This is a very cool robot.
Check out the clip in the video when the handler kicks it.
And this is a brilliantly funny spoof.
Archive for the ‘Comedy’ Category
BigDog
Thursday, July 10th, 2008Instant Replay
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008There’s something of a media-driven furor for instant replay in baseball.
Over the course of a wide-ranging conversation I had with some friends last week,
one of the more benign discussions we had was on how instant replay could be faithfully implemented in baseball. My proposal was well received.
For instant replay to work in baseball, it needs to be:
- Seldom used
- Only used when no umpire ought to be ideally positioned to make the call
- Fast
My proposal is that instant replay can only be invoked when the umpires all get together to discuss a play. If two or more umpires disagree about how a play went down during one of these fairly rare umpire conferences, they should be able to invoke a “fifth umpire” who is really three umpires sitting in an office at MLB headquarters. When called upon, those three umpires are required to review the video feed and make a definitive ruling, siding with one field umpire or the other. It’ll be the crew chief’s responsibility to relate the issue to the fifth umpire impartially.
The real beauty in my proposal though is meant to make such fifth umpire invocations rare. I want the umpires to wear special rings that, when touched, open up a communication channel to the fifth umpire. The crew would have to meet up, disagree, and then agree to touch rings, a la Wonder Twins, Activate!!! in order to get the decision right. That’d keep Blue focused.
While searching for that wonder twins clip, I found a pretty hilarious, yet highly obscene video that you can access via the period at the end of this sentence.
For those in L.A.
Friday, May 23rd, 2008Nick Vatterott is in your neck of the woods and will be performing his (brilliant) No Outlet show on Saturday. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
He’s got a travelogue of his trip to La-La Land up. Apparently he got to meet Robin Williams. I never got to meet Robin Williams.
He’s also involved with this gig while out there, which should be a great opportunity for my old friend.
Disconnected Things
Friday, May 16th, 2008Ran into this positive piece about Nick Vatterott. The set-list bit that’s talked about is a great bit, even though I’ve never actually seen him perform it. He had it hanging on the wall in his old apartment, though, and explained it to me.
Now just who is Brian Cartie? Brought up to A+ Palm Beach out of Extended the other day, he’s off to a 5-9 start with two doubles and a home run. If he keeps up that sort of hitting, we’ll all know a lot about him in a coupla months.
Memphis burned through seven pitchers in a 12-inning game tonight. Conspicuously, Chris Perez was not one of them… And he hasn’t pitched since Tuesday, so it’s not like he wasn’t physically able. I’m hoping that means that Isringhausen will be DL’d and sent to EST to work with Strom on getting himself right, with Perez filling out bullpen depth while he’s getting his confidence together. A roster move is expected Friday.
Amused
Friday, April 25th, 2008by this comic.
Mythbusters is a swell show.
This one too, although I’d argue with the placement of pineapple on the vertical axis.
I’ve seriously considered building a device much like this one.
Stop the World
Thursday, April 24th, 2008I want off.
One way or another, we’re all going to be voting for someone who pandered to voters by appearing on this past week’s WWE Monday Night Raw. That’s unacceptable.
Charlie the Deuce
Monday, April 21st, 2008Thought this would never come out:
The original, if you never saw it.
I’ve got my stopwatch going to see how long it takes for that to be translated into German.
Update: Pretty close… Someone added German subtitles.
My Kind of Humor
Saturday, March 8th, 2008The actor behind the counter is James Madio, who played the role of Frank Perconte in Band of Brothers. He also played Lazzarini on the first season of USA High, which I’m almost positive was filmed on the same soundstage as Saved by the Bell: The College Years.
Peep Show
Thursday, March 6th, 2008The Chicago Tribune is running a Peep-a-looza contest in which members of the public submit photographs of a diorama featuring Peeps. This is the second greatest thing you can do with Peeps, after the Easter Turducken. They’ve set up a gallery of submissions for you to amuse yourself with. Speaking of gallery of submission, here’s the entry that me and my friends made last night:
If you click the picture, you can marvel at a larger version and enjoy such details as the pink peep on the left’s ball-gag. It was four women making this, mind you, with me and another fella egging them on.
