The Cool Videos Thread!

Because we need one, daggit!

Now to seed the clouds....

And for my cool video I have included a modern version of an old favorite and another fun video to watch. I know that Golden Drakon will enjoy this one very much.      

That was pretty lame.  I know that you can do better than that.  Try these instead.

     

     

"Lame" says the guy who links four measly 20-second sprite jobs and calls it done.  

Now here's something better, folks.  Remember Marvin Heemeyer and his Killdozer rampage back in 2004?  Sure you do (at least if you're on this side of the pond).

(To those of us Down Under, Heemeyer was, in a nutshell, a guy who pulled a Ned Kelly on the entire town of Granby, Colorado after having a number of grievances with the old boys' club who ran Granby and muscled him out of business for no good reason.  Only instead of a rifle and some homemade plate mail, Heemeyer outfitted a 60-ton bulldozer with a mess of composite armor consisting of a foot of concrete sandwiched between two half-inch sheets of steel.  Rifle rounds just bounced off of it, small explosions had no effect and if he hadn't high-centered his Killdozer by driving it into some store's basement, he could have rampaged until he ran out of fuel.  And the Killdozer also had a few rifles mounted on it, which he used to shoot up a bunch of transformers and propane tanks.  But despite all the chaos and destruction, the only person that he ended up killing was himself.  It's quite a story.  You should read about it.)

So why do I like this pointful yet amusing video so much?  


I should totally build a mini-Killdozer of my own.  Wasn't it nice of the video's creator to show us how he did it?  

Happy trails, Marvin Heemeyer, you crazy old bastard.  

I'm so lonely.  

Here.  Have another cool video.

Speaking of singing Russians, are you down with the Epic Rap Battles of History?

No?

Don't worry.  You will be.   

And now, a smattering of my favorites from Seasons One and Two.  Season Three's kicking off on October 7th, so hold out just a little longer for that one.  

(Obligatory Warning: Intermittent cussin', so be sure to hide any kids and/or Puritanical sensibilities you may have.   )


 "Sit down, son, and let me give you a music lesson.
Ask Bach; I've got more cock than Smith and Wesson!
Never Say Never?  You'll never be forgetting:
I've crafted masterpieces that will last throughout the ages.
Your music gets you bitches on your Facebook pages!"  

Oh, don't mind me.  I'm just grooving to the best bits.  


  "There are ten-million-million-million-million-
Million-million-million-million-million
Particles in the universe that we can observe.
Your Mama took the ugly ones and put them into one nerd."   


 "So before you come to battle with your PBS crap,
How 'bout I call up CPS about them kids on your lap
fool!"
"Watch what you say.  Kids love me more than lunch.
I'm not the one with my face on some whack-ass Captain Crunch.
When my plan comes together you won't even see it coming.
I'll chop you into four black dudes and I'll remake Cool Runnings."  


  "Someone who loathes you, bitch!  Now stand up and rhyme!
I only thawed you out so I could beat your ass a second time!
Roar like Chewbacca, the voice of Mufasa!
I'm on the leader of your limp-[sporked] Luftwaffe!
I strike back hard against a Nazi!
Brain-toss your ass in the air!  Yahtzee!"   


(Hey, that's Jesse and Jeana from Prank vs. Prank playing Leonidas and Gorgo here!  I love how Nice Peter and EpicLLOYD bring in all these other YouTube personalities as guest rappers.  They must have some serious social networking going on there.)


  "Before us, people only used to fly in balloons.
You think we're scared of two idiots addicted to shrooms?
You shoulda coulda woulda come to lose an extra life.
So just dudda dudda dudda back down in your pipe!"


 "Everybody knows Windows bit off Apple."
"I tripled the profits on a PC."
"All the people with the power to create use an Apple."
"And people with jobs use PC."
"You know, I bet they made this beat on an Apple."
"Nope.  Fruity Loops.  PC!"
"You will never, ever catch a virus on an Apple!"
"Well, you can still afford a doctor if you bought a PC."
"Let's talk about doctors.  I've seen a few,
'Cause I got a PC, but it wasn't from you.
I built a legacy, son.  You could never stop it.
Now excuse me while I turn Heaven a profit."  

 "I'm coming out the socket.
Nothing you can do can stop it.
I'm on your lap and in your pocket.
How you gonna shoot me down when I guide the rocket?"  


 "You think I haven't heard those things before?
You're just a bully who's too scared to go to war.
You had a hit song called 'My Way' but someone else wrote it.
You're the least talented rat in your whole pack of rodents!
You've got four notes in your whole range.  You can't act and you can't dance.
I'm more powerful than you when I'm wearing women's pants!"  


