Some of you may remember this. It’s an old SNL skit with the great Bill Murray as “The Whip Master.” What you don’t know is that we have been searching for a video of it for years. If I remember correctly, it all started almost two years ago in Oxford, England when Rob, Nick and I were searching for videos of old SNL skits. We found some classics, but our search for “The Whip Master” consistently turned up zero results. We’ve tried on subsequent occasions but to no avail.
Well, I just happened to think about it earlier today and YouTube still had nothing. But a Google search took me to Clipstr and an online video of this classic skit. Its greatness truly speaks for itself.
We’re having technical difficulties showing the video. But you can watch it here. Enjoy.
Giraffe saved from hungry crowd in Zimbabwe. That’s the title of the article found here. Yes, things seem to be going from bad to worse to worse to worse in this African country.
Hungry Zimbabweans threatened to kill and eat a giraffe after it wandered towards the outskirts of the capital Harare, it has emerged.
Scores of people rushed to the scene after the adult giraffe entered Seke district from surrounding farmland. Police said several wanted to butcher the animal “for the pot”, according to the state-owned Herald newspaper.
Zimbabwe is suffering shortages of meat and basic foods in an economic meltdown that has left it with the world’s highest official inflation — nearly 7,000 percent.
Independent estimates put real inflation closer to 25,000 percent and the International Monetary Fund forecast it reaching 100,000 percent by the end of the year.
And I’m guessing the forced price cuts from a few months ago haven’t really worked out the way the government thought they would. From the AP article again:
A government order to slash prices of all goods and services by about half in June has left stores across the country empty of meat, cornmeal, bread and other staples and crippled transportation services.
Ouch. Let this be a lesson to all of us:
inflation + printing money = more inflation
more inflation + government mandated price cuts = no food
no food + hunger = kill and eat giraffes
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said this month that it was launching a campaign to raise awareness about the moral and ethical issues surrounding cases of pets being slaughtered for meat.
It said while it was not illegal to eat dog meat in Zimbabwe, the nation’s laws covered the humane killing of all animals.
I’m guessing that starving people aren’t going to pay too much attention to this campaign.
Hey, kids. Film snob here to school your sorry ass on the films of yesteryear that you probably haven’t seen and probably should see. This week: Kentucky Fried Movie.
This fantastic 1977 film was directed by John Landis and written by Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker who would all go on to work with the Naked Gun films, Airplane!, and Top Secret, among others. The film was a landmark comedy, one of the first feature-length motion pictures to use skits throughout, loosely connected (if at all). The writing is top-notch, the humor dry, and the gags just so absurd at times you can’t help but be taken away. As the wikipedia page explains:
Kentucky Fried Movie has no unified plot; it consists of numerous sketches that parody 1970s TV commercials, drive-in movies and educational films shown in schools. The skits poke fun at kung-fu movies, particularly Enter the Dragon, courtroom TV shows, women-in-prison movies and pornography (or more specifically, advertising for pornography).
Whatever you want, this film has it. I promise. This film is number 87 on Bravo’s “100 Funniest Movies” and has an 80% freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Beyond it’s critical reception, it truly did inspire a host of movies to push the boundaries of good taste and bits. A great deal of today’s comic enterprises owe their allegiance to this film, truth be told.
And, if you still doubt the prowess of this fine, fine movie, then check out a few clips.
First up, The Joy of Sex featuring Big Jim Slade:
Next, a commercial regarding the most sensitive of issues…lingering odors:
And lastly, just to whet your whistle, two of my favorite scenes from the longest sketch, A Fistful of Yen:
Goddamn, good stuff.
My score…four out of five cowpies:
The combination of these men can do no wrong.
To check out some more info, as well as a breakdown of the different sketches, click here.
~Film Snob
By Robby on Thursday, September 27th, 2007 at 6:09 pm | Features | 1 Comment »
Organized Clutter. n. Strategically placed assortment of paper, pens, safety glasses, and half empty coffee cups. Suggests employee is currently working on important project, but possibly ran to bathroom. In truth, said employee left office at 3:00.
Jack: Rob, do you know where Nick is? I have an important task for him.
Rob: Judging by the organized clutter on his desk, Nick is still here and hard at work, but stepped away from his cubicle.
It has been a while since my last That Co-Worker column and I apologize to all three of my regular readers for the delay. If you must know, you nosy bastards I myself have quite an intimate knowledge of our subject in the column below because I have been one up until a couple of weeks ago.
How to spot a person looking for a new job: The first thing to keep in mind while trying to spot one of these turncoats is they most likely hate their current job. With that in mind, keep an eye out for the person that looks the most sick of being at work each day. Anyways, let’s look at some of the other way you can spot people that are trying to get out of day jail. Make sure they don’t just have a case wednesday lag repeatedly occuring on each day of the week.
A general disposition of unhappiness.
Cyncisim towards everything big brother the company is trying to accomplish.
A sarcastic attitude towards moving the company forward towards it’s ridiculous goals while getting no rewards for doing so.
Skilled in the arts of alt+tab.
Careerbuilder.com hidden behind the folder directory they are “working in” as you walk up to ask them a question.
Repeated mumbling under their breath as they walk around the office.
They answer their cell phone as they walk away from their desk.
Drinking an ice cold beer at their desk while they belch and keep asking rhetorically “What are they going to do, fire me?” and then laughing manically.
Why it’s annoying: These people can be annoying because if you are their co-worker you have to take on most of their responsibilities because they can not be trusted to meet deadlines. You also have to deal with and find work arounds for all of the items listed in how to spot them. However, if you are the person finding a new job this can be annoying because you constantly have to sneak around. At the same time it can be comforting because you don’t care what happens to your job. In fact if you were like me you wish they would fire you just so you wouldn’t have to drag yourself into work each day.
What you can do to stop a person looking for a job: Long and short answer is that if a person is determined enough you won’t be able to stop them, but you can do some fun things to mess with them.
Hide their cell phone. Just make sure they can hear it and eventually find it, but can’t get to it fast enough to answer it and walk away.
Continually walk up to them when you suspect they might be looking for new jobs. Just ask them if they like your new skirt about a project you are both working on.
Put fake company propaganda in their mailbox letting them know that they can’t use the internet or anything else for job searching on company time.
Leave threatening notes on their desktop saying that you know they are looking for a new job and that you are going to tell their manager. In fact use magazines like they do in the movies to cut out the actual letters and then piece the words together that way.
Walk over to their desk and yell “Why do you have Careerbuilder.com open Joe?” Run after this because they will probably try to strangle you.
Finally, if you are their boss and you suspect such behavior call them into your office or a conference room (the conference room is if you are a suck enough to be managing people, but didn’t demand an office with a door). Once they come in ask them to shut the door. Tell them to keep their job they have to fight you in a “cage match”, which is to happen right now (sorry about your new dress pants and fancy silk tie) in order to keep their job. Tell them the person to survive gets the office and both salaries.
n. The place where you spend every single day of your worthless life. You hate it so much that if feels like a jail cell until you leave it at the end of the day. Usually used in relation to your job and the monotonous feeling that you are in jail every day and don’t have a chance to get out until the 5:00 hour.
Jack: I really hate my job man.
Matt, Jacksontown Mayor: It can’t be that bad.
Jack: It is ok, bro, why don’t you back off. It’s not like we can all have jobs we love, hot women, fast cars, and piles of cash.
Matt, Jacksontown Mayor: Yeah I know, but it sounds like you are in day jail by the way you talk about it.