Miracle fruit tasting by Gordon Ramsey and Juliette Binoche
Maybe you've seen the video with me taste-tasting berries.
And while that's all well and good, here's a video with far more interesting people trying out the berries on the Graham Norton show in the UK. Juliette Binoche seemed to like it, but Gordon Ramsey, sort of predictably, does not.
That's kind of been my experience with other people, too. Some friends will get a kick out of it, some won't taste much difference at all, and some even get personally offended: "You've made my burger taste like a doughnut!" or "You've ruined my alcohol-drinking experience!"
Just goes to show that taste is, well, up to one's individual taste.
This footage almost feels like it should be in a museum-- video of Fort Lauderdale Spring Break '85. The quality is awful for the first 15 seconds, but bear with it.
You may have heard what happened the first time Robert Wexler, the Boca Raton congressman, appeared on The Colbert Report. Let's just say it was a tad controversial.
In his most recent visit last Thursday, it was a bit tamer -- Wexler's got a book to sell and two opponents this election year, so no jokes about using illegal drugs or enjoying the company of prostitutes. Bummer. But there are still some funny moments.
Watch the clip and see for yourself how he does:
Now here's my question: Does Colbert have to have Wexler's opponents on, in the name of equal time?
This footage of a Coral Gables building implosion gone wrong is on Sun-Sentinel.com's homepage, but you may have missed it. So you can check it out here:
Don't you just hate it when you're trying to shoot video and it's pointed in the wrong direction? At least the camera operator seemed to recover in time to get something here...
"The Road to Humiliating Defeat" -- Collect All 5!
I guess now Shaq can pick up Kobe's plate and make fun of him, instead of just rapping about him on YouTube. (I'd post that Shaq clip if it didn't contain about 4,689 different combinations of the seven words George Carlin said you can't say on television.)
I do not recall the Chuck E. Cheese Band ever playing anything this cool (or current) when I was a frequent customer. Then again, I haven't been to Chuck E. Cheese in years, so there's no way for me to really know.
Of course, there is the distinct possibility this is a mash-up, in which case it's a pretty darn good one.
Winnie the Pooh, aka Vinni the Puh, as interpreted by Soviets. (Really! The Soviet Animation Studios, apparently) Just shows that even communists like silly old bears.
I was a little put off by this at first, but it redeems itself at the end. The guy obviously enjoys teaching his kids the sport -- I'm assuming they're his kids -- and really, is it really any different from suiting them up for
Soccer: where they run into each other at a high rate of speed with no helmets?
Football: where they run into each other at a high rate of speed with helmets?
Baseball: where a ball can hit them at a high rate of speed, sometimes with a helmet, other times with just a hat.
Thanks to video, I'm expecting a good six months of cleverly produced, vicious partisan attacks depicting the other party as the one true bastion of greed, incompetence and enslavement to large alien monoliths. (OK, well, maybe not so much on that last point.) So far, I'm not disappointed.
Last December, some Italian artist apparently decided to dump thousands of plastic balls to protest the end of garbage pick-up in Naples. Thankfully for YouTubers everywhere, this protest was caught on film.
At the end of the clip you see the sanitation workers cleaning up the mess (and honestly, if I were an Italian sanitation worker, I'd track this artist down and whack him with my shovel). But I think they're missing a real opportunity here -- just turn the plaza into a giant ball pit, like at the mall or Chuck E. Cheese's.
Maybe it's just me, but if you're a Hollywood liberal icon who doubles as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations, isn't it a bit incongruous to make a ton of money glorifying skilled mass murder?
I'm thinking of Angelina Jolie. And that's what went through my head when I saw this trailer for her big summer blockbuster, Wanted.
"Kill one, save a thousand--that's what we believe,'' she tells a colleague at one point. Well, wasn't that sort of the idea behind the war in Iraq?
Enough said. The film is the Hollywood debut of Timur Bekmambetov, whose well known among geeks for his Nightwatch and Daywatch series of Russian Sci-Fi. The film is basically every loser fanboy's dream: one day Angelina corners you in the supermarket and takes you out of your dreary cubicle existence:
Matt Harding captured international attention a couple years ago by doing a funny dance in 39 countries on all seven continents. It's one of my favorite YouTube videos of all time.
He just released his sequel- this time he dances in 42 countries. It's a worthy successor to his first video. It's amazing how this four-minute clip has more heart than most Hollywood movies.