  "By the power invested in me by this giant bald bird,
The President shall not be the shiniest of two turds!
You!  I wanna like you!  Don't talk about change, just do it!
I fought for what was on my brain until a bullet went through it!
And you!  Moneybags!  You're a pancake!  You're flip-floppity!
It's a country, not a company you can play like Monopoly!
I'll properly reach across the aisle and bitch-smack you as equals!
Of the people!  By the people!  For the people!
Eagle!"   


  "Shut up, nerds.  I serve justice, so eat it!
My sidekick only comes around..."
"...When he's needed!
   "Boy Wondermakeyouwonderhowyourassgotkilled,
Biteharderthanthosehounds down in Baskerville!
I'llblastyouwiththat Bat-whack-repellent!
Rappelabuilding, snatchavillain
Thenbydinnerbechillin'!
Gottasecret'boutyourhomegirl Irene Adler:
Tookherbacktomynest to bam-pow-kersplat her.
I'll shatter that fiddle with a chop of the hand!
Holy Conan Doyle!  Let's get 'em...ah, goddamn!"     

(Hurray, speed rap!   )


   "I see a universe of infinite energy
But no potential for threat from this enemy.
So you can call me Tesla,
Nikola,
Impeccably dressed.
Giving lessons in electrical nemesis.  This will be on the test!"  

  "I conduct business.  Understood
Things you never could.
So dope that I even make New Jersey look good!
I'm on the record I invented.  You got duped.  There, I said it.
And I'll bet you fifty-thousand dollars that you'll never forget it!"   

 "You fool!  You think that you can touch me with this?
You couldn't handle my gifts with your greedy little mind.
What's inside mine was ahead of its own time.
You did not steal from me; You stole me from mankind!"  

Okay, next video!


 "It may be way too soon, but I'm calling my shot,
And I'm not talking about those Italian syringes you brought!
The Sultan of Swat will knock you right outta the park
And round the bases to the sound of uproaring applause
While you hang your head in shame and disgrace because
You got lost and forgot what real sportsmanship was!"


 "I attack!  You decay!  Can't sustain my releases!
Sidechain Wolfgang, bangarang you to pieces!
I'm a self-made man, you're a slave to your Papa.
I'm a r-r-rock star!  Mix you with the bass and drop ya!"  

(That's a clever use of the Attack/Decay/Sustain/Release elements of synthesized music, by the way. )

 "What kind of drugs does it take to enjoy this?  I've no idea!
I've seen more complexity in a couch from IKEA!
You go piano to fortississimo.
That means 'soft to very, very loud,'
'Cause I'm guessing that you didn't know!
Why don't you put down your Cubase and pick up a real bow?
I rocked harder than you when I was five years old!"  

And now, the grand finale.



Holy Zeus...so many surprise rappers...so much epicness!

 "How many dictators does it take
To turn an empire into a union of ruinous states?
It's a disgrace what you did to your own people.
Your Daddy beat you like a dog and now you're evil!
You're from Georgia, sweet Georgia,
And the history books unfold ya
As a messed up [Mother Hubbard] bent in the mind
Who built a superpower but he paid the price
With the endless destruction of Russian lives!
If you're the Man of Steel, I spit Kryptonite!
Big [spork] mystic, known to hypnotize!
I could end you with a whisper to your wife!"  

 "You got off easy when they pickled that moose [chuck]!
I'd leave your neck in a noose in a trench and shot!
Your whole family, shot!  All your wizard friends, shot!
Anyone who sold you pierogi, shot!"

 "I have no pride for you, who ruined everything
My Revolution was doing to stop the bourgeoisie!
I fought the bondage of classes!
The proletariat masses
Have brought me here to spit a thesis against both of your asses!"

 "Yo, I'm the host with the most Glasnost!
[Jackboats] made a mess and the War got Cold!
I shook hands with both Ronalds: Reagan and McDonald's, no doubt!
If your name ends with -in, time to get out!
I had the balls to let Baryshnikov dance, playa!
Tore down that wall like the Kool-Aid Man!  Oh, yeah!
You two need yoga.  You need a shower.
And you all need to learn how to handle real power!"  

 "Da, you want to mess with me?
I spit hot borscht when I'm crushing these beats!
Blow it up like a tuba while I'm balling in Cuba,
Doing Judo moves and schooling every Communist tsuka!"


