http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/ This is the area to discuss non-jazz issues and non-issue issues! en Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:27:53 GMT vBulletin 10 http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/images/misc/rss.jpg http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/ http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/showthread.php?t=26533&goto=newpost Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:21:11 GMT x x ]]> THE ALLEY tippy http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/showthread.php?t=26533 http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/showthread.php?t=26528&goto=newpost Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:50:14 GMT I'll start:

WOW. ]]> THE ALLEY rollhead http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/showthread.php?t=26528 http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/showthread.php?t=26521&goto=newpost Thu, 19 Nov 2009 08:31:37 GMT I'm two-and-a-half episodes into it so far, and quite enjoying it. It is not be the unforgettable riveting experience that the original series was, the first time through, and I don't think it aspires to be that.

Major differences between the old and the new:

McGoohan was a spy, edgy, always ready; even when nothing made sense he behaved as though he knew what was going on. The New #6 is more of an ingenue, many unspoken WTFs, he appeals to others' humanity whereas McGoohan trusted nobody.

The New Village is more mainstream. The original Village was like Fellini meets Lewis Carroll, dwarves on unicycles, jarring visual dissonances to go with the logical ones. The new Village is more coherent, more of our time than out of time. You could have a Desperate Housewives of The New Village, but never of the original.

Of special note in this series is #2, Sir Ian McKellen, who is the equal of Leo McKern (the best of the original #2s). I haven't yet decided whether or not a consistently mean #2 is scarier than the unpredictability of never knowing who #2 will be, but McKellen's weird family holds the promise of dark secrets to come.

Anyway, so far I'm liking it, at least partly because it is not as dreadfully bad as I feared it might be, but also because I'm finding it be a very enjoyable entertainment. ]]> THE ALLEY Squaredancecalling Steve http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/showthread.php?t=26521 http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/showthread.php?t=26518&goto=newpost Thu, 19 Nov 2009 03:49:36 GMT Aye aye aye. We were almost out of debt but since the economy has crashed, the amount has skyrocketed. We do our best to live within our means. Three years ago, I lost my job due to some underhandedness on management's part, but it was a blessing in disguise. I have a wonderful job now, working with fantastic people, but I make less money. We have a family to raise. Not only that, we have childcare and my job in sales has been hit really badly. And acting work has totally dried up this year! Holy moly! I am not in despair about it, and have found a way to reinforce my real values. Perhaps that's the big lesson here. Anyway, just thought I'd vent a little. We owe a lot. I hope to get it down soon.... We're cutting down on childcare in January and that will help. ]]> THE ALLEY RBS http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/showthread.php?t=26518 http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/showthread.php?t=26516&goto=newpost Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:44:53 GMT Did anyone else see that intense “flash of light” last night? This was after midnight Mountain Standard Time, I was lying in bed and this super intense beam of light came through the crack in the curtains at the far end of the room. I had never seen anything like it and my first thought – for... Did anyone else see that intense “flash of light” last night? This was after midnight Mountain Standard Time, I was lying in bed and this super intense beam of light came through the crack in the curtains at the far end of the room. I had never seen anything like it and my first thought – for real, lol – was that some burglars had accidentally shone their super intensity flashlight through the curtains. I sat there for a moment so puzzled and then I brazenly looked out the window to see if maybe it had been a car pulling out of the driveway across the street. But it was completely quiet outside. Then I started to worry that I had imagined it but I was mostly sure that I hadn’t. So I then went and turned on all the lights outside the house, just in case it was burglar.

The thing that was so puzzling to me about this was that the light had flashed very intensely at the far end of the curtains – not like in the way that lightening would flash through the curtains in uniform light. When I woke up this morning and my mom told me about the meteor she had heard about on the news, I finally figured out that the light coming through the crack at the curtains at one side had reflected off the open closet doors, which are mirrored. Man, it was a weird thing. I SO wish I had been looking outside when that happened…I haven’t seen a very clear video capturing the event. ]]> THE ALLEY tippy http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/showthread.php?t=26516 http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/showthread.php?t=26514&goto=newpost Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:55:04 GMT private joke... private joke... ]]> THE ALLEY tippy http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/showthread.php?t=26514 http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/showthread.php?t=26513&goto=newpost Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:50:26 GMT http://www.wolfcreekutah.com/the-mountain.php http://www.wolfcreekutah.com/the-mountain.php ]]> THE ALLEY tippy http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/showthread.php?t=26513 http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/showthread.php?t=26512&goto=newpost Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:49:11 GMT [open topic] ]]> THE ALLEY tippy http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/showthread.php?t=26512 http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/showthread.php?t=26508&goto=newpost Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:56:34 GMT Just wondering if anybody is using any home phone long distance AT&T alternatives like "Magic Jack" or "Ooma" ? If so, do you recommend it? Are there any "issues" ? ]]> THE ALLEY Dig Gonsalves http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/showthread.php?t=26508 http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/showthread.php?t=26504&goto=newpost Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:58:21 GMT I have often felt that I need a thread where I can post things that I "don't get," so people can explain to me their importance.

