Tag Archives: video

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Comedy Triptych

Ok, so we’ve had a lot of meditating and soul searching recently. Now it’s time for a few laughs.

In England there are a few classic comedy sketches that I think are worth sharing. I don’t know how well they’ll travel overseas, as there’s some very British in-jokes, but I think you’ll all get a few laughs out of them.

The first one is by British comedy legends the Two Ronnies, and needs no explanation really. Just a great routine on a par with Monty Python’s parrot sketch.

The second is by an bunch of Indian comedians, and is a classic reverse on the pissed up Englishmen going to a curry house, a very ‘traditional’ scene you often used to get on a Friday and Saturday night.

And the last one, not actually a famous classic but in my opinion absolutely hilarious, is the end scene from Reservoir Dogs as done by the Women’s Institute. You don’t realise just how much swearing is in there until you hear it done by a bunch of old women.

(apologies for the quality of this one, but it was the only online copy I could find)

:)

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Share and share alike

Sometimes the world is so full of interesting stuff you just want to put it in a bag and run around showing it to everyone. In lieu of that, look at this…

This is well funny. Those of you who live in London will have a good chuckle at this superb summing up of a certain type of ‘yoof’. For those of you not in London please consider this a public service announcement. Enjoy.

“…we all play synth!” (duh-duh-duh-durr-durr) …hahahaha… :lol:

Next we have something you don’t see every day, a talk show host speaking from the heart. This’ll give you something to think about.

And finally, a bit of beautifully crafted fun that I think is just brilliant.

Hope you liked ‘em. This is what I do all day, lol. ;)

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Change the world $25 at a time

I’ve been a member of an online micro loan community called Kiva for a while now. The idea is very simple: Entrepreneurs worldwide, who may not have access to ‘normal’ modes of funding, ask for a loan on Kiva.org. Those who want to help out can lend them all or just part of the loan (minimum $25). They invest the money, reap the benefits, then repay the loan you made in full, leaving you with your original stake which you can then re-invest.

I’ve got $75 in there at the moment (soon to be $100) which I have been able to use to help 7 small businesses all over the world. 4 of them have paid me back in full. The other 3, my most recent loans, are in the process of paying me back. It’s quick and easy to do, there’s no hidden costs, and they’ve got a 98.95% repayment rate, which is better than any high street bank. That’s because the people they help are just like you and me. All they want is a chance to make their lives better.

If you need any more inspiration watch this TED video from Kiva’s co-founder Jessica Jackley. It’s a very warm and touching presentation that I found incredibly moving.

Please give some serious consideration to investing $25 and maybe changing someone’s life. It’s a meal to us, but it could be a new beginning for them. Thank you.

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Close Encounters of the Third Kind

“This means something. This is important.”

You got that right Dick. After his surprise hit with Sugarland Express, and the enormous Jaws (a movie that literally created the Summer Blockbuster!), Close Encounters of the Third Kind pretty much cemented Steven Spielberg’s reputation as the daddy of mainstream cinema. Good job too, because he followed it up with the dire 1941, a movie so bad it would have ended most careers (and famously caused John Wayne to give Spielberg a dressing down for treating war in such a casual, light weight manner – an incident that had great effect on him when making films such as Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan); a career which he pulled out of the bag right afterwards with the outstanding Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Usually alien movies are in either one of two camps – the lone, alien-out-of-water, “Show me more of this earth thing called ‘kissing’”, visiter type; or the suck your brains out, give us your planet, “My God, it’s an invasion!” type. Thankfully, CEOTTK avoids all that, mostly by not showing us the aliens for most of the movie. Oh they’re there, and they make their presence known (in oh so many cool and interesting ways), but we don’t get to see them until the final scene, which of course makes them much more interesting, and scary, than they otherwise would be (a little trick he picked up during the making of Jaws).

Richard Dreyfus turns in an excellent ‘everyman’ performance as Roy Neary, the power company employee who encounters the aliens and can’t stop thinking about them, with Teri Garr as his poor, beleaguered wife who doesn’t know what to make of all this. What would you do if your other half kept going on about aliens and doing weird things with mashed potato? They’ve also got a couple of kids who, as in all Speilberg films, are annoying little brats, but I’ll look the other way for now as they’re not in it very much.

Francois Truffaut is in it too, doing an excellent turn as the French alien ‘expert’, with a nerdy interpeter side-kick played by Bob Balaban (who couldn’t speak a lick of French by the way, but got the part by conning Spielberg into thinking he could – Spielberg wanted a French speaker to play the part – by memorising some lines to do in the audition) – for more info check out his book on the making of Close Encounters, Spielberg, Truffaut & Me.

But for me the real star of this movie is the music by John Williams. He’s a scoring genius, of that there can be no doubt, and his orchestration at the end of the movie is just brilliant. You have to see this film for the final scene alone, it’s just so good! How good? I was in HMV on Oxford Street once, and they were showing Close Encounters on the big screen. When that scene came on, and the music played, I swear the whole top floor of the shop just stopped to watch. Seriously, everyone put their shopping on hold for 2 minutes just to watch, and listen, to the ending on Close Encounters. Now you can’t say fairer than that, can you?

As always, I’ve done my best not to give too much away (note how in the previous paragraph I don’t say exactly why or how it’s a brilliant scene exactly – which kind of undersells it a bit, but I don’t want to spoil anything). I did find a clip of the final scene in fact, which I was dying to put here, but it’s just gives the whole game away. So instead let’s check out Roy meeting some aliens (pardon the spanish subtitles). :)

Now if that hasn’t whetted your appetite, I dunno what will!

