Anthony Bourdain's Holiday Special

Here's some more Christmas cheer for you... assuming you find theft, insolence, cursing and general misbehavior to be cheerful (as I apparently do).

Let's just say it ain't exactly Bing Crosby or Andy Williams.

This clip is a bit long, but that's just because it's all good. My favorite part has to be Tony's description of how his newly acquired Christmas tree will lose its needles... I believe the phrase was "like a junkie on a tilt-a-whirl". Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, doesn't it?

Ben Folds live - Bizarre Christmas Incident

And now for an uplifting seasonal tune:





The camera work is not great, but the sound quality isn't too bad.

Ho, ho, ho!

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Now playing: Bob & Tom It's A Wonderful Laugh
via FoxyTunes

"My Charlie Brown Christmas"

It's that time of year again... So here's a little present for all my fellow Scrubs fans:

Name That Quote contest winner, v. 2

Sorry for the delay in posting the solution to my latest Name That Quote contest... I've had some technical difficulties with Blogger this week, particularly with my comments. As a result, I'm not 100% sure who answered first. My data so far tells me that Laura had the first correct answer, so congratulations to her and to all of you who responded - everyone answered correctly, so you're all winners!

The quote, of course, was a sampling of Nigel Tufnel's words of wisdom from the classic rock mockumentary, 1984's This Is Spinal Tap. Here's a clip from the scene in question:



Thanks to everyone for playing!

John Denver & The Muppets sing The Twelve Days of Christmas

I thought it was about time that we had some Christmas spirit around here, so I tracked down a clip from my favorite Christmas special ever. Suck on that, Rudolph! (I kid - I like Rudolph just fine. He's just nowhere near as cool as the Muppets.)

This, of course, is the opening scene from 1979's classic John Denver & The Muppets: A Christmas Together. Sorry, kids - for some unfathomable reason, it's not available in stores, although you can still purchase the soundtrack, which is sadly not nearly as funny as the special. I got my bootleg VHS copy a few years ago on eBay, along with Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas from 1977.

Enjoy!

Name That Quote contest, v. 2

I'm ba-ack!

I apologize profusely for my prolonged absence, but it's been a rough month around the royal palace. I contracted a plague-like illness the weekend before Thanksgiving from which I have just begun to recover, and the same disease also decimated the rest of the royal family. The Queen Mother and her consort, Prince Donald (aka my parents) were so ill that they spent varying amounts of time in the hospital this past weekend. I'm hoping it will be all uphill from here, so that we can actually enjoy our Christmas. We're in serious need of some holiday spirit after completely missing Thanksgiving.

But enough about us... I may have been down & out, but I never forgot my solemn duty to my subjects to provide you with useless pop culture diversions. So I'm all set with my next "Name That Quote" contest.

As always, the only prize for being the first to answer is a sense of superiority & accomplishment, along with a mention in my blog. I think this is a pretty easy one, so I expect lots of responses... Here we go:

There's something about this that's so black. It's like, "How much more black could this be?" And the answer is "None... none more black."

I'll post the answer with an accompanying video clip in a few days, so stay tuned!

A Blast from "Scrubs" Past

First, a flashback to "My Overkill", the premiere episode from Season 2 of Scrubs - one of their best episodes ever, in my opinion:



Now, flash-forward 5 years to "My Hard Labor", the second episode of Season 7:



I particularly like the sound his guitar makes when he "retrieves" it... Squishy!

I always love when a show rewards its longtime viewers, and what better way to do that in its final season than to throw in a little Colin Hay, who has long been the unofficial Scrubs troubadour?

Now if only we'd find out what happened to Hooch... Well, there's always next week.

BNL live - One Week, bluegrass style

One of my favorite Barenaked Ladies performances... And you gotta love the hat tip to Rush. Boy, those Canadians sure stick together.

Bret, You Got It Goin' On

One of my favorite songs from the Flight of the Conchords series on HBO - which I hear is now available on DVD. Sounds like a great stocking stuffer... hint, hint.

Pepper Jack LOVE Fraggle Rock!

I don't know why, but I just randomly thought of this scene earlier today & had to see it again.

You don't have to be a fan of the show to appreciate this clip from the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode "Mac Is A Serial Killer". It does help if you're a Jim Henson fan, though. Or if you're on the crack rock.

