The World is Doomed, Part 984
Once again, proof that the world is doomed. This is a “Hot Network Question” on StackExchange.com:
I found it here. The answer is fairly simple: CENTAURS DON’T EXIST.
Except on this car commercial. WHICH ISN’T REAL.
To be fair, the current list toppers are Drawing an histogram from a bash command output (that’s a Unix-thing I think) and How would plants be affected by a 48 hour day? which in my opinion is an interesting question. Consider: what if we find a planet that has 48 hour days? Could the plants that we grow on Earth survive there?
But seriously folks. Centaurs? C’mon. Let’s step up our game for 2015.
Cool Space Images of Saturn
In our ongoing effort to get more excited about space, here is a link to some cool space images of Saturn.
(This isn’t a picture of real space travel. It’s Captain Video and His Video Rangers. Old TV show.)
This quote from writer Jesus Diaz sums it up nicely:
I don’t know about you, but all these photos taken by a camera 746 million miles (1.2 billion kilometers) away from us blow me away.
Two-mile-high structures rising on Saturn’s rings. (via Sploid)
Who Sang You’re A Mean One Mr. Grinch? Thurl Ravenscroft
I was wondering who sang You’re a Mean One Mr. Grinch. A quick bit o’ Googling and I had my answer — Thurl Ravenscroft.
Who, pray tell, was Thurl Ravenscroft? Well, he sang You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch. But he also, according to Wikipedia, was the original voice of Tony The Tiger on the old Frosted Flakes ads, declaring the sugar cereal to be “grrrreat!”
Here’s video of a Frosted Flakes ad from the 1950’s. Listen and you can really hear that it’s the same guy who declared that Mr. Grinch was a mean one.
Ravenscroft (what a great name) also had a long association with Disney, with his voice-over work being used at Disneyland and Disney World — “The most well known of these attractions are The Haunted Mansion, The Country Bear Jamboree, The Mark Twain Riverboat, The Pirates of the Caribbean and Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room”, according to Wikipedpia.
He was also Thing One in the animated version of Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat, the Goblins in the Rankin-Bass animated version of The Hobbit
“Donny & Marie – Darth Vader/Narrator (Star Wars Segment)”
I’m not 100% certain but I think this is that bit.
Hey, work is work, right?
So if you, like me, were curious who sang You’re a Mean One Mr. Grinch, now you know!
Thurl Ravenscroft – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Let Me Call You Sweetheart (featuring Thurl Ravenscroft)
Barbershop Melodies, Volume 2
Thurl Ravenscroft at Amazon.com
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New Company Offers Cool Pillowcases
Our friend Tracy Pendergast of Teewii sent us a note to let us know about her latest endeavor, Plush Design LA. We’ll let her tell you about it:
Recently my best friend and I started a pillowcase company. We have a ton of new designs launching after the new year- but we just got 2 designs in that are perfect gifts for the holidays. We have the Adventurer Set and the Adventur-ish case.
The GLAMP pillowcase is $12 and the Mr. Outdoors/Mrs. Adventure set is $20.
Not bad prices, right? And the designs are cute. As Tracy tells us, more designs are coming soon. We’ll let you know about those as well.
Here are links to buy the pillowcases at Etsy, plus all the social media pages the kids are into — The Facebooks, the Twitters, all that cool stuff.
Happy Whatever-Holiday-Or-Holidays You Happen To Celebrate! And go buy some pillowcases!
DaddyTips Comment 12-20-14 (Video)
The third DaddyTips Video commentary has arrived. Today, 12-20-14, I’m talking about NFL football.
Because this video is a little bit longer than usual (it’s about 3 minutes long; the other two have been closer to 2 minutes), and because I wrote it out rather than improvising, I’m going to include the full text here. It’s still faster to watch the video, unless you happen to be a speed reader. But if you don’t watch, you miss out on my stellar wit and brilliant facial expressions.
So here we go. This is fun. If you like the video, please share it with anyone and everyone.
Thanks for reading/watching/sharing, and most of all thanks for just being you. Happy holidays!
(Text of video follows.)
<singing>
The NFL, The NFL
Today I’ll be talking / about football-all-ell
</singing>
Today is Saturday, December 20. There will be 2 football games, billed as a special Saturday edition of Thursday Night Football. Despite the fact that that phrasing is a sign of the apocalypse – kind of like midnight movie premieres that are actually at 7pm – I like football enough that I’m going to watch the games.
Today’s comment is not about one of the Saturday games, it’s about the Bears/Lions game, which is on Sunday.
Apparently the Bears are going to start Jimmy Clausen instead of Jay Cutler. This quote is from an article on Michigan’s MLive.com written by Kyle Meinke, titled “Golden Tate hopes Jimmy Clausen ‘stays safe’ against Detroit Lions defense“.
“He may give us a spark. Who knows? We’re not sure, but I think it was a good time to take a look.”
That’s Chicago Bears coach Marc Trestman talking about his decision to start Clausen instead of Cutler.
NFL coaches are an intriguing breed. Generally they live and breathe football. They spend endless hours studying tape, coming up with plays, and thinking of ways to motivate their players.
“He may give us a spark. Who knows?”
Compare this to Arizona Cardinals coach Bruce Arians, who, when asked if his team could win the Super Bowl with their backup quarterback, said yes. To be fair, he was ASKED. He didn’t make a proclamation like Rex Ryan, the sometimes crazy coach of the hapless New York Jets.
