Daft Punk is mysterious. The French duo is one of the most unique, eclectic groups and a huge contributor to the worldwide popularity of electronic/house music. Two of their albums, Homework and Discovery, are easily on my top albums of all time list. Without them, Kanye West would not be as popular (or hated, depending on how you look at it) as he is today. Not counting the live album they released in 2007, it's been almost 5 years since they've released an album. So they're due for a new album, right?
Based on a few things, I'm thinking (and hoping) yes. The first thing is their recent contribution to the "spin"-off of Guitar Hero, DJ Hero (yep...I just punned). I haven't gotten my hands on this game yet, but they apparently contributed about 11 new mixes for the game and appear as playable characters. They appeared in promotions for the game, such as this one:
The second item to support my belief that Daft Punk is coming back is their work on the score for the new Tron: Legacy film. If you're the least bit geeky, you heard about this movie in the works. If not, this sequel to the 1982 Tron will be released at the end of this year. Daft Punk has apparently composed 24 tracks for the film and rumors speculate that they make a cameo in the film also. Some tracks were leaked out which is a testament to Daft Punk's popularity; when else have tracks to a film been sought after over a year before the film even comes out?
The third Daft Punk sighting I experienced was for a recent Adidas campaign. This awesome campaign is for Adidas' Star Wars line. Just recently, Snoop Dogg and a storm trooper marched through the streets of New York to the Adidas shop, where a guy had been waiting since 1 am to get the first pair of Luke Skywalker sneaks. Anyway, this promotion came out online last month, showing a glimpse of the helmeted French duo:
So what's the deal Daft Punk? Rumors have been spreading about a 2010 tour but there were false rumors about a tour last year; apparently, they stick to Myspace (yuck!) for official tour news, so I suppose we'll all have to eagerly await.
Forget marathons. Forget triathalons. Forget Iron Man competitions. Dare I say it...even forget Ninja Warrior competitions. They should all bow and pay homage to...Tough Guy.
This year's main event was held a couple weeks ago, in South Staffordshire, UK. Though it's only about 8 miles, this event is far from a level race...it's far from a race full of hills...Tough Guy has underwater tunnels, barbed wire fences and fire walks. There is even an electric fence called "The Tiger," which comes after a long, steep-hill filled run including a slalom portion which forces competitors to run up and down an extremely steep hill. But after the Tiger comes the worst.
There are a series of walls to climb over, after which is "The Behomoth," a series of 4 towers which you have to climb up and walk a rope across, under which is a patch of nettles, a plant that would cause discomfort to say the least if you were to fall. After this comes the fire...then a tire crawl...then a swamp...then the "Vietcong tunnels"...then a rope climb...(are you getting the picture yet?)...then a rubber slide with firemen spraying hoses at you...then underwater tunnels...and so on and so on...until you climb another hill to run to the finish.
But my description doesn't come close to doing it justice. Check out their website (you can sign up for the next one if you want!) and take a look at this video:
New Orleans won the Superbowl last night, upsetting the Colts but making most of the country happy for a city that could use an ego boost like a football championship. I'm glad it was a good game, but I certainly was not dazzled by the millions of dollars spent on advertising. First of all, it's tough to think about any company spending millions on a 15, 30 or 60 second spot when our economy is in the toilet. You would think that if one did though, they'd come out with some big guns.
Bud Light is known for being one of the more humorous collections of advertisements and they more or less continued that reputation, though most of them fell flat: the voice box one, the house made of bud light, and the asteroid coming at Earth. However, one of my favorites all night was this one:
Monster.com had a very bizarre spot (the one with the beaver playing violin) which wasn't very memorable. Alternatively, their competition, Careerbuilder, had the other favorite of mine:
Most of the other spots were either very bizarre, subpar or just not good. One or two of the Doritos ads were pretty good, but overall I thought the collection was just OK and found myself questioning why Doritos is pushing advertising so much. The Snickers ad was good but personally I liked their "play on celebrity names" campaign better (Kick your hunger with Adam Nougateri, Get dunked on by Patrick Chewing, etc.) The Google ad was heart-warming of course. The E-Trade ads were good, but not as good as in the past.
