FuzzyCo

This is exactly the wrong time of year to be reviewing this product, but Google remembers, and maybe it'll help someone looking for iPod/iPhone/iPad compatible gloves come September or October. Or in the Southern Hempisphere or something.

I ride the El to work and so I've been intrigued by the idea of gloves that I could wear and still operate my iPhone -- waiting on the platform is valuable Words With Friends time, you know. But all of the ones I had seen achieved their touch-screen-ness with little metal grommets embedded in the fingertips. I'd be nervous tapping on my iPhone screen with little metal buttons, and it seems like they'd be sure to conduct heat rather efficiently away from fingertips. Not exactly what you'd want gloves to do.

At the Shamrock Shuffle Expo, a very bare booth caught my eye -- it was just a couple of racks of gloves and two ladies. The ladies were a mother and daughter team who designed the Telefingers gloves. The gloves are pretty sweet (hence this review). They've got some sort of magic white thread on the thumb and first two fingertips that really just works to allow you to operate the touch screen on an iPhone or iPod. The palm and remaining finger areas are covered with little silcone dots that are nice and grippy, so you don't have to worry about the device falling out of your hand (and actually made them nice driving gloves as well). They aren't the thickest gloves in the world, which I suppose is a trade-off to allow the flexibility to operate devices with any sort of precision. But I only noticed their thinness when I was in a biting wind right off the lake, and I'm not sure I've ever really had gloves that stand up to that sort of wind.

Right exactly now the Telefingers website seems to be down, but their Twitter account is recently active and hopefully they'll be back in business by the time we need gloves again.

If you were one of the two people who read my sub-blog Fuzzy's Media Consumption, you don't have to anymore -- I've folded the existing content from that blog into the main blog and updates on my nigh-obsessive inventory of books, video games, and movies I've consumed will appear here.

The latest book, game, movie, TV show, and comedy album I've finished are listed on the main page's right side bar under "lately I'm ..."

Kyle and I have plenty of friendly arguments about audio gear, because he's a straight-up audiophile and is always looking for the best gear, while I'm a lot more interested in the best-cheapest. For a long time I've standardized on Sennheiser MX 400 earbud headphones, because they're a reasonable-sounding headphone but they're only $12 or so at the Virgin Megastore down the street from my office. Which is good, because I'm always leaving headphones droop out of my bag and then stepping on the earbuds. Oops.

(The MX 500 is the same headphone, but with an on-cord volume slider. I actually find the slider annoying, especially when biking, because invariably the slider will get trapped under my bag strap and shoved down to 0.)

When I started watching video on the train on my iPod and PSP I found that the train was just too noisy to hear dialog (especially on the notoriously quiet PSP). The real solution would be a pair of Ear Canal Headphones, but those things start at $100. So I got a pair of faux ECHs - Griffin Technology TuneBuds (known as EarThumps when I bought my pair) with three sizes of squishy silicone baffles that cut out a fair amount of background noise. Enough, at least, to hear dialog on the train.

But the TuneBuds turned out to be terrible for biking. With the baffles tight in my ears, I felt like I was too insulated from background noise -- I take the calculated risk of wearing headphones while biking but I'd like to be able to hear shouts of "the bridge is out!" or such. And (un)fortunately, the baffles don't stay down in my ears -- the motion of riding makes them slowly work their way out of the ear, whereupon they add a terrible wind-whistle to the mix.

So I headed over to Virgin at lunch to pick up another pair of MX 400s... and they were out of stock! Horror! I decided to get a pair of JVC Gumyphones (model HA-F120) because a) they were only $10 and b) they came in cool colors like pink and green. I got the coolest of all colors -- black. But what the packaging conceals (and oddly enough, was the impetus for this post at all) is that whatever color of earbud you choose, the cord is a unappetizing mix of dirty grey and dusty pink. With it's titular "gumy" feel and these terrible colors, the cord looks like I've got a toy's intestines stretched between my ears and my iPod. Gross.

Not that you were going to, anyway, but I just want to go on the record saying that you shouldn't buy a Panasonic digital audio recorder. Not because of the device itself, which seems fine, but because of the software it requires. I borrowed a Panasonic RR-US360 last night to record an interview and when I got home I went to Panasonic's website to download a driver so I could copy the recording to my computer. They don't have one. You have to have your original CD. I finally found a copy from driverguide.com, which made me wade through a couple dozen ads before I was finally able to download the driver and transfer software.

Why on earth wouldn't Panasonic provide this software? It's not like it's some awesome audio editor or something -- it's a clunky and badly written get-my-files-off-this-device transfer program. And digital audio recorders are something that are used by people who are on the road a lot and might end up in a colleague's office or something and need to download files from their DAR. So, boo to Panasonic, I say.

