rantlust

Posted by john on August 03rd 2007 in Entertainment, Humor, Internet
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Barats and Bereta are a popular YouTube duo who have posted many humorous clips on various topics including several on college life. I first came across them on YouTube about a year ago and became an instant fan of their humor and social commentary. The duo met at Gonzaga University which features prominently in many of their videos. After building up a huge fan following, I heard that they were supposedly getting some kind of TV deal to create a comedic show or act or something. Their YouTube creative output has conspicously dropped leading me to believe they actually have graduated and have less time on their hands with real jobs instead! Well hopefully we’ll see more of them and their works in the future. Anyway, the following YouTube video is one of my personal favorites where they poke fun at stereotypes of American suburban life and attitudes. There used to be a longer bookended version of this which for some reason they have removed from YouTube but the essence of the video is still here:

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Posted by john on April 04th 2007 in Commercials, Disasters, Entertainment, India, Sports
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A funny but rather true view of what ails Indian cricket today. Enjoy!

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Posted by john on March 17th 2007 in Sports
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Six sixes in a cricket over. It is one of cricket’s most coveted achievements by a batsman and for the first time in international cricket, it was done. The setting was the South Africa versus The Netherlands match during the Cricket World Cup currently underway in the West Indies. South African batsman, Herschelle Gibbs, is the proud owner of the record. Gibbs hit six consecutive sixes in a single over against a hapless Dutch bowler, Daan van Bunge.

To the uninitiated, a six is the most runs a cricket batsman can score with a single batting stroke and requires the ball to fly out of the field of play without bouncing … sort of like hitting a home run in baseball. A cricket bowler gets six consecutive chances (at a time) to bowl at batsman to try to get him out. This six-ball bowling effort is called an over. The bowler is required to bowl all six balls as legitimate deliveries to the batsman facing him that allows the batsman to have a chance to play at. If any bowling delivery is illegitimate for any reason, the bowler is required to re-bowl that delivery and the batting team’s scorecard is enhanced by one run as a result. These illegitimate deliveries are called extras for self-evident reasons. Anyway, ignoring these extras, if a bowler cleanly bowls an over, an opposing batsman can technically hit 36 runs off him. A holy grail of cricket. This is not the first time that six sixes have been hit in such a way. First class cricket has seen the great Sir Gary Sobers do it first and later by India’s Ravi Shastri. However these first class cricket occasions were not international matches. Gibbs is the first to have done this in an international match and at the World Cup no less. For his achievement, Johnnie Walker whiskey brand will donate US $1 million to Habitat for Humanity.

Relive Gibb’s superb achievement here:

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Posted by john on August 21st 2006 in Rants, Sports
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Darrell Hair, you fricking Aussie idiot of a cricket umpire, you’ve done it again. You’ve pulled off another biased decision against a South Asian cricket team (Pakistan) and are getting defended by that spineless sport body that call themselves the International Cricket Council (ICC). To the uninitiated, Darrell Hair is a “neutral” umpire of Australian citizenship who uncannily chooses his controversies mostly if they deal with umpiring rulings against non-white countries such as India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

(Read more…)

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Posted by john on June 13th 2006 in Rants, Sports
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The Pittsburgh Steelers’ star quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, was involved in terrible motorcycle accident in downtown Pittsburgh that nearly killed him. Big Ben was not wearing a helmet while riding his 2005 Suzuki Hayabusa motorcycle and it is a position he has maintained rather stupidly in the past. Just looking at the state of the motorcycle above tells you how close he came to the end of his life. Pennsylvania law makes helmet wearing optional, not compulsory. It must truly be an idiotic set of PA legislators who decided that one.

A good fool and his life are soon parted young. That’s my proverb for what Big Ben was trying to do. Reports say that he did not have valid rider’s license and so he really was a lot more irresponsible than initially thought. I’m glad he survived and hopefully he will have learned a lesson from this episode. I can see the Steelers quickly redrafting their contracts with everyone to include a clause about riding motorcycles. That will be more effective than all the advice Roethlisberger got from his coach and others about riding his motorcycle without a helmet.

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Posted by john on June 08th 2006 in Celebrity, Dance, Entertainment, Internet, Music
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Comedian Judson Laippley has become a bit of an internet celebrity with his onstage montage of the popular dance moves over the last 50 years. His routine incorporates famous signature dance moves starting with Elvis in the 50s across through Outkast in the 2000s. Very entertaining in the its execution, the routine also showcases Laippley’s talented body coordination. One of the most popular YouTube views ever, enjoy the show here.

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Posted by john on April 27th 2006 in Music, Raves, War
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I’m more of a classic rock and pop music lover and this is reflected in my expansive music CD collection. But there comes a time, every now and then, though rare, when a new contemporary musician totally blows me away. I highly recommend anyone reading this to check out the debut album of the musician of the moment, the British sensation, James Blunt. (Read more…)

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Posted by john on April 07th 2006 in Engineering, Humor, Random, Raves, USA
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A hack is typically a university prank done in good fun that doesn’t cause any damage to the subject of the hack and often is very clever in its execution and amusing in its results. No other institution has a more storied history of hacks than the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Well the MIT hackers have struck again. This time, in an incredibly well planned and logistically coordinated operation, the hackers have transported a century old cannon (known as the Fleming cannon) all the way from the Caltech campus in Pasadena, CA to the MIT campus in Cambridge, MA. A website has been set up by the hack team. There is even another website that keeps track of and scores hacks played between the rival schools. This caper scored MIT a huge 10 points.

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