Thursday, September 30, 2010

Speaking Of Yodeling

Franzl Lang just made himself a new fan.



Be seeing you.
-Sally

And I Will Juggle A Lullaby

No "Embedding Disabled By Request" is going to stop me from sharing this video!
I am easily impressed by what a lot of people may consider "useless" talents. If you can play an instrument, draw, dance, yodel, juggle or do magic tricks, you are one of the coolest people in the world to me.
In fact, it's downright nerdy how impressed I am by people who know how to juggle. I'm still upset that I don't have the capacity to learn how to do it. I've tried several times and just can't make it happen.
The guy in this video, though, he knows how to juggle. And he is fantastic.

Be seeing you.
-Sally

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Mmm, Catchy



Be seeing you.
-Sally

I'll Have ... The Fish!

I saw this commercial on one of those "Hilarious Foreign Commercials" shows they used to do sometimes in the '90s. It gave me the damn creeps, and for a very long time I thought I'd made it up. I also touted it to anybody who'd listen to me as one of the best commercials I'd ever seen. Thanks to the magic of Youtube, I've found it once again!



Goddamn, how come they don't sell beer this way in America?

Be seeing you?
-Sally

Damn, That Guy's Hungry



Be seeing you.
-Sally

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Oh, Lamp!

You have to watch the commercial before reading what I have to say about it.



This is possibly the most brilliant commercial in the history of time.
The first time I saw it, years and years ago, I was pretty much in tears by the end. I was just on the verge of saying "I don't like this commercial," when that man walked in and told me I was crazy. And I busted up.
It was the perfect element for that moment in time, and that dude saved me probably a good ten minutes of crying over a sad, discarded lamp. I still think it's one of the funniest commercials ever made. (And I generally follow the rule that sad =/= funny.)
What's great is everybody else I've ever shown this to has the same reaction; as it goes on they all get more and more upset over the lamp. Everybody feels bad for that lamp. And then that man walks in and tells them they're crazy and it always gets a big laugh.
This commercial is manipulative, it fucks with your emotions and it's funny as hell.
And, really, it's a brilliant piece of filmmaking. I don't know who directed it, but I really hope they've moved on to feature films. Successful ones. They deserve it.

Be seeing you.
-Sally

The Stylist Doesn't Get Any Pay

Remember Nerf Herder?
Okay, remember the theme song to Buffy The Vampire Slayer? Yeah, that was by Nerf Herder. They had a lot of other good songs, but I can't find videos for any of the ones I'm familiar with. They were good, though. Trust me.
Anyway, according to my brother, they haven't put out any albums lately. He claims it's due to stuff like this:



Nerf Herder frontman Parry Gripp has cornered the market on "funny songs about adorable animal videos."



He's got a bunch of them.



None of them are very long.



Some of them include celebrity guest appearances.



The thing is, probably my two favorite Parry Gripp videos have nothing to do with adorable animals. One of them is mostly about nachos (which is good, because I don't understand the part about the Ipad; I don't speak technology):



My very favorite Parry Gripp video is about teenage girls with video diaries. This song has the most rockin' bridge that could possibly exist:



Mostly, though, Parry Gripp is your go to guy for songs about animals that are both fuzzy and cute.



Be seeing you.
-Sally

Monday, September 27, 2010

I'm A Super Fightin' Robot From The Year 2010

When I was a kid I spent a lot of time watching my brother play video games. A lot of people will tell you watching other people play video games is boring. I disagree, and I have a very good reason to disagree: I'm really bad at video games. Me watching me play video games is insanely boring because all I ever got to see was the first halves of levels. RPGs were even worse, because I just didn't understand them. "What do you mean I just kind of wander around? Where am I supposed to go?"
I'm not terrible at all games; I'm great at Tetris-style "blocks falling from the sky" games. But games with characters and stories, forget it. I'm a mess.
So I spent a lot of time watching my brother play video games. The Mega Man games were favorites of mine. Embarassingly, there was a while where I had a crush on that little 8-bit robo man (still not as embarrassing as the crush I had on Bob Barker; what the hell was I thinking?), but I really liked the games even after I got over that one.
What I'm trying to say is: Here's an awesome rap song about Mega Man 2.



