I just noticed this video of a Bill Maher episode I posted on YouTube has almost 400,000 views and over 5,000 comments.
Kooky. Now if I only I could harness the power of the dark side.
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Maximum Overdrive
Here’s the YouTube version with a local news organization (though it’s not as good because they are yammering over the whole thing):
The Internet and technology age really makes for some dramatic news.
2008 hurricane season might be the most ironic ever
So after the announcement that we should be prepared for a vicious hurricane season (which they say every year just to cover themselves), I checked out the potential names for this year’s storms.
Arthur, Bertha, Cristobal, Dolly, Edouard, Fay, Gustav, Hanna, Ike, Josephine, Kyle, Laura, Marco, Nana, Omar, Paloma, Rene, Sally, Teddy, Vicky, Wilfred
How ironic would it be for Florida (or any other state) to get pounded by a hurricane named Bertha, a name typically associated with a large woman, or Arthur, a drunk. The best, however, would be Hurricane Ike, as in Ike Turner.
Getting bitch-slapped by Ike would seem almost appropriate. OrlandoSentinel.com has a gallery of the hurricane names and matching celebrities. Not all of the same associations I would have made but some are still funny.
The hurricane experts always say the same thing before hurricane season. “Get ready for the worst yet!” “Residents should prepare for the worst!” “The end is nigh!”
So people run out, over-spend on water, batteries and other supplies and the big bix stores like Lowes, Wal-Mart and Costco make out like bandits. It’s a scam I tell you.
They did this last year and we only had a few storms, only one I think affecting Florida at all. But still, people went out to spend, spend, spend. Then they were stuck eating canned beans and soup for the next six months.
Sure we might have hurricanes, but no more than every year. You can’t predict this stuff accurately, you just have to roll with it. Weather people can hardly predict the day to day weather, let alone an entire hurricane season.
Don’t like it? Move. Other places have snowstorms, mudslides, Oz-worthy tornadoes and Christian fundamentalists. There’s a simple solution to all of those things, go somewhere else. Those things are a part of living on this planet.
Deal with it.
How Will Smith has caused me to reflect on life, sort of
So while perusing an LA Times Oscar 2008 photo gallery, I came upon a very disturbing fact. No, Paris Hilton isn’t vying for an Oscar, it’s much worse.
On September 25, 2008, the lovable Will Smith will turn 40.
Why is this disturbing?
Basically, as I near 30-years-old, I realize that I’ve watched pretty much the entire career of Will Smith. I’ve grown up with him, and him with me.
In 1987, when I was just 8-years-old and Smith was in his late teens, he and his partner DJ Jazzy Jeff were releasing their first album ‘Rock the House’.
I only vaguely remember this album, but I do remember listening to the hit single, ‘Girls Ain’t Nothing but Trouble’. It was a fun, party-pop, rap tune that set itself apart from the music of some raps more hardcore offerings of the time.
This lead to Will’s most popular album, ‘He’s the DJ, I’m the Rapper’, which included the single ‘Parents Just Don’t Understand’. That song won a Will a Grammy and sent his career skyrocketing.
Not long after that, in 1990, Will starred in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. For some reason I loved the fish-out-of-water story from the first time I heard the catchy opening theme (which everyone of a certain age is guilty of singing with a group of friends on a road trip or house party at one time or another) to the final episode in 1996.
Since then Will’s career has continued to soar with both dramatic and comedic roles, Oscar nominations and consistent praise by the celebrity press. Sure a few movies have been less than stellar (I, Robot, Wild Wild West), Will, however, is always enjoyable. I have to admit, almost everything the guy does I like. You can always count on Will Smith to make you smile. He seems like the friend all of us want to have.
Him turning 40 years old, after watching his entire and ongoing career, makes me reflect a bit on my own life and accomplishments. It’s not that I’m saddened or disappointed in where I am by any means, rather, it’s that I’ve been able to watch someone else work, fight and be successful.
For some reason, it’s like getting to watch a friend do well. As I’ve grown up, he’s grown up. Because the man works so damn much you get to actually watch him grow up throughout his music, TV and movie roles.
