YouTube's Greatest Hits

This needs to happen every year... a best of all the crazy viral videos as seen on YouTube.  How many do you recognize?

Can't you see kid shows?

The age gap between my kids gets larger as they get older. My 7 year old, Trale, now has his own taste in music, what he thinks is cool, and what he wants to watch on TV.

There was some disagreement on what TV shows we should watch this morning. Usually, anything on PBS or the Disney channel would work.  Not today.  Trale wanted nothing to do with those shows. He called them baby shows. One show was already on that our 4 year old, Mason, was watching and would not let his "bubba" change the channel, so Trale was forced to watch a "baby show."

Dora The Explorer, The Wiggles, Curious George at one time were all cool. Now, when 'The Map' from Dora asks where the bridge is (or anything obviously seen on the TV screen,) Trale would jump in and say "duh! it's right there in plain sight...they can't see that?"

Kiss my grits!

I participated in the grits eating contest over the weekend at Louisiana Downs.  There was really no competition, because there were professional eaters lined up with us radio DJ's.  I spent more time watching the pros than eating, plus I knew I had to continue to work the rest of the afternoon.  Considering there was no butter or fixins to be found, I'm proud of eating 1.5 pounds of plain grits!   And I didn't spew grits in the toilet later!   The winner ate 18.9 pounds of grits in 10 minutes.  That's like eating three babies!  Fox News even picked up the video!

Kanye interrupts the Prez...

First Taylor Swift, now President Obama?  Democrats are demanding Kanye West apologize on the floor of the House.

Be like T-Pain

Before I get started, a note for our country music folk... T-Pain is a rapper.. :)

Nearly every recording artist uses studio software called Auto-tune when recording music or when they are live on stage.  Auto-tune smooths out any "off-key" imperfections in the artist when they sing.  When used correctly, it's hard to tell when auto-tune is actually correcting an artist.

T-pain, is arguably the Godfather of the Auto-Tune phenomenon in pop and rap music.  T-pain uses an extreme setting on auto-tune that adds that warble effect in the vocal from one note to the other.  Some country artists like George Strait have used that extreme setting.

Check this out!!  He has created an Auto-Tune application for the iPhone.  It's called "I Am T-Pain," and it allows you to record your voice with the Auto-Tune effect, in real time. You can then create your own tracks and stream them on your Facebook or MySpace pages.   Bhaaaa!!!

Check out the video of people using the app!  The app is $2.99.

Health Care's Cruel Summer

The summer was tough on health care reform:  Out of control scream-matches at town hall meetings, slanted news coverage,  "paid-off" conservative politicians, and TV commercials FULL of lies.  Months of wasted time...

As an Independent, I've actually enjoyed watching both sides of the debates, news coverage and republicans who were full of bad rhetoric and poor ideas of reform.  If I hear another republican politician step up to a podium or town hall meeting and talk about how bad a "government-run health care plan" would be, I'm gonna scream!   Then you hear republican supporters asking their representative not to touch their Medicare?   Uh....Medicare IS government run health care dummies.... so is the VA for our veterans.  I can see why the older folk don't want it touched... it's actually a good system!

The "government death panels" argument from republicans make me laugh the most.  Death panels??  We have death panels now... it's called the American private health insurance industry that continues to deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions and employ armies of adjusters to deny claims when their customers become sick.

Why are we protecting these goons of the health insurance industry, when we can take health care back, pay for it ourselves through taxation at a much lower rate, and have full coverage until we die without any worries of a medical bill??   Over 700,000 people file bankruptcy every year due to medical bills; most were insured.  Morally, why wouldn't every American and politician not want universal coverage for all, paid for and run by the American people?  Oh... that's right, health insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyists, and special interests paying off our elected leaders (and some of the screamers at town hall meetings) against such a plan.

As a moral obligation to our fellow man, we have to fix how our health care is paid for.  It's the only thing in our American society worth fixing for ourselves and future generations.  We must come to a consensus that U.S. health care must be universal and comprehensive to take care of everybody's basic health care needs from womb to tomb.

Stop listening to TV commercials and what the news people on Fox News, MSNBC and CNN are saying about reform.  Read about it on your own.  Then call your representative and tell them what you want to see in health insurance reform.  There are many other options out there that aren't getting a chance, mostly because nobody know about them.  I'm a big proponent of the "Medicare-for-all" bill, HR676.  But I bet you never heard of it.  You can thank the special interest groups for that.  Read about HR676 here.

Also, check out a guy named I saw on C-SPAN, T.R. Reid, who has studied the universal health care systems in other countries and wrote a great article for the Washington Post on the myths of health care reform.  A pretty fair and honest article that truly examines each countries systems.

Wake up America!!

Before you go, read my "eye-opening" blogs on universal health care:
The Other Crisis from 10/08
But Seriously... from 6/09

This video is fun too: Why We Need Government-Run Universal Socialized Health Insurance

As always, your views are welcome.  Please comment below.

Saturday Surfing

I've been stuck at home today with a miserable cold and a laptop.  While surfing around in my snot filled stupor, I found some great sites.

Ignite on YouTube: These 5 minute seminars can teach you everything from "How to work a crowd" to "how to hack chocholate", whatever that means...  5 minutes and a presentation slide that changes every 15 minutes.  A perfect way to get enlightened in a short time with a little comedy thrown in.

Liberated Syndication:  Ever wanted to host your own podcast show?   Take your voice and put it on iTunes.  I haven't done it yet, but I'm still thinking about a show idea.   Easy publishing even for the non-tech savvy folk.

TED Talks: Learn something new! Get inspired!  Some great 18 minute talks on a wide range of ideas.

Twit.tv: It's a television network online!   It's all website, net-talk, geeky stuff.... it's great!

Please share your Saturday Surfing below!

Lady Antebellum: Punk'd

Kenny Chesney pulled a good prank on Lady Antebellum during their last show on Kenny’s tour in Raleigh, North Carolina. The trio was about to sing “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore,” when Kenny’s band and crew came out dressed like characters from Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” video and even performed the entire dance on stage. Kenny watched on stage and video taped the entire episode. As Lady A was starting their last song, Kenny’s drummer came onstage and removed the cymbals from the drum set. And fellow opener Miranda Lambert didn’t let the new act leave the tour easily. She put baby powder on the drum heads and taped down keys to Dave Haywood’s keyboard. It took me forever to find some video... but I got it! Enjoy!