Yuri Kuklachev is probably the most popular cat trainer in the world. Yes, he herds cats for a living. The cat shows in his Russian theater are legendary, and the tradecraft he has honed in training cats is a closely guarded secret.
But now, he claims, his secrets have been stolen and exported to America. According to CNN, he's filed suit to stop the other cat imitators.
Here's a look at some of the things he can do with cats:
And here's one of the famous Whiskas commercials he's done (in Russian):
Finally, here's a scene from the musical Cats in Russian (I just had to throw this in):
Wichita Eagle (and former Sun-Sentinel) reporter Roy Wenzl interviews YouTube sensations Oscar, Ginger, and Zooey on camera [click here to see the video].
Klusman is getting proposals from filmmakers interested in marketing more of his ideas. He and Wingard, who works in the cubicle next to Klusman's at Spirit Aerosystems, are getting proposals from cat-loving ladies worldwide.
"OMG will you marry me?" one wrote.
"Paul is the George Clooney of engineers," another wrote.
Others sent "extremely interesting" photographs of themselves, Klusman said.
Two old ladies sit on a bench. Lady in blue is somehow ticked off. But she can't reach the lady in red. How else can she lay down some law on the other woman?
Heads up, this might be fake (is it too much to assume someone would want to try to intervene?). Anyway, it's still funny if only because nobody seemed to have been seriously injured.
This is absolutely amazing. Every office should have a room stocked with Nerf guns for people to let loose their frustrations with a volley of suction cup foam bullets.
According to a recent study, kids will violently react negatively to the idea of a universal health plan, but agree almost unanimously for the distribution of lollipops.
CBS anchor Katie Couric has her own YouTube channel now, where she's posting behind-the-scenes clips of her doing things like singing with Bette Midler. (And, I would hazard to guess, more clips of her poking fun at Dan Rather.)
Now, I know that Katie Couric is a polarizing personality, and I happen to fall in the liking-Katie-Couric category. But even if you don't like Katie, you should watch this clip for a glimpse of a famous, makeup-less morning television show personality. I'll let you guess who it is. Hint: Her name rhymes with Kathie Lee Gifford.
Check out this guy's version of the Apollo 440 song "Stop the Rock" (you may have heard it on the "Gone in 60 Seconds" soundtrack). It's pretty cool. Plus it features the ukulele, an instrument I've found features prominently in my recent YouTube searches.
I almost prefer this to the original:
And in case you aren't familiar, here's the video for the original:
Wainy Days is a bit of an acquired taste. It's a series of shorts about a loveable nebbish who somehow blows more opportunities with more beautiful women than the average horny male will meet in a lifetime.
If you're into Stella or The State (or know what I mean when I mention Stella, or The State), you'll probably love it.
Also, if you're a TV geek who loves Saffron Burrows and the evil chick from the first season of 24, you'll love it, too.
Or if you're just bored and a lonely male, well, you'll love it too:
True story: When I was a kid, I really wanted to go to Space Camp. I even read the book version of the movie "Space Camp," which I bought at my school book fair. (I never saw the movie "Space Camp," oddly enough.)
After watching this clip, I think I was lucky to never fulfill my Space Camp destiny.
What if the Incredible Hulk was 5'4" and cried easily?
This sketch is courtesy of Jimmy Kimmel Live. Mini-Hulk is played by Guillermo the Security Guard.
By the way, the Hulk is a solid popcorn movie, but what's the deal with the trailer? The first scene in the trailer- Bruce Banner talking to Doctor Samson- isn't in the movie.
Continuing our celebration of Father's Day, we thought we'd share the ancient Japanese custom of having a flamboyant gay man dressed in leather visiting fathers across the island nation to give them dominatrix gear:
Our Father's Day salute begins with a slightly bizarre salute to the father who showed up for every Little League game even though his son was that kid stuck in outfield who never, ever, got a hit.
I, for one, was relieved to discover this, even though I had not realized there was a controversy in the first place.
Apparently some rogue news outlets recently reported that Diddy had gone back to Puff Daddy. And Diddy turned to YouTube to kill the name-change rumors. I was blissfully unaware of this until the good people at VH1's "Best Week Ever" aired his video in Friday's episode.
Watch Diddy clear all this up for you in his own words:
It's not Halloween for months, but Dracula has been hot lately. He's had a feature song in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and star/creator Jason Segel has been talking about rebooting the Sesame Street franchise.