There are very few people, or celebrities rather, that I can say whose careers have been so enjoyable to watch. From Will’s first forays into music to his recent turn as a scientist alone in NYC, it’s been an amazing thing to see.
So all of that was a long, rambling, round about way of saying — I’m getting old(er).
Crap.
Popular Science: ‘Study Confirms the Obvious
Popular Science has a great gallery up of scientific research that points out the obvious, such as the gem below.
Unathletic Kids Are Unpopular at School
Photo by Kevin FebruaryThe Study: “Perceived Athletic Competence, Sociometric Status, and Loneliness in Elementary School Children,” Journal of Sport Behavior, September 2007
The Findings: Janice Causgrove Dunn of the University of Alberta studied 99 boys and 109 girls in Western Canada in grades four through six, finding that those students who were perceived by others as having good athletic skills were more popular, while the seemingly uncoordinated often felt dissatisfaction and isolation.
Why Bother? Because no one had thought to study the phenomenon before, yet it’s crucial to understanding how social strata form among students. “We knew there was a common-sense link between lack of athletic skill and loneliness,” Dunn says. Although much research relied on that assumed link, she couldn’t find a single study to back it up, so she undertook it herself. “It’s funny how many colleagues have said ‘thank you’ for finally having something to cite.”
Gee, I could have told you that from first-hand experience. Check out the full gallery for more.
Civil
Yeah, it’s like crack. Only not as expensive and detrimental to yourself and your loved ones. Your productivity, however, may plummet to zero for a few days as you conquer the likes of the Persian, Greek and Mongolian empires.
Now I remember why I stopped playing video games, they suck me in like a tractor beam.
Back in black
Back from spring break trip, so updates will be on the way.
- Highlights:
- First leg to Myrtle Beach, SC early Monday
- Moved way too much stuff after 8-hour drive
- More moving on Tuesday
- Then to Wilmington, NC for friends
- Golf with dad at Arrowhead Country Club on Wednesday = awesome
- Back to NC
- 9 holes in Wilmington on Thursday
- Back to Florida on Friday
- Work, work, work on Sat/Sun
Life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop once in a while to take a look you might miss it.
The most amazing machine you will see today
The mechanized tree harvester! Now I’m not into deforestation, but these things are awesome.
Let’s just hope that Valmet, Komatsu and John Deere don’t decide to make automated, driverless versions. That’s all we need is these killing machines going ‘Maximum Overdrive‘ on us.
‘The Onion’ strikes again
Idiom Shortage Leaves Nation All Sewed Up In Horse Pies
A crippling idiom shortage that has left millions of Americans struggling to express themselves spread like tugboat hens throughout the U.S. mainland Tuesday in an unparalleled lingual crisis that now has the entire country six winks short of an icicle.Since beginning two weeks ago, the deficit in these vernacular phrases has affected nearly every English speaker on the continent, making it virtually impossible to communicate symbolic ideas through a series of words that do not individually share the same meaning as the group of words as a whole. In what many are calling a cast-iron piano tune unlike any on record, idiomatic expression has been devastated nationwide.
"This is an absolute oyster carnival," said Harvard University linguistics professor Dr. Howard Albright, who noted that the 2008 idiom shortage has been the country's worst. "I don't know any other way to describe it."
Those people have the best job ever.
"I am job."
Richard Zednik is a mutant
On Feb. 10, Richard Zednik of the Florida Panthers suffered a serious neck injury while playing in Buffalo. A teammate’s skate slashed Zednik across then neck, leaving a trail of blood across the ice as he rushed to the sideline for emergency medical attention.
This photo was taken on Feb. 21. Dude has a healing factor to rival Wolverine’s. Zednik says he is ready to return to the ice ASAP.
Hockey players are tough.
Mike Huckabee plays the ace up his sleeve
He eats fried squirrel!
OK, so he ATE fried squirrel.
McCain, you fail.
Headline of the Month!
Living quarters
995 Fifth Avenue, New York City
Half floor residences from $12 million.
Full floor residences from $31 million.
Oh, in that case I’ll take two.