Obama Replaces Putin



To This:

America's Obama warns against economic protests:

Washington, D.C., America, Feb 27 (Reuters) - American President Barack Obama warned opposition critics on Friday not to use the economic crisis as an excuse to challenge his government and told them to abide by the law.

Unrest across America over economic upheaval has been muted, with the biggest protests so far taking place in the Far East port of Los Angeles where hundreds were arrested in January demonstrations over car tax.

From this:

Russia's Putin warns against economic protests:

NOVO-OGARYOVA, Russia, Feb 27 (Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned opposition critics on Friday not to use the economic crisis as an excuse to challenge his government and told them to abide by the law.

Unrest across Russia over economic upheaval has been muted, with the biggest protests so far taking place in the Far East port of Vladivostok where hundreds were arrested in January demonstrations over car tax.

Using WordReplacer.

Now that's political parody!


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Dirty Dancing at the Opera House in Boston



We saw Dirty Dancing at the Opera House in Boston last night with hundreds of people who have watched the movie 100's of times.

Big line of the night, "nobody puts Baby in the corner". That line, when said by Johnny Castle, was recited in unison by 1,000 young girls and women of all ages. Like the circus.

That was kinda cool. A little Rocky Horror Picture Show crowd participationish. But only a little.

When we opened our program, a little slip of paper was in there to inform us that at this performance both leads will be played by understudies.

The Role of Frances "Baby" Houseman will be played by Thea Brooks and the role of Johnny Castle will be played by Easton Smith.

We were not happy, especially after reading some reviews that said both the leads were great.

So we settled in to our seats and they informed us that cell phones were not invented in 1962, when the play takes place, so we turned ours off. They also told us there was going to be a live band, but we didn't see an orchestra pit.

Music
So what happened was that there was a mix of recorded music from the 60's and an on stage band, a small band. They were very good.

Thea Brooks
Thea Brooks, Boston Understudy for Baby, was excellent. She did a wonderful job. I can't imagine what hte lead's performance would be like after seeing Brooks in the role.

Mingay and Vincent
Brooks hosted behind the scenes videos from the Chicago production here Dirty Dancing America. Episode 4 features singers Ben Mingay and Aspen Vincent. Watch the video an be amazed at the voice that comes out of Mingay.

Mingay and Vincent were very good last night, although it's disconcerting that the lead characters are not singers in a musical. We were waiting for them to sing, but they don't. They are mainly dancers, and actors second. I'm not sure if I've ever been to a musical where the leads aren't the two strongest singers.



Set
The set was a mixture of moving props and a four panel video screen. They also projected images on the walls and background of the stage. I thought it was very well done. These scenes from Kellerman's were very well done. I used to go to a resort like that in Connecticut called Grand Lake Lodge. They did a great job capturing the feel of a week's vacation with the scenes of poolside simon, dining room, and guest talent show.

Kids
Is it appropriate for kids? I have no idea, I'm sure they see as much or more on TV these days. There was a lot of 'dirty dancing,' and Baby and Johnny do end up spending the night together, more than once. I guess you could just tell the kids that they really like each other.

I'm not sure why the crowd was screaming and cheering when they first got together, since it's unclear whether or not they used protection. The sub plot with Penny didn't seem to be on Baby or Johnny's mind at the time.

Crazy kids.

Boston, Toronto, LA, New York
Dirty Dancing is now playing in Boston and Toronto, and heads to LA in May, prior to Broadway.




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Watch: The Remnants starring Ze Frank


The Remnants from John August on Vimeo.

Watch in HD on Vimeo.

More info at johnaugust.com

Love this!


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Safari 4's Stop/Reload button should actually be a Reload/Stop button

Dear Apple,
When you right click on the toolbar in Safari 4, you can modify which icons show up.

I wanted the Reload Icon:



But only saw the Stop Icon:



Your default image for the Stop/Reload button should actually be this:



and that button should be labeled Reload/Stop since it's default state on the menu bar is Reload and not Stop.

Right?

Thanks,
--Steve

Update:

Looks like the default has changed since I first looked at this. When I first tried Safari 4 there was no Stop/Reload button on the toolbar.



That's good.

The Stop/Reload should still be changed to Reload/Stop though.

Tip:
How to get the blue progress bar back in Safari 4


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The Jack McBrayer Response To The Internet Response To The Republican Response To The President's Address To Congress



This was so great. Love the big screen TV as background. Jack McBrayer rocks. Nice to have him in the same building. Oh wait, is he actually at 30 Rock? Hmm, that's confusing.

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon is going to be so funny.

Visit Kenneth the Web Page at the 30 Rock site.


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The Photographic Dictionary. This time it's personal.



abandon

Nice project.

I'm starting my own Photographic Dictionary on Flickr.



So far I have abandon and absence.

There are a few photo dictionary groups on flickr.


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Acda en de Munnik - Als het vuur gedoofd is




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My American Idol Group 2 Picks - Lambert, Corkrey and Mitchell


Top 36 Contestants - American Idol.

My American Idol Group 2 Picks - Lambert, Corkrey and Mitchell.

Labels: Corkrey, Lambert, Mitchell

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Steve Garfield Cool Blingee with Two Backup Dancers


Build your own Blingee

via [ Laughing Squid ]

Had to join in.



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Obama's Congressional Speech Wordle


View large here.

Economy is bigger than health which is bigger than education which is bigger than deficit which is bigger than power which is bigger than prosperity which is bigger than Iraq. The word terrorism did not make the Wordle at all and the world was only used once in the entire speech last night.

You can read the complete transcript here.


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Live from Boston University - College of Communication


Today's class at BU: Teaching Ustream.tv.

We went live on my Ustream.tv channel for a quick demo of Ustream and it's chat features.

Chris Pirillo Live is a good example of a live show.

Sign up for Ustream.tv.

I've found that Firefox works better than Safari. We ended up using the iSight camera from my MacBook Pro and the internal mic. It was pretty good quality. You can also use an attached USB mic and webcam.

If you want higher quality, hook up a video camera via Firewire. A Canon GL/2 is an example of a Firewire miniDV camera you could use. With that camera, you could also make use of any mic attached to the camera such as a Sennheiser Wireless Lav Mic.

Note: Check the ustream site for more tips on higher quality options. One is using a PC to broadcast with Flash Media Encoder.

See the Watershed site for paid broadcast options like having your own custom watermark on the video, customized player skins, and 16:9 and HD broadcast support. With the paid plan you get 500 GB total storage included, $0.30/GB thereafter.

It's a good idea to pre announce your show on sites like twitter and your blog and by sending out emails.

Start Broadcasting then Start Recording

Start broadcasting by clicking the BROADCAST NOW button.

After you start broadcasting live, you can chose to start recording, by pressing the Start Recording button. Conveniently, the Start Recording button changed into a Stop Recording button, so you don't have to hunt around for it after you start recording.

Here's the archived version that we recorded in class.

Online TV Shows by Ustream

Hmm. The YouTube video I played didn't seem to stream live although we saw it in class. I'll have to check that.

Some of the features we looked at in class were adding a text overlay and playing a YouTube video. You can also play an archived Ustream.tv video.

In addition to being archived on the ustream.tv site, you can also send the video to YouTube.

Send to YouTube
The way you do this is Go to My Videos, Click on the archived video that you want to work with, then Click “Add to YouTube”, Then you’ll see “Youtube upload in progress.”

Right now there is unlimited storage on Ustream, but when Ustream rolls out premium accounts, that will change.


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My Twitter Mosaic

Get your twitter mosaic here.

via [ CC Chapman ]


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