combOVER

I know it has been some time since I last wrote a blog entry on this blog (and any other, for that matter) but after a whole term spent in Utrecht I deserved to take a break. (And I didn't have a full access to the Internet until today, which also explains why I haven't been able to look for silly videos to chew on.)

Since last time that guy who decided to have a combover haircut for the sake of a "scientific experiment" put an end to it and gives us his conclusions:

"After I shaved it off completely and walked around bald nobody thought that was remotely interesting: 'Oh, it's just a bald guy. Normal. Easy. No problem.' That's probably the best solution for people who have combovers unless you really love the combover, but I suspect that a lot of people with combovers don't really like their combovers: they're just afraid of accepting baldness, which, I think, is totally unnecessary. Bald can look really great and I think it's worth accepting your baldness unless you truly love your combover, in which case I support you too. (…) Some people are just afraid of the unknown, and the unknown is complete baldness, and let me tell you: it feels good, it's easy to maintain and nobody's gonna be whispering behind your back about how you're being in denial and you're not fooling anyone."

"The Big Lebowski": Making of

The Coen brothers, Jeff Bridges and John Goodman talk about The Big Lebowski, definitely a masterpiece from the 90s.



Part 2 (I can't embed it here because the function was disabled on YouTube).

Part 3

Mattress sketch

As you know, you'd be a fool to buy a mattress except in January and July due to the huge discounts that you can get on these months.

Der Untergang von Vista

Hitler has problems with Windows Vista…

The Combover experiment: an update

Let's take a look at what happened to this fellow who decided to have his hair ruined by a combover for the sake of sociology:

Captain Birdseye

Recently on Facebook I joined a silly group of "Captain Bigleux" fans: "MMMH,ILS SONT FAMEUX LES BATONNETS DEGUEUS DU CAPTAIN BIGLEUX." Captain Bigleux (which is slang for "nearsighted") is a character who appeared in one of the numerous fake commercials by French humorists Les Nuls.



It is basically a spoof on Captain Birdseye (or Captain Iglo in French) 's fish fingers, which here become "bâtonnets dégueux" (i.e. "disgusting sticks")… Captain Birdsey was played by a certain John Hewer, who passed away last year — sadly enough in the most complete indifference from the media.

From Wikipedia:

The actor most associated with Captain Birdseye was John Hewer, a Lowestoft man who played the character from 1967 to 1998. Hewer died on 16 March 2008.^[2] For a while in the late 90s, Captain Birdseye became a much younger, rugged, dark-haired man with designer stubble and a miniature submarine, who indulged in far more action-packed adventures accompanied by his pet pelican named Pedro, the advertising agencies presumably believing that the older white-bearded man would no longer have the same appeal to children as he once did. This version did not last long however, and the better-known version soon returned.

Here are two commercials from the 80s:



Is it me or does he look like a pedophile decoying his victims with fish fingers?


The most interesting part is that people posted a lot of silly pictures which I felt necessary to show you:









This is how you prevent your bike from being stolen in the Netherlands.

Don't drink booze, kids!

Look at what happened to James Brown…

"Snow what?"

Speed: alternate ending

The bus from Speed rampages through the city…

Gamelle Trophy

It must be really painful to come a cropper like that…

Why so serious?

The Joker practices his origin story about his scars… Only the NostalgiaCritic could do that!



"My father… was Rick James. That's right: I'm half black. I covered it up with a white make-up because I have identity issues. Just like Michael Jackson! You know what? My father was Michael Jackson."

"My father… was my mother."

"I fell into a bath of chemicals and I just came out this way. No, nobody would buy that."

"What the hell am I supposed to do with this?"

The Combover experiment

A brave (or foolish?) man decided to change his regular hairstyle for a hideous combover in order to see how people would react…

Being a smartass

Remember that hilarious video depicting Darth Vader being a smartass?



