It's dictionaraoke time (again)!

Back in the 80s, I used to own a borderline-unlistenable recording of Rock Around the Clock, painstakingly voice-synthesised with a Vocoder by some short-lived group or other (Telex, I think).

Twenty years later, most online dictionaries could read words to you, and apparently "dictionaraoke" was a passing fad a couple of years ago (don't know about you, but I missed it at the time). Here's my favourite: I Got You Babe, rendered as a touching duet between Encarta and the Merriam-Webster dictionary.

But now we have Tom Baker reading our SMSes, and dictionaraoke is back. Here's the man himself, singing Video Killed The Radio Star...

(via b3ta.com)

Vote Early, Vote Often

Just a reminder that Hugo nominations (for those who went to Interaction) are still open. You can even vote online at LA Con IV.

Why am I reminding you? Here's a hint...

Walk the Line

After all the good notices in the papers, not to mention a BAFTA for Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line seemed like required viewing for me. After all, I grew up listening to my parents' Johnny Cash records, so the music alone would make it worth the price of entry. (I also grew up with their albums of Lonnie Donegan, Russ Conway, the Spinners and other such. Honestly, it's a wonder I have any musical taste at all. No, don't say it, I know.)

It's a good film, in that "just-five-percent-better-than-I-expected" way that some films manage. Unlikely to set the world alight, but it's an compelling enough story if you're in the mood for a heartwarming tale of love conquering all. Witherspoon acts up a storm, and Joaquin Phoenix makes a convincing Cash: handsome and sweaty and drunk and druggy and overwhelmingly charismatic. (Compare Val Kilmer in The Doors: halfway through I was willing Jim Morrison to just shut up and die already, dammit.)

You can have too much of a good thing, though. The soundtrack album really is the soundtrack of the film - Johnny Cash as sung by Joaquin Phoenix. Why?