Renegade points us to NASA’s latest romantic endeavors. From The Onion, so use headphones at work.
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For you space buffs out there:
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Most people know I’m a huge Tarantino fan. He’s probably the first director to pop in my mind when people ask who my favorite director (or film) is. So it’s really interesting (to me, at least) to hear what he thinks is a great film, especially since his taste is all over the place. In anticipation of Inglorious Basterds, here is Quentin Tarantino listing his favorite 20 films since 1992 - the year he started directing.
Here are links for each film. They are indeed nefarious affiliate links to Amazon, but hey, gotta pay the hosting bills, and at least there won’t be confusion over the films (e.g., you won’t buy Blade with Wesley Snipes thinking it’s a Tarantino fave). And if you’re interested in seeing any of these, send me a message and I’ll be happy to host a viewing at my place. Assuming I actually know you.
Battle Royale
Anything Else - Woody Allen is another favorite of mine, and Christina Ricci is always fabulous.
Audition
Boogie Nights
Dazed & Confused - Also in my top 20.
Dogville
Fight Club
Friday
The Host
The Insider - This was good, but for Michael Mann I prefer Heat.
J.S.A. - Joint Security Area
Lost in Translation - One of my favorites, too.
The Matrix - The sequels sucked, but at least the soundtracks were awesome.
Memories of Murder
Supercop (Police Story 3) - I was a huge Jackie Chan film back in college, and this is perhaps his best. The soundtrack is great, too!
Shaun of the Dead - Personally, I prefer Hot Fuzz.
Speed
Team America: World Police
Unbreakable - The only disappointment here is that it was supposed to be a trilogy, but instead M. Night Shamalama ding dong pumps out crap like The Village and The Happening. And films that weren’t supposed to be trilogies, like The Matrix, get two lame sequels. So sad…
From Seann William Scott (and probably NSFW):
Tags: iphone, seann william scott, video
Bill Hader’s impersonation of a creepy Keith Morrison from Dateline kills me. I’ve never seen Keith Morrison, but I would watch his segments if he acted like this. The second video has Tracy Morgan as a serial killer.
Tags: bill hader, snl, tracy morgan, video
Damn Transforminators! You’ll get my sand when you take it from my cold, dead hands!
Tags: video
Dr. Ronald Chevalier, author of all 10 Cyborg Harpies trilogies, invites you to his web sanctum. I especially enjoyed his pre-pubescent works in the gallery. Here are some videos to better prepare yourself for Dr. Chevalier’s unique style. Remember, always protect your precious seed.
The Art of Relaxating
The Art of Inspiring Oneself
Every once in a while I get to post something very Crack Team-y. This is one of those times.
I was forwarded this video on lock bumping and wanted to share it with our few loyal readers so they could protect themselves. Apparently you can buy something called a bump key that easily allows you to bypass many (most?) types of locks. According to the video, bump keys have been around for about 50 years and are well known to locksmiths (who are often the only ones allowed to own them), but the interwebs are making it easier for criminals to obtain them.1 So if unlike me, every realtor in town can’t get into your house already, $80 or so for a secure lock seems like a great deal.
- This is slightly better than finding out someone can steal your bike with a Bic pen. [↩]
Louis CK on Conan O’Brien, once again proving he’s one of our greatest comedians.
Tags: conan o'brien, louis ck, video
I have studied Japanese and eaten at many, many Japanese/sushi restaurants, yet I learned several new things from this video:
While I’m being lazy and just posting videos, here’s another great one featuring Bill Hader and John Malkovich. And yes, Malkovich does sound like that.
Tags: bill hader, john malkovich, snl, video
I finally saw the last SNL and the highlight was the Lonely Island music video Jizz In My Pants. Not terribly safe for most corporate environments, but the funniest video since Dick In A Box. This one stars Andy Samberg and Lonely Island cohort Jorma Taccone, with cameos from Justin Timberlake, Molly Sims, and Jamie-Lynn Sigler. I guess she’s in NYC visiting Turtle.
Also worth checking out are these tips on talking to girls, offered by a 9 year old. They were startlingly accurate:
If you liked those, check out these other Lonely Island and SNL videos.
Tags: andy samberg, jaime-lynn sigler, jorma taccone, justin timberlake, lonely island, molly sims, music video, nbc, snl, video
YouTube comments are notorious for being so mind-numbingly stupid that they cause more brain damage than huffing paint. If you can’t stop yourself from reading them, use the YouTube Comment Snob plugin for Firefox and save a few brain cells for the videos to destroy.
