Do your own ringtones?

It’s not as easy as it should be, at least with Verizon, who’s model seems to be: Hit them where you can…

So you have your phone, your computer, and your tastes run a little outside the mainstream.  Maybe you want the Venture Bros. Theme, or Metalocalypse Intro, or the little Autsin Powers phone sound.  Maybe you want a particular 15 or 30 second clip of some tune, or a movie quote.  And you don’t want to pay $3-5 for it.

venture_brothers_open.mp3

Well, you shouldn’t have to.  If you’ve paid for the music or it’s freely available, you should be able to get it to your phone in short order. With that in mind, Beemsville will conduct a little research, a little experiment, if you will, to see how difficult and/or annoying this task turns out to be.  I’ve already done a little research, and I’m pretty sure I can make it happen.  I’m also reasonably tech savvy and stubborn.

Let’s see what happens.

Tropic Thunder: F@$%ing Funny!

Kick the teens to the PG-13 sideshow and leave the kids at home! It’s R-rated comedy time! Yeah!

Ben Stiller don’t need your permission. Jack Black – he’s sick of toning it down to reach the wider audience. Robert Downey Jr. is channeling Lou Gosset Jr. and Bill Cosby (in full afro makeup) and Nick Nolte’s doing full out self parody. Also there’s retards. And explosions.

Tropic Thunder – Fuck Yeah!!!

No self-censorship in this post. We’re sick of self-censorship. So is Ben Stiller (and Jack Black and R. Downey Jr.). This shit as serious. As serious as Tom Cruise in a fat suit dancing around to hip-hop…

T-Minus 1 Week

…to kickoff for the most anticipated Fighting Illini Football season in a decade or more. And we’re doing it right, with the Showdown in St. Louis vs. #6 Mizzou. Beemsville will be in full effect for the game, with a new O&B blog theme, with the final tailgate ops plan being finalized even now… Meanwhile, Illinois scribe emeritus Loren Tate checks in with thoughts on how this opener could rank historically.

The fan-base is pumped up. Check the lines for autographs at fan appreciation day.

Motorcycle Fundage

Remember this post about looking into motorcycles again? Ah, yes, the audacity of hope.

My econ-stimulus package was ear-marked, my initial research and shopping well underway, and my wife was no longer furious at the prospect. So what happened?

This:

Hey, you gotta love the plaid…

Amblin’ and Scramblin’

I never really understood why people like to run in local races.  It’s not like they’re going to win anything or it will lead anywhere…  It’s not like it’s, well, fun.

So I let some coworkers talk me into running the local 10K, known as Abe’s Amble, which falls on the last day of the State Fair.  A nice little route through the fairgrounds and a park, down past Lincoln’s tomb and back.  It wasn’t particularly fun (at least the run wasn’t).  But at least now I kind of understand why people like to do it.  When you have something to train for, a goal in mind, you’re more focused on sticking with the healthy habits.

Deserve’s Got Nothing To Do With It

Yeah, that’s what ol’ Clint as Will Munny told the nefarious Hackman before he blew him away in Unforgiven.

That’s what the U.S. Olympic Soccer team is telling themselves right now as they return to the states.

Deserve’s got nothing to do with it.

The U.S. didn’t really deserve to beat Japan.  They certainly did deserve to beat the Dutch in the second game but had to settle for the tie.  We can argue the merits of Michael Orozco’s red card in the third minute against Nigeria (the softest straight red I’ve ever seen), which pretty much led to defeat an elimination early Wednesday morning.  And the Dutch definitely did not, by God, deserve to beat Japan on a weak, weak penalty kick, thus ensuring the U.S.’s elimination.  But as Clint has told us…

So this Olympic soccer team was somewhat snakebitten.  Jon Spector out with injury, Jozy Altidore hampered by a sore ankle, Coach Nowak’s insistence on playing guys out of position.  Still there were a few bright spots: some good stretches by Holden, Kleijstan, Edu, Wynne, Parkhurst, Adu…  The way the midfield was able to dominate for long periods.

Now the question becomes how quickly some of these guys can be integrated with the full national team to prepare for the World Cup.  Unfortunately, with ultra-conservative Bob Bradley still at the helm, and judging by his most recent call-ups, we’ll have to wait awhile longer.

