Blogenheimer

2008-08-21T20:21:00.000-07:00

Neal Stephenson is profiled in this Wired article in preparation for the release of his new book Anathem.

2008-07-08T22:37:00.000-07:00

My favorite history blog, The Edge of the American West, takes a break from history to post two funny muppet videos. First, Cookie Monster discusses trends in snack foods with Stephen Colbert. Second, the Count sings.

2008-05-19T21:43:00.000-07:00

Ricky Gervais presents the inspiration for The Office in this Saturday Night Live film.

2008-05-01T21:46:00.000-07:00

Final Jeopardy is a blog with video clips of every day's Final Jeopardy answer and question.

2008-04-30T19:54:00.000-07:00

This Washington Post article profiles Adam Chodikoff, The Daily Show's "investigative humorist."

"Chodikoff, 37, doesn't perform on the show or write the gags that pepper Stewart's take on the day's news. But as the show's chief researcher and video wiz, he's the vital link in the program's comedic ecosystem. Chodikoff's job is to dig through the vast quarry of TV news footage to find the nuggets that form the program's pointed, often eye-opening "reporting." In a manner of speaking, he's an investigative humorist."

2008-04-21T22:35:00.001-07:00

"Charlie Rose" by Samuel Beckett

2008-04-16T20:33:00.000-07:00

Supercuts are video montages created by obsessive superfans from "every phrase/action/cliche from an episode (or entire series) of their favorite show/film/game." Waxy.org collects a list of supercuts in this post, including every couch opening from the Simpsons and every "yeah" from the movie Fargo.

2008-04-10T19:37:00.000-07:00

Nerve and IFC present The 50 Greatest Comedy Sketches of All Time. (Many with video clips.)

2008-03-17T21:51:00.000-07:00

Michael Chabon examines superhero costumes in this New Yorker article.

2008-02-26T22:02:00.000-08:00

Garfield Minus Garfield is the blog that asks the question, "Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolor disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life?"

2008-02-21T21:58:00.000-08:00

Stuff White People Like is the blog devoted to stuff that white people like.

2008-02-19T22:47:00.000-08:00

Charles Fawcett died in London on February 3rd. He was 92. You may have heard of him from the book and movie Charlie Wilson's War, but as this Telegraph obituary shows, the war in Afghanistan was only a part of Fawcett's amazing life. One example:

"In Paris Fawcett also took part in the rescue of a group of British prisoners-of-war who had been placed under French guard in a hospital ward by the Germans. By impersonating a German ambulance crew, Fawcett and a comrade marched in at 4am and ordered the French nurses to usher the PoWs out into the yard. "Gentlemen," he announced as he drove them away, "consider yourself liberated."

"You're a Yank," said a British voice.

"Never," came Fawcett's lilting southern burr, "confuse a Virginian with a Yankee."

2008-02-14T20:00:00.000-08:00

Eric Rauchway explains the similarities between the Nixon and Bush administrations in this New Republic article.

2008-02-07T22:07:00.000-08:00

Ten Star Wars Toys that Unintentionally Look Like Other Celebrities

2008-02-04T22:14:00.000-08:00

Eric Rauchway explains how American political coalitions fall apart in this New Republic article. According to Rauchway, Republican "coalitions fall apart because they can't govern." While Democratic coalitions fail "because the party has overreached after governing successes."

2008-01-30T21:35:00.000-08:00

The best book I've read recently is Steve Martin's memoir "Born Standing Up." In this excerpt from the book published in Smithsonian Magazine, Martin discusses his approach to comedy and his appearances on the Tonight Show. The article also includes a great story about Elvis Presley. You can watch Martin's breakthrough Tonight Show performance by following the link at the top of the article. It's worth watching, particularly because it begins with Johnny Carson wearing an amazing suit.

2008-01-28T21:22:00.000-08:00

This New York Times article explains the origin of the fortune cookie.

"Some 3 billion fortune cookies are made each year, almost all in the United States. But the crisp cookies wrapped around enigmatic sayings have spread around the world. They are served in Chinese restaurants in Britain, Mexico, Italy, France and elsewhere. In India, they taste more like butter cookies. A surprisingly high number of winning tickets in Brazil's national lottery in 2004 were traced to lucky numbers from fortune cookies distributed by a Chinese restaurant chain called Chinatown.

But there is one place where fortune cookies are conspicuously absent: China.

