Archives for category: just grinning

There is No Charge for Awesomeness…

January 12, 2009 //

… or attractiveness, as Po from Kung Fu Panda says.

We can thank the internet machine for the awesomeness and attractiveness of these Diamond Dave nuggets to kickstart the work week.

The first is the David Lee Roth Running with the Devil Soundboard. [h/t: Marko] Guaranteed hours of fun.

Or, if you want to take things to the next level, you can bask in the glory of/recoil in horror from this truly mashed-up mashup of Diamond Dave colliding with Microsoft’s Songsmith [h/t: Gizmodo].

Songsmith is a program that generates music to accompany a singer’s voice. Could be interesting, but the background music sound un-ironically 8-bit. Call it a failure of my imagination, but I can’t see a purpose for Songsmith other than the DLR fail. I give them credit for their surreal, ultra-cheesy ad, but, seriously, I’m confused — “So help me a find a way to move my groove on”? Really? Is that even a phrase, or is Microsoft trying to invent new slang?

Categories advertising, communication, just grinning

We Regret the Error

January 5, 2009 //

The end of a year/start of a new year lends itself to reflection and soul-searching, often leading us to review the past year in order to attempt to change in the new year.

Before you end up being too hard on yourself for mistakes you made during 2008, take heart — at least you didn’t end up misspelling your own name. In this particular case, Regret the Error reports of a New Hampshire/Vermont newspaper that spelled its own name as “Valley Newss” on the front masthead of its July 21, 2008 edition.

Read the NPR interview for more egregious examples of errors from this past year, including Epic Organizational Failures.

Though this isn’t a typo, it certainly is a fail:

Categories communication, just grinning

Happiness is Contagious

December 26, 2008 //

While the idea of Becoming a Contagious Christian has always kind of offended my OCD-ish sensibilities, I was extremely interested to learn that, according to recent research, happiness really is catching.

According to researchers from Harvard and UC San Diego:

Read the rest of this entry »

Categories asian american, communication, community, faith, family, just grinning, Uncategorized

I Do Love Lists…

December 21, 2008 //

… but this is getting out of hand.

Check out this enormous, year-end meta-/mega-list from Time magazine, aptly titled Top 10 Everything of 2008. In case you were wondering, Time says there’s a difference between the Top 10 Quotes and Top 10 T-shirt Worthy Slogans.

If you have some time to meander through this list, you might find gems like this one: Aerial Duo Parachute Into Wrong Stadium or the oddly compelling video, Western Spaghetti. You can also learn a thing or two about nuking the fridge (hint: it’s not good).

I might just write in this video as my Top Ten of awesomeness for the year. Seriously, I dare you to watch it and not be totally psyched for working your lats:

Read the rest of this entry »

Categories communication, just grinning, video

Finally. Found. Out.

December 9, 2008 //

Lately, I’ve been noticing this bit of grammatical trickery floating around the internets, often in the following form:

Best. Day. Ever.

I often see it associated with gaming/comic/nerd culture. For example, a recent episode of Heroes used this particular phrase during a subtitled portion of Hiro’s dialogue, which was spoken in Japanese. In the same scene, Seth Green’s character utters the phrase out loud, with dramatic pauses in between each word (as the periods after each word would seem to dictate).

A couple of weeks ago I set out to figure out the origins of this particular phrasing. Read the rest of this entry »

Categories communication, hooray!, just grinning, postmodern