Yeah, I can't get enough of these.  They're part rap battle, part history class.  I mean, all the stuff that I learned or relearned just from Googling the references in these rap battles...like when Cleopatra smuggled herself into Julius Caesar's chambers by rolling herself up in a big carpet.  Or how Freddie Mercury was embarrassed about having big teeth, so he grew his trademark moustache to hide them.  Or how, contrary to popular belief, "My Way" was composed by Paul Anka, not Frank Sinatra.  Or how Stephen Hawking has a habit of using "million" multiple times to denote immensely large numbers (like saying the number 5,000,000,000,000,000,000 as "5 million-million-million" instead of "5 quintillion").  Or how Stephen Hawking's theory on black holes (in which black holes emit Hawking Radiation particles on a quantum level) was disproven by other top physicists who reasserted that, sure enough, absolutely nothing can escape the gravitational pull of a black hole.  Or how Josef Stalin's birth name was Josef Dzhugashvili, but he changed it for political reasons; "Stalin" is Russian for "Steel Man" or "Man of Steel".  Or how the Germans captured Stalin's son Yakov and took him to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, and Stalin didn't even try to bargain for Yakov's safe return (essentially sentencing his own son to death).  Or how, after defecting from the Soviet Union in 1974, Mikhail Baryshnikov was banned from setting foot on Russian soil again, until Mikhail Gorbachev let him perform in Moscow with no hard feelings (and drew much criticism in doing so).  Or how Vladimir Putin may have actually been behind the death of Alexander Litvinenko, who mysteriously died from exposure to polonium--a radioactive element--after Litvinenko left the KGB and threatened to spill the beans on some of the KGB's dirty secrets; each radioactive mass is measured against its element's half-life to determine duration of radioactive potential and blah blah blah, so there's that reference.  Or when Thomas Edison offered Nikola Tesla $50,000 (which would be millions in today's money) to invent a way to upgrade his power company's Direct Current generators, then welched on the deal when Tesla actually did it.  Or when Edison killed a variety of live animals--all the way up to an elephant which a circus had slated to be put down--via electrocution, to show people the dangers of Alternating Current and scare them out of supporting its use; Edison was staunchly pro-DC (which positively sucks at powering entire neighborhoods, let alone towns, cities or metropoles), while Tesla was pro-AC (which, although being more potentially lethal to living creatures, can easily be conducted over vast distances with a minimum of depletion).  Or how Edison, ever the private profiteer, invoked his commercial, financial and political network of cronies to muscle out Tesla's proposal for a Government-funded network of electrically efficient Tesla coils which, though unlikely to make electrical power completely free for the common people, would have greatly reduced individual financial burdens--particularly for the Lower Class--by funding electricity with tax revenues.

It's funny, but the more I read up on Thomas Edison, the bigger a rat bastard he becomes.  To think that I looked up to him when I was a boy, too....

And yes, Shakespeare is actually rapping in iambic pentameter when he opens his rap battle with Dr. Seuss.  

Plus, there are all the homophones, double entendres, subtle references and plays on words.  "PC" is shorthand for "Personal Computer," but it's also medical shorthand for "Pancreatic Cancer," which is what killed Steve Jobs.  Beethoven smudges "Third Degree Murder" (which, in some nations, is manslaughter through recklessness or negligence) with "Major Third" (which, in music, is an interval spanning four semitones).  The easiest difficulty level in the Halo games is named "The soldier they need you to be" (so Master Chief is subtly calling Leonidas an unskilled weakling).  Is Gandhi saying "Always stay away from the ho's" (whores or promiscuous women), or is he saying "Always stay away from the hose" (one of the high-pressure firehoses which the authorities turned on King and his civil rights protesters during the 1963 Birmingham protest)?  "It's hip-hop chowder, red over white" uses red chowder (Manhattan Clam Chowder) and white chowder (New England Clam Chowder) as an allegory to refer to the Red Army (Lenin's pro-Communist Bolsheviks) defeating the White Army (Russia's Tsarists/Loyalists and their European, Japanese and American allies) who tried to take Russia back from the Communists after the October Revolution.  Putin spits hot borscht when he's "crushing these beats," but borscht is a Russian stew which you make by crushing beets.  And I had to do a double-take while reading Stephen Hawking's subtitles, but it turns out that "p-brane" (as opposed to "peabrain") is actually a string theory reference.  And I already touched down on synthesized music and its Attack/Decay/Sustain/Release settings.

They may be pocked by a rare historical inaccuracy or other error here and there (ie. Johann Sebastian Bach died just shy of 20 years before Ludwig van Beethoven was born, so the two couldn't have been contemporaries).  But those errors are rare because Peter, Lloyd and their crew obviously do a heap of homework before filming, editing and launching each episode.

Epic Rap Battles of History: Fun and educational.  Enjoy!  

