Interview: Andy Samberg as Shark Week Officiator

Andy Samberg is this year's official Chief Shark Officer (read as: Host) for Discovery Channel's 24th Shark Week. For those who aren't familiar, Shark Week is Discovery Channel's full-blown shark extravaganza. They often feature documentaries about harrowing experiences with sharks (not my thing), and shark-themed episodes of their regular shows (very much my thing). Before, I only had the Mythbusters Shark Specials to get me to tune into Discovery during Shark Week (and maybe a Dirty Jobs. Mike Rowe is the best.). Now that Samberg's on board for the production, this gives me another reason to figure out how to time my Discovery watching so I don't inadvertently watch a dingy of stranded individuals get mauled.

Below are Samberg's comments on the experience as taken from EW.com's original article. 


“I had reservations at the restaurant of destiny,” he jokes to EW. “It has very little to do with me on the surface, which to me was a perfect sign that I should do it. Everyone loves Shark Week. I love Shark Week. I was just so flattered. The pitch was that I would get to fly to the Bahamas and literally swim with sharks, and I was thinking there’s no way I would ever have the balls to do that on my own, so I went for it.”


 “My buddy John Solomon, who’s a director and a writer at SNL came with me. We were doing a bunch of wrap-arounds for the show, and I’d been floating there in the water, and I was like, ‘Okay, I think we got that. Should we chum the water and get some sharks over here?’ And everyone on the boat kinda looked down, kinda looked away, like, ‘Yeah, yeah, we should, um, get some sharks over here,’” Samberg recalls. “It turned out that there had been huge sharks all around me the entire time, and I just hadn’t realized it because they were under the water.” 

“They were definitely dumping tons of bloody meat into the water all around me. I knew that they needed to do it to get the sharks over there, but there’s also a part of me that was like, have you guys heard of Photoshop? Like, we live in an era where you don’t have to actually do this. But I guess they’re purists over at Discovery,” he says. He admits falling backwards blindly into sharks, even if they’re gentle Caribbean reefs, scared him. “But I had to just kind of ignore it. I went into Braveheart mode,” he says.

“If you want to know the coolest part,” Samberg says of filming the special, “it was getting to go in the little one-man submarine and, like, drive through a bunch of tropical fish while they tickle my feet. I just kept asking everyone if they’d seen my son Nemo.”


For a 10 second of Samberg singing underwater, click on the EW article to watch the video at the bottom of the page.

Videos: Rowan Atkinson Live

Rowan Atkinson. You may know him as Mr. Bean....or perhaps as Zazu from the Lion King (I will never forget the day the Knitter revealed this to me.)

Did you know that a Mr. Bean cartoon existed?

Mr. Bean is Zazu. Listen to the clips for confirmation!

 Netflix recently added Rowan Atkinson Live! to their Instant Videos, and I'm so glad I decided to check it out. Atkinson is hilarious, in these hilariously off-beat (but not too much) skits. I'd embed them if I could, but once again, Rowan Atkinson has disabled embedding. However, I will easily lead you to their youtube pages.


Rowan Atkinson Live!
Elementary Dating
Click here to be directed to the youtube video.

Rowan Atkinson Live!
The Amazing Jesus
Click here to be directed to the youtube video.

Happy Friday!

Songs of the Summer: Crazy in Love (2003)

Vulture recently posted an article about the last 20 Songs of the Summer. My eyes glossed over the 80s, and I quickly experienced through some 90s and post Y2K love. Look forward to a song from this list appearing every once in a while.

Word cloud for Songs of the Summer

The article featured the above word cloud, where the relatie size of the word correlates to the relative number of times a word has appeared in a Song of the Summer. I was most surprised to see that macarena has appeared more than once. Can you spot it? It's in purple, on the left of the red KNOW. It's appeared more times than mine and tonight, words I would have imagined to be more useful than macarena.

So, let's take a trip back to 2003, when this song was crazy big.

College Humor: Nick Frost and Simon Pegg in Star Wars

I like how Nick Frost gives R2D2 a voice (in more than one sense). Their attention to detail makes for an excellent fictional debate.



For those who aren't familiar, Frost and Pegg are best friends who frequently collaborate for TV and film productions. You may also recognize Pegg from the latest Stars Trek adaptation; he also narrated Season 1 of Doctor Who Confidential.

