beautiful, funny, sad & true

So there’s this whole series of videos on [read the following with a Cockney accent] TubeWhatBelongsToYou [okay, now you can go back to your normal voice] called Shreds, and the videos are pure genius.  The person who makes them takes existing videos of a famous musician or band and they overdub the various instruments and vocals based on what’s happening on the screen,  making it sound as crappy and as funny as possible.

Warning:  the videos are highly addictive.

Here’s my personal favorite, which is a Kiss video from the 1970’s.  The real song is “I Was Made For Loving You” (click here to watch the original, but definitely don’t until after you’ve watched the ‘shred’ video).

‘I can’t say philanto-papa. . .Pikachu!’

I could watch these all day, and I know I can, actually, because that’s what a good part of yesterday consisted of; that and then a longish recording session in the evening for IrishBand.

At around 11:00 this morning, I realized that I was wearing two different types of shoes.  I know; check out the big brain on Todd.  At least they’re both Docs, though, so that’s gotta count for something.

Hilarious.

Apple just celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Macintosh, and I thought it would be fun to scrounge up the original television ad for it, from 1984.  It’s a classic.

The ad had a bit of a resurgence in 2008, when a parody of it was used for the Obama presidential campaign.

Here’s the first real life introduction of a Macintosh computer, hosted by the ubiquitous Steve Jobs, but the Mac speaks for itself, both figuratively and literally.

Before that, in 1983, there was a super-weird industry event called the “Macintosh Dating Game,” which was emceed by Steve Jobs, and which featured three software CEO’s, two of whom have become historical also-ran’s, but one of whom is someone who you will no doubt recognize.

It’s interesting in hindsight that Apple spent so much time taking pot shots at IBM, when Microsoft was the company they should really have been paying attention to.

There’s so much more I could share about all this.  I find the early days of the personal computer industry endlessly fascinating, because that’s when it was all being born, and I was just the right age to be interested in all of it, and what’s more important for this entry, just the right age to remember and be able to share it these many years later.

Now, as back then, Macs comprise about ten percent of the market, but as Douglas Adams famously said in an ad (which I’ve so far been unable to scrounge up), “They may have only ten percent, but it’s clearly the top ten percent.”  Well said, Douglas, well said.

If you’re so inclined, here’s an interesting collection of articles called 25 Years of Macintosh for you to share and enjoy.

Happy birthday, Mac!

Star Wars geek-out beginniiiiiiiiing. . . . . . . . . . . now.

Ackbar! The Star Wars Talk Show