For example the video below , which got numbers "Diggs" on Digg.com.

Apparently this gives a lot of people a hard on. I have no clue why.

Can someone explain.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cudCajMNRM0 ]]> THE ALLEY rollhead http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/showthread.php?t=26504 http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/showthread.php?t=26494&goto=newpost Mon, 16 Nov 2009 22:28:48 GMT Image: http://brucemhood.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/the-wicker-man1.jpg Actor Edward Woodward has died. Fortunately, he did not meet his demise while imprisoned within a giant, burning, pagan woodwork. *Obit from the Telegraph:* Woodward was that rarity in the entertainment world: one...

Actor Edward Woodward has died. Fortunately, he did not meet his demise while imprisoned within a giant, burning, pagan woodwork.

Obit from the Telegraph:

Woodward was that rarity in the entertainment world: one who specialised in nothing much, yet appeared to be especially talented in whatever he took on: villains, heroes, characters from melodrama and the musical comedy stage – all were tackled with a superb professionalism.

To his portrayal of the cynical secret service agent Callan, he brought an authentic seediness; while his majestic portrayal of the avenging Robert McCall, the upright figure in the long overcoat in The Equalizer, turned him into an unlikely cult figure in the United States.



Supposed to be television's answer to James Bond on the big screen, Callan was broadcast by ITV from 1967 to 1972. Woodward's eponymous hero cut a lonely and unglamorous figure. While Bond moved in a world of gadgetry, fantasy and sex, Callan's universe was that of an outsider whose life as a professional killer was solitary and bleak.

In 1970 Woodward won a Bafta award for best actor for his role in Callan. But he became so closely identified with the part that when the series ended after six years, he had a job to find work in the theatre. In 1974 he starred in a feature film about Callan.

The Equalizer was shown on ITV from 1986 to 1989, with Woodward as a former secret service agent for "The Company" (the CIA) who had turned to working as a private investigator. He dressed immaculately, drove a Jaguar and carried a gun; unusually in this genre, the hero was on the wrong side of 50 years old. While making the series he worked 18-hour days, subsisting on a daily diet of junk food and 100 cigarettes (on his return to England he was to suffer a heart attack).

Set in Manhattan, the series was particularly popular in the United States: he won a Golden Globe award for best actor in a dramatic television series in 1987, and was nominated five times for an Emmy.

In 1990 Woodward starred in an American television series called Over My Dead Body, in which he played a mystery writer solving real crimes. Although it proved to be short-lived, it led the following year to his much more successful ITV true crime drama documentary series In Suspicious Circumstances, in which he guided viewers through some of the most celebrated British crimes of the 20th century.

Edward Albert Arthur Woodward was born in Croydon on June 1 1930, the only child of a factory worker, and educated at Kingston College. He made his stage debut aged five in a talent contest. His initial ambition was to become a journalist, but he settled for working briefly in a sanitary engineer's office. When he was only 16 he managed to gain a place at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. After making his first professional appearance at the Castle Theatre, Farnham, in 1946, he attracted a loyal following of admirers during his years with the Croydon Repertory Company.

Following wide experience touring throughout England and Scotland, and a tour of India and Ceylon in Shakespeare and Shaw, Woodward arrived in London in 1955 with Where There's a Will at the Garrick. There followed small parts in the musical A Girl Called Jo (Piccadilly) and Doctor in the House (Victoria Palace).

After good reviews for his role as Owen Tudor in Rosemary Anne Sisson's The Queen and the Welshman (Edinburgh Festival and Lyric Hammersmith, 1957), and stints in the musical Salad Days and in West End revue, Woodward joined the Memorial Theatre Company at Stratford-on-Avon, for which his roles included Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, Laertes to Michael Redgrave's Hamlet, and Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing.

Back in the West End, Woodward had one of his greatest successes in Charles Dyer's study of loneliness, Rattle of a Simple Man, which he had directed in South Africa before it reached London. He played the part of the shy and gentle Mancunian Percy, a timid but imaginative north-country football fan who, for a bet, spent the night with a London prostitute (Sheila Hancock).

When the play reached Broadway in 1963, Noël Coward, who was preparing a musical version of his own wartime success Blithe Spirit, found Woodward's acting "marvellous" and cast him as the husband, Charles Condomine, in High Spirits. After the latter play had its Broadway opening, Coward described Woodward in his diary: "One of the nicest and most co-operative actors I have ever met or worked with. He is the only one who has given me no trouble at all."

On his return to England Woodward appeared in Henry James's The High Bid at the Mermaid, while his Sydney Carton in Two Cities (Palace, 1969) won the Variety award for best performer in a musical. Then came a stint at Olivier's National Theatre as Flamineo in Webster's The White Devil and as Cyrano de Bergerac at the Old Vic in 1970.

