Entertainment Look

The Humor of Reggie Watts

Reggie just came at me tonight kicking my butt all over the floor.  He is in your face with his intelligence that he uses to demonstrate the absurdity he sees in this world.

It’s the kind of humor I can kick back and get all day because it puts the idiosyncrasies of the world on display.  His rap at the end of Why S*** So Crazy?  is a commentary on what makes rap and the rap industry ridiculous.  Catch the video sometime if you can.  It’s called F ck Sh t Stack.  No, you’re reading those titles correctly.  Watch the show and you’ll understand why his titles are spelled that way.

He records sound bites on stage and then plays them back with other sound bites that he creates on stage.  He sings or raps and he changes his voice to any tone, any accent, anything.  He has some real talent.  He is using it to humor us.  But, he could just as easily get serious with it.

He actually has more talent than some of the big guys in the hip hop industry today.  Reggie can change up and do Reggae whenever he feels.  He turns it on, shuts it off, talks about a few things that makes us laugh and then he’s right back into it again.  That’s the sign of a genius.

Anyway, the excerpt to the left is from his Comedy Central special Why S*** So Crazy?  It’s the perfect example of the kind of humor that makes Reggie so F ck ng awesome.  He talks about his research in Mexico and how the GPS intuitive linguistic system in Mexico is different from that of Canada and America.  He talks about the obviousness that is there is something that you can’t miss.

Hilarious!

Why S*** So Crazy?

Real World Still Running?

Talk about riding it until the wheels fall off!  Real World is still running?  When is that dead horse going to get some peace?

I remember the first episode of Real World airing in 1992.  I was an MTV fan in those days because they still played Music.  Imagine a day when they played music on television at Music Television.  Yeah, it was an exciting time.

Real World was one of the first reality shows.  A handful of strangers thrown into one house and forced to live together.  The experiment was actually to take people from all walks of life and see if they could find a way to get past their differences. This experiment has been lost on the newer generations who look at Real World as a vacation where dramas are created for the camera, everyone has dreams of being a superstar and not one person has a pimple or a hair out of place.

Can you say, NOT Real World?  Not even close.

Of course, how can we miss the eye-watering reunions that take place five minutes after the show wraps?  Oh yeah, remember that one moment that happened just two days ago?  It seems like just yesterday.  Wow, how these people have grown since their tough times in … Cancun?  Sydney?  Hollywood???

In 1992, I watched the first episode and I remember thinking that one season would be good enough of an experiment.  Any more than that and the show will play itself out…and that was almost 20 years ago.

Persons Unknown Strange Attraction

  Who else has a strange attraction to Persons Unknown?

The kind of attraction where you are ready to give up and quit watching.  It literally is jerking you around because it just doesn’t give you enough information.  An entire episode of madness and you learn one or two more things that really don’t satisfy you.

But now, you finally find out who is in on this thing.  And that’s the thing too.  We don’t know what this thing even is.  We don’t know who these people are.  We don’t know where they are.  We don’t know why they are there.  Four episodes and we still don’t know any more than we did a few weeks ago before one episode even ran.

So, you’re about ready to quit watching and turn the channel to Law and Order: Criminal Intent when all of a sudden Joe goes to the kitchen.  He meets with the chef who escorts him to a back room where they talk about “Threatening Withdrawal.”

It’s one thing, but it’s enough to bring me back next week so that I can watch the show and learn very little getting ever more and more aggravated about the show.  That’s the kind of strange attraction I’m having.

I almost hate the show, but I have to find out what happens to these people.  I have to know why this is being done to them and how they get out of it.  Who is watching them?  Why haven’t they taken that clerk hostage yet?

I don’t understand it.  I’m watching a show that frustrates me to no end but, I can’t stop watching it.

Burn Notice Better Than A Video Game

The levels Burn Notice has taken its viewers through actually seems like a realistic portrayal of espionage and what it takes a burned spy to get back into the game at the level he once was.  It also seems like a video game, with realistic parameters.  No superheroes, although Michael Westen does have some rather extraordinary skills.  No supervillains.  No ulterior worlds.

Michael Westen went from being a burned spy followed by FBI agents to a man who is now partnered with a syndication referred to as “Management.”  But, the levels he had to go through were quite impressive.  Just like a video game.

He had several handlers he had to dodge and eventually he managed to get them all out of his life.  The final handler had actually hired a handler of her own to…well, “handle” Michael.  But, that eventually didn’t work out and that handler actually became a client of his when Michael finally learned the back story.  This led to Michael’s first visit with Management and he was offered a position.  This is where some confusion begins.  But, I think I can explain it.