Now a researcher in Japan believes she can explain the disconnect, which has long perplexed American tourists in China. Fortune cookies, Yasuko Nakamachi says, are almost certainly originally from Japan."

2008-01-14T21:50:00.000-08:00

The world's flags given letter grades

2008-01-07T22:07:00.000-08:00

For the sixth straight year, Fimoculous has compiled his list of Best of the Year Lists.

2007-12-20T22:52:00.000-08:00

Stephen Colbert voted Celebrity of the Year by the Associated Press.

2007-12-18T22:13:00.000-08:00

Kermit the Frog covers the Talking Heads song Once in a Lifetime in this YouTube video.

2007-11-15T23:08:00.000-08:00

The writers of The Daily Show have made a special writer's strike version of The Daily Show at a New York City picket line.

2007-11-13T21:53:00.000-08:00

Malcolm Gladwell argues that criminal profiling is a hoax in this New Yorker article.

2007-11-12T21:57:00.000-08:00

Follow this link to watch the first high definition television video of the moon taken by the Japanese lunar explorer KAGUYA.

2007-10-25T21:37:00.000-07:00

As this Wall Street Journal article explains, with the increased popularity of genealogical research, the demand for the work done by historical photo detectives has increased.

"Maureen Taylor has dated a photograph to 1913 by studying the size and shape of a Lion touring car's headlamps. Armed with her collection of 19th-century fashion magazines, she can pinpoint the brief period when Victorian women wore their bangs in tight curls rather than swept back. Using a technique borrowed from the CIA, she identified a photo of Jesse James by examining the shape of his right ear."

2007-10-23T20:48:00.000-07:00

"How the Edwardians Spoke" is a BBC documentary on how British accents have changed over the last 100 years. You can watch the hour-long program here on Google Video.

2007-10-09T21:31:00.000-07:00

According to this article from The Hill, Democrats are optimistic about their chances in the 2008 Minnesota congressional elections.

"The entry of a trio of top Democratic candidates into races in the state’s three GOP-held House districts in the past 10 days has spurred talk of turning Minnesota into the Massachusetts of the Midwest, electing a congressional delegation that could mirror the all-Democratic slate representing arguably the most liberal state in the Union.

Whether or not the Democrats can achieve such a tall order, the state has quickly turned into a battleground, with as many as half its congressional seats up for grabs in 2008."

2007-09-26T21:47:00.000-07:00

Does exercise make you thinner? According to this New York Magazine article, "despite half a century of efforts to prove otherwise, scientists still can’t say that exercise will help keep off the pounds."

2007-09-20T21:35:00.000-07:00

Simon Schama discusses the life and work of the painter J. M. W. Turner in this New Yorker article.

2007-09-18T21:39:00.000-07:00

As this Times Online article explains, after "25 years, five working prints and three quite different cinema releases," Ridley Scott is finally happy with the latest version of his film Blade Runner.

2007-09-10T21:24:00.000-07:00

The characters from The Office discuss what they did this summer in this YouTube clip.

2007-08-28T23:15:00.000-07:00

William Gibson discusses "growing up in Virginia, becoming renowned as a science-fiction seer, and the process of writing his latest novel, Spook Country," in this Onion A.V. Club interview.

2007-08-23T22:42:00.000-07:00

Eight Foods You Should Eat Every Day

2007-08-21T21:47:00.000-07:00

Beloit College has created its Mindset List for the incoming college class of 2011. The list is an effort "to identify a worldview of 18 year-olds in the fall of 2007." Some examples:

10. Pete Rose has never played baseball.

39. Fox has always been a major network.

55. MTV has never featured music videos.

61. They never saw Johnny Carson live on television.

2007-08-20T23:08:00.000-07:00

Adam Gopnik examines the life and novels of Phillip K. Dick in this New Yorker article.

2007-08-16T22:27:00.000-07:00

The 10 Most Awesome Movies Hollywood Ever Killed

2007-08-15T22:29:00.000-07:00

Are we all living in someone's computer simulation? In this New York Times article, Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom says, “My gut feeling, and it’s nothing more than that, is that there’s a 20 percent chance we’re living in a computer simulation.”

2007-08-14T23:36:00.000-07:00

James Carville explains "How Karl Rove lost a generation of Republicans" in this Financial Times column.