So overall, I'm glad the game was good, I'm happy that the Saints won but I definitely was not as impressed with the commercials as I've been in the past.
Vincent Vega is dead to me. It's hard to believe that a single role among over 40 has managed to demand me to respect John Travolta over the years as he's progressively taken on worse roles. Those days are long gone though. I was able to turn my cheek as John dressed as a large woman for Hairspray, but this latest addition to his repertoire is the final straw. Here's a line graph to demonstrate my point...
Now, for "this music video"...I should warn you; what you are about to see is disturbing.
If you're finished vomiting yet, I'll proceed. I don't mean to knock a sentimental production between a father and daughter but...well, actually, yes, that's exactly what I mean to do. I didn't think anything produced today would send people begging for Bobby Brown, but congratulations John...you did it. The least you could have done was made it humorous, busted out a jacket with big shoulder pads, a sweet spandex/suspender get-up, a couple back-up dancers, a new hair-cut and some of the original dance moves. In an attempt to erase that video from your mind, I bring you Bobby Brown in his prime:
Print publications are dying. Most of us know it. A lot of us have already rid it from our lives. More of us are taking that process a bit more slowly.
I can't see printed books ever going away, even with the recent technology of Amazon's Kindle and the subsequent competitors.
Newspapers are probably the low man on the totem pole. Many of us get our news online now.
Magazines probably lie somewhere between. Personally, I may be in the minority these days but I enjoy the feel of reading magazines occasionally so I still have a handful of magazine subscriptions, one of which is Esquire.
I'm fascinated and in admiration of an idea that was launched in Esquire's December 2009 issue which links their print publication to people's computers. This idea is what is called "Augmented Reality." With a quick (free) download of software from their website, this "Augmented Reality" uses your web cam to detect markers throughout the print publication to show you additional content. David Granger, editor-in-chief of Esquire explains this concept further in the following video:
There are 5 content icons in the December 2009 issue: the cover with Robert Downey Jr., the Funny joke from a Beautiful Woman segment and the Style segment with Jeremy Renner as David Granger exemplified. There is also an icon for a blurb on jazz musician Robert Glasper, which gives you a listen to one of his new tracks, and there is an icon for a rather creative photographer which gives you a slideshow of some of his work. Also, there is a 6th icon for Lexus, which demonstrates some of the capabilities of one of their new models. This demonstrates that Esquire can make money off of using this technology while advertisers can present a very unique concept to potential customers.
Altogether, it only took me about 20 minutes to go through all of this in my issue but I found it very interesting and think this is just about the best idea that a print magazine could come up with to compete with online content. Augmented reality is not a new concept; it exists in such things as the yellow first down marker in football games. However, Esquire took it to a different level making it fun, engaging, interactive and obviously (or hopefully, for their sakes) encouraging for people to pick up the magazine to see it for themselves.
Not surprisingly, there was no AR in the January issue of Esquire. I wouldn't expect them to use something involving complex algorithms that inevitably take a lot of time to create for every single monthly issue. Yet, I definitely think (and hope) that Esquire will be using this again in the future.
Billy Mays, famous for yelling at us to buy things that we don't really need, has unfortunately passed away according to reports that his wife found him dead in their Florida home this morning. The police found no break-ins and suspect no foul play. If there were foul play though, I'd know who to blame...let me elaborate...
Billy Mays and fellow pitchman Anthony "Sully" Sullivan appeared on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien just 5 days ago, largely to promote their new show on the Discovery Channel called Pitchmen.
Conan humorously brought out some of the products that the two guys had pitched and had them demonstrate their use. Conan also fueled some fire by bringing up the ShamWow, knowing that Billy Mays had a bone to pick with the annoyingly hypnotic pitch of fame done by an odd-looking fellow named Vince Shlomi.
