Blog O’ Obscurity

The Muppets have always held a dear, dear place in my heart. Right next to, in fact, my Star Wars heart place. Once again the two have been joined for an amusing music video featuring Vader repeatedly singing, “MANAMANA.” It’s funnier than it sounds, and definitely better the second time watching it. Not as good the fourth time, but much funnier the fifth.

And yes, that was Spock. And yes, Artoo and Threepio do a great job as Statler and Waldorf. And no, I’m not ‘losing it’. And yes, the 14 second mark is the funniest thing ever.

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Beings that it is coming up on Talk Like A Pirate Day, I was doing a little musing. If Han Solo was a smuggler (pirate), and Chewie was his first mate, shouldn’t Harrison Ford have brought a little more “mateys” and “arrghs” to the role. Or maybe, just maybe, Chewbacca’s pirate accent was so heavy that it came out in his trademarked roars.

Makes you think, huh?

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I’ve long been a conneusuer of unintentionally funny cinema. The greatest collection of this ever by far is the movie Troll 2. However, this was unintentional comedy stemming largely from lack of budget, talent, writing, or acting.

This week AMC is featuring all five Dirty Harry movies. Today they’re airing the final installment in this series, “The Dead Pool.” Despite a successful and long-running series, big name stars, and a Hollywood feature budget, this movie features one of the greatest combinations of disparate people in an incredibly hilarious, and unintentionally so, clip.

Combine Clint Eastwood, Liam Neeson, Jim Carrey, and Guns ‘n Roses. Mix well and laugh.

Hope I didn’t build it up too much.

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What a strange concept. A misspelled description of a hearing impaired jungle cat as the name of your heavy metal band. Wikipedia indicates that Joe Elliot came up with the name while making up imaginary band names in his English class.

I wonder what other names he came up with.

Welcome to the stage, Blynd Pumah.

Next up is the number one hit from Dum Tyger.

Or the new band from London, Anosmyc Jagguyar.

(That’s the misspelled version of Anosmic, or one who has lost his sense of smell.)

Rock on.

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In the same spirit as some other recent genre combos, here is a video of a fairly impressive smash up of Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” and Sir Mix-a-lot’s “Baby Got Back.”

Love the white guy dancing in the street while Sir Mix-a-lot raps about white boys shouting.

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I’m in the process of trying to find a scooter. With a commute of only 2 miles and no traffic lights on the way, a scooter might just save me a small fortune in gas. However, I don’t think I’ll be planning on any stunts like this one. At least the guys wearing a helmet.

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Note to self: Hammers hit nails. Not nails.

Slight accident today while constructing a 2×4 frame to modify the hutch for my desk. On the second to last nail that I needed to hammer in, I missed the nail and squarely hit my thumb nail. Kind of hurt.

On closer inspection, my thumbnail is alright. The hammer glanced off the nail itself and just separated the skin from the side of the nail. Still kind of hurts.

Hopefully all is healed before the Regional Left-Handed Thumb Wrestling Championships of Western Arizona.

I’ve been waiting all year for RLHTWCWA.

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Our new house has many nice things about it, but the coolest by far (at least to me) is the walk in shower. Now, I know what you’re thinking. Aren’t all showers walk in. It would be mighty inconvenient to make a crawl in shower or a skip in shower (though kind of cool).

What I mean when I say a walk in shower is a shower with no tub, no door, and no curtain. Just a big open area mostly surrounded by tiled walls. This is cool to me because it probably quadruples the size of our old shower.

It does take some getting used to, though. There is also no door from the bathroom to the bedroom. Things are very open. We just have to learn to keep the bedroom door closed during shower time.

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I think we’re nearing the end of the gas age. The only question now is, does this age end in a bang or a whimper.

With crude oil prices skyrocketing past all expectations that we had just four or five years ago, the ability to maintain our current energy use is starting to crumble. It is now economically feasible to develop new sources of energy for power plants and for our cars. The transition will be rough and may be accompanied by was and strife and hardship, but it will pass. Those that have the oil will no doubt put up a fight to make sure that the world stays dependent on this energy source. But it will not be the oil companies that put up this fight. They will be on the leading edge of new technology to make sure that they still exist in fifty years. The countries of OPEC will be the ones that will suffer the most from a new world free of their oil. Hopefully, they don’t start a war when we stop drinking from their tap.

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Over the past ten years, the price of in-state tuition at the big state universities in Arizona has doubled. The price of books for the classes at these universities has also just about doubled. It is not rare for a freshman student to pay over $200 for one book, for one class.

This state of fleecing college students as they’re trying to get their life started is obscene. I can understand paying a large sum of money to go to Princeton or Yale, but Arizona State, come on. State school should be as free as possible. Textbooks should cost a reasonable amount and be used by the same classes for at least four years. Professors should limit the amount of money that they ask their students to spend on books for each class. This will force down prices and hold the professors accountable to what they’re asking of their students.

The current state of affairs is an intellectual extortion. Pay up to learn or flip burgers.

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