LaughingSeven

This guy sings an original song to the tune of several John Williams theme songs (Indiana Jones, ET, Superman, Jaws, etc). Amazingly brilliant work by this guy. Enjoy.

Lisa Kudrow is Fiona Wallace, a ‘web therapist’. She figures that 47 or the 50 minute sessions are mainly talk about nothing important, so 3 minutes is all you need. This is some great satire.

2 More episodes seen here: http://lstudio.lexus.com/#vid1205

In 2002, there was a story posted at USA Today about a beer-selling contest gone wrong at Hooters. Evidently, the waitress who won the event thought she was going to win a Toyota. Instead, she won a toy Yoda character. See the  newspaper clipping below…

I was watching a video online the other day, and had a stoke of genius. How will my kids fare growing up in a digital economy, specifically in the age of digital media? 

During this video, the speaker was showing some pictures of himself as a kid. You’ve seen these kinds of pictures from the 1950’s, and earlier. They’re brown/sepia, torn edges, faded, and are few and far between. If my parents, or this speaker, wanted to go back and look at the memories of the family, they would have a tough time doing this from their childhood. There just aren’t many images or videos that they can go back and look at. Part of me wonders if this is more beneficial than the digital picture craze that we currently live in. 

I’ve spent many moments with my kids in the past few years closing my eyes and trying to imprint the image of their faces, their bodies, their voices onto my ‘memory.’ As I sit here typing, I am finding it difficult to remember those moments, even though one such moment was less than a week ago. Naturally I’m wondering why that is the case, and immediately my thoughts go to iPhoto on my mac. In a simple very easy to manage photo program resides the memories of 7 years captured by digital film. If I forget the face of my daughter when she was 2 years, 4 months old, I’ve got a picture for it. The point is, our lives are documented in so many different ways. 

With the invention of film, we created an ability to capture life and preserve the memories associated with it. I have many fond memories that are spurred on because of some pictures. I get to see the scene, the people, the setting, and the movement from when the picture was taken. Some of these memories have led me to great joy, while others have led me to prfound saddness. I want to forget some things, and nothing short of lighting the pictures on fire will aid in that act of forgetting. 

Where am I going with this post? Some of the pictures I’ve seen have challenged my perceptions about life. I’ve begun to look ‘deeper’ into videos and pictures of my childhood, wonder what was happening beyond the lens, beyond the film, beyond technology. What interests me about this topic is of the next generation. My kids, as mentioned above, will have the ability to examine so much more of their lives due to the sheer volume of information that has been devoted to their lives. We have over 4,000 total pictures in our digital library …. that’s roughly 5 years of pictures. 

My questions about all of this is whether all of this information is aiding in the collection of memories, good and bad, on a computer disk or in the minds of my kids? Will they find it difficult to remember life because if they need to, all of their memories can be accesed with a few clicks of the mouse? And finally, will they know more about the failure and pain that they grew up in due to the sheer volume of pictures and videos? 

Here’s some fancy photos of young-me

I’m a big fan of Improv Everywhere . They do stunts all over the world such as getting 200 people to ‘freeze’ in grand central station all at the same time, fake U2 concerts on a rooftop in downtown NYC, and many many other awesome improvs. In any case, the below improv is absolutely amazing. It’s a must watch.

I held off on getting a facebook profile for a long time. I caved in a few weeks ago and literally within a few days had accepted more ‘friend’ requests from more friends than I thought I knew. I also held off on getting a twitter account for plenty of reasons, though none more important than wondering why anyone would want to know what I ‘am doing’ at any given time in my day/week/life?

I’ve had a blog for a long time, and it’s main purpose was to gave a space for me to put thought to things that I’d been kicking around in my head. It’s still a great space for that, but I’ve been asking myself a lot of questions about my ‘internet profile’ lately.

The main question surrounds wondering if my use of facebook, twitter, and a blog a means for me to feel more important because I have “x number” of subscribers/friends/followers? Sometimes I wonder if all these web apps create in me a false sense of reality. This ‘reality’ tells me that if I have ‘x number’ of friends/subscribers/followers on my facebook/blog/twitter profiles then I must be liked and important enough for people to care. Why do I need these apps to tell me this? Am I looking to these things to feel bigger, to stroke my narcissistic ego?

Three of the four most important people in my life don’t get on my blog, or twitter, or facebook account. They just want to play with me, wrestle with me, and laugh with me. I hear them downstairs right now, and though I want to write lots more here about plenty more thoughts I have about web 2.0, I’m going to go play with them.

Are you missing anyone because your profile needs to be updated?

Last night, Stephanie and I sat down to watch the new game show, Oprah’s Big Give. For those of you not familiar to the show, it’s essentially The Apprentice meets The Biggest Loser meets Extreme Home Makeover. A team of 8 contestants signed up to participate in helping to give away Oprah’s money and help those in need. What I didn’t realize upon initially sitting down to watch the show was that this was in fact a ‘reality TV’ show with contestants competing against each other for $1M. While the viewers know this, the contestants do not (strange, to say the least … as I’m unsure of what the contestants were actually ’signing up’ for, I digress).

So these 8 contestants are going out and helping people, all the while they are being judged by 3 celebrities on how good their ‘giving’ is pulled off. There are 4 categories that they are judged on, and the person that scores the lowest on those categories is voted off the island…er, fired….er, donated back to society.

There’s the rub. They’re being judged based on how good of a giver they are. Since when does it matter how good of a giver you are? Is the show really about the ‘big give’ or is it simply a way to increase market share of Oprah’s name, while helping a few folks out down the line. Why couldn’t they just make it a show where the contestants gave away as much money as they could, and then all got a pat on the back? What is the fascination with having a ‘winner’ on a television show?

It really irritates me that this show is being billed as a ‘giving’ show, yet the contestants are in line to win a million bucks, and Oprah, Inc. many many more millions. To me, it just seems to be an overall picture that we are much more comfortable watching others dare, risk, bless, fail, succeed, jump, die, love, and hate than we are remotely doing the same thing ourselves.

In something very similar, there is a film coming out this summer that is a documentary about fantasy life on the internet.Here’s some info from the film:

Second Skin takes an intimate look at computer gamers whose lives have been transformed by the emerging genre of Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMOs). World of Warcraft, Second Life, and Everquest allow millions of users to simultaneously interact in virtual spaces. Second Skin introduces us to couples who have fallen in love without meeting, disabled players who have found new purpose, addicts, Chinese gold-farming sweatshop workers, wealthy online entrepreneurs and legendary guild leaders - all living in a world that doesn’t quite exist.http://secondskinfilm.com/