Why "a bone to pick" you ask? Well because Billy Mays pitched the "Zorbeez" before the "ShamWow" came onto the scene and they're both pretty much the same product. Watch below and see the Zorbeez vs. the ShamWow:
Obviously this Vince character is a sham (*cue the rim shot*) Basically the only difference between the two pitches is that Vince is wearing a headset...but why?? Looking into the end-all be-all truth that is Wikipedia, it turns out Vince has had his fair share of legal battles...
Shlomi made a comedy of sorts called The Underground Comedy Movie which was met with horrendous reviews. Vince accused the Farrelly brothers of stealing scenes from his movie for There's Something About Mary, to which the brothers basically said "We don't even know who you are." Vince also sued Anna Nicole Smith for not committing to the movie.
More recently, Vince was arrested in Florida for felony battery against a prostitute (see frightening mug shot at above-left).
My point is that this ShamWow guy doesn't have his morals in check and looks pretty damn sketchy. It turns out that the Zorbeez and ShamWow are distributed by the same company, which led to Billy Mays and Vince Shlomi sharing a box at the most recent SuperBowl. Mays was on Adam Corolla's radio show soon after the game and challenged Vince to a threatening pitch-off:
A long audio clip, but of most importance is the end, around the 4:00 mark or so, when Billy gets real heated and makes the challenge.
Did Vince Shlomi accept the challenge and take it too far? Did jealousy and greed escalate in this battle of absorbent towels?
Obviously, I'm exaggerating and don't seriously believe that there was any foul play. Ultimately, however, I'm sure this whole incident added some unneeded stress to Mays' life. My sympathies go out to his family and may he rest in peace. The world will never have a television pitchman of his caliber ever again.
Also, don't buy anything that's pitched by Shlomi.
It's comforting and entertaining to see genuine reactions from regular people, which is why hidden camera ads and ads based on guerilla marketing have grown in popularity. T-mobile has launched a couple of creative, inspiring advertisements with the tagline, "Life's for sharing," based on public displays in the UK.
These campaigns were created by the worldwide advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi who follows the motto, "Nothing is Impossible." A quick look through their site shows that this worldwide agency is very creative and their work will definitely grab your attention.
Here's the first video that featured a group of choreographed dancers, performing suddenly in a Liverpool station:
The video, captured by hidden cameras around the station, was cut down and featured on prime time on a UK TV station, as was this second video from London at Trafalgar Square just last week. This video only features one song, though apparently multiple songs were sung that day:
For much of the late 80's and early 90's, most people knew Bob Saget from Full House and America's Funniest Videos as a huge dork. Little did we all know that the joke was on us because over the years, we all realized that Mr. Tanner was as filthy as filthy gets. His dirty humor has been exposed more over the years with comedy specials and such, but for many, there was one shining moment when we all realized that Bob Saget is nothing like the father figure to DJ, Stephanie and Michelle. And that moment came in Half Baked. The scene takes place at a rehab center, where Dave Chappelle gets heckled for the fact that he's there for marijuana. Bob Saget comes in with a couple shocking lines.
4. Charlie Sheen - Ferris Bueller's Day Off
First of all, did you know Charlie Sheen was born Carlos Irwin Estevez? This movie is obviously a classic and I'm sure you are all familiar with the cameo made by Charlie Sheen in this one. It takes place at the police station when Ferris' mother is at the police station because of Ferris' sister. She sits next to a burnt-out looking Charlie Sheen, who proceeds to inquire about why she's there (Drugs?), what her deal with her brother is (Did you blow him away or something?) and after a couple scene changes, we find the two making out. Can you believe that Charlie Sheen made this cameo in the same year that Platoon was released?
3. Jack Black - Anchorman
There were a good number of cameos in this movie (Ben Stiller, Tim Robbins, Vince Vaughn, Luke Wilson), but none were as good as the one made by the one and only Jack Black. This man does not get enough credit for how funny he is. And don't get the wrong idea...I love dogs. In about 70 seconds, Jack Black manages to put out a good handful of memorable quotes as well as probably the most shocking moment of the movie when he punts Ron Burgundy's dog into the river.