2007-08-09T22:02:00.000-07:00

James Surowiecki discusses what's wrong with student loans in this New Yorker article.

"This convoluted process is good at making student-loan companies rich—Sallie Mae, the biggest issuer of student loans, earned $1.3 billion last year, with a return on equity that dwarfs most other companies’. But it’s not very good at getting government money to students cheaply and efficiently. President Bush’s 2007 budget shows, for instance, that it’s four times as expensive for the government to subsidize and guarantee private loans as for it to issue those loans itself. In other words, the current system is not just corrupt. It’s also inefficient. So why are we stuck with it?"

2007-08-08T21:41:00.000-07:00

The Ten Best Bands That Never Existed

2007-08-07T22:30:00.000-07:00

William Gibson discusses his new novel Spook Country in this Wired interview.

2007-08-06T22:34:00.000-07:00

Maps of War presents an animated map showing the History of Religion in 90 seconds.

2007-07-30T22:47:00.000-07:00

Smart Money magazine presents, "The Best Time to Buy Everything."

2007-07-24T22:42:00.000-07:00

The Family Guy looks at what the world would be like if Al Gore was president in this YouTube clip.

2007-07-23T22:27:00.000-07:00

I know what you're thinking. What would it look like if 1,500 Filipino prison inmates decided to recreate Michael Jackson's Thriller video? Well, it would look like this.

2007-07-16T22:39:00.000-07:00

Vanity Fair magazine presents an oral history of The Simpsons.

2007-07-03T21:16:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Mrs. Blogenheimer and I enjoyed watching The Best of Will Ferrell on DVD. My favorite clip was this appearance by Ferrell as Robert Goulet on Late Night with Conan O'Brien.

2007-07-02T21:48:00.000-07:00

The Chinese Popeye.

2007-06-19T22:28:00.000-07:00

The Office's Creed Bratton shares his opinions in his blog Creed Thoughts.

2007-06-11T22:38:00.000-07:00

A video showing 500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art in 3 minutes.

2007-05-31T22:13:00.000-07:00

Michael Cera has a funny new web-only show called Clark and Michael. It is a mockumentary about two young writers trying to sell their script in Hollywood.

2007-05-30T22:13:00.000-07:00

In this funny video clip Arrested Development's Michael Cera gets fired on the set of the movie Knocked Up.

2007-05-21T21:54:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, Mrs. Blogenheimer and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary by enjoying Jon Stewart's show at the Orpheum Theater. Here's an interview with Jon Stewart from the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

2007-05-17T21:44:00.000-07:00

100 Movies, 100 Quotes, 100 Numbers. How many do you recognize?

2007-05-15T21:38:00.000-07:00

Follow this link to watch Akira Kurosawa and Francis Ford Coppola in a series of Japanese television ads for Suntory whisky.

2007-05-10T22:10:00.000-07:00

Alan Bacchus examines The Greatest Long Tracking Shots in Cinema in this post from his blog Daily Film Dose.

2007-05-03T22:41:00.000-07:00

In this NFL Films video, Will Ferrell plays Chuck Barry, the self-proclaimed "best NFL trainer in the universe," who helps train USC center Ryan Kalil for the NFL draft.

"After a rather inauspicious career as a walk-on USC linebacker (five career tackles, five career ejections for unorthodox play) and what amounts to tryouts with 12 NFL teams in the 1970s, Barry set his sights on molding young men. His revolutionary style of training -- including "Crab Legs", the "Twinkie Drill" and "The Old Caboose" -- has made an impact on USC players like Kalil, Matt Leinart and others."

2007-05-01T20:58:00.000-07:00

On Friday's premier of Bill Moyers Journal, Moyers began by saying, "I start my day with Josh Marshall and end it with Jon Stewart." It's like I have a twin! You can watch Moyers interview with Jon Stewart here and his interview with Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall here.

2007-04-30T22:35:00.000-07:00

Spinal Tap reunites to fight global warming.

2007-04-24T21:43:00.000-07:00

For this year's White House Correspondent's Dinner, David Letterman presented an updated version of his Top 10 George W. Bush moments.

2007-04-23T21:36:00.000-07:00

"It's official. Stephen Colbert is the Greatest Living American."

2007-04-18T22:58:00.000-07:00

Finally, someone is asking the uncomfortable question: Was the attack on the Death Star an inside job?