Books: The Name of the Wind

 

by Patrick Rothfuss

The Fantasy genre comes in many different flavors, much of it aspiring to the label, “Epic”.  For many of these books, Epic comes to mean long, spread out, and poorly paced.  Usually it means enough p.o.v. characters you need a primer or signpost chapters to keep them all straight.  When it’s done right, you can really enjoy this kind of book.  You can get lost in those big multi-volume stories; the kind of experience only books can provide.  Examples such as George R. R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones and Steven Ericsson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen spring to mind.

Fantasy can also deliver shorter, sleeker stories that blend convention and technique.  Stand-alone novels in all types of settings with all manner of cross-genre blending.  I’m a big fan of such books.  I like being able to pick-up a novel and know the story will come to a reasonable end after 300 pages.  Some recent examples here include:   Territory by Emma Bull and the Harry Dresden books by Jim Butcher.

With The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss provides a taste of both flavors.  It’s long (700 pages in paperback), with a deeply developed sense of history, and obviously the first of several such volumes.  So epic.  It’s also told chiefly in 1st person p.o.v. and tightly written.  So shorter non-conventional fantasy.  Of course a comparative structure like this is artificial and eventually breaks down, but it can give you a glimpse at the strength of this novel.  For me this is an epic feel that’s also intimate.  It’s a a long book in 1st person.

Steppin’ to the AM

Who gets up at 2:00 in the AM to watch Olympic Soccer?

THIS GUY.

Yeah, our boys were in action early (or late) Thursday for the preliminary rounds of Soccer’s run for the gold before the opening ceremonies began.  It was somewhat reminiscent of World Cup 2002, getting up early to watch the action from Asia.  And the first result was similar.  USA 1, Japan 0.

Stuart Holden with the game winning goal.

For this first match, the U.S. showed some patience and toughness and were a little lucky Japan choked in front of goal.  Man of the Match: Marvell Wynne at right back.  Next up, an early AM matchup with the Netherlands on Sunday. We’ll need more scoring punch and a few more breaks to beat the Orange.  Jozy and Freddy need to show up.  Join me, won’t you, in yelling goooooooooaalll!!! at 6:45 AM CST (I’ll be suffering at 4:45 Pacific).

Illini Summer Report – Football

It’s August and Camp Rantoul is underway for the Illini Gridders.  Hard to believe we’re less than a month from the epic opener against the Mizzou Tiggers in St. Louis…

A couple of interesting developments on the football front this summer, but let’s start with the coverage angle:  Yes, IlliniHQ.com went live last week.  This website provides online content from C-U’s News-Gazette and the flagship radio station for the O&B, WDWS.  That means more blogs, more articles, podcasts, gameday shows, etc.  Over in Champaign they always say no one covers the Illini like the News-Gazette, and they’re right.  For years the paper locked away it’s sports content behind a subscription service.  It wasn’t cheap.  They did it because they could, because enough people paid for it, and it became a good revenue stream.  Likewise, WDWS had always balked at providing streaming content; their official explanation was ‘legal concerns’ (even after 3/4 of radio stations began to stream).  It’s nice that these venerable C-U media outlets have finally joined the 21st century.  The market has changed.  Media coverage has changed.

Back to Cali

After an all too brief weekend back home, I’m back to Cali again…  This time in Sacramento, HQ of the Governator.  He even stays at our hotel when he’s in town!  You know what that means — upscale hotel=outrageous fees for wifi…  Stupid Hyatt

So I’m coming to you from the Starbucks up the road, which will provide me 15 minutes of net along with my coffee.  I’ll have to find the free wifi or boingo spots in this town soon.  And while I’m complaining, how about that O’Hare Airport.  Wasn’t even flying out of it yesterday, but our plane out of St. Louis originated from that abyss, which messed everything up.  What a crap model these airlines adhere to.  They cut corners, provide poor service, and find loopholes to keep from reimbursing the customer.  It won’t change until one of these planes goes down as a result of their incompetence and cheapness.  I can only help me or mine ain’t on that flight.

Back soon with my Illini summer report.