2. Anthony Keidis and Flea - Multiple Movies
I had to group these together because these guys not only are members of one of the best bands out there, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but they also are known for some pretty hilarious cameos in a few movies, both individually and collectively.
Starting with Anthony, you may remember he had a small role in the epic Point Break as a member of "The Surf Gang." Keanu was riding on the wrong waves and was met by Anthony and the other BAMF's at the shower for an ass-kicking. As you may remember, Keanu was an undercover cop with Gary Busey and they think this gang is responsible for the robberies, so they go in for the bust, end up shooting Anthony Keidis' foot, and find out they had the wrong suspects.
Moving on to the duo of Anthony and Flea, and connecting them to #4 on this list, Charlie Sheen, you may remember them from a movie called The Chase. The premise of this comedy-thriller is that Charlie Sheen takes a rich girl hostage for a car chase...that's pretty much it. Anthony and Flea play Will and Dale, a couple not-so-bright citizens who felt it was their duty to stop the car chase in their monster truck, but obviously fail in doing so.
And finally, the best cameo of the three belongs to Flea alone for his role as "Nihilist #2, Kieffer" in one of the best movies of all time, The Big Lebowski. He appears in a couple scenes, this one being the main one. By the way, I'd like to thank Kathryn for offering a bunch of old audio casette tapes back a while ago, one of which was just like the tape that the Dude is listening to in this scene, Songs of the Whale.
1. All Cameos in Happy Gilmore
These cameos individually could stand out on their own, but I figured it most appropriate to group them together since they're all in the same movie. Cameos are becoming a signature move for most comedies, especially with the Happy Madison and Judd Apatow groups since there are so many actors associated with each group. Often times, a cameo can become one of the best parts of the movie. In Happy Gilmore, there were multiple cameos that became the best parts of the movie.
I'll start with Kevin Nealon, the "psycho," who tries to give Happy (Adam Sandler) some holistic golfing advice. Interestingly, I noticed his name is "Gary Potter" in the movie, a year before the first Harry Potter book came out. I think J.K. Rowling was harnessing in some good energy.
Next, probably the best known cameo of the movie is with my hero, Bob Barker. This scene with Bob is also probably one of the funniest fight scenes.
Lastly, the best cameo of the movie is interestingly an uncredited role played by Ben Stiller. The handlebar mustache is a key ingredient in what makes the scenes with "Hal," the nursing home orderly, some of the best scenes of the movie. Unfortunately I couldn't find a quality video of my favorite scene so here's the audio:
What I did find was another good scene in quality video. Interestingly, once I sought out for videos of the Happy Gilmore cameos, Hulu had 10 clips, 3 of which contained these cameos. I think that's a testament to the fact that they're sitting at #1 on this list.
Please feel free to comment with your favorite cameos that I may have missed!
Alice Cooper, real name Vincent Damon Furnier, is known for his somewhat scary stage performances in the past. Back in the 60's, he was even involved in an "accidental" incident involving a chicken that came onto stage. How the hell a chicken happened to come on stage is unknown. The story goes that, thinking the chicken could fly, Alice threw the chicken into the crowd; naturally, the fans in the first few rows tore that chicken apart and naturally, tabloids embellished on that incident, noting that Alice tore the chicken's head off and drank its blood in an Ozzy-like fashion. Over the next few decades, Alice Cooper developed the rock theatric show, even employing a magician to help with such acts as their on-stage guillotine. Because of this image that Alice Cooper developed, it was hilarious to see the "real" Alice Cooper when Wayne and Garth met him back stage:
9. Billy Idol - The Wedding Singer
Billy Idol could make a cameo in anything and it'd be awesome...because Billy Idol is awesome. What better movie for it than a comedy set in the 80's involving weddings, a time when Billy was in his prime after releasing the hit single "White Wedding." If you forget the scene, Billy makes an appearance toward the end of The Wedding Singer aboard the plane that Adam Sandler gets on in hopes of stopping Julia from becoming Julia Goolia. Billy is sitting there in first class and after hearing Adam Sandler's story, takes part in helping him execute his plan.
