the incredible beatallicas

the incredibles came out on dvd today. like a true fanboy i ran out during my lunchbreak to get it. i had already done some price comparisons online, so i knew that circuit city seemed to have the best price out of anyone: $14.99. but what i didn't realize until i was about ready to check out was that circuit city was also giving away free incredibles-branded mini-basketballs with purchase of the dvd! i suppose it makes sense: this is indiana, and march madness has begun. still, what a value... my nephew ian used to love those mini-basketballs, so maybe he'll get some enjoyment out of this one until he's old enough to actually watch the movie.

after circuit city i stopped at guitar center; i still needed to get more dual-1/4" cables for use with my new sound card. i got two 1-meter rca-to-dual-1/4" cables (i wanted longer, but 1m was the only length they had), a stereo/male-1/8"-to-dual-1/4", and a stereo/female-1/4"-to-dual-1/4". they totalled more than $25! i was sorely disappointed with the price. but i'd needed the damn cables for weeks, so i grudgingly completeted the transaction. finally, i should be able to use headphones again, as well as hook up my external cd burner.

i stopped by ckick-fil-a for lunch: the drive-thru was crazy long so i went in and got my food to-go. because naturally, the drive-thru line was long but there were hardly any customers in line inside. i got out with my food licketysplit, and the rather cute cashier even told me "it was a pleasure" to serve me! that's a bit of a change from typical fast food service.

on my way back to the office, i was listening to npr's "day to day" program, when suddenly they aired a segment on beatallica! i was totally surprised.

i haven't really blogged about the topic, under the assumption that many of my readers are probably already subscribed to snuggles, rumori, or some other forum that surely would've mentioned the story by now... but anyway:

beatallica (site currently down) is a cool cover band that mixes the songwriting of the beatles with the sound of metallica. seriously: the singer, who goes by jaymz, has james hetfield's voice just perfect. it's really uncanny. dr. david dixon (aka stark effect) is their "webmaster of puppets".

recently they received a cease and desist order from sony, alleging, what else?, copyright violation. never mind that parody is legally protected, as declared by the supreme court in the "2 live crew" case. the cease and desist actually came from the owners of the beatles' copyrights (not the beatles themselves, as they sold most of their rights away long ago), and not from metallica as you might think. in fact, metallica are on record as being huge beatallica fans, and according to the npr segment, lars ulrich actually put in a bunch of work trying to end the case so that beatallica.org can go back online.

word is that sony has agreed not to prosecute beatallica. but sony itself has not publicly made any such statement.

it was a good segment; there's a great quote from lars about how all ideas come from mashing up older ideas. and you can even listen to some beatallica music on the npr site (which is good because beatallica.org is still down!)