Over the past few years, various friends and other concerned parties have been getting on my case about my sleep habits, or rather, my lack thereof. There is a degree of truth to the stories — more than one person has received an email response from me with a 3:00 am timestamp. (Of course, the first person to bring that up had sent me an email herself just 10 minutes earlier.)
I’ve been doing better about it. These days, more often than not, I’m asleep by 12:30, and almost always by 1. In the past two or three years, I think there’s only been one or two times when I watched any late night TV, and those were times when I was sick and had spent most of the day sleeping. (The fact that I’ve largely stopped watching TV at all undoubtedly has something to do with it as well.)
I did watch the first season of The Daily Show, back when it was hosted by Craig Kilbourn. I’ve only ever seen perhaps a half-dozen episodes of the Jon Stewart version. Aside from a few water cooler conversations, missing it hasn’t had a great impact on my life.
Somewhere along the line though, I did miss something. I’m not sure when he came onto the scene, but thanks to YouTube, I’ve discovered that at some point a fellow named Craig Ferguson took over CBS’ The Late, Late Show. I’ve caught one or two of his rants and find them equally funny and thought-provoking.
Why, it’s enough to make me think I should start staying up late again!
Category Archives: Video
Entries involving video clips.
Be Like Julie
Like Dustin Hoffman says, “You gotta be like Julie.”
It’s a funny video, and of course (like you’d expect this time of year) it’s one with a message.
No Good Options
If you tell me the Republican Party bites, I won’t argue with you. I’ve been increasingly disgusted over the past six years. But the truth is, the Democratic Party bites pretty hard too. Check out this clip from back in February. (The quick summary is that both parties flip-flopped as to where they stood and both versions of the bill would have hurt the working class.)
There are still about six weeks to go before the election. Before then, there’s a movie I’d like to suggest. It busts on both major parties equally and makes quite a number of good points. In many ways, it’s too bad Tom Dobbs isn’t a real person.
And that’s enough political crap for now.
My Newfound Respect for Paris Hilton
There’s a phrase I never expected to find myself using.
As you might guess from a previous post or two, I’m generally of the opinion that Paris Hilton is just another drunken party-girl. (To be fair, the magnifying glass lens of tabloid sensationalism might leave some people with a less than entirely favorable impression of me too.)
But despite her rather shameless public foibles, recent events have caused me to raise my opinion of Ms. Hilton by a notch or two.
Not being much of a TV watcher, I missed the ad (now viewable on YouTube), but apparently John McCain released an ad drawing a negative comparison between Barack Obama and party girls Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.
So now comes the part where I end up with some respect for Paris Hilton.
Sometime in the past 24 hours, Paris Hilton released a short video responding to the McCain ad. It’s brilliant! Now obviously there were a few other people involved in writing and producing the video, but the fact that she not only responded to being included in McCain’s ad but also went along with poking fun at her own celebrity status… I have to respect her for that.
But there’s more. This short (1 minute, 51 seconds) video also includes the Hilton campaign’s proposed energy policy. Frankly, by addressing both long and short term needs, it makes a hell of a lot more sense than anything that’s come from the two major political parties in recent memory. (The fact that I generally don’t care for Paris, but like her plan more than those proposed by the Republicrats and Democans, should give you some idea of the esteem in which I hold those two groups. (If you’re not sure how high that is, I suggest you get some mining equipment. A shovel won’t get you low enough.))
I’m not entirely certain “President Paris” would be a good idea, but given the alternatives, maybe she could be Zaphod’s running mate?
Kung Fu and Honky Tonk
Apparently AJ’s employer is requiring everyone in the company to learn Karate. (I can’t help thinking that this sounds a little like the early 90s when instead of improving their products and services, companies instead tried to boost productivity and revenues by slavishly imitating any fad that originated in Japan. How many US companies launched morning calisthenic programs because they’d heard Japanese companies had them?) Unfortunately for me, AJ’s post was titled “Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting” and as a result, I’ve spent most of the past week trying to get that infernal song out of my head.