Be seeing you.
-Sally

Sunday, September 26, 2010

The Puppets Kind Of Creep Me Out

I've never seen Hedwig And The Angry Inch. I kind of want to, but I've just never gotten around to it. Maybe someday.
Until then, I'm going to continue to worry that the version of The Long Grift in the movie won't live up to the They Might Be Giants version:



'Cause that's just beautiful. I don't need to hear another version.

Be seeing you.
-Sally

I'm In A Mike Patton Mood Today



Be seeing you.
-Sally

Hey, I Was At That Show!

I totally was.



The sound quality's kinda bad, but this is still pretty great. I've never heard the original Jennifer Lopez version of the song, so I don't know how it compares (my guess: Lovage is much better).
Still crossing my fingers for a second Lovage album.

Be seeing you.
-Sally

Friday, September 24, 2010

Darn Fine Pie



I love Sesame Street.

Be seeing you.
-Sally

That's Right, Lesser Developed Human Prototype Us-es

Apparently a third Bill and Ted movie is in the works. I'll admit it, I'm excited.



Be seeing you.
-Sally

I Sleep All Day, Drive All Night



Be seeing you.
-Sally

Proclamation!

There's a feature on thatguywiththeglasses.com called 5 Second Movies. All the Rocky movies in five seconds is probably my favorite:



Titanic in five seconds and Bridge To Terabithia in five seconds are also really good, if you feel the need to seek them out.
5 Second Movies are not to be confused with 5 Second Films such as Gentleman Caller:



and Unrecognized Genius:



Be seeing you.
-Sally

This Year Roger Rabbit Will Be Our Christmas Star

I'm obsessed with advertising. I don't know why, but something about it fascinates me. I study it like it's ... I don't know, like it's a thing that people study. So there'll be a lot of commercials on this blog (mostly old ones, but maybe some new ones if I like them enough).
And what better way to introduce you to my advertising obsession than by combining it with two of my other obsessions: Disneyland and Christmas?



This is probably my favorite television commercial of all time. It makes me happy. I love the jingle, I love the product it's trying to sell me (I still have in my bedroom a 1988 Disneyland poster: "Roger Rabbit's Very First Christmas At Disneyland"), it's just all around directly targeted at me.
By the way, appealing to the Sally Zybert Demographic is a bad way to run an advertising business.

Be seeing you.
-Sally

The Names Are Made Up But The Problems Are Real

Does anybody else out there remember Square One?



Back in the day, someone thought the best way to teach kids about math was silly sketches, fast talker John Moschitta (whose last name I thought was "Ma-Cheetah," which seemed appropriate), Blackstone The Magician (was that his name?), writing eights funny (one circle then another circle, rather than a sideways infinity) and, of course, music videos:



I am the first to admit the only way I can retain academics is to learn them in song form. I can't do simple algebra, but I can do subtraction problems in base eight (New Math by Tom Lehrer). The basics of geometry are lost on me, but I can recite one hundred eightysomething digits of pi (Pi by Hard 'N Phirm). And, thanks to Animaniacs, I know the capitals of all fifty states (Wakko's America). I just can't tell you where in the country any of those states lie, because I know diddly squat about geography.
The thing is, I don't know if I ever retained anything from Square One. I mean, I watched the show religiously, but I can't recall ever learning anything about math from it. I don't think I realized that was the point. (What can I say? I just don't think about that kind of thing.)
I do remember it scaring me; one of the music videos (Youtube disabled the embed function on it, so I can't post it here) was called Ghost Of A Chance and was about a pizza delivery guy having to use probability to get through a haunted house. If the song got stuck in my head on any given day, I wouldn't be able to sleep that night. It got to the point where I'd run out of the room every time it came on (just like I did with Somebody's Watching Me by Rockwell and Jeopardy by Greg Kihn). Now I can't get enough of the creepy stuff, but when I was a kid I did almost everything I could to avoid it. (It still fascinated me, but I wanted to hear about it secondhand.)
Square One also had a song that made me cry:



