On Yet Another Cultural Snubbing Of The Adverb

I generally do not pay attention to television commercials.  I seldom watch anything when it is actually aired anyway - I live the DVR lifestyle, recording and watching programs when I want to and usually fast-forwarding through the commercials. On the occasions when I do have to sit through the ads, I am certainly not focused on them.  That is, until the other night when a commercial's tag line forced my attention, the way fingernails being dragged across a chalkboard might force your attention.  Only this was even more unpleasant to my ears.

Capital Blue Cross has a new ad campaign, and the slogan the are using is an example of one of my biggest grammatical pet peeves.  It is the type of lax grammar that underscores my belief that our culture is hurtling ever more quickly toward the world that Mike Judge envisioned in the movie Idiocracy; a world where "the English language [has] deteriorated into a hybrid of hillbilly, valley girl, inner city slang, and various grunts."

Capital Blue Cross' new slogan is: "Live Fearless."

"LY!" I shouted at my television, which had already moved on to the next brain-numbing commercial. "Live fearlessLY! Do you people not know what a freaking adverb is?!?"

This isn't the first time a company has completely ignored the basic grammatical construction of an adverb. Back in the '90s I was driven batty by Apple Computers and their "Think Different" campaign.  "Think different?" I'd say to anyone who would listen. "Apparently someone on Apple's advertising team didn't proofread careful!"  I wish more people would have gotten the joke than did, but that too is a comment on our language dying: if it gets said on TV, it must be right.

Yes, I know, English is notoriously one of the most difficult languages to master. It is infamous for setting up rules of grammar and then offering a never-ending string of bizarre exceptions to those rules.  Adverbs, though, are pretty simple. 99% of the time, they're going to end in -ly.

He didn't run quick; he ran quickLY. She didn't yell angry; she yelled angriLY.  You shouldn't live fearless; you should live fearlessLY.  Simple, no?

I guess I had an advantage, being of grade school age in the 1970s.  We had songs to teach us things.  We had Schoolhouse Rock and Sesame Street and The Electric Company all throwing musical lessons at us about everything.  I still can recite the entire Preamble to the Constitution after all these years by hearing the Schoolhouse Rock song in my head.  We learned to count, we learned how bills become law, and we sure learned grammar!  Anyone my age remembers "Conjunction Junction" or that it's "quite interesting, a noun's a person, place or thing." 

We had two great lessons on adverbs, both of which I still hear in my head today, and both of which strongly underscored the -ly suffix.  Schoolhouse Rock offered us "Lolly, Lolly, Lolly (Get Your Adverbs Here)," which is quite fondly remembered by my circle of friends, but to me the one that really nails it was offered up by The Electric Company, who enlisted the incomparable Tom Lehrer to write the brilliant "L-Y." Anyone who grew up with this one has no excuse for improper adverb usage (and it's quite a snappy little tune, too!):

I don't suppose the folks at Capital Blue Cross will be making any changes in their advertising campaign based on my objections.  Still, I needed to rant, lest my head explode.  I've said my piece and will say no more, except to ask that please, anyone out there who is in charge of coming up with the next big slogan for the next national ad campaign for the next big brand, please do one thing:

Proofread careful!

Let's Go Surfing!

So you're sitting around on a Sunday night with not a lot to do, no desire to watch a Hillbilly Handfishing marathon or whatever other mindless programming the idiot box might spew at you, and no wish to prattle on endlessly about what you had for lunch on Facebook or Twitter?  Bored to pieces and looking for something new and different to fill up that empty space in the back of your mind? Friends, I'm here to help with yet another collection of some of the coolest, awesomest, and all-around bestest things I've found on the big, wide Internets lately.  Check 'em out and enjoy:

Network Awesome

Those of you who remember the heady days of the early-'80s cable boom will probably recall spending many a Friday and Saturday night sitting blurry-eyed in front of the TV trying desperately to stay awake to see all four hours of the then-fledgling USA Network's greatest contribution to pop culture history, Night Flight.  If you are among those smiling in fond remembrance of that program, you need to bookmark Network Awesome immediately.  Just as Night Flight did in the era when folks were abandoning network television product for the uncharted frontier of cable content, so Network Awesome does in the now when folks are trading in their cable boxes and bloated cable bills to find better, more imaginative content online.

Network Awesome repurposes content in much the same way Night Flight did thirty-odd years ago: the site's ever-expanding crew of curators sift through the immense amount of detritus filling online video sites to find rare gems in the form of long-forgotten  documentaries, episodes of foreign TV shows, short-subject animations and independent films, music videos both popular and obscure, and just enough original production to tie everything together into loose "themes" for each day's six-hour block of programming.  Rare concert footage, bizarre broadcast experiments, and programming not seen in decades is not only presented, but examined in short essays. Watch what you want, when you want - everything is archived. You are likely to find something fascinating that you never knew was out there.  Don't waste time with sites that simply stream internet versions of cable product (I'm looking at you, Hulu). Not when there is Network Awesome to be had!

Greta's Records

I'm not one who normally goes for Tumblr blogs.  Never really got the whole point.  There some good ones out there, a handful of which even appear on this site's Blogroll.  But it always seems to me that there is some special secret way I'm supposed to interact with Tumblr blogs that I don't understand, so I feel like I'm not in the club when I'm visiting one. (Do not even get me started on Pinterest! That's thoroughly alien territory from where I sit!)

That said, filmmaker Allison Andrews has created a Tumblr blog that just may prove to be my gateway into that secret club, because of its utterly fascinating subject.  Ms. Andrews went out and bid on a lot 50 record albums from the estate of movie legend Greta Garbo, and dangit if she didn't win!  Armed with this stack of celebrity-owned vinyl, she pulls one album from the lot for each post, and not only plays and shares the music within, but attempts to glean something about the famously enigmatic star's deeply private world from the choices she made at whichever record shops she frequented.  She was a Beatles fan? She was hep to Professor Longhair? She did the Twist?!? The things Garbo chose to listen to when she "vanted to be alone" are truly fascinating, and Andrews does an excellent job of exploring the unanswerable question that seems to pop up with each selection: what is this record doing in Greta Garbo's collection? 

Hope From Nope

One of everyone's great fears is the fear of rejection, no matter what form that rejection takes. Whether it is a fear of social rejection that is keeping you from asking that special someone out, fear of professional rejection that stops you from presenting your ideas to your boss, or whatever rejection you fear in a given moment, it can be paralyzing, humbling, and at times, humiliating.  But can the fear of rejection, seemingly hardwired in us, be overcome, as many other phobias can, through aversion therapy?

