Basket of Goodies

Here we are on another Thursday night, browser heavy with share-worthy content for you lovely people to enjoy as we roll into the weekend.

Fun fact : this Saturday is my 39th birthday!

And now, for the goodies. First off, here is a fun themed clip compilation called Three Point Landing.

Yes, heroes always make three point landings like that. Why? Because it looks really fucking cool, that’s why. Especially the landing, tiny pause, then slowly get to your feet looking pissed.

That shit always looks kickass, cliche as it is. I am not entirely sure why. The Desmond Morris fan in me suspects it comes from our semi-arboreal past, when we were only partly ground dwellers and used our agility and dexterity to travel via tree to avoid predators.

Imagine how impressive the alpha primate would be if he swung into your midst, landed, and glared at everyone. You would immediately know the shit had hit the fan, would you not? You would stop what you were doing and be very still, hoping like hell it was not you that was in trouble.

And well, what are superheroes (and regular heroes) but alpha humans who show up to punish the misbehaving members of our human tribe, protect the weak and the innocent from them, and put everything right again with their awesome alpha power?

When you look at it that way, having a superhero team called Alpha Flight makes sense, doesn’t it?

We're dominant! But in a really good way.

Next up, while I am not normally a fan of putting clothes on animals (they don’t need them, they don’t like them, and don’t think they do not know how stupid they look) (especially cats), occasionally someone will come up with an animal costume that is just too brilliant or adorable for me to ignore.

And in that category, this one hits it clear out of the Astrodome.

So.. its a dog.. dressed as 2 pirates carrying a treasure che... on Twitpic

That is seriously the most brilliant dog costume ever. One dog dressed as two doggy pirates carrying a treasure chest. Whoever even conceived of this costume was a genius, let alone whoever actually designed it and constructed it.

Probably the same person, but still.

And the dog even looks happy in it. I would not have posted the pic if the dog had looked miserable.

Granted, dogs look happy most of the time. That is one of their most winning attributes and one of the main reasons they appeal to us human beings so much : they are filled to the brim with unbridled enthusiasm and optimism. You hardly ever see a dog looking depressed or worried or bored. And when you do, it takes so little to make them all happy and waggy and smiling again that it gratifies us.

That is especially good for those of us who tend toward the negative and gloomy end of the scale. We need that kind of sunshine in our lives to remind us that it is not all that bad.

I am still a cat person, mind you. But dogs can be pretty great.

Speaking of things which are pretty great, those awesome comedy nerds over at Splitsider have done all of us who worship the Al a favour by putting together a comprehensive list of every single Weird Al music video ever made.

Sure, you could go and find each of these videos by yourself, without their help. But why bother when they have done it for you? As a huge Al fan, I am impressed with their ability to know exactly what sort of thing appeals to comedy nerds just like me.

I mean, what an awesome resource! They even showed their mad comedy nerd cred by putting the list in chronological order. That makes so much sense that I have to love it.

Looking over the list, I am reminded of how disappointed I am that all of Al’s videos from 2006 on are mostly animated. It should be a winning combo for yours truly, because I love both Al and animation.

But the animated videos are just not as good at Al’s live action videos from his heyday. Al made his videos with the same skill and precision that he used it making his songs. Compared to something like the genius shot-for-shot parodies like the video for Smells Like Nirvana, these animated videos, with their ugly art, shaky animation, and overall sloppy production values, just look like crap.

I mean, check this shit out! The aformentioned Smells Like Nirvana :

Pure genius. More comedy per second that the Simpsons.

And now, the incoherent and poorly laid out video for Virus Alert :

And that was by the guy who did Retarded Animal Babies, work I have enjoyed in the past. But like we learned from the Samurai Jack version of Clone Wars, good thing plus good thing does not always equal good thing. In fact, sometimes it leads to crap.

And speaking of crap (oy, what a segue), I dare you to check out the home page for Bathroom Sprayers.

And we ain’t talking something to make getting those stubborn stains off the mirror a breeze.

No, we are talking about the bidet kind of sprayer. The kind you use in lieu of toilet paper. The kind all those sophisticated types in Europe use.

The kind you use to squirt poop off your butthole.

Now I have a certain fascination, not entirely juvenile, with things regarding our deepest and most primal taboos, the ones concerning the proper handling of our eliminatory functions.

And I can totally see how the bidet might have a lot of advantages over toilet paper. It is certainly easier on the environment (save trees from a gruesome fate!), probably more sanitary, and it probably feels kind of nice too. Like a shower for your butt.

But taboo runs mighty deep, and I am pretty sure that even if I had the world’s most luxurious, temperature-controlled, ph-balanced, laser-guided bidet in the world, I would still feel absolutely compelled to wipe myself when it was done.

And that kind of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?