I bet we win.
Update: Holy smokes… It’s actually on the Trib website!
Healthy Again
Wednesday, January 30th, 2008I’m finally recovering from a sinus infection and mild pneumonia. Here’re a few things that kept me entertained while struggling to get work done, sneezing and coughing like a dying man, and eating grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup.
TJ Miller was on David Letterman. He’s a good friend of Nick Vatterott‘s and I partied with the two of them one night in Chicago a while back. We were on a radio show about comedy then hit a few bars to drink beer and perform standup. It was a fun night. Here’s the clip of him acquitting himself well on Letterman:
I found this spoof Pilot episode of 24 pitched in 1994 to be hilarious and clever, even though I’ve never watched the actual show.
This cannon game that Jeff showed me is fun and addictive.
Two Links
Thursday, January 10th, 2008If only they’d enforce passing lane laws in Illinois. I refer to the end of a holiday weekend as “Amateur Night” due to the quality of driving on display.
Next time you find yourself in a foul mood, be it caused by unnecessarily clogged roads or whatever, I recommend thinking of this clip of a gibbon teasing a pair of tiger cubs.
While Searching for Something Else
Monday, December 17th, 2007I ran across this:
Wondered how you’d translate, “I’m your huckleberry.” The circumlocution lacks the punch of the original.
Best Joke of the Day
Thursday, December 6th, 2007It was a busy day, spent in my office recording and editing, so it was one of the only jokes I made today. It’s at the end of a comment I left to this interesting post contextualizing the absurdity of the 2008 Marlins payroll now that they’ve dumped their two highest-paid players, I wrote this:
With the revenue Loria’s drawing, you’d think he could dredge his own island off the Miami coast and build a stadium on it, plus a bridge connecting it to the peninsula without public financing.Something like these man-made islands in the UAE could be super cool. Imagine it, an island shaped like a Marlin with nothing on it but a ballpark, parking garages, and a few resort hotels with views into the stadium.
I gotta say, though… The 2008 Marlins might be the best $10,000,000 baseball team since the 1989 Cubs!
You see what I did there? Totally flouting the tenet not to compare across eras. Totally high-larious.
Steve Martin
Tuesday, December 4th, 2007I got a kick out of this review of Steve Martin’s new book and especially this video linked from it:
You may recognize that he uses the balloon animal bit in a largely unappreciated movie, Parenthood. “Your lower intestine.” [Hat tip to David Pinto]
One of the funniest things I remember from the time my grandma spent the last few years of her life living with my mom involved Steve Martin. She was in the family room, where I’d left Comedy Central on the television. I was in another room, reading or something, and heard my grandma erupting into gales of laughter. I went in to see what was so funny and she was watching this brilliant hangdown-joke.
The end of that video clip brings me to another observation. At work, we use a piece of (very useful) software called Cleaner XL that’s currently published by a company called Autodesk. Formerly, however, it was made by a company called Discreet. When they shipped the software, it came in a brown cardboard box, unmarked except for the word “Discreet.” I assumed the mail carriers and secretaries all think I’m some kind of pervert, having items delivered to my office address in a Discreet brown box.
To Save Me From Tears
Thursday, November 29th, 2007I had a fantastic 30th birthday. Aside from having a great time with better friends than I deserve, I got the best present I’ve ever gotten. This:
I mentioned to my friend that I’ve been looking for a print of that picture for a long, long time. It’s the famous, “Rick Monday Saves the Flag” picture. The story is told well at the wikipedia page. Rick Monday is a Marine who had a 19 year Major League career as an outfielder. On April 25, 1976 while he was playing for the Cubs, visiting the Dodgers, a coupla hippies went onto the field to burn an American flag. Just before they put match to lighter fluid sogged flag, he snatched it up and a cameraman caught the moment.