That question is the basis of entrepeneur and blogger Jia Jiang's Hope From Nope project.  Subtitled "100 Days of Rejection Therapy," Jiang's project is to go out each day for 100 days and ask a random person for something that he will most certainly be refused, record the interaction on video, and blog about the results.  In doing so, Jiang reverses the standard expectation of personal interaction: in this project, being accepted is actually failure while being rejected is the success sought.  The results are both hysterical and deeply insightful. Starting out nervously asking a security guard if he can borrow $100 on Day 1, Jiang has shown a marked increase in confidence and poise as he has steadily worked through his self-prescribed therapy. He has asked for a "burger refill" at Five Guys, he has challenged a local CEO to a staring contest, danced with a mall Santa and attempted to name his own price at Dollar Tree.  Entertaining and inspiring - check it out!

MajorScaled TV
Feeling a bit low lately? Overtaken by moodiness? Are the grey skies of winter causing your seasonal affective disorder to kick into overdrive? Well, spend some time over at Vimeo with MajorScaled TV, and you will have the musical frown turned upside-down!  Not sure how this digital magic is worked, but MajorScaled TV somehow takes recordings of great downbeat minor-scale tunes reworks them with their major-scale equivalent chords, recasting the dirge into a bright sunshiny piece of poppy ear candy guaranteed to set your toes a-tappin'.   It's like listening to a radio transmission from a parallel universe where there are no hassles, man, just good vibes.  Behold as The Doors' "Riders On The Storm" morphs into an easy-listening smilefest. Marvel as Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters" comes back sounding happily lobotomized.  And, well, just listen to R.E.M. sounding shinier and happier than ever:



Jimmy Slonina
OK, if MajorScaled TV didn't put a smile on your face, then a few minutes with Jimmy Slonina certainly will.  You remember as a kid standing in front of a mirror lip-synching to to your records your the radio?  Come on, fess up - we all did it.  Well Jimmy still does it, only these days in front of a video camera. The fact that he is blessed with a very expressive face and clearly has a brilliant sense of humor helps immensely, and if you can get through his takes on "Under Pressure," the theme from Hong Kong Phooey, or "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" without cracking a grin, there may be no hope for you. And if this run-through of Screamin' Jay Hawkins' "I Put A Spell On You" doesn't do the trick, well, just go in a corner and mope until you're ready to join the rest of us in hysterics over here!




The Pitch Drop Experiment

The science geek in me has always been intrigued by the concept of time and how surprisingly elastic it can be.  You may recall in one of my Now Hear This! posts back in August, I directed your attention to the work of an artist named Buttress O'Kneel who was working with songs slowed down and stretched out to almost incomprehensible length (check that post to listen to "Heaven," in which she stretched a recording of "Stairway to Heaven" out to 77 minutes and 7 seconds.) Experiencing things on such extreme time scales forces a re-evaluation of time itself, as you quickly learn that even in immense slowness, things can occur that are so quick you might miss them.

Underscoring that concept is an ongoing experiment at The University of Queensland in Australia. In 1927, Professor Thomas Parnel put a bit of pitch, a highly viscous tar-like substance that, at room temperature, appears to be solid yet is actually a liquid, into a funnel over a jar, and let it begin to drip. Over 85 years later, the pitch has dripped only eight times - yet when it does eventually drip, the drop falls so quickly that, to date, no one has actually seen it happen!  The ninth drop has been on the verge of dripping for about five years now, and these days there is a webcam trained on the funnel in the hopes to finally catch the event.  There are pitch geeks around the globe who keep the webcam page open day and night hoping to see it live. Me, I just check in every now and then. You might want to also. You just might see something no one has ever seen before!

Vegan Black Metal Chef
So you say you're a vegan who is into death metal, but you just don't have time to cook a decent meal? Pish posh! Since 2011, Brian Manowitz has been posting video tutorials on making quick, easy, and delicious vegan dishes that even the least versed in culinary arts can follow - just be sure to crank the volume! This is right out of the Things I Wish I'd Thought Of file, and is just sheer brilliance!  Must be seen to be believed and yet there he is, exactly as promised in the name. Mr. Manowitz, you see, is the Vegan Black Metal Chef. This is not your parents' cooking show, my friends.  The guy makes a mean pad thai, lemme tell you:




Zombo.com

Far and away my favorite site on the entire Internets.  If you have never been to Zombo.com, you must stop everything you are doing right now and go to Zombo.com!  There simply is no other site like Zombo.com. You can do anything at Zombo.com! Zombo.com is the site we never knew we needed until it was here. Zombo.com is the epitome of websites; the ultimate purpose for having an Internet in the first place. You will never feel so welcome, at ease, and at home as you will at Zombo.com. Don't waste time just reading about Zombo.com - go now to Zombo.com! You will be so happy you visited Zombo.com. I'm going there now - meet you at Zombo.com!

Brush Up Your Shakespeare

Got an email awhile back from an old high school buddy, Tom, that put a big old grin on my face.

Senior year, Tom and I were classmates in AP English. Our teacher, Mrs. Fellenbaum, was a fine teacher if a bit stuffy at times. Of course, we studied Shakespeare, and Mrs. Fellenbaum was notorious for throwing pop “Quote Quizzes” at us in which she would list several important lines from whichever play we were studying at the time, and we had to respond with the name of the character whose line it was. I should say, usually they were important lines. On occasion she would throw in a quote that verged on the obscure, often as an extra-credit question at the end.

Being seniors, and therefore being smart-asses, Tom and I seized on the obscure and set about creating the most impossible Quote Quiz we could create, with the intention of challenging Mrs. Fellenbaum to complete it. The play of the moment was MacBeth, which lent itself very well to our purposes. Mrs. Fellenbaum loved what we created, and in a rare moment of teacher-student collusion, decided that she would run off copies and hand it out at the beginning of the next class as though it were just another Quote Quiz. Even though we had quite clearly titled the thing “A Quiet, Quaint, Quick, Quippy Quote Quiz (MacBeth, Acts I & II),” and further noted that it had been created by “Bryan and Tom's Quiet, Quaint, Quick, Quippy Quote Quizzes and Salad Bar,” (yes, we were geeks – funny geeks, but geeks nonetheless), looks of panic still immediately crossed the faces of our classmates upon receiving the quiz. It only took a moment for a few perceptive folk to catch on, but those few seconds of sheer terror on everyone's faces were so worth it.