Keith & his killer Billo impression

Very few things entertain me more than watching Keith Olbermann taunt & ridicule Bill O'Reilly on national cable television.

Keith has developed quite a repertoire of impressions, including humorous mimicry of Brit Hume, John Gibson and Glenn Beck, and a killer version of White House Press Secretary Dana Perino. Good times!

But none of these can even touch his inspired mockery of blustery bloviator Billo. Not that it is particularly difficult to poke fun at Falafel Boy, but Keith is just so enthusiastic about it, it's almost infectious. Plus, he really commits to the Bill Orally character, which is very important.

There are lots of videos of Keith's Billo-bashing floating around in cyberspace, and I recommend them all. But this recent clip from Countdown is my current favorite:




Video courtesy of Crooks and Liars.

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Now playing: Elvis Costello - Beautiful (Christina Aguilera cover)
via FoxyTunes

This ain't your mama's movie musical!

I...can't...wait.

I Need My Moment of Zen!

For someone whose life revolves around her TiVo, I really haven't been too concerned about the writers' strike. We've got quite a backlog of shows already - with Mark working all the time, we're woefully behind in all the shows we watch together. And some of our favorite shows ordered extra episodes & started filming early this season, anticipating the strike. So, I knew it would suck, but I wasn't overly worried.

Until last night, when it finally dawned on me that there would be no more new episodes of The Daily Show or The Colbert Report until the strike ends. Son of a monkey! I don't know why it took me so long to figure that out - maybe I've been taking Colbert too seriously when he claims to run his entire show single-handedly. I think I've just been preoccupied with other things, which is probably good for me, I know, but I still find it surprising.

So I've decided that I have to go on record as being opposed to the strike. Of course, I'm a big supporter of unions - I'm a flaming liberal, so I kinda have to be. It's in the job description. And it's not that I disagree with the writers, especially the TV writers. The medium has changed tremendously since their last contract negotiation, and they are consequently missing out on their fair share of residuals from shows we watch on demand, online or on DVD. I get that, and I sympathize.

But that's no excuse for depriving me of my daily fake news fix. I need my moment of Zen! I gotta have it! And historically, the government won't allow workers in necessary industries walk out. Every time air traffic controllers or garbage collectors attempt to strike, they are forced back to work on the pretext that their work is too vital to be held up due to contract negotiations.

Well, I can go for years without needing an airplane, and I could probably live with a garbage pile-up for quite some time. But my life has no meaning without my daily directives from Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, DFA. Isn't this exactly the kind of thing I pay my taxes to avoid?

I say, send in the National Guard if you have to, but break that picket line today! And show the media moguls who is really in charge of this country and make them play ball! Grab all these selfish Hollywood-types by the scruffs of their necks & force them to sit down and figure a way to resolve this dispute without ruining so many innocent lives.

It's the right thing to do. Until then, you're all on notice.

Name That Person contest winner

Congratulations to Laura, who was the first to identify our mystery person as Creed Bratton, best known as the character of the same name on NBC's The Office. She correctly pointed out that the pictures were from his days with the 1960s group The Grassroots. Here's the video:



Thanks for playing!

Lyrics for Night Man and Day Man songs from "Sunny"

By popular demand, I've transcribed the lyrics to all the awesome songs the gang wrote on the "Dee Dates a Retarded Person" episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Yeah, I really don't have much of a life.

If you want to see the video clip, check out this post on my primary blog, Partly Bloggy With a Chance of Sarcasm.

*************************************

Night Man, by Chemical Toilet

Here are Charlie's actual lyrics:




But loosely translated, it goes a little something like this:

Night Man, sneaky and mean
Spider inside my dreams
I think I love you

You make me wanna cry
You 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
You pin me down, and I try to fight you
You come inside me
You fill me up
And I become the Night Man...

