By Brian | March 20, 2011
A friend of mine just sent me a link to the Top Ten YouTube Videos of All Time. Reviewing the list, I realized that I hadn’t seen any of them, so I sat myself down and watched them all.
Below the cut, you’ll find links to each video, along with a few of my thoughts on each one (WARNING: Contains Bieber)
Read the rest of this entry »
Categories: Words about Music | Comments Off on The Top Ten YouTube Videos of All Time
By Brian | March 17, 2011
Another one of Google’s oddities struck yesterday: well over 500 of you wound up at my site by searching for “obama bracket” or something similar. I posted his 2010 and 2009 picks here in past years, and Google Images has somehow ranked me #2 in its search results for my efforts. So, while it might be too late, I don’t want to be the guy who disappoints 500 more people, so here you go. The 2011 picks from the Prognosticator in Chief:
(Click on the image to see it (a little bit) larger)
Categories: Political Rantings, Sports Talk | Comments Off on President Obama’s 2011 NCAA Bracket
By Brian | March 14, 2011
Welcome back to Brain Celebri-teasers. This is Week #11. Here’s this week’s puzzle:
| Week #11 |
| Category: | Movies/TV |
| Difficulty: | Medium |
| Clue: | These two guys would often have trouble being serious |
 |
Remember – the solution will be posted on Thursday, so you have 3-4 days to guess. Put your answer in the comments section – first comment (by timestamp) wins.
Now that the contest is over, you can click here to see the answer.
Good luck!
Categories: Brain Celebri-teasers | 2 Comments »
By Brian | March 10, 2011
Welcome back to Brain Celebri-teasers. It’s time to reveal the solution to our Week #10 puzzle:
| Week #10 |
| Category: | Music |
| Difficulty: | Easy |
| Clue: | These guys are proof that musical genius, like justice, can be blind |
| Answer: | Stevie Wonder &
Ray Charles |
 |
 |  |
| I knew this one would be easy to guess. What’s amazing about these guys is how they started out being compared to each other because of their mutual blindness, but are now also compared because of their mutual musical genius. It will be a long time before such talent comes around again… |
The winner this week was Suzanne!
After ten weeks, the standings are as follows:
| Player | Points | Correct Answers |
| Mike | 8 | 6 |
| Suzanne | 3 | 2 |
| Hilary | 3 | 1 |
| Ilya | 2 | 8 |
| Jeff Porten | 2 | 3 |
| Konstantin | 0 | 4 |
| Jim | 0 | 1 |
| Jason | 0 | 2 |
| Harmon | 0 | 1 |
Thanks for playing, everyone! Remember to check back on Monday for next week’s puzzle!”
Categories: Celebri-teaser Answers | 1 Comment »
By Brian | March 7, 2011
Welcome back to Brain Celebri-teasers. This is Week #10. Here’s this week’s puzzle:
| Week #10 |
| Category: | Music |
| Difficulty: | Easy |
| Clue: | These guys are proof that musical genius, like justice, can be blind |
|
Remember – the solution will be posted on Thursday, so you have 3-4 days to guess. Put your answer in the comments section – first comment (by timestamp) wins.
Now that the contest is over, you can click here to see the answer.
Good luck!
Categories: Brain Celebri-teasers | 3 Comments »
By Brian | March 3, 2011
Welcome back to Brain Celebri-teasers. It’s time to reveal the solution to our Week #9 puzzle:
| Week #9 |
| Category: | Movies/TV |
| Difficulty: | Hard |
| Clue: | It’s not easy keeping up with these guys
Categories: Celebri-teaser Answers | 2 Comments »
By Brian | March 1, 2011
OK, the social media revolution is complete. I joined Twitter.
<rationale>
I’ve been reading too many articles lately in which some newswire is relaying news – typically celebrity news – based on what the celebrity in question has just tweeted. So, I figure, why not use Twitter as the news source it has become? I do not ever intend to tweet (I’m already on Facebook, and I honestly can’t see a reason to be on both, unless I’m caught in a real life, hashtag-worthy event…). Rather, I plan to use Twitter as a kind of “Facebook of the Stars,” in which I can read about what various celebrities are telling the world without having to catch up on them through E! Online or Yahoo! Gossip or some other aggregator that has worked an exclamation point into their name.
