Here are two decent web services that you can use to rip the audio out of any Youtube video, and save it as an .mp3

Vixy.net

I found the first one, Vixy [ http://vixy.net/ ], over a year ago.  Generally it helped me when I wanted to grab a rare, b-side or unpublished song.  It seems these days it’s easier to find live than recorded work on Youtube, but this tool works like a charm.  They offer a Mac and Windows client to do the same from your own computer, but I always found the expiration dates annoying, and tend to prefer the web interface these days.  On the plus side, you can also rip the video if you want, in various formats.  Our second link is audio only.

Listentoyoutube.com

My girlfriend turned me on to this site: http://www.listentoyoutube.com/ which rips the audio at blazing speeds, and downloads nearly instantly.  I’d be curious to find out what they are doing so differently from Vixy to speed up the service.  If you just want a quick .mp3 of a song (or any video for that matter) you saw on Youtube, input the url at this site, and it will be done nearly instantly.

(By the way, I’m trying my 3rd post using WordPress post-by-email, it seems they don’t let my free account auto-include images by attaching them to the emails)

Jack Black, Mos Def, and Danny Glover drive Be Kind Rewind (IMDB link opens in new window) through its fantastical and often times nearly horrible plot with all the finesse of a surgeon using a hammer as a scalpel. Fortunately, that is just what the story calls for.

Be Kind Rewind Movie Art

The entire film plays as an advertisement for DIY film making. A call back to early Lucas, or early childhood. The lo-fi special effects solutions leave you mouth agape from the sheer creativity of it all. Clearly Jack Black is not actually falling off of a sky scraper, but who would have thought to put him on his back, spinning on a lazy Suzanne, over a tiny town kids room play rug to achieve the effect.

The basic plot revolves around a desperate attempt to save a local VHS only rental store, about to be reclaimed by a city beautification project. When every video in the store gets erased from a “strange magnetic field” (it’s ok to call Jack Black strange, right?), the two shop keepers, Jack Black and Mos Def, resort to re-filming each of the video titles, one by one, to the growing amusement and interest of their neighborhood.

The bubbling, at times playful, at times insane energy of this movie left me laughing uproariously throughout nearly the entire film, although in the end, what I appreciated the most was how it left me with an urge to create.  It was a nostalgic throwback to watching the A-Team or, much earlier, the Muppet Babies.

One thing I particularly enjoyed was how the movie, for the first time, painted the beloved VHS camera and cassette of my youth as an underground “true art” tool.  When I was younger, I got my hands on an old 8mm and love the idea that DVD’s ugly uncle (VHS) could hold that sort of cachet for new generations of old media-culture junkies.

In eBay speak: “Recomend Seller A+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++”

I recently bought a decent knife. And a little more recently, the same knife started to lose it’s magic.

I tend to cook a bit, since I now live in a place with fresh veg and fruit on every corner, as well as, arguably, the best beef in the world. After suffering with a cheap-o knife for some time, I picked up a standard, sharpen-able piece and the standard striated steel sharpening utensil, but still found myself at a loss on how to do it.

A quick search turned up a great video, link below.

http://www.videojug.com/film/sharpening-a-knife-with-a-steel

(note: the only method to embed video from this site seems to be in beta here at WordPress, so the link will suffice for now)

The fellow in the video kindly informed me that my knife is probably a bit beyond help, since I waited too long to begin sharpening it. It seems that normal use doubles over the edge of the steel, and in order to correct this, a quick sharpen is called for directly before each use. There is a sterner method of sharpening, using stones, which is actually a normal part of overall knife maintenance, but I don’t yet have that equipment at home.

The same author presents advice on choosing a steel to purchase and use here:

http://www.videojug.com/film/choosing-a-steel-for-sharpening-a-knife

Update July 28, 2008:
Since my the above post, I’ve manged to create some muscle memory regarding the technique described in the video, and have surprised myself with how well I can sharpen a knife using my striated steel.  The ability to sharpen a knife with steel has eluded me my whole life, until now.  Also, I understand more, now, about the need for a stone for occasional, deeper sharpening.  The smaller knife I own is a bit older and I purchased long before I understood anything about maintenance.  This one has some nicks in the blade, which have cause the steel to double over, and the striated steel can never get this out.  In fact, the knife, at this point, damages the steel.  I will have to find a purchase a grinding stone!