Their latest project is Paul, a movie about an alien (voiced by Seth Rogen) whose name explains the film title. Frost and Pegg play two super nerds on a road trip who stumble upon said extraterrestrial. The couple initially experience shock and then end up fighting to defend the little guy. Supporting actors include Jason Bateman, Kristein Wiig, Jane Lynch, and Bill Hader. When I watch the trailer, I find myself torn between going 'blech' (Paul's gross looking in my opinion) and 'haha' (the cast and Pegg/Frost's writing should make for lots of laughs).

Here's the trailer:

Music: They Can't Take That Away From Me

Ella Fitzgerald's voice is so smooth and rich. My favorite songs of hers are her duets with Louis Armstrong.

College Humor: Always Open Featuring Amy Poehler

Warning: You may lose about 40 minutes of your time if you start reading this post and have little self control...
Read this as: Lots of funny videos! I couldn't resist sharing. ;)




I stumbled upon this after reading some of Jason Bateman's tweets. 


This video series, Always Open with Dave Koechner, features Dave interviewing various actors and actresses. In the most recent one, he sits down with a lovely Amy Poehler at Denny's. She's hilarious as always, and my favorite line is the following: 


I think if I had to fight I'd have to fight like a chimp. I think I'd go for their tender areas. 


I think that's a very good strategy, Mrs. Poehler. I'd probably do the same.

And of course, whenever I think of Amy Poehler, I can't help but thing of her equally hilarious husband Will Arnett. And lucky for us, there's a video interview with him. I found Arnett's interview to be as laugh-out-loud funny as Arnett's role as GOB from Arrested Development. He shows off his comedy chops (or underlying craziness...or maybe they're synonymous) when he plays the scenario game with Koechner.

Arnett's best bit? 1-2-3-Dolphin eyes! Feels good, right? Fisherman's Net! That's life. 



And...I might as well save you the virtual trip by putting the rest of them here. Anyway, the collegehumor site is pretty annoying. If you click anywhere outside of the video window, it opens up Denny's facebook page.

Jason Bateman! I liked the second half the best. The more I attempt to verbalize what I find funny to you all, the more I realize how much I love the absurd.


Sarah Silverman! Speaking about the absurd....check her interview out. I think hers and Will Arnett's interviews were my favorite.


Will Forte! He was hilarious in 30Rock. Also, I find his voice to be very soothing. The bit about smiling and smiling harder made me laugh.

Music Video: OK, It's Alright With Me

From the Songbird. Her music choice is pretty excellent. In this video, I love how Eric Hutchinson can't contain himself as he plays.

The man sings and plays piano! 

I'd embed it for y'all if I could, but I can't. I have a feeling people disable embedding because views on other sites don't count towards their video counts. That's the only reason I can think of right now as to why the feature is disabled on some vids.

Watch the music video here.

Baking: Chocolate Chip + Super Chocolate Cupcakes!

This past week, I decided to bake cupcakes. I had made muffins a week before, and now I wanted to make use of my extra cupcake tins. Chocolate chip muffins are my favorite (besides lemon poppyseed ones), and so I turned to Joy of Baking for inspiration. On the site, I found two recipes and opted to make both chocolatey muffins. By serving two types of muffins, I could appeal to two different audiences. Simple chocolate chip muffins can do no wrong, but there were also cocoa powder-infused, dark chocolate chip-filled ones for the more adventurous.

For each of the muffin recipes, all you needed (besides the measuring cups and spoons) were two bowls. One for dry ingredients, and one for wet. No mixer is necessary (which is a shame because I had just gotten a new Cuisinart electric mixer, but more on that in another post).

Each recipe made 12 muffins (made in my cupcake pan) and 6 muffin tops. I had extra dough, and instead of waiting another 20 minutes for a few extra muffins, I wanted to save time by using all the dough in one go. Being thinner, the muffin tops need less time in the oven, so I would recommend 16-17 minutes rather than the 20 required for the muffins.

Also, I'm sure there are muffin tins specially made for muffins, but my cupcake tin worked fine.