Tom's email arrived about a week ago, with the subject line “Remember This?” It contained only a photo of what must be one of the only remaining copies of the 5-Q Quiz (I'm not typing that out again!), but it brought me a laugh once again, a quarter century later. (Old. I'm OLD I tell you.) Tom tells me he still has the answer key as well, and so I challenge those of you who think you know your Shakespeare to see how many you can actually answer. They are all actual lines from the Acts I and II of MacBeth – no fakes here. No cheating now...

A Quiet, Quaint, Quick, Quippy Quote Quiz (MacBeth, Acts I & II)

©1985, Bryan & Tom's Quiet, Quaint, Quick, Quippy Quote Quizzes and Salad Bar

Who said these quotes from Acts I & II of MacBeth?

1. “Well contented.” ____________________
2. “Donalbain.” ____________________
3. “When?” ____________________
4. “And so do I.” ____________________
5. “Very gladly.” ____________________
6. “Woe, alas!” ____________________
7. “And I another.” ____________________
8. “What's the matter?” ____________________
9. “Welcome hither.” ____________________
10. “Now.” ____________________

BONUS! - In Act II, Banquo, in his third line, says, “Take thee that too!” Explain in full detail what he means, to whom he said it, and what the implications would have been had he said it in Chapter 7 of Dickens' David Copperfield. Limit your response to 46 words. Points will be deducted for use of slide rules, magnetic compasses, plumbing tools, or the Oracle at Delphi.

Submit your answers in the comments field below; once Tom digs up the answer key I'll let you know how you did. There might even be a prize for the person who gets the most correct answers. Probably not, but maybe!

Winner! Winner! Chicken Dinner!

Oh boy, am I a lucky guy! Apparently, I've won $68,000 dollars! Let the singing and dancing in the streets commence!

Pictured is the letter I received from World Link Finance Inc. informing me that was one of the "lucky winners" in a "Publisher's Clearing house [sic]" Compensation Draw Sweepstakes, and I've won a lump sum of $68K which will be delivered to me by special courier.  Can you imagine the joy?  I'm already spending the money in my head!

"Lucky" is absolutely the right word, too!  You wanna know just how lucky I am? I won a sweepstakes that I never even entered! That's right, read 'em and weep: all you chumps out there who think you have to play to win - I just proved you wrong!

I'll be contacting my File Agent on Monday to start the claiming process.  These folks thought of everything! They even sent me an advance check of $3866 to cover the Government Service Tax and Insurance! All I have to do is cash that check and wire them back $2976.55 of it, and I'm on my way to riches, baby!

Sure, I find it a little strange that the good folks at World Link Finance Inc. sent the letter to me in an envelope bearing the logo and name of Hudson's Bay Co., and that the check bears the logo and name of a company called Tahitian Noni.  I figure that must be some sort of security measure. A simple Google search tells me that  Hudson's Bay Co. happens to be the oldest commercial corporation in North America and today is a retail clothier throughout Canada, and that Tahitian Noni is a multi-level marketing company promoting a health drink.  My guess is that World Link Finance uses their names and logos to throw others off the track: greedy relatives and friends will just think I'm shopping for clothes or getting paid for marketing a beverage rather than winning a sweepstakes, and won't come begging for money.  Pretty smart, World Link Finance!

You see, I did my homework!  I know World Link Finance Inc. uses top-level security, because they can't even be found in a Google search! I looked up their address on Google Street View, and as you can see, they take security so seriously that they even camouflage their offices.  You wouldn't even know they were there! So, before you ask, that's also probably why a finance company in New York City has a phone number with a Toronto area code.  It all makes perfect sense!

And how considerate of them to rely on me to handle the Government Service Tax and Insurance, rather than simply taking the funds they sent to me and just delivering them to the proper authorities!  They were nice enough to send more funds than needed, so I get to have a little extra spending cash for Christmas. Happy Holidays, World Link Finance!  Now, I had never heard of "Government Service Tax and Insurance," so I turned to Google once again.  Google couldn't point me to any place that told me exactly what it was, but it did show me that lots of other winners were supposed to pay the same thing, so it must be legit, right?

The check itself is a thing of genius, sheer genius! My scanner kind of picked up the watermark, which clearly says "void" on it - obviously a way to test bank employees to make sure they're validating these checks!  Why, with security measures that advanced, how could this be anything but the real deal?

Those clever bastards even managed to keep my name entirely off the actual letter, and rather than have it signed by anyone, they had it "approved" by Mark Stines. He's a Vice President of Global Operations, so he  must be very important.  Just look at his smiling, trustworthy face right there at the bottom of my letter.  You know he's got to be a big muckety-muck, because he looks an awful lot like another Vice President of Global Operations, Vernon Kimberly, of C&C Services Inc.  I found a picture of one their letters to another winner online.
 
Almost an eerie resemblance, isn't it? But you know, put those bigwigs in their monkey suits and you can't tell 'em apart, right?

What? Scam? Whaddaya mean scam?  Naw, you're just saying that because you're envious of my good fortune!  Why, I bet next you'll be telling me that there really is no Nigerian Prince who needs my help in secretly moving millions of dollars out of his country, and is willing to split the funds with me 50/50!

I'm rich, rich I tell ya!

Six Word Sunday

"Dropped the toothpaste," he muttered, crestfallen.

My New Favorite Chair

The comedienne Rita Rudner has a funny bit about what she refers to as one of God's great practical jokes: men reach their sexual peak around age 18 - 20, while women reach theirs closer to age 35 - 40.  Therefore, she clarifies, women are reaching their height of sexuality around the same time we men are discovering we have a favorite chair.

In my typical style, I am reaching this particular furniture-based male life event a couple years late, but as of yesterday morning there sits in my living room a brand new La-Z-Boy recliner (the Forte Reclina-Way model, to be specific), and in the short 24 hours it has been in the house, it has most assuredly claimed the title of My Favorite Chair.

Plush, sturdy, and sizeable, it is more comfortable than I can describe to you in words.  It has already made all of the other furniture in the living room noticeably jealous, as it is not only a thing of beauty but also a thing of functionality.  It is the perfect TV viewing chair; it is quiet reading area; it has proven its worth already as a prime napping spot.  Why, set me up with a mini-fridge within arm's reach and there would be virtually no reason at all to ever get up!

Since we do live in an era filled with overly-litigious morons who require the most common-sense concepts to be spelled out for them lest they sue for damages caused by their own stupidity, a page of warnings came with my wonderful new chair.  Just how dangerous can a recliner possibly be?  You'd be surprised:

• WARNING! To avoid tip-over, do not throw your weight against the back of the unit. (That's right, there will be no moshing in this chair.  I just pray for my own safety that I'm not overcome by full-body spams or violent seizures while reclining in luxury.  Actually, that last sentence is true even without the phrase "while reclining in luxury...")

