Will your life be just one big Role Playing Game in the future? A very amusing DICE (Design Innovate Communicate Entertain) 2010 conference talk that gets better as it goes. Plus a great iPad dig.

Transforminators

Pretty good mashup with Transformers and Terminator: Salvation.



From IGN via Gizmodo.

Everything is Amazing Right Now, and Nobody's Happy

The "funny because it's true" factor on this clip of Louis C.K. on Conan was so high for me that by the end of it, my eyes were red, my cheeks were stained with tears, and my jaw and neck were sore — and that's so true it's not even funny.

Update 2009/03/04: Replaced the original YouTube embed with a higher-quality (and more legal) Hulu embed.

Update 2009/03/18: Time interviews Louis about the clip.

Sunday Night Videos

I would never, ever attempt to be like these guys ...



... for fear of ending up like this guy:



Steve Nash is more consistent at free throw shooting than I am at ... breathing ...



... though I am better than this girl at explaining the plot of Star Wars:

No-keyboard Apple Notebook

I'd so buy one.

From the Onion via DF.

VLC Easter Egg

The Santa hat that my VLC player has been sporting this holiday season was a fun surprise.



I know, I know; I should be using a skin, but VLC is good looking on the inside, and that's really what counts.

Jack's Bowl Cut

I saw a billboard for Jack in the Box's Teriyaki Bowls the other day and couldn't help but laugh at the photo and tag line. (The line "curds and whey" [and its delivery] in the commercial cracks me up, too.)

Tap'dNY

Some coworkers/fellow-Hydrans and I were joking one day at lunch about taking the pretentiousness out of bottled water and just marketing a product called "tap water". Then, along came a link to a product called Tap'dNY (blog). I'm not 100% sure that it's a real product, since the site is so thoroughly tongue-in-cheek, but it's close enough to our idea that I'll say they beat us to market. The "Refills Available at Any New York City Tap" line and the custom Sigg bottles are particularly clever.

Garfield Minus Garfield ... The Book!

A few months ago, I'd posted a link to Garfield Minus Garfield, and followed up with a comment pointing to a New York Times article in which Jim Davis called it "fascinating", "flattering", and funny.

While one might argue about how funny Mr. Davis himself has been over the past 30 years, he's nothing if not a shrewd businessman. He's taken his love for the strip one step further, and is helping turn it into a book:

Now, thanks to the awesome generosity and humor of Jim Davis, Garfield Minus Garfield is going to become a book and I’m absolutely honored to be part of it.

The Japanese Office

Ricky Gervais: "It's funny ... 'cause it's racist."

Dating Advice

McSweeney's lists good dating advice, taken from a GameFAQ for GTA: San Andreas. Some advice from the FAQ that's funny when taken out of context:

Just because she says she likes something doesn't mean that it's true. You are usually better off doing the opposite of what she says.

Perhaps if she's related to George Costanza ...

If you were going out with the girl and you killed her on a date, then you're in a situation similar to if you were dumped.

Um, "similar" is one word for it ...

It might be that some kind of event triggers phone calls, as you can often stand outside a girl's house for weeks without getting one.

The number she's calling at that point is probably only three digits long ...

The best haircuts for sex appeal are the cornrow, blonde cornrow, groove cut, and detail cut. Haircuts that give no boost to sex appeal include pretty much any that involve coloring (other than blonde) and the Elvis hair. Afros, mohawks, and goatees tend to give pretty low boosts as well.

Elvis hair, no sex appeal? You sure about that?

Gaining fat is easy. Just go to the fast food restaurant of your choice, and order up to 11 of the biggest meal they have. Don't have more than 11 meals in a 6-hour period though, or you'll vomit and gain nothing.

Profound.

The third basic type of date outcome is an abandon date. [...] The easiest way to do this is to get into a car, and then quickly drive away before your girlfriend can get in. [...] This is just like a failed date, but faster.

I can't tell you how much time I've saved over the years doing that ...

Yes, you can date all of the girls at the same time, and I recommend that you do.

Easy for you to say!

Clearly you both enjoy coffee a lot.

