YouTube: Corey Vidal’s lip synch of Moosebutter’s “Star Wars”

Update – the video has been nominated for People’s Choice Awards – hop over to YouTube to watch!

Moosebutter’s Star Wars a capella (1999)
This a capella music piece is exhilarating for all hard-core fans of Star Wars and John Williams’ music. If you love both as most do, then you’ll experience a myriad of emotions just listening to the sound—especially if you were of the generation that queued for tickets in May 1977 to see the original (I did at the now defunct Odeon theatre). My imagination was captured long before opening day as a local radio station had been playing excerpts of the audio track daily and I had stitched those together on a casette tape to listen repeatedly to the dialogue, music and sound effects. By the time I go to the big screen, I knew the introductory parts by heart and sat back to enjoy the filling in of the images – and boy oh boy, were they out of this world, or what?

So that background allowed me to identify the scenes and characters associated with various phrases harmoniously hollered out by a really fun bunch of musicians.

Moosebutter is an a cappella group who pen crazy lyrics to popular music to produce what they call “therapeutic lunacy”. These talented musicians produce great sounds even over YouTube and of this piece, they say,

“Star Wars” is “based on music by John Williams, words from the original Star Wars trilogy by George Lucas. Arranged by J.S. Slagowski and Bryant W. Smith, adapted by Tim Y. Jones. This performance premiered on 19th May 1999 – the very night that Episode 1: The Phantom Menace opened in the United States.”

Thus the song ends with the exhortation to “go go go to the movies”!

Star Wars Episode I: Phantom Menace (1999)
In 1999, I was at the midnight premier of Phantom Menace at GV Marina. It was not exactly a mainstream location then but even there, the atmosphere of anticipation was electric. I was surrounded by very passionate fans who had waited 16 years for Star Wars Episode I—so much so they broke out in cheers when the trumpet sounded and first bright words scrolled forward and away…

Just as enthusiastically, they shushed themselves in jovial camaraderie and the atmosphere remained intense throughout the movie. As a result, the emotional intensity of each dramatic scene was heightened considerably! Irritation over Jar Jar Binks never surfaced as it was elbowed aside by the intense feelings of that night. Truly a unique experience!

Had this YouTube video been screened that night of the Phantom Menace, the audience would certainly have burst out in wild cheering!

But no one had heard of Moosebutter then…

Corey Vidal’s a capella lip synch video (2008)
Close to a decade after the Moosebutter premier on 27th October 2008, Canadian YouTube Partner Corey Vidal posted a lip sync of all four parts of the a capella stitched together into a single frame. This was done with Moosebutter’s support and help (read Vidal’s YouTube sidebar) and Moosebutter says, “More people saw it on the internet than probably ever saw any of our other videos…”

Double-click to hop over to YouTube and watch/listen to the high quality version.

The clip is the reason for this effusive and reminiscent post and is on its way to becoming a YouTube phenomenon with more than 2.5 million hits already. Everyone I have enthusiastically showed it to have enjoyed it with glee.

I just paypal-ed for Moosebutter’s two CDS, at only US$10 each. So perhaps they might get some boost from the old faithful, we’ll see.

Fans will have some fun reminiscing the scenes from which the statements originate. E.g. “let the Wookie win” is from Han Solo advising C3PO not to argue with Chewbacca over him cheating on the holographic chess game as they make their way to Alderaan. I think fans will be seeing the images in their mind.

Another amusing bit is the irreverent treatment of Star Wars’ colourless (upon reflection many years later) protagonist, Luke Skywalker. As we rewatched the epic, many of us grew weary at his moaning and whining and Moosebutter takes him to task rather mercilessly. Vidal doesn’t miss a beat with his facial expressions! It’s truly priceless—you just have to make sure you watch the right head!

If you aren’t a hard core Star Wars or John Williams fan, the “Star Wars” John Williams tribute is fun to watch and lovely to listen to in its own right. Vidal’s four faces and the timing is fascinating. I know my students are struggling with exams right now and I’m buried in marking, but take a break and watch this—just telling a friend about this over the phone just now raised her spirits!

Lyrics

[Close Encounters of the Droid Kind]
You must use the force (repeat ad nauseum)

[Raiders of the Lost Wookiee]
Long time ago, far far away (repeat)

Kiss a wookie, kick a droid
Fly the falcon through an asteroid
Till the princess is annoyed
This is spaceships, it’s monsters, it’s Star Wars, we love it!

Come and help me, Obi Wan
X-wing fighter and a blaster gun
Dance with Ewoks, oh what fun!
This is spaceships, it’s monsters, it’s Star Wars, we love it!

[Super Han]
Get in there you big, furry oaf
I couldn’t care less what you smell
I take orders from only me
Maybe you’d like it back in your cell
Your Highness, your worshipfulness, your highness, your worshipfulness

No one cares if you upset a droid
(nobody cares if you upset a droid)
That’s because droids don’t tear your arms out of socket.
(nobody cares)
I suggest a new strategy: let the Wookie win
That’s because nobody cares if you upset a droid.

