If swashbuckling gentlemen thieves had to deal with sports news

from the Onion (these guys are hilarious!).You may remember the Onion from past posts.

Bad Boy Fencing Star Implicated In Yet Another Daring Jewel Heist

p.s. This reminded me of the Scarlet Pimpernel. I got the 1934 movie for Christmas one year and loved the black and white goodness! It's public domain now so is available for free (legal) viewing or downloading here.
p.p.s. Thinking of the Scarlet Pimpernel reminded me of Daffy Duck as the Scarlet Pumpernickel. One of my faves!

Blackfly

The 1991 NFB of Canada animated film based on the song of the same title, written and sung by Canadian folk singer Wade Hemsworth about his personal experience surveying in Northern Ontario, with back-up vocals by Kate and Anna McGarrigle. Recently recounted to the field school peeps camping at St.Louis last week.


p.s. Turns out St.Louis has a pretty sweet free camp ground with water, power, and flushing toilets. They also have a giant statue of Bison antiquus (of questionable scale, but still cool).

Wake Up and Smile

Nostalgic hilarity courtesy of LP. The Order of the Hand will rule!

p.s. This sketch first aired in 1995 and appears on the SNL DVD "Best of Will Ferrell, Vol.2"

Meep meep meep

Bok bok bok

Educational Sidebar: The Tilt-A-Whirl

aka. "tilted world" (according to Mom) is my Mom's favorite fair ride (also, a song by the Insane Clown Posse). The Tilt-A-Whirl was invented in 1926 by the Sellner Manufacturing Company, which continues to be the only source of new rides. A new Tilt-A-Whirl ride costs about $300,000 (depending on the options you get) and takes 4 people about 3 hours to set up (assuming they know what they're doing). It features seven cars that can seat 4-6 people per car meaning it can give rides to as many as 500 people in an hour.

The ride follows a chaotic orbit-like motion. The seven cars are each fixed to a pivot pin on a circular platform. These platforms follow a circuitous track with 3 hills and 3 valleys at a set speed of 6.5 rpm. This orbit causes variable centrifugal and gravitational forces to affect each car, which will rotate clockwise or counterclockwise on it's set pivot point at different speeds depending on multiple variables (e.g. where on the track the car was when the ride began, where it is on the track at a given moment, how much weight is in the car and where it is situated, the friction of the various contact points between the car and the track, etc.). Good times!

It has been calculated that when the platforms travel at very low speeds each car will complete one backward revolution as its platform goes over each hill. Whereas at high speeds each car will be stranded at its outer edge (like swinging a bucket of water around). But at intermediate speeds (say 6rpm?) the movement of the cars is so unpredictable it has even been used by mathematicians in chaos theory! However, as any Tilt-A-Whirl veteran knows the ride can be manipulated by strategic leaning or if the ride's operator decides to mess with you.

Claymation Christmas

Two clips from "Will Vinton's Claymation Christmas Celebration", one of my favorite Christmas specials when I was wee. Ahh memories. I loved this one so much more than Charlie Brown or Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer but don't remember them ever showing it after it first aired in '87.

Thriller

I remember being freaked out by this video back in the day! Before this video I didn't even know about werekitties!
Fun Facts: Thriller was released in 1982 by Epic records (it was Michael's 6th album) and the video for the song Thriller was released in December 1983. The video was directed by John Landis (who had done "American Werewolf in London" 2 years before). Michael was a Jehovah's Witness at the time, which is why the little disclaimer appears at the beginning of the video.
Also, the disclaimer after the credits is the same one Landis put up at the end of "American Werewolf". Thriller won the 1985 Grammy for best long form video and won a pile of MTV awards.
Here is the Bollywood version:

Pipe Wrench Fight!

From the Best of YouTube podcast, a literal interpretation of "Take On Me" video by a-ha. I loved the "Take On Me" video when I was little (I thought Morton Harket was dreamy). This is back in the day when MuchMusic showed music videos. Ah nostalgia.
Simpsons nerd notes: all the guys in "Non-Threatening Boys Magazine" are named Corey.

p.s. The video was made by this guy (he also literalized the "Head Over Heels" video by Tears for Fears). There's a couple other copycat ones (someone did Radiohead's "No Surprises" and another guy did U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"), but none of them are as good as the a-ha one.

