I've gotten another hint published at macosxhints.com:

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Fox got bigger hit, but WB happy with Singer
The Hollywood Reporter

"Superman Returns will be profitable for us," says Warner Bros. production president Jeff Robinov. "We would have liked it to have made more money, but it reintroduced the character in a great way and was a good launching pad for the next picture. We believe in Bryan and the franchise. Clearly, this was the most emotional and realistic superhero movie ever made."

2006 Elly Nominees Announced

The Sacramento Area Regional Theatre Alliance has announced the 2006 Elly Award nominees (PDF). San Joaquin Delta College's Dark of the Moon received a nomination in every one of the Drama categories:

• Costume Design - Beverly Norcross
• Direction - Harvey T. Jordan
• Leading Actor - Brian Peccia
• Leading Actress - Megan Devencenzi
• Lighting Design - John White
• Overall Production
• Set Design - John White
• Supporting Actor - Chris Hayhurst
• Supporting Actress -
  • Joanna Bernazzani
  • Sue Barnes

Urinetown didn't get any Leading Acting nominations, but it got quite a few in the Musical categories:

• Choreography - Valerie Gnassounou
• Direction - John White
• Lighting Design - Catherine Frye and John White
• Musical Direction - Scott Bowen
• Overall Production
• Set Design - Christina Martinez
• Supporting Actor - Parker Cushing
• Supporting Actress - Brittney Monroe

I often don't understand what qualifies a role as leading or supporting, since I considered Brittney's performance as Little Sally a leading one. At last year's Awards Ceremony, songs were performed from each of the musicals nominated for Overall Production.

If they do that for this year's, I'm curious what song will be chosen, since many of them are large group numbers.

RiffTrax

Do you feel that some of the movies coming out of Hollywood are just, well, missing something? At RiffTrax, you can download Mike's running commentaries and listen to them along with your favorite, and not so favorite DVDs. It's like watching a movie with your funniest friend.

And your funniest friend is Mike Nelson, head writer and (second) star of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Just so that I can keep up my streak of posting once per day in August, here are links to my latest posts on The Apple Blog. Check out the comments and help drive that traffic!

3. ‘The Business’ misleads on ‘iPod music phone’
4. Apple could allow video downloads to be burned to DVD

Terrorism scare doesn't seem to deter S.J. travelers

"It seems like a bit of an inconvenience at first, but the real inconvenience is if you are not safe," said Eddie Hargreaves, a Stockton resident flying from Sacramento to Portland today.

After my national debut in Many Straight Guys Say 'No Thanks' to 'Brokeback Mountain' I'm back on the local scene thanks to my connections as the husband of a Record employee.

I only fly about once or twice a year, but it always seems to fall right after some foiled attack means the airport has to implement stricter security measures.

iPod music phone now on the way from Apple

What does a headline like that tell you? If you saw it in a newspaper or on the ticker of a cable news channel, what would else could you think but that it was confirmed there will be an iPod music phone?

And what if you only got to see the first paragraph of that story and it was this:

After months of speculation, Apple Computers has confirmed it is planning to produce an iPod music phone.

Wow! Apple has confirmed it?! Let's see this confirmation!

Steve Jobs, chief executive of the iPods-to-Macintosh computers giant, dropped a hint that a new type of iPod music player was on the way when unveiling Apple’s financial results last week.

Wait? It's not confirmation? It's just a hint?

"The iPod continues to earn a US market share of over 75% and we are extremely excited about future iPod products in the pipeline,” he said.

That's the hint? I did not see the words 'phone' or 'now on the way' anywhere. Jobs says Apple is excited about future products in the pipeline at every single financial results recap.

Later, Apple’s chief financial officer, Peter Oppenheimer, appeared to confirm this: “We don’t think that the phones that are available today make the best music players. We think the iPod is [the best music player]. But over time, that is likely to change, and we are not sitting around doing nothing."

Peter confirmed what? The only thing he confirmed is that Apple is not sitting around doing nothing. Duh.

And the final paragraph stretches this report beyond belief:

Apple faces major challenges as competitors produce cheaper products forcing the US firm to diversify further. Mobile phonemaker Motorola has already launched a phone, the ROKR, designed to play songs stored on Apple’s iTunes software.

Anyone that didn't know better would conclude that Motorola was one of those competitors providing major challenges to Apple, when, of course, the ROKR was developed in conjunction with Apple and plays iTunes songs with Apple's permission.

