2011 Funniest Commercial Awards
For some reason, a lot of commercials really appealed to me this year. Maybe it’s because I so rarely watch commercials anymore (DVR,Netflix) that a good commercial really stands out to me. Anyway, this is mainly an excuse to get a cheap blog post with some funny videos. So, without further ado…
5. My brand!
1-800-CONTACTS overly dramatic unboxing commercial. This commercial might not have come out in 2011. That’s okay, it’s not like this award has the same rigor as, say, the Nickelodean Kids’ Choice Awards.
4. I like tacos…
I really like the acting in this commercial, and especially the delivery of “I like tacos” to a crowd of bewildered, chewing coworkers.
3. That’s dumb
This is the commercial that keeps on giving. It’s like the Arrested Development of commercials: each time you watch, you’ll find some new hilarious aspect of it.
2. CUZ I’M BLACK OPS
It’s bizarre how good of a comedic delivery that Brian Wilson has.
1. Yeah dog!
I don’t think I need to explain this one too much.
The Life of Reilly
I’ve always been fascinated by Charles Nelson Reilly. He was so classically funny, entertaining, clever, and charming. Before his death, he toured his one man show, originally titled “Save it for the Stage”, but later titled “The Life of Reilly”. He was a campy gay caricature before campy gay caricature became a hollow trope. He was not confrontational about being gay, nor was he ashamed. He was a an exceptional man. I wish I had a chance to see him perform in person before he died, but this is probably the next best thing:
The Life of Reilly | Part 1 The Opening from Charles Nelson Reilly on Vimeo.
You can watch the whole thing on CNR’s Vimeo account.
Turning an NAS drive into a media server
So, I bought myself a MyBook World 1TB network hard drive for Christmas. I was hoping that my Xbox 360 would “just see it” on the network, and I could stick all my videos and stuff on there via my laptop, or other computer.
I was wrong on both counts.
First, no matter what I did, I couldn’t get my Xbox 360 to see it.
Second, in the process of trying to hack around with it, I made this little NAS drive into a pretty versatile media server.
I found this great little wiki site that’s all about hacking the MyBook World. The key? Enabling SSH. Once you have that, you then have full root access to a lightweight linux server right there in the same box. Now, this isn’t exactly a powerhouse machine: it’s some sort of ARM processor with something like 64mb of memory. But it turns out, you can do a lot with that.
The first step was being able to download and install/build stuff. To do that, I at least needed a compiler. Fortunately, the site above has a very handy zip file containing all I need to copy over a C compiler. Next, I installed a package manager called optware, which is kinda like an apt-get sort of thing, except it’s meant to install stuff on embedded systems like NAS drives or routers.
From that point, no more compiling! I next installed ushare via optware, which is a media server. I had to play with the configuration a bit, but now my NAS drive (with a name of my choosing) shows up on Xbox 360! Woo!
But wait, there’s more. Oh yes, much more. I also installed Transmission, a bittorrent client with a web interface. I think you see where this is going. My laptop is now no longer involved in any part of this. I can stick torrent files into a “watch” directory, and Transmission picks them up automatically. Of course, I can do this from any computer via SSH, or via the normal network drive share. I even installed Lynx on the NAS, so I can even skip the middleman.
And one last neat trick: I installed Python and pytvshows to automatically poll RSS feeds for shows that I want to watch and download their torrent files in the watch folder, where they get picked up my Transmission. Now it’s completely hands-free! Unfortunately, pytvshows is a bit out of date, and ezrss.it doesn’t seem very reliable these days. So, after CodeMash, I decided to install Ruby, and write my own torrent grabbing script.
In short, I wouldn’t recommend getting this drive, unless you enjoy hacking around with it for endless hours. Fortunately for me, I’m a nerdy coder that’s used compilers, linux, etc, before, so I had some idea of what I was doing. For the average Joe, this is a mountain of a task.
That’s more like it, Mr. Wayne
Have you seen the trailer for The Dark Knight, the upcoming sequel to Batman Begins?