I recently posted a rap video about proper web design and coding, and now here’s a bunch of electro songs from CSS. This time, we’re not talking about cascading style sheets.
You’ve probably heard Brazil’s CSS without having any idea who they were. I had a couple “oh, THAT’s who does this” moments while listening to them. Hopefully, you’ll be as happy as I was to solve the mystery.
The vocals of lead singer Lovefoxxx have a fantastic, Bjork-like cuteness to them, down to the occasional rasp. When that Portuguese accent comes out, she’s downright dangerous. And she curses! A triple threat. CSS is an abbreviation of Cansei de Ser Sexy, which is Portuguese for “tired of being sexy”. While they mean it in jest (it was a Beyonce Knowles quote), there’s a definite sexiness to their sound and lyrics.
Here are a few tracks I really liked, starting with the ones you probably heard already:
Music Is My Hot, Hot Sex
Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death From Above
Alala
Off the Hook (I think you can hear the Bjork-ness best here)
Tags: music video, video
The Poetic Prophet, AKA Moserious, raps at ya about designing and coding your site. Yes, your web site. And yes. It is awesome.
Ironically, going to his site triggered a Quicktime update message that crashed Firefox. The message noted that the latest Quicktime fixes many serious bugs. Indeed. But even though I was in the middle of writing this very post, Firefox restored this edit page with all my text in tact. Oh Mozilla, is there anything you can’t do? (Other than not crash in the first place?)
Tip of the hat to Ray and Or.
Tags: design, firefox, music video, software, video
This (or something very like it) came to the Hollywood Bowl. It’s an orchestral soundtrack to classic video games.
Tip of the hat to Or.
Tags: soundtracks, video, video games
When I recently read about a Clone Wars cartoon, I thought I might have accidentally stumbled on an old article. I remembered the Emmy winning 2003 Clone Wars cartoon. Now Lucas has created another Clone Wars cartoon. Stupid mistake on my part; the original was called Star Wars: Clone Wars, while the new show as a completely different name - Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Both take place between episodes II and III.
The official site has a trailer and a video intro to the series.
Overall, the animation looks like they did it with a video game rendering engine, embellished in parts. Perhaps they’re borrowing technology from The Force Unleashed. Of course, it sure sounds like Star Wars.
Here’s a technology demo for how to do VR head tracking with a Wii remote. It creates the illusion of 3D to the wearer of the headset. This could add a really cool element to shooters.
Tags: video, video games, wii
So the writer’s strike is raging and there’s less and less scripted TV to watch. And the cable bill is past due, and the TV is broke, or at the very least, it’s all the way in the other room. Too much damn walking. What to do, nephew?
I have cataloged here all best the ways to legally obtain video entertainment on the Internet. So no jackbooted stormtroopers from the MPAA will kick down your door and haul away your computer. And your children.
Note: As much as I love Firefox, I find most embedded video players perform far better on IE. Many won’t work at all in Firefox, even with IE Tab.
Crack TV!
The Crack Team has been pointing you to great videos since this site was launched. Through the miracle of tagging (and the back-breaking labor of back-tagging over 400 posts), you can now see an archive of all video posts on TCT. Try to find good stuff sites like YouTube and you’ll end up slogging through one mediocre video after another - even when you stick to the popular and highly rated ones. Save your time and watch Crack TV!
Netflix
Netflix is awesome. Without a doubt the biggest DVD selection anywhere, including HD-DVD and Blu-Ray.1 They also have a streaming service. While the selection of downloads is limited, it’s still good. I just finished season 1 of Dexter and next is Dead Like Me. They also have several NBC shows and a bunch of crap shows from the 70’s and 80’s. Best of all, they now allow you to download as much as you want! The quality is high, too. I’ve had no problems since signing up several years ago and they even give me an early adopter discount.
Broadcast
If you can, you’re probably best served by getting a good TV tuner card2 and using DVR software like Windows Media Center. This way you can get everything and skip all the commercials.3
All major broadcast networks have some video content online, but vary widely in the quality, selection, and commercial content. It’s a great way to try new shows now that so little new stuff is produced. Journeyman would be a great example, if you didn’t watch it before it was canceled.4 You can now watch the entire series. Similarly, I recently discovered Life at the suggestion of a friend and now I’m all caught up.