The plant! It's still alive! :)

Chocolate chip muffins (Adapted from Joyofbaking.com)
Recipe makes 12 muffins (using a cupcake tin) and 6 muffin tops

Ingredients:
2 cups of flour
2/3 cup of sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 + 1/4 cup of mini, semisweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup (equivalent to 1 stick) of butter (melted and cooled)
2 eggs
1 cup of milk
1 + 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Recipe:
0. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
1. Melt the butter and then allow it to cool.
2. Mix together the dry ingredients--the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
3. Add the chocolate chips.
4. In a separate bowl, combine the wet ingredients--the melted and cooled butter, eggs, milk, and vanilla.
5. Slowly pour the wet ingredients into the dry. With a rubber spatula, mix as you go.
6. Do not overmix. Mix until you no longer see clumps of dry ingredients. Overmixing leads to tough muffins (No, ladies, not a tough studmuffin. That's a different thing. Nabbing one of those is not so easy.)
7. Fill a cupcake pan with cupcake liners. Fill each muffin cup with about 2 large tablespoons of batter. It should be filled about 80-90%.
8. Get a baking sheet and line it with parchment paper. Place a 1 tbsp (or more) dollop on the tray. Repeat so there is a 3x2 arrangement of muffin top dough piles.
9. Bake the muffin tops for about 17-18 minutes. Check for completeness by inserting a fork and then removing it (it should come out clean).
10. Bake the muffins for 20 minutes. Remove and allow to cool for about 5 minutes before removal from pan.

Super chocolate muffins (Adapted from Joyofbaking.com)
Recipe makes 12 muffins (using a cupcake tin) and 6 muffin tops

Ingredients:
1+3/4 cups of flour
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1+1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1+1/4 cup of dark chocolate chips

1/2 cup butter (melted and cooled)
2 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk
2 tsp vanilla extract

Recipe:

0. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

1. Melt the butter and then allow it to cool. 

2. Mix together the dry ingredients--the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

3. Add the chocolate chips. 

4. In a separate bowl, combine the wet ingredients--the melted and cooled butter, eggs, buttermilk, and vanilla. 

5. Slowly pour the wet ingredients into the dry. With a rubber spatula, mix as you go. 

6. Do not overmix. Mix until you no longer see clumps of dry ingredients. Overmixing leads to tough muffins (Once again, not a tough studmuffin. That's a different thing. Nabbing one of those is not so easy.) 

7. Fill a cupcake pan with cupcake liners. Fill each muffin cup with about 2 large tablespoons of batter. It should be filled about 70-80%. 

8. Get a baking sheet and line it with parchment paper. Place a 1 tbsp (or more) dollop on the tray. Repeat so there is a 3x2 arrangement, giving you a total of 6 muffin top dough piles. 

9. Bake the muffin tops for about 17-18 minutes. Check for completeness by inserting a fork and then removing it (it should come out clean). 

10. Bake the muffins for 20 minutes.  Remove and allow to cool for about 5 minutes before removal from pan. 

The Soup: iCloud

Steve Jobs recently announced the creation of the iCloud, Apple's attempt to corner the Cloud space world. For those who don't know, the Cloud is a shortened reference to Cloud Computing, which means storing files on a server rather than on a harddrive (such as the one found in a desktop, a laptop, or a phone). As a result, you can access files anywhere you have access to a network connection.

Apple previously had MobileMe, but as good as it sounds, the server was pretty weak. I did have a MobileMe account (and still do), but the inconsistent syncs and the abundance of offline time frustrated me, so I left. Now, I use Dropbox! Dropbox is free for the first 2 GB, and I highly recommend it! You are alotted 2 GB of space on Dropbox's server under your specific account, and your Dropbox folder can be accessed from anywhere you have wireless (or even 3G if you have it on your phone). Okay, enough with the Dropbox plug. Where was I...

Oh yeah! The Cloud! Apple promises to allow for easy syncing. (There have been too many times I've wondered which way the auto syncing goes and out of paranoia set things to manual sync...I hope Apple addresses this issue). Subscribers will be able to access all their documents and media files (music, TV, movies, etc.) through Apple's server. With all the files in the cloud, this means lots more harddrive space!

The Soup made a funny video about the 'potential' of the iCloud, and it's pretty entertaining. They address issues of using the iCloud to store illegally downloaded music and the 'dark side' of sharing. I can think of another potential 'problem' they didn't cover. What would prevent individuals from sharing an iTunes account and then just pooling together all your items? But, maybe that's not a real issue. What do you think about Apple's dip into Cloud Computing?

Music Video: These Words

This song never fails to lift my mood. Natasha Bedingfield's 'These Words' always has got me bobbing my head and tapping my feet! It's the perfect summer song.