Finally on Thursday I got a different song stuck in my head.
But that’s OK, Brooks & Dunn have lots of fun songs.
The Presidency
It seems to me that it’s time to face facts: This Country Needs a Presidental Candidate.
The Democratic Party has done a tremendous job of shooting itself in the foot over the past year. Between the endless posturing over Michigan and Florida and the choice of candidates going to the superdelegates instead of the voters (Quite ironic that it’s called the “Democratic” Party, huh?), it’s not hard to imagine the voters defecting en masse.
Of course, the Republican side isn’t any better. I do somewhat like McCain’s willingness to compromise — most members of both parties seem to have decided that winning arguments without concession to other opinions is the only way to go — but between the awful state of the economy, the endless war, the wholesale erosion of individual rights in favor of business interests and still more endless posturing, well, I just have a hard time trusting the Republican party either.
If there was ever a time for a third-party candidate, this is it! I first mentioned this candidate two years ago, and the reasons for choosing him are as valid now as then:
He stands for:
- People
- Freedom
- Democracy
- and stuff
(Just try getting any of the other candidates to admit to that last one!)
Still not convinced? Check out his campaign video!
So remember: Vote Early, Vote Often and Vote Beeblebrox!
Retro Music Videos
YouTube seems to be a good source for music videos these days. Along with the song-parody videos I’ve written about elsewhere, there’s also a wealth of music from way back.
DDMD posted a link to a concert video from the late 70s, and that got me thinking about some of the songs I liked “way back.” (To my amusement, despite being a few years older than DDMD, my nostalgia music comes from a decade later.) I’m not exactly certain when “Men at Work” hit big in the US, only that it was the early to mid eighties.
Twenty-some years later, “It’s a Mistake” seems to have held up pretty well and seems quite relevant given what’s going on in the world.
Ah, for the days when MTV played music… 🙂
Googling the Moon
This is kind of cool. Google, in association with the X-Prize foundation, is sponsoring a $20-million prize for the first funded team to land a robotic rover on the moon. (There’s also a $5-million prize for the second team and another $5-million for meeting various bonus objectives.)
Actually, this is very cool. It’s a return to the Moon. They’ve even established some goals — finding water ice in the permanently shadowed craters on the poles, having a probe survive the lunar night (equivalent to two weeks of “brutal cold”), and finding the artifacts left behind by the previous lunar missions.
To promote the contest, the Google X-Prize has put together a very inspirational video.
I’d love to see this succeed. Getting back to the Moon is the first step toward exploration of other planets.
But one thing troubles me. Google makes nearly all of its money from advertising, and I’m suddenly reminded of D.D. Harriman pointing out that because it’s visible from everywhere on earth, The Moon would be a great place to put a billboard…
How Email Works
Google recently put together a short (2 min, 19 sec) video explaining how email gets from the sender’s computer to the recipient as the message is passed from one server to the next. The demonstration focuses on Google’s GMail system, but it applies equally well to all other email systems.
(Seriously, Google really did put this together.)
A Browncoat is Born
Back in August I gave my brother a copy of the Firefly box set. He’d heard of the show, but having no great interest in it, promptly put the discs to one side with plans to watch them “someday.”
“Someday” arrived last weekend.
During a phone conversation on Saturday, Dave told me he and his wife had watched the first several episodes. After some thought he agreed that it made sense for a frontier planet to have horses instead of cars (after all, building new horses doesn’t require as much of a manufacturing base) but overall he was skeptical of the whole “spaghetti western” motif.
By Wednesday they had watched the first three discs and found themselves in agreement with those who feel that the Fox network executives who canceled the show deserve to be consigned to “the special hell.” (The one normally reserved for child molesters and people who talk at the theater.)
I got another email from him this evening. His daughters aren’t old enough to watch the show, but he’s taught them to sing “The Hero of Canton.”