It's All Hallows' Eve, Brah!

Everybody stay safe, have fun, and enjoy this mashup. NOW. 

Some Blogs Shannon Likes

Without any ado, here are some blogs I like. 

Texts from Bennett.

This is basically just screenshots of this guy’s iPhone showing texts from his cousin, Bennett. Bennett is 17, has a girlfriend named Mercedes, and is (according to his cousin) “one of the most unintentionally funny and brilliant souls on the planet.”

This one is personal favorite of mine.

This blog claims to be entirely real, but I have to say that I find that more than a little suspicious. This blog is pretty famous now, which means that this Bennett character must be aware of it, meaning that his texts would undoubtedly become skewed by his mere knowledge that they could end up on the internet.

Also the fact that this kid can’t actually exist in real life. I just can’t believe that.

Listverse:

This one is less funny than it is interesting and educational. But no one should ever turn their nose up at interesting education. 

This blog is basically a collection of lists. Everyone loves a good list. They make for excellent internet literature because the reader can scroll through easily to find the important stuff. (surfers of the internet don’t have time for lengthy reading, what with all the lolcats to see.) Some examples of the lists on listverse are: 10 Catalysts for World War Three, Top 10 Fascinating Wine Facts, and 10 Things You Probably Didn't Know About the Amish.

Listverse breaks the lists up into categories, so you can easily search through subjects that you like, or search things that aren't really your cup of tea and maybe gain a new interest! So go out there and learn something! HOORAY!!

And on a decidedly less educational note:

What the Auto-fill!?!

You know when you type a search into google, and it tries to finish your thought for you? You know how sometimes google can be ridiculously wrong? That is what this blog has captured. It consists of screenshots of google searches, in which the search suggestions are hilarious, offensive, or downright bizarre.

Par example:

So that's all for now. Stay tuned. 

MASHUP!!!

After hours of hard labor, I have finally finished.

Here is:

"So much beauty in F Minor (String Quartet in Dirt)"

By Ludwig van Mouse (ft. Modest Beethoven)

An Extremely Brief Blog Post

I made a redesign of the Cult of Done Manifesto.

Click here to see the original.

Click here to see my redesign!

The end.

Here's a tip:

The next time you want to use the word "possibilities" in a sentence, try saying "pastabilities" instead. This will surprise and delight your listener, while also honoring a very important and often underrated food group.

The more you know.

Arrested Development? Her?

My fabulous and intelligent blogmate has recently posted about the reboot of the amazing television series, Arrested Development. The blog she linked to has on-set pictures of the currently filming season and it made me RIDICULOUSLY excited. But, as a lover of the show, I feel that I need to play devil’s advocate for a sec.

So far it seems that the announcement of a film and a miniseries in the works has been met with unanimous, almost hysterical approval. Everyone has been eagerly awaiting this since the show’s cancellation in 2006, myself included. But after the movie rumors were confirmed, I started to have my doubts. Will this movie be a huge success? Or will the cast and crew of Arrested Development be saying, “I made a huge mistake”?

Arrested Development was a perfect show. It was genius writing, genius casting, genius use of puppets; but, inexplicably, it was cancelled after only three glorious seasons, a life span that most fans feel was way too short.

I disagree.

Arrested Development was cut off in its prime. The three seasons are a masterpiece. It never got a chance to decay, as all shows do inevitably, to the point where cancellation becomes an act of mercy. We can see examples of this now, as when The Office tried to continue post-Steve Carrel. The show floundered, leaving a bad taste in the mouth of all its fans. But Arrested Development never did that. It never “jumped the shark”. Or the flesh-eating seal.  

But now, with the promise of a miniseries and a movie on the way, Arrested Development is in danger of jumping the flesh-eating seal. The show is picking up five years after the last season ended. What has happened in those five years? Will the cast dynamic be the same? Will the same writer’s be involved? Will Michael Cera be able to handle this role now that he’s lost his baby fat and spent some quality time with a pervy mustache? 

No one can know for sure what the future holds. This reboot of the series could forever mar our appreciation of Arrested Development. And though I would love to see what happened to the characters after the end of last season, I’m not sure it’s worth the risk.

That being said, I will absolutely watch every single episode of this miniseries and attend the midnight premier of the movie, painted blue, doing a chicken dance as I stand in line. 

Mash-up till you crack-up

Been looking at lots of mashups of various types as inspiration for my own project; heres a hilarious one I found of video footage of running chickens set to the Chariots of Fire theme song.

I now present: Chickens of Fire!!!

There's a blog I felt guilty about excluding in my post of blogs to check out, and so to be fair to it, I'm devoting an entire lengthily post to it. This blog gives me an opportunity to babble about my absolute favorite sitcom. We've known each other for a while now, dear readers, and you've probably picked up on my love for Arrested Development.

