RIP Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson Materials
Originally uploaded by PAgent

so Michael Jackson died today. Not the crazy guy, Michael Jackson the beer hunter. He was an English beer writer, probably the most famous beer critic and writer out there. I have two of his books, and being beer nerds, my friend Adam and I actually met him and got his autograph on a Brickskeller menu.

We used to live 2 blocks from the Skeller and would go there all the time. Knowing we were beer nerds, one of the regular waitresses pointed him out so we went over and said hi. The books are pretty good, so check them out.

so this guy, Monkeyerotica, is a frequent and hilarious commenter at DCist.com. One of the DCist writers just pointed out that he has an awesome webpage, with pulp fiction stories about a monkey detective. It's ridiculous. Check out some of his stories' blurbs:

The Internet Murders (The Chimp's Gotta Gun!): Dick Burns teams up with adult film star Nina Hartley against an unholy cabal of anti-sex feminists and CIA hitmonkeys.

The Chickasaw Gravelpacker: A hermaphroditic Chinaman takes the Speaker of the House Hostage in a hideously perverted plot to change his gender.

Blood and Garlic: A brainwashed assassin runs amok in DC and is looking for a really good plate of ziti. Burns serves one up hot and steaming.

Wow. And the stories themselves are equally hilarious. One starts "Dick Burns was practicing Louie, Louie on his balalaika when the phone rang." But don't take my word for it!

so it's time for another cool video. This one is the Hipster Olympics, which is pretty much 100% spot on in every detail. Awesome

Hipster Olympics

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so this is an amazing video. Unfortunately I can't find much about the guy, or if it was a joke or serious.



However, one guy on Youtube says they're jazz musicians.

...I think he is jazz keyboardist and conductor Olli Ahvenlahti. The Bassist seems to be Pekka Pohjola, who played a while in Mike Oldfield's band. They just aren't customed to BUMP.

so the dispute about who owns the North Pole has been in the news lately - the Russians sent a sub under the ice to symbolically claim it, while other countries objected - Canada says they own it, and Norway and the US are getting into the act. Everybody has different reasons - we're closer, our continental shelf goes there, etc.

I've noticed that Canada's maps are reflecting their claim, like this one from a government website, which shows the territory extended into the ocean all the way to to pole. However, most non-Canadian maps only show the land itself, not the claimed or economic zone or anything (like the CIA World Factbook one, for example).

Maps and things are always political, like this article shows. Other examples are maps made by China which show Taiwan as part of China, maps by Argentina including the Falklands, etc. It's kind of an interesting method of information warfare. For example, Wikipedia has the map of Canada that shows the border to the North Pole, which I assume was added by a Canadian.

I guess this might happen in Antarctica if they discover minerals there. I hope there aren't any Hoth type battles or killer Arctic space monsters though.

so this is amazing. A guy in prison sued Michael Vick for "$63,000,000,000,00 billion" (sic) dollars, which if I'm not mistaken is $6,300,000,000,000,000,000,000. He says Michael Vick stole his dogs, sold them on eBay, and used the proceeds to buy missiles from Iran. He also says Vick used drugs in school zones and subjected him to microwave testing, and on and on and on. And that Vick violated a bunch of constitutional amendments.

Here's the article and the absolutely hilarious lawsuit itself (hand written on looseleaf paper).

so here's today's weather report.



This guy is awesome

So I finally got a new housemate, and he has a Wii. It's pretty sweet. Both my arms are a little sore from playing, mainly Wii Sports and mainly the baseball game.

Wario Ware is fun too, it's just a bunch of totally random weird minigames that last about 3 seconds each - pulling hair out of a nose, shooing a fly, etc. It's a good party type game, as we found one Friday night.

Anyway, I recommend it. It's kind of a workout too, though you don't have to make big motions if you don't want to.

And this Japanese safety manual for it is funny. Don't hit your friend in the face, knocking his glasses off. Don't pour orange Gatorade on your Wii. Don't stick a clover in it. Don't let a snowman attack it.

so for my 750th post, here's "Chocolate Rain." It's a dumb/weird/bizarrely hypnotizing song that is stuck in my head now. It's even got a Wikipedia article.



I also like the take-off.



And there's this one.

So the Nationals beat the Giants yesterday. Austin Kearns, Felipe Lopez, and Brian Schneider all hit home runs and Washington scored four in the 8th to win it. Nothing else interesting happened in the game.

so I just saw that movie "Smokey and the Bandit." It was pretty bad.

It was obviously made to capitalize on the trucker/CB radio thing that was pretty popular for awhile (like CW McCall's "Convoy" song). For the first part of the movie, Burt Reynolds and Sally Field (who is surprisingly good looking) are funny together, and the other guy, Jerry Reed (who also played the bad coach in "Waterboy") was pretty funny. Unfortunately, the rest is corny.

Lots of things happen for no reason at all - a Japanese guy crashes into a car, they're suddenly in the forest, random people show up, it's weird. It's almost like the story parts of the movie were cut out, leaving only double entendres and car chases. And they mentioned Coors beer about 100 times. It had to have been one of the first big time product placement movies. And the music is all about what's happening in the movie, which is also lame.

So anyway, not that people are really clamoring to see this, but if it's On Demand or something, steer clear.

so there's a lot of these videos floating around the YouTubes - "NFL Fantasy File," NFL players doing amazing stuff. However, I think most, if not all, are fake.

For example, this one of Jason Campbell throwing two passes and having them bounce off each other.



For one, the sound of the balls hitting seems fake. Then the bounce doesn't seem real, the physics seems wrong. And the angle of the balls doesn't seem right when they come back in the screen. I'm not buying it.

UPDATE: see, i'm not crazy. Dan Steinberg from the Post thinks it's fake and interviewed Jason Campbell, who didn't give him a straight answer. Signs point to fake city USA.