Observe The Banana

Watch this video of a slow moving performance artist exploding bananas on his face. Go ahead, watch it, you know you want to . . .

Found on [BoingBoing]

This cat likes to drink from a running sink. Nothing too unusual there. But he has an unusual way of getting the water to his mouth. No cat I have known would do this. Very funny video, thought it is really too long, you can get the whole idea in the first minute.

After busting my back shoveling Minnesota snow for the last 12 years I finally broke down and bought a used snowblower this summer. But my old Snapper 10hp blower is just doesn’t seem as mighty after seeing the above photo of Klimov VK-1 engines from Mig-15 jets mounted on the front of trucks to clear snow from airport runways in Russia. Now that’s a snowblower! I wonder how my neighbors would feel about one of these in the driveway?

And here is a Mig-17 powered ice melting machine:

I would think you would have to be careful not to torch the whole plane with one of those beasts.

[Gizmodo via TechEBlog]

Number one: a doormat, named Mat

Number two, a wonderful visual pun that speaks for itself (original source unknown):

Number three: a hilarious 20 second video pun, Obama’s Elf:

Just makes me laugh, every time I see them.

Here is a nice tribute to bananas I came across on YouTube. Some cool, fun images here. Enjoy!

I was a little skeptical at first, but after watching it I couldn’t describe it any better than my brother did when he sent me the link:
“Ah, Sheesh . . . I laughed, I cried . .. its the feel-good hit of the year . . . if you’re a sucker for schmaltz . . . you’ll not regret investing the 16 min!”

Watch it with someone you love. Try to spread a little happiness to everyone you meet.

“You paid for parking . . . for me?”

. . . or better parenting through Unix. My son B really got a kick out of this xkcd comic:

So now I have learned to put the concept to good use:

Me: Time to brush your teeth and get ready for bed

B: No, I’m reading

Me: SUDO, brush your teeth.

B: Okay! (jumps up and runs upstairs.)

Works great for now, at least until the novelty wears off in a few days.

Every year the University of Minnesota Morris (UMM) holds a student film festival (video making contest) they call the UMMys. The entrants vary widely in quality and subject matter and tend to include a lot of teen angst and zombies. Several years ago one entrant stood head and (large metallic) shoulders above the rest. It was called “Rumspringa! The Musical” and was about an amish girl going on her traditional rumspringa to the city and falling in love with a recently unemployed phone answering robot. All songs are written (except the Electric Slide) and performed by the students and it is clever, funny and totally worth watching, cheesy robot costume and all.   Sadly the entire 30 minute production appears to no longer be available on YouTube, but two of the best (IHMO) musical numbers from it are still available for your viewing pleasure.

Your robot overlords command you to click the play buttons below…










Every film needs an internet trailer…..

[Rumspringa! The Musical on MySpace]

“Large 1970s banana-shaped resin floor lamp by Louis Durot, with one light.”

Over at 1stdibs.com they are selling a giant banana lamp from the 1970’s. At close to 7ft tall this is one serious banana to have in your house. I want it. They won’t even show the price without registering and logging in first, and there is shipping from France.

[1stdibs via BoingBoing]

Remember this fun viral video of the guy doing his goofy dance around the world? Put a smile on my face.



You can learn more about the original project at Where The Hell Is Matt? And see his dance videos from other years.
Now some clever person has extended the meme into the world of video games. I like the wide scope of the games, from Frogger to World of Warcraft. Enjoy!



[WeGame via BoingBoing]

Here is another video of some amazing maintenance workers / daredevils.  These men maintenance live high voltage power lines from a helicopter using a fire retardant “hot suit” made with metal fibers to act as a Faraday cage. Once they clamp on the line, their body, and the entire helicopter, are raised to the same electrical potential as the wire – 500 thousand volts. They remain safe as long as there is no path to ground. Even without the high voltage, just stepping off a hovering helicopter on to a little seat on the top of a pair of relatively thin wires strung high over the ground is quite a bold feat in itself. Nice mellow video, pleasant music and the guy has a sense of humor about it.

“I don’t give two hoots and a holler about flying inside a helicopter. Put me outside, that’s where I want to be. On a magic carpet.”

via [BoingBoing]

Video reported to be from Straight Up: Helicopters in Action.

