Robot Chicken

Here's the YouTube find of the day. I've never heard of Robot Chicken, but I'll be adding it to my Tivo Wishlist asap.

Here's a claymation skit of Darth Vader breaking the news about the Death Star to the Emperor:

And a spectacular revisiting of the people and places of "Neverending Story". "We… are… so… wasted".

What’s Your Power Song?

It’s been a few hours now since Apple and Nike announced their partnership and the marriage of the iPod with running shoes, but I’m still giddy. Apple has made a lot of big moves over the past year — Intel chips, the Nano, A-Team reruns on iTunes — but this one pleases me the most. Why? Because it’s so simple, so cheap, and so readily applicable to my life and millions of others.

Everywhere you look, you see people jogging with Nanos strapped to their shoulders. Apple already changed the culture of running and listening to music with its tiny flash-based players, but now they’ve taken it one huge step further. For a mere $29, you can now turn your Nano into a portable pedometer and workout tracker with a load of cool features. Want to know how fast you’re running? Just look down at your Nano’s screen — or better yet, have your Nano tell you. Want to know how your workout compared to your run last week? Just upload it to your online workout tracker and see for yourself. $29!

They’re also offering a host of additional features via iTunes, like workout mixes with coaching and training tips included, professionally selected playlists “designed to motivate you through the most demanding workouts”, and even playlists “chosen and introducted by top athletes”. That’s cool and all, but as my buddy JT posited, wouldn’t it be cool to download historical athlete playlists? Like whatever Mike Tyson listened to before he destroyed Michael Spinks (aside from the voices in his head) or Bo Jackson’s crosstraining tape from his “Bo Knows” phase. On second thought, that may very well be lame — given that it was the early 90’s, I picture him listening to C&C Music Factory or some crappy early rap like Kid N Play except lamer.

My favorite feature of the iPod-Nike child may be the creation of a “Power Song” function where your center button activates a pre-selected song for “instant sonic motivation”. That cracks me up for some reason. I picture it sort of like those morphine buttons that they give patients in hospitals or some sort of auditory jockey whip. Personally, I can’t really imagine any song that could spur me on to greatness all by itself, but I guess it’s possible. I do actually have one song that I love to run to — “Speed” by the obscure Canadian club supergroup Bran Van 3000. It’s a pretty funky tune that ends with a frantic Springsteen-inspired rap set to a backdrop of a ripping accordion solo, an ever-increasing tempo, and the sounds of Indy cars ripping from one eardrum to the next. It makes you feel like you’re moving at a tremendous speed. Give it a try sometime. Make fun of me later.

The Triumphant Return of Goldenwing

On a random Thursday night in November of 2001, ABC aired the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in its prime-time lineup. The sight of dozens of beautiful women strutting their stuff in high heels and skivvies prompted strong and mixed reactions in the media, with some praising it as a brave, democratic demonstration in a fragile post-9/11 New York and others calling it mainstream pornography and a corruption of our nation's values. For my 4 Boston housemates and I, it was one of the greatest things to grace our 53-inch television. Fortunately, one of my housemates had the foresight to pop in a blank tape as the program began.

Tragically, the tape has since passed into abyss, along with many other relics from our once proud bachelor pad, and we have been left only with memories of the decadent display of the 25 most famous models of the day showing their A-game: Gisele in her prime, Heidi Klum before she gave birth to a baby Seal, Adriana Lima when she was still a relative unknown, Tyra Banks before she became a psychotic, self-obsessed talk show host, and numerous other anatomically improbable figures.

Fortunately, the internet has grown in power and splendor over the past five years and YouTube is here to help, offering up the final eight minutes of the program with our panty-garbed heroes frolicking in wings to the tune of a totally kickass gospel cover of "Let the Sun Shine In". Enjoy.

Dance-idants

This is one of the more entertaining videos that I've seen in awhile.  It wouldn't be all that remarkable if not for how surprisingly violent all of the dancing mishaps seem to be.  I've watched it in awe roughly a dozen times now, though some questions still linger:

1) What was the groom planning to have happen when he kicked both of his feet up in front of him? To somehow bounce and land back on his feet?

