• Whatever happened to Jennifer Capriati? The story is a year old now, but it’s the best I could find.
• The problem with radical compression on CDs in the music industry has hit a new low now:  the new Metallica album sounds better in Guitar Hero than on CD, due to compression issues.
• Typography can be funny, too.
• What’s the difference between film and digital photography?  Here’s one test that shows you. Interesting.
• If modern video games were made for the Atari 2600, here’s what the box art would look like.

Groucho Marx was a genius of comedy.  This weekend, I found a recording of his legendary concert at Carnegie Hall from 1972.  Called “An Evening with Groucho,” it’s not in print on CD.  It is, however, available as a free download through Archive.org. The internet is a beautiful place, isn’t it?

And here’s something else I just learned via Wikipedia.  Groucho and Elton John were friends:

He met and befriended Elton John when the British singer was staying in California in 1972, insisting on calling him “John Elton” because “Elton John” was the wrong way around. According to writer Philip Norman, Groucho jokingly pointed his index fingers at Elton John as if holding a pair of six-shooters. Elton John put up his hands and said, “Don’t shoot me, I’m only the piano player,” so naming the album he had just completed. Elton John accompanied Groucho and the family hosting him in California to a performance of Jesus Christ Superstar, where Groucho offered two witticisms. As the lights went down in the theater, Groucho called out, “Does it have a happy ending?” During the Crucifixion scene, he declared, “This is sure to offend the Jews.”

Aren’t we do for a new “Fountains of Wayne” album in the next year?  It feels like it’s time.  At least now we have a hint of what they’ve been up to lately.  They’ve been writing the music for a holiday special that seems like a “Muppets Christmas” starring Stephen Colbert. Just without the puppetry.

Crazy world, innit?  Elvis Costello and Willie Nelson will appear, which makes for at least two artists who’ve been around as long as the Muppets.

Better late than never to post today. . .

• Anyone download Google Chrome yet?  I’m curious, but I’m a devoted Mac user without Parallels running.  Looks cool. The web browser is due for a paradigm shift, as much as I love Firefox and all its wonderful plug-ins.

• How Chrome came to be: First article.  Second article.

• Some classic 80s music videos, including “Sledgehammer” and “Take On Me.”

• iPhone document scanner set-up.  Pretty cool.

• Have you seen the first Jerry Seinfeld/Bill Gates commercial?  It’s awful.  Pointless.  Lacking in the humor department.  Bad.

• XKCD: Contentment at Protest

• First, Steven Page gets a drug bust.  Now, Ed Robertson crashes his plane.  (Ed was piloting; he and his passengers walked away.)  It’s been a bad month for The Barenaked Ladies.

• Clu Clu Land!  Clu Clu Land!  Clu Clu Land!  I demand the Virtual Console release of it, NOW!

• The greatest Firefox plug-in ever: It removes the crap comments from under any YouTube video. The Before/After pic is not just funny, but about the most damning thing on Internet discourse ever.

• No free dinners at Google anymore. Maybe you people should go home to your families, instead!

• The “Boom Goes the Dynamite” kid is back!

• A pretty cool First Person Shooter for the Wii is coming?

I liked the first album.  The second album was a little shaky.  Now, five years later (!) we’re going to see if the third time’s the charm.

The Return of Dido – Yahoo! News

The British balladeer will finally release her third album, Safe Trip Home, on Nov. 4, it was announced today [Friday].

Even better, starting today she’s giving away one of the album’s tracks, “Look No Further,” for free at www.didomusic.com.

And, yes, I do own the concert video pictured to the right.  Haven’t watched it in years, though.

Update: Sadly, the song’s not very substantial, or very good.

Because our good friend, Trip, didn’t know anything about O.A.R., here’s a quick on-line guide:

• The O.A.R. Home Page (ofarevolution.com) – Autoplays the new single’s video.  Used to have all the original albums archived for your listening pleasure, but doesn’t appear to after this redesign.

• The Official O.A.R. Message Board – Yes, the band members do infrequently post there.

• Free Concert Downloads – O.A.R. has always encouraged the recording and free sharing of recordings of their concerts. (They’re not allowing soundboard recordings anymore, though, for reasons which strike me as “just an easier excuse to make than the real reason.”) There are hundreds of concerts for download at Archive.org.  It’s been a while since I downloaded one. Might be time again. . .

• My First Mention of O.A.R. -  I reviewed the band for the first time almost five years ago now. They’ve become much bigger since then.

• Set List Archives – Fascinating fan site.  It lists all their concerts and the set lists for each.  Plus, users can log in and check off the concerts they’ve been to, find out which songs they’ve heard live the most, etc. Here’s the first O.A.R. concert I went to, with Howie Day opening and flipping off the fans.