[ET the DiscoTerrestrial]
Now we listen to Luke whining:
One more season… One more season… One more season… One more season…

I was gonna go to Tashi Station for power converters
Now I guess I’m going nowhere.
It just isn’t fair.

[Jaws: the Wookiee]
Wooookie (repeat)

Someone move this walking carpet (repeat)

Kiss your brother, Kiss your brother (repeat)

Princess Leia
Well I guess you don’t know anything about women.

Who’s your daddy? (repeat)

[Jurassic Darth]
Luke, I’m your father
(That’s not true!)
It is useless to resist
(My hand!)
Come with me my son, We will rule
(I’ll never join you!)
Search your feelings it is true

So you have a twin sister
Who Obi Wan was wise to hide
(Is that Leia?)
If you will not turn
Then perhaps she will
Give in to your hate
You are mine

Long Long Long Time ago… Far Far Far Far Away

Long Long Long Time Ago, Far Far Far Away (repeat)

Kiss a wookie
Kick a droid
Fly the falcon
Through an asteroid
Till the princess is annoyed
(She’s annoyed!)
This is spaceships, it’s monsters, it’s Star Wars, we love it, it’s true

Episode 3
Coming to you
In 2005

So Let’s go
(go go go to the movies)
Stand in line
(buy buy buy me some popcorn)
Cause it’s al-
(please I’d like extra butter)
most the time
(Join the dark side…)
May the Force be with you all

John Williams is the man

Cats on flickr

Wake me up when it’s over

By Simply Fearless Cassandra Rae

gotcha

By ambur d.

Tim

By gittingsc- reminds me of Tiger

Sandy Cat

By Cam Switzer – reminds me of Xylo

King of Mangroves D H “Paddy” Murphy

During the launch of the new, picturesque mangrove book, mangrove-expert at large and teacher of generations of biology undergraduates including all of us,  D H "Paddy" Murphy was crowned with a ring of mangrove leaves. Unfortunately I missed the whole event as I was running the first year biodiversity exam but Raffles Museum News has some photo highlights: http://tinyurl.com/6yauxc

Posted by email from otterman’s posterous

Also at Sungei Buloh on the 15th Anniversary weekend – 2 Days of Shutterspeed Action with Nature

Besides our gig, there will be several booths, talks and demonstrations on at Sungei Buloh Wetlands Reserve on the weekend of 6th and 7th December 2008, in celebration of the park’s 15th anniversary.

Here’s one by the flickr group – it came to me through my Yahoo Singapore userid:

Originally posted by email from otterman’s posterous

Etherpad, a collaborative, online plain text editor

Update (04 Dec 2009): Google acquires AppJet; EtherPad team joins Google Wave – link. Early user Prasanna says he is “maintaining and hosting it here: http://www.ietherpad.com“

I tested out EtherPad, a browser-based simultaneous collaborative online plain text editor that Kevin Lim just bookmarked on delicious—as a result I got plaxo-growled and twittered as well.

1. Just click to start using etherpad and a window opens.
2. It does not require userids to start writing collaboratively.
3. You chose the name and colour which identifies you on the right sidebar.
4. The “highlight who typed what”is turnd on by default, as is “wrap long lines” and “show line numbers”.

I wish it had a advance to next word function, cmd-arrow goes to start/end, option and control does nothing. There is forum to submit feature requests so that’s where to ask.

A long time ago, I used CodingMonkey’s SubethaEdit, a collaborative Bonojur text editor that included your iChat ID on the side. That is a very cool application with a very nice mac interface and did not require an internet connection. SubEthaEdit went from free to £29 to support development—even with the 45% discount for educators, it’s too steep for infrequent users like myself. Pity, since Macusers are all over campus now.

Then in 2006, Writely saved the day – and soon after I started using it, it became Google Docs. A Google login is required but most have a gmail account thse days. It delivers rich text, downloads to Word and sharing is easy, even publishing to a webpage! And has an office suite of browser apps to go with it, so that’s easily the collaborative document writer of choice.

EtherPad’s absence of login requirements makes it ideal for quick collaborative use. There are issues though:

1. There is no security, so be warned! No confidential stuff online here!
2. You must save revisions (no auto-save).
3. Network conection can be iffy at times.
4. Downloading to text is cut and paste.

I’ll keep an eye on this and other tools like Gobby that are out there, as it’s always good to know about alternatives. EtherPad promises updates to features (see their forums) and if it improves as quickly and as pre-emptively as Posterous did, it might stand a chance of bring the collaborative text editing tool of choice.

Passabe (2006) and Aki Ra’s Boys (2007) @ Sinema Old School

Passabe (2006)
Directors: James Leong, Lynn Lee

Screening times at Sinema Old School:
27 & 29 Nov 2008: 8:00; 30 Nov 2008: 2:30 pm

“They came from Passabe. They came from Imbate. They came from Oesilo. They came from Oecussi.
They came firing their guns. How could we fight them? With stones?”

“The Remote Village of Passabe lies on the precarious border between East and West Timor. It is a battle-scarred community with a horrific past. In the run up to the vote for independence in 1999, Passabe was a base for hundreds of pro-Indonesian militiamen who participated in a rampage of violence that climaxed in a bloody massacre.

