EVERYBODY knew you were going to eat ice cream today.

I wonder how much that's been sampled, specifically, versus just being replicated. Quite a lot of these samples have more to them, as well as a peculiar sound that would be hard to re-do. But Boom. Boom-Boom, BAP, on the original didn't really have a unique sound/tone.

That's a good one—I had forgotten about that one. I don't think it's "too straight" at all, @sirslud:disqus—I could hear it. Maybe speed it up just a touch?

A sample is like a direct quote, rather than a paraphrase. There's something unique in the original sound that's very hard, if not impossible, to replicate.

They would if it suited their song. A 4-piece bop kit isn't inherently better or worse than a Neil Peart mountain of everything, & vice versa. It's all about how you play 'em & how the drums sound, & whether that suits the song. It's why Ringo Starr is revered by drummers, even though he's not flashy or technically…

This occurred to me as well. I wondered what the philosophy was behind it—why use a sample when the beat/break would be easy enough to reproduce? Why pay for a sample or risk a lawsuit? I wondered whether a sample somehow gives the song more cred or something? But I think in the end, it comes down to the specific…

Yeah, it's really easy to play, & really fun to play fucking LOUD. As it happens, I did so just yesterday, though not in a Medieval English stairwell.

It's because of Shakespeare, I think—Brits playing Romans on stage for hundreds of years before movies existed.

I received Fagles Aeneid as a gift years ago, but haven't read it yet. I still like the 75 cent paperback C. Day Lewis translation I got from Goodwill when I was in high school. For Homer, I really like Richmond Lattimore, which you should check out if you haven't already.

He was a lot of fun on 30 Rock.

Yes, the plural of cyclops is cyclopes. In Greek the word looks like this: sing. Κύκλωψ; pl. Κύκλωπες. Cool, huh?

Lots of Christmas specials hold up for years, some we just keep watching for nostalgia, & some really don't hold up well at all, nostalgia notwithstanding. One of those is Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey, which never made it into my regular holiday rotation. A couple years ago I watched it again, & was…

The first* time I remember crying over a fictional animal death was also the first* time, & one of the few times, a book brought me to tears. It was a little paperback I got at school, maybe 4th grade, through those Scholastic book sales, called The Ghost of Cramer's Island. It involved (among other things, I…

He's obviously the black sheep of the family.

But sir, that's not—

I gotta point out—
The hound's tooth belongs inside the hound's mouth

Stephen Dillane's no slouch, either, & I'm a hetrasexshul.
Amongst the ladies, I'd personally put Carice Van Houten & Rose Leslie ahead of Rigg, but I fault no-one for praising Dame Diana so, especially in her pre-Dameness.

It's explained right there in the first paragraph: "The film is based on a book by Emma Donoghue (who also wrote the screenplay)….". Also, the story is told from the perspective of a very young child (five years old), hence the simplicity.

I'm thinking this is maybe part of the problem, ratings-wise. I assumed it was customary for networks to occasionally advertise their programming.

Anybody from our vintage will never be able to un-see the image of Duffy's webbed fingers pressed in panic against the glass inside that phone booth.