Here’s the original trailer.
Here’s the 1966 version.
Here’s the 1989 version.
Here’s the animated version.
Here’s the 1989 version side by side with with the actual trailer.
data="http://www.collegehumor.com/moogaloop/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1813453&fullscreen=1" width="480" height="360" >
Looks like a great movie.
Guy Fieri is a tool
Guy Fieri, the host of Food Network shows including (but not limited to, unfortunatly), “Guy’s Big Bite” and “Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives” is a tool, and I hate him.
I shall present my case in this post, and let me assure you that it is a strong case.
- His sunglasses. When indoors, he wears them backwards on his stupid head (see above illustration).
- His hair. It’s all bleached and spiky like a main character from a Japanese RPG. It makes me physically ill.
- His “jokes”. They aren’t really jokes, they are trite statements of boring cliche that even Jay Leno wouldn’t chuckle at. They are promptly followed by guffaws from Fieri himself and uncomfortable chortles from whoever he’s talking to. “So much salami call my mommy!” Die.
- On “Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives”, Guy will often sample the food at said establishments. He will take an oversized bite with his disgusting pie-hole, pause for a moment to act like he’s some sort of culinary expert, close his eyes while savoring the triple onion burger (or whatever), and then say something like “oh that’s good”. This sequence makes up 90% of the show.
- Guy’s “hip” attitude makes me want to walk outside and punch the first person I see. He wears oversized shorts like a member of the Insane Clown Posse, drives a classic convertible, and says things like “That’s what I’m talkin about!” Kill yourself!
If that isn’t enough to convince you that he deserves the death penalty, check out his Guy-isms at guyfieri.com:
- Check yourself…
- Everybody in the pool!
- My food’s out of bounds…
- This is gonna be money!
- …never too big a bite!
- “Off the hook!” and “Off the HOOK!”
- It’s on like Donkey Kong…
- The real deal Holyfield.
- Laugh 1 (gibbering idiot) and Laugh 2 (slobbering cretin)
I dare you to watch this video clip and not smash your computer screen in twain.
He may be dying of heart disease from all the garbage he’s eating, but that’s just not fast enough.
Shut your mouth!
Venture Brothers: Season 3
Venture Brothers season 3 is coming.
There were some teaser clips shown at Comic Con; you can watch the bootleg footage of it below.
The G.I. Joe parody looks right up the Venture Brothers alley. I’m actually kinda suprised that I haven’t seen a good G.I. Joe parody outside the Fensler Films. It just seems ripe for parody.
MST3K on Google Video update
Someone has been uploading more episodes of MST3K to Google Video recently.
So I thought I’d mention that I’m still updating my list of MST3K episodes online regularly.
If you are looking for a good episode to watch, check out Space Mutiny. It’s an awful science fiction action movie featuring a rock stupid chunk faced hero, his senior citizen love interest, and lots of reused footage from the original Battlestar Galactica.
Battlestar premiere tonight
And don’t fracking forget it!
There be spoilers below.
Here’s a video with a very brief and vague recap of seasons 1 through 3.
Here’s where we left off:
Four of the final five skinjobs were revealed, as they all heard the same music that no one else could hear.
Earth is close. Very close.
Starbuck is dead, but she probably isn’t really dead.
Best Lost Ever: The Constant
Spoilers: beware.
I’m calling it right now: this is the best episode of Lost to date.
Around the office, we call revealing moments in Lost, “nuggets”. In this episode, “The Constant”, Lost didn’t deliver nuggets. It delivered a massive golden payload of goodness.
Episodes featuring Desmond to date have been among the best episodes, almost without exception. So when it was revealed early that this was to be a “Desmond episode”, I cheered.
The only thing, and it’s a minor, minor thing, that bothered me was all the sciency talk about frequencies and radiation and what not, but then talking about the unsciency idea of “a constant” that somehow anchors one’s time/space traveling. Maybe that makes me a fool who is enslaved to time and space. I dunno.
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