What We Call the News

JibJab, the patron saints of dorky brothers who seek fame and/or fortune on the Internet, have created another video. Entitled "What We Call The News", it is a major comeback after their last few efforts, which were a bit disappointing. Their latest creation is both very funny and horribly, painfully, pathetically true.

What We Call the News | Send To Friends | Funny Animations at JibJab

If only it weren't so true. Not that we at the Daily Marmoset have too much room to judge. Where, back in the blessed era of Cronkite, Brinkley, and Murrow would we have heard about the wedding of Bao Xishun, the 7'9" Mongolian sheepherder who is the world's tallest man?

Bao Xishun - An inspiration to all us freakishly tall people.

That photo reminds me of a conversation I had a very long time ago:

Grandpa Marmoset - Did you know that I once met Robert Wadlow?

Young Skippy - Who's he?

Grandpa Marmoset - You don't know about Robert Wadlow? He was the Alton Giant, the tallest man that ever lived. He was almost nine feet tall!

Young Skippy - Wow! So how did you meet him?

Grandpa Marmoset - Well, one day I was in Alton, and I saw this car pull up. The door opened, and this man started getting out, and getting out, and getting out...


Sorry, I wandered off topic there for a minute. Where was I? Oh right, bitching about the Media.

On a semi-related note, Time Magazine last week had an interesting article about the future of comic strips, entitled "New Zip for the Old Strip". The basic point of the article was that newpaper-based comic strips are slowly dying (not unlike, arguably, the newspaper itself, but that's another story), but online comics are booming. One of the key people they interviewed was Mike Krahulik (aka "Gabe") of the online comic strip Penny Arcade. One of their better strips was shown alongside the article. I remember laughing and wondering how far back they had to dig into the archives to find one that (a) wasn't about video games, and (b) wasn't too filthy to be printed in Time Magazine. (the answer, by the way, is "almost two months".)

Then earlier this week, they put up another brilliant, relatively clean strip about an annual bane of our society: Girl Scouts. I wonder if this is a trend...

Sorry, I was writing about some matter of grave importance, and I sidetracked myself again. I think it was about the media shortening our attention spans or something, but I forget.

Anyway, it probably had something to do with Stephen Colbert's discovery that Librarians Are Hiding Something:

"You don't bite the hand that feeds you.
Especially when the 'You' is me."

Once again, God bless Stephen Colbert.

Or maybe it had something to do with the news that they're making a Mummy III, only this time without mummies. Now tell me we're not getting dumbed down.

Quote of the Day

Promote literacy. Buy a box of fortune cookies today.

--from a fortune cookie at a Chinese restaurant where Frau and I dined last week.

cleaning my bookmarks file, part 2

Because of the recent lag in my postings, I've accumulated a bunch more links. The following is a collection of some of these, in absolutely no order. Enjoy:

• Thanks to the oh-so-reliable sources at Wikipedia, the rumors of Sinbad's death have been greatly exaggerated.
  
• Nothing says "ultra-cool and modern" like a nice pair of cybernetic lederhosen. (By the way, if there's not a band called the Cybernetic Lederhosen, there should be.)
• Speaking of lederhosen, that reminds me: I need ot speak with the Frau about something of great importance.
• This morning's Post-Dispatch had a very amusing article about the coming grudge match between the Springfields of Illinois and Missouri (along with 14 others) for the right to host the premiere of the Simpsons Movie. While I have to give Missouri the edge for having a spokesman who is clearly more educated in Simpsons lore, the best part of the article was the illustration of both Illinois and Missouri versions of Homer:

Depressing, but true.

• Someone recently put out yet another list of the 200 "Definitive" albums of all time (which is not to be confused with Time's All-Time list). I'm a little puzzled at how "Thriller" made it to #3, but then again half the pop "music" of the last 10 years has been directly ripped off from Michael Jackson, so what do I know.
  
• I thought this was an interesting article on Koji Kondo, the Beethoven of video game soundtracks.
• Also from the good people at Wired Magazine comes this very entertaining article about a Christian imitation of Youtube entitled GodTube.
  
• Congrats to SIUC on their remarkable success in athletics this year. Their basketball team, the Salukis (don't ask), are moving on to the Sweet 16 in the NCAA Tournament. Now if they could just work on some other areas, like their marketing department...
• Many librarians have complained (often at extreme length) about the lack of "cool librarians" in popular culture. For those who aren't satisfied with Batgirl, Kathryn Hepburn, and a Parker Posey movie nobody's ever heard of, I am proud to introduce Rex Libris, badass librarian and guardian of the dark secrets of the Dewey Decimal System.
  
• Marvel Comics, in a move of questionable judgment, killed Captain America a few weeks ago. While anyone who knows anything about superheroes knows that their deaths are generally less permanent than their haircuts, I am among the many who feel, in the words of one reviewer, "righteous fury" for a variety of reasons.

Yeah, that will last.

• The title of this article speaks for itself: Scientists Levitate Small Animals.
• Movies.com recently hired two of the greatest critics of all time: Statler and Waldorf. If your network lets you watch them, I'm sure they're hilarious.
  
• For people who use the web too much at work, workFRIENDLY could be a godsend. For everyone else, it's just a really funny (yet good) idea.
  
• Speaking of great ideas, here's another article with a self-explanatory title: Man Relives College Life with a Beer-Tossing Fridge. Genius, pure and simple.
• While I'm listing interesting articles, try this one about a sexual harrassment case in our illustrious state government.
  
• In a dazzling feat of nerdishness, someone has created STARSHIP DIMENSIONS, a virtual museum of scale models of famous spaceships.
  

I've got more, believe it or not, but that should do for now. Enjoy the links and excuse me while I get back to work.

I hate Minnesota Nazis

EDITOR'S NOTE: We're back, after some technical difficulties. As a result, the following posting should have been done at least a week ago. We apologize for the delay. On a related note, The New Blogger can bite me.

Just when I think my former home of Columbia, MO seemed to be getting less weird, the Nazis dropped by. Minnesota Nazis, to be exact. The National Socialist Movement, including their 2008 presidential candidate, decided to march on Columbia to protest the University of Missouri's "Marxism". As both an alumnus and former employee, I can testify that the University's flaws are legion (and usually hilarious), but Marxism is news to me. I always thought of it as the other extreme, if anything.

Anyway, the Minnesota Nazis showed up, had their parade cut a bit short (predictably enough) by the anti-demonstration demonstrators, cost the Columbia police a nice chunk of overtime, and left with a minimal amount of violence and pepper spray. Meanwhile, in a rare display of surprisingly good sense, thousands of locals skipped the freak show and went to a picnic instead.

All this, as you might have gathered from the title of this post, raises one main point in my mind: I miss John Belushi.


The Blues Brothers did such an admirable job of taking a thoroughly nasty situation and making fun of it that few people today remember that the dreaded "Illinois Nazis" were real. While I am a bit startled that nobody in Columbia tried to run the Nazis off a bridge with their car, turning their backs and going to a picnic is at least as good. And for once, I think maybe it's not such a bad place. At least, not until the next time the fraternities or the basketball team do something astonishingly stupid, and they're overdue for a big one.

PS- while researching this post, I learned an important lesson: Illinois Nazis are even funnier in Italian.