It didn't occur to me that the show was trying to teach me that there was such a thing as negative numbers. First of all, I think I already knew that. More than that, though, it just seemed to me like they were picking on the guy. It wrecked me. In addition to being a sissy about scary stuff, I was also oversensitive to pretty much everything.
And I guess I still am. 'Cause I'm getting a little teary thinking about how I used to think Less Than Zero was such a sad song.
Yeah ... I think there's something wrong with me in the brain area.
The thing I remember most vividly about Square One is Mathman:



...but most people seem to remember Mathnet best.



I liked Mathnet but, like most of Square One, I'm not sure if I actually got it. I don't think I knew I was supposed to learn any math from it. I just knew it was a parody of Dragnet.
And, like everything else on the planet, there was an episode that scared me. In fact, my most vivid memory of Mathnet is not of the show itself, but of the tactic I used to avoid an episode.
The way Mathnet worked (at least, the way I remember it) was, one story was stretched out over the week in five parts. I swear one of the stories ended with people in a courtroom taking masks off, something that used to scare the crap out of me (it just looked to me like face removal). So I started paying attention and learned how the Monday episode of that Mathnet series started, then I just wouldn't watch all that week.
It's the same tactic I use today to avoid the dog episode of Futurama. If the episode starts and Bender's wearing a cape, I turn it off.
Anyway, Square One was cool. I miss it. I can't say I learned anything from it (nothing that stuck, anyway) but I bet if I watched it now I'd probably pick up some sweet math skills.
Now if only it'd come out on DVD.

Be seeing you.
-Sally

Spooky, Scary

I've never seen an episode of 30 Rock, but I don't think I have to. I'm pretty sure I've already seen the best scene in the series:



Be seeing you.
-Sally

I Don't Have Hands

Once upon a time, I'd never heard of Barenaked Ladies. Then one day they invaded Fox Kids and told me not to be racist.



I haven't heard their past couple of albums, but I still consider myself a fan.

Be seeing you.
-Sally

Notice The Texture Of This Meatloaf



Be seeing you.
-Sally

Thursday, September 23, 2010

It's More Than True, It Actually Happened

I promise, this is the last thing I'll post today.
You know how much I love Gogol Bordello, right? Good.
Why don't you love them that much? And, if you do, why don't you love them more? Why don't I love them more?
Can there be enough love thrown at this band? I think not.



Be seeing you.
-Sally

The Ultimate Sound Of Failure



This is the sound I hear in my head every time I screw something up.

Be seeing you.
-Sally

It's Turbo Time!

Okay, I'm enjoying having this blog too much. I'm sure the novelty will wear off eventually. Until then, though, let's talk techno.
I'm not a huge fan of techno music. I like Smile by Paulina Taylor and The System Is Down by Strong Bad and, if you count them as techno, pretty much everything by Mindless Self Indulgence but for a very long time, that was all.
Then I discovered the Half Life: Full Life Consequences remix by Furries In A Blender:



(There's actually two of these songs; I'm including only the one that has an interesting video. The other one just has a close up picture of John Freeman that's kind of disturbing.)
Well, I couldn't stop listening to it. I sent it to Ivan, who'd introduced me to Half Life: Full Life Consequences in the first place. His response: "It reminds me of Put That Cookie Down."