2) How would your wife respond if you went from suavely dancing with her to giving her an atomic suplex into your living room floor?

3) How many of these people sustained concussions or broken bones, especially those whose hick fathers swung them around and brained them on a coffee table?

“The A-poon-tice”

This past weekend, I was hanging out with a friend who through some dumb luck and good fortune attended a party at the Playboy Mansion awhile back. He described a place not much different than my "happy place", where incredibly attractive women mingled with and outnumbered average-looking douchebags and every building and room was seemingly designed solely for the purpose of seduction and hangin' out in flagrante delicto.

Obviously, we're all familiar with the famous grotto, but apparently there's also a stone "outhouse" full of bathrooms, though not the kind you might find at a campground or county fair. Instead, this one contains multiple "stalls" — each one equipped with a two-headed shower, a daybed, vanity/sink, and, of course, a toilet (rumors of the love toilet's presence have not been confirmed). There is also a "game room" building equipped with pool tables, tvs, and multiple arcade games, but its real offering is multiple private TV rooms. Each of these TV rooms is smallish — measuring roughly 10 x 10 — and has a huge flatscreen on the wall. The floor of the room is covered in pillows of assorted shapes and sizes. This, in itself, isn't that remarkable… until you step down into the room and realize that the entire floor is one giant mattress and the ceiling is one giant mirror — sort of like a hybrid moonwalk/home entertainment system designed for "the bangin'". Oh yeah — and they have a zoo with a bunch of monkeys. One of them is probably even named "Captain Jumpy Ninja" or something rad like that.

Anyway, this got me thinking. Hugh Hefner has arguably the most kickass life of any American male. He's worth millions, has multiple hot blonde girlfriends, and lives in one of the most amazing houses ever — the Playboy Mansion is to corn-fed heterosexuals what the Neverland Ranch is to pedophiles. The only problem is, Hef is getting OLD — like fossil old. He founded the magazine some 53 years ago, which by my rough calculations makes him only slightly younger than Benjamin Franklin would be were he still alive today, not to mention the fact that he's gone from a James Bond clone to looking like a piece of chewed up Bubblicious. Observe:

At some point, the man is going to have to pass on the reigns. He's spent a lifetime building his mystique and it would be a shame to see it go to waste. That's why I think he needs to hold a competition similar to Donald Trump's "The Apprentice". Think about it — they made a top-rated TV show out of the idea that some folks would like to follow in the footsteps of a cheesedick with circus-bad hair and a doofy inflection. Surely Hef could start a revolution by doing the same with his empire.

Now I understand that the man has children of his own including several male heirs, but simply handing things over to them would be boring. Besides, they've already had a lifetime of hanging out at the mansion with beautiful naked women and monkeys. I say, step aside and let a worthy successor emerge. How would you decide who's worthy? Why through a series of ingenious trials and tasks, of course.

For example, you might have a contest to see who could walk into a crowd of total strangers and convince a beautiful 19-year-old woman whose turnoffs include "cold weather and bad breath" to writhe around a faux apple orchard in her birthday suit for a photo shoot. Or date three woman at once without at least one of them crying hysterically on a daily basis, boiling your pet rabbit, or attacking your Johnson with hedge clippers. Or take an ordinary room and turn it into a "happy place" of equal parts grade-school birthday party and romantic getaway (like the bangin' Moonwalk). Perhaps its even as simple as seeing if any of the contestants look darn good wearing a velvet robe and smoking a pipe.

What's more, you could even charge an entry fee and raise roughly a kabillion dollars. Think about it — multiple jackasses have spent as much as $20 million to go into outer space. If I had the choice between doing the astronaut thing or walking a mile in Hef's shoes, I know which one I'd choose — and I doubt I'm alone. How much would you pay? $1000? $1 million? With enough dudes ponying up for the chance at the title, you could raise enough money to build another bigger, better, even more rad mansion — with 10 times the monkeys! Hell — you could probably buy an island and start your own sovereign state dedicated to advancing the cause of single men and busty stripper pirates everywhere. I know I'd want to live there.