Ya, ya, ya. Beatles podcasts.

01-06-2009. No more - downloading suspended. I will leave the post up with the link - it looks interesting anyway.

This site has a Daily Beatle's podcast - the first time one can download Beatle's music legally (slight catch - commentary in Norwegian precedes the song - though it could be edited out of course). Link HERE (and an RSS link at the bottom of the page)

From their page:

English summary

Some weeks ago, - Norwegian Broadcasting - signed a deal with music rights holder organisation TONO in Norway. The new deal gives NRK right to publish podcasts of all previously broadcasted radio- and tv-programs that contains less then 70% music.

Podcast containing music may be up for four weeks, while our podcast without music stay up on our server forever.

One result of this deal, is that we now can publish “Our Daily Beatles” in English - as a podcast.

In this series from 2001, journalists Finn Tokvam og Bård Ose tells the story of every single Beatles tracks ever made, chronologically. Each episode contains a 3 minute story about each track (sadly for our international visitors - in Norwegian) and the actual Beatles tune.

This is - as far as we know - the first time you can download the Beatles’ music legally. Neither iTunes nor Amazon have The Beatles in their music stores.

Forty years. Damn.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is the eighth album by The Beatles.

The album was released on June 1, 1967 in the UK and on June 2, 1967 in the United States.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band lyrics:

It was twenty years ago today,

Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play

They've been going in and out of style

But they're guaranteed to raise a smile.

So may I introduce to you

The act you've known for all these years,

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

We're Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,

We hope you will enjoy the show,

We're Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,

Sit back and let the evening go.

Sgt. Pepper's lonely, Sgt. Pepper's lonely,

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

It's wonderful to be here,

It's certainly a thrill.

You're such a lovely audience,

We'd like to take you home with us,

We'd love to take you home.

I don't really want to stop the show,

But I thought that you might like to know,

That the singer's going to sing a song,

And he wants you all to sing along.

So let me introduce to you

The one and only Billy Shears

And Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Beatle videos are kind of scarce. This is A Day in the Life followed by Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds:

A moment...

I always liked the movie Momento. Black and white (movie clips) pictures going one direction timewise while the movie itself is going the other way (you had to see the movie to understand - sorry). I only have one black and white picture included here, the pictures are reversed - last to first. This one, the last (first) one has a "Hebron" road sign in it. You can't believe how happy I was to see it.

I woke up to weather news on the radio that many local roads were closed because of blowing snow. Living in the sticks means a 10 - 15 mile trip to work via a country(ish) highway. Open fields border the highway, so if you are out in the open you can't see. Snow just takes over.

I started out this morning and got about a half a mile out into the country. One car ahead was already in a ditch with another stopped to help (in my lane). I slowed to a stop and was considering my options. Then, looking to my right, I saw a big, new, white sedan slowly drift into the snowbank next to me. The driver couldn't stop and rather than rear ending me, she took the snow bank - all in movie type slow motion. And that not being enough, I looked in the mirror and saw another car sliding towards me. I moved ahead about 10 feet and avoided my second accident of the morning.

With all traffic stalled, I turned around (not easily) and headed back home. Clint has a four wheel drive Jeep. I borrowed it. After trying a side road to work (lesser traveled - but lesser plowed) option, I regrouped and went back and drove to work on the original highway (the cars that almost hit me were still in the ditch). This time I followed a semi-trailer - they forge a path and you can always see them above the snow. Made it to work. Late.

That was the easy part. Getting home was worse.

Now I'm driving Clint's Jeep, of which I can't even work the radio properly. Four wheel drive but I'm uncomfortable driving. I left work while hearing on the radio that the road I was taking home was considered closed. Well, no one stands there and tells you you can't use it so I did (and I wasn't the only one - they were just discouraging usage of it). It eventually got me there; scary, white knuckle driving, but there.

I was driving so slow on the way home I was able to take a couple pictures. No danger. I was only going about 15 miles an hour.

Lastly, I'd like to add I really hate whiteouts.

You can't see where you are going, but because of that, you can't stop either or you risk being rear ended. There are a couple places where you have to drive about a length of a football field on faith - you can't see any oncoming cars or the road. You just hope the people coming the other direction are doing the same thing in their lane, not your's. The last two pictures were the first two taken.

One Momento in my life. And it worked out. Yea.

A day in my life. Beatles, A day in the life. (Bonus: quick photo clip of Mick and Marianne) I think.

The Lathe of Heaven.

The Lathe of Heaven.


Probably the most famous sci-fi movie you couldn't watch for over 20 years.

(The book is by Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (born October 21, 1929), an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books and essays, and is best known for her science fiction, fantasy novels and short stories.)

