Where is Matt?

This viral video was pretty amusing... just some guy dancing around the world.

http://www.wherethehellismatt.com

Job History Jokes

Have you been exposed to the "Job History" genre of jokes? They're horrifyingly lame pun jokes... so I find them hilarious and clever. I first heard them from the sitcom "Scrubs" and looked up more. Here are the ones I liked:

My first job was as a programmer, but I couldn't get arrays.

So I became a fisherman, but I discovered that I couldn't live on my net income.

Next I tried working in a muffler factory, but that was exhausting.

Then I attempted to be a deli worker, but any way I sliced it, I couldn't cut the mustard.

I liked my following stint as a musician, but ultimately found I wasn't note worthy.

I studied a long time to become a doctor, but I didn't have any patience.

So I got a job at the shoe factory, but I just didn't fit in. It's fine, since it never touched my sole.

Next I managed to get a good job working for a pool maintenance company, but the work was just too draining.

After that I gave Starbucks a try for a while, but I had to quit, because it was always the same old grind.

I worked a while as a historian, until I realized there wasn't any future in it.

I worked as a pilot, too, but eventually got grounded for taking off too much.

Then I tried teaching, but I couldn't make the grade.

So I got a job in a gym, but they said I wasn't fit for the job.

Of course, I tried being a secretary, but it turned out not to be my type of work.

My following career as a comedian was a stand-up success, but the critics thought I was a big joke.

I tried to work as an accountant, but the job satisfaction just didn't add up.

I was fired from the massage parlor. Apparently, I rubbed people the wrong way.

Then I tried to be a chef - figured it would add a little spice to my life, but I just didn't have the thyme.

I was an optician for a while until I made a spectacle of myself.

I gave the frozen food factory a chance, but I got fresh and then they canned me.

My last job was as a butcher, but they fired me when I backed into the meat grinder and got a little behind in my work.

There are also longer ones, such as the following:

My first job was working in an orange juice factory, but I got canned. I couldn't concentrate. In fact, the union squeezed me out. They said they'd beat me to a pulp if I tried to return. Told me I was fruity.

So then I got a job as a lumberjack. But I just couldn't hack it, so they gave me the axe. I tried reapplying but they told me I was barking up the wrong tree and wood I just go away. I guess I couldn't see the forest for the trees.

After that, I tried to be a tailor, but I just wasn't suited for it. That's okay, it was just a sew-sew job. Seams they were trying to rip me off. I almost lost my shirt. The boss buttonholed me and told me to keep my mouth zipped.

There are so many of these types of jokes, most likely because they're so easy to make up. You can read through many more at this link, or just use google. Let me warn you... a lot of the ones you find will be way lamer than the ones I've already posted.

Fan Made Lyrics To Classic Video Game Songs

Introduction / More English / More Japanese

Those of us who've played video games know how catchy video game tunes are. But you know what? When you add words to them, they become even catchier. I've collected a lot of "lyric-ized" video game music and decided to share. These lyricized songs aren't spectacular achievements in music, but they sure can be nostalgic, and most importantly, amusing. And lucky for us, song parodies are only made of the good catchy tunes, and not the tunes that only got stuck in our heads because we were forced to listen to them for hours straight as we failed to beat a level. I broke this entry into three because I used a lot of embedded youtube videos. Many of the youtube videos have accompaning animations that are well worth watching, so don't miss out.

The other reason for this post is to find more lyric-ized songs... so leave a comment if you know of more. I'll add them to the appropriate list. Without further ado, the best songs:

Legend of Zelda
The first video game song I had heard with added words (not counting the stuff my friends as I made up as kids)... it's a parody of the Zelda Overworld theme by Rabbit Joint. It also perfectly sets the tone for what the rest of this collection is going to be. Sorry, the video quality is bad... download the original flash here.


Final Fantasy: Tribute
This one is a parody of the Chocobo Theme from the Final Fantasy series. The animation for this song is very fan-servicey, which is awesome. The song is by Joe Redifer, the animation is done by Legendary Frog... who makes a lot of fun animations. Check them out if you have time. You can get the original flash here.


