It’s not at all new either. In fact, there’s a multi-award winning film that uses something very similar in its most famous scene. (Comment below if you know what it is.)

What is it, and why does it excite me?

Don’t laugh.

It’s a bar graph.

Yes, seriously.

Wait, wait! Don’t go… it’s not just any old bar graph. This one moves. And it lights up. And there’s music.

Starting to see the cool yet?

Yeah, I probably wouldn’t either, if I was just reading this. Stick with me.

Let’s package it this way: This is a different way to experience music – visually and accurately. We’ve all seen light shows of one kind or another accompanying music, but most of the time it’s just pulsating to the beat or rhythms or some approximation thereof. What we’ve got below is accurate parts, durations, and relative pitch of the notes in a song depicted in a way that you could actually learn something about the music itself.

Check this out as a “simple” example from J.S. Bach:

I call that simple only because it’s one instrument and pretty easy to see how the thing works. But check out the first movement from Mozart’s Symphony #40 in G-minor (one of his best, for my money). For some people this may be a better example because you can actually follow a single instrument through the symphony (for instance, green is the violin (with other strings in shades of green)):

Beyond that fact that I just think it looks neat, I really think this could be used to get people to think of music in a different way. It could be used to help people see the connection between music and math (you can’t get a bar graph without math!). In our increasingly visually driven society, it could be used to help show the ebb and flow of the musical lines, and the intertwining of parts to create the whole. Heck, maybe it could even be used to help the deaf experience music in a new way (maybe it already is, for all I know).

Because this is based on MIDI, it would be pretty easy to single out a given part or parts for display to focus on just the brass, for example. All sorts of ways to slice and dice this.

Like I said, this excites me in many ways: as a music lover, as a technology geek, as an (extremely) amateur composer, and as a trainer/educator. It’s just plain cool.

In case you’re interested in how this works (from the technology side), it’s actually pretty simple. It’s a visual representation of MIDI, which has been around for quite a while (I actually programmed my computer to play the “Ghostbusters” song in MIDI back in the 80’s). MIDI is a mathematical representation of pitch and duration for each note in a score/song. Run that MIDI file through this free software, and it reads all that math and gives you that scrolling bar graph (or even a few other visual options). It’s fun!

Do did you figure out which movie used a colored bar representation for music yet? Here’s a hint… ba-ba-da-BUM-BUM!

Not me. But I have a good reason.

I have a superpower. I have the power to make a team lose a game. And I can prove it.

If I could control this power, I could use it for good, but unfortunately it’s out of my hands. It only works against the team I’m rooting for, and its effects greatly increase when I’m actually paying attention to an individual game.

I’m originally from the Philadelphia area. It’s state law that anyone from that area must root for the Phillies and the Eagles. That’s just the way it is. It’s possible they’ve tainted the water table to enhance compliance. Unfortunately, in my case this works against those teams.

See, my power is at it’s strongest when I actually care about the outcome of the game, and actively follow the score. The success of the team is inversely proportional to how much I want the team to win.

Others believe they have this power as well, but few can prove it. I can.

Example 1: November 1st. Eagles vs. Giants. Eagles destroyed the Giants, 40-17. I didn’t watch. I didn’t even know they were going to play until the game had already started, and I didn’t get involved. If I had not known about the game at all, the spread may have been even larger, but that’s impossible to tell.

Example 2: World Series 2008. Philadelphia takes down Tampa Bay. I didn’t watch a single minute. I did care, though, so the series was tough, taking all seven games.

Example 3: World Series 2009. Phillies vs. Yankees.

• Game 1: didn’t realize which day the series started on. didn’t check the score until after the game. Phillies won.
• Game 2: the exception – I knew the game was on but didn’t check it. Phillies lost. (It’s not always my fault.)
• Game 3: I knew the game was on and cared but didn’t check it. Phillies lost.
• Game 4: I began checking the scoreboard in the bottom of the 8th inning. Phillies came from behind to tie the game, but I continued reloading the scoreboard (I don’t dare actually watch the game), and the Yankees come back with 3 runs at the top of the 9th to win.
• Game 5: I checked the scoreboard at the top of the 8th. Score was 8-2. Plenty of room. Refreshed the scoreboard going into the bottom of the 8th – the score was 8-5! Three Yankee runs! I ceased all connection to the game immediately, immersing myself in budgeting to avoid thinking about the game. Checked back well after the game was over to find the Phillies had won 8-6.