Well, it gave ideas to other YouTube users, resulting in this scene where Saruman (Christopher Lee) is being a smartass to Gandalf (Sir Ian McKellen):



Now the Emperor himself pisses Vader off:



"Don't make me destroy you!"

Bonus (for those of you who've watched 300:

"Mission: Impossible" alternate endings

First movie:



(This ending is more plausible than the actual ending!)

Second movie:



Ace Ventura spoiled the cliffhanger…


Third movie:

Lookalikes (6)

A pleasant coincidence


Haha!






Same nose indeed.


LOL


That's just unbelievable.




No way!


Nice star!


That's maybe because he played Rommel…

Isambard Kingdom Brunel

As part of a series the BBC programme Great Britons designed to elect the greatest briton of all time, Jeremy Clarkson advocated Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who was Britain's finest engineer:

No egg nog this year

I know that Christmas Week is behind us but I forgot to feature the following re-cut trailer to Home Alone…

"Leon": alternate ending

Luc Besson's Léon (or The Professional) is crossed over with Swordfish.

Happy New Year!!! (bis)

As I wrote a year ago: "It is customary to say 'Happy New Year' to everyone on 1st January, so now it's done (it was quick!), I can go on with my usual silly things I found.

Let's have a look at what will happen this year:"

2009 has been designated as the:

• International Year of Astronomy.
• International Year of Natural Fibres. [SL: I'm not surprised after the International Year of the Potato.]
• International Year of Reconciliation. [SL: I'm not sure it'll be successful.]

Predicted events:

• January 1 - Slovakia adopts the euro and becomes the 16th member of the Eurozone.
• January 20 - Inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States.
• January 26 - Annular solar eclipse.
• February 12 - Darwin Day, the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. Events are already being planned at the London Natural History Museum. [SL: I doubt Americans will celebrate this…]
• February 13 - The Unix time number reaches 1234567890 seconds at 23:31:30 UTC. [SL: funny.]
• February 22 - The 81st Academy Awards will be held at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles, California. [SL. For the first time since 2003 BeTV will broadcast the ceremony so I won't miss it this time!]
• June 4-7 - The European Parliament election 2009 will take place, the exact date varies depending on country. [SL: really nice of 'our' European representative to organise this election while millions of students are taking exams… I also predict that we'll have to go to the polls for the Belgian federal election.]
• July 1 - Sweden takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union from the Czech Republic.
• July 22 - Total solar eclipse. The longest lasting total solar eclipse of the 21st century.
• September - The Burj Dubai in Dubai, UAE will be completed. It is already the tallest man-made structure ever built. [SL. It's currently more than 800 metres high!]

And, sadly, as I wrote a year ago:

"Furthermore, the Iraq war will continue, as well as the War in Afghanistan, the Conflict in Darfur, and also the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

2008: an summary

So today's New Year's Eve, which means it's time for looking back at what happened in 2008, don't you think? To help me remember all that I rely on the Wikipedia entry on 2008. I just highlight some events, or else this blog post would be filled by reports on suicide bombings and other wars, coups and mass killings…

2008 was designated as:

• International Year of Planet Earth.
• International Year of Languages.
• International Year of the Potato.
• International Year of Sanitation.
• International Year of the Frog.
• European Year of Intercultural Dialogue.
• The Year of the Rat (by the Chinese calendar)

I hadn't even noticed all that. I even think that the "International Year of the Frog" deserves being mentioned for its lack of concern from the media.

• January 1 - Cyprus, Malta, adopt the euro.
• January 21 - Stock markets around the world plunge amid growing fears of a U.S. recession, fueled by the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis. [SL: "Premonitions? Premonitions?"]
• February 19 - Fidel Castro announces his resignation as President of Cuba, effective February 24.
• February 24 - Raúl Castro is unanimously elected as President of Cuba by the National Assembly.
• March 29 - Presidential and parliamentary elections are held in Zimbabwe.
• April 8 - Privy Council of Sark dismantles its feudal system to comply with the European Convention on Human Rights. and the first elections under the new law will be held in December 2008 and the new chamber will first convene in January 2009. [SL: WTF?]
• June 12 - Ireland votes to reject the Treaty of Lisbon, in the only referendum to be held by a European Union member state on the treaty.
• June 27 - President Robert Mugabe is reelected with 85.5% of the vote in the second round of the controversial Zimbabwean presidential election. [SL: Come on…]
• June 27 - After 3 decades as the Chairman of Microsoft Corporation, Bill Gates steps down from daily duties to concentrate on philanthropy.
• July 2 - Íngrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages are rescued from FARC by Colombian security forces. [SL: Hearing non-stop news reports about the rescue and so on completely drove me crazy!]
• August 8–24 - The 2008 Summer Olympics take place in Beijing, China.
• August 17 - Michael Phelps surpasses Mark Spitz in Gold Medals won at a single Olympics, winning 8.
• September 10 - The proton beam is circulated for the first time in the Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator, located at CERN, near Geneva, under the Franco-Swiss border.
• September 15 - Following negotiations, President Robert Mugabe and opposition leaders Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara sign a power-sharing deal, making Tsvangirai the new Prime Minister of Zimbabwe.
• October 3 - Global financial crisis: U.S. President George W. Bush signs the revised Emergency Economic Stabilization Act into law, creating a 700 billion dollar Treasury fund to purchase failing bank assets. [SL: The beginning of the end for the world economy…]
• October 9 - Global financial crisis: Following a major banking and financial crisis in Iceland, the Icelandic Financial Supervisory Authority takes control of the 3 largest banks in the country: Kaupthing Bank, Landsbanki, and Glitnir.
• November 4 - United States presidential election, 2008: Barack Obama is elected the 44th President of the United States and Joe Biden is elected the 47th Vice President. Barack Obama becomes the first African-American President-elect.
• November 22 - Frozen water is found on Mars. [SL: Useful when the Americans bring their Coke or Pepsi on the red planet…]
• December 6 - Riots spread across Greece after a 15-year-old boy is shot dead by a special guard of the Greek Police.
• December 10 - The Channel Island of Sark, a British crown dependency, holds its first fully democratic elections under a new constitutional arrangement, becoming the last European territory to abolish feudalism.
• December 16 - Ruins of an ancient Wari city are discovered in northern Peru. [SL: And what about the crystal skulls?]
• December 31 - An extra leap second (23:59:60) is added to end the year. The last time this occurred was in 2005.

These people passed away:

• January 11 - Edmund Hillary, New Zealand mountaineer, explorer, and philanthropist, conqueror of Mount Everest (b. 1919)
• January 22 - Heath Ledger, Australian actor (b. 1979) [SL: a dreadful loss.]
• February 10 - Roy Scheider, American actor (b. 1932) [SL: "We're gonna need a bigger boat."]
• February 13 - Henri Salvador, French singer (b. 1917)
• March 19 - Arthur C. Clarke, English author, inventor, and futurist (b. 1917) & Hugo Claus, Flemish writer, painter and film director (b. 1929)
• April 5 - Charlton Heston, American actor (b. 1923)
• May 26 - Sydney Pollack, American actor, director, and producer (b. 1934)
• June 15 - Stan Winston, American special effects and makeup artist (b. 1946)
• August 9 - Bernie Mac, African-American actor and comedian (b. 1957)
• September 1 - Don LaFontaine, American voice actor (b. 1940) [SL: he was the voice you could hear in many trailers]
• September 26 - Paul Newman, American actor (b. 1925)
• October 20 - Sœur Emmanuelle, Belgian-born French nun (b. 1908)
• December 13 - Horst Tappert, German actor (b. 1923)
• December 24 - Harold Pinter, English playwright (b. 1930)

That's it. Join me on 31 December 2009 for a summary of the year!