Cable networks are much more conservative, choosing to only offer video clips like you might see on YouTube. Full episodes (for the cable channels I watch) are nonexistent.
Fox
Most TV shows I watch are on Fox, and they’ve done an awesome job with Fox On Demand. The selection is great:
- Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
- The Simpsons
- Family Guy
- King of the Hill
- American Dad
- House
- Bones
- Plus some crappy shows I don’t watch
New shows appear 1-8 days after airing; it depends on the show. The videos are high quality; some are even in HD. I find that cranking up the resolution to 1280 x 1024 on my 21″ monitor gives a great HD image for shows like Terminator.5 And most shows are commercial free! Rupert Murdoch is my homeboy.
NBC
NBC is the #2 network for online viewing. The video quality is excellent. The bad news is that all their shows run commercials during the normal spots for commercial breaks. The good news is that they only run one 15-30 second spot. The bad news is that it’s the same commercial, over and over. Better than watching it live, but not as good as a DVR. Like Fox, NBC also has a great selection:
ABC
The only ABC show I really watch is Lost, but they seem to do a great job with it. Amazingly, they have all 4 seasons online in HD (1280 x 720), and when I boosted my resolution, full screen looked fantastic. Lost is easily the best looking show on the Internet. I thought I might try Pushing Daisies, as I heard that was good, but I found they only offer a few episodes of their other series.
CW
Smallville is one of my longtime faves, due in no small part to Kristin Kreuk. And Reaper is great. But CW’s online video offering is weak sauce. Very few full episodes and what they have is low quality. I have to admit, I am surprised they put online the director’s cut of the next new Smallville episode before it even aired. But it still wasn’t enough to get me to watch.
CBS
It sucks. First, I didn’t watch it when I had a TV. CBS has picked up Dexter, which is an awesome show, but they’re just airing censored versions of the Showtime series. When it’s all on Netflix, what’s the point? The only current CBS show I’m interested in is Jericho, as it was recently suggested to me by a few friends. When I went to watch past episodes, however, I found the video quality sucked. Full screen is almost unwatchable; it’s just stretching the original size, which is only 9″ diagonal on my monitor.
Headline News
I used to watch this more often to get a quick feed of major stories. This is still possible online through their Prime News segments. Personally, I can’t stand Nancy Grace, and don’t often bother with their other shows.
Discovery, TLC, Animal Planet
Decent quality full episodes, but very few shows (3 total at this time, none of which I watch), and only a couple episodes per show.
Comedy Central
More of a video clip outlet with no full episodes. Do you really need to see every second of The Daily Show or Colbert Report? Maybe not, especially now that the strike is affecting them. But I would like to see full episodes of South Park, Reno 911, and, should they ever return: Chapelle’s Show, Dr. Katz, Stella, Strangers With Candy, and Upright Citizen’s Brigade. I won’t be holding my breath.
Cartoon Network
They’ve produced some fantastic animated series, especially their superhero adaptations (Justice League Unlimited) and Adult Swim (Harvey Birdman, Sealab 2021). But the site seems very much geared towards kids, and only provides video clips. Nothing to see here.
- If you tell them you have either player, they just automatically send you those. [↩]
- Make sure it’s ATSC for HD [↩]
- Except for the upcoming Agent Mystery-produced So You Think You Can Dance. Be sure to watch it live and soak in all the commercials. [↩]
- Thanks for killing a great show. [↩]
- They do force you to download a proprietary video player, but it seems harmless. And yes, I know it’s a tragedy to watch Terminator on anything less than a 50″ 1080P screen. [↩]
This is seriously Crack Team:
$1 Image Stabilizer For Any Camera - Lose The Tripod - video powered by Metacafe
Tags: photography, video
I thought this was hilarious. It reminded me of when MST3K provided translated lyrics for the Jet Jaguar theme song. And in looking for the lyrics for that, I found the original. Ain’t YouTube great? Here’s both:
Tags: music video, video
Some are calling Seinfeld arrogant for this, but I find it pretty hilarious. Of course, I am arrogant, and I have nowhere near the success he has.
If you haven’t been watching It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, you’re really missing out. Here are a couple scenes from last week’s episode when the guys formed a band. Listen carefully to the lyrics. Warning: the lyrics and dialogue might not be safe for work.
Night Man
Here’s the follow-up song, Day Man:
Here’s a photo of the original lyrics to Night Man:
If you couldn’t understand the original, here’s a transcription:
Night Man Sneaky And Mean!