Magical, miracle berries makes blah food taste yummy
Videographer Joann Mraceck asked if I'd like to be her guinea pig for a taste-testing with Curtis Mozie, a guy who grows and sells miracle berries, or magical fruit. Mozie was referenced in this article from the New York Times, and I'm working on an article that will run later this week.
But in the meantime, here's the video. (I'm the one wearing the Bluth's Frozen Bananas T-shirt in an obvious attempt to pander to Arrested Development fans). Also, I hate pickles. I don't think any amount of magical berries will change that for me.
The Photoshop series at MyDamnChannel is one of the funniest pieces of web comedy around. It looks like it's coming to an end with this one, though, entitled Vanishing Point. For those of you new to the series, imagine your photoshop instructor has issues, deep issues, and has barricaded himself in the house while he teaches his online course:
Jared, the Moscow, Idaho vlogger at PickThisCar, has put together this touching (OK, maybe a bit saccharine) collection of compliments from one vlogger to another. If anything, at a time when we've got yet another spate of books about declining standards among the young, this underscores that those over 40 truly don't know what the hell is going on out there.
Brightcove.com, the studio that gave us the wonderful recaps/primers/catchups on the Sopranos and Battlestar Galactica, has created this wonderful little recap for those of you who got lost during the Democratic Primary.
How did we get to this point? What's a super delegate? Why did Aragorn endorse Dennis Kucinich? It's all answered here:
I stumbled on this clip -- a remake of the Britney Spears hit from a few years back -- while doing a search for weird YouTube versions of Outkast's "Hey Ya!" (don't ask).
Now, go forth and share this groovy video with others:
Fellow blogger Ralph de la Cruz posted this video of an office worker going postal on his blog. Turns out it's fake, but it's entertaining so go visit Ralph's blog to check it out.
The military has released gripping video footage of a February B-2 bomber crash in Guam that the Air Force has concluded was caused by moisture.
The crash was caused by distorted data in the aircraft's flight control computers, according to a report released Thursday. Air Force investigators blame the distortion on moisture in the system, which caused the computers to calculate the wrong airspeed.
This excellent clip was posted on the Watch This Now Facebook page -- yes, we have one -- by WTN fan and Sun-Sentinel colleague Sofia Santana.
The best part of this clip is not the guy who attempts to complete the challenge in a business suit, but the contestant who brought along his poodle with a purple mohawk. It also appears the dog is wearing a zebra print jacket and purple legwarmers, but that could also be a dye job.
There should be laws against dressing your dog like that:
Well, here it is. The new iPhone. Cheaper and faster than the first one. Do I feel silly for getting the previous version on the first day last year? Definitely. Will I still be in line for this version? Most probably. Sigh.
I don't know that I can explain this clip much better than the description provided on YouTube. So here you go:
"Death-defying clips from the 2008 Cooper's Hill Cheese Rolling and Wake, where every year fearless competitors from around the world tumble down an almost vertical hill in Gloucester, UK, chasing an 8lb Double Gloucester Cheese. It can never really be caught as it reaches breakneck speeds but the first person to cross the line at the bottom of the hill wins the coveted cheese. Thousands of spectators turned up to watch again this year, and there were also a few of the usual injuries. Thankfully St John's Ambulances were on hand to whisk the casualties away to the local hospital."
I have teenagers and I've thought long and hard about talking to them about sex, drugs and light sabers. But I just keep putting it off. I mean, light sabers aren't a gateway weapon anyway. What's the harm in a little fencing with laser swords? We all sowed our wild oats:
This trailer confirms rumors that a certain character makes an appearance in the upcoming Hulk movie. Couple this scene with the after-credits scene in Iron Man, and you've got some pretty cool options for future movies. Check out the clip here before it gets yanked:
Back in the 1980s, the L.A. Lakers ruled the basketball court and Nancy Reagan was leading the "Just Say No" anti-drug campaign. When the two phenomenons collided, the results were uglier than a Shaq free-throw attempt.
They're supposed to rapping in this video, but it's more like semi-coordinated shouting. It's bad enough they wore the short-shorts on the court, but in the music studio too? Around children?
More questions: Why is Pat wearing sunglasses in the studio? Is that Kurt Rambis or Weird Al? Why are the voices out of synch with the video?
Even though entertainment journalists insist it's not true -- and really, who should know more about Angelina Jolie's pregnancy -- Brad Pitt says the much anticipated twins have not emerged yet.
But Entertainment Tonight is standing firm by its report earlier this week that Jolie had given birth to twin daughters in France, attributing the story to an unidentified person close to the actress who said they were in the delivery room. (Can you imagine how crowded that place was, what with the doctors, entertainment journalists, videographers and, oh yeah, the mother too?)
