all smiles

What the hell is this thing? I know it's from the Amazon. Any guesses?

beeker buffoonery's 100th post!!!

100 posts! Very exciting! It's been about 1.5 years and I know I've blogged a bit in spurts, but I hope to be more regular in the future (about 2 per week). It's been extremely fun and a great creative outlet for me (instead of boring engineering all the time). I still don't have much of a direction for the blog, besides just things that interest me... and I doubt that will change.

Without question, the high point for me was the reference in the Post-Gazette's Blog N' Gold and others to my Terrible Towel in Beijing post. It was barely anything, but I had a great sense of blogging commodore. I continue to wish that all of my friends had blogs. So, if you're reading this, please feel free to email me, add me to Google Reader, follow my blog, or just check back occasionally... and I would love to read YOUR blogs, discuss blogging tech, or do any type of collaboration. Also, I update my Reader shared items much more often than this blog (that's why it's at the top - "beeker LIVE!"), so please check that and add me to your sharing friends.

Thanks for reading and thanks for your comments. Now... an ode to the buffoonery: (click to enlarge)

War with Canada

Earlier this week (12/2) there was an amusing BS Report with Bill Simmons and Cousin Sal (writer for Jimmy Kimmel Live) going through the Week 14 NFL games. When they got to the Dolphins-Bills game, here's their exchange:

Cousin Sal: Miami at Buffalo... except it's not at Buffalo it's in Toronto.

Bill Simmons: Oh no!

CS: Yeah.

BS: Is this a dome or not a dome?

CS: You know, I'm not even sure. Miami at Buffalo in Toronto. I think they play in the Maple Leaf's Gardens, right?... No, I don't know where this is.

BS: It can't be a dome. If they built a dome, we would have heard of that. I should probably find that out. But uhh... does that Toronto thing... I don't know if it helps them or what happens.

CS: I think we're looking to start a war with Canada sending them Pennington and J.P. Losman. I really do.

BS: What... does Ricky (Williams) get through customs?

CS: That's another thing, yeah.

BS: What are the odds of that? We probably have to scratch him right now.

Classic Simmons. I loved it. Good podcast. He also calls his friend to rehash some of the best moments from Rocky IV. Then he wrapped it up with a call to Connor Schell, a high ranking ESPN executive who Simmons has cited before about hating it when he calls his friends on the podcast and was allegedly the reason why the podcast was on hiatus for a few weeks. Juicy, no? The cocky Sports Guy even says to him, "If I told you that I just talked to my buddy Gus for 20 minutes about Rocky IV... would you be enthralled or disappointed?" Yikes! I don't want to ruin the suspense, but it turns out to be a dud. I'm sure ESPN is ecstatic to have Simmons during the internet age and I highly recommend the BS Report to any level of sports fan.

Unoriginal Family Guy jokes

I love Family Guy, but I feel obligated to reveal the origins of some of their jokes. I thought that Family Guy discontinued using recycled jokes after Season 4, however this previous episode, Tales of a Third Grade Nothing, was potentially their worst writing to date. Every laugh was predictable and the writing was too "jokey". I would have shrugged this off, since I should have better things to do than write a blog post about a cartoon... alas I don't and I'm enraged that the people of Diggnation have given 2,945 diggs to an unoriginal Family Guy gag. I truly don't understand why some things become so popular on Digg, but I'll save that for another post. Right now, I want to expose some unauthentic Family Guy jokes (and this does not include the countless similarities to The Simpons):

1. Grape stomping lady from Tales of a Third Grade Nothing (S7E6) - Stewie reenacts (jump to 11:50) a popular and hilarious viral video. The only problem is that It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia briefly mentioned this same blooper a few weeks ago. They didn't present it the same way, but they made the Family Guy writers feel "OK" to use this particualr viral video. The gutless writers didn't take the risk to use a different or potentially better blooper, they were comfortable with what has already been tested to get a laugh. This is uncreative and very weak. And God knows there are many more clips to choose from.
2. Jesus Christ magic from Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story - This one I wasn't aware of, but it caused a lawsuit. Pretty bad. Is that supposed to be parody?
   
3. Air horn censorship from PTV (S4E14) - One of numerous gags from Season 4 that were taken directly from Arrested Development. I'm not saying this originated from AD, but I'm very suspicious that Family guy writers didn't get their idea from Lucille's "rape horn" in Afternoon Delight.
   
4. Snoopy doghouse from Brian Goes Back to College (S4E15) - Brian is bummed and plays the role as Snoopy. But only a few months earlier on Arrested Development, George Michael acts like Charlie Brown after being dumped my Egg. See the doghouse in the back!
   
5. "Up here, Brian. Up here." from The Father, the Son, and the Holy Fonz (S4E18) - This is probably their worst offense. After being contaminated with bad holy water, Stewie is quarantined in a bubble. Then while trying to change his diaper himself, Stewie flashes Brian and says, "Up here, Brian. Up here." This was also taken from Arrersted Development when Kitty Sanchez returns to work with fake boobs and says to Michael, "Up here, Michael. Up here."
   

Boxes full of Pepe!

Do I have followers at Autoblog?

I don't mean to flatter myself, but could Autoblog have possibly gotten an idea for a recent post from my Google Bling? You decide:

Penn State Riot!

Party on Beaver Ave!... BYOPS (Bring your own pepper spray)

foto phavorites #15

Mannequin in South Beach

crazy paddy

Solo Cup Company - Augusta, GA

Live blog: VP debate

21:20 And we're off!... and I'm going with an impromptu live blog. This is meant to be light-hearted... so enjoy! Let's start out with some Palinisms:

"Can I call you 'Joe'?" - during the handshake

"I'm not going to answer the questions the way Senator Biden and the moderator want, I'm talking to the American people."

"... he has a detailed plan, and now I'm going to give you some of those details."

Apparently she's had her firmware updated since the Couric interviews... Biden has his work cut out for him.

21:42 Current leader in the buzzword tally: fundamental. Biden has identified "The fundamental difference" between McCain and Obama for the economy, energy, and Iraq war. fundamental difference = a good thing? I don't know, but Obama better hope so.

21:56 I'm watching this on ABC... isn't it nice that there aren't any sponsors all over the screen during this nonstop action? Lovely.

22:05 Biden: "... go to joebiden.com..." - site dropper. I went there. I was redirected to Joe's my.barackobama.com profile. Well done, Joe.

22:12 Palin just dropped an elementrary school's name and now the teachers have a riot waiting for them tomorrow with students fighting for unspecified amounts of extra credit.

22:18 Palin is apparently unclear on the meaning of "Achilles heel". It's not an incoherent list of good qualites. Biden understands the tone of "Achilles heel", yet he mistakenly thinks "excessive passion" qualifies. hmm... I don't feel so bad about how poorly I handle this interview question now.

22:21 Biden almost turned on the waterworks. yikes.

22:33 Oh snap! Biden tossed out a few "God blesses" to wrap things up. Well played.

Winner: Biden?... it was a good debate. I enjoyed it. But I think I must say that Biden impressed me more than I thought... but Palin was tolerable, however she was in the red for me at the start. Nice to see some civil, educated discussion of the issues. Fun stuff... first live blog and I've somehow become a political dork.