8. Screech - Made
It's not Screech's performance in his very short appearance in the underrated Made, but the role that he plays in the scene. For those who have not seen this film, the plot is that Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn play good friends that get involved in a money laundering scheme in NYC; Favreau is the level-headed guy who's trying to follow the instructions, but he takes the risk of vouching for his obnoxious hothead friend, played by Vaughn. The following video of Screech's cameo is a bit choppy, and I warn you that there is a good handful of F-bombs in it:
7. Rob Van Winkle - TMNT 2: Secret of the Ooze
Better known as Vanilla Ice, this cameo wasn't intended to be funny back when this movie was released because it was during the short time that everyone didn't laugh when hearing "Vanilla Ice." In retrospect, however, this cameo is hilarious. Do you remember those dance moves? Souljaboy's got nothin' on the Turtles and Ice. Go Ninja Go Ninja Go! Shredder had to ruin all the fun though when he busted through the speakers all hopped up on secret ooze.
6. Chazz - Wedding Crashers
This is the first cameo of this list that features someone not playing themselves. It's also probably the first cameo that's actually the best part of the entire movie. Will Ferrell enters the movie toward the end of the film as "Chazz," the guy who's still living at his Mom's house crashing funerals and playing with nunchucks. The "meatloaf" yell is priceless. Once again, although not as many f-bombs are dropped as the above video for Made, I must warn you that this video is NSFW:
I had the pleasure of seeing Victor Wooten play live nearby last night for the second time in the past four months. The show did not match the one that I saw back in December when he played as part of the popular Bela Fleck & The Flecktones, but I'm not sure any live music show that I've seen could, considering we were sitting comfortably about 5 feet from Victor. That said, it's still amazing to see what Vic can do on a bass guitar; it's one of those things that I don't think could ever get boring to watch.
Last night, Vic even brought out his young son and daughter, who played drums and vocals respectively for one song. For those unfamiliar with Vic, here are a few videos that will show you how some people are just born to be musicians...
This first video is an old one, as evidenced by Victor's sweet 'stache, and shows him playing a face-melting solo. You can see that even the drummer behind him is watching him like, "How the hell does he do that?" Trust me, it's well worth the 4 minutes:
This next video is featured on the 2002 DVD release of "Live at the Quick: Bela Fleck & The Flecktones," an amazing performance that was recorded at the Quick Center for the Arts at Fairfield University, a few years before I attended (which, coincidentally, was where I saw them this past December). It's more classical in nature than the previous video, and he works in a funked-out rendition of Amazing Grace into it:
This last video is another older one, but it seems most appropriate considering he's playing with his oldest brother, Regi. Vic is the youngest of 5 boys, all of whom took up playing different instruments at a young age. In fact, the second oldest of the brothers, Roy, aka Future man, is a percussionist that is also one of the Flecktones. It was Vic's oldest brother Regi, however, that realized that if Victor started playing bass, they'd have a full band, which they did. Vic started playing at 2 years old and 42 years later, he's considered to be one of the best bassists in the world.
I don't fly much...but obviously a lot of people fly on a regular basis...monthly, weekly, every couple days...
This steward from Southwest is awesome. He decided that droaning on with the same old safety talk is pretty boring, so he rapped it:
There should be more rapping in the service industry. If there was a store that had sales associates that rapped when checking you out, I'd be one of their top customers.
Ok, so first of all, I greatly apologize to those who saw my post yesterday. I made the careless mistake of linking up another site's image without bothering to look at their terms of use. Let's just say that they do not like people using their images and find it funny to replace those links with obscene pictures. Sorry if you had to see it. If you didn't, you don't want to know. But I'll be careful with using images from now on, don't worry.