</rationale>
So, at the advice of a friend, I googled “Most Twitter Followers,” which led me to this site – a list of the one thousand most popular tweeters. Of the thousand I found there, I “followed” 59 people. Here they are, sorted in order from most followers to least:
| 1) Lady Gaga | 21) Al Yankovic | 41) Hugh Jackman | | 2) Justin Bieber | 22) Larry King | 42) David Blaine | | 3) Britney Spears | 23) Wil Wheaton | 43) Drew Carey | | 4) Barack Obama | 24) Lindsay Lohan | 44) Lea Michele | | 5) Kim Kardashian | 25) Penn Jillette | 45) Miranda Cosgrove | | 6) Katy Perry | 26) Bill Cosby | 46) Craig Ferguson | | 7) Ellen DeGeneres | 27) Dalai Lama | 47) John Hodgman | | 8) Taylor Swift | 28) Brent Spiner | 48) William Shatner | | 9) Oprah Winfrey | 29) Alyssa Milano | 49) Steve Martin | | 10) Justin Timberlake | 30) Kevin Nealon | 50) Sarah Palin | | 11) Ashley Tisdale | 31) Nick Swisher | 51) Seth Meyers | | 12) Ryan Seacrest | 32) Yoko Ono | 52) Tina Fey | | 13) Paris Hilton | 33) Sarah Silverman | 53) Roger Ebert | | 14) Demi Moore | 34) Neil Patrick Harris | 54) Bill Maher | | 15) Jimmy Fallon | 35) John Cleese | 55) Joan Rivers | | 16) John Legend | 36) Dr. Phil | 56) Pamela Anderson | | 17) Al Gore | 37) Barbara Walters | 57) Miley Cyrus | | 18) Conan O’Brien | 38) WikiLeaks | 58) Jessica Simpson | | 19) Dr. Drew | 39) Michael Moore | 59) Howard Stern | | 20) Stephen Colbert | 40) Kathy Griffin | |
In terms of actual entertainment, I am fans of some of these folks and not of others, but they all looked like they might produce interesting tweets, which was my only criteria here (and thus concludes the story of how a Twitter user came to follow both Michael Moore and Sarah Palin on the same day. If only I had a way to share this exciting news with everyone I know. Oh yeah, that’s right: Facebook).
Anyway, first impressions of Twitter as news source:
- It works. In the first fifteen minutes, I learned that Ellen Degeneres had sat down with a seven-year old paleontologist, that Justin Bieber has raised over $7 million for a clean water charity by asking his fans to donate to it in honor of his upcoming birthday, that Roger Ebert hated the Oscar telecast, that Kathy Griffin is going to appear on Glee, that Lea Michelle had pasta with Tom Hanks after the Oscars, that Matthew Morrison has a new single out (quick review: Yuck), that Britney Spears has a new single out (quick review: didn’t bother clicking the link), that Barack Obama will work with anybody! ANYBODY! to improve Health Care Reform, and that Seth Myers wrote a clever line about Charlie Sheen (“Post-Oscars, when I say “The King’s Speech,” I’m referring to stuff Charlie Sheen said.”). Not bad as a quick (and mindless) news source.
- In the time it took me to read 1,000 names and click on 59 of them, 13 people followed me. One is an “online dog community,” one is extremely profane, one describes herself (forgive me for assuming the gender here) as a “Justin Bieber fan.” All thirteen are total strangers to me and likely not even real people. Regardless, all thirteen will be significantly disapointed when they notice that I never tweet. Not even once just to try it. Ever. Seriously.
- Wikileaks releases new, “shocking” information every hour or so. I honestly didn’t realize just how shock-jock they were about their information. I haven’t removed them from the feed yet, but they’re the only ones I’m considering removing at this point.
- And finally, I knew right away this was a mad, mad world when I followed President Obama and saw these two things pop up on my screen:
Yeah – this is gonna get weird fast…
Categories: Blogging about Blogs, Movie Talk, Primetime TV, Words about Music | 3 Comments »
By Brian | February 28, 2011
Welcome back to Brain Celebri-teasers. This is Week #9. Here’s this week’s puzzle:
| Week #9 | | Category: | Movies/TV | | Difficulty: | Hard | | Clue: | It’s not easy keeping up with these guys
Categories: Brain Celebri-teasers | 4 Comments »
By Brian | February 24, 2011
Welcome back to Brain Celebri-teasers. It’s time to reveal the solution to our Week #8 puzzle:
| Week #8 | | Category: | Politics | | Difficulty: | Medium | | Clue: | In honor of President’s Day, we present these two guys for you to compare | | Answer: | Abraham Lincoln &
John F. Kennedy |  |  |  | | Presidents Lincoln and Kennedy, the first and last presidents to be assassinated, are also two of the most compared presidents in American history. And, for the record, I agree with Jason – their combined picture does bear a striking resemblance to Ronald Reagan. |
The winner this week was Mike!
After eight weeks, the standings are as follows:
| Player | Points | Correct Answers | | Mike | 8 | 6 | | Ilya | 2 | 6 | | Jeff Porten | 2 | 3 | | Suzanne | 2 | 1 | | Konstantin | 0 | 2 | | Jim | 0 | 1 | | Jason | 0 | 1 | | Harmon | 0 | 1 |
Thanks for playing, everyone! Remember to check back on Monday for next week’s puzzle!”
Categories: Celebri-teaser Answers | 3 Comments »
By Brian | February 21, 2011
Welcome back to Brain Celebri-teasers. This is Week #8. Here’s this week’s puzzle:
| Week #8 | | Category: | Politics | | Difficulty: | Medium | | Clue: | In honor of President’s Day, we present these two guys for you to compare | |
Remember – the solution will be posted on Thursday, so you have 3-4 days to guess. Put your answer in the comments section – first comment (by timestamp) wins.
Now that the contest is over, you can click here to see the answer.
Good luck!
Categories: Brain Celebri-teasers | 4 Comments »
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