Thunder inside my dreams, I think I love you
You make me wanna cry, make me wanna die
I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you night man
Every night you come into my room and pin me down with your strong arms
And ya pin me down and I try to fight you
You come inside and you come inside me and fill me up.
Just two men sharing the night
It might seem wrong but its just right
Its just two men sharing each other
Its just two men like loving brothers
One on top and one on bottom
One inside and one is out
One is screaming he’s so happy
The other screams in a passionate shout
Its the night man
The feeling so wrong and right man
The feeling so wrong and right man
I cant fight you man when you come inside me
You pin me down with your strong hands
And i become the night
The passionate passionate night man
Great tribute to a classic PC game.
Tags: video, video games
More cool computer graphics technology coming our way. This brings great advances to the field of incriminating photo editing.
Tags: photography, software, video
Thanks to Assassin for forwarding this. It’s a Microsoft technology that allows real time photo data mining. Remember that part in Bladerunner when Harrison Ford is watching a video like:
type type type
Enhance
type type type
Enhance
type type type
Enhance
(Yeah, they did it Super Troopers, too.) Well this is kinda like that, only with tons of photos instead of video, and a better interface. It’s seriously badass.
Tags: microsoft, photography, software, video
Here’s a humorous riff on Marvel’s movie obsession. If you read (between the lines of) Variety, you know that Marvel’s got so many movies in the works because former head Avi Arad has a serious producer fantasy. Probably from watching too much Entourage. Of course, it’s fairly common among captains of industry; same thing goes for other Mark Cuban and Jeff Skoll. Just become a billionaire and all your wildest entertainment industry dreams will come true. In a way, it’s the modern American equivalent of rich European merchants and land owners buying a royal title. Producer, Lord - it’s all the same thing. I haven’t seen anyone buy themselves a writer or director title, so I plan to be the first. Hopefully, it’s cheaper than producer.
Rod would like you to know that this is not a test.
Thanks to Agent Mystery for the forward. There’s more at Stuntman Forever, but this is by far the best one. And it’s safe for work.
Tags: andy samberg, video
Spot-on!
Tags: ricky gervais, video
Amusing animation about your desktop after hours. I loved the ending.
This is hilarious, and Dr. Tran has 3 syllables, making it Crack Team approved. It’s not safe for work, of course. Thanks to Masterchief for bringing this to our attention. And there’s more at Lone Sausage Productions.
Heck, here’s great followup. I can’t wait to hit that thrill park! Seriously, these guys are genius.
Tags: video
After watching this commercial, there’s no wondering why it was so popular with all the cool kids. Thanks to Agent Assassin for submitting this.
Some Crack Team members will appreciate this.
Tags: monty python, star trek, video
I saw this clip of a program called ASSIST (MIT) which is used as a design aid for mechanical applications.
Probably old-news to some Crack Team members, but the clip just started showing up and I though I’d share.
http://thatvideosite.voxcdn.com/core/3406/mit_digital_drawing_board.wmv
I’m told that Microsoft has a “Physics Illustrator” that works the same way.
Anyone have any experience with this kind of software?
I really wish they had shown this back when I worked at a nuclear power plant. It would have made me feel a bit more comfortable.
Tags: video
There’s a moral to this story. And it’s hilarious.
How Microsoft is working to improve your world.
Tags: video
Found another goofy, funny voiceover video on Josh Rehman’s blog. This one covers the scene in Lord of The Rings where Frodo wakes up and everyone comes to visit. We finally learn what they’re saying! Safe for work. I think.
This goofy video has apparently been circulating long enough to get a nod in X-Men: The Last Stand (don’t worry, no spoilers). Basically, it’s a bunch of guys recording their own audio track for one of those ’90s era X-Men cartoons. It’s not safe for work, due to profanity. Obviously the cartoon is safe to watch, so I guess it’s fine if you’ve got earphones.
A couple years ago I attended the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive and Film festivals, and they were a blast. Austin is a cool city, and everyone at the conference is really friendly. I don’t know if it’s because everyone is happy to be there, or they’re playing it safe in case you’re someone who can get them a job or financing.