A company called Moo made a big splash a couple of weeks when they announced a new product -- MiniCards -- that could be printed from your Flickr photostream. To get buzz going, they gave away 10,000 packs of 10 minicards to Flickr Pro users (the cards are normally $20 for 100).

Of course, you have to follow up buzz with product. I got my free pack this weekend and I have to say... eh. I have three problems with the Minicards. First off, I wasn't ready for how mini they are -- about half the size of a business card. I'd be worried about losing them before I could give them out. Second, them seem really dark to me. Shots that I know have pretty vibrant colors, like our jumping wedding shot, came out rather murky, I thought. And lastly, the mini-cards are, of course, gang-printed (that is, printed a bunch to a page and then cut out) and I was surprised at how many of the cards had a strip of someone else's photo down the side. You'd think that for your "show off to the power users" batch, you'd take extra care with stuff like that.

I got a copy of the new Lewis Black album for review. So let's review it, shall we...

If you're familiar with Lewis Black, it's likely from his weekly appearance on the Daily Show. A clip of AC/DC and then it begins -- Black begins to seethe, until he can't take it any longer and he crescendos into a bark, a growl. He snaps. (Though I was a little disappointed to learn that he's just performing those those words, that anger. Why I, a performer, am constantly surprised to learn that performances are just that, is beyond me.)

This new double CD is that same energy, on the big stage at Carnegie Hall. A few jokes about getting old, the oddness of candy corn, and then a lot of politics. New Orleans, Gay Marriage, Terry Schiavo, and a long story about his performing at the Congressional Correspondents Dinner. Black is so mad about so much of it, that he doesn't even make jokes out of some of it:

How come when Christians interpret the Bible and shit like [Katrina] happens, it is not seen as some sort of retribution? That's what God did in the Old Testament. You fucked up, he kicked your ass. But they never see it as that, it's always huh, oh. There's a joke there, but I don't know what it is.

Though I was relived the second time he said there was no joke and he then proceeded to make one.

And then he said the President's handlers wanted to know what I was going to say in order to be sure that the President could handle it. [long pause] That's the joke. It's the punchline, really, but I've not been able to think of a set up. It's one of the greatest punchlines I've ever said and nobody ever laughs, they just stare, into space. That is the joke. I'd like to come up with a context for that joke to make sense, be a joke, and a ha-ha-ha joke. Because I know it's a joke, and I can't. Because everytime I say the sentence it's like when you have ice cream in the summer and you take a big bite and your head freezes. And a tear comes out of your eye. And there are no thoughts inside it. The President has handlers. The President of the greatest country on earth has handlers. The man who said to the terrorists, "Bring it the fuck on," needs handlers. Is there something I don't know? Is he like a bear? Bears need handlers. Maybe that's it. He's like a big bear and they need a chunk of meat and they take it, "C'mon, follow us, got a meeting." And then two guys with prods go, "No, over there, there's the door. There's the door big fella."

Sometimes he's so flabbergasted that he can only repeat himself, trying to drive his point home in our brain.

Whether you agree with Fox or not, it's like all the other channels. They're meaningless. Why? 'Cause there's that thing. They have writing on the bottom. They have writing on the bottom. They have writing on the bottom of the screen. They have writing on the bottom of the screen.

Shaun really likes Lewis Black and I asked him why. "Because he's so angry." Then you'll like this album, Shaun.

P.S. About the Double CDness of the album-- it's a total of 86 minutes spread over those two CDs. Couldn't a bit have been trimmed here and there and then an uncut DVD included? Because the DVD would have... the hands. Lewis Black's hands nearly have a life of their own, with the pointing and the jabbing. A few times during the album I felt like there was a laugh out of nowhere, and then I'd think, "I bet his hands just did something really funny."

Lewis Black
The Carnegie Hall Performance
Comedy Central Records

We saw a play last night that was an adaptation of a novel for the stage. Evidently, whoever did the adaptation was so in love with the words of the novel that they didn't want to cut a single one. The show was 2 1/2 hours, and it was only crammed into that short of a time because the lead actress said all of her lines very quickly. In a period accent. Which meant you couldn't understand her. Sigh.

The show did, however, lead us to seek out* Clueless, a rather different sort of adaptation. Amy Heckerling (director of Fast Times at Ridgemont High) set Jane Austin's Emma in a Beverly Hills high school. Some of the humor is dated and some of the pop-culture parody is a little broad ("Trevor Birkenstock"?). And some of the most egregious slang weighed heavy in the actor's mouths, even when it was timely. But the mapping of rigid Victorian England class distinctions to high school cliques is pitch-perfect. And the fundamental story is so sweet, and presented with such good-heartedness it's impossible not to be won-over by Alicia Silverstone's Cher. And, perhaps most astonishingly, Heckerling doesn't seem to feel any need to try and 'fix' Austin's story, which feels nearly unprecedented for modern filmmaking.