More importantly, Brad Pitt looks like he's got a classic on his hands: the new can't-miss Coen Brothers comedy, "Burn After Reading:"
One of the most quiet Internet revolutions going on right now is in the area of shared music. No, I don't mean bands creating buzz off their websites and becoming the next Ok Go. What I'm talking about are the millions upon millions of amateurs out there who are using video to share music, guitar licks, lyrics and voice lessons. I can't imagine what the publishers of sheet music are doing to make ends meet these days, but, as the father of an amateur up-and-coming guitarist, I can tell you that web video is nearly as important at the guitar.
That brings us to Aimee Mann. The songstress, one of the smartest lyricists working these days, is holding a contest for fans to sing along with her song, Freeway. Take a look:
And here's the original video of her song, Freeway:
And here's a utterly shameless plug for my son, Gabe Collie, and his friend, Zack Cohen, singing Sublime's Santeria. They have never met Ms. Mann and are still mulling over taking part in her contest:
We love a good celebrity fight, especially when the celebrities are Dirty Harry and Spike Lee. Two of the finest film directors working in American cinema, they're getting ready to throw down. Spike has been a longtime critic of the depictions of blacks in films, and he's criticized Clint several times over the years. At the Cannes film festival last month he told reporters:
“Clint Eastwood made two films about Iwo Jima that ran for more than four hours total, and there was not one Negro actor on the screen,” he said. “If you reporters had any balls you’d ask him why. There’s no way I know why he did that — that was his vision, not mine. But I know it was pointed out to him and that he could have changed it. It’s not like he didn’t know.”
Clint is fighting back, telling Lee to can it over accusations he didn't have a black man raising the flag on Iwo Jima.
Now, a young gossip columnist has been caught in the crossfire by alluding to Lee as "uppity."
So we thought we'd have a little throwdown of our own.
First Clint:
The New York Times reported last week that Americans just aren't spending their stimulus checks. You know, the $600 checks you're supposed to be cashing to run up higher credit card debt.
Nope. It turns out that responsibility may be breaking out across the land and people are actually putting that money in savings or paying off late mortgages. Where it helps absolutely no one but themselves.
How selfish.
Check out this public service announcement from the folks at Barely Political.
Favorite line: You won't believe your eyes when you see the size of my stimulus package:
My dear Sean "Diddy" Combs is quite excited about Barack Obama as the presumptive Democratic nominee for president (presumptive because it's still not official). I imagine he wouldn't be so excited if he were a Hillary supporter, but I digress.
You have to love Diddy putting aside his Diddy-ness for a moment to give a sincere, from-the-heart account of why this is such a big moment for him and many Americans. But then of course he gets a little goofy. And then in the text at the end of the clip, someone -- I'm assuming one of Diddy's Bad Boy people -- mispelled "receive."
OK, gas is $4 a gallon, and the cost of food, clothing and bottled water is rising exponentially. But aren't you sick, I mean really sick, of this endless parade of consumer gurus telling you how to save a buck?
So check out Mark Erickson, the host of Infinite Solutions, the show that teaches you how to keep your produce fresh, find tiny dinosaurs, slim down your Itunes Library and other meaningless tasks that will make your life infinitely more complicated because you've wasted valuable time thinking about it
First, let's look at Mark's latest: NY on $100 a day.
(Note: there are no German ambassadors handing out dollar bills in Central Park. If you see someone dressed in wooden clogs, avoid them and don't ask them for money. Also, there are no "Firearm Fridays" at the Empire State Building. And it wasn't named after philanthropist Frederick J. Building.)
And here's an informative segment on finding "tiny dinosaurs":
And finally, here's how to keep your produce fresh in your microwave:
So that movie where filmmakers inconvenienced my workspace for a week (for what probably amounts to 30 seconds of film) is coming out on Christmas. If you want to see a teaser trailer that probably kind of sums up the entire movie (Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston chase a dog), click below:
Stephen Colbert to Princeton grads: Don't Change the World
Stephen Colbert gave the Princeton commencement speech Monday. He told the graduates not to change the world, and that global warming could alter the chilly climate control in restaurants. Oh yeah, and he praised alumnus Aaron Burr, for making it OK for the vice president to shoot someone in the face.
OK, there's no other purpose to this than it being cute. And it's environmentally conscious. And you need to quit spending so much time in your cubicle and get out and see the world.
