Thank God for Academia

I’m watching “Dirty Jobs” on the Discovery Channel. For those of you who don’t know, it is a program in which the host Mike Rowe travels around exploring jobs that are…well, jobs that are dirty. In this episode he went out on a shrimp trawler, caught crayfish in the Louisiana bayou and recycled tires. What makes the show great is Mike’s combination of humor and absolute respect for the people who do these jobs. Bottom line for me? Thank god somebody does these jobs! And thank god for academia!

Hardhitting News Show Reporting from Iraq (for real this time)

That’s right, the Daily Show with Jon Stewart is getting rid of the green screen and reported from the war zone. Rob Riggle, a regular correspondent on the show, is going to Iraq as part of a comedy tour for the troops there and will also be reporting for the Daily Show. Riggle also happens to be a Marine Corps Reserves Major who has served in Liberia, Kosovo and Afghanistan (who knew?). Given that the Daily Show team have actually been thinking a lot more critically about the war and been asking harder hitting questions than the mainstream media I’m really looking forward to seeing Rob Riggle’s reports from Iraq.

Surrealism on a TV Game Show

The following video clip is from the classic game show: "What’s My Line."  The guest is Salvador Dali.

KITT for sale

In case any of you have won the lottery recently and didn’t tell me, my birthday is coming up and this would be a hilarious present (though it might be so retro and ironically cool as to make me a hipster, and we wouldn’t want that).

Survive the Work Week

I normally hate commercials, but when a company decides to go the extra mile and actually make it interesting, I can’t help but appreciate it.  Digging into the seemingly universal fear of becoming a corporate drone, careerbuilder.com has followed up their inspired monkey series of ads with a new series about life in the coporate jungle.  For those of you not familiar with the careerbuilder monkey ads, they centered around a guy stuck working in an office with monkeys.  The new series is a cross between Lord of the Flies and Office Space.  You can see the new ads (I particularly like "The Promotion Pit") and some of the older ads here.  They don’t have one of  my favorite monkey ads, so I’ve included the Youtube version below.  For those of you who have ever worked in a cubicle farm, loved someone who has or woken up sweating in the middle of the night afraid you will end up in one, then these ads for you.