Oh man, do I ever love Put That Cookie Down! I've never even seen Jingle All The Way. (I do like to refer to Arnold Schwarzenegger as Governor Jingle All The Way, though.)
Through Put That Cookie Down I discovered This Is Sparta:



Through This Is Sparta I discovered Gimmie Back My Son:



And, of course, through Gimmie Back My Son I discovered Why Is The Rum Gone:



So apparently I am a techno fan. Just the very specific "remixes of movies" genre of techno music.
If any you reading this out there knows of any more songs in this genre that I might like, please send them to me. I'd love to hear them.

Be seeing you.
-Sally

It's Monstrositous!

Remember that part in Little Shop Of Horrors when Audrey Jr. started rapping and befriended a little kid?



Me neither.

Be seeing you.
-Sally

Did You Just Kill A Guy With An Appetizer?

Speaking of obsessions Amanda decided a couple weeks ago that it was time for me to get addicted to Leverage.
For those of you who have never seen it, Leverage is a show about Timothy Hutton leading a team of criminals to help out good folks who have been screwed by the system and have no other options. Each episode is kind of like watching The Sting.
And if you haven't seen The Sting, you should. It's great.
Leverage is pretty great, too.
The thing that's weird, though is, when I started watching it, I was pretty certain Hardison (played by Aldis Hodge) was going to be the character who all of my affections were thrown toward. Hardison's the computer hacker, the smart guy, the one who's always ready with a funny comment, a snarky remark and a nerdy reference. I like Hardison. I like him a lot.
However, the more I watch the show, the more attention I pay to Eliot.
Now, if you were to ask me the type of guy I like or the type of TV character I'm fond of, my reaction would definitely not be "a bulky, good ol' boy type Texan." And that's exactly what Eliot (played by Christian Kane) is. So, why am I so enamored of Eliot?
Well, Eliot can do this:



We all know I'm not a fan of real life violence. But movie violence (the gory kind) and television violence (the fisticuffs kind) are two of my favorite things.
Heck, there's a reason I call Patrick McGoohan "My Punching Hero." There are very few episodes of The Prisoner where he didn't get into a fistfight. Hell, according to legend, the guy turned down the role of James Bond more than once because James Bond uses too many gadgets and doesn't hit people nearly enough!
That's right kids. James Bond isn't manly enough to be Patrick McGoohan.
I don't know what the point of this entry is. I was just thinking about how much I like Leverage, and how much ass Eliot kicks, and how much I enjoy fistfights on television.
But I wonder where I draw the line because I still won't watch Walker Texas Ranger, no matter how many bad guys he punches. Chuck Norris is unacceptable but Christian Kane is A-okay? Who decided that?
You know all those rumors about Chuck Norris? (For instance, he's so fast he can run around the planet and punch himself in the back of the head?) They're all true except for one thing; he can be defeated.
The only thing that can defeat Chuck Norris is Patrick McGoohan.
And the only reason Patrick McGoohan died was so he'd have a grave to spin in when The Prisoner remake aired.

Be seeing you.
-Sally

The Czechoslovakian Bonzo Dogs

And here, for your enjoyment, is the video that inspired the "You should have a blog" comment.



I giggle like an idiot every time I watch it. I love that dancing guy in the suit (even though he totally stole all my best moves).

Be seeing you.
-Sally

Solutions To You

I have a habit of acquiring sort of strange videos from the internet, which I then tend to share with people because I think they're awesome. Recently my buddy Mike Phirman (yeah, I'm name dropping; I have no shame) suggested I start a blog to showcase this stuff.
Because I don't know how to say no to Mike (he could probably convince me to dunk my head in a vat of boiling chili), that's exactly what I'm doing.
So, since this whole thing was his idea, I now pronounce you Chicken Monkey Duck:



I guess I should mention that I'm also, as the title suggests, going to include various rants in this blog, as well as use it as an outlet for whatever I'm obsessed with at any given time. And I'll probably occasionally post links to my other blog where I write movie (and sometimes other things) reviews, if I'm particularly proud of something I wrote there.

Be seeing you.
-Sally