Here We Go With Another Ridiculous Flash Animation

The Old Gray Lady has a fun interactive feature on Al Jaffee's fold-ins for Mad magazine. I was amazed to learn the following from the main article:

And while other Mad features, like Spy vs. Spy, have changed artists over the years, only Mr. Jaffee has drawn the fold-in. Since the first appeared in April 1964 all but a handful of specialty issues of the magazine have had one.

My favorite of the fold-ins featured is probably "Drug Trip", which is not as funny as the others, but has a powerful message. What's your favorite?

Extra Credit: How many Charlie Browns can you spot?

Garfield Minus Garfield

Before this becomes the last blog on the internet without a link to it: garfield minus garfield

Hot Rod

I've seen some amazing and critically-acclaimed films recently, like No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood, as well as some not-as-amazing but still critically-acclaimed films like Juno and American Gangster. But the film I'm going to bless with a review on this blog is ... Hot Rod. Why Hot Rod? Because it's the film you are least likely to have seen. My review might not change that.

I had put Hot Rod on my Netflix queue, and it hit the top spot recently, so I gave it a chance to make me find it funny (a chance all comedies deserve). What I got was like a series of high-production-value Lonely Island videos played back-to-back, but not all ones that I like. It has the same quirky, 1980s-meets-internet-age vibe as Napoleon Dynamite, and many other similarities too, but I can see why Napoleon found more of an audience, before people became tired of quirk in general.

Of course, there are parts that I found funny — when Rod introduces his "crew" to the girl-next-door (literally), and they don't quite understand how to say a few words about themselves; the first jump, on the non-reinforced ramp; Will Arnett. Other things just didn't do it for me — Rod's enthusiastic fan, who loves to dance (it's funny because he's Asian!); Rod's "2 Legit 2 Quit" speech and subsequent crosswalk accident; the behind-the-scenes DVD extra that kind of made me want to punch people in the face. Many gags were so unrelated to the plot or tried to wring humor out of being so drawn out — Rod falling down a hill; an impromptu "cool beans" musical number; Ebenezer Scrooge. Family Guy has really played that out already.

As an example of where this film went wrong, for me, consider a scene in which Rod is telling someone about his biological father's death. Rod describes a series of gruesome injuries that his dad incurs during his last attempted stunt and ends with: "he died instantly". That's already funny, because it's comically redundant after what we hear the bike did to its rider, right? No. Too highbrow, apparently; Rod has to add: "... the next day". I un-laughed. The line that I found so disappointing is now listed as a "favorite quote" on many a MySpace page, though, so what do I really know about comedy?

I'm not surprised that they had to test-screen the movie to death, or that the same scene would be listed as both an audience's favorite and least favorite. Every joke is hit-or-miss. I watched all of the deleted scenes and outtakes, and I think I could edit together a version of the film that I would find at least 10x funnier (especially using some of Danny R. McBride's ad-libs or some of Will Arnett's alternate dialogue). The problem is that your funnier version might need different discarded clips, or clips from another movie.

Space Shuttle vs. Giant Spider!!

I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords.


[via ... the whole internet]

ask.com-2 google-0 The Javier Bardem Story

I was having a conversation about an upcoming movie. It is called No Country For Old Men.

During conversation the actor named Javier Bardem came up. I wasn't sure who exactly he was. I went back to my desk to do a search. As touched upon very briefly in an earlier post, I'm doing a search engine bake-off between google and ask.com. For background I began using ask.com for the following reasons:

1) I saw a cool commercial for ask.com where there is no narration and the website and clicking does all the talking.

2) I'm a fan of Barry Diller (minus the Dennis Kozlowski-esque luxuries).

3) I am a (very small) share holder of IACI, so I figure I'd use one of their 238,427,530,238,492,034,234,626,234 products.

4) I definitely like to try different things as well as have the belief that certain types of competition breed better products.