The Bluth Company

For those unfortunate souls unfamiliar with the Bluth family, they are the stars of the show Arrested Development. AD was a sitcom that first aired on FOX in 2001 that only lasted for three seasons but has since gained a huge cult following. The shows opening credits describe it as "the story of a wealthy family, and the one son who had no choice but to keep them all together". The show boasts a stellar cast, including Jason Bateman, Michael Cera, and Portia de Rossi. Because of its cult popularity, and the fact that it was cut wayyyy before it jumped the shark, last spring it was announced that nine more episodes will be released in early 2013 (as a Netflix exclusive) to develop a plot for a movie.

I could probably write a novel listing all the reasons you should watch Arrested Development if you never have, but if I can convince you to check out this blog and the blog doesn't convince you to watch Arrested Development, you are clearly destined to live a humorless existence (just kidding... not like you would know).

The Bluth Company is dedicated to Arrested Development and posts everything form funny screenshots to news about the upcoming season. The blog is on tumblr so it has a tumblr feed to scroll posts in chronological order, but at the top and left it has a menu of a multitude of useful links that will allow you to peruse the site in other ways. The first link on the top bar, ABOUT THE SHOW, gives a lengthily description of the show and lists awards, nominations, cast and crew members. THE FAMILY gives long bios for the family members along with the picture of each member from the opening credits. The other links include Q&A, MERCH (as in merchandise… for all your AD related products), FAN ART, and NEW SEASON UPDATES, but the most awesome of them, in my humble opinion, is HIDDEN JOKES.

This link takes you to all posts that fall under the category of explaining any of the innumerable subtle, carefully thought out jokes that make this show so repeatedly watchable. These jokes span the range of subtle red herrings (foreshadowing) for things to happen in the future of the show, references to the cast member’s past work, or even occasionally breaking the fourth wall. I wouldn’t recommend scrolling through this section if you haven’t yet seen the show, as there’s quite a few spoilers, but here’s a hidden joke that won’t ruin anything for you.

The sidebar allows you to scan the site by posts based on characer or individual episode. It gives you links to twitters of some of the major cast members and a link to it’s own twitter.

So, if you’re already an avid AD fan this blog will provide endless entertainment, and if you’re not yet, this blog is sure to get you hooked!

Mash-up Artist Showcase: Nick Bombicino

A couple of years ago a friend of mine took is upon himself to create a new mashup every Monday. He got super good at it. He's had to since stop due to the amount of time they would take to make (if you watch just a few of them you'll see how intense the filming/editing is as well as the actual mashing up of the music) but he managed to make a whole bunch.

This is one that I mentioned in class and was then requested of me to post:

This is another one of my favorites:

And this:

Enjoy!

Click here to see his channel and peruse his other work.

SHAMELESS PLUG:  you may be excited to know that Nick is also an actor! Here's a short horror film that he starred in this summer (produced by and also starring yours truly!)

What Not To Wear: Halloween Edition

Well it’s the first of October, y’all. And you know what that means, right? Time to start doing something you should have been doing for the past twelve months: planning your Halloween costume. And while I don’t know what the perfect costume is (and if I did I wouldn’t give it away), I can tell you what to avoid this season.

   1)   Bulky Costumes. It’s Halloween weekend, people. This is the weekend when even those who don’t party, party. Kitchens, living rooms, hallways, and creepy murky basements are going to be jam-PACKED with literally everyone. So don’t be the douche who goes as a centaur and has a whole horse sticking out his ass. You’ll make some enemies.

   2)   “I’m a nudist on strike”. This one is just lazy, unoriginal, and trivializing to the Nudist Strike efforts. 

   3)   Costumes that are too cold. The end of October signals the end of temperatures where you can wear nothing but a strapless mini dress and live to tell the tale. And while you may look smoking hot in a backless halter and Daisy Dukes, your hypothermia-blackened fingers and the deluge of snot flowing out your nose will drastically lessen your appeal.

   4)   Costumes that are too hot. Yes, this goes against number 3, but think about it. Houses will be absolutely crammed with hundreds of dancing, jumping, excited college students. It’s gonna get toasty. How to balance between the freezing tundra of the outdoors and the uncomfortably moist sauna that is a party basement? LAYERS.

   5)   “Slutty” versions of specific people. Take any occupation, make it slutty, and you have yourself a perfect Halloween costume. It’s when you get specific that you get into trouble. Going as “slutty Helen Keller” won’t make you any friends.

And on a related note…

   6)   Costumes that will get you punched. See above.

   7)   Group costumes that don’t make sense by themselves. My friends and I once went as one potato two potato three potato four. We each wore big brown t-shirts filled with stuffing, bearing the numbers one through four. Inevitably, at many moments during the night we were not directly next to each other, and I just looked like a giant third base. Not what I was going for.

   8)   Expensive costumes. Chances are, you will not find another context to wear your Halloween costume until next Halloween, and you don’t want to be the loser who wears the same costume every year. So do yourself a favor and don’t empty your bank account buying yourself a boa constrictor so that you can be Britney Spears. This is Vermont. Go into the woods and catch your own snake. It’s free!

But worst of all…

   9)   No costume. “Dressing up is so immature.” Ok, buzzkill, you can stay home with a vinyl of Bach’s symphonies on the record player, while reading Hawthorne novels and sipping a glass of scotch. The rest of us will be acting like five year olds and having a fucking great time.