Here is an interesting video showing a Eurocopter EC135 being used for maintenance operations on giant offshore wind turbines in the UK. Gives a good perspective on the massive size of these turbines. Around here they work on land based turbines by just opening the door at their base and climbing up a bunch of stairs. These guys in the video appear to be part mechanic, part coast guard helicopter rescue diver. Considering how often these things usually need maintenance (at least monthly I believe) this looks like it could get expensive fast and reveals a potential downside to the otherwise excellent idea of offshore turbines which I have always believed in. Enjoy the video, although I recommend muting the poorly chosen soundtrack.

From Flight Global via Gizmodo

The Muppets have apparently been  making a come back on YouTube. I have always loved the Muppets, from watching them in prime time decades ago, to sharing them with  my son on DVD, they are classic family entertainment true style and the list of big name celebrities that were guest hosts is truly staggering. Here are two delicious Muppet version of classical music to enjoy with your family and loved ones.

Ode to Beeker




Classical Chicken



These put a new light on all the new solo acapella chorus YouTube videos out there recently.

[BoingBoing]

Today’s YouTube banana sighting – Dr. Bunson Honeydew is tickled pink to announce his solution to “the banana problem”. And here I didn’t even realize there was a “banana problem.”




Goodbye forever to dull bananas!

A little over week ago I was finally lucky to win myself a Bag of Crap from Woot. Well, it finally arrived and with much fanfare and to-do the great unveiling commenced.

The box. Pretty big, that’s a good sign, but kind of light . . .

Air pillows, some little boxes, oh oh what’s inside? what’s inside?

First item a mysterious box of “4 sets”, but sets of what?

Ahhh, 4 iGo car chargers. Potentially useful for my iPod or cell, but they don’t come with any tips for devices. A quick search on Amazon reveals the tips are not so cheap at around $10-$15 each. If I get lucky I can sell 3 of them to buy 2 tips.

Second item, some weird little soda can charm thingy. Why? ‘Cause it’s crap! (Crap with a straw! -though I do wonder why such a thing is even manufactured in the first place)

Next item, three nice little camera cases, not too crappy.

Last item, now what’s this? A Palm computer? This may have potential . . .

but it is a Palm Zire – bottom of the line Palm in 2002. Works fine as it ever did, but has a crappy monochrome unlit LCD display. Resale value on eBay appears to be under $10. Oh well, I will try to download some game apps for it, or use it as a remote control.

As it was written:

“shalt thou not get the crap you want, want the crap you get.”

The anticipation was fun, and we enjoyed making up lots of B O C phrases all week….

Bag Of Carrots  Big Old Cat  Bozo, Original Clown  Brrrr Outside Cold  Big Ornery Cephlapod  Break Open Crustaceans  Ball Of Cotton  Broken Old Computer  Bad Old Crabs  Bring On Clowns  Bagel Or Cereal  Butter Or Creamcheese  Bowl Of Cereal  Bumpy Old Carpet  Big Old Camera  Bag Of Cookies  Box Of Cabbage ….

The crazy crew over at Top Gear decide to help the London mayor choose which style of bus is best. A mad race ensues as only they could pull off. To their credit, they do make it almost one half lap before making contact with each other, and then it is all down hill form there. I just love watch that long “bendy bus” wag its back half around high speed corners, and the double-decker managed to stay upright (though often on two wheels) longer than I thought it would. Watch all the bus smashing goodness below.