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A musical extra-vaganza

Ok ‘migos, as promised, a few tunes for you to enjoy. I’ve done two playlists, one for the folky folk, and one for the unfolky folk.

As you might expect the unfolky playlist is the one with most of the antifolk tunes on it, but don’t let that put you off the other one (or vice versa). In truth they’re both a good mix of stuff, it’s just that the folky folk playlist is more lazy afternoon that the other one, that’s all. They’re both solid gold in my opinion (but then again I would say that wouldn’t I?) :)

Also, for those of you who enjoy the Ok Go video in my previous post, I got sent yesterday a TED talk by the guy who made it. Check it out it’s fascinating (as you would expect from TED.com).

Cheers Ears!

ps: Just bought tickets for Diane Cluck in September. Can’t wait! :)

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Week 22: In which our hero discovers the many splendors of the anti-folk

Well I did it. One month without booze. And you know what, not as hard as I thought it would be. The second week was tough, but I didn’t know I was going to go a month then. The whole 30 day thing developed over time. Quite possibly, in fact, I couldn’t have gone a month if that’s what I’d set out to do. Then again, who knows?

Going to keep it going I reckon. For once one of my experiments has yielded actual tangible results. I never did feel any better/stronger/healthier when I went veggie, gave up smoking, cut out gluten, etc. but this time I do feel a lot better in my head for getting rid of drink. I’m more focussed, calmer (pause for a big laugh from those who know me), more positive (laughs again), and I just prefer the world this way. So let’s see how long it lasts. Got a big test coming up this weekend, a retreat with my Tai Chi group that is never short of beer, so we’ll see what happens.

Did hope to have a new thing for you this week, as I had a ticket to go see Laura Solon do her comedy show, but it was called off due to illness. However, as the title of this post suggests, I have been getting into me music a wee bit this week. And by that I mean I bought 9 albums and an EP, some of them at random, and not all of them ‘good’. But still, lots of outstanding tunes.

day 26 - kimya dawson!!!

Was already kind of into the anti-folk scene after hearing Kimya Dawson on the Juno soundtrack, and then going to see her live twice, but I got really into it because of a playlist I downloaded recently. So, off I went down Dada (the local record shop), iPod (and list of new bands to check out) in hand, and started buying random albums in bulk. One led to another, discoveries were made, advice was offered and taken, next thing I know I’ve got a massive stack of CDs to go through. And it’s not like I can afford it either. But what the hell, life’s too short eh?

I won’t give you a big list of who I bought (yet). Stay tuned, as later in the week I’m going to try and link to a downloadable playlist for you guys to check out. Gonna take me a few days to sort through everything and see what direction I want to go in, but hopefully I should have it up by Thursday. Check back then, it’s gonna be fabulous!

Oh, and to finish off here’s a little music video I found which is just the best thing ever; seriously!

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Week 18: In which our hero makes some significant advances towards a Brand New Life (or, Movies, mash and meditation)

My but what an ‘interesting’ week it’s been. Mostly I was working, five days out of seven getting up at 5am, but I still managed to squeeze in some newness; new thought, new action, and new intention. And a recipe, which was nice. First the food;

Mustard Mash

It’s probably a bit cheeky to describe this as a recipe, as really it’s just a way of making mashed potato a little less boring, but still it’s worth sharing so here goes.

mustard mash

2 large potatoes, peeled and chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
a splash of olive oil
1 tsp whole grain mustard

Cook and mash the potatoes in the usual way, in a pan of salted boiling water on a medium high heat, for 15-20 minutes or so (until potatoes are soft and mashable).

At the same time fry up the onion in a frying pan until they are soft and a little golden.

Mash the onion and whole grain mustard into the potato. Mix thoroughly and serve with a nice pie (I had mine with one of Clive’s pies, yum!) and enjoy.

Now, down to business!

beginning buddhism

I’ve actually been doing some meditating this week. Only a couple of times, but at least I’ve made the effort to go on that cushion and do it. It hasn’t been easy, as there’s a lot of noise around me at the moment which is very distracting (God bless your neighbours eh?), but ultimately it’s all good practice and can only help to strengthen my mindfulness. To that end I have been aided by a decision I made on Thursday.

I’ve decided to lay off the booze. Not just for a week, but for… I want to say forever, but I’m not going to jinx it. I’m just going to take it day by day. What happened was I was having a good day on Thursday. I felt good, I was energised, I went to Tai Chi in the evening, felt great after that… then I went and had some dirty dirty beer. I didn’t want to, it was just out of habit, and I regretted it later. That night in bed, a little bit pissed and unable to sleep, I decided to pack it in completely, and so far it’s going great. There’s an element of not knowing what to do with myself of an evening, and I was a bit ratty over the weekend dealing with a touch of withdrawal, but I feel good and very positive about the coming weeks. I even poured away the bit of wine I had left rather than finish it off in an effort “not to be wasteful” so things are looking good. :)

Also I’m starting to make progress in getting my board game off the ground. I’ve arranged to meet a lad next weekend to see about doing some designs for it. If all goes well maybe I’ll finally make some progress with it; then who knows, maybe in a few months time we can go into production. It’ll take me that long to get the cash together anyway. For now all I’ve got to do is do some style sheets for Saturday, to show how I want it to look. It’s all good.

And finally, I thought I’d share some links and videos with you that have been amusing me over the past week. First there’s The Cleveland Show, the hilarious Family Guy spin off. If you haven’t tried it give it a go; you won’t be disappointed. New episodes available every Monday. Thank you 4oD!

Ever wondered how to professionally fold a t-shirt? Dave Gorman shows you how. Trust me, this is brilliant.

And my love of exploding things led me to this.

TTFN. ;)