Pool party! During the recent heat wave, the family of a mama bear and her cubs came into the backyard of a home in Rockaway Township, New York, and discovered a backyard pool and decided to stick around for a party. Pretty much all that was missing was the burgers and ice cream. No really. I thought this was going to be largely local TV report about a bit of splashing around, but it really, truly looks like...I don't know, there's no other way to describe it than "a pool party." Watch. You'll see. Almost funnier than the video are some of the comments on YouTube. I can usually only read a limited number because you don't want your head to explode, and that was the case here, too, because there was a fair share of numbing ones. My favorite was from someone claiming that the father being interviewed was so pathetic because he said he called 911, rather than just sit safely inside of watch the cute animals frolic. Seriously guy?? There are like SIX BEARS in his back yard. Did we forget that these are wild beasts who have come out of their natural habitat, most likely because they're hot and uncomfortable and hungry for food? Never mind that at any minute they could start attacking the property -- but they're in the freaking middle of a neighborhood with other families and little children wandering around. And you actually think the father is "pathetic" for calling 911 to let them know that there are six bears in his backyard??!!! My second favorite was the commenter who was unhappy because he didn't like the father's whiny voice. Yeah, I know, life just sucks eggs sometimes when it isn't exactly perfectly the way you want it, and it turns out that human beings are human and different. Never mind that the guy just had six bears in his backyard and -- with his little children and dogs -- wasn't overly thrilled about it. Anyway, all that aside, the video is a joy.
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I've grown to quite like Karl Stefanovic (pronounced Stefa-NO-vik), the longtime popular host of Australian TV's morning Today Show. When the situation demands, he's a good, serious, blunt newsman, but who overall has a goofball sense of humor and likes to liven up the early morning program. (If you missed an earlier post, here is the tribute montage the show put together of his work for his 10th anniversary on the program. For all his pranks and goofing around, it's clear that people on the show adore him.) He's also the fellow I wrote about who wore the same suit on-air for a full year and didn't tell anyone but his female co-anchor to make the point that people unfairly demand that women hosts on TV need to keep changing their clothes and be stylish, but no one commented once all year about him wearing the same suit. Here is some more of the prankish Karl. He had the person in charge of the teleprompter slip in some text for the sports report at the last minute, counting on the reporter Roz Kelley not having time to go over the copy again before appearing on air. So, when finishing up her coverage of a soccer match, she instead -- as you'll hear at the 17-second mark -- begins to oddly talk about (for no apparent reason) a snack food item. Before she can go on much further, she realizes what is happening but, try as she might, isn't able to quite stop in time. And eventually realizes too who's to blame. The latter, you'll see, shouldn't have been that hard to figure out... Every once in a while, you do something really stupid. Today was my day.
This morning, while still laying in bed and half awake, I noticed that some toothpaste from the night before had apparently dried as a glop on my wrist. Not anxious to get out of bed yet and still a bit woozy, I decided to lick it off. Hey, it's just toothpaste, I'm going to my mouth with it in a few minutes anyway. So, I licked. Trouble is...it wasn't toothpaste. It was shampoo. Last night when showering, I was using the last of the shampoo, and the remnant globs had spilled out on my hand. Which I washed off. Or so I thought. Nope, I didn't get it all. (Who knew that shampoo could dry in a glop like toothpaste?) Fortunately, even in my woozy state, I had to presence of mind not to lick off the whole thing, but just test it first. But trust me, that was plenty enough. The problem with doing this, of course, is that unlike most substance, you can't just guzzle water and simply swish it around to wash out the shampoo. Shampoo, being shampoo, actually loves water and foams. So, you have to do a WHOLE LOT of swishing. And even then you ultimately have to let the last remnants go away on its own. The fresh woodsy taste is largely gone now, but 13 hours later there's still a lovely rawness in the back of my throat, which is pretty clear at this point will linger for a while. Today's tip -- don't swallow shampoo. You're welcome. You may remember during the last presidential election, a group called Bad Lip-Reading came along with some wonderful videos. Their popularity brought about a series of other videos during the past four years. And now...they're back. If you don't know about Bad Lip-Reading, they take actual video of events and look at it as if there was no audio, and had to lip-read to figure out what was being said, and then dub it all in with sound-alike voice actors -- and try as they might to be accurate (okay, not really), they do an incredibly bad job But hilarious. Here's their take on the recent Republican debate. For every home game, the Chicago Cubs always have some guest conductor, they call it, lead the crowd in singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” and the person generally gets interviewed on radio and then in the TV booth. Today, it was Jake Johnson, an actor I tend to enjoy.. They were talking about him being from the Chicago area, and then added that he went to New Trier High School. I had absolutely no idea. This might mean nothing to most people, except that that was the high school I went to. (I've mentioned in the past that they have an illustrious list of alumni, including Charlton Heston, Ann-Margaret, Bruce Dern, Virginia Madsen, Rock Hudson, William Christopher ('Father Mulcahy' in M*A*S*H), Ralph Bellamy, director Ed Zwick, novelist Scott Turow, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Archibald MacLeish, singer-songwriter Liz Phair, American League Rookie of the Year John Castino, college basketball coach Ben Braun, famed restaurateur Charlie Trotter, Nobel Prize-winner for physics Jack Steinberger, 12-year president of the National Academy of Sciences Bruce Alberts, superagent Ari Emanuel, former Sen. Charles Percy, Sen. Mark Kirk, and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. So, I'm in good company. Okay, but I digress...) It turns out that, to his great credit, Jake Johnson is a huuuge Cubs fan, and was very excited and knowledgeable in the booth, talking about going to 200 Cubs games growing up there. I sort of gave up on the New Girl series he's in -- I like Zooey Deschanel and his work in it, and I enjoyed the show well-enough but for my taste, they ran out of stories early on, and it just became much too thin. However, a few weeks ago I saw the movie he both starred in and wrote, Digging with Fire that’s being released now. The movie was well-done, and I liked what it was about (sort of an effective metaphoric looks at a happy marriage, but where the husband and wife search for ways to not feel trapped in it) , and each individual scene was good – but it was too much an “actor independent movie,” very talky slice-of-life. Here's the trailer. It does a good job of getting across that it's well-done and very talky slice of life. Albeit with a very good cast, in including co-star Rosemarie Dewitt, and Orlando Bloom, Anna Kendrick, Sam Rockwell, Ron Livingston, Sam Elliot and others. |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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