the album that were also performed in the stage show were performed based on the stage show version of the song rather than the television show version.
In general, I like the album, as it contains many songs that I have always considered favorites, and also includes a few that I was not familiar with as a child due to editing by Nickelodeon (commercial networks that aired Today’s Special usually deleted some scenes in order to allow time for commercials). However, there are times that the album really grates on me a little bit, and that comes from the non-song dialogue that’s included, as much of it seems quite out of character compared to the show.
Continue reading…
Categories: Music, Today's Special
ELI5: the American electoral system
August 19, 2013, 12:23 PM
On Reddit, there is a forum (“subreddit”) called “Explain Like I’m Five” (ELI5). It’s not intended for literal five-year-olds, but rather, it’s a venue for people to ask questions, and (hopefully) get a response explaining it all in plain English, with any jargon defined plainly, and complex concepts explained as clearly as possible. Post titles typically begin with “ELI5” with the topic following.
Today on the ELI5 subreddit, this question came up about the American electoral system, as far as presidential elections go:
I’m Australian and having seen a lot about the election last year I couldn’t really find an explanation that I understood about things like swing states, etc.
I feel quite a bit of sympathy for this person. The presidential electoral system in the United States is unique, and let’s admit it: the average American doesn’t even understand how our electoral system works, and many of them have lived with it for their entire lives. For someone who does not live in the United States and is used to a different electoral system, I can imagine that trying to figure out our system can be headache-inducing, to say the least.
So I did my best to explain how it works, including the discussion of how swing states work into it all. The guidelines for this subreddit say that while discussion of politics and controversial topics are allowed, “try to remain textbook-level fair to all sides, for both questions and answers.” I think I did pretty well on that, but I’ll let you decide for yourself. So here’s my (somewhat long-winded) explanation, in plain English:
Categories: National politics, Reddit
This should become an Internet meme…
March 3, 2013, 10:01 PM
So you may have seen the new splash photo, showing me holding a monkey wrench at Home Depot. I was amused enough by it that I decided to make an “Internet meme” version of it. Take a look:
After all, what’s the fun of having a monkey wrench if you can’t throw it in someone’s plans, right?
Categories: House, Matthew, Netculture
Best grammar lesson ever…
February 6, 2013, 10:26 PM
Sometimes, the best lessons in life are subtle and just sort of fall out of the sky. This is one of them. And also remember a few very important rules of the Internet:
- The rules of proper spelling, capitalization, and punctuation still apply on the Internet.
- There is no privacy on social media, no matter how much you think otherwise.
- The Internet does not forgive, nor does it forget. Once you put it out there, it is out there for everyone to see, and it’s out there forever.
- The average Internet user is not required or otherwise obligated in any way to protect your identity if you say something stupid online.
- It is not a violation of anyone’s privacy to circulate a message posted in a public venue.
That said, you are probably starting to realize one thing: someone is about to get nailed for something that they posted on social media.
You are about to find out why it’s best to use the language the way the rest of us learned how to use it. However, while you may certainly be creative in your ideas and in the ways that you express them, those of us with a healthy respect for the proper usage of the English language request that you please not exercise your creative tendencies when it comes to grammar and spelling.
The incident in question happened on Facebook. It was in response to a public post on the Power Rangers Facebook page. The original post had something to do with Power Rangers Megaforce, and really isn’t too germane to what I’m talking about. I made a comment about the original discussion (I know way too much about Power Rangers, by the way). And then someone else made a post. And it was a real doozy.
Categories: Language, Social media, Some people
Who ever thought that I would be researching, among other things, Canadian mannequin manufacturers?
December 25, 2012, 1:35 AM
So I’m working on creating my new Today’s Special wiki, and I’m “deep in the weeds” in fleshing out what articles and other titles should exist, and creating the categorization scheme. If it tells you anything, I have titles for nearly every character that was on Today’s Special (though most of the one-off characters will be redirects to the episodes where they appeared), and did a lot of research on filming locations that were used.
By the way, for those of you who aren’t familiar with Today’s Special, you may get a tad lost in this, because I’m about to get very detailed. For a basic overview of Today’s Special, check out my existing T.S. site, which this wiki is going to replace.
