Virtual Flaneurism

Ukulele cover of MGMT's "Kids":

Battle of the Third Grade Music Class Crap Instruments:

1. Justin Bieber's "Baby" on Recorder

2. Gaga's "Telephone" on Glockenspiel

UPDATE: 3. Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" on CROCKENSPIEL.

Click for bigger and better:

If you've never read this before (I think I actually was given this as a sample model admissions essay during high school - another sign that I grew up in the epicenter of bad advice), check out Hugh Gallagher's NYU admissions essay. This was brought back to my attention because of the NYU connection. As you might now, NYU holds a special place in my rectum.

A tiddly bit to whet your whistle:

I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru.

Note: Since I was unsuccessful at finding a picture of Hugh Gallagher, I grant to you a picture of Gallagher the Comedian in an over-sized pair of women's shoes.

Oh, that Gallagher!!

Uh, NSFW. Or studying in a lounge at school, apparently.

I totally thought the Burger King was Jesus and was all, "Why's Colonel Sanders hanging out with Jesus? Is this a Double Down commercial?"

Dave the Wonderdog Does Not Like Birthdays

Hilarious reimagining of T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" in Lolcat speak.

For those outside of Eliot-lore, he wrote "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats", the eventual source material for Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats. For those outside of musical lore, Cats is a musical about cats.

Check out the original poem here (worth at least a quick perusal for a side by side comparison with the Lolcat version)

A well-written short story by Joshua Ferris from Tin House Literary Magazine. His book "Then We Came to the End" is one of my favorite novels from this past year.

Editorial note: I am oddly compelled to post pictures with all of my posts, to give some visual meat to entries that would otherwise be blocks of text. However, I find it bizarrely uncomfortable to post authors' photographs: having invariably read the work I'm posting about before seeing what the author looks like, looking up their picture feels like a massive invasion of their privacy- like I am some uber-voyeuristic peeping tom who has taken these author's willingness to let me read their written work as an invitation to take an extra dip into their person lives by looking up their faces.

Anyway, good short story, bad self-inflicted self-conscious self-loathing.

Stolen from Patrick, though this video's quality blows. I need more bass, people. Upload the bass into your video.

It occurs to me that, to date, Google and Apple haven't had the opportunity to butt heads in the technology world. I'm looking forward to the day both companies put out a product filling the same niche and the fanboys implode over which side to choose. Imagine if Google had put out an impractical flat screen laptop that can't run videos or stand up vertically without some sort of ill-balanced dock! What could they have done?! Of course, knowing this brand of individual, they will probably have bought one of each so they (1) can pretend to be relevant (2) brag to everyone about how poor their dedication to avant garde technology is making them. Hipster life budgeting is nothing to be scoffed at, people. These are same people buying duck with food stamps.

Thoughts:

1. HOLY SHIT OSTRICH ATTACK

2. I truly appreciate that the father runs to his child's aid with all the energy of a golf clap.

3. It is an immutable fact that the random donkey crossing makes this video.

This is Spinal Tape

I am plagued by the laughter in this video:

YOU! LOOK AT ME! from Everything Is Terrible! on Vimeo.

I don't know how I feel about this, Jake. Sure, you have abs now, and pectoral muscles that might show through a t-shirt, but you are almost thirty and this heartthrob thing is getting past its prime. Buy some loose slacks and some cufflinks and stop trying to use your torso to remain relevant - Mario Lopez has already stolen any and all of that good will. If you don't believe me, ask Ryan Phillippe's wet weasel of a career.

Oh, and if you want me to take you seriously, you're going to have to give David Spade his haircut back.

Dear Train,

Generally your music stinks. However, when you stumble your way onto a good melody, ruining it by immediately selling the song to a car commercial is just bad business.

Also, this eight year old with a ukulele does it better.

Love,
Me

Awesome candle illusion.

I really enjoyed this video, but I'd prefer just a straight up compilation of kids failing at pouring. Epic.

In honor of Earth Day, here's three very awkward animals.

I absolutely adore this rural-hipster jamboree ballad. Mesmerizing:

I find this photograph absolutely entrancing. Click for bigger:

Get Drunk - Charles Baudelaire

One should always be drunk. That's all that matters;
that's our one imperative need. So as not to feel Time's
horrible burden one which breaks your shoulders and bows
you down, you must get drunk without cease.

But with what?
With wine, poetry, or virtue
as you choose.
But get drunk.

And if, at some time, on steps of a palace,
in the green grass of a ditch,
in the bleak solitude of your room,
you are waking and the drunkenness has already abated,
ask the wind, the wave, the stars, the clock,
all that which flees,
all that which groans,
all that which rolls,
all that which sings,
all that which speaks,
ask them, what time it is;
and the wind, the wave, the stars, the birds, and the clock,
they will all reply:

"It is time to get drunk!

So that you may not be the martyred slaves of Time,
get drunk, get drunk,
and never pause for rest!
With wine, poetry, or virtue,
as you choose!"