And I hate cat videos, but felt the need to post something cute after a long drought:
Here at WTN headquarters, we're always mulling over how to better get the word out about the blog. Most of our ideas are a bust, probably because we're not thinking big enough.
Take, for instance, this Indonesian writer marketing his new book, called "Marketing Revolution." The revolution apparently involves flying several times over poor Indonesians and dumping money on them.
Maybe we'll try this at the beach on Saturday:
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution did a story about the wild pitch in the video below. An except from their story:
Stephens County principal David Friend apologized Monday to the Georgia High School Association for an incident in the Class AAA baseball championship series Saturday in which Stephens County catcher Matt Hill ducked and allowed a pitch from Cody Martin to strike an umpire in the face mask.
"[The tape] looks bad, and most people who look at it come away with that conclusion," Friend said. "But there have been whacky things that have happened in baseball and high schools, and all I'm going to conclude is that it does need to be investigated. If we're found to be at fault, we'll effectively deal with the situation."
This was from "Saturday Night Live," with Shia LaBeouf. Yeah, it was a repeat, but most of this year's SNL episodes were repeats, thanks to the writer's strike.
I think this send-up of the Match Game is one of the best sketches I've seen in a while, thanks to Shia's Doug Henning impression -- loved it!
Everybody, take a picture when you get the signal!
Those crazy Improv Everywhere kids -- the ones who brought you the people frozen in Grand Central Station -- recently got their agents to span the Brooklyn Bridge so they could create a wave of camera flashes along the bridge. Why? I have no earthly clue.
Even weirder: This all happened in the rain. Meaning, 700 people agreed to stand in the rain to be part of this project. I doubt they were paid.
There are very few things for which I would stand in the rain. This would not be one of them.
Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr. made an appearance during last night's 2008 MTV Movie Awards to promote their upcoming movie Tropic Thunder.
Stiller's been a consistent contributor to alternative awards ceremony-- here's his classic Tom Crooze clip.
In this clip, the three actors attempt to create a viral video that promotes all three of their summer movies at the same time. Of course, kicks to the groin are prescribed.
Sameer Mishra of West Lafayette, Indiana is about to become an internet superstar. The 8th grader was a hit at -- and won -- the 2008 Scripps National Spelling Bee. In the video below he misheard the word "numnah" as "numb nut."
The sword fights were only hinted at in the article written about the Florida SuperCon held this past weekend, but the writer, Ms. Akilah Johnson explained at length this odd new phenomenon she witnessed. Large groups of people would line up to smack each other with foam swords. A strike on the appendage meant it had been sliced off (if your right arm was struck you would not be able to use it and if your legs were struck, you'd have to fight on your knees).
So I did a little digging around and found this interesting video of the actress who plays Nymphadora Tonks taking on some random convention attendant in the fight. Actress Natalia Tena had been invited as a SuperCon speaker along with other actors from the Harry Potter film franchise. The video is a bit too long, and you need only watch a couple minutes to get the idea. But if you want to know who wins, well you'll just have to sit through the entire thing.
Imagine if Harry Potter & Co. were puppets instead of fictional book characters, and said puppets acted out little plays on YouTube. Then you'd have Potter Puppet Pals.
Check out the latest in the series here. You can also follow this link to go to the Potter Puppet Pals web site.
I thought this was kind of funny -- Prince goes to Coachella and plays a cover of Radiohead's classic Creep. Audience members upload the song performance onto YouTube. Prince tells YouTube to take it down based on copyright infringement. Radiohead says, uhh, that's not your song. Can we sue to put it back up?
Read about the interesting twist on copyright it in this Billboard article here and watch the video before Prince's people take it down:
The Internet has spawned a universe of renegade video: an outpouring of parody, celebrity, sci-fi, bloopers, undiscovered talent and weirdness that defies category. We're in an age where homemade clips flare into worldwide phenomena.
We like this stuff. We think about it. And we show you our favorites.
JON BURSTEIN
Burstein watches anything on television and spends too much time looking for stupid viral videos, according to his wife...
< More >
KATHY BUSHOUSE
Someday, if she's lucky, Bushouse will get to appear on VH1's "The World Series of Pop Culture" and finally use her ability...
< More >
BRIAN HAAS
A crime reporter at the Sun Sentinel, he’s a dork among dorks with interests in video games, Lost, Heroes and science...
< More >
JUSTIN L. ABROTSKY
The self-proclaimed "World's Greatest Online News Producer," he watched far too much television in the 1990s...
< More >