Castlevania: Juese Belmont
This one is a lyricized version of Simon Belmont's theme from Castlevania. In Castlevania, Dracula periodically arises and a member of the Belmont clan challenges and defeats him. But what about the Belmonts born in years where Dracula doesn't resurrect? Well...


Mega Man 2: I Can't Defeat Air Man
This song is awesome. The lyrics are in Japanese, but it's subtitled. The Japanese version of Mega Man 2 didn't have a normal setting. Air Man and Leaf Man are the two hardest masters in the song.... hence this song. The corresponding animation was done well.


Super Mario World: Western Show
This song is a Japanese parody of Super Mario World theme. It's done by Hyadain (a -GUY- who did all the voices)... you'll see a lot more of him if you check out the other Japanese part. The drawings for this animation are pretty amusing.


Final Fantasy
Back to English, this is an epic rap that covers the entire story of the first Final Fantasy. It is awesome.


Chrono Trigger: To Faraway Times
The last one for this page, we're back to English, and the only non-humor song. It's a lyricized "To Far Away Times" from Chrono Trigger and it's really nice (possibly barring the slightly out of place Japanese section.) It was made as part of the "Chrono Symphonic" project, where Chrono Trigger songs were remixed. It's well worth checking out.


Make sure to listen to the other lyric-ized video game songs I've found:
More English / More Japanese

More English Lyric-Ized Video Game Songs

Introduction / More English / More Japanese

The second part of my three part post, this post contains more English "lyric-ized" Video Game Song Parodies. Please leave comments in the first post, especially if you know of more music:

Brental Floss

This guy did a a bunch, they're very straightforward parodies, which saves me the effort of writing up descriptions. He started with a parody of Mega Man 3 (I only listed his extended Mega Man 3, but you can click to hear the original if you want)... and then just kinda kept going. They're very entertaining, despite the singing voice (no offense to him, of course ^_^.)

Mega Man 3 Theme With Lyrics (Extended)


Mega Man 2 Theme With Lyrics


Mega Man 6 Theme With Lyrics


Final Fantasy VI Victory Theme With Lyrics


Tetris With Lyrics
Of course... I know lots of guys who like tetris. Tetrinet was freshman year of college for me with my dorm mates. But whatever. Also, tetris already has lyrics.


Bonus

Mega Man 9 With Lyrics
This one was inspired by Brental Floss, it's a parody of the Mega Man 9 Theme.


I Can't Defeat Air Man (English Version)
Someone did an English Version of I Can't Defeat Air Man. Here it is:


Oh no! You're about to be Chrono Trigger Robo Rick Rolled!

Make sure to listen to the other lyricized video game songs I've found:
The Best / More Japanese

More Japanese Lyric-Ized Video Game Songs

Introduction / More English / More Japanese

The third part of my three part post, this post contains more Japanese lyric-ized Video Game Song Parodies. I've tried to make sure the videos have subtitles. Also, I realize series, such as Xenogears and Final Fantasy, have had lyrics professionally added to their songs... but I'm only going to list fan made parodies (although songs like Yuffie's officially lyricized theme are awesome.) Please leave comments in the first post, especially if you know of more music:

Hyadain

Hyadain is a Japanese artist who remixes videogame music. Umm... he's done a ton of stuff... and his lyrics are almost always very referential to the game it came from. So there can often be huge spoilers. Since he's done so many, I'm going to only embed some of the songs with the better videos and simply provide links to the rest. Click here for his youtube channel... that way you can remain up to date on his releases, but be warned they're all in Japanese. I did my best to find the best animations with translations and figure out the original game and song name. This list was a pain to compile, so you better enjoy it.

Final Fantasy 4: Four Fiends of the Elements
This video is a lot of fun, but has major spoilers. So, if you still intend on playing Final Fantasy 4 for your first time, you probably shouldn't watch this.


Final Fantasy: Chocobo Theme
This one doesn't need a translation at all... The only Japanese words simply translate to different colors, which really don't matter.


Dragon Quest 4: A Musical of Chapter 2
This has a pretty cute animation. It's from Dragon Quest, which was released as Dragon Warrior in English.