It's just 2 men sharing the night
It might seem wrong but it's just right
It's just 2 men sharing each other
It's just 2 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's screamin' a passionate shout

It's the Night Man
I'm feeling so wrong and right, man
I'm feeling so wrong and right, man

I can't fight you, man
When you come inside me
And pin me down with your strong hands
And I become the Night...
The passionate, passionate Night Man

*************************************

Night Man Reprise, by Charlie Kelly

They took you, Night Man, and you don't belong to them
They locked me in a world of darkness without your sexy hands
And I miss you, Night Man, so ba-a-ad

*************************************

Day Man - by Electric Dream Machine

Day Man
Fighter of the Night Man
Champion of the sun
You're a master of karate
And friendship for everyone

Day Man (Aah-aah-aah)
Fighter of the Night Man (Aah-aah-aah)
Champion of the sun (Aah-aah-aah)
You're a master of karate
And friendship for everyone
(repeat)

TV's Tim Stack

I'm a big fan of My Name Is Earl, and I'm fond of many of the characters, such as Randy (of course), Darnell aka Crab Man, Mr. Turtle, Chubby, Little Chubby, Nescobar-A-Lop-Lop, and Willie the One-Eyed Mailman. But no one ever mentions my most favorite character of all: TV's Tim Stack.



He's a great character for many reasons, including:

• He's playing himself, although one would hope it's a highly-fictionalized version.
• It's always funny to see a grown man in a diaper.
• It's a hoot seeing all of Camden County kowtow to such a miserable drunken "celebrity".
  
• Calling anybody "TV's blank" is also always funny - see TV's Frank on the late lamented MST3K.

Of course, I've been a Tim Stack fan for quite some time, going back to his Night Stand with Dick Dietrick days. TV's Tim Stack, of course, likes to remind people of his starring turn in syndicated series Son of the Beach, and is always seen in public in his Beach costume, but Night Stand was by far the better program.

But I digress. I just think it's time to show some love for TV's Tim Stack. I've felt this way since his first appearance, but I think it was this line in last week's episode that clinched it for me:

"America, America,
The score is orange to none..."

--TV's Tim Stack, drunkenly singing during the impromptu 4th of July fireworks on My Name Is Earl episode "Our Other Cops Is On, Part 2"

So, let's give it up for TV's Tim Stack, the celebrity with no shame. 'Cause Lord knows there aren't enough of those in the world...

Name That Person contest

That's right, it's time for another test of pop culture skill. The winner gets...absolutely nothing, except a shout-out from the Queen.

These are very old pictures of a somewhat famous person, perhaps not in the milieu with which he is typically associated. So, from 1968, Name That Person:





P.S.: I'm withholding all comments until at least the end of the day, to give everyone a chance to answer. Good luck!

Scary Monsters

Mark is not a horror movie fan. He generally thinks they're just not scary. In many cases, he's right - how many slasher flicks are truly frightening?

I, however, do enjoy a good scary movie on occasion (emphasis on good), particularly around Halloween. This has led us into many spirited debates on the "scariness" of horror film characters - or lack thereof.

And if there's one other thing that annoys Mark more than "non-scary" horror movies, it's the phenomenon of the countdown list - the Top Ten this, the 20 Best that. While the descriptions and analysis are sometimes interesting, he finds the whole idea very arbitrary and therefore useless. I revel in watching things like "The 100 Scariest Movie Moments" when he's around, just to see him squirm.

So imagine my delight in finding this blog post entitled The 7 Most Easily Escaped Movie Monsters. Perfect! If it would only have discussed fat-free mayonnaise, it would have been a Piss-Mark-Off trifecta.

It's actually a really fun article, if not completely rational. It was posted on Cracked.com, so I guess it's to be expected that it's decidedly tongue-in-cheek. Even so, there were several questionable choices (Predator? The Thing? Not exactly pushovers). More importantly, there was one glaring omission:

How do you examine the most easily escaped horror villains and not list Chucky the damn doll? Hello?! I actually enjoyed the original "Child's Play" film, cheesy as it was. What can I tell ya - I'm a sucker for Chris Sarandon. But I still recall the peals of laughter in the theater as we watched characters "struggle" with a 2 foot tall doll. Okay, maybe I can believe that Chucky could sneak up behind someone and, oh, say push them out a window. But in a frontal assault? Shyeah!

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Now playing: artist - Rhett Miller - The Instigator - Come Around
via FoxyTunes

The Grand Unveiling

(reprinted from my main blog, Partly Bloggy With a Chance of Sarcasm)

Welcome to my brand new template! I'm pretty happy with it, although I kinda miss the tropical feel of my former template... I can always change my colors & header, though, if I decide to return to the tropics.

As before, my header is homemade, although the photo is not mine this time. I have also upgraded to some fancy lettering. It may not look like it, but the photo is actually a picture of my new favorite cocktail, a lime caipirinha. So tasty!



