I was sad to hear that George Carlin passed away Sunday. He was hands down my favorite comedian, and though he's done much in his career (first host of SNL, Rufus from Bill & Ted), it was his stand-up that made his great.
My introduction to Carlin came when I unearthed my father's record collection. Amidst all of the Beatles and Led Zeppelin albums I found something called "Toledo Window Box" (and I was about the age where I got a stoney kick out of the reference). It was a recording of a show he'd had in Oakland and had some bits that, for lack of a better phrase, made me howl with laughter. Who knew nursery rhymes were that dirty?
Though he might be remembered best for his "Seven Dirty Words", my favorite George Carlin bit of all-time is easily "Baseball and Football", a version of which you can hear below. The lack of success I've had trying to recite mere portions of the skit to people who'd never heard it before stands as testament to his comic genius (or my lack of timing).
We'll miss you and remember you, George. And of course, your unique views on politics, religion, and the English language...
Ah, coffee - I love it, and I drink what is probably an unhealthy amount of it daily. But which brand is best? Some might say Starbucks, others Honey Dew. For me, I'll drink almost any kind, but my hands down favorite is, and has been for years, good ol' Dunkin' Donuts. I remember half-kiddingly going online to investigate how to get a franchise, just so I could feed my addiction a little easier (as if having a D&D on practically every corner wasn't enough).
My days of buying medium regulars are now over (ok, slight exaggeration) thanks to a member of my family landing a job at D&D corporate. Now I can bring home a FIVE POUND bag of coffee for a fourth of what it costs me for a fill up at the gas station. Too much? Maybe, though I can pretty much guarantee none will go wasted here. It's all about pacing myself...
This morning I see an ad for a new TV series called "Scarlet" that apparently premiered last night. The show looked interesting enough and I went over to the DVR and searched for it to record an episode...but it was nowhere to be found.
So I went to the site, scarletseries.tv, and saw the trailer, interviews, and even a behind the scenes vignette. Nowhere, however, was there a mention of a channel. I was quickly losing interest (and some patience) and after a quick search to see if anyone saw it and found it worth watching I discovered the horrible truth:
The "hit new TV series" referred to was not a show at all, but rather a new line of televisions by LG.
It's just an ad campaign, and I fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. The news section of the site gives the (very biased) story of the "premiere". My favorite line was "To Win the Game, We Have to Change the Rules"...their way of rationalizing this scam.
The fact that I saw the ad on a podcast for the Onion News Network should have been the first clue. That it was voiced-over by that guy with the deep, melodramatic voice should have been another. Hopefully, at least for my own ego, I wasn't the only one who got duped.
Oh, and by the way, even though this fraud may have gone according to plan, I think the overall idea may backfire. I'm not sure playing someone for a fool will generate sales. As of know, I know I'll certainly never buy one of these things.
Um, not that I was played for a fool or anything....
If you were ever a fan of the comic strip "Family Circus" (and I dare say most of us were), you'll fondly remember that some of the most interesting cartoons were those that featured the dotted paths. Who knows why, but we found ourselves simply needing to go from start to finish every week. When you stop and think about it, the comic's creator, Bil Keane, basically innovated a new way of delivering a narrative, different than the tried and true, left-to-right cell-by-cell method.
Today is April Fool's Day (no really, it is), that wonderful day that comes once a year where people showcase their imagination and creativity through pranks and gags that test the gullibility of others. Ok, so some pranks aren't that imaginative, and most aren't as funny as the pranksters think they are, but there are definitely some out there that get you, and some even make you laugh.
This one is my winner for this year (yes, I know Google may have gotten you with Virgle or Google Weblogs). I don't know if it's real and I don't want to download anything that identifies itself as a virus to find out, old school or not.
I came across this in a feed from HowStuffWorks.com. It's a performance by Arthur Benjamin where he showcases his fairly ridiculous ability to quickly calculate 3, 4, and even 5-digit squares in his head.
Ok, so it might be a little geeky, but I still think it's impressive and entertaining. Click here or the image below to watch the vid.
I came across this on The Graphic Mac...and felt the need to post about it immediately. Apparently someone had entirely too much free time on their hands and created a song using only the system sounds from OSX. Ok, I'll give an "A" from creativity.
If you actually want to tweak this, you can download the actual Garageband file here.
...bright and early at 6AM tomorrow morning. I can't think of a better way to start a day (other than a little later, maybe).
In case you missed it, Jayson Stark's column about the Red Sox was the lead on ESPN.com for a good part of the day today. An image similar to the one below was proudly displayed, followed by nothing less than the clear proclamation that "The incumbent Red Sox are favored to repeat in October. Any questions?"
Yowsa...there was actually a time I'd feel nervous about such bold predictions. Such is not the case anymore, and it feels good.
Boston.com ran a piece today called "The Meanies of Life: TV and film bullies we love to hate". It included some all-time names like Biff Tannen from Back to the Future ("McFlyyyy") and Gunnery Sergeant Hartman from Full Metal Jacket (um, too many good quotes to list). There were other, actually nefarious characters on the list to be sure, but I found one that actually made me cringe: Ann Coulter.
Yes, she has "blonde hair, intemperate venom" and her "Weapon of Choice" is well encapsulated in the phrase "[the] Politics of outrage", but it's the description of why she was put on the list that put it in perspective for me:
Who to choose among the conservative blovation spectrum? No contest: Limbaugh may be louder, O'Reilly more self-righteous, but no one delivers a verbal rope-burn with more thuggish glee than Coulter. The meanest Mean Girl of them all, she'd doubtless take that as a compliment.
And there it was. "Bloviation". I had to look it up to get a better idea of what it was. One definition was the following:
To bloviate means "to speak pompously and excessively." A colloquial verb coined in the United States, it is commonly used with contempt to describe the behavior of politicians, academics, pundits, or media "experts," sometimes called bloviators, who hold forth on subjects in an arrogant, tiresome way.
I realized I had finally found the word to encapsulate all that I loathe about politics today. People bloviate too much. How can one have a conversation with this type of person? You can't. You don't even get to agree or disagree. You're choices are to either listen or leave; talking means nothing to these people. It's their way or...well, their way.
The irony is that they feel they have to educate, to get out the truth (or what they think it is, anyway), when in reality the means through which they try to do so has the exact opposite effect - no one wants to listen to imperious babble from an overbearing, self-important blowhard.
As if the general lack of posts wasn't enough of an indicator of how busy I really am, I completely forgot what today was until TLM reminded 10 minutes ago. The sad thing is I spent a good portion of the day today backing up data from our servers, and must've typed in today's date at least 3 or 14 times. Doh.
Yes, I am a math enthusiast and I am excited by the idea of irrational numbers and the fact that pi has been calculated to over a trillion places after the decimal. I like the official Pi Day site, too, and I think the graphic on the top is a nice touch (expand your window and it just keeps giving you decimals...).
Content found on The Neoteric is of no particular genre, topic, or focus, other than it was all at some point, in some way, interesting enough to me to write about.