*desperately attempts to stoke some conversation in here*

Okay, let's see...Adolf Hitler won, Abraham Lincoln won, Sarah Palin won, Macho Man Randy Savage won, Ludwig von Beethoven won in a friggin' landslide, Stephen Hawking won, Napoleon Bonaparte won (but not by much), Ben Franklin won (and sorry, Vince, but you kinda sucked), William Shakespeare took it home with the speed rap (and screw you for saying otherwise, Things 1 and 2), Mister Rogers won, Christopher Columbus won, hell if I know whether Peter beat Lloyd or not, Darth Vader won the rematch, I utterly despise Halo fanboys yet must admit that Master Chief outrapped Leonidas, the Wright Brothers aced it, Michael Jackson won, Marilyn Monroe took an extra turn but still couldn't stop Cleopatra from winning, HAL-9000 won, Freddie Mercury won by a league, Abraham Lincoln came out of nowhere and stole a second victory, both of Doctor Who's regenerations won despite some Dalek-related interference, Robin won, Santa Claus won despite the third elf's weak showing (sorry, Snoop), Adam's smooth puns trumped Eve's crazy cussin' and pecker jokes, MLK won, Nikola Tesla fried the competition, Babe Ruth won, I'm calling it a tie between Mozart and Skrillex, and despite some solid showings all around, Vladimir Lenin came out ahead because I'm a sucker for people who mix big words into lyrics without breaking the rhythm.

Now somebody step up and tell me why I'm wrong.  I dare you.  

Ummmm... well. That was a lot of videos.

Ahem.

Here's my contribution

Yeowch!  That was pretty slick.  A bit nasty and scathing, but slick.  Imagine how many takes he had to record just to get his four tracks to synchronize just right.  

Also, the third season of the Epic Rap Battles of History is in progress.  And to be honest, Hitler vs. Vader 3 was quite a disappointment.  



But the subsequent rap battles have, thus far, rocked the hands off a clock.   




 "You gotta die for something, Miley.
Just picture your epitaph:
'Had the world watching, chose to show them all her flat ass'."

Yeah, I'm doing it again.  Sorry.  

And to think that all along, I've been suggesting Joan of Arc versus the likes of Norman Schwarzkopf (Junior, not Senior) and Vlad Dracula III (aka. Vlad Tepes/Vlad the Impaler), simply because she has always been one of my favorite historical figures; I even had a Saint Joan of Arc candle that I'd light during my prayers way back when I was a good little Catholic boy.  So it's good to see that Peter and Lloyd half-listened to me for once.  I wish that they'd pitted her against another actual historical figure, but c'est la vie.

Also, she beat William the Conqueror in an episode of The Deadliest Warrior once.  The cinematic ending was a bit tripe, though; she led her army with her prized longsword, but she never actually killed anyone with it.  You know, out of her personal adherence to the Sixth Commandment and all that jazz.


And honestly, that is not how you properly use a catapult against enemy infantry!  You don't load it with one big rock; those are for enemy fortifications and siege weapons.  You load it with lots and lots of little rocks, thus turning the catapult into a medieval bastardization between a mortar and a shotgun.  Or you can load the catapult with flaming pitch, the medieval equivalent of a gigantic Molotov cocktail.  Either or.


And for something completely different, I just Favorited this video!  It's ridiculous how formulaic Hollywood can be, isn't it?

I didn't watch all of the Rap Battles, but of the ones I did see I think your computer must be broken.  Darth Vader handed Hitler his ass all three times.  But you must be using a crappy computer or you would have seen that. 

For my video I posted the coolest thing I could think of that means a lot to several people on IV.




Yes I just posted this cool video just to be a total smart ass, but I couldn't resist because of the all the cool memories I have of that place.

Spirit of the Tiger wrote:

I didn't watch all of the Rap Battles, but of the ones I did see I think your computer must be broken.  Darth Vader handed Hitler his ass all three times.  But you must be using a crappy computer or you would have seen that.

Pffft. Okay, Boba. Whatever.

Spirit of the Tiger wrote:

For my video I posted the coolest thing I could think of that means a lot to several people on IV.

...

Yes I just posted this cool video just to be a total smart ass, but I couldn't resist because of the all the cool memories I have of that place.