What happens next is Michael turns down this new opportunity, which begins a whole new chapter in his life.  I was under the impression that this is what Michael wanted all along.  So, what is Management then if Michael doesn’t want a position with this secret organization?

He endures being arrested and being followed by a detective who has heartburn for him.  He has enemies who come running to take advantage of him any way they can.  It gets worse as higher level opportunities come after him left and right.  I’m not going to mention the useless attempts with Strickler.  That ended with Strickler’s death and an agent’s death who didn’t want involved in the first place.

It gets really heated when Gilroy steps into the picture.  Their little play of cat and mouse has Michael running all over Miami doing errands and trying to figure out what it all means.  But Gilroy, it turns out is not up on his game as much as he would have us believe.  After helping Simon, a once burned spy himself, escape from prison, Gilroy becomes Simon’s next victim.  It becomes Michael’s job to recapture Simon and that launches him back into the hands of the Management where the first episode of this new season begins.

The Management, who burned Michael in the first place, has now recruited him to partner with them.  His first assignment, to investigate – first, who helped Simon escape – and “B”, I’m not sure.  I caught-on to the idea that it’s a war that Management doesn’t know how to handle and everyone who has tried ended up dead.  Other than that, we’ll just have to learn as Michael learns.

But, I would have to say that the show delivers.  I have often been disappointed when a show has promised to raise the bar and take things to another level.  They always seem to flop.  Lack of imagination.  Laziness of writers.  I’m not sure what the problem could be.  But, Burn Notice has not failed.  In fact, Michael is now responsible for burning a spy himself.  His relationship with the Management is like being married to a giant squid that lurks at the bottom of the ocean, but with tentacles that literally reach into everything.

Compromised information that Michael gathered from a military installation has to be blamed on someone.  So, a spy takes a fall.  You can see that Michael isn’t too happy about the turn about, but what can he do?  Or, what does he do?

The MP3 Player That Actually Works on Websites

I went through several MP3 Players today just to put my daughter’s favorite music on her website.  I went through a ridiculous number of scripts and codes that just wouldn’t work for one reason or another.

Placing code in the header isn’t hard.  It’s a simple copy and paste right above the </head> code.  Change all paths to your own paths.  Not hard.

Placing additional code in the body where you want the player isn’t hard either.  It’s a little more difficult because you have to make sure that you indicate the right path to your daughter’s favorite music.

But, I was literally stumped by several players that I downloaded today.  I followed their installation instructions and I got nothing.  That is until I found the one that does work and I wanted to share it because, ironically, it  was the easiest.

FREE Flash MP3 Player is the easiest.  In the others, I was providing url links to music that I had uploaded onto my daughter’s site.  This one actually allows you to create a folder, point the player there and it finds the music for you.  Easy.  One code in the header, change the path of the object.js, which you downloaded with the player and uploaded onto the server so you should know where that is.  Then, paste code into the body where you want the player and change the path of the folder where you put the music.  Publish the page and you are finished.  It comes with instructions and your daughter will love it.

By the way if you haven’t already had this thought, creating a website for your daughter (or son) is a great gift for birthdays or other gift-giving holidays you might have throughout the year.  Let me show you how easy it is:

Godaddy – Get your domain and hosting for less than $10.  With a monthly subscription hosting package of $6.99, you can purchase a domain for a year for $1.99.  Of course, you can save money with an economy hosting package for a yearly subscription.  It comes to less than $70 and that’s hosting you don’t have to worry about for a year.  So whatever your budget is, there is hosting that is right for you.

Filezilla – Get a FREE file transfer protocol program.  This is what is going to make publishing your child’s website a snap.  Your files on your computer are on the left side.  Open up your site on the right and upload the files.  Your site is up in seconds.

Free Website Templates – That’s right!  Free Website Templates.  That means that you can go through a series of templates for your child’s website and download one that suits you.  Put it on your computer in a special file marked with your child’s name and then start working with it.

Seamonkey – Get a FREE web page building program.  Once you’ve downloaded the template, you’ll want to start working with the pages to make your child’s own.  The easiest program to do this with is Seamonkey where you can pull up the file and see what the page looks like.  Change images.  Change links.  Change words and Go.

GIMP – Get a FREE image manipulation program.  In other words, it’s a robust program that helps you work with your images.  Get pictures of your child so that you can paste them all over the new website.  Even if you are one of those parents who are against posting your child’s pictures on the internet, get GIMP anyway so that you can work on graphics and other things the site might need.