I saw this on Chicago’s channel 11 (public television), in 1980. And from the number of times it was aired, I was obviously lucky to have caught it. (I finally bought the VHS on ebay a year or so ago).

Dreaming that could change reality. Or change the world. Main character, Bruce Davidson - you see him in movies now-a-days as the person you would love to hate. Here he has a sympathetic role.

Also while reading reviews, I noticed two other movies I own and like were mentioned as similiar movies: Run Lola Run and The Butterfly Effect. I had never connected them, but they all deal with changing what's already happened.

For two decades, it has been the Holy Grail for almost an entire generation of science fiction fans. Named among the top 100 greatest works of science fiction by Entertainment Weekly magazine, its return to the public eye has been long anticipated, helped in part by the devoted efforts of its fans, who lobbied for its re-release in public pleas, grassroots Internet campaigns, and tireless letter-writing crusades. And though it did not bask in the same level of mainstream popularity that George Lucas' "Star Wars" franchise experienced, it has made an indelible mark in the annals of science fiction filmmaking nonetheless.

It was back in 1980 that "The Lathe of Heaven", a modestly budgeted made-for-television movie based on the best-selling novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, made its first and only appearance on North American public television. Though it was never seen again, "The Lathe of Heaven" developed a cult following, even among those who never had a chance to see it when it was initially aired.

For the past twenty years, the only means to view this sci-fi masterpiece was via poor-quality bootlegged videotapes, often sold at outrageous prices at sci-fi conventions or on eBay. However, this all changed in June of this year, with the long-awaited rebroadcast of "The Lathe of Heaven" by public broadcasting television stations across North America, and the promise of the film's availability (digitally remastered no less) on VHS and DVD by the fall.


The 1980 adaptation—generally faithful to the novel—was produced by the public television station WNET, directed by David Loxton and Fred Barzyk. It starred Bruce Davison, Kevin Conway, and Margaret Avery. Due to rights issues surrounding the use of a clip from the Beatles tune "With A Little Help From My Friends" (the song is integral to one of the novel's plot points), it was never re-aired after the network's rights to rebroadcast the program expired in 1988.

It would be another twelve years before it was released to home video in 2000 (in fact, the home video release is remastered from a tape someone recorded from the original broadcast; PBS, thinking the rights issues would dog the production forever, did not save a copy of the production in their archives). The rights issue was solved by replacing the original Beatles tune with a cover version of the same song.





The novel is set in Portland, Oregon. The 'real world' had been destroyed in a nuclear war and George Orr has dreamed it back into existence as he lay dying in the ruins. This places him in the first of many realities we encounter in the book, where he is a draftsman and has long been abusing sleep deprivation drugs to prevent himself from dreaming.

It is set approximately 30 years in the future, relative to when the book was first published, and overpopulation, famine, malnutrition, global warming, urban blight, and massive wars in the MIDDLE EAST are a commonplace. (ALL FIT THE PRESENT UNFORTUNATELY)

Orr is forced to undergo "voluntary" psychiatric care for his drug abuse, under threat of being placed in an asylum.

He begins attending therapy sessions with an ambitious psychiatrist and sleep researcher named William Haber, who discovers Orr's power to dream "effectively" and seeks to use it to change the world. His experiments with a biofeedback/EEG machine nicknamed the Augmentor enhance Orr's abilities and produce a series of increasingly intolerable alternate worlds, based on an assortment of utopian (and dystopian) premises familiar from other science fiction works:

When Haber directs George to dream a world without racism, the skin of everyone on the planet becomes a uniform light gray.

An attempt to solve the problem of overpopulation proves disastrous when George dreams a devastating plague which wipes out 75% of humanity.

George attempts to dream into existence "peace on Earth" - resulting in an alien invasion of the Moon which unites all the nations of Earth against the threat.

Each effective dream gives Haber more wealth and status, until late in the book where he is effectively ruler of the world. Orr's economic status also improves, but he is unhappy with Haber's meddling and just wants to let things be. He becomes increasingly frightened by Haber's lust for power. He seeks out a lawyer to represent him against Haber, and while he falls in love with her and even marries her in one reality, this effort is unsuccessful in getting him out of therapy.

Eventually, Haber becomes frustrated with Orr's resistance and decides to take on effective dreaming himself. Haber's first effective dream represents a significant break with the realities created by Orr, and threatens to destroy the Earth completely. He is stopped by Orr through pure force of will. Reality is saved, but distorted, and Haber's mind is left broken.

"The Lathe of Heaven" debuted some twenty years ago, and remained one of the best-kept secrets in the history of science fiction filmmaking-- that is, until recently. Despite its low-budget roots, "The Lathe of Heaven" holds up remarkably well, and is still as intriguing and thought provoking as it was back in 1980. It is one of the few great works of science fiction that will stand the test of time.