Final Fantasy 6: The Coin Of Destiny
This one is from final Fantasy 6 and has Sabin rapping. The video itself kinda has spanish subtitles, but you can find translated english lyrics in the description of this video.


Super Mario Hyadain (animation by Scott Falco)
This is worth listing again... this time with an alternate video and a better translation.


English Subtitled Videos:

Final Fantasy 6: Terra's (Tina in Japan) Theme
Chrono Trigger: Epoch (Silbird in Japan) Theme
Dragon Quest 3: In A Cave
Dragon Quest 4: Casino Song
Mega Man 2: Metal Man's Stage
Mega Man 2: Quick Man's Stage
Mega Man 2: Crash Man's Stage (Click Here For Explanation)
Mega Man 2: Flash Man's Stage
Street Fighter 2: The World Warrior
Dr. Mario: Fever Theme
Wai Wai World: Main Theme
Ganbare Goemon: Karakuri Dôchû

Unsubtitled Videos:

Final Fantasy 3: Doga and Une
Final Fantasy 5: Ancient Library
Final Fantasy 5: ???
Dragon Quest 4: Taloon/Torneko's Song
Dragon Quest 4: ???
Mother 2: ???
DQ 2,3,4: ???
Reto Game 50: #50-47

Bonus

Okusenman - My Memories are 110 Million
This song is a lyric-ized version of the classic "Dr Wily Stage 1" from Mega Man 2, but the added lyrics have nothing to do with video games or Mega Man. It's more about nostalgia and growing up... but I still I thought the song was appropriate and the accompanying video is worth watching.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqT1SAPfF_w
This version of Okusenman has modified voices... it's a girl singing now. It has a different feel... the song sounds nicer, but less heartfelt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YdmYI4ghxw
This version of Okusenman is a disturbing parody. Don't let the cute voice and tempo fool you... it's very wrong. Click here for the explanation. I included it just to be complete. Hey, it could have been worse, I could have used the male version... then you wouldn't even have the cuteness factor.

Kirby - Falcon Punch
This wasn't technically lyric-ized... but whatever. It's a parody of Kirby's Theme from Super Smash Brothers.


Make sure to listen to the other lyric-ized video game songs I've found:
The Best / More English

Jonathan Coulton

Jonathan Coulton is a folk rock singer/writer, and once a programmer. So he has a nerdy streak to his music. As a musician, he uses the Creative Commons for licensing. He went through a year where he created and released a song a week, which is cool. I like his stuff, it amuses me a lot. Here's a sample of some of my favorites, as long as youtube keeps them up. For more, go visit his web site at http://jonathancoulton.com/. You can listen to all the songs he's released there. (Yeah... I know that since Still Alive was released, he's pretty popular... I also decided not to include Still Alive, since everyone knows what that is.)

Code Monkey


Code Monkey Ukelele


I'm Your Moon


Tom Cruise Crazy


Baby Got Back - Acoustic

Mirror's Edge

I thought the above image was pretty clever. The left image is the original character design of Faith from the video game Mirror's Edge. The right is a fan's guess at how Faith would be changed if she was re-designed by a Japanese game company. Sadly, it's probably pretty accurate. Yeah, so, Mirror's Edge is out now... not that I can play it without getting sick.

Ted Chiang

An author I discovered recently, while randomly searching for good online reading, is Ted Chiang. He writes very deep science fiction. The stories are good and accesibly scientific. He doesn't write that much, but what he does write is good... often award winning. He has two books out. The first is a collection of his short stories called "The Story of Your Life." The second was released recently and is called the "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate," although it may have been a limited print. Anyways, his stories I've found.

What's Expected Of Us
A very, very, very short story that will give you a good flavor of what and how Ted Chiang writes.

Understand
Like Flowers for Algernon, but much cooler, because the main character doesn't decay and is a lot more selfish.

Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate
Awesome story merging religion and time travel. It's a very standard time travelling story, but approached from a very unique mindset.

Division By Zero
It's a good story about the internal and external struggles of a mathematician and her husband who discover math is broken.

Tower of Babel
I liked this one okay. It's about the Tower of Babel.