• WARNING! Keep hands, fingers and body parts away from the mechanism. (First of all, don't know about you, but I always consider my hands and fingers body parts themselves, not separate entities.  Goes to show what I know! Also, how in the blue hell are people getting body parts, specific or generic, caught in the mechanism - which is beneath the chair - while seated in the chair?  Who is that unfamiliar with how a recliner works?)

• WARNING! Only the occupant should operate the unit. (Damn, there goes my idea of hiring a harem of beautiful, scantily clad women to recline and unrecline the chair for me.  Sorry to announce, applications will no longer be accepted for that position...)

• WARNING! To safely exit the unit, bring the back upright and close the legrest. ("Safely exit?" Wait, did I purchase a recliner or a roller coaster? Do I need to install a sign that says "you must be this tall too sit here?")

• (My favorite:)  DANGER! To prevent suffocation keep plastic bags away from children. (Well, yes, this is good advice, but this is a chair, not a bag of groceries.  It was delivered not only with no bags whatsoever, but with no plastic wrapping of any sort.  This warning seems to have been added to the list just as a general reminder.  Unless there are folks out there who get themselves comfortably reclined and holler out, "Hey Maude, I'm awfully relaxed here! Hows about going and getting me a plastic bag or two and I'll really do this up right!")

Regardless, the new recliner is mine, mine, all mine, and is hereby named as My Favorite Chair.  I will defend my chair with same vigor that Archie Bunker defended his.  I will luxuriate in its comfort, I will happily snooze in full reclination (it's a word, OK?), I will proudly take this first step into old-man-hood: the rest of you are on your own to find your own comfort!

Oh, and risks be damned, I still like the harem idea.

Six Word Sunday

Most despised meteorological term: "Wintery mix."

Six Word Sunday

Verbose blogger's new weekly brevity experiment.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

The Best 9 Position Players Ever in One Game

9 is the baseball number: 9 innings in a game, 9 players in a lineup, 9 positions in the field, and today, 9 days left until Opening Day!

And so, I share with you my pick for the best 9 to ever take a field in a single game. It happened in 1946, for a little-known team called the Tea-Totallers:

1. Catching: Bugs Bunny
2. Left Field: Bugs Bunny
3. Right Field: Bugs Bunny
4. Pitching: Bugs Bunny
5. Third Base: Bugs Bunny
6. Center Field: Bugs Bunny
7. First Base: Bugs Bunny
8. Shortstop: Bugs Bunny
9. Second Base: Bugs Bunny

From the classic 1946 cartoon, Baseball Bugs:

12 of the Greatest Baseball Player Names in History

We are headed into the final stretch of Spring Training. Only 12 days remain until Opening Day of the 2010 Major League Baseball Season! Honestly, I cannot wait - it's been a long, cold, snowy winter, and I'm ready for the Boys of Summer to take the field again; to sit in the stands with a beer and a hot dog and root, root, root for the home team; to hear the crack of the bat and smell the pine tar.

These last two weeks are always the longest, so to pass the time, I'll be posting a different baseball-related list each day from now until Opening Day. Call it "The Twelve Days 'til Baseball."

To kick it off, here are my picks for the 12 greatest baseball player names in history. These may not be the greatest players ever, but their names are either so melodic, so perfect for the game, or so odd as to never be forgotten. To get the full effect, in your mind imagine James Earl Jones intoning each name in that deep, rich, Darth Vader voice.

Let's count 'em down, shall we?

12. ELIAS SOSA
A right-handed relief pitcher who bounced around among 8 teams in his 12-year major league career, Sosa's lifetime W-L record of 59-51 with 83 saves and lifetime ERA of 3.32 are respectable enough numbers. He makes my list out of personal nostalgia: when my brother and I were collecting baseball cards as kids in the '70s, it seemed as though every other pack of cards we bought contained Elias Sosa. We would announce the acquisition of yet another duplicate of his card by saying his name in a very sing-songy way, running the two names together and dropping pitch on the first syllable of "Sosa." We thought that was hysterical. We were 6 and 10 at the time, OK?

11. JOHN MONTEFUSCO
Named the National League Rookie of the Year in 1975, and a member of the 1976 National League All-Star Team, John Montefusco's last name alone is a thing of majestic beauty: MonteFOOSko. But, combined with his nickname, John "The Count of" Montefusco, he is elevated to pantheon of great names.

10. CHIPPER JONES
Even though he plays for a team I, as a Phillies fan, consider "the enemy," I must begrudgingly give Jones his due. Over the past 16 seasons he has proven himself to be one of the best in the game, and good thing too. I mean, with a name like Chipper Jones, what else would he do besides play baseball?

9. CATFISH HUNTER
Jim Hunter was a damn good pitcher - good enough to be elected to the Hall of Fame. But in his early days with the (then) Kansas City A's, infamous owner Charley Finley decided all of his players needed flashy, catchy nicknames. Hunter had very little flashy about him at the time, so Finley invented a story out of whole cloth about Hunter catching the largest catfish anybody in his hometown had ever seen when he was a boy, and from that day forth, he was Catfish Hunter. I think a nickname with no connection to the real world at all deserves mention on this list!

8. WILY MO PENA
Yep, that's how he spells it. One L. Drives me nuts every time I see it - I keep wanting to call him "Wiley". Still, his name is fun to say. And after his being released by both the Nationals and the Mets last year, who knows how many more chances we'll get to hear sportscasters say it?

7. BAKE McBRIDE
Arnold Ray "Bake" McBride lasted ten seasons in the majors with the Giants, Phillies, and Indians. Over that time, "Shake 'n' Bake" (as he was affectionately called as he sped around the bases) not only sported one of baseball's greatest names, but also one of baseball's greatest afros - second only, perhaps, to the legendary Oscar Gamble afro (just wait...)

6. TIE: BLUE MOON ODOM / VIDA BLUE
Teammates on the legendary pitching staff that was part of the Oakland A's dynasty in the early 1970s, Vida Blue and John "Blue Moon" Odom had opponents singing the blues game in and game out. But what were the odds of having two outstanding pitchers with "Blue" in their names on a team whose colors were green and gold?

5. EPPA RIXEY
The early part of the 20th Century was a haven for great and unusual baseball names, but one of my favorites of the era was Eppa Rixey. In my lifetime, I've never known of any other person with either that first name or that last name. Rixey pitched for twenty years in the majors, splitting his career between Philadelphia and Cincinnati, and retired in 1933 as the winningest pitcher in National League history until he was surpassed by Warren Spahn.