I still have a knee-jerk reaction of typing in google.com when I open a web browser. This time was no exception. I figured all I'd need is an image of Javier Bardem so I did a Google image search instead of going to IMDB. Google images is billed as, "The most comprehensive image search on the web." Here is what I found:




Now I'm not saying that any software in any universe is perfect but recently as I've been performing searches with both search engines I've been getting better luck with ask.com. My bake-off is not by any means academic, but it's just my framed experiences. The thing that sucks most about the Javier Bardem search is that I did this at work. If you take a look at the first image that was returned by google, it is by no means a "SafeSearch" image. I hope that the people that monitor the web browsing at work don't think I look at questionable material. All jokes aside, lets look at what ask.com (which is not billed as the most comprehensive anything) returned:


When I first started using google a long time ago I really appreciated it's simplicity. I still do. Given that 100% of my home computers are not even "worthy of donations" as someone put it, my computer has a hard time processing a lot of busy stuff. ask.com is definitely busy compared to the likes of google. At home, something like a google is well suited to my tastes/needs. At work, one of my computers is not so old so ask.com works just fine and fast.

Although I do appreciate the simplicity of google, it is refreshing to see a website that intelligently employs useful tools such as wikipedia and news integration and also related names and other search suggestions. I don't necessarily need everything spoon fed to me, but it is cool to see that ask.com provides extra value when available and appropriate. I know that one could easily argue that an image search should have images only, but I feel like their layout has a good mix of nice-to-haves and focus on the image search. One major plus is that the images are at least suitable for work. It is funny to see that the first image that shows up on both search engines is not exactly what I was expecting. Maybe people who normally search for Javier Bardem are looking for that?

Without getting into a search engine religion argument, ask.com seems to be pulling ahead in my (poorly written) book. (Cliche high school newspaper style article ender coming up...) Now if I could just get a faster computer and stop myself from typing the G-word everytime I open a web browser...

EDIT: I just reviewed the now published post/images and realized that whether you're ask.com google.com or gramma's search engine, image searching still has a long way to go. Half the pictures returned by either search engine were way off. Unless there is a lot more to Javier's career than I'm aware of...

The Hero with Two Faces

A funny synopsis of Star WarsHarry Potter:



[Original Link]

Star Wars and Harry Potter are just two examples of stories based on the same archetypal structures found in mythology throughout history, famously explored by Joseph Campbell in his work The Hero with a Thousand Faces. George Lucas, in fact, has discussed the direct influence of Campbell's work on his space opera.

New Office Policy

Funny e-mail that was forwarded to me:

NEW OFFICE POLICY - EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY!!!

Dress Code:
You are advised to come to work dressed according to your salary.

If we see you wearing Prada shoes and carrying a Gucci bag, we will assume you are doing well financially and therefore do not need a raise. If you dress poorly, you need to learn to manage you money better, so that you may buy nicer clothes, and therefore you do not need a raise.


Sick Days:
We will no longer accept doctor's statement as proof of sickness. If you are able to go to the doctor, you are able to come to work.


Personal Days:
Each employee will receive 104 personal days a year. They are called Saturdays & Sundays.


Bereavement Leave:
This is no excuse for missing work. There is nothing you can do for dead friends, relatives or coworkers. Every effort should be made to have non employees attend the funeral arrangements. In rare cases where employee involvement is necessary; the funeral should be scheduled in the late afternoon. We will be glad to allow you to work through your lunch hour and subsequently leave one hour early.


Bathroom Breaks:
Entirely too much time is being spent in the toilet. There is now a strict three minute time limit in the stalls. At the end of three minutes, an alarm will sound, the toilet paper roll will retract, the stall door will open, and a picture will be taken.

After your second offense, your picture will be posted on the company bulletin board under the "Chronic Offenders" category. Anyone caught smiling in the picture will be sectioned under the company's mental health policy.


Lunch Break:
Skinny people get 30 min for lunch, as they need to eat more, so that they can look healthy.

Normal size people get 15 minutes for lunch to get a balanced meal to maintain their average figure.

Chubby people get 5 minutes for lunch, because that's all the time needed to drink a Slim-Fast.



Thank you for your loyalty to our company. We are here to provide a positive employment experience. Therefore, all questions, comments, concerns, complaints, frustrations, irritations, aggravations, insinuations, allegations, accusations, contemplations, consternation and input should be directed elsewhere.

Dominos - Moustache

Those crazy Perlorian Brothers are at it again ...

(perhaps old to some, but new to me)



[QuickTime link]