Games 6-7, I have resolved not to watch at all, nor check the score. That doesn’t guarantee a win (see game 2), but it helps.

Obviously my power is dangerous. I’m doing what I can to keep it in check. The cost to me is the inability to converse with other guys intelligently about sports, but I’m managing.

As to game 5… sorry about the scare, guys.

Apparently he’s pretty far along with it, and now we have a trailer!

Star Wars: Uncut Trailer from Casey Pugh on Vimeo.

I gotta tell you… I want to see the finished product.

If you want to submit something, check out the Star Wars Uncut website to see what’s still open.

I’ve got three video clips for you today, and one of them is not fiction. See if you can figure out which one.

Firefly is back!

That’s right, Nathan Fillion has suited up one more time as Mal Reynolds. Unfortunately, it’s only a reference to his Firefly character on his new show, Castle, but it’s pretty cool, with a couple of good lines and music cues.

Singing Batman!

Okay, Batman doesn’t sing in this clip, but he does in this musical episode of Batman: The Brave and The Bold. To get a segue from the above clip, though, Nathan Fillion had a role in Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along Blog with Neil Patrick Harris. See if you can guess which one of them is singing in this clip.

Yeah, okay, you probably read the opening credits and know it’s NPH singing. Love the always-underappreciated Aquaman and Green Arrow bit. Also very fun to see the music played out on the utility lines. Favorite line: “His utility belt holds everything… can’t get that at the mall!”

Cyborg Rats!

What do you do if you’re a scientist with unfettered access to rats and robots? You build a cyborg, of course!

This is actually pretty cool.

I did some further reading on this, and it turns out that they went through a lot of groups of rats for this. Each group was given a letter designation (A, B, C, etc.). On some of the rats they used a serum to enhance brain activity. This was the enhanced group (as opposed to the “normal” group). It took 28 groups before they got a rat brain that was successful in controlling the robot. However, they never tested the Enhanced group because the successful rat (from the AB-Normal group) saw an active bunson burner and went on a rampage, terrorizing the Enhanced group before escaping. It’s said that he was lured back by the sound of a violin before being put down. The lead scientist, Dr. Franklin Stein, was annoyed but promised to press on with further research.

As I mentioned last week, on SGU they’re heading for a close encounter with a star. It’s obvious to everyone but the characters that the ship is doing this on purpose to recharge its energy supply. So really this episode holds no drama other than wondering if any secondary characters will be killed when they try to mutiny in order to be one of the “survivors” to end up on the lifeboat/shuttle. What it does have are some pretty good effects when they do get to the star. It’s really pretty cool. They also get to use a slingshot maneuver to get the shuttle back, which is very cool as well, but I think they should have done a little more with it, visually.

As to the characters, this episode was necessary so they could all deal with the fact that fighting and distrusting each other are wastes of time. Rush and Young specifically seemed to have some great and realistic relationship building… right up until that last scene, which felt forced, like the writers wanted a ‘relationship-reset’ button. I’ll grant that Rush may have suspected that the ship was recharging, but he didn’t know. Admitting that, and having the ensuing argument, would have made for a much better scene, and much more complex characterization, which would have made the whole show more interesting.

Also, I finally liked Greer when he decked that mutineer. That was just perfect. Still not crazy about the character in general, though.

Overall, however, for a show that is apparently trying to be somewhat gritty, this episode was pretty tame. Somebody needed to die to show the conviction they felt that they were all going to die. Suicide, accident while trying to get off the ship, whatever… it wasn’t desperate enough for me. That would have added to the conflict with whether or not Rush knew what was going on and allowed the panic to happen anyway, as well.

I do agree though, with a friend of mine who said that the slower pacing of these episodes added some punch to the goodbye scenes. Those were played very well.

It seems we’re done with the immediate survival episodes now, and can start settling into the “standard” episodes. I think we’ll slowly begin to pick up the pace from here.

Sanctuary, on the other hand has had a couple of action packed episodes and now lands into the end of its premiere trilogy story-arc. Eulogy is an appropriate title given the death of a primary character last week. The episode itself is much slower than its predecessors, and does it’s job well enough, but it’s not as good as it should have been. It really needed to be a great character episode, but the writing just wasn’t up to snuff. The B-story with the escaped abnormal dog-thing was pretty lame. The memory flashes from Magnus were at best tangentially related – I kept waiting for something to tie them in to the proper storyline, but it never quite got there. It was just another reminder that sometimes you have to say goodbye, but poorly executed – if they had only shown the final segment of that it would have had the exact same impact.

