Our YouTube account was unceremoniously pulled this week, so we haven't been able to post the new episode there yet. (It should be back tonight!) But you can see the new episode on Blip, complete with meta-commentary about how it's not on YouTube! Ha ha, ironic self-awareness!
Posted via web from Lon Harris
Some mouthbreather named John Hawkins has written a thoroughly ridiculous list of the "10 Horror Movies For Conservatives To Watch This Halloween." What makes a horror movie CONSERVATIVE, you might ask? I had no idea, which is what made me intrigued enough to click the link in the first place...Perhaps he's recommending those schlocky movies where a woman's fetus dies or is aborted and then it comes to life and starts exacting revenge on the townsfolk? That, I guess, could be construed as aligned with the modern Republican Party's platform of hating abortions and, you know, women. Or maybe he means those horror movies where the only way to stop the zombiepocalypse is to kick out all the Mexicans? Wait, they haven't made that movie? HOLY SHIT, what are you guys waiting for? That's a horror film concept I would think a lot of American conservatives could get behind. Especially if it was Communist zombies who wanted to gay marry one another.
But no...this list is just 10 horror movies, some of them pretty great, that have...wait for it...ABSOLUTELY NO CONNECTION whatsoever to contemporary American political conservatism. None. Zero. You might as well call this list "10 Horror Movies for Proctologists to Watch This Halloween." It's entirely likely that butt doctors would enjoy most, if not all, of these films, but that doesn't really mean they are anal-illness-centric in any significant way. Let's go through selections from the list...CLOVERFIELD: Hawkins implies that this is conservative because it features the US military doing stuff:"Meanwhile, the military was in the thick of the action, bravely fighting against the Cloverfield monster and handling an impossible situation the best way they could." True, the movie makes no specific critiques of the military's handling of the whole "monster devouring New York" thing. (Hawkins tends to view any movie that depicts the military or the religious as human beings as "conservative," which strikes me as a touch misleading.) But at the same time, the entire conceit of the film revolves around a secretive government project (nickname: Cloverfield) that is apparently investigating the incident in a shadowy, questionable manner after the fact. So it's not exactly jingoist to the core either. Here's, as best I can deduce, Hawkins' calculation: - Government, as a concept: Liberal
There's something about finding a meme WAY TOO LATE and then latching on to it that's just charming. It's like how Chinese food is sometimes more delicious when it's spent a few days getting cool in the fridge than it was fresh. The best ridiculous YouTube in-jokes only get better with age.
Posted via web from Lon Harris
We're hard at work here at Mahalo on the Brutal Legend Walkthrough page. The game seems pretty fun - Jack Black voices a roadie who winds up in a hellscape known as "Heavy Metal." Apparently the game combines action, racing and Real-Time Strategy but all the clips I've seen look essentially like an action game, albeit one with a relatively open world to explore.
It's rare to find a really enjoyable, playable game with a big sense of humor. (That first "Sam and Max" game was kind of fun, I suppose, and there's always the "Monkey Island" series.) Usually, in-game "comedy" is done "Duke Nukem"-style. Little repeated one-liners that play whenever you do a certain move or something. Weak. Anyway, Mitchell is working on the walkthrough right now, as he plays through the game, and we've got lots of videos on there as well. It's a great intro to the game if you're considering picking it up.
A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have. Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long.
"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way," Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else."
American South, you've done it again!
Posted via web from Lon Harris
Conundrum Wines make a very tasty product - I bought one of their 2007 white wines from Los Feliz's epic Cap n' Cork Market - and they have paired it with an unusual marketing strategy. Rather than focus their advertising on the wine itself, they're challenging potential customers to think about "conundrums" they face in their own lives. The best way, the ads seem to imply, to answer some of life's most confusing situations...might be while enjoying a glass of delicious Conundrum wine?
At least that's my take on it. No matter their underlying strategy, they have entrusted Mahalo with creating this "spinoff" Q&A site for them, called ConundrumLand.http://www.whatsyourconundrum.com/ The thing that's interesting about the ConundrumLand/Mahalo Answers team-up, to me, is that the two sites can really work in concert, rather than as competitors. ConundrumLand tends to focus on in-depth discussions, especially about topics like etiquette, relationships, work...personal sorts of conversations, like you'd have with your close friends, that tend to reflect the user's life experiences and backgrounds. This is in pretty direct opposition to Mahalo Answers, which occasionally encourages users to share personal information but more often focuses on facts, data and actual research-able information. If this little experiment works well, we'll have lots more of these kinds of sites focused on a variety of different brands and sponsors. So if you're at all curious about knowledge exchange communities, or if you just have a few conundrums of your own you'd like answers for, I'd encourage you to check it out!
Here's a video of Beck liberally applying Vicks Vaporub to his face in order to present the illusion of crying. Cause he's SO WORRIED about his country...but not enough to conjure up any real emotion.
If there's one thing on the planet more pathetic than a TV personality crying on camera for no good reason...it's that TV personality PRETENDING to cry on camera for no good reason.