The most important aspect of the new template is the blog post section which, as you may have noticed, only displays one post at a time. This means that the whole page loads much faster, and any videos I post should run much more smoothly.

If you want to read the previous posts - and I hope you do! - just click on a title in the "Previous Posts" section. The requested post will then appear in the blog post section without reloading the rest of the page. It's pretty cool, really. The 30 most recent posts are listed here, but you can go even further back using the "Older" button or through the Blog Archive. Or, you can click on a label from the "Labels" list & the titles of all posts with that label will appear in the "Previous Posts" list, also without reloading the entire page.

I'd love to know what you think of the new template - how it looks & feels, and how it performs. I've had some difficulties in the past watching my posted videos on my trusty (yet not too powerful) laptop Keith, but so far everything is running much better for me with this template. I hope it will make things easier for all of you, too.

I should be back to blogging here real soon. I'm sure I'll continue to tinker with fonts & colors over the next few days, too, but that shouldn't keep me from posting. So stay tuned!

(If you like the new layout, you can get the Neo template for yourself for free at Hackosphere, along with tips for installation & lots of other nifty Blogger hacks. Thanks, Ramani!)

"Name That Quote" winner

Congratulations to The Repressed One, who was the first to identify this week's quote from Raising Arizona.




I'll post another quote in a few days. Thanks for playing!

The 40 Year Old Virgin extended scene

Today's film clip is dedicated to The Repressed One, who recently told me he had never seen it.

Oh, he's seen the movie, of course. ("OHH, KELLY CLARKSON!!") But he seemed pretty interested when I told him there was an extended version of the production number at the end of the film.

So, here it is. The sound quality is not great, so you'll probably need to turn up the volume a bit.

If nothing else, maybe I can keep The Repressed One entertained until Mrs. Repressed gets back from her fancy trip. You'll probably have to make requests, though, so I that I'll know what will amuse you. Sounds like a game of Stump the Queen... Hmmm... (That's not to insinuate that I know everything; I just have loads more free time than most, so I have nothing better to do than track down obscure crap on the interwebs.)




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Now playing: Beck - Lost Cause
via FoxyTunes

Closer - Joshua Radin

This song is so beautiful that it might make you cry. I wanted to post another Joshua Radin song called Winter instead, but I couldn't find any clips with decent sound. Probably just as well - that one really makes me want to cry. But this is a great song, too.



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Now playing: The Magic Numbers - Forever Lost
http://foxytunes.com/artist/the+magic+numbers/track/forever+lost

Someone's Gonna Get A Thousand Dollars...

...it could be you, or it could be you.

Another randomly insane sketch from Kids In The Hall.



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Now playing: Jet - Move On
via FoxyTunes

Name That Quote contest

I thought this sounded like a neat new feature for my page. Just for fun, you understand - and bragging rights, of course. I won't be able to offer any prizes until my corporate sponsors come through... Might be awhile.

I'll post the clip in a few days, after everyone's had a chance to answer. Here we go:

"Anyone found bipedal in 5 wears his ass for a hat."

Making Fun Of Bums

It's not a nice thing to do...

I LOVE that someone posted this on YouTube! One of my all-time favorite songs.

Waiting For My Real Life To Begin

This is another example of one clip covering both TV and music, and in a much more unusual way than you'd expect.

Of course, you get used to unusual if you watch a lot of Scrubs - that's part of the show's charm.

Here's the cast of Scrubs singing Colin Hay's "Waiting For My Real Life To Begin":





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Now playing: Barenaked Ladies - Brian Wilson
via FoxyTunes

Ben Folds - "Rockin' The Suburbs"

My first music pick is dedicated to my husband, Mark.

He's really into Ben Folds right now, as am I. I'm pretty sure this is his ringtone... After all, he is male, middle-class & white. And, of course, the video has a cameo from one of his other favorite people.

Enjoy!

What Up? (Notes from the Party Mansion)

Awesome scene from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Everyone needs to be watching this show!

"If you want it to be a bicep, it needs more veins."



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Now playing: Barenaked Ladies - Be My Yoko Ono
via FoxyTunes

Dirty Reuben Love

Welcome to my latest experiment - a blog with random observations about TV, film and music. I hope to make this a multimedia extravaganza, if I ever figure out what all these buttons do.

I thought it appropriate to christen the new page with a clip that touches on all 3 topics. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Ron Burgundy, his yazz flute, and the entire Channel 4 news crew: