Trick Play

I don’t know why I thought of this recently, but back in the late 80s, my family got a second TV– a small thing, maybe 15″ at the most. It was around 1988; I distinctly remember watching coverage of the Bush-Dukakis presidential race on this TV that lived in my parents’ room. The TV came with a remote, something novel for us since our living room (and recently only) TV was still a big thing encased in wood and with a manual dial for changing channels, a task with which the youngest child (me) was usually privileged. The new TV’s remote had a button labeled “RECALL.” I thought this was such a smart and amazing feature: the ability to “recall” what you had just watched. Clearly, this button would replay the last few minutes of whatever was on TV in case, for example, you hadn’t been paying attention, had to step put of the room for a moment or just wanted to re-watch whatever amazing programming you had just seen.

This feature is now part of what TiVo calls “trick play”– the ability to pause live TV and play back up to the last 30 minutes of recently viewed TV. And of course, this feature was not actually this feature in 1988; the recall button was actually a “last channel” button, automatically changing the channel to the previous or last channel viewed. Never having had a remote, much less a TV that was capable of remembering what the previous channel was, I thought this amazing new TV– small, but with the channel displayed on the screen in neon green digital numbers and shiny silver buttons that silently changed the channel up and down (instead of a plastic knob and dial that clicked as you turned it)– was surely capable of “recalling” the last few minutes of precious TV.

But no, it would be at least a decade before somebody out there thought of this idea, along with a long list of other great ones, and came out with the first public trials of TiVo, debuting in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1998, around the same time I first came out to the Bay Area myself (and have yet to go back). Busy, busy, busy.

New Moon Volturi Fight

I have watched this clip about a thousand times, every time they show a clip of the movie on a talk show, etc. I finally slowed it down on the TiVo (if only YouTube had slo-mo!): watch the completely unnecessary flip starting at 0:25. Edward flips Bella over, only to have her land facing the same direction, and then turns her around, this time out of the way. I love Twilight, but this is a little ridiculous.

And, by the way, do you know how hard it is to fix marble? That you would have to basically replace everything damaged here? Even if I was immortal and unbelievably wealthy– thus, having both the time and money to do it– I would be supremely peeved at the damage done to the steps of the dais, never mind how stupid the dais and thrones are. (That part of the fight isn’t in the clip, but you can see part of it at 1:50 in this featurette. I know, I have too much time on my hands right now. At least I tell you how to cut to the chase with the video.)

The Bay Fish & Chips

The Bay Fish & Chips, Sunnyvale, CA

Originally uploaded by sindy

I finally tried The Bay Fish & Chips last week and it has that greasy spoon with great food feeling. Aside from pleasantly big, deep-fried pieces of fish, they also offer shrimp, calamari, scallops, etc. And aside from classic chips, they also have deep-fried mushrooms, zucchini, artichoke, onion rings, etc.

What’s twisted, though? The fish tank with two giant goldfish swimming around, sitting right there, up on the counter, with a good view to where they cook the fish.

Robert is Bothered

I love Twilight (really, almost to an unhealthy degree…) and think Robert Pattinson is great– loved him first as Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. More recently, check him out in Little Ashes and How to Be to appreciate him fully as an actor, not just ridiculously good-looking, brooding, “good” vampire Edward Cullen.

Having said that, I love Jimmy Fallon too and these spots he does are hilarious. Here’s the one on Snickers Ads:

Check out more at Robert is Bothered.

My White Friends

A friend sent this to me and I just had to pass it on. Like Cindy says, it’s “so freakin’ awesome!”

Aries Spears

Aries Spears is most famous for his work on Madtv. One of my favorite sketches with him is “DMX & Mama X” (you kind of need to know about DMX to truly appreciate this):

And from his stand-up show, on hip hop. Fast forward to 1:28 to see him perform as LL Cool J, Snoop, DMX, and Jay-Z:

Flight of the Conchords: The Humans are Dead

All of this is great, but fast forward to 1:26 to hear the binary solo:

Drunk Goldblum

Oh God, I love it:

Am I the only one who still finds Jeff Goldblum attractive in a non-human way (The Fly, Earth Girls Are Easy)?

University of Phoenix Commencement Speech

It’s really not nice to make fun of University of Phoenix like this, but I can’t help it:

Disclaimer: I actually know a really smart and talented engineer who, after so many years in the industry, but no official degree, did his undergraduate degree through them so he could move on to a Master’s and I can’t blame him. Good for him.

Is it racist?

From the Comedy Central show Tosh.0:

I didn’t think a show about web videos would be interesting since I’m not a fan of “wrap-up” shows and I think it’s weird when you people use TV to talk about things from the Internet– it’s like they’re dumbing down computers and the Internet to make it more accessible via television because staring at a TV screen is easier than staring at a monitor.

In any case, I gave the show a shot because I love Daniel Tosh and the show is actually pretty entertaining. And yes, I actually find exactly what I thought I wouldn’t like– using TV to “wrap-up” popular web content– useful since I don’t usually have time to troll the Internet for funny videos. And the Tosh.0 blog is actually a nice complement to the show itself, without being redundant. Give it a shot.

Here’s Daniel Tosh’s hilarious follow up to the above video: