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Homer Simpson’s Life Flashing Before His Eyes [Updated]

View it before FOX’s copyright cops take it down — it’s the “Homer’s life flashing before his eyes” sequence from last night’s episode of The Simpsons:

Update: The YouTube video got taken down, but you can watch the video at JibJab.com.


Click here to see the video on JibJab.com.

Watching that sequence, a couple of things came to mind:

Categories
funny

The Star Wars Holiday Special

So Bad, Even George Lucas Wants Nothing to Do With It!

Even as an eleven-year-old back in 1978, I knew as soon as the voice-over went…

with special guest stars…Beatrice Arthur! Art Carney! Diahann Carroll! The Jefferson Starship! Harvey Korman!

…that something was about to go terribly, terribly wrong with the Star Wars Holiday Special, a show so terribly bad that even George “I’m no longer qualified to tell good from bad” Lucas has disavowed any involvement with it, no matter how minor.

Now, thanks to the miracle of Google Video, you too can enjoy the so-bad-it’s-goodness of the Star Wars Holiday Special, either in the tiny window below or on its Google Video page at a larger size. After watching it, Episode I: The Phantom Menace seems like The Godfather in comparison. At least Phantom Menace had the decency to not include a scene featuring Bea Arthur doing a Broadway number and dancing with Greedo.


Click here to watch a larger version.

The Five-Minute Version

If you can’t bear to watch all two soul-crushing hours of the Star Wars Holiday Special, you’re in luck: some kind soul has created an edit that sums it up nicely in five minutes. It spares you a lot of painfully bad wookie pantomime…


Click here to see the video on its YouTube page.

Links

  • Wikipedia page for the Star Wars Holiday Special
  • Stomp Tokyo’s review: “Like so many of the films we end up watching, The Star Wars Holiday Special is a curiosity best left to extremely hard-core fans and to the corners of history. No matter how appealing it sounds to begin with, we guarantee this viewing experience can bring you little but pain. Fast forward to the animated sequence (let the Force be your guide) and turn the VCR off immediately after it ends. Trust in these words: you’ll hate the rest of the special, and hate leads to the Dark Side.”
  • BadMovies.org: “Arrrrggghhhhh! Why am I watching this?”
  • i-Mockery.com: “I don’t care how many public claims he’s made about wanting this holiday special wiped off the face of the planet, I still have a hunch that George Lucas watches it every night, masturbating furiously as he cackles like a madman. Oh you knew what you were doing Georgie boy… and just because you made sure your name didn’t appear in the credits doesn’t mean you’re not still responsible for it. Come on George! It’s time for you to let the world see that twisted stepson known as “The Star Wars Holiday Special” whom you’ve had locked in the attic all these years. After all, if you can show the world “The Phantom Menace” with no shame, I see no reason why you can’t give this special the same treatment.”
  • The Unknown Movies: “Though I was really pained by many moments of this terrible special, I must admit that several hours later I found myself laughing out loud, remembering some especially horrible moments. As I write this, it is 24 hours since I’ve seen the special, and I am still laughing out loud at times as I write, even remembering some of the material that while watching almost made me scream in agony. So I guess in an indirect way, I did get some entertainment value out of it.”
  • OhTheHumanity.com: “If you want to beautiful childhood memories to disappear, if you want to brag about how much Star Wars stinks and this shows it, if you want to take your mind off how happy your life is and want to wallow in misery for a couple of hours, please see this. Hell, please see it anyway, if you can find a bootleg, because it’s probably the most messed up thing you could ever watch around the holidays other than your aunt hit on your older brother. I’ll be washing this movie off me for weeks.”

[This was cross-posted to Global Nerdy.]

Categories
Geek

Meanwhile, on “Global Nerdy”…

In case you’d forgotten, I write another blog: Global Nerdy, where I cover articles of interest to programmers, techies, nerds and all you folks who like keeping up with all things geeky. Listed beow are some of the most recent postings:

Angry woman holding a rolling pin beside “Master Chief” from “Halo 3”.“Halo 3” Cheat Codes, as Explained by a Neglected Girlfriend: “X, A, B, DOWN, RIGHT, Y: God mode. Total invincibility to all attacks. You can just stand there and the aliens can’t kill you. Heck, you could even put the controller down and they still can’t do anything. You could even walk away from the Xbox and—crazy idea—talk to someone who’s been sitting here for the past hour wondering if that was in fact an actual conversation she had earlier about going to the movies this afternoon and not just an incredibly realistic dream.”