Probably the biggest bit of research that I’ve done for this so far is the filming locations. I quickly discovered that almost all of the location filming done for Today’s Special was done in the Toronto area. I believe that the furthest afield that they ever went for a location shoot was the Trent-Severn Waterway, for the episode “Sam“. Just about everything else was done right in Toronto. In researching locations, I looked into any public place that I had a good chance of locating. Thus I did not bother to research location scenes shot in private homes, such as the home of Jodie’s Aunt Millie in “Being Alone“, nor did I research places like the doctor’s office in “Soup” or the barber shop in “Hair“. The likelihood that I would never find them was too great. But I did have quite a bit of success in other areas.
Categories: Today's Special
So I’m at work modernizing websites again…
December 11, 2012, 1:07 AM
So I’m at it again, working to modernize a Schumin Web property. You may recall (and it’s pretty hard to miss) that Schumin Web proper was converted to WordPress over the course of a year in 2011-2012. Then College Life was converted to WordPress last month in a process that took about a week and a half to do. That leaves the Today’s Special site and Transit Center left to be upgraded.
The current project is to convert the Today’s Special site to a content platform of some sort. However, unlike Schumin Web proper and College Life, this one isn’t going to be where the site is ported to a content platform but looks the same to the user in the end as it did before. This is going to be a big project for different reasons. I am finally going to take the Today’s Special site and bring it into the 21st century. Here’s a little secret for you: I have been unhappy with that site’s design and structure for a little over five years now. The site last received a major redesign/overhaul in 2005 (while I was out of commission due to some minor surgery), and that mainly improved the writing and the layout, while keeping the general structure the same. When I converted the site to PHP with the move to Dreamhost in 2007, I had wanted to do a big overhaul on it, but ultimately ended up converting it more or less the same as it was before, owing to time constraints and also my own capabilities at that time.
Now, my long-dreamed-of overhaul is coming. I have the time, and I now have the technical knowledge and the maturity to bring my vision to reality. The Today’s Special site is going to become a wiki. It’s going to move away from fansite and more towards being a knowledge base – the source for all things Today’s Special. Using Homestar Runner Wiki and Muppet Wiki as inspiration, my plan is to greatly expand the depth and breadth of coverage of the Today’s Special site, and be as extensive as I can get it. And with the wiki format, this can and should be a collaborative effort. I want other fans to join in. I hope that Today’s Special alumni will contribute. I hope that TVOntario joins in, too. I think everyone with an interest in the show has something to contribute, even if it’s just correcting a typo, or removing a stray comma.
Categories: Schumin Web meta, Today's Special, Wikipedia
“I’ve gotta get up and move around!”
September 17, 2012, 10:42 PM
I think this describes this past Saturday quite well:
Categories: Music, Recreation/Exercise
“…you’re in Angel Grove…”
June 27, 2012, 2:47 PM
So now that Falcon is done and pretty much just waiting a few more days to launch on July 1, I’m starting to turn my mind towards other endeavors again. First of all, I significantly curtailed the amount of Wikipedia contributions that I would make while doing Falcon. I want to keep the level of my contributions at that lower amount, because Wikipedia has started to annoy me as of late, and I’m happier making far less edits. Plus I spent too much time on Wikipedia before, and that caused work on Schumin Web to suffer, and so it’s time to spend more time taking care of my first creation. The time between shooting and publication on photo sets had become far too much, with many months between becoming the norm. And that was unacceptable.
But looking at what I want to do, aside from the aforementioned Transit Center update, I’m thinking about doing some creative writing. I’ve been watching a bunch of Power Rangers episodes lately, and I want to try something in that vein (you wondered why I mentioned Angel Grove in the title, didn’t you?). No, I’m not dressing up in spandex and fighting monsters. Though that would be kind of fun – three guesses as to what Power Ranger costume I would be wearing, and the first two don’t count. But no. I want to do something along the lines of the adapting of stock content into a completely new story and making it believeable. Realize that the way Power Rangers works is that first the Super Sentai television show is made in Japan for Japanese audiences. Then Saban acquires the rights to the season, and cuts the episodes up to make a completely new show, adding their own original scenes, and recording new audio to go over the Japanese footage of the suit battles, zord battles, and (sometimes) villain scenes. A careful viewer of Power Rangers can usually notice when it changes between original footage and the source material from Super Sentai, because the quality of the footage is a little different with regard to lighting and colors, the Power Rangers’ costumes are shiny in the Sentai footage but not in the American footage, and occasionally elements of some costumes are changed (like Elgar’s face in original Turbo footage, vs. in Carranger footage).