The Cardinals have suffered a pile of injuries to key players, including starting quarterback Carson Palmer. They are currently 11-3, first place in their division, the NFC West. They are also the ONLY team in the NFC that has clinched a playoff spot.
The Bears are 5-9. That’s LAST place in the NFC North. They haven’t lost their starting quarterback. Until Sunday, when they plan to put in a guy who hasn’t started a game since 2010. Because they’re out of the playoffs.
Maybe coaching does matter.
It was suggested to me by a friend that I end these videos with a Tip, since they are being posted on – wait for it – DaddyTips.com. My tip today is:
Be more like Bruce Arians than Marc Trestman. I don’t follow the Cardinals closely, but from what I’ve heard and read, Arians appears to do everything he can to help his team win, including convincing his players that they CAN win, no matter what. Trestman – you know, the guy who said “Who knows?” when asked if starting Jimmy Clausen would help the Bears beat the Lions, would seem to be cut from different cloth.
My point? Buck the odds. Say “why not me?” instead of “who knows?”
Happy holidays.
(Note: The music used at the end is “I Am A Bear In A Lady’s Boudoir” by Cliff Edwards, recorded circa October 25, 1933. It’s in the Public Domain and available for download at the invaluable Internet Archive.)
Previous DaddyTips Video comments:
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Minecraft Story Mode Announced
Minecraft Story Mode is coming in 2015.
The fact that Minecraft does not have a story is apparently not a problem.
This was back in 2013.
Confused? That’s OK. You’re probably an adult. Ask your kids. Or check out this semi-game on Mojang.com. (More on that later.)
The new game will be made by Mojang, the original developer of Minecraft, and Telltale Games. Telltale is best-known for their mega-hit episodic game The Walking Dead, based on the comic book and TV show. That game is NOT for children, and since Minecraft is played by a lot of young’uns, some have expressed concern that Minecraft Story Mode will be violent. What I’ve read says this will not be the case. I’m inclined to believe it, since that would hurt sales enormously.
Minecraft, of course, is the game that your children are probably playing, possibly right now as you read this. Mojang, the company that spawned the worldwide phenomenon, was purchased by Microsoft for a huge pile of money earlier this year.
It’s official, today we welcome Mojang to the Microsoft Studios family. We're excited for the possibilities ahead w/the Minecraft community.
— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) November 6, 2014
This latest news about Minecraft Story Mode was hailed on Twitter by California Representative Jared Huffman…
Glad @mojang is partnering w/San Rafael’s @telltalegames on new game based on #minecraft—my son’s favorite game! https://t.co/YSOL1Yf0xa
— Rep. Jared Huffman (@RepHuffman) December 18, 2014
…and he received mad props for doing so:
@RepHuffman @Mojang @telltalegames lolz hey got to give this politician props, I was surprised to see your tweet about Minecraft 🙂
— The Famous Kurt Paul (@ninjanomical) December 18, 2014
What’s my point? That Minecraft is a big deal. Microsoft reportedly paid $2.5 billion for Mojang, and they expect to make that money back by July of 2015, according to a story on IGN.com. That should give you an idea of why this is newsworthy.
I don’t play Minecraft, and don’t plan on playing the new game, although I imagine I will at least hear more about it and possibly find myself being asked “Dad can I buy Minecraft Story Mode?” I did play with this interactive press release on Mojang.com called Info Quest II. It’s actually a fairly amusing bit of business, and a clever way to answer folks’ questions about a new game. Obviously this particular announcement lends itself to an 8-bit-style kindasorta game; I doubt we’ll see car companies use this technique to let the public know about their latest offerings. In this case, I paid more attention to the news than I would have if it had just been a press release. Here’s the link if you want to check it out.
Play Info Quest II. You might learn something…. (Mojang.com)
If there’s a Minecrafter in your house, you might want to buy them Minecraft: The Complete Handbook Collection, a boxed set of books about Minecraft. Or a Minecraft Steve Action Figure. (Trust me, that’s a thing.)
Also of interest: This “Minecraft” Community Is Saving The Lives Of Children With Autism (Buzzfeed.com)
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Electric Menorah on SomaFM – Chanukah Music
Chanukah is here, and that means you should be listening to Electric Menorah on SomaFM. Specifically their NSFW Xmas in Frisco channel.
They play our music every Chanukah. Here’s proof:
? Electric Menorah – Dreidel ? http://t.co/UryBdz8yUo #nowplaying
— xmasinfrisko (@xmasinfrisko) December 17, 2014
See? It’s on Twitter. To listen to the channel (which is great, but sometimes plays songs with dirty words so be careful when listening at work or with kids in the room), click here. They have a lot of other good stations as well, but Xmas in Frisco is the only one that plays Electric Menorah ever year.
Anyway, here’s the point. We want to be on the charts. Last year Chanucore, our Chanukah EP, made it into the top 10 “Playlist Adds”. On the last night of Chanukah 2013, Electric Menorah was the 15th most popular artist.
In fact, just now, while we were listening to the station (we liked it before they added Electric Menorah to the rotation), they played Oh Chanuqa Bush.
? Electric Menorah – Oh Chanuqa Bush ? http://t.co/UryBdz8yUo #nowplaying
— xmasinfrisko (@xmasinfrisko) December 17, 2014
This is our way of encouraging you to listen as well, and click links and share on social media and whatever else it is the kids are doing these days.
Happy Chanukah! (We’ll wish you a Merry Christmas when the time comes.)