Hell is the Absence of God
I... didn't really enjoy this one too much. It's a "What if" type story where God (where God is an interpretation of the Christian Bible's Old Testament God) never hid himself from humanity. I would have enjoyed it more if the painting of God in this story wasn't so far from what the real God is like.

There are also some interviews with him out there, you can easily google/wiki them.

Two Short Stories

Two short stories I found online, I enjoyed reading them a lot in the order I found them. So here they are. If you haven't read them before, trust me, they're good sci-fi.

Dispersed By The Sun Melting in the Wind (Rachel Swirsky)
Occupation (Isaac Asimov)

Rinkworks

Rinkworks was introduced to me back in 2000 or so by my high school girlfriend who enjoyed "Book-A-Minute." Honestly, that's one of my least favorite aspects of the site, but so much of that site is good that it is well worth the time to pay a visit. It's a lot of random humor and cleverness. Here's the stuff I like the best:

I Think: If you liked SNL's Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy, there'll probably be a thought or two you enjoy from this.

It's a Bad, Bad, Movie (Read anything with a rating of 5): This guy reviews B-movies that amused him. A special link to my favorite review

Things People Said: These are all good. I'll give some examples of what you'll find, specifically, my favorites. Here goes:

- Accident Quotations -

• "In my attempt to kill a fly, I drove into a telephone pole."
• "To avoid hitting the bumper of the car in front, I struck the pedestrian."
• "The guy was all over the road. I had to swerve a number of times before I hit him."
• "The pedestrian had no idea which direction to go, so I ran over him."
• "I saw the slow-moving, sad-faced old gentleman as he bounced off the hood of my car."

- Resume Quotations -

• "My contributions on product launches were based on dreams that I had."
• "I eat computers for lunch."
• "Graduated in the top 66% of my class."
• "Previous experience: Self-employed -- a fiasco."
• "Special skills: I've got a Ph.D. in human feelings."
• "My ruthlessness terrorized the competition and can sometimes offend."
• "ONCE FOCUSED ON AN OBJECTIVE, I BELIEVE MYSELF TO HAVE AN UNDYING LUST FOR SUCCESS WITH ACCURACY AND EFFECIENCY."

- Warning Labels -

• "Do not iron clothes on body." -- On packaging for a Rowenta iron.
• "Warning: This product can burn eyes." -- On a curling iron.
• "Caution: The contents of this bottle should not be fed to fish." -- On a bottle of shampoo for dogs.
• "Warning! This is not underwear! Do not attempt to put in pants." -- On the packaging for a wristwatch.

- Tenents -

• "I am writing on behalf of my sink, which is running away from the wall."
• "This is to let you know that there is a smell coming from the man next door."
• "The toilet seat is cracked. Where do I stand?"
• "Our lavatory seat is broken in half and is now in three pieces."
• "The toilet is blocked, and we cannot bathe the children until it is cleared."

Orson Scott Card Stories

Orson Scott Card
Without doubt, Orson Scott Card is my favorite author. At his website, many short stories are provided. Here are my favorites. This should take a good chunk of time to read through, and the stories are very enjoyable. If you like them, you should read all his stories.
(a) Atlantis

It's very long and takes a bit before it's interesting, but it's really good once it does. If you've read Pastwatch, you might think you already read this... but you haven't, keep reading.

(b) Ender's Game

If you like the book and haven't read this, I think it's still worthwhile. If you haven't heard of Ender's Game... after reading this, I'm sure you'll want to pick up the full novel.

(c) Homeless in Hell

It's a Christmas story about an interesting interpretation of Hell and Santa Clause.

(d) Missed

It's kinda on the sad side about a guy coping with death, please keep that in mind. Quite short though. One short break's worth.

(e) Prior Restraint

This is a pretty interesting story, but I can't say anything about it without kind of ruining it.

Introduction

Hi, I've spent a lot of time surfing the web and I've found a lot of amusing stuff. It'd be a waste to keep it all to myself, especially considering that you're bored (that's how you found your way here, right?.) So I thought I'd share, exerting as little energy as possible by using this free blog account. Hope you find something there to fight off the boredom. Without further ado. I'll put up something new once every two weeks or so.