They weren’t pointed enough on John and Tesla’s quest until the end, in my opinion. It would have been nice to have that as a larger focus to counter-point Magnus’ grieving. I did like the scene where the Cabal woman was leaving her table at the end. You really wanted to see her get what was coming to her, but I like that they left it to the imagination. With a teleporting Jack the Ripper on your tail, you gotta know it doesn’t end well.

I can’t say I’m thrilled with the new character, either. Hopefully she grows on me, but for now she just feels like a cliche, and a poorly acted one.

On to next week!

Skip straight to the 1:00 mark to start. You’re not missing anything but the standard film.

Star Wars, starring Benny Hill as Jar-Jar… that’s just inspired. That it works so well is proof that Lucas had lost his mind when he wrote that character.

Let’s face it, at this point, almost any single episode of SG-1 or SGA had more action than these last three weeks combined.

This kind of slow pacing is a risk. A huge risk, I think. They can get away with it for maybe another week or two before the audience expecting the zat guns and space battles give up, but only because they’re into the franchise already and are hoping it starts to remind them of the SG-1 and SGA shows.

On the other hand, they’re setting up a starting point with a couple of basic premises:

1. They’re alone. The universe is a big place and they can’t just stop at the local Qwiki-Mart for some roadside assistance. This is alluded to in the the other SGs, but it’s more palpable here.
2. They’re in over their heads. Even the smartest guy in the room doesn’t get to miraculously intuit the solution to every problem. There is no Rodney/Sam super-smart quick-fix in the last 10 minutes.

I actually like that they’re setting the mood this way, and there really aren’t any shortcuts for this. They have to feel like they are really out of control and not a single one of them, even the brainiac, can do anything about it, and no one is going to swoop in to save them.

(FYI – minor spoilers ahead)

That said, they’re not doing quite enough character work in this “down time” – or maybe more accurately, they’re not doing it the way I’d like to see it.  Take Young, for example. It was mildly interesting that he went back to his wife and they tried to touch on how his (and her) choices have ruined his marriage, but unless they’re really going to use that in the future, that time should have been spent on other characters or on more characters working the problem (and continuing to come up empty).

And that points out the biggest plot hole in this show thus far: the communication stones. Unlike some comments I’ve read, I really like that the communication stones give us some connection back to Earth and more dramatic potential. The problem is that during this moment of crisis, they’re using it for nothing more than reporting back and crying. Why are they not switching in some experts? Why not bring in a Sam, or a Rodney, or a team of smart people, and have them try to help? You could still have the crying parts where the regulars continue to go say goodbye to their friends on Earth while the useful people do some work on the ship. It’s just an extension of what Young says when he berates the engineers on the ship… they’ve just given up, leaving only Rush and Eli to “work the problem.”

After the pilot, I made some predictions. One of them came true this week (faster than I expected):

Somebody will use a Keno to spy on someone else in the shower or some other compromising location.

There you go. The most obvious childish situation. Glad we got it out of the way.

The other stupid thing? The group that wants to use Eli as a mole. Give me a break. Just get over yourselves and ask questions in the meetings.

Some people really have a problem with Rush. While he is annoying, I actually think he’s a really well written and acted character. He’s the guy who always knows the answer, and has prepared for this, but is STILL out of his depth. He’s scared and feels the responsibility to keep everyone safe, but knows he can’t – and he also can’t admit it, even to himself. Still, that leaves him as an annoying jerk, which can be grating to watch for an extended period. They’ll have to soften him up a bit over time.

The one who bothers me is Greer. Can’t stand that guy, or the way the actor is portraying him.

Now, my prediction for next week. And if nothing else was spoilerish enough for you, this gives away the ending to the Darkness episode, so be warned.

The ship is low on power, yes. It has skimmed a planet to slingshot it into the heart of the solar system, yes. Everyone thinks the ship has done that to give them some way to help themselves, and that the plan has failed because they ship screwed up the slingshot and it heading directly into the sun. So they’re all going to die… NO! The ship’s not that stupid. It’s deliberately heading directly for the sun because that’s how it recharges itself! The entire episode will consist of everyone freaking out and figuring out how to abandon ship, and in the end it’ll be impossible and they’ll be crying and screaming again – but then the ship will head right through the sun and be recharged, and everyone will be safe, thus proving that the puny humans know nothing. They are there as tools for the ship, not the other way around.