Other London stage credits included Robin Hood in Babes in the Wood (Palladium, 1972); George Szabo, the monocled lover of Judi Dench, in Molnar's The Wolf (Oxford Playhouse, Queen's and New London, 1974); and the Duke of Bristol in Lonsdale's On Approval (Haymarket, 1975).

In 1980 Woodward co-directed and played in a tour of The Beggar's Opera (Birmingham Rep, 1979), and at the Ludlow Festival he won wide praise as Richard III – The Daily Telegraph's critic hailing his "emotional complexities and psychological depths".

Other stage credits included Private Lives (Australia, 1980), The Assassin (Greenwich, 1982) and The Dead Secret (Plymouth and Richmond, 1992).

Woodward appeared in more than 2,000 parts in television productions. They included Guy Crouchbank in the Evelyn Waugh trilogy Sword of Honour; Cassius in Julius Caesar; Lopakin in The Cherry Orchard; Sir Samuel Hoare in Churchill: The Wilderness Years; and a binman in the BBC drama Common As Muck.

In March this year he joined the long-running BBC soap opera EastEnders, playing the character of Tommy Clifford.

Meanwhile, in the cinema Woodward gave a notably moving performance in the title role of Breaker Morant (1980), the Australian film about a shocking injustice in the Boer War. On the big screen he also played Sergeant Neil Howie, alongside Christopher Lee and Diane Cilento, in The Wicker Man (1973); Commander Powell in Who Dares Wins (1982); Saul in King David; the Ghost of Christmas Present in A Christmas Carol; Merlin in Merlin and the Sword; Captain Haldane in The Young Winston; the racehorse trainer Josh Gifford in Champions; and Sergeant Wellbeloved in Stand Up Virgin Soldiers. Earlier this year, despite suffering from ill health, he starred as the Rev Frederick Densham in A Congregation of Ghosts.

Woodward had a fine tenor voice, appearing on a number of occasions in The Good Old Days and making a dozen LPs. He also recorded three albums of poetry, capitalising on the reputation he had forged at Stratford as a lyrical speaker of verse.

He was appointed OBE in 1978.

In 1996 Woodward underwent triple heart bypass surgery, and in 2003 he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Edward Woodward married first, in 1952, Venetia Mary Collett, with whom he had two sons and a daughter, all of whom became successful actors. The marriage was dissolved in 1986, and he married secondly, in 1987, Michele Dotrice, daughter of the actor Roy Dotrice and best known for her role as Betty Spencer in Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em; they had a daughter. ]]> THE ALLEY Monte Smith http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/showthread.php?t=26494 http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/showthread.php?t=26485&goto=newpost Sat, 14 Nov 2009 20:51:11 GMT Go for it! Go for it! ]]> THE ALLEY Pete C http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/showthread.php?t=26485 http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/showthread.php?t=26484&goto=newpost Sat, 14 Nov 2009 19:26:36 GMT 1............2.............3 1............2.............3 ]]> THE ALLEY Mike Schwartz http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/showthread.php?t=26484 http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/showthread.php?t=26481&goto=newpost Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:45:58 GMT Any thoughts? Any thoughts? ]]> THE ALLEY Chaz Longue http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/showthread.php?t=26481 http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/showthread.php?t=26480&goto=newpost Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:15:01 GMT Water Found on Moon, Scientists Say

From NYTIMES.com by KENNETH CHANG
Published: November 13, 2009

There is water on the Moon, scientists stated unequivocally on Friday, and considerable amounts of it.

“Indeed yes, we found water,” Anthony Colaprete, the principal investigator for NASA’s Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, said in a news conference.

The confirmation of scientists’ suspicions is welcome news both to future explorers who might set up home on the lunar surface and to scientists who hope that the water, in the form of ice accumulated over billions of years, could hold a record of the solar system’s history.

The satellite, known as Lcross (pronounced L-cross), slammed into a crater near the Moon’s south pole a month ago. The impact carved out a hole 60- to 100-feet wide and kicked up at least 24 gallons of water.

“We got more than just whiff,” said Peter H. Schultz, a professor of geological sciences at Brown University and a co-investigator of the mission. “We practically tasted it with the impact.”

For more than a decade, planetary scientists have seen tantalizing hints of water ice at the bottom of these cold craters where the sun never shines. The Lcross mission consisted of two pieces — an empty rocket stage to carve into the lunar surface and a small spacecraft to measure what was kicked up, but it too slammed into the surface.

For space enthusiasts who stayed up, or woke up early, to watch the impact on Oct. 9, the event was anticlimactic, even disappointing, as they failed to see the anticipated debris plume. But NASA later said that a plume was indeed photographed; the live video stream was not properly attuned to pick out the details.

The water findings come from analysis of the slight shifts in color after the impact, showing telltale signs of water. ]]> THE ALLEY steve(thelil) http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/showthread.php?t=26480