from TechEBlog

It’s a Woot thing. What is Woot? Woot.com is a different kind of online shopping site. Every day they have just one thing for sale. It remains for sale until they sell out, or the until the day ends. The next day they have one different thing for sale. They have great deals, and wacky descriptions of the items, usually making sure to point out not only what a great deal it is, but also honestly pointing any weaknesses or shortcomings in the product. Every once and a while things get interesting when they have a Woot Off! On these special hallowed days they have offer many things, still one at a time until a preset quantity sells, before moving on to the next item. An item might be available for hours, or for only minutes. It inspires compulsive refreshing to catch new deals throughout the day (as their song goes, “giving me an F5 complex, refreshing just to see what comes next!”). There are even third party web sites dedicated to tracking Woot Offs and notifying you when new items appear (mywoot.net is my favorite). The highlight of the Woot Off is the “Bag of Crap” (referred to as BOC, bandolier of carrots, etc) which is a random item grab bag. For some reason this is the most popular of items and instantly causes their servers to overload as it appears. This is despite their adamant assertions that you really don’t want one (see below). It is a true miracle of modern marketing genius. Having shopped on Woot for several years now, and purchased several items during Woot Offs or otherwise, I have just for the first time today managed to secure my very own Bag of Crap! It may be a dime store trinket, it may be a valuable electronic item left over from a previous day, I just have to wait and see. I will announce its contents when it arrives. – See what I got: I Got Crap!

And it was written…..

If we allow you to give us your money, we shall grant you some sort of bag and some quantity of crap. We promise nothing more. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll be grateful for that.

THE HOLY CRAP COMMANDMENTS v2.0:

I. Thou shalt expect nothing beyond one bag of some kind and your chosen quantity of crappy items (which should be THREE).

II. Thou shalt not whine and complain when some people’s crap turns out to be nicer than yours.

III. Thou shalt take a moment to consider whether you might be better off just not buying this crap.

IV. Thou shalt not order just one crap and blame it on anything but your own inattention.

V. To paraphrase Stephen Stills, shalt thou not get the crap you want, want the crap you get.

Another Roomba fan



Link icanhascheeseburger

Wouldn’t the world be a better place with more chickens keeping the peace? I love the end where I can just hear that chicken saying, “Now don’t make me come back here again!” as he walks away.

This looks to be a very cool demonstration of the power of this track excavator. The tower is obviously special made for this feat and appears to include locking points for the plate on the end of the arm, and places to wedge the tracks as the arm moves up to the next level. There is vigorous discussion on Gizmodo debating whether or not this is real or photoshopped, but I can easily believe that this was a real demonstration (although they may have removed the counterweight from the excavator). This desperately needs a video! …and yes that guy must have b*lls of steel!

via Gizmodo [Dark Roasted Blend] (scroll down to it)

Here is one more blurry photo from German TV that would seem to verify the stunt as real.

Related: Undressing a woman with a lalrge digging machine

Here is a fun little diversion to waste some of your time. Check out Akinator, the Web Genius. It is an online “guess what you are thinking of” game like those little electronic 20Q  games. This one guesses characters, real or otherwise – anything from celebrities to cartoon characters. It works surprisingly well, starting with broad questions, then throwing in some odd details, then – hey wait a minute is it getting close? then Wow! He got it! These must use an interesting algorythm that seems to be more advanced than a straight decision tree. The questions do not start the same every time, and it will frequently surprise you with the correct answer after seemingly not asking anything very specific to your answer. This one in particular is interesting in that it has more options than just yes or no. You can also answer ‘probably”, “probably not” or “I don’t know”.

Go check it out!

LINK

I have had this song stuck in my head for days now. A fun little ditty about a man trying to clean up his life with a robot vacuum cleaner. Starts a little slow, then takes off. The dancing is fun, and I like how he really belts out those lyrics. Enjoy!

“I got a robot vacuum! Cleaning up my life!“

The Field Robotics Center at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robot Institute has a nice robot slide show on their web site. No R2D2 or Johnny 5 here, just real working robots. Some are research prototypes, but (to me) the true stars are the actual working robots like the Remote Reconnaissance Vehicle (shown above) which was the first vehicle to enter the reactor containment building at Three Mile Island after a meltdown in March 1979. Click on the link below for lots of working robot goodness.

Robots at the FRC

Over at London Bananas they have a collected a surprisingly large collection of photos of banana peels spotted laying around the London cityscape.

“I see them everywhere. They’re languishing on doorsteps, hanging out in the middle of the road, dangling off street signs, peeking out of piles of garbage, reclining in the middle of the sidewalk, riding the bus for free. A great number of them are bright yellow as if they’re fresh and have just been dropped, although they appear in all states of decay.”

Apparently my message has reached the American public. It’s a movement people!