After they fix these first basic survival issues, they’ll begin to start encountering aliens with bodies (as opposed to the whirlwind alien they don’t realize they met last week). By the end of the season, the pace will have increased, and it will feel more important and dramatic because they’ve started at such a slow speed. I can’t say that Darkness stands out to me as a great episode, but I do think it contributes well to the series, which I still think will pay off in the end.

Super-Social Networking: Superhero Facebook Status Updates

My favorites are by far Spider-Man’s and Green Lantern’s.

They need one for The Tick, though… SPOOOOOOOOOON!

1. Heroes - an improvement. I both enjoyed and was annoyed by the Sylar/Parkman bit. It was obvious, but fun and frustrating to watch.
2. FlashForward - again, an improvement. I like the expansion of the ‘conspiracy’ and that they’re not holding back on moving forward with the investigation. Makes it feel like it will be a huge story by the end.
3. Smallville - solid. I’m digging this season so far. They better have a real clear strategy for Zod, though. So far that seems to be the weakest part, which is bad since it’s the centerpiece.

Okay, this week only gave us two new shows on my radar: Stargate Universe and Star Wars: Clone Wars. First of all, this presents a logistical problem for me, since Smallville and Clone Wars are on at the same time. I’m thinking I’m going to have a consistent visit to my cousin Larry to catch up on Clone Wars. He’s good at keeping track of these things for me.

Let’s start with Star Wars: Clone Wars – they’re making a big deal in the ads that the animation is better and the story is taking on more depth. I can’t say that I noticed a quantum jump in animation quality, though it is very good. The story is taking on a bit more depth, though. Towards the end of season one, more of the episodes seemed to lean on each other, and I think that’s going to continue this year. That zero-G battle was kind of cool. Apparently this is the season of the bounty hunter. I like that, but I hope they don’t focus on it to the exclusion of the major campaigns against Dooku and Grievous, not to mention Ventress. Cad Bane’s got some nice tricks up his sleeve, but they’re going to have to come up with some really good stuff to keep that believable.

On to Stargate Universe. I approached this show with some trepidation. It’s rather dark, visually, and the word is it would be a bit darker in tone than previous Stargate shows. I was worried it might go too much to the BSG tone and lose the Stargate-ness of the franchise. On the other hand, I was worried it might turn out too much like Star Trek: Voyager, too. In the end, I think they hit the right balance. There was enough humor, but there was plenty of seriousness, too. I correctly pegged two of the guys who were going to die, but I thought one would have lasted much longer – it seemed pretty pointless to give Lou Diamond Phillips the role that he had (though from the promo I just saw, maybe I’m wrong about that). When it came down to the big sacrifice at the end, I can’t say I was very upset. They didn’t make the character like-able enough for me to care. He was obviously a plot device. The girl… can’t remember her name at the moment… doesn’t seem too useful, but I’m assuming they’ll build her into something as the season moves on.

The cameos… Richard Dean Anderson seemed to be phoning it in, for the most part. Amanda Tapping did a good job. Michael Shanks did fine with what they gave him, it was humorous enough, but it would have been good to see him interacting with the cast instead of being a recording.

I like that they’ve set up a lot of character conflict, and I hope they don’t overplay that card and ruin it. I don’t want to see the “irrational fight of the week” show because nobody listens to anyone else or learns anything. I also like how they’re setting up a traitor plot, but not fixating on it. They’ve got more immediate problems that need to be dealt with (and I really like that they didn’t neatly wrap up the life support issue at the end totally).

It appears they’re trying to make the ship a character. I think they’re going about that the right way. They’re not giving the ship a voice, but they’re alluding to it ‘wanting’ to help.

