This was featured on BoingBoing recently, but I like it enough to put it up here anyway.
It’s a video for “Driving This Road Until Death Sets You Free”, by Zombie-Zombie; the video is a reinterpretation of John Carpenter’s The Thing. Both are excellent, and prompted me to buy the album (A Land for Renegades) and a DVD of the John Carpenter classic. (I’ve never seen the other films in Carpenter’s Apocalypse Trilogy, Prince of Darkness and In the Mouth of Madness, and should probably do so.)
I always thought bike couriers were crazy, but this vid of a race in New York in 2004 makes it quite clear:
The freakiest bit to watch, for me, was at 3:31. It’s not so bad given that the white car to the left has just passed the point-of-view cyclist and so must know they’re there, but the prospect of their moving a lane to the right to avoid the bus is rather disconcerting.
Some things I just don’t get. I understand why Samuel Wurzelbacher got his initial fifteen minutes of fame, but I have a lot of difficulty comprehending how he still gets media coverage to spout inanities like this:
Regardless of the answer, I’m not sure that this product is for you. It’s from a major technology company, which makes it scarier. I’m not convinced that either the product or the ad are real, actually. Maybe that’s part of the genius of it.
Because I didn’t think it would be fair to inflict it on others without watching it myself, I forced myself to get through it (it took three tries) and I think enduring that might be worsethan being RickRolled.
This one is apparently from 1977 or 1978, and I find it quite amazing that it was made in the Soviet Union at that time:
The second you’ve probably seen already (it’s the new Metallica video), but if you haven’t I think it’s definitely worth watching even if you’re not a Metallica fan (I’m not sure that I am, at this point, but the video is quite interesting):
Some time ago I posted one of the classic clips from Roger Federer’s return game, his unbelievable retrieval of a dunk slam by Andy Roddick. That post is on my still-yet-to-be-revived old site, so I can’t link to it, but in any case YouTube now has a clip of that entire return game by Federer, who blows Roddick off the court not just in that point but in all four. As far as I can tell, Roddick is leading 15-0 when the clip begins, and from there on it’s a ludicrous display of tennis from Federer:
slacktivist, author of a colossal serial annotation of the first novel in the Left Behind series (here’s the first entry), has begun a series of comments on the movie. [more...]
Short post today due to Thanksgiving. I know this has done the rounds already, but it just seems too apt not to post. One comment I saw said it looks like a scene from a Coen Brothers movie, and indeed it does:
I really wish this stuff were a joke, but no. It remains really difficult for me to accept that people find other people’s private sexual behavior so frightening.
Before reading this article by Dennis Perrin, I’d never heard of Billy Jack. But I think I might have to see this 1977 movie (contrary to what Perrin implies, it is available on DVD):
The current financial crisis, even though it appears to have died down a little, may have serious implications for the position of the US as the world’s greatest power. Economic crisis often precedes imperial collapse, and signs have been present for years that the United States has been spending far beyond its means. Aziz Huq discuss this issue in TomDispatch, with particular reference to the waning of British power after World War II. [more...]
I came across this clip at random today, thought it was worth sharing… it should be obvious that someone who is likely the greatest tennis player of all time has a lot of competitive drive and pride, not to mention that it should be clear never to assume it’s over until you’ve actually won. [more...]
Most American readers, and those who follow the US political blogs, will probably have seen this already, but it’s worth putting up here for anyone who missed it. An absolute classic:
I don’t agree with a lot of the criticisms of Sarah Palin, particularly those focused on her gender, the fact that she has a family, the fact that her daughter is pregnant, or the fact that she “lacks foreign policy experience” (that last one is basically code for “is a committed raving imperialist”). Of course, I can’t stand her policies at all,and her religiosity is disturbing. [more...]
I’m still conflicted about this meme, but this particular reworking is too funny not to highlight—Hitler responding to news that he’s become an Internet meme… [more...]
I’m deeply conflicted about this little piece of video reworking. Partly because it’s unbelievably inappropriate on a bunch of levels—comparing the Democratic nomination struggle to World War II and comparing Hillary Clinton to Hitler, for example. Partly because it relies upon the audience not understanding German, which disturbs me for other reasons (and since I understand German to an extent, it’s also jarring). But the fact remains that, despite its being just wrong, it’s still funny—at least it is today. It’s extremely context-dependent, and months from now I suspect this piece will be regarded as something of an embarrassment. (The other context that makes it more acceptable somehow is that apparently the piece in question has been re-subtitled many times already for other things, and already constitutes a meme that is here being reapplied.) [more...]