There’s nowhere I know of to get a print of that picture and I’ve looked for a while. My good friend heard of my search and tracked down the photographer (Dead End: He’s dead), the newspaper that printed the picture (Dead End: Bankruptcy), and searched and searched until she found the negative of the picture in the Los Angeles County archives. They blew it up and mailed it to her. She framed it for me and gave me the most thoughtful present I’ve ever gotten. She had to sign releases that it wouldn’t be publicly displayed—if not, I’d include in this post a picture of where it’s hanging in my living room, right below the 2006 Cardinals WS picture.
It’s a treasured thing for me now. It’s funny… My dad, who volunteered for service in the Army during the Vietnam conflict has no problem with people burning flags. I’ve never served anyone but myself but it pisses me off when I see people protesting in that way. Hell, I get pissed off when I see people flying the flag the wrong way. Monday says: “If you’re going to burn the flag, don’t do it around me. I’ve been to too many veterans’ hospitals and seen too many broken bodies of guys who tried to protect it.”
In any case, I had a great birthday and had a blast hanging out with good friends. And tonight, I sang some hilarious songs at karaoke. While on the way to get a new driver’s license, I heard a terrible song that I needed to sing tonight, Last Christmas, by Wham!. Also brought back a classic from the Cutting Crew.
More Hilarious Video
Monday, November 5th, 2007It’s come to my attention that Auto Phone Sex is a real gas.
There’s a TTS application Homer Dudley couldn’t have anticipated!
Look Around You
Monday, November 5th, 2007My friends in the Physics department are big fans of the show Look Around You.
Now that I’ve seen it, I am, too. That’s fantastic comedy.
The second episode on “Water” is priceless.
How did I miss This???
Friday, November 2nd, 2007Amazing. Collegehumor.com has a series going on called Street Fighter: the Later Years. How is it that this has escaped my attention for so long?
It’s fantastic.
Things to Know
Tuesday, October 30th, 2007The Halloween episode of Cautionary Tales of Swords came out yesterday and it builds into a pretty effective joke, especially if you’ve seen plenty of the old HBO show, Tales from the Crypt.
Best new show this week is definitely Return of Supermans, which takes the basic joke from Superhawk and the Whipmaster to the next level. Well, it’s a little different—making fun of crappy Turkish Knockoff flicks. (If anyone can tell me for certain if they’re doing to the buried alive lady in this one is what I think they’re doing, a tip of the cap to you…)
I bought new shoes yesterday for the first time in probably five years. My faithful Dr. Marten’s finally wore out on me. I’d planned on going to the mall here to get another pair for the $130 or so I’d wisely invested in them lo those many years ago, but my pal told me about a website called Zappos. They were selling my shoes for $94, no sales tax added, and overnight shipping is free—plus if they don’t fit, you can return the shoes within 365 days of getting them with a pre-paid UPS slip. That’s a hell of a deal. I put my order in at 4:43pm yesterday and hoped they’d come tomorrow sometime. They were delivered to the office before noon today, about seventeen hours after I clicked “submit” on the website. That’s impressive. And so are my stylin’, ultra-durable new kicks.
Research is going well. I took most of last week off, but hit the ground running this weekend and am off to the races. I plan to get a shit-ton done over the next week. And will make an effort to post something at least mildly entertaining daily.
The 2-of-6 Rule
Monday, October 22nd, 2007While up in Chicago, I told Nick about Scott Adams’ 2-of-6 rule—basically a list of six categories of funny that a joke has to have at least two of to work. Great jokes have five or six of them. It turns out that the post in which he presented the rule has been deleted from his very funny Dilbert Blog, since he’s lined up a publisher to print books of his best posts from the last few years and that content won’t be free anymore.
I spent the last ten minutes digging the 2-of-6 post out of the Way Back Machine and saved a copy for myself since that’ll likely be gone once the publisher gets wise.
Before all is lost, a joke must have six of these qualities in order to be funny:
- Cute (as in kids and animals)
- Naughty
- Bizarre
- Clever
- Recognizable (You’ve been there)
- Cruel
Adams points to this Pearls before Swine comic as an example of a joke satisfying four of the criteria: Cute, Bizarre, Clever, and Cruel. And a funny joke it is.
Now it’s back to making my prelim slides. Big day tomorrow.