So I finished my free trial period of Musimundos video delivery service. I regret to say that I chose not to continue the plan. The problem is not the cost of the plan (I chose the $39.90 per month plan) since I regularly spend more than that on videos between the local Blockbuster and another one-shot local video rental shop.

The issues, for me, were exactly those I feared. Since the delivery and pickup of DVDs relies on Musimundo uniformed personal meeting you at the door, if you aren’t home when they come, you have missed an opportunity to return your DVDs. I suppose that they try a second time in a day, but they never seem to come outside of the hours I work.

This was frustrating for us, and in 15 days we managed only to get 4 DVDs. That is, 2 DVDs the first trip, and 2 DVDs for a second trip. In fact, we have now had a cancelled plan for over a week, and they haven’t picked up the second 2 DVDs yet.

Even if the pickup had not been a problem for us (for example, if someone in our apartment was home normally during the day, or if Musimundo expanded their delivery hours), there is still a minor irritation that inhibits the flow of movies. In order to switch out your watched DVDs for new ones, you have to return both. To be clear, there is only one button on the website to press in order to return them, you cannot select just one or the other. Perhaps if they come with 2 new ones, you can choose to give them only the one, but I doubt it is considered standard practice, since you receive an email telling you the titles of the DVDs on the way before you get them. If you refused one at time of delivery, it may confuse your queue on the site, eliminating the movie from your list without having been seen.

Netflix, by comparison, which uses the mail system, allows you to return a DVD as soon as you have finished it, so you can always have one in transit, or you could keep one DVD for the entire month while switching out the other. I don’t mean to draw an unfair comparison between two different services in two different countries, but for me, the amount of delay caused by having to return all of your DVDs or none devalues an unlimited type plan.

After writing all of these negative comments, I want to be clear that I like the idea of this service, and I think that if they directly addressed the issues of delivery times and all-or-nothing returns, I would try this service again. There is something nice about having DVDs brought to you, and the ritual of choosing titles and organizing them in a list can help to make wiser movie choices, as well as to avoid the frustrating and desperate meandering around Blockbuster which inevitably leads to you buying a bag of M&Ms and walking out movie-less.

http://www.musimundovideoclub.com

I recently tried a home delivery DVD service available in Buenos Aires, similar to Netflix in the states. The service is provided by Musimundo, a popular corporate chain of stores which sell music, movies and consumer electronics. My initial impressions have been positive.

I was first struck with a concern over having DVDs sent by mail. Mail in Buenos Aires tends to be less than 100% reliable and I regularly receive final notices for bills well past the expiration date. On top of that I’ve never tried to send a letter to be mailed out and was racking my brain on where I would drop the dvds.

All of these concerns were answered when the first DVDs arrived. Following the well accepted tradition of home delivery here, Musimundo actually sends uniformed agents to deliver your movies. On second thought, this is not surprising, considering that Blockbuster will let you order by phone for home delivery. For that matter, you can order ice cream, vegetables and fruits, anything in a grocery store and even Macdonald’s here in Buenos Aires (although, to be clear, not with Musimundo’s delivery service).

Considering that someone has to come to your house to deliver, I was concerned about returning the DVDs. It turns out that they handle this summarily with the delivery. When you are done watching your DVDs you just visit the website and look at your list of currently rented videos. Nearby, on the same screen, there is a button which allows you to “Devolver DVDs” or return the flicks and the uniformed army dispatches a fellow with your next selections and picks up your current picks.

Admittedly, this is an advance review, and I haven´t tried to return the DVDs yet. We were lucky with the first delivery as my girlfriend was working from home when they delivered the movies at 4pm. Normally, no one will be here at this time. I hope that they have some system for revisiting homes where no one answers the door the first time, otherwise a plan where you pay more for unlimited rentals will lose it’s appeal.