4. BOOG POWELL
When a 6'4", 230-pound gorilla tells you he wants to be called "Boog," you call him "Boog". The Oriole legend became known first as an all-star first baseman, then, after his career ended in 1977, as a beer commercial pitchman. Nowadays, he can be found sometimes manning the grill at Boog's Barbecue in Camden Yards. If you see him there, say "Hi Boog!" Just try to say it without laughing.

3. BUDDY BIANCALANA
"Buddy Biancalana." It rolls mellifluously off the tongue. Try it: "Buddy Biancalana." His name became famous in the mid-80s thanks to David Letterman. As Pete Rose was counting down to passing Ty Cobb's all-time major league hits record, Letterman began the Buddy Biancalana countdown. Buddy retired a little shy of Cobb and Rose, with 113 career hits, but as he quipped to Letterman, "I'm closer to Cobb than you are to Carson!"

2. JOE CHARBONEAU
"Super Joe" Charboneau is one of baseball's all-time great flops. When he burst on the scene with the Cleveland Indians in 1980, his 87 RBIs and .289 batting average were good enough to earn him AL Rookie of the Year honors, and baseball thought they had their next big star. The media played up his charismatic personality and quirky off-field behaviors (he drank beer through his nose and did his own dental work). The next year, he struggled to get his average as high as .210, and became the first Rookie of the Year to be sent back to the minors the following season. He came back to the Indians for 22 games in 1982 but played even more poorly, and that was it. Still, the name lent itself so well to the hype: for that one great summer, cries of "Go Joe Charboneau!" could be heard all around Cleveland.

1. VAN LINGLE MUNGO
Far and away the greatest name ever in Major League Baseball. A fair-to-middling pitcher for the Dodgers and Giants in the 1930s and 1940s, his name was so singularly fantastic that in 1969, David Frishberg had a minor hit record with a bossa-nova number called "Van Lingle Mungo." Stringing together nothing but names of ballplayers from the past as lyrics, Mungo's name became sort of an odd refrain repeated occasionally throughout. Enjoy Frishberg's composition in the following video clip:



OK, those are my picks. Any names you want to add to the list?

Viral Video (Re)Creates Another Celebrity Out of Left Field!

Eduard Khil' is everywhere these days.

By now, you've either seen his jaw-dropping, mind-bending performance from decades past of the song "I Am So Happy to Finally Be Back Home" (which has become known online as "The Trololo Song" or simply "Trololo"), or you've been exposed to any of the myriad remixes and parodies of it.

If you've been living in a cave for the past few weeks and have no idea what I'm talking about, go back and read my post from March 5th, A "WTF?" Explained, to see the original clip and get the story behind it.

The clip quickly entered the hallowed realm of the viral video, and all these years later, Khil' himself has been tracked down...and he has a challenge for us all!



I don't know what I find cooler - that Khil' has been found, that he is clearly reveling in his renaissance, or that he still has the same bad brown suit and haircut!

What is undoubtedly awesome is the idea of writing "real" lyrics to the song and having Mr. Khil' himself sing it anew!

More details to come as they become available regarding dates and places for submissions. Now then, I have lyrics to write...

A "WTF?" Explained

Those of you who are among my Facebook friends and/or Twitter followers know that earlier in the week I posted this wonderfully odd clip, challenging anyone to watch it without finding that same goofy grin as the singer has plastered upon his face plastered upon their own:



Those who found the words with which to comment after seeing this responded with the same mixture of horror, joy, and just general WTF?-ness that I did when I stumbled upon the clip in the first place. I declared that it would henceforth be my personal theme song, played whenever I enter I room, which I would do with glazed grin and mannequin-like wave as our singer does here, if not always clad in a similarly outdated brown suit as his; this declaration prompted at least one friend to state that I would be shot should I walk pass his porch one day singing the song! (No worries - no vocalizations I can muster come anywhere near the realm of what sane people would deem "singing.")

Weirdness experienced and chuckles had by all, we all moved on with our lives, likely never to encounter our fashion-stunted but joy-filled Russian singer again. And then...

Today I came across this in-all-ways-wonderful post written by Justin E. H. Smith, which not only seeks to explain what in blue blazes the clip was all about, but provides remarkable historical and cultural context for it. A brief tidbit:

"The man singing is Edward Hill, also known as Eduard Khil', or, better yet, Эдуард Хиль...The song he is interpreting, "I Am So Happy to Finally Be Back Home," is an Ostrovskii composition, and it is meant to be sung in the vokaliz style, that is to say sung, but without words...Recent interest in Hill has to do with the perceived strangeness, the uncanniness, the surreal character of this performance. There is indeed something uncanny about a lip-synch to a song with no words, and his waxed face and hair helmet certainly do not carry over well. But once one does a bit of research, one learns that the number was not conceived out of some desire to cater to the so-bad-it's-good tastes of the Western YouTube generation, but in fact was meant to please --to genuinely please-- Soviet audiences who were capable of placing this routine, this man, and this song into a familiar context."

Smith goes on to provide, as counterpoint, a rendition of the same song performed in a 1960 film, and then begins a fascinating dissection/celebration of Hill's performance. It is an informative and entertaining piece, well-written and appreciated by those of us who, while enjoying the clip at face value, still wondered...well...WTF?!?

However explanatory Smith's piece may be, a reading of the comments left for Smith by his readers again brings about the cloak of oddness: an ongoing, scholarly discussion of Hill's performance as symbolic of the wide cultural gaps between peoples of the world?!? When one commenter declared this clip to be a reflection of "the ethos of the Brezhnevian era: hell hidden behind pastel tones," I began wondering whether this wasn't all some big put-on. Heck, why not summon the ghost of William F. Buckley to debate with Gore Vidal the value of Edward Hill's performance as allegory to the rise and fall of the Soviet Union and the perceived elitism of America by the rest of the world while we're at it?

Still, a fascinating read, and the very fact that such a blog post as Smith's and such responses as those of Smith's readers would be inspired by so downright goofy a clip as this amuses me to no end. That I find myself inspired to write this blog post about that blog post is somewhat frightening; if any of you reading this feel compelled to write a post about this post about that post about that video, I recommend seeking professional help.

Or, just scrap the whole thing, put on a bad brown suit and a silly grin and sing along with Edward Hill. "Tra-la-la-la-laaaaaaa......"

A Stunningly Poor Follow Up: eMusic.com FAIL Continues!

I'm sure you all read my rant the other day about the incredibly, offensively bad customer service I received from eMusic.com the other day - so bad that I ended up canceling the service after 5 years with them on the basis of the way I was treated. If you haven't, please take a moment to read it now.