Bug vs. Feature: Just in case the difference wasn’t clear to you.

It’s Complicated: An XKCD comic on everyone’s favourite Facebook relaionship status.

Photo of my desk and gear setup at TSOT.

Developer Hardware Nerdvana at TSOT: They give us some pretty nice gear at work.

In PHP, There’s Equality and Then There’s EQUALITY: Not all “equals” operators are created equal.

Area Man Gives Glowing Review for His Windows Vista to XP Upgrade Experience: I’m thinking about upgrading from Vista to XP myself.

Panel from a comic: “Show her how good you are at math!”Pythagorean Pick-Up: If you were (or are) a high school nerd, you’ll wish school social life worked like this.

1000 Copies of “Rock Band” Taken in Truck Heist: A sure sign we’re living in the 21st century: a couple of guys hijacked a truckload of videogames!

“BioShock” Meets a Shopping Cart: Quite possibly the world’s first Objectivist shopping cart.

Categories
funny

Comedy Family Tree

Here’s a comedy family tree that shows all the spiritual descendants of two British comedy television shows: At Last the 1948 Show (whose cast included John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Marty Feldman) and Do Not Adjust Your Set (whose cast included Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Eric Idle) .Their influences can be traced from these two TV series you might not have heard of all the way to South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut.

Comedy family tree
Click the image to see it at full size.
Image courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.

Categories
It Happened to Me Work

El Zone Del Trabajo

For the curious, I’ve got a Flickr photoset showing my current workplace, TSOT’s temporary office (we’re moving to the permanent office in January).

Tcotchkes on my desk
Click the photo to see the whole photoset.

I’ll be updating it from time to time, so check it often!

Categories
It Happened to Me Toronto (a.k.a. Accordion City)

Sign of the Day

I noticed something strange on a sign on Bloor Street, just west of Avenue Road:

Medical Directory sign on Bloor Street listing “Imagineering” as one of the services.
Note the services offered: “Imagineering”?

I read the sign: “Accupuncturist, cardiologist, dentist…imagineering? As in Disney ride engineer?” (Clearly Cory Doctorow has rubbed off on me.)

It turns out that Imagineering is also the name of a multimedia company. Ah well.

Categories
Work

Office Holiday Party Memo of the Day

Ah, the peril-fraught office holiday party…

Scene from an office Chistmas party: the drunken grope

I’ve always worked in small- to medium-sized companies that had casual dress codes — if they had any at all. Hence when the office Holiday/Christmas/Festivus/whatever party rolled around, the most I’ve ever received in the way of a dress guideline was “it’s at the Palais Royale, so it’s semi-formal”. It’s a simple, reasonable request (TSOT’s party, which takes place tomorrow, is semi-formal).

Other people are not so fortunate. A reader whom I’ll call “Noel” sent me a copy of the memo s/he received from her/his company’s social committee regarding appropriate dress for their upcoming holiday party. It appears below — the only change I’ve made was formatting it so that it’s easier to read:

This year’s event is not as formal as last years. The dress code is semi-formal/cocktail attire. Please find below some suitable clothing examples for the occasion:

Suitable Articles of Clothing:

  • For Women:
    • Dresses (short to mid-length elegant dresses, i.e. hem one inch above/below the knee to two inches above the ankle)
    • Pants Suits (ankle length hems)
    • Dress Suits (dressy evening separates, not business suits. hem knee length to floor length) (Suggestion: choose looks with a bit of sparkle or holiday bent (for example a beaded sweater with black pants, a red silk blouse with a black skirt). dressy evening separates)
  • For Men:
    • Suits
    • Tie (Optional) (General Rule of thumb: if a button-down shirt is worn with the suit, then a tie would be in good taste).
    • Dress shirt (with or without tie) with dress pants

Appropriate Fabrics and Materials:

  • Women: Silk, Chiffon, Satin, Sateen, Gossamer, Brocade, Rayon, Cashmere, Polyester, Velour, Velvet, Velveteen, etc.
    *Also, embellishments such as sequins and beads are appropriate for women.
  • Men: Wool, Polyester, Gabardine, Cotton, etc.

Many thanks,
Your Social Committee

When I asked “Noel” if I could post this memo on this blog, s/he replied: “Certain ‘cultures’ thrive in darkness. I think shedding a little light on this particular one would be a good thing!” In case you were wondering, the company from which this memo came is located somewhere in the greater Accordion City area.

Got any examples of corporate overly micro-managey behaviour that you’d like to share anonymously on an insanely popular blog? Send ’em to me!