* And I do mean seek. Last night we stopped at two different Blockbusters to see if they had a copy for sale (neither was in our neighborhood, so we didn't want to rent from them) and today we signed up at our local Video Town just to rent their VHS copy. Be kind, rewind.

Erica and I went to see Demetri Martin's sold out "These are Jokes" show at the Lakeshore Theater on Saturday night. The show was being recorded for a Comedy Central Records release, which continues to be one of my fascinations with standup recordings -- he was doing four shows and just, you know, trusting that out of those four shows he'd get a good album. Madness.

The aforementioned jokes were, indeed, funny. Demetri just tells jokes, none of which are longer than 3 or 4 sentences, so it was nice that he varied the evening up by setting some of the jokes to a drum-machine and glockenspiel backing, others to guitar noodlings, and yet another set to a waltz with Will Forte on backing vocals.

Leo Allen opened up for Demetri and I thought he looked familiar -- a quick Google this afternoon revealed that I'd seen the Comedy Central Presents of his comedy duo Slovin and Allen. Also funny stuff -- I'd like to see more of him.

And if you weren't sure we're in the 21st Century yet -- at the end of the show Demetri came back out onto stage and told us that his flight back to New York had been canceled and so he'd be in town on Sunday to do an in-store or signing somewhere -- and that to find out where, we should check his MySpace page.

...

Erica had to leave the show early to go do KOKO at The Playground. Unfortunately, when she got there she discovered that the heat was out and the show ended up being canceled. Double-boo. And that meant that the Don't Spit the Water show was canceled as well, which means the world missed the debut of Clockwatcher Samson. I even bought a new wrestling mask at Chicago Comics and everything. Triple-boo.

(New Chicago Metroblogger Nicolette was at the later Demetri Martin show -- I noticed the drunk guys she talks about when I was on my way out.)

I've had a long, complicated relationship with stand-up comedy. In my childhood, stand-up albums by Bill Cosby and George Carlin were part of my early exposure to comedy that led to my wanting to get into the field in the first place. But in the early 90s as I began to discover improv, my enthusiasm became somewhat militant. Combined with some lousy personal encounters with jerk-faces who happened to be stand-ups, and I decided to write off the whole genre. Improvisors were making art, I thought, stand-ups were just telling jokes.

Well, the years have passed, and I've matured a little and I've come to two realizations. For one, I made a conscious decision to reach out to other theatrical disciplines for techniques and inspiration that I could bring back to my improv (I should tell y'all the contact improv story) and in that light, performers like John Leguizamo made me realize that there was a blurry line between some stand-up and something I'd call Solo Performance. And also, I've mellowed-out some and decided that there's nothing wrong with a joke every now and then.

So Bill Hicks, and then Patton Oswalt, and then Mitch Hedberg, and and then all the Chicago Underground Comedy comics who come play at Don't Spit the Water have been leading me into stand-up more and more. And with my usual collector's obsession, I've been acquiring comedy albums like there's no tomorrow. And so when some comedy CDs showed up in my mailbox "for review" I thought, "Well, I have a keyboard and opinions..." So...

Daniel Tosh, True Stories I Made Up (Comedy Central Records)

I had never heard of Daniel Tosh before this album came to me, but he's on my list now: this album is funny.

Daniel (is that too familiar? Mr. Tosh?) tells jokes. Not "knock knock" or "my wife is so fat," jokes, but not personal monologues or true-ish stories, either -- the title of the album is accurate, these are Stories that he's Made Up.

I don't do segues, get used to that. A lot of comics do: "I was at the mall last week..." No, you weren't. Do your joke.

The topics covered are the usual free-range of the modern comic: sports and plastic surgery, the benefits of lying and the difficulties of explaining a nightmare to someone else. But it's not the topic, it's the flights of fancy inspired by the topic.

I don't like to do jokes about stereotypes, but we all know basketball players can't swim very well.

Oh, and it's his delivery, too. Daniel deliveries all the jokes with an astonishing confidence, and in fact is kind of mean. The meanness was really interesting to me -- in one bit he's calling any women in the audience who've had plastic surgery "whores". A few minutes later, he's talking about his girlfriend's breast implants. It's a Made Up meanness.

But Hollywood, on their moral high-horse, they won't make a movie about a retarded chimp. Unless, of course, you count a Vin Diesel movie.

The CD comes with a DVD of a half-hour Comedy Central Presents special (well, 20 minutes, sans commercials), which is a great new development in stand-up CDs. So much of comedy is visual and it enhances the CD to be able to visual his expressions, even with a largely verbal comedian like Daniel Tosh.

Daniel Tosh, True Stories I Made Up, gets a FuzzyCo "yeah, that's good."

Hey, you can win a copy of True Stories I Made Up from my other website -- The New Improv Page.