Today I received the email confirmation of my cancellation, which contained the first inklings that maybe they did value me as a customer after all:


Granted, not the most heartfelt attempt to win me back, but it made me think for a moment: Had I acted rashly? Did I really want to lose my loyalty rate? What if, down the road, I did go back to eMusic.com?

And then I read on, and began laughing out loud at the next part of the email:


First of all, "Undo your cancel"? Tell you what - you guys "do your grammar" and maybe then I'll "undo my cancel."

Better still - notice the deadline they've given me by which to "undo my cancel"? February 7, 2010. The email arrived today, February 17, 2010. I actually canceled on February 15, 2010. "It's easy!" they say. Sure, if I had a time machine handy.

At least I can laugh at it now, but I shudder to think that this a company doing business online internationally. This is the best they can come up with?

Meanwhile, I now have some very nice gift cards for iTunes that I think I'll be putting to use. Thanks for playing, eMusic. We have some lovely parting gifts for you...

eMusic.com = FAIL

Let me share with you folks a tale of frustration, poor customer service, and how to go about losing a long-time customer in no time at all:

Being the music fan that I am, I have had subscriptions with both iTunes and eMusic.com for quite some time. In the case of eMusic.com, since 2004. I was always pleased with the catalog of music eMusic presented, and from the start their high-quality .mp3 downloads were, to me, preferable to iTunes' .m4p files. Whenever both services competed on a particular song or album, eMusic would get my business.

eMusic uses a slightly different model than iTunes' pay-per-download approach. eMusic charges a monthly subscription rate that allows you to download "x" number of songs per month, with higher-priced subscriptions allowing a greater number of downloads. eMusic also made things easy by allowing PayPal to be used to auto-pay each month.

For nearly five years, all was honky-dory, until this month's subscription payment. Knowing that my monthly downloads generally renew by the end of the first week of the month, I went up to the site last week to pick this month's downloads. Upon signing in, I was greeted with a message in bold red type telling me "Your PayPal account could not be authorized for payment! Please provide a valid credit card number or update your PayPal account information."

Well that's not good! I knew there would be no reason for my PayPal account not to be working, so, fearing that someone had somehow gotten into my account, I was on the phone with PayPal in no time. After a brief conversation with a helpful, friendly agent at PayPal, it was determined that (1.) no breech of my account security had occurred, and (2.) there was no obvious reason why payment should not have been authorized the same as it had been every month for the past five years. The problem must be on eMusic's side.

So I went to eMusic, and after twenty minutes of searching for a contact number, called their customer service. I explained to the agent there what the situation was, and she suggested I go through the "Update Your Account Info" process. No dice - three times we tried and it still came back saying the account could not be authorized for payment. This agent apologized, and then said she would escalate the situation to her superiors, and I would be getting an email response from them in about 24 hours with a solution.

Today, three business days (five calendar days) later, having not heard a peep from eMusic, I called back. Here's where the skies begin to darken...

I wound up being connected to an agent who seemed somewhat less than thrilled to be doing her job. Her thick accent made it difficult to understand all of what she was saying, but it quickly became apparent that there was no record of my previous call, or at least none that she was going to acknowledge. "You will need to provide a credit card number or some alternate form of payment," she kept repeating. I tried explaining to her that I had verified with PayPal that nothing was wrong with the account, but she paid no attention.

"I think you need to call PayPal and find out why they won't authorize," she said in a monotone voice. As I tried yet again to explain that I had already done that, I realized why she wasn't hearing me - she was talking over me! "I see you already tried to update your PayPal information several times. Why did you keep doing that?" she demanded, as if asking a child why he had drawn on a wall with permanent markers. "Because your agent suggested I do!" I sputtered, growing more frustrated by the moment. "Well, now your PayPal account is locked out by our security. You'll have to give us a credit card number."

I tried to ask how this was now my fault and why, after five years of everything working fine, I suddenly had to provide a credit card number, but she continued to talk over me. "Everything is case sensitive. Maybe you entered your PayPal password wrong." she sneered. Three times?!? Doubtful, especially since the PayPal site opened right up each time. "Well, I don't know what to tell you. You can wait 120 days if you like and then try again, or you can give us a credit card..."

I blew my stack at that point. "No ma'am," I said, a bit loudly and forcefully, "YOU need to determine what's wrong on your end. I have been with eMusic for years and have never had a problem. PayPal has confirmed that there is no problem. A promised resolution from your department did not arrive, and now you're telling me that because I followed the directions of one of your agents, that I must give you a credit card number? No, you need to find out what the problem is."

She then verified the last three payments that had been made, verified that February's payment had not been authorized, and again said, "Unfortunately, your PayPal account is now locked from our system for 120 days because you tried to update it three times..."

"Ma'am," I began through gritted teeth, "you can repeat that as many times as you like, but I am not going to provide a credit card number. I use PayPal because I don't want to give out my credit card numb..." I stopped because I realized she was again talking over me.

"...your PayPal account is locked out for 120 days." I heard her again reciting. "We do that because we value our customer's security."

"Do you value your actual customers?" I asked, "Because you're about to lose a long-standing one."

"Hold on one moment, let me see what I can do," she said. Onto eterna-hold I went, with the worst, loudest hold music imaginable. When she finally returned several minutes later, it was the same refrain once more, with feeling: "You tried to update your account too many times, so it is locked down for 120 days." she sneered.

"Then please cancel my account." I calmly requested. She didn't bat an eyelash: "OK, please hold for your cancellation reference number," which she then rattled off to me. And that was that.

I am flabbergasted at the complete lack of courtesy I was shown. I understand that sometimes there are situations that customer service call center folks cannot do anything about, which was likely the case here: the computer said PayPal was locked out, and I'm sure she had no authority to override the computer. But should that give her carte blanche to talk over me, to take an accusatory, condescending tone with me, or to blatantly refuse to listen to what I was telling her? And not even so much as a "We're sorry to see you go," when I asked to cancel? After five years? In fact, it seemed she couldn't get me through the cancellation and off the phone fast enough.

It is stunning how poor customer service can be at times, and how quickly a lousy experience can sour a person towards a business. You business owners out there should take note: whether you're an online business or a "real world" business, you need to know how your customer service people are treating your customers, because if they aren't doing it well, those customers will not remain customers.

Furthermore, upon reflection, a pleasant experience would have ended up very differently. I wasn't upset or ready to cancel when I first called. Even if nothing could have been done differently as far as a locked account, being treated with simple courtesy would have made a world of difference. Being spoken with instead of talked down to would have resulted in the retention of this customer. It's not difficult to do and it costs a business nothing to provide pleasant customer service, but poor customer service can cost plenty.