To lighten the situation up, enjoy these horrendous driving scenes (Note: nothing against women drivers; in fact, my female manager at work sent this to the whole office):
You know those car ads when two guys have their cars parked in their driveway and they go back and forth spouting out the features of their cars in pride? Usually one guy (the guy who's spouting off features of the advertised car of course) gradually wins out in the comparisons and the loser takes it in stride and becomes immediately ashamed of his car or something to that degree. It never goes down like that in real life...a man's car is a sensitive topic. Casually comparing cars usually develops into yelling, which leads into physical altercations, which leads to...well, this car ad gets it, starring the one and only Andy Richter:
So the Top Chef season ended...if you didn't see the finale, and you plan to, stop reading. Otherwise, you know, or don't care, that Hosea won. The finale was pretty anticlimactic; it might of been more exciting had Fabio not been eliminated in the second to last episode.
I admitted my man-crush on Fabio in atleast one previous post, but I'm definitely not alone; he was voted fan-favorite. How could he not be with his funny Italian accent and his constant quips? I bring this up post-season because he may not have won "Top Chef" but I think he'll do just fine after his exposure on the show.
In addition to Bravo offering the "I <3 Fabio" t-shirt on their site, it seems that Fabio's been quite busy since the end of the show:
Ducati (Italian motorbikes): image licensing
Dr. Oetker Frozen Pizza: spokesperson
Pellegrino: "huge deal"
Food & Wine/Gail Simmons: "The Sparkling Life" national campaign
Deals in talks: Red Bull and Don Q Rum; many talk shows
Possible TV Show?
2 New Restaurant Openings in California
14-City Book Tour starting next month for new book: "Cafe Firenze"
As with virtually any video I see that's related to beer, I bring you this one. Watching this video really puts into perspective the fact that some people just have way too much time on their hands...
Only in Japan.
I'd also like to give a little shout out to my nephew Connor on his 3rd birthday! Happy Birthday buddy: may the force be with you.
You're probably aware that Jimmy Fallon is officially a late night host after the premiere of his new show last night in Conan's previous slot. I just turned my brain into "mushy mush" by watching most of it on Hulu and you can tell that he was a bit nervous, but he seemed to have done a pretty good job. I'm sure once he gets into the swing of it, he'll start doing a great job. Guests were Bobby De Niro (he lets me call him that), Justin Timberlake and Van Morrison. De Niro...well, he's De Niro...he doesn't have to say a word because he's the man. The highlight of the show was probably the interview with Justin Timberlake - I think they should probably give J-Timb his own show. His impressions of Michael McDonald and John Mayer were hilarious. See the JT interview here:
Now...it's obvious that Jimmy has the best band of all the talk show hosts in history: The freakin' Roots aka The Legendary Roots Crew aka The 5th Dynasty. I don't think anyone has ever flipped around the TV and said, "Gee, I'm going to put on Conan to see Max Weinberg" or "I want to hear what Paul Shaffer has to say tonight." The Roots, however, could definitely do that for people. They did an awesome job, but my only question is...who the hell is this bassist???
Leonard Hubbard needs to rejoin the group; unfortunately, he left the group about a year and a half ago (not sure exactly why), but he definitely looks way cooler jamming out than this white guy.
I'm bottling my latest batch of beer today (a Nut Brown Ale) which will be primed and ready to drink in a few weeks...
And since my afternoon is dedicated to the great art of beer, I figured I would leave you with an entertaining video involving beer and one of the best toys in the world: Legos...
Daft Punk is mysterious. The French duo is one of the most unique, eclectic groups and a huge contributor to the worldwide popularity of electronic/house music. Two of their albums, Homework and Discovery, are easily on my top albums of all time list. Without them, Kanye West would not be as popular (or hated, depending on how you look at it) as he is today. Not counting the live album they released in 2007, it's been almost 5 years since they've released an album. So they're due for a new album, right?
The second item to support my belief that Daft Punk is coming back is their work on the score for the new Tron: Legacy film. If you're the least bit geeky, you heard about this movie in the works. If not, this sequel to the 1982 Tron will be released at the end of this year. Daft Punk has apparently composed 24 tracks for the film and rumors speculate that they make a cameo in the film also. Some tracks were leaked out which is a testament to Daft Punk's popularity; when else have tracks to a film been sought after over a year before the film even comes out?
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