I’ve been a long time fan of this particular piece of music by composer Franz Liszt - and just out of the blue I looked it up today - on YouTube. Turns out, that I’m not the only one who can’t get the tune out of his head. Several hollywood productions, games and what not have adopted the piece to their background score and I (as usual) couldn’t resist posting the videos.

The Cat Concerto

Probably the most well known adaptation is “The Cat Concerto”, the 29th Tom and Jerry short that was released in April 1947, by MGM. This is where I first heard the tune as well and is one of my favorite Tom and Jerry cartoons. The execution and the intermingling of cartoon with real music score has the undeniable finesse and touch of William Hanna and Joseph Barbera that so enchants every one.

Rhapsody Rabbit

This is a Bugs Bunny cartoon that caused some controversy when it was released by Warner Bros. in the same year as the Tom and Jerry one. Both MGM and Warner Bros. accused each other of plagiarism, after all both shorts have the same overall theme and the same musical score. I love this one too.

Daffy Duck Rhapsody

These two videos are user contributed, they are not real cartoons by studios but instead user compilations based on hundreds of clips of different cartoons. That doesn’t detract from the fact that they’re based upon the same music piece, and have a hilarious daffy duck singing in them. I was enjoying laughing out loud on both of these, I really love Daffy. The second video, at it’s end lists all the Daffy Duck cartoons that it was compiled from.

Convict Concerto

The one, featuring Woody Woodpecker has him playing a Piano Tuner, who gets accosted by a bank robber who forces him to play the Piano, “Or Else!”. Not so funny, and at moments downright irritating. But it’s meant for kids and I suppose it was good in it’s time.

The Opry House

This is the one that started it all. This short clip of one of the earliest Mickey Mouse cartoons called “The Opry House” features a black and white Mickey banging Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 away on a piano (ok, I know it sounds nothing like the above, but it is, trust me).  This is typical of the early Disney animation - there are no rules. Everything is a cartoon. The stools, and yes, even the piano can get up and whack Mickey around. I really never liked these, I find the tobacco spitting MickeyMouse portrayed in these to be ugly, almost grotesque and definitely not funny or even appealing in any way. But I had to include it in the list - history is history, Walt Disney pretty much started the whole cartoon thing.

Other Related Videos

Several other videos came up that were related. Maksim Mrvica does a version. Then there’s a really funny one by Victor Borge that you could watch as well.

Another favored Liszt tune, La Campanella also has a few renditions, this is the one I liked the most.

What about you?

Which one of these do you like the most? I’d love to hear your comments and thoughts about this one, haven’t been able to get this tune out of my head for years and years, now.

Further reading:

• Franz Liszt
• Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2
• The Cat Concerto
• Rhapsody Rabbit
• The Opry House

This wordpress easter egg is pretty much the coolest easter egg I’ve seen yet. Works on the latest 2.7 version too, just verified. And yes, I’ve been in the software industry for a long enough time to be a good judge of coolness - most easter eggs are just a glorified way for the team to roll credits - this one reaches out to the ubercool detector in the geek in me pretty effectively.

Anyone remember the Windows 3.1 easter egg where you could Ctrl + Shift + Alt + click on the image in the Help -> About dialog of progman to see the windows mascot bear? That’s pretty much the earliest easter egg that I remember. Or at least I can’t think of an older one right now. Suggest older ones, I dare ya!

The trouble with tribbles is one of my most favorite episodes of the original Startrek Series. And when I found thinkgeek on twitter and also the fact that they’ve actually gone ahead and made tribbles of their own, I couldn’t resist posting.

These tribbles are of course sterilized (according to thinkgeek at least! ) so they won’t multiply and over-populate the apartment like they did the Enterprise. They’re just too cute to not have. At least one. Or two. Or several.

CBS seems to have put up the full, original The Trouble with Tribbles episode on their site and then pulled it down for reasons unknown. So I found 2 parts of it on youtube - for those of you who haven’t seen the video - you MUST see this! It’s also truly funny apart from being the cutest episode in the original series. And then go and get the full original episode and watch that of course!

Part 1:

Part 2:

Other parts are missing, as far as I can see. Do comment if you find them and I’ll update this post.

A new beginning to editioning of Software releases?
I don’t know.
I don’t think every customer is gonna require a geek to tell them which Vista to choose.
Good for the geeks, either way.