Congratulations, iTunes! You'll be seeing much more business from me!

Lima Beans for My Birthday

My brother and I each have somewhat bizarre senses of humor, as anyone who knows either of us can attest. Anyone who knows both of us can tell you that putting us together results in a combined humor that is odder than the sum of its parts. But there are few out there who would fully understand how a bag of frozen lima beans had us both in tears laughing this weekend.

There are only two vegetables I will not, cannot, eat: brussel sprouts and lima beans. I know that they are good for me, packed with nutrients and antioxidants and vitamins and a bunch of other good things. Unfortunately, when Mother Nature packed all that healthiness into them, she found no room left to add things like flavor, enjoyable texture, or anti-gagging qualities. Any other vegetable you put in front of me, I'll eat happily. Asparagus, spinach, turnips, peas, corn, carrots, collard greens - all yummy in my book. Heck, I'll even eat okra and smile (I did live in the South for a while)!

My brother has considerably lower tolerance for vegetables than I, so lima beans are high on his "will not eat" list as well. In fact, this whole story begins with him sharing his dislike for the little green horrors with his in-laws, declaring them so vile that, at Christmas, he'd rather find a lump of coal in his stocking than lima beans! Sure enough, come Christmas day, his in-laws, who have become accustomed to his odd sense of humor over the years, delivered to him a Christmas stocking containing a bag of frozen lima beans.

After the merriment had subsided, he suddenly realized he was stuck with a bag of lima beans! He certainly didn't want them, his wife wouldn't eat them, his in-laws didn't want them back. Who in their right mind would? The things are atrocious! Over the next week or so, he asked friends and neighbors if they wanted the lima beans. Everyone responded the same way: "EWWWWW! YUCK!!!" Resigned to his fate as owner of the lima beans, he put them in his freezer, where they would still be had I not opened my big mouth.

Because my brother's birthday is Christmas Day and mine is January 6, and because our parents are divorced and Dad lives about an hour away, it has become tradition that we signal the end of the holiday season with a combined Christmas/New Year/both of our birthdays celebration with Dad. This year, it turns out that this holiday celebration was not the last of the festivities; a combined birthdays dinner with Mom will close out the holidays this time around. But, Sunday was Dad's day, and since I do not drive, my brother and his wife were going to be picking me up to head west to Dad's place.

The phone rang around 11:30 Sunday morning. "We're on our way to get you," my brother reported.

"Alright, I'm ready!" I replied.

"Do you want us to wait until our birthday dinner with Mom, or should we bring your birthday presents along today?" he asked.

Sensing an opening for one of our standard phone routines, I again replied, "Alright, I'm ready!" In fact, as chance had it, that phrase perfectly answered another question or two that he asked, so I declared "Alright, I'm ready," the most handy phrase imaginable; that it could be applied just about anytime.

"OK," he smirked, "how about if I bring you a bag of frozen lima beans?"

I paused for a moment, and then, not knowing that he actually HAD a bag frozen lima beans (Why would he? He hates them as much as I do!), I foolishly decided to call his bluff: "Alright, I'm ready!"

I should know better. I really should. When we were kids still living at home, there was the day he triumphantly marched into my room proudly carrying a shoebox containing somewhere around $35 in assorted coins and dollar bills. "This is all the money I've won off of you in the past year!" he grinned. As brothers often do, we'd bet on things - a quarter here, a dollar there, oh-come-on-double-or-nothing - but whereas the money I would occasionally win would be soon spent on baseball cards or candy or something, he won more often, and had been saving everything he won from me solely for the enjoyment of rubbing my face in it A YEAR LATER! This was no rookie I was dealing with.

I lost this bet, too. Amongst my birthday presents sat a bag of frozen lima beans.

As I picked it up and realized what it was, my brother just started laughing. What else could I do but laugh as well. Dad looked at both of us as though we were crazy, but once the story was explained, he had to laugh too.

So, the bag of lima beans now resides in my freezer, and I am resigned to be their keeper for the time being, until I can find either a willing recipient or an unwitting soul to pass them along to.

Any of you out there have birthdays coming up?

Sites You Must Bookmark, Volume 2

There are three things that I am very proud of the fact that I have never done:

I've never drank a Snapple Beverage. Something about calling it "Snapple" that just makes me say "No thanks."

I've never seen a Jackie Chan movie. Look, I have unhappily been forced to sit through movies involving Pauly Shore, Adam Sandler, Jack Black, Jean Claude Van Damme, and Steven Seagal. All either inanely stupid un-funny people trying desperately to be funny or blockheadedly untalented "action heroes" trying desperately to act; in no cases have either group seen success. I'm not about to subject myself to a hybrid of such stupidity!

And the one that seems most polarizing among the folks I share it with: I never have, and never will, set foot inside a Wal-Mart. A quick bit of Googling on your part will lay out the evils of this soul-sucking corporation much more effectively than I can in a brief paragraph here, but that philosophical issue is not my only reason. There is a wonderful site out there sums up in hilarious fashion another of my reasons for refusing to patronize the establishment.

One friend of mine who does, on occasion, enter the Wal-Mart netherworld, has said that you see people in Wal-Mart who you see nowhere else in your community. "Where do they come from? Where have they been hiding?" he asks. People of Wal-Mart is a collection of photos, both culled by the site's creators and submitted by readers, of those people in their natural habitat, with appropriate - and gut-achingly hysterical - captions.

Do yourself a favor and bookmark this one right away. You'll either be laughing hysterically or shaking your head in utter disbelief. Or, like me, a little of both!

The New Customer Service

A couple years back, my family and I stopped at a local Friendly's for ice cream. I decided on their most wondrous creation, the Reese's Pieces Sundae. It's huge, it's decadent, it's wonderful, and I hadn't had one since my high school days, so that's what I ordered. A few minutes later our waitress brought our sundaes to the table, and in front of me she sat a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Sundae.

"Excuse me," I spoke up, "but this is not what I ordered."

"I know," she replied, and left offering no further explanation, nor making any effort to correct the situation.

I sat stunned as the rest of my family burst into laughter. When she came back again, I repeated that the sundae she had delivered was not what I ordered. "Do you mean you want me to have them make a whole new sundae?" she asked, her tone of voice making it clear that this would be a huge inconvenience. Yes, that's what I wanted, but rather than risk having a Reese's Pieces & Spit Sundae brought to me, I decided I would eat what I was given. Within another five minutes, our waitress reappeared once more, this time with a small paper cup filled with Reese's Pieces. "Here, you should at least have these," she smiled as she put them in front of me, and left again before I could even respond to the bizarre situation.