The plans advertised offer the following levels:

Abono Standard – $19.90
2 DVDs at a time / 4 total DVDs in one month

Abono Classic – $29.90
2 DVDs at a time / 8 total DVDs in one month

Abono Plus – $39.90
2 DVDs at a time / Unlimited DVDs

Abono Premium – $69.90
4 DVDs at a time / Unlimited DVDs

(all prices in pesos)

For all plans, there is currently a 15 day free trial period. You will have to enter credit card information, and they will do a test charge of one peso (standard system to check if the card is valid). You also have to choose one of the plans for your 15 day trial. After the 15 days, they will presumably charge the amount corresponding to the plan you select, but they claim you can cancel any time up to the end of the trial period.

I chose the Abono Plus, 2 DVDs at a time, as many as I can watch and return in the month period. I started my account on March 31st and my first movies arrived on April the first. They do warn you that you must select around 30 DVDs to place in your queue before they will send the first delivery.

For those not familiar with the Netflix model, which Musimundovideoclub.com uses, you create a list of movies that you want to rent. This becomes your queue of movies and when it is time to send you the next selection they will take the first movie on the list, if it is available. If not, they try for the second, and so on. If one was skipped, they will try again next time. You can modify your queue anytime, as long as the movies aren’t currently in transit.

(click image for larger view of screen shot)

They have a rating system built into their site. Pretty much anytime they display a movie, you can rate it quickly with a simple click which does not change your current page. They use these ratings to offer you some suggestions the next time you log in. This system of rating to get suggestions takes a bit of flak from people who don’t take the time to use it, as generally the suggestions improve as your rate more and more. For sure, there will be a few weeks where they are trying to offer you Care Bears cartoons when all you are looking for is an action and explosion flick, or vice versa.

The site provides some handy lists, such as the top 50 highest voted, top 50 most rented, newly added and also a link of upcoming movies, however the list of upcoming selections has not yet actually showed me anything. If you look at the detail of any video, they will give you useful information, such as rating, movie length and languages available for both the subtitles and the audio.

I’m not sure how old the service is, but it seems like they are still working out some kinks with their site. The pages have consistently loaded slowly, which may mean they have some database issues, or just some pokey servers hosting the service.

Time will tell if we chose a good plan. Specifically I want to see if their delivery service will keep up with an unlimited plan. If I can only manage to get 8 or 10 movies per month because of a delivery bottleneck, then there is no point paying an extra 10 pesos for an unlimited plan.

A couple minor criticisms include the awkwardly long web address ( www.musimundovideoclub.com ) and that their search and browse system was a bit difficult to use, although this can probably be attributed to the slow speed of the site in general.

This Monty Python clip pits the German philosophers versus the Greek philosophers in a football (read: soccer in the US) match.

With their usual tongue-in-cheek flair, the boys of the python troupe on of their most hilarious skits ever.

Enjoy!

I would understand if you found this less than funny the first time you watched it, but try to view it a second time. After you get the concept it’s actually hilarious.

The highlight, for me, is the first prank in the video. The protagonist of that section is truly the star of the whole clip.

I had to give this wizened woman her due with a link to this video of her singing and playing guitar on stage. As her voice croons out the raspy lyrics of the old tune “Freight Train” her yet nimble fingers pluck out the tinny melody on an acoustic guitar which sits on her lap like a slightly too old but loved grandchild.

Amazing to see, a gift to the sentimental and jazz lovers alike.

And if that isn’t doing it for you, enjoy the razor wit of a commenter who asked the apt if not sarcastic question: ” Was this by any chance the first blues song ever written?”.

This video parody pretty much speaks for itself, and ties in nicely with the Youtube and Star Wars themes which have developed on this blog.

By the way, if you still haven’t seen the funniest Star Wars parody video ever made – check check out the Star Wars special from the guys of Robot Chicken (Seth Green and Matt Senreich)

Enjoy : )

First one is a very scary video intended to teach youngsters how to treat their mothers. Thank you Mr. T. I think he has a cheat sheet for the 4 lines he says during the song. And I use the word “song” loosely.

Depending on the type of person you are, you will find prank calls made by geeks who know how to use a soundboard either very boring or hilarious. I fall into the latter category. This one uses Mr. T sound clips to talk to a increasingly frustrated tow truck company dispatch woman.