2007-04-17T22:37:00.000-07:00

This New Yorker article discusses Parkour, “a quasi commando system of leaps, vaults, rolls, and landings designed to help a person avoid or surmount whatever lies in his path,” founded in France by David Belle. You can watch videos of successful and unsuccessful parkour here.

2007-04-11T21:55:00.000-07:00

Jazz Tube brings you "the best Jazz videos that have been collected by Jazz lovers thru out the world and made available on the great YOU Tube Web Site."

2007-04-09T22:47:00.000-07:00

Hacking Netflix is a blog dedicated to "fully understanding" everything there is to know about Netflix. This post explains what it's like working for Netflix at a shipping center.

2007-04-05T22:08:00.000-07:00

This NASA photo shows, "the Shiveluch Volcano on the Russian Federation's Kamchatka Peninsula erupt[ing], sending an ash cloud skyward roughly 9,750 meters (32,000 feet). Satellites often capture images of volcanic ash plumes, but usually as the plumes are blowing away. This image, however, is different. It shows the gray-brown ash cloud suspended directly over the summit."

2007-04-03T21:29:00.000-07:00

Ricky Gervais is doing a series of television intervews with well-known comedians. Through the magic of You Tube you can watch Ricky Gervais Meets... Gary Shandling.

2007-04-02T21:35:00.000-07:00

Tad Friend compares the British and American versions of the television show "The Office" in this New Yorker article.

2007-03-28T21:33:00.000-07:00

The VOCO Clock is an alarm clock that wakes you with the soothing voice of Stephen Frye, the perfect valet.

"The VOCO alarm will lure a man from his secret recesses with the sound of gentle birdsong. This is followed by a discrete cough. Then the comforting words, "Good Morning, Sir," insinuate themselves into the room. This is followed by a message -- a different one every morning (there are three months' worth, before they start repeating, depending on how you use the clock). They say things like:

I'm sorry to disturb you, Sir, but it appears to be morning. Very inconvenient, I agree. I believe it is the rotation of the earth that is to blame, Sir."

2007-03-26T21:33:00.000-07:00

Glenn Greenwald explains why the national media is failing in its coverage of the U.S. attorneys scandal in this post from his blog.

"The overriding goal of most of our national media elites is to preserve the prevailing Republican power system that rules Washington because of how beneficial that system is to them. As a result, they admire and want to protect those who rule that system, and thus reflexively view scandals which entail accusations of true corruption by our political leaders -- and especially unpleasant formal investigations and threats of criminal prosecution -- as frivolous and inherently false and unfair."

2007-02-27T23:09:00.000-08:00

The Top 11 Underground Transit Systems in the World

2007-02-20T21:45:00.000-08:00

John Rogers explains what is wrong with the Fox News Daily Show rip-off, The 1/2 Hour News Hour, in this post from his blog, Kung Fu Monkey.

2007-02-13T21:00:00.000-08:00

Malcolm Gladwell discusses "The Myth of Prodigy and Why it Matters" in this Observer article.

2007-02-12T21:30:00.000-08:00

Panoramas.dk presents 360 degree panoramas of the six Apollo missions to the moon.

2007-01-31T21:49:00.000-08:00

BoatingSF.com's website uses the U.S. Coast Guard's Automated Identification System to track Current Ship Positions on San Francisco Bay.

2007-01-30T22:55:00.000-08:00

This video for U2's song "Window in the Skies" is a mash-up of 20th century popular music history.

2007-01-29T21:10:00.000-08:00

The Calvin Workshop can solve all your marketing problems with their film "Your Name Here."

2007-01-24T22:35:00.000-08:00

The Unfilmables: A List of the Hardest Novels to Film

2007-01-23T22:49:00.000-08:00

From Ant Farms to Zoot Suits, Neatorama lists 37 Fads that Swept the Nation.

2007-01-22T22:49:00.000-08:00

David Denby examines the future of movies in this New Yorker article.

2007-01-18T21:57:00.000-08:00

Gobler Toys presents Star Wars Toys That Never Were.

2007-01-16T21:49:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of Crooks and Liars, here are David Letterman's Top 10 Favorite George W. Bush Moments.

2007-01-15T21:46:00.000-08:00

In 1994, 1000 animation industry professionals voted for the 50 Greatest Cartoons. Now the City Rag blog has gathered links to online videos of the 50 Greatest Cartoons.