Sure, I have cool memories of that place...in particular, that December of '94 where the 03 Localizer's Distribution Unit decided to take a dump on us while there was two feet of snow on the ground and a temperature of 60 below with the wind chill. So naturally, the MetNav shop's three airmen--Burt, Ruhle and myself--got sent out into that mess to fix the damned thing. Naturally, the DU was outdoors and it only stood a foot off the ground, so the three of us pretty much had the snow up our butt clefts while we stooped in front of that DU, and we had to take off our nice, warm, insulating gloves to work on the fine solid-state electronics. So we cycled out; one of us would run out of the truck, work on the DU and the Localizer shed for five or ten minutes, run back to the truck (where we had the heater running full-blast), tell the other two guys what he did and warm up again while the next guy ran out and picked up where he left off. Burt, Ruhle, me, Burt, Ruhle, me and so on. I was wearing fiberglass-toed jump boots with three pairs of winterweight socks, and it still felt like my toes were about to break off while I was running back to the truck.

Did you ever see snot crystalize after dribbling onto a BDU jacket? Yeah, you probably did. Crazy stuff, man. Friggin' Montanan winters....

Still, I think I'd prefer Montana's winters to Texas' summers. You can always put on more clothing, but there's only so much that you can take off (and even less if you're in polite company, alas).

And now, I give you a presentation of A Christmas Carol...according to the Epic Rap Battles of History.  


(And keep one eye on that clock behind Scrooge.  Gotta love that attention to detail, huh?   )

Enjoy sadistically.

Time for another funny video about superheros. 

Time for another funny video about Super Mario Brothers.  



And you thought Bane was formidable as a human. It gets worse. Much worse.

More super hero videos for us to laugh at and enjoy.

                                                                              

Here, dude!  Have some more Superman!   




On a slightly related note, have you seen Weird Al lately? I have! Here he is, playing Isaac Newton right here:




And this one's for you, Drak!  

How ironic.  Instead of getting a good night's sleep so I could resume my job search at first light this morning, I was up all night watching Game of Thrones videos on YouTube.  Curse my weak willpower!    

At least I'm pretty well caught up with Season 4 now.  And really, hasn't GoT's contrariness made the show a touch predictable?

Petyr:  "I have only loved one woman--only one--my entire life:"
Me:  "...and it's Sansa's Mom, not you."
Petyr:  "Your sister."
Me:  "Called it!"  

To be fair, Lysa was a paranoid loon.  I can see why Petyr would marry her for political convenience, then get rid of her as soon as she became politically inconvenient.  Our Littlefinger's a treacherous sort, isn't he?  Watch your six, Sansa.  Even if you did cover for him while he was being interrogated over Lysa's "suicide," well, how many times did Lysa cover for him in the past?  Hmm?

And of course, we saw the outcome of the Oberyn vs. the Mountain duel coming well in advance, didn't we?  "He's dying, he's at your mercy...finish him off!  Stop trying to extort a confession out of him and stick him in the carotid or something!  Oops...there we go.  Now you're dead.  You should have been content with killing him quickly and avenging your sister that way."  Really, has trying to milk a confession out of dead man ever accomplished anything?  He's dying.  What could he possibly gain by implicating Tywin on his way out? Nothing! He's taking that knowledge to his grave.  So just put him down and be done with it.   

Okay, I'm off to eat and hunt for a new job now.  Back to you guys.  

Y'all need to speak up and stuff.   

Okay, Q&A sessions normally wouldn't qualify as cool videos...well, except when they're about Jack Gleeson, who is undoubtedly the coolest dude in the world.



My favorite bit's when one of the students asks him if he ever trained up for his role as King Joffrey by shooting a prostitute with a crossbow. But he has quite a few good answers there. Plus, he calls a guy out for having a very groovy moustache; too bad we never get to see it for ourselves. You're such a character, Mr. Gleeson.

Okay, I'm off my GoT kick now. Who's next?

You know..you are sooooo lucky that I managed to see season 4 already or I'd be royally ticked at you for all the spoilers.   

Oh, that's nice. So I can say "Joffrey's dead!" or "It's about time Tyrion shot Tywin dead, and for bonus style points he even did it while the old bastard was taking a dump!" and you'll be perfectly cool with it, huh?

Just wait until next season there are more to come. I have read all the books and I know what will happen. The info about what will happen in the future is all over the internet. While we were in Montana you used to read a lot, but I guess kids and a wife don't allow much reading time.

By the way, GD, Tiger agrees that Tywin's killer was Tyrion, in the privy, with the crossbow.  But I said it first, so this round of Clue goes to me.  

(But we probably should be courteous and refrain from telling GD what Qyburn's "cure" ends up doing to that bastard Gregor Clegane/the Mountain, shouldn't we?   )

Well the books don't actually say what his cure is, but it is STRONGLY implied.  Just like John Snow's mother is never mentioned by name, but the books strongly imply who she is. Don't tell GD or he will be pissed.