I saw "Con Man" and it was terribly disappointing

Con Man is the new self-produced series from Alan Tudyk and Nathan Fillion. It's currently available for streaming on Vimeo to people who backed the production through its online fundraiser. That campaign, originally targeted for a few hundred thousand dollars, blew through its cap and ended well over two million. To say there were high hopes for this production is an understatement.

The series premise is that Tudyk and Fillion are actors who attained sci-fi fame through a short-lived television series. Fillion has gone on to other Hollywood successes while Tudyk is stuck doing the B circuit, usually SF conventions and signings for fans. The show was advertised as being a humorous look at this particular slice of life.

It's not. It's painful and awkward and not even a little funny. Tudyk's character is simply a douche and there's very little amusement in watching him be rude and unpleasant to everyone. You can also play "spot the celebrity" - there's Wil Wheaton, there's Felicia Day - which is amusing for about ten seconds.

To be fair, Tudyk is not making fun at the expense of SF fans. It's not a "let's point and laugh at the nerds" thing. It's just that his character is an awful human being who mistreats pretty much everyone and has no sympathetic side. I made it through four and a bit of the seven currently released episodes and decided I had better things to do with my ten minutes. I just couldn't muster up enough "I care" to go on.

Maybe if you're an ultra-fan of Tudyk this is for you, but otherwise give it a pass.

Well, so much for that (music) plan

I should've started this post on Monday but here we are anyway. Lots of good stuff this time so let's dive in. Five of the ten open tabs here; I'll try to get the next set together soon. This one bookends two really good dance tunes around three sweet deep house tracks.

http://www.vevo.com/watch/faithless/insomnia-2-0-avicii-remix-(official)/GB1101500984
This should be titled "Avicii Has Giant Brass Balls". I mean, seriously, Faithless's "Insomnia" is one of the most well-known and beloved dance tracks. It has endured for ten years in a variety of forms, and is widely sampled despite the fact that Faithless have objected to that in the past. Both the rhythms and the "I can't get no sleep" vocals (from Maxi Jazz) are iconic - every dance club-goer knows them. So for Avicii to release a 2.0 version, updating it to 2015 style takes some kind of chutzpah. So, is it any good? Unqualified yes. It still has the signature elements of the original but it's done the way a hot club dance track is done today. My sole complaint is that it's too short. The original was ~9 minutes long if I remember correctly, and was pared down into two very distinct versions. This one is only three minutes and really begs for the full treatment. I suppose that's better than doing an epic remix that fails - do something short and good - but still, I loves me some extended mixes.

https://soundcloud.com/satchmode/fade-mount-remix
MOUNT's remix of Satchmode's "Fade" is soft and beautiful, with gentle echoes and soft harmonies. I think of this sort of tune as "night music" - the sort of track I'd want playing as I wandered or drove around under the stars. It's not entirely deep house, but it's close to the sources deep house draws from.

https://soundcloud.com/malu-landman/haevn-finding-out-more
Apparently HAEVN have sold this tune, "Finding Out More" for use in a commercial, which is making it harder to find online. That's good for them - yay getting paid - and a shame, because it's a really beautiful track. It's low and slow and I've been trying to remember what it reminds me of. It's a little like Bronski Beat and a little bit like Jamie Woon. It's also thematically like "Fade" in that low, slow, deep-house sensual way.

https://soundcloud.com/soundplate/19-hundred-oh-boy
Still on the same theme, but less deep and more house, comes 19hundred with "Oh Boy". This tune is almost a throwback to a few years ago when (nu) disco had a real surge going on. This has very definite disco stylings in the music, but the track often drops out the disco entirely to feature the vocals, which are layered, mixed out the wazoo, and beautifully harmonic.

https://soundcloud.com/dj-djampo/hardwell-armin-van-buuren-vs-daft-punk-off-the-technologic-hook-djampo-ido-keshet-mashup
Like Insomnia, Daft Punk's "Technologic" has been sampled a million times. This is like that, only better. Djampo (https://soundcloud.com/dj-djampo) an Italian DJ has slammed together this track with Hardwell & AVB's "Off the Hook" to make a fun dance banger. The original two tracks are each somewhat spare and "Off the Hook" itself samples heavily from "Technologic". So why not put the original back in? It's a brilliant idea and the result is a dance banger supreme.