2007-01-09T21:48:00.000-08:00

John Hall, "the first bona fide rock ’n’ roll musician in the House of Representatives," is profiled in this New York Times article.

2007-01-08T21:45:00.000-08:00

Arrested Development's Michael Cera explains how to be succesful in this You Tube video.

2007-01-02T22:24:00.000-08:00

The 2007 Fiesta Bowl was one of the most exciting football games I've ever seen. The last two minutes and the overtime include three successful trick plays and several lead changes. Follow this link to watch a condensed version of the game's last two minutes and overtime.

2006-12-19T21:55:00.000-08:00

E. J. Dionne Jr. examines 2006's political and cultural changes in this Washington Post column:

"It wasn't all that long ago that Democrats and liberals were said to be out of touch with "the real America," which was defined as encompassing the states that voted for President Bush in 2004, including the entire South. Democrats seemed to accept this definition of reality, and they struggled -- often looking ridiculous in the process -- to become fluent in NASCAR talk and to discuss religion with the inflections of a white Southern evangelicalism foreign to so many of them.

Now the conventional wisdom sees Republicans in danger of becoming merely a Southern regional party. Isn't it amazing how quickly the supposedly "real America" was transformed into a besieged conservative enclave out of touch with the rest of the country?"

2006-12-18T23:36:00.000-08:00

For the 5th straight year, Fimoculous has compiled his list of Best of the Year lists.

2006-12-14T21:11:00.000-08:00

The Dayton Daily News compiled this list of the worst Christmas specials and TV movies ever.

2006-12-13T21:53:00.000-08:00

This Washington Post article explains how the Madden football video game is bringing a new generation of fans to the NFL.

"This is a phenomenon the National Football League never could have anticipated. In a world in which 53 million copies of the game have been sold in the last 17 years -- the latest version sold an unprecedented two million copies in its first weekend of release last summer -- Madden has provided the league a perfect conduit to its next generation of fans. And all because of attention to arcane details that has demystified the complexities of football to a population that never before understood them."

2006-12-11T21:47:00.000-08:00

According to this New York Times article, the surf's up in Cleveland:

"It was the kind of day that lives mostly in Cleveland surfers’ fantasies. Pushed by the storm’s winds, water the color of chocolate milk rose 10 feet in the air before slamming onto a beach of boulders and logs. The temperature was 40 degrees and falling. One surfer, Vince Labbe, climbed onto his board only to get blown backward by 40-mile-an-hour winds."

2006-12-07T21:39:00.000-08:00

The Guardian's Jonathan Jones lists the 50 works of art you should see before you die.

2006-12-05T21:52:00.000-08:00

Richard Simmons returns to the Late Show for the first time in five years in this funny YouTube Video.

2006-12-04T22:02:00.000-08:00

Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government presents "A Conversation with Stephen Colbert."

2006-10-26T21:56:00.000-07:00

This Associated Press article explains the origin of the "Wave."

2006-10-17T23:16:00.000-07:00

This New Scientist article imagines what would happen to the Earth if all the people disappeared.

"Imagine that all the people on Earth - all 6.5 billion of us and counting - could be spirited away tomorrow. . . . Left once more to its own devices, Nature would begin to reclaim the planet, as fields and pastures reverted to prairies and forest, the air and water cleansed themselves of pollutants, and roads and cities crumbled back to dust."

2006-10-12T22:36:00.000-07:00

Before the last presidential election, Washington Monthly asked a panel of 16 writers "What if Bush Wins?" Two years later, it looks like Kevin Drum got it right with his prediction, "The Scandals Finally Break."

2006-10-11T22:30:00.000-07:00

This Washington Post article discusses the demise of cursive handwriting.

"When handwritten essays were introduced on the SAT exams for the class of 2006, just 15 percent of the almost 1.5 million students wrote their answers in cursive. The rest? They printed. Block letters.

And those college hopefuls are just the first edge of a wave of U.S. students who no longer get much handwriting instruction in the primary grades, frequently 10 minutes a day or less. As a result, more and more students struggle to read and write cursive."

2006-10-10T22:06:00.000-07:00

"Fast Film is an animated homage to motion pictures, hand-made by folding 65,000 print outs of film frames into three dimensional objects." Watch Fast Film here. The official Fast Film site is here.

2006-10-09T21:53:00.000-07:00

Jon Stewart answers the question, "What Is the President's Job?" in this clip from The Daily Show.