This is the first time I've actually come close to feeling badly for Beck. He'll have to live with the existence of this footage for the rest of his life. No amount of money could possibly be worth that.
Posted via web from Lon Harris
How has this been on YouTube for a week without my knowledge? The guy's argument boils down to a few points:
(1) Obama wants to ban flavored dips
(2) Flavored dips are good
(3) Therefore, Obama is gay
But that's not all. He proceeds to
- compare Obama to a monkey, before postulating what might happen if a person gave a monkey a flavored dip.
- defend his right to say racial slurs, on the basis that he's not a Nazi
- argue in favor of legal prostitution
- state that Obama is not an American, but IS a Jew (!)
- salute the Confederate flag because, and I quote, "I'm a true fucking American."
Okay, sure, not all his arguments are all that compelling, but delivering them while pausing frequently to spit in a small plastic container? That is one dynamite rhetorical technique. I'm pretty sure William Jennings Bryant did the same during his most celebrated oratories.
Posted via web from Lon Harris
Hang on, there's something wrong with my calculator. I'm adding Lenin to Stalin, then dividing that by Hitler added to Castro, but it keeps coming out as comedian Louie Anderson, not Obama...That can't be right...
This is clearly one of the most ludicrous propaganda videos I've ever seen on YouTube. To dissect its silliness thoroughly would take 20 blog posts.
But my favorite part was this:
"The battle started at the Alamo comes to Washington DC"
So Glenn Beck went to Washington to ask for Texas' independence from Mexico? He needn't have bothered.
You know what, maybe I'm wrong...Maybe he's referring to the theft of Pee Wee Herman's bike, which as we all know, was thought to be hidden in the Alamo's basement. Obama really ought to give it back. Frances had no right to take it.
Shira's in New York for the VMA's...
But fear not! My guest co-host this week is Bibliotech creator, author and Mahalo CTO Mark Jeffrey. Next week, we've got a very special show planned with some other guests, and then look for the return of Shira later this month!
Another brilliant episode from Zach Galifianakis. Brought to you by "Need for Speed: Shift."
This episode features probably the single meanest segment aimed at an individual YouTuber we've ever done. I mean, Jake Walmsley is definitely crying out for some negative attention, but still...I may have gone too far. Even Maria Sansone doesn't usually have to deal with this much of my wrath.
Gonna be tough...I mean, the Federal Commission of T-Pain signed off on this one. PLUS you get the return of Katie Couric. But these just keep getting better, so I'll have to hold out hope.
So what could be so useful about depression? Depressed people often think intensely about their problems. These thoughts are called ruminations; they are persistent and depressed people have difficulty thinking about anything else. Numerous studies have also shown that this thinking style is often highly analytical. They dwell on a complex problem, breaking it down into smaller components, which are considered one at a time.
Basically, the idea is that sad bastards sit and home and think about their lives over and over again, and that this in turn causes their brain to function in a more intensely focused, analytical manner, which in turn makes them smarter, or at least better at critical thinking and problem solving.
These people who wrote the article are scientists, whereas I host a weekly web show in which I make sarcastic remarks about cat videos and Shane Dawson, so you decide who to trust...but I'm not sure I buy this idea. It implies that the thinking you do when you're depressed is, in some ways, analytical, and even productive. And it's not. Repetition alone doesn't count as critical thinking...and that's all depression is...the repetition in the mind of negative, hateful thoughts without an "off" switch.
It's not like depressed people are really looking at their lives analytically and breaking the shit down in an organized, strategic manner. "Well, let's see, on this side, I hate my father, but I love gelato! And I'm not happy at my job, but puppies! And I'm uncertain as to whether I'll ever find true love, and deep down, I suspect that it's all meaningless and I could die at any moment and no one would ever care...but, hey, that new Final Destination movie's coming out soon!"
I don't think there's anything productive about being depressed, and the idea that it might make you better at math strikes me as counter-intuitive. Sure, you're focused when you're depressed, but only on one thing - feeling depressed.
60 episodes and we're not totally out of ideas yet...I'm stunned.
And for all those asking in the YouTube comments, the Percolator Girl seems fine at the end of the video. I think there's a chance that clip might actually be less funny if she had expired. (I'd probably still want to show it, though, cause it's awesome.)
Mahalo has launched its first white-label Q&A community, for Conundrum Wines. I actually tried their white table wine the other night, and it was pretty good. (Plus, it has a screw top, which makes you feel extra-classy.)
Anyway, ConundrumLand is a great to post any sort of puzzling or baffling decision you've been wrestling with. I've asked a few questions of my own on there and gotten some reasonable answers. Give it a try...we're pretty proud of it: http://www.whatsyourconundrum.com/
Trailer DOES feature Fred Willard and Zach Galifianakis, and is actually kind of funny, but even Cera's "dangerous" alter-ego pretty much seems exactly like George Michael Bluth. Nevertheless, I'm intrigued...