This week in history

FYI The song she sings, "Anything Goes" from the Broadway musical of the same name, debuted on Broadway in 1934. So it checks out.
p.s. Thanks to D for being a nerd and posting this which led me to the promo poster.

Dinosaur!

In honour of Leonardo, the mummified dinosaur recently discovered in Montana, the first to be found with intact internal organs and stomach contents (and the new documentary "Secrets of the Dinosaur Mummy" airing on the discovery channel, which I'll probably post later once it is available), here is the documentary Dinosaur!" It was made in 1985, hosted by Christopher Reeve, it was one of the first of its kind featuring recreations of dinosaur life. A far cry from the fancy computer animation of today. We had this on VHS and watched it so many times! I remember thinking the part with the Tyrannosaurus was so freaky! Note a young(er) Robert Bakker who also makes an appearance in the Dinosaur Mummy documentary (check the preview here, he is such a character). FYI the bones discovered by Jim Jensen in 1979 and named "Ultrasaurus" in 1985 (later renamed "Ultrasauros" in 1995 because "Ultrasaurus" had already been published in 1983 by Haang Mook Kim as applied to a South Korean specimen he had discovered, which turned out to not be so big after all because he had mistaken a femur for a humerus), were later found to be parts of two separate dinosaurs, a Brachiosaurus and part of a Supersaurus that had been discovered at the same location. After that the term "Ultrasauros" came to be just another name for the Supersaurus, which was still really big.

The Glazed McGuffin Affair

Inspired by a recent offering at "Hope Is Was" Music I remembered this episode of Sam&Max: Freelance Police. A 90's cartoon that I thought was awesome, based on the underground comic by Steve Purcell (who also did work on the popular Monkey Island games), about the misadventures of an anthropomorphized Bogart-esque dog and his neurotic rabbit partner. I love weird random cartoons!










Sam & Max: Freelance Police!!!
Aaiiieeee! Robot / The Glazed McGuffin Affair:

p.s.Telltale games released an online comic viewable here, as a promo for their Sam & Max episodic game series.

Bremenskie Muzykanty (The Bremen Town Musicians)

The Bremen Town Musicians is a Grimm fairy tale dating back to 1812. I remember this bedtime story from back in the day! The traditional version of the story was recently performed by the UofS summer drama camp players (featuring my little buddy O.C.). But, failing a video of that, I have the always enjoyable muppets who did a relatively authentic version in 1972 as part of the "Tales from Muppetland" series. I just have part 1 here but all of the parts are up on youtube here:


This other version is a very loosely adapted animated musical made in the Soviet Union in 1969 by Vasily Livanov at the studio Soyuzmultfilm and was called Bremenskie muzykanty (Бре́менские музыка́нты). As with most cartoons that came out in the 60's, it is a bit of a trip (cough* yellow submarine*cough). I mean what kind of crazy instruments are they playing? And why does the rooster look like Elton John? I guess he was popular in the S.U. during his early career too.

Of course the original story is somewhat different. It follows the the adventure of a donkey, a dog, a cat, and a rooster who run away from their cruel master and decide to become musicians in the forward thinking town of Bremen. On the way they come upon a cottage belonging to 4 thieves. The animals decide to perform for the thieves in hopes that they will give them food and a place to stay. Of course the terrible noise they make scares the thieves away and the animals settle in the cabin. Later, the thieves return and when one sneaks into the cabin to investigate he is scratched by the cat, bitten by the dog, kicked by the donkey, and screeched at by the rooster. He flees and tells his comrades that the cabin has been taken over by a horrible witch who scratched him, a murderer with a knife who stabbed him, an ogre who clubbed him, an a devil who screamed at him from the rooftop. Then the animals live there happily ever after. The End.

It's better than bad! It's good!

p.s. This isn't my first Ren&Stimpy post. I changed it because some of the videos don't work anymore.

You Barfed Up Memories

See? This is what blogs are good for. We were reminiscing about the infamous train trip to Kingston from almost two years ago and I said I would post about it. You did such a good job talking about it that I really don't have too much to add (that's some nice blogging). Such warm fuzzies. Good times. Like that time you hit the referee with a whiskey bottle. Remember that? When you hit the referee? Yeah. Awww.

p.s. Whilst looking through Carrie's blog to find the link for her llama llama post for my April fool's day thing I came across this. I know you said you were thinking of reposting it but you're just too slow. Ha! I promise I'll change this post to reflect it if you do repost though.