And that's where it ended. She made no real effort to replace the incorrect sundae with what I had actually ordered, and never once apologized for the error. She could not be bothered to either do her job correctly or remedy the situation once her error had been pointed out. The customer service here was non-existent.

Over the years, this has come to be a running a joke with my family: "Let's go to Friendly's and see if we can actually get what we order." The complete lack of customer service, coupled with the complete obliviousness to the inconvenience she created, was one of those once-in-a-lifetime situations, right?

Umm...

I had an appointment with my doctor this afternoon. As per usual, after the visit was complete, the doctor sent me out to the front desk to have one of the office staff schedule my next visit and set up a schedule for some tests I must have done. I always make certain to get a receipt for each visit, so that when my insurance statements come in I can reconcile and make sure everything is as it should be.

I asked the girl at the desk for my receipt, and she began entering stuff into her computer. Suddenly, a confused look came over her face.

"Were you here today?" she asked.

"Yes," I slowly began to reply, a bit taken aback by the question. "I just finished with the doctor."

"Were you here twice today?"

What the hell kind of question is that? Of course I wasn't there twice, but all I could say in the moment was, "I don't even know how to respond to that question."

"Because I see today's date on here twice..." she trailed off, and then printed out a sheet of paper which she handed to me. "Now, this is your receipt, but it's not correct," she declared, indicating that, in her mind, our transaction was complete.

Instead of handing me a receipt for a doctor's visit, she handed me a receipt for a doctor's visit plus a urinalysis plus another procedure plus a VISA credit...a laundry list of things that did not occur during my visit.

"These charges aren't mine!" I stammered.

"Yes, I know," she smiled - same tone of voice, same "this is all I'm going to do for you" attitude as the Friendly's waitress years ago. But this time, I wasn't going to be cowed so easily!

"May have a correct receipt?" I asked, my voice underscoring my displeasure.

She looked stunned that I would ask for this. "OK, let me see if I can find the error," she sighed as she began combing through pile after pile of receipts - obviously the day's appointments.

Once through the stack. Twice through the stack. Third time through, I piped up again: "Maybe it would be easier to fix my receipt by taking off the charges that don't belong to me."

"But I can't remove charges," she stated matter-of-factly. "Only the accounts manager can do that." She resumed plowing through her stack of papers.

After almost twenty minutes, she triumphantly pulled out one paper. "Here it is!" There had been another patient that day also named Bryan (with a vastly different last name), and his charges had been inadvertently put on my account. Then she added, "But, I can't fix it, because I can't take charges off."

I measured my words so as not to scream at this lady for wasting nearly half an hour of my time. I very slowly and clearly said, "I would like a correct receipt for my appointment, please."

"But, I can't do that," she maintained.

"Then, please call whomever you need to call, or do whatever you need to do to have someone fix it. I understand that there was an error, but that's your concern. I would like to have a correct receipt."

"But I don't have her number!"

"Then you need to contact someone whose number you do have, who can fix this."

Another sigh. Then, she picks up the phone to call the office manager (she has the office manager's number, but not the accounts manager's?). I hear her leave a message.

"She's not home," she dutifully reported to me.

"So how do you intend to fix this?" I asked.

"Well, you can either wait here until she calls back, or you can come back tomorrow for a corrected receipt."

It was pulling teeth to get that far with her. In the end, I left without a corrected receipt; only with the promise that I will be called tomorrow morning to be told the corrections have been made and to make arrangements to have the corrected receipt delivered to me.

Again, there was no effort made towards customer service. She would have been perfectly content to send me off with an incorrect receipt containing someone else's charges, just as the waitress at Friendly's was perfectly content to present me with something other than what I ordered. No thought crossed either of their minds that the inconvenience to me, the customer, might not be best for business. No effort made of their own volition on either part to actually correct the situation; indeed, each saw the little they did do to be an imposition on their time rather than a service to the customer.

As I was writing this post, my phone rang. It was the lady from the doctor's office. She called to tell me that she had forgotten to indicate some of the blood tests the doctor wants done on my test order form, so she wanted to know where I was going to have that work done so that she could fax the additional test requests there as well. Her reason for forgetting to indicate those tests? "Well, you had me a little flustered earlier."

Oh. I see. It was MY fault. Could there have been a more perfect postscript to the story? Sigh...

That'll Do, Keyboard Cat. That'll Do.

OK, I admit it. I'm a sucker for the surreal, and most internet memes are surreal if nothing else. How something as goofy as Yo Dawg Yo or Dramatic Hamster takes off can never fully be explained. They seem to strike some universal humor chord in everyone, whether we understand why we're laughing or not.

I'll also admit that I, like many, tend to find humor in the misfortunes of others. Hell, America's Funniest Home Videos has made a fortune on the fact that we love to laugh at others falling down and screwing up. The FAIL! meme is a prime example of this, as is my current favorite thing on the internet, Keyboard Cat.

Like most memes, the idea is simple. Two years ago, Charlie Schmidt uploaded a video of his cat, Fatso, playing keyboards to YouTube. A couple of months ago, someone found it, and attached it to the end of a video clip of a kid in a wheelchair taking a tumble down an escalator, gave it the title "Play Him Off, Keyboard Cat," and an internet sensation was born.

The combination of someone's bad luck, the cheesy Casio-keyboard melody, and the cat's typical aloof expression as he is obviously being manipulated to appear to be playing make the whole thing, for some reason, hysterical. I literally laughed so hard tears were running down my face the first time I saw it.

Keyboard Cat has now played off hundreds if not thousands of videos, from fat guys falling off of treadmills to Glen Beck's guest passing out to the Hindenburg. Each variation involves the phrase "Play him off, Keyboard Cat" in some form, and often includes a second phrase, "That'll do, Keyboard Cat. That'll do," (a paraphrase of a quote from the movie Babe).

That's it. That's all there is to it. And yet, it floors me.

Here are a few examples:







And finally, the original clip. Play us off, Keyboard Cat...

Sites You Must Bookmark, Volume 1

Stop everything you are doing and bookmark Awkward Family Photos.com! Dear Lord, I have not stopped laughing since I discovered this treasure trove of family portraits that, well, are...what's the word....unfortunate? misguided? No, the only word for them is "awkward"!

The captions created for these pictures seal the deal (the most recent post, "Your Body is a Wonderland," depicts an inexplicably shirtless man posing with his pajama-clad wife and daughters by a Christmas tree!) - this is hands down the funniest site I've seen in some time. Kudos!