XKCD: Permanence

This comic is so true. Every time I have to come up with a username, I rack my brains trying to come up with something unique but not gaudy. Coming up with a book title must be horrendous without some kind of inspiration...

Music Video: Mushaboom

I first heard this song on the 500 Days of Summer soundtrack. This music video is a little funny because for the few seconds, it's her singing to her own song played softly in the background.

Nylon Interview: Elijah Wood

In the video, Elijah Wood talks about his music label, pizza, and basically makes me swoon. I've admired him ever since I first saw the Lord of the Rings extended DVD special features (I can't get enough of these behind-the-scene goodies. I'm sure I've rewatched them 2 or 3 times).

I looked up Simian Records (which if you google is more often called Elijah Wood's Music Label rather than its real name), and found this interview of Wood by The Independent. He explains his motivation for setting up a new label in the following manner:
"I didn't start a record company out of need. Certainly it's not the smartest thing to do financially. The idea for a label came out of a pure place. I've been a huge music fan for a long time. In part I started it due to a certain amount of frustration of being a fan of certain bands and realizing that those bands weren't as well known as I felt that they should be. I thought it would be interesting to start a small independent label to make a small contribution to the world of music. I just want to facilitate the bands that I'm working with – just to serve them as best I can. It's not about my ego."

Woods also spoke of 9, the Tim Burton-directed movie. I never saw it, but Elijah's name on the listing sways me towards seeing it in the future. Here's the trailer:



I think they characters are Burton-ized versions of the Little Big Planet sack people.

How cute!

At the end of the video, Wood revealed a list of things he wants to do--watch movies, read books, etc. These are all the same things that I love to do! Elijah, if you ever read this, we should accomplish our to-do lists together. ;)

National Individual Events: Tournament of Champions

During my stand-up phase (I mourned the season's end of John Oliver's New York Stand-up Show), I was looking up lots of videos of comedians--including the comedienne Kristen Schaal. When asked the requisite 'When did you know you were funny?' question, she pointed to her high school years. As an adolescent, she participated in Humorous Interpretation--most likely through her school's forensics team.

Now, for those who aren't familiar with high school and college forensics, we're not talking about CSI-fingerprinting-whose-DNA-is-on-the-carpet forensics. We're talking about debate and argumentation, and individual events such as humorous interpretation, dramatic interpretation, and duo interpretation. At the high school level, students compete locally at school-hosted and university-hosted tournaments. By winning, teams or individuals can garner enough 'bids' (high rankings in various national competitions) to qualify for the National Tournament of Champions (TOC). The TOC is where the best of the best compete for the title of national champion in a particular category. For more descriptions of the individual events, click here.

This youtube user has posted several of the finalist rounds here. Below are some of my favorites:

TOC 2005
Jeff Moscaritolo
Humorous Interpretation - Rinse the Blood Off of My Toga

• Summary: Julius Caesar has just been killed, and Brutus hires Flavius to discover the murderer.
• My favorite parts: Brutus' craziness is the highlight of this video. Moscaritolo's attention to (ridiculous) details was hilarious.

Part 1


Part 2




TOC 2009
Ismael Williams and Drake Pough
The Wizard of Hip

• Summary: A young man describes his upbringing and discovering what it means to be 'hip.' 
• My favorite parts: The musical intro and out-tro. I loved how even if two characters shared a scene, they chose to face the audience; by doing so, they were able to engage both the audience and the other character. For example, when the narrator is shaking the father (while facing us), the father shakes in response? These students communicated physical nearness without actual contact. That was really something. 

Part 1


Part 2

Doctor Who Meets Wall Street Journal

When I saw this ad on the last page of my issue of Time magazine, my heart skipped a beat. And not in the good way. I think I'm meant to associate the Wall Street Journal with little Einstein children who giggle as they set up science experiments in their backyards, and to imagine myself as the happy parent of such children. That somehow, by subscribing, I could be as enterprising and adorably forward-thinking as this little girl.

Well, WSJ ad team, you're in no luck. You should have checked in with Steven Moffat or at least caught up with your Doctor Who. Instead of joy and happiness, this ad just screams, 'TERROR! WATCH OUT! SADNESS!' And, it also just happens to make me scream.

For those who aren't familiar with the reference I'm making, you should watch Doctor Who Season 6: Episodes 1 & 2.

iOS: Land-a-panda

This game seems to have been made for me. It taps into my love of old-school platform Mario (see the similarities in the artwork?) and pandas.