• The O.A.R. Wikipedia page – With more info and plenty of links.

O.A.R.’s “All Sides,” available now

I just downloaded it through Amazon’s MP3 store. Can’t wait to give it a proper listen.

Am also not ashamed to admit that an awful lot of Pepsi points made this album free for me.

A proper review will no doubt follow in the week ahead. . .

• The new O.A.R. single, “Shattered,” has a music video up on MSN.  The first thing I noticed is that they used a LensBaby to make the video.  That was confirmed by their YouTube “Making Of” video.

• The complete Guitar Hero: Aerosmith track list.

• Guitar Hero: The Beatles?  Maybe.  I doubt it, but it would be cool.

• The Simpsons map for Quake III.  (YouTube video at the link.)

• The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries are coming to DVD, too!  That was an overlooked gem. Beautiful TMS animation, too.

This is the “deluxe” edition of the album, which has a few extra tracks.  If you just want to download the MP3s, click through and you can find those a little further down the Amazon page.  It’s likely how I’ll be listening to the album.  The Amazon MP3 store rules.

First:

“Idol” Singer Diagnosed With Cancer, Luke Menard Hopeful About Battle With Hodgkin Lymphoma

Handsome “American Idol” finalist Luke Menard has been diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma, a representative for the singer’s a capella group Chapter 6 confirmed.

Also:

Daughter of Steven Curtis Chapman Accidentally Killed By Son

The five-year-old daughter of American Christian music star Steven Curtis Chapman has been struck and killed by a sport-utility vehicle driven by her brother. [...] McPherson says several members of the Chapman family witnessed the accident.

I think I just want to hide in a hole for the rest of the day now.

Barenaked Ladies’ children’s album is out in stores today:

It should be noted that O.A.R. has a new album coming out. It’s called “All Sides.”

It “streets” on July 15th, but you can hear a new song or two on their MySpace page, linked above, plus the full track listing. I only see three songs that are concert staples.  Looks like we’re getting lots of new cuts.

It all started with this Metafile post.

First, the necessary background comes from Wikipedia. To put it simply, Victor Borge was a musical genius with a wicked comedy streak running through him. He combined the two to give us some of the funniest comedy routines of the 20th century.

Need proof? The all-time classic is “Inflationary Language.” The next time you refer to someone as having a “fivehead,” think back to this routine for the natural evolution of such tomfoolery.

It’s “Phonetic Punctuation,” though, that’s often the best remembered, as Borge explains his system to say punctuation marks out loud. When he reads the story using this system, it leaves the audience in hysterics.

You can find both of those routines and a lot more on the “Victor Borge Live!” album. It’s available for immediate download via iTunes and Amazon’s MP3 music store (both for just under $6).

The Victor Borge Birthday Gala DVD is also in stock today if you want to see the genius.

There is, of course, VictorBorge.com. It looks like a fan site that was run for about two days before the curator got bored and moved on.

And here’s something even I didn’t know about the man: 60-MINUTE GOURMET – New York Times

I was fascinated to read recently how Cornish hens were popularized in this country. In the 1950′s, Victor Borge, the pianist and comedian, raised the birds on a farm he owned in Connecticut and sold them dressed and ready for the oven. They are a cross between an American fowl, the Plymouth Rock hen, and a Cornish or Bantam rooster or small gamecock.

Borge was a genius in so many ways.

The Stranger might just be Billy Joel’s most successful album, both critically and commercially. It won him a Grammy, and many of the songs you know him best for came off that album — “Movin’ Out,” “Just The Way You Are,” “The Stranger,” “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant,” “Only The Good Die Young,” “She’s Always a Woman” amongst them. “Vienna” has become a favorite in concert in recent years, too.

Phil Ramone has remastered the album and there are two editions available of it now for pre-order. The first is a two CD set. The first disc is the remastered album. The second is a Carnegie Hall concert recording from just before the release of the CD.

The second release is a deluxe edition that comes with both of those CDs, another CD recording of a concert from that time, a DVD of BBC’s “Old Grey Whistle” recording from the time (I think I have an audio bootleg of this somewhere), and a 48 page booklet featuring pics from a photo shot from the album and liner notes from a Rolling Stone Magazine editor. That “Old Grey Whistle” video includes favorites like “Ain’t No Crime” and “Root Beer Rag,” which is an incredible little piano ditty that you’ve likely never seen before.

It’s $40 for the latter, $17 for the former at Amazon for pre-order today.

Billy Joel will be appearing on Oprah Monday for the first time to promote it.

I am very excited. This is a great case of an edition you don’t want to just download off Amazon or iTunes.