Well, I didn’t make it this year, but they have posted videos and podcasts of the events. Notable videos feature Craig Newmark (craigslist), Henry Rollins, Sleater Kinney, The New Pornographers (I just saw these guys open for Belle and Sebastian - good band), Harry Knowles (Ain’t it Cool News), Peter Bart (ed. in chief of Variety), and many more. The podcasts cover the moderated discussions and have more of a techie/business slant. It includes people like cybepunk author Bruce Sterling (who gives really cool “State of the World” rants), and reps from companies such as Six Apart (they make Movable Type, which runs this blog), Zimbra, Adaptive Path, Yahoo!, 37Signals, frogdesign (they design cool Apple gear), and others. If you don’t recognize those companies, they’re pioneers in stuff like AJAX, which is used in really slick web apps like Google Maps and Gmail. I still wish I could have gone, but this eases the pain a bit.
Tags: video
The Crack Team is awesome at finding awesome videos. The latest awesome video is called Awesometown, submitted by awesome Agent Doubledeuce. Check out the Dudes’ Cut, which is NSFW, and hilarious. These are the same guys who brought us the SNL videos Lazy Sunday and the Natalie Portman Rap. Speaking of which, I did not think it was possible to want Natalie more, but that was before I saw her hardcore gangsta rap stylings. We love you Natalie!
Agent Masterchief submitted the gamer’s love song by Tripod. It’s more for console gamers than strategists, but I think we can all appreciate the lyrics. Your girlfriend will appreciate them even more.
Tags: andy samberg, lonely island, music video, natalie portman, snl, video
By now you’ve already read my article on why you should use Firefox, and how you can customize it. (I’ll continue like you didn’t just disagree.) In that article I was remiss in omitting a great extension that lets you download embedded videos. The obviously named Download Embedded places a small red arrow in the lower right part of the window frame, allowing you to download embedded content. It reportedly doesn’t work for Flash, but I’m usually after regular video content (and I think Flash kinda sucks for video that isn’t animation). This is really nifty since I have a bigger monitor set to a higher resolution; now I can download the videos and resize them to something reasonable. Most newer codecs, especially Divx, allow the video to be doubled in size with little artifacting/aliasing. With Divx I can often go full screen and it still looks great.
Another advantage is that you can now email the videos instead of the links to the hosting page, which often has NSFW ads. Of course, it’s probably not all that important for NSFW videos. But you’re not emailing those anyway, ’cause you’re all good and stuff.
Some stuff submitted by Agents ZBalance and MasterChief:
Super Friends meets Office Space
Dungeons and Dragons taken to uncomfortable levels The term “hobbyist gamer” never sounded so good.
I guess this is old news, but Google has a video site now. I didn’t even realize I’d been there before, but my browser completed the URL as I typed it. Some pretty amusing videos there, and the big hullabaloo over them actually charging people for stuff. I got cable, I got Netflix. Why would I pay for crappy internet videos? Even if I didn’t have those, who’s paying $2 for an episode of the original Twilight Zone? For that price I could get it on DVD. However, it is a good source for viral Internet video clips, hosted for free (for now). Like iFilm, but without the mandatory commercials, and with potentially higher quality video.
There are a few annoyances, like no true browse feature. A link that says “Another 15 popular videos” is a big fat liar. All it does is refresh the page with another random video assortment, so some of the same videos keep popping up. It forces you to use a proprietary video viewer for DRM purposes, but it scales poorly compared to Windows Media Player. And some videos are only available through an embedded Flash player. Being Google, you can of course search, but also like Google, you’ll get a lot of irrelevant videos in the results.
Some of the more entertaining videos:
A reasonable attempt at deciphering Fall Out Boy. I’m not sure if emo can be translated to English, but a solid effort.
Dumbest dog you will ever see.
Bored Russian kids that could teach the Olympics a thing or two about making feats of senseless athleticism entertaining.
The system administrator song.
Tags: video
Agent Hulagun forwarded me this clever editing job of Goblet of Fire, creating a new trailer that suggests Harry and Ron share the love that dare not speak its name. The trailer is completely tame, but other images/ads at the site might not be.
Tags: harry potter, lotr, video
Please take the time to view this professionally produced video on sexual harassment. It’s an important topic that can affect us all, in ways we might not expect. Due to it’s frank and realistic depictions, it is not safe for workplace viewing.
Tags: video
Some years ago, The Dead Alewives created a skit poking fun at those who play Dungeons and Dragons, as well as those who believe the game is dangerous. While The Dead Alewives seem to have disappeared, the skit remains the most beloved piece of D&D humor ever created (Jeremy Irons in Dungeons and Dragons not withstanding). The skit has also inspired a few videos to go along with the audio (although they only cover Part I). Highly recommended to any current or recovering players.