Here are some hints for you:

1) When you pull up the index.html page in Seamonkey, it’s going to look weird.  You’ll have to switch to html mode and put the absolute URL for the style.css so that it looks like this:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://yourdomain.com/style.css"
type="text/css" charset="utf-8">

2) Then, open up the style.css in your notepad and make all the URLs absolute.  That includes everything that looks like this:

url(images/photo.jpg)

Change to:

url(http://yourdomain.com/images/photo.jpg)

3) Take the index.html file and make all the changes you need.  Change the wording and the links.  Change images.  Change background photos.  Then once you’ve made all the changes you are going to need, make a newpage.html file and use it for all the other pages you might need across your site.

4) To change photos, simply make your own the same size as the ones used on the template.  Name them the same and then upload them in the same folder where the others are stored.  Overwrite them and your new images are on the site already.

5) If you need other ideas, visit http:michaelallenonline.com where you can get more free stuff or request assistance.

These Guys Are Lucky: Top 4 Idiots Ever

Most Original Owned Clips

How Does This Guy Answer For This?

I wonder how this guy answered for this when his boss came into the office.

The Pirates Storm the Bay and Take the Mayor Hostage

It was a blast!  The pirates came into Tampa and took over the city.  They took the mayor hostage as they fired guns and canons at onlookers.  The most unique sight I’ve ever experienced.

I just moved to Tampa a little over a year ago.  Before that, I had been here, technically, only once in my life.  I’m going to date myself here, but I was part of the relief efforts when Hugo ripped through Puerto Rico.  I was in the Marine Corps at the time and we flew in and out of MacDill Air Force Base several times a day to help clean up Puerto Rico.  Now, I live a mile from MacDill.

So, part of the Tampa experience is Gasparilla, a parade thrown every year in honor of a past pirate named Jose Gaspar, a Spanish pirate who is reported to have operated in Southwest, Florida.  The parade has a huge history, but what it has become today has struck me as one of the most interesting celebrations in any city throughout America.

How many times does a mayor get taken hostage as the kickoff to a day long celebration?

How often do hundreds of ships convoy inland with a pirate ship as the center of attention?

I know there are some great events throughout the world.  I’m just saying this is one of the most interesting.  To give you an example, here is a list of annual city events across the nation:

New Year’s Eve, New York’s Times Square

Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

Mardi Gras

These are the types of city events so huge you can’t help but get involved.  From anywhere in the city, you are a part of it because it’s so large you can’t get away. 

That’s how I felt about Gasparilla.  It was a crazy, day long celebration that took up all of Bayshore Boulevard and led right to the newly unveiled Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park.  The city that I now call home has got some really great attractions.  If you get a chance, check it out one year.

Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien Power Shift

There was a time when Jay Leno called the shots.  But, NBC shifts just might hinge on how Conan O’Brien feels about them.  Jay Leno’s ratings have dropped and they have had an effect on Conan O’Brien’s show.  With many options on his plate, it looks like NBC will have to wait until Conan O’Brien makes up his mind about what he is going to do.

What has been going on is quite a stir.  But, has anything really changed at all?  Jay Leno recently adopted a whole new style and I’m not quite sure why.  But the more I watch George Lopez, the more I get the idea.  That’s the way Hollywood works.

When one success breeds another success, copycats show up all across the networks.  Reality shows speak tremendously to this truth.  One reality show bred another.  Now, there is a reality show on every channel.  You can watch one at just about any time of the day.

So, George Lopez changes the approach to late night television and throws the desk out the window.  He brings the stage closer to the people in a more “get up close and personal” type of touch.  When I saw Jay Leno’s new show, I realized a lot of those same changes.  Of course, Jay Leno also has some of the same gimmicks that have entertained us for years.  So, it’s not an exact rip off and to be honest with you, I’m really not sure which came first…the chicken or the egg.

But the fact of the matter is that while this approach has worked for day time with Oprah and Ellen, George Lopez has been the only one to pull it off for late night.  Jay Leno’s time shift and stage changes have only resulted in a drop in ratings, which is really what television executives think it’s all about.  And if they run the show, Jay Leno needs to find a way to bring his ratings back up to speed.

But for now, that fate seems to actually be in Conan O’Brien’s hands.  That is until he makes his decision.  He has options.  In fact, he could have more lucrative options with other networks.  So, it could really turn into a stirred up mess by the times it’s all settled.  We’ll just have to wait and see.