Five years on, one man publicly owns up to his role in the massacre, an explosive move that exposes him to persecution on both sides. Shot over a year, this film documents a quest for forgiveness and redemption, and hopefully, reconciliation.”

Aki Ra’s Boys (2007)
Directors: James Leong, Lynn Lee

Screening times at Sinema Old School: 23 Nov 2008: 10:15 pm

“Boreak was six when he lost his right arm in a landmine accident. Family members rushed the young Cambodian to a nearby hospital where so-called “doctors” performed a crude amputation. Burdened with eight other children to feed and unable to cope with the stress of handling a crippled son, Boreak’s parents decided to send him to a home in Siem Reap for young landmine victims.

Aki Ra’s Boys offers a unique insight into the effect that a devastating weapon – the land mine – has on its victims and survivors, both during battle and in the long years that follow.”

Singapore Postal Codes on Google Maps

SinGeo alerted us that Singapore postal codes are now supported on Google Maps.

I tried “singapore 119077” – NUS’ address since its right next to my department and here is what I got:

Some other addresses were slightly off. Try it out yourself and report your results to SinGeo.

This use of postal codes is a great new shortcut—I can myself requesting friends to include postal codes in addresses they send me; previously it was moot. Now in NUS, the mail does not come to our doorstep nut is processed centrally so I think our department’s postal code is not listed in the Singapore Post directory – 117543 but that draws a blank.

Luckily we’re just next door to University Hall which 119077 zeroes in to, and its where we direct many visitors to as the location of the most important thing (Spinelli’s). You will also see my user-generated map listed in the sidebar. So 19077 is a number I am going to remember from now on.

Of course the big problem we have to sort out with Google is that Science Drives 3 and 4 are incorrectly labelled!

p.s. Gothere trumps Google Maps – e.g. see http://gothere.sg/directions#119077: – all you have to do is add your postal code at the end.

Bean – a free rich text editor for the Mac

I love text editors for their simplicity compared to word processors. Often I simply need to get that text down without the fuss and bother of something complex like Pages or Word. Text Editors are itsy-bitsy apps that fire up really quickly and almost never crash. So they are efficient, and still work well on really old or aging macs like my 12.1″ iBook from 2002.

My current text editor of choice is TextWrangler, a great free plain text editor from Bare Bones Software that coders use due to several features like syntax highlighting and writing to server files directly. It’s great for me to maintain Habitatnews and the many other webpages I manage. And without using webpage generating software. So I am quick in and out. If I need to tidy up, its a quick cut and paste into Pages or Word for formatting.

There have been times when I have wished for the bare bones Text Wrangler to have a little bit of functionality for my writing. Then I read about Bean (bean-osx.com ) in the recent edition of MacWorld.

Bean calls itself a rich text editor and is open source and free of charge as well. I’ll be taking Bean for a spin. It can export to html, pdf and doc formats, albeit with some limitations.

Bean may prove to be a boon for my writing needs. And I just love that coffee cup icon!

Two events coming up

Sungei Buloh Anniversary Walk and Pedal Ubin – for both see Habitatnews.

This was Pedal Ubin in June:

September, we called it Puddle Ubin. So no prizes for guessing if we’ll be expecting rain in December!

First issue of ‘Journal of Wetlands Ecology’ published

From: Gandhiv Kafle, Sub-editor, Journal of Wetlands Ecology.

The first issue of 'Journal of Wetlands Ecology' has been published. The current issue of the journal is available at the Journal website at http://journal.wetlandfriends.org/JOWE-September-2008.pdf

'Journal of Wetlands Ecology' is a half-yearly online journal of Wetland Friends of Nepal (WFN) dedicated to the exchange and dissemination of information related to wetland issues connecting wetlands, human and wildlife. The journal publishes peer-reviewed research papers, review papers, project papers, short notes, news and any relevant information related to wetland issues. This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. The journal can be accessed via its website http://journal.wetlandfriends.org.

This journal has been made possible with generous support from Toyota Environmental Activities Grant Program of Toyota Motor Corporation, Rufford Small Grants Foundation, SeaWorld and Busch Gardens Conservation Fund, British Ecological Society and Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium.

Contents of the current issue

1. Otters in Nepal: Urgent Need for Action 
2. Wonderful Wholesome Wetlands
3. Preliminary Survey and Awareness for Otter Conservation in Rupa Lake, Pokhara, Nepal
4. Seasonal Diversity and Population Status of Waterbirds in Phewa Lake, Pokhara, Nepal
5. Local People’s Perspective for Milky Stork: A Case from South Sumatra, Indonesia
6. Status of and Threats to Waterbirds of Rupa Lake, Pokhara, Nepal
7. Dunga Swamp and its Conservation in Kenya
8. High Altitude Wetlands as Ramsar Sites in Nepal: Status after Declaration
9. Community-based Biodiversity Conservation in Mid Hills of Nepal
10. Healthy Wetlands Healthy People Project
11. Inter and Intra- Organizational Collaborative and Consultative Program of Society of Wetland Scientists Asia Chapter

Posted by email from otterman’s posterous