Categories: Power Rangers, Schumin Web meta
So the Baltimore Inner Harbor was fun…
May 27, 2012, 10:44 PM
I went up to Baltimore with a friend on Friday evening, where we explored the Inner Harbor for a while. That was kind of fun. The Inner Harbor is a very fun area, though it seems a bit overcommercialized. But such is what happens, I suppose. I loved the smell of the sea air, everyone was having so much fun out and about, and there were all kinds of fun ships sailing around.
The first ship we saw was The Black-Eyed Susan, a paddlewheeler:
Categories: Baltimore, Friends, Power Rangers
I still don’t consider myself much of an artist, but I guess I can let you decide…
May 24, 2012, 12:07 AM
So I was doing some scanning work for Falcon this evening, and decided to finally scan some drawings that I did in high school. I’m believe that these are from the fall of 1996. And so away we go…
Yes, that is exactly what you think it is. You are looking at Lord Zedd from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, standing in his throne room. It’s true. I was a nerd even back then. And I was pretty detailed. I got the pedestal, I got Zedd, I got the throne, I got the fan behind the throne, and I put a couple of putties in there.
Categories: High school, Myself, Power Rangers
Well, if being civil makes me a Metro apologist…
May 7, 2012, 11:27 PM
So apparently, my being civil and reasonable on the Twitter when it comes to all matters Metro makes me a Metro apologist. Go figure.
Today, you see, I finally decided that enough was enough when it came to certain “transit advocates” on the Twitter, and unfollowed them. Specifically, I unfollowed @MedievalMetro and @unsuckdcmetro. In both of these cases, there may actually be a point somewhere. But that point is lost in all of the other stuff that they post that is somewhat off message. In MedievalMetro’s case, I think that their main thrust is safety and maintenance concerns. However, they come off as ridiculing Metro, rather than making a point. For example, this tweet, discussing a staircase that was barricaded:
That particular one was enough for me to challenge them on it:
Categories: Social media, Some people, WMATA
Making chili!
April 8, 2012, 7:58 PM
I was cooking today, making a pot of vegetarian chili:
I had a blast, too. Anyone who can go on like this for just over 45 minutes had better be having a blast, I’d say. But what can I say? I love performing for the camera. I do, however, need to be mindful about how long I run the faucet. In reviewing the footage afterwards, noticed that at times I left the water running for a lot longer than I needed to (so don’t write to tell me this – I recognize that I was wasting water).
Categories: Food and drink, Friends, Homestar Runner, Kia Soul, Power Rangers, Video Journal
A new geeky shirt and a 30-minute Metro ride inspire me to have some fun…
March 16, 2012, 10:02 PM
Today, I wore my new Power Rangers shirt out for the first time:
Photo: Mykia Mahan
This is similar to the Power Rangers shirt that I owned before, except that this new one is a smaller size, and has slightly different styling. I am quite proud to place the old Power Rangers shirt in with my “second tier” clothes. It’s too big for me, which is just as well, because I am getting smaller, after all. Then on different styling, this shirt, unlike the first one, falls victim to an error that many Power Rangers toys and such had: emblems on the center diamond.
Categories: Photography, Power Rangers, WMATA
First it was cold, and then it was colder…
January 21, 2012, 7:49 PM
I think that about describes today. Upper forties, my foot. It was bloody cold today. And of course, today would be the day that the Chesapeake Climate Action Network would have its seventh annual “Keep Winter Cold” polar bear plunge, which, you may have heard, more than once, that I signed up to participate in over at National Harbor. I had a lot fun, though I was certainly excited about things.
Going down to the event, I decided to do a Video Journal to talk about it, since I was a little nervous and needed to distract myself:
Categories: Activism, Events, Friends, Today's Special, Video Journal
But does Verizon provide the dancing speaker?
January 3, 2012, 11:30 PM
So while I was out on New Year’s Eve, I saw a commercial on TV for Verizon Home Monitoring and Control, which apparently controls door locks, turns the lights on and off, monitors energy systems, allows one to adjust the thermostat, and allows one to monitor activity in the house via cameras. All of this can be done remotely online. I saw this, and I was like, “They’ve created TXL!”
Yes, that TXL:
Categories: Products, Today's Special