So, to recap, no one at Apple, especially Steve Jobs, said anything about an iPod music phone, and certainly no one said it was "now on the way." But obviously they couldn't run this headline: Apple not sitting around doing nothing

Movie transfers to DVDs to become easier

Online merchants, like Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes Music Store, could start to allow video downloads to be transferred onto DVDs.

This needs to happen if they want me to buy videos from the iTunes Music Store. I've downloaded a few free shows and never watched them because they can only be watched on the computer. Hooking up the computer to the TV is not something I like to do on a daily basis.

The Apple Blog

I'm doing some writing, er, excuse me, blogging, for The Apple Blog. So you lucky few who read this blog can now read blog posts by me on another blog that will be linked to from this blog. Blog blog blog.

1. Apple removes mention of G3s from Leopard pages
2. Microsoft releases Office 2004 security update

Is Steve Jobs the new power behind-the-throne at the Magic Kingdom?

As Hollywood still struggles to get a handle on what just happened at Disney Studios, Jim Hill suggests that it's time to start paying attention to all those phone calls and e-mails that Bob Iger gets from Steve Jobs.

Oni to publish Stephen Colbert's TEK JANSEN & ALPHA SQUAD 7 comics

Oni Press, in cooperation with The Colbert Report and Comedy Central, will be publishing a series of comics based off the unpublished sci-fi masterpiece Stephen Colbert's Alpha Squad 7: Lady Nocturne: A Tek Jansen Adventure.

There's not a lot of information available yet, but anything with Tek Jansen promises to be hilarious.

Wow, a second hint of mine has been published at macosxhints.com! Rate it how you please.

Easily send Safari web links from iChat

Vote for The Muppet Show Season 2 DVD cover art

Muppets.com is asking fans to help choose the artwork for the next Muppet Show season set. The cover will feature Miss Piggy, but which of the three covers will it be? Vote now at Muppets.com and let your voice be heard.

The Muppets.com web site is very bandwidth-intensive, so if you've got a slow Internet connection, you can go straight to the poll here. And note the fine print: "BVHE reserves the right to make changes to the final packaging."

Behind the Magic

The Oakland Museum of California is the current home of the touring exhibition Behind the Magic – 50 Years of Disneyland.

Go behind the scenes to see how Walt Disney and his Imagineers envisioned, created, and brought Disneyland to life. This touring exhibition includes hundreds of images and artifacts, including original artwork, construction drawings, architectural models, archival videos, promotional materials, and historic souvenirs—as well as original vehicles from Peter Pan’s Flight and Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. Meet Disney’s first human Audio-Animatronics figure, Abraham Lincoln!

One of its neat features is to have your picture taken on Peter Pan’s Flight, the original vehicle from Fantasyland. And it only cost $1!

With the Best Hints contest as an incentive, I was able to successfully get my first hint published on macosxhints.com. It's not the most exciting thing in the world, but it's hard finding anything that hasn't already been published there.

Download files in NetNewsWire without launching browser

'Aquaman' Going Swimmingly on iTunes
E! Online News

Aquaman is a hit--and this time iTunes, not Vincent Chase, can take credit.

The TV pilot based on the all-wet DC Comics superhero was one of the iTunes Music Store's most-played clips Tuesday, the same day the rejected series became available for download on the online music/video purveyor.

macCompanion August 2006

The August issue introduces macCompanion's new logo, which I designed. This month I reviewed:

• LocationFree Player Pak for Macintosh
  Sony is not famous for being Macintosh-friendly. Of course, it's not famous for being friendly with hardly anyone, considering it usually tries to force its proprietary formats on everyone (Betamax, MiniDisc, ATRAC, UMD, copy-protected CDs with rootkits) at the expense of consumer ease-of-use. Its latest venture, LocationFree, is no exception.

There are two things I didn't mention in my review of Sony's LocationFree system. The first is that it is most directly competing against Akimbo, not Elgato's EyeTV products. But Akimbo is not (yet?) Macintosh-compatible, and that is the focus of macCompanion. Second, Sony requires a separate user license for every machine you own. So if you want to watch TV streamed from your LocationFree base station to your desktop, that's one license. But if you want to use your laptop, that's another license you must purchase. And if you want to watch with a PSP, that's another license to purchase. Imagine purchasing a DVD for $20 and then being forced to pay another $20 to watch it on a DVD player in a separate room. And another $20 if you loan it to a friend to watch.