Stephen Cobert (x2) on Off-Shore Drilling

On The Colbert Report last night, Stephen Colbert faced off against himself in “Formidable Opponent” to discuss the high price of oil, the weird practices of oil spectators, and off-shore drilling versus alternative energy plans:

Another example of his great talent for explaining complex issues so that more people are aware of and understand these issues (and have a laugh while you’re at it).

Another show that’s great at this: The Daily Show, of course. Remember John Hodgman’s piece on Net Neutrality? Genius.

Do I make you randy?

I was watching Austin Powers today on cable and noticed that they had dubbed over his signature phrase “Do I make you horny?” with “Do I make you randy?” In what way is “randy” better than “horny”? How is “horny” unacceptable, but “Alotta Fagina” okay?

Stupid censors.

And that’s another reason why I love the Kids in the Hall…

Here’s a great online video story: a couple of months ago, I created my own YouTube channel to host the video clips I occasionally post here. Within 24 to 48 hours after I put the first few clips up, I was contacted by the YouTube copyright police, notifying me that two of my clips (they were of The Daily Show) had been taken down due to complaints of copyright infringement.

In addition to personal videos, I managed to slip a Kids in the Hall sketch through the system. Amazingly, I received a message from the KITH today via YouTube and I was afraid I was going to have another copyright complaint in my hands. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised by the following message:

Hey Hey,

Thanks for posting one of our videos on YouTube. We love it! Wanted to tell you about our new sketch "Car Bangers," available only online. If you like it, please subscribe to our page as well. And we are on tour- check out dates on our MySpace page http://www.myspace.com/kithtour08.

Peace!
KITH

Based on the comments posted on the KITH YouTube channel, it looks like many other fans got similar messages thanking them for posting video clips online. It’s one of the few times I’ve ever heard of artists (or rather the people that own the copyright allowing the artists) to support fans putting some of their works online. It gives the concept of viral video a fair chance! This is a particularly interesting idea for artists like KITH– it’s been years since they were on the air, but with fans posting videos online, they can reach a whole new fan base, a fan base who can buy their DVDs, buy tickets to their live shows, and more. It’s a great marketing opportunity and I’m glad somebody sees it so clearly and simply and acts on it. No muddying the waters with threats of lawsuits and content hoarding.

So, aside from loving their sketches, that’s another reason why I love the Kids in the Hall. Check out their latest video: Car Bangers.

Crooked Lettaz

David Banner before he was David Banner together with Kamikaze. Some of the best rap to come out of the Deep South. This track from their Grey Skies album is my favorite:

Pimp Shit (featuring Budz)

Check it out on Amazon.

Ginormous Googly Ball

Ginormous Googly Ball
Originally uploaded by sindy

Here’s a random story: I saw these on sale at a local drug store and it made me think of two things: first, I found the use of the word “ginormous” as part of an actual product name amusing– my friends and I were using it often and liberally circa 1999, long before it was included in the dictionary. (Merriam-Webster claims that the word actually dates back to 1948 as British military slang.)

The second, more interesting thing I thought of was that, of course, the “Ginormous Googly Ball” is really a giant version of the 80’s hit, the Koosh Ball. Koosh balls are a little special to me because the son of the inventor of the original Koosh Ball lived in my freshmen dorm. The rumor was that if you were at his house and he was so inclined, his father, Scott Stillinger, would actually take you out to the garage and make you a classic Koosh ball with the original equipment, straight from the inventor’s own hands!

I never really knew his son well and didn’t get the chance to get my very own hand-crafted Koosh ball, but it’s moments and memories like these that make me glad I went to Stanford– there are few universities out there where you can meet such unique people and have such random experiences!

We TV: it’s not just for women and gay men anymore (sort of)

Cable channels directed at women like We and Oxygen are always around to be the butt of a joke (e.g., imagine “Wee!” exclaimed by women and gay men), but there are two really interesting shows on We lately that are worth checking out:

Secret Lives of Women. This show is about the “secret lives” of women, “[f]rom fetishes and fantasies to polygamists to the dirty little secrets of suburbia.” Most of the shows are very interesting and downright compelling– in the most recent episode I watched, “Sex Trade,” there was a story about an Asian pre-med student who works as a high-priced (I mean, not Eliot Spitzer high-priced, but anywhere from a few hundred to several thousands dollars) escort and call girl. (They obscure her face throughout the show, but I swear I know her.) Other past episodes have included topics such as “Plastic Surgery Addicts,” “Cheaters,” “Cougars,” and “Lipstick Lesbians.” The new season premieres on April 1. Check out these clips: “Sex for Sale,” “Why I Am A Cougar,” and “Mommy is a Phone Sex Operator“.

High School Confidential. Now, this is an interesting project: many of us think back and remember how much we’ve changed since high school, but not only that, how much we changed just in the four years while in high school. The show followed 12 girls for four years and now we get to see these girls deal with “sex, drugs, unwanted pregnancy, health crisis, and family chaos — all while trying to discover who they are.” The show particularly resonates for me because I remember many of my friends and myself changing so much from the time we were freshmen to the time we were juniors and seniors– we entered with such an idealistic look at the world and with such a high sense of morality, but real life sets in, slowly for surely, and things change very quickly, including our ideas of right and wrong. For the men out there: check out this show to get some insight into the psycho social mind job high school can be from the female perspective. Check out this video for a taste of what the show is about.

Paintjam Dan Dunn

Today, I saw Dan Dunn perform on Ellen. Apparently, he’s been doing this for years, but his newfound fame cam when his daughter posted a video of one of his “painting performances” to YouTube.

Check it out:

Pretty impressive, isn’t it?

The Way I Are

I’m back in the Bay after a stressful trip home for the holidays, about which I may or may not write more here, but one thing’s for sure: after listening to it while driving around with my brother of all people, I have become obsessed with this song:

The entire Timbaland album is pretty good; I really like that he’s working in a bunch of different styles, with a bunch of different artists, from Justin Timberlake to Fall Out Boy to Elton John to OneRepublic.

And if you’re curious about the girl singing the hooks in “The Way I Are,” it’s Keri Hilson who has, until now, mainly been a songwriter as part of The Clutch, a strong group of songwriters responsible for a series of hit songs, including Mary J. Blige’s “Take Me As I Am,” but in 2006, signed onto Timbaland’s new label and will be releasing her debut album soon.

My Small Breasts and I

No, not actually my small breasts and I, but building on my brief claim to search fame for being the top hit for “blog breasts” back in 2004: it’s apparently Body Image Season on BBC Three and one of the latest episodes was a special on women with small breasts and how their breast size affects their body image, lifestyle, etc. Having the opposite problem, it was pretty interesting, especially watching one woman attach a suction apparatus to her chest every day in hopes of boosting her cup size.

However, the most interesting thing I learned about was the site myfreeimplants.com. Cosmetic surgery financing at its finest, the site basically pairs up women who want to get breast implants with men who are willing to “donate” money to their cause.

Only in America. You’ve got to love a free market.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to next week’s episode My Big Breasts and Me.

You have no YouTube videos

Well, not quite, but within 24-48 hours of putting some of my blog videos on YouTube, two (out of five) clips were taken down for copyright infringement. Both were clips from The Daily Show– interestingly, I had anticipated copyright complaints, but after doing a search for Daily Show clips on YouTube, I saw that there were many that had survived the Viacom YouTube copyright sweep, so I thought I might slip by. Alas, not so much:

Perhaps they’re only actively monitoring new content now– those lazy bastards.

In any case, I’ll scrounge around and try to replace the clips.