Quotes from the lab door

In the times before the blog I went through a brief phase of expressing myself through post-its on my lab door. These are the culmination of said post-its with added contextual information. Ahh memories.

Re: Halloween decorations, specifically a cardboard skeleton hung on the door (this was my first door message, this one featured a saucy picture of a skeleton holding a shovel thinking "I'm goin' diggin' " and a little jack-o-lantern)

"Thank you for NOT discussing the errors in the skeleton - MNGMT"

Re: The life and times of Mr.Crunchy the plant (poor Mr.Crunchy).

Quote #1:
"Ernie Walker's Petting Zoo and Menagerie - Proud home of Mr.Crunchy!"

Quote #2:
"Mr.Crunchy R.I.P. - We hardly knew ye."

Re: The first Dancing Bubble Kiss Time trip (this one included a picture of Mega Munch saying "Grrr Arg" with five stick people running away from it).

"D.B.K.T. Tour - Regina '06"

Re: Archaeology/Movies

"COMING SOON! The Archaeologist that ate Manhattan!"

Re: Simpsons quotes (This ended up being the only one but it was originally going to be a series of Simpsons quotes).

"~Scotland Yard~ Our Motto: 'What's all this then?'"

Re: Archaeology (the archaeology quote of the day series started once I realized that not very many people would get the Simpsons thing (see above)

Quote#1: "An artifact box is like a box of chocolates..."

Quote#2: "...except for the chocolates part..."
Quote#3: "...mmmmmm...chocolate..."

Re: Archaeology part 2 (this was the last one before I lost interest, mostly because the post-its kept falling down).

"Archaeology ~ It's a dirty job...but that's why we like it!"

And I'm cute too!

This reminded me of one of my favorite Sesame Street characters. I also liked when Kermit did the news. Ah memories.

Here is a picture of a spirochete

"This is my angry face!" ______________"I found an arrowhead"
If you listen to both of the clips below you'll get classics like "I'm a brick" and "I ated the purple berries" as well as "Here is a picture of a spirochete", "When I grow up I'm going to bovine University", "Me fail English? That's unpossible.", and "I'm learn-ding". Good times, but the second one doesn't have video.

Die Hard

There seems to be a bit of a theme but I can't quite put my finger on it...hmmm.

Here is a video which answers the age old question, "What if Die Hard were a 20's black and white silent movie?" Some mildly offensive racial slurs and they take out all the violence but they had their priorities mixed up back then.

Ren & Stimpy

I thought I would continue on in the vein of nostalgic remembrances of wacky shows that my brother and I share by picking one from the 90's. Remember when Ren and Stimpy was on MuchMusic? Ahh for the glory days when George wasn't trying to make CBC cool and Rick was still "the temp" and slightly less horrible than he is now. Characterized by IMDB as "The gross misadventures of a hyper chihuahua and a stupid cat", it ran for 5 seasons starting in 1991. If you were old enough to have watched/remember Ren and Stimpy and think it was gross and/or stupid...you're right, but man there are some super funny random bits! And for your information it was nominated for an Emmy 3 times for outstanding animated program (in '92, '93, and '94) as well as multiple less mainstream awards. For those of you who may have been born in the 90's and their big sisters didn't allow them to watch this kind of drivel...well you're old enough now so here you go.

There are a few sketches that I remember fondly for their complete insanity: the "In the army" episode where R&S go to boot camp and the drill sergeant drives Ren insane from lack of sleep. I hate it when people let loose the marmosets! ("I'm the keeper of the cheese, and you're the lemon-merchant..."), of course the Royal Canadian Yaksmen song, and the salesman sketch where R&S try to sell rubber nipples to a paranoid horse ("Do I know you?"):

My very favorite episode of all time is the Space Madness episode (I originally had this video up but it was taken down :( But, now it's up again! Hurray!). I know everyone will think I'm a dork but I could probably recite this episode word for word, I just thought it was so hilarious that it stuck with me. "They think I'm crazy! But I know better..."

Watch Space Madness in Animation  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com