So it’s definitely not SG1 or Atlantis… it’s got the potential to go much darker, and yet still exist in that same universe. But can it avoid the formula of the other shows? Here’s where I think it will begin to fall into the same patterns as its forerunners (possible spoilers):

1. They will meet and take on an alien as an important member of the crew by the sixth episode, if not sooner. Probably female. This person will be heavily involved in missions.
2. They’ll not use the ancient communications device to talk to Earth nearly enough to figure out the whole traitor situation fast enough.
3. The IOA rep will be stereotypically annoying.
4. There will be a big, bad, alien enemy that enslaves people.
5. They will slowly gain more control over the ship, but will never be able to get back home… until possibly the final season, when the battle with the big, bad alien will show them the way to achieve that.
6. There will be conflict between the civilian and military contingents (ooo… that’s a stretch).
7. Rush will not really trust anyone, nor will anyone really trust him, for quite a while. He’ll continue to use people for his own ends, but will in the end be proven to be doing the right thing all along. His character will be the one to grow the most (assuming the characters actually grow).
8. There will be an episode where someone uses the communication stones to swap bodies surreptitiously, and mayhem will ensue.
9. They’ll overcome the 12 hour window by the middle of the season.
10. Eli will cause a major problem by hitting the wrong button, and Rush will be unable to fix it until he and Eli team up. This will happen frequently.
11. Somebody will use a Keno to spy on someone else in the shower or some other compromising location.

What did you think of this week’s premieres?

Next week: Sanctuary.

Let’s start with the end. The finale to Warehouse 13 on Tuesday was really good. [SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH TO AVOID SPOILERS.] They still managed to keep the light tone of the show intact while also introducing some more serious elements. I like how they’re setting up MacPherson to possibly be a better agent (if not a better person) than Artie. Is Artie going to show up next season? I haven’t read one way or the other, but yeah, I think so. They seeded the entire show with hints to how he’ll survive. Decent misdirection, though, at the end. I wish I was more emotionally invested in Pete and Myka, but despite being the stars, they’re the ones I’m least interested in. All of the secondary characters intrigue me more. Artie and Mrs. Frederic, of course, are the best. I predict the cliffhanger threads will all be tied up by the end of the premiere next year. It’d be nice if they’d drag one or two out a bit, but I don’t think that will happen. In all, I think it was a good end to a fun season. I’m looking forward to season 2.

Okay, moving on to the premieres.

Heroes. At the end of the episode I was left with one question: would I have liked this episode more if they hadn’t had to recover from the sour taste left over from last year? It’s hard to say. There was certainly nothing in the episode that made me sit up and go “whoa!” The closest I got was some curiosity about the carnival group. In all, pretty disappointing, but it did set up some stuff that might get interesting, if they move things along. I do like that the characters are mostly trying to go back to their lives, which sets up some dramatic potential, but if I’m being honest, I think the show went so far off track last year that sticking to continuity at this point is a huge weight around its neck and it just feels forced. The Nathan/Sylar “body sharing” thing is killing me, for instance. I’ll stick with it, but with the news that ratings for the premiere were horrible, I won’t be too shocked if it’s cancelled mid-season. If they do that, hopefully they’ll at least give them enough warning to put some kind of end-cap on the story. Still, I hope it improves.

FlashForward. This is the one I was really looking forward to seeing. I think it will be a great story by the end of the season, and will watch the whole thing. At this point, though, it hasn’t grabbed me the way I thought it would. Maybe it’s because I knew too many of the twists ahead of time. I hope so. One thing I was disappointed in was that we only saw glimpses of the future as if it was a dream, and we didn’t see 2 min 17 seconds worth. I really expected that it would be like we were suddenly transported 6 months into the future and then suddenly yanked back to the present two minutes later. Instead we got maybe a minute of blurry, filtered camera tricks with lots of quick cuts screaming out at us “this is a vision!” Not as effective or engrossing, in my opinion as “actually being there.” The guy walking around at the end, though… that was cool, if over-explained. I hope they don’t spend the entire series explaining the plot to the “stupid viewer.” Other than that, though, I’m in.

Smallville. Despite a few clunky elements and a less than stellar “last time” recap, this looks like it’s going in the right direction. Finally! This season Clark is finally going to leave “Dawson’s Creek” and get down to some seriousness. To be fair, they started this trend last year, but while the overall arc was good, I wasn’t satisfied with the Doomsday finale. On the plus side, because of the events of the finale, this year Clark is eschewing his human upbringing (or trying to) and leaning on his Kryptonian heritage. It’s gonna be a bit darker this year, it appears, and that’s exactly where it needs to go. If they can elevate the Zod plot and maneuver it into a worthwhile finale, it’ll be a great season. Here’s a quick review of last season….

And a preview for this season…

If rumors are to be believed, we’ll see Metallo (that’s actually definite – he’s in the trailer), the Wonder Twins, and Green Arrow’s sidekick, “Speedy” this season. Hopefully that turns out better than it sounds…

Next week, Stargate: Universe and Star Wars: Clone Wars.