When locked into my tiny cubicle at Work I tend to hide the aircon and peripheral noise with headphones. And what better way to listen to music and watch crazy vids than the Tube that is You?
My faves in 2015:
5. Crazy Plastic Ball PRANK!!
4. Lip Sync Battle with Will Ferrell, Kevin Hart and Jimmy Fallon.
3. Justin Bieber Carpool Karaoke - and why JB isn't as evil as we all like to say.
2. Dwayne Johnson's Shake It Off
Its another lip-sync, I know, but it's a chap called The Rock who is going to be singing a girlie-girlie-girl song.
1. The SuperBowl ads this year were rather boring, even for an advertising geek such as myself. Instead, as my pick for best video of the year, I pick a video that has made me smile, made me frown, made me think twice about life. You know, because that's what YouTube videos should be doing!
John Legend - All of Me
YouTube themselves have created a video which tries to capture the essence of the most popular 2015 YouTube clips
Personally, I think they fail. Don't get me wrong, I love Google. I live for Google! But this video just tries too hard. And thus fails. Its like they're saying all the punchlines to 101 jokes that we only know a few of.
And neither do you. He lives with a disease that affects everything he does, but his story and hopes for the future give us a new look at OneRepublic's hit 'I lived'.
'Don't give up' and 'live every day like its your last' are phrases we've all heard from teachers, gurus and parents.
'Hope when the water rises / You've built a wall' - strong words from a parent to a child, but even more resounding when they talk to a young man with Cystic Fibrosis.
OneRepublic's album of 2014 had a hit single with "I Lived". Their video for that song was rewritten to highlight the fight and struggle that Cystic Fibrosis sufferers go through.
The song, above, follows Bryan's life and the differences between it and a 'normal' childhood.
The message of both "I Lived" and Bryan's life can be summed up with his statement: "I want to make the most out of my life and have as most fun as I possibly can. My biggest fear is not being able to do that."
In the last few weeks there have been quite a few stories about social media in the news. I'm not even going to touch on the different police-based viral campaigns from the summer!
Yesterday was unofficially 'arrest a teen for carrying a clock day' in Texas, so they did just that. A kid called Ahmed said that he had made a clock at home and brought it to school to show his engineering teacher.
He said his engineering teacher had congratulated him but advised him "not to show any other teachers".
I guess he did.
Here is the clock:
Not much to it, and I guess I can see where the police were coming from. But taking him away in handcuffs? Really?
It wasn't only me who though that the local PD had gone a bit 'over the top' in their following of the law:
So James Cordon has been doing a marvellous job as the host of The Late, Late Show. I even mentioned the hesitancy I had about claiming he was the next best host in my blog post 'There's a New Kid In Town'.
Recently I have had a lot of time on my hands in the evenings. After crowdsourcing for data there were quite a few movies to watch.
The Hobbit trilogy was visually stunning, but plot-wise boring. Guardians of the Galaxy was fun, as was Spy. Glorious Basterds was odd, as was Edge of Tomorrow. Surprisingly for me, as they are such behemoths, were Bond films, Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, specifically.
And now there is another in the pipeline:
With 5 million views in the last 2 days I think there might be a few others out there who are looking forward to it as well!
Being a child of the '70's I remember the original Man From UNCLE. It was a bit staid after watching my real uncle in 'The Spy Who Came In From The Cold' but the truth is, that era really was very interesting, and chilling.
When there really was an obvious threat of nuclear attack the world's superpowers were definitely professional, determined and capable and that is what made UNCLE such a believable story. Today? I don't think the urgency or desperation can be understood as well.
Fast cars, loud guns and action sequences are always going to be hits at the box offices so I guess we'll hear good things about the film.
Personally? I like the chic aspect to the chaps from UNCLE - very James Bond...
Oh, and the original had Ducky from NCIS in it - always a crowd pleaser!
There is a lot of new technology out there, and a few awesome ways of being part of the new hi-tech wave.
Personally I am proud to wear my Kickstarter based Pebble Watch, and at home I have a Sensibo set Ruche Shelving and AllBe1 tags for my kids' school bags (and my car keys!).
Some projects I find very interesting are AllBe1, Sensibo and Zolo on Indiegogo.
AllBe1 - RFID tags that look like keywing fobs so you can surreptitiously track different items.
Sensibo - start your air con remotely. 20 minutes from home my kids tell me to start the air con. And yes, it is the peak of summer here so it is awesome.
Zolo - tough cases for the phone. Simple, sleek and effective.
And theres more!
On Kickstarter there seems to be a much wider range of products, from board games to 3D Printing printers. Persoanlly? I find Phree, Pebble Watch (mark II) and the utterly awesome Ruche Shelving to be ones to follow.
Much has been made of the new music scene emerging in the USA today; there is too much pornography in the videos, too much swearing in the lyrics and,basically, 'kids today...'.
Personally I think it is awesome that no-one pays attention to what the old fuddy-duddys say! On the other hand, I like my swearing to be limited and based on thumbs and hammers meeting, not an every day occurrence!
I'm a big racing fan. Any sport where there is serious risk every time you go out there, that's what I love. IndyCar is dangerous, in the same way as Formula 1, MotoGP and other sports where you reach speeds over 100 km/h on the warm-up lap!
One of the biggest stars in the motorsports world has definitely been Dario Franchitti. The IndyCar Series Champion in 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2011 he also won the Indianapolis 500 in 2007, 2010 and 2012. This guy knows how to race. This guy knows how to win too.
So why did he quit getting into a car back in 2013? After a massive crash he was told by doctors that he should just walk away from it.
As he says himself:
It wasn’t some big dramatic scene. I wasn’t devastated or anything. Besides, my sole focus was on getting better. I just wanted to be able to live my life normally again.
An awesome chap. Not too many people can be that cold and calculating. He'd been racing since the early 80's and, as he states in a recent interview, his parents remortgaged the house to get him through his first year in karting.
Jackie Stewart was key in helping him further his career, and Dario recollects his first meeting with Jackie:
"He was brilliant though. He put me at ease completely. We were doing a Christmas quiz, all the team, and one of the questions was about Stirling Moss. Jackie opened his suit pocket, pulled out his phone, flipped it down [and called Stirling] to double-check the answer. I thought to myself: 'Wow. This is the big time. Holy smokes.'"
I can only hope that future drivers can be as magnanimous and gentlemanly as Dario.
I'm not some 'gangsta' who wears his baseball cap back-to-front, nor do I know the different hand signals that the 'youf of today' show each other.
I do, however, know what music I like, and to complicate matters, not only do I like Elvis, Jonny Cash, Pomplamoose and Robbie Williams, but also Katy Perry, The Streets and One Republic.
An eclectic mix to say the least!
I recently heard again a great artist who is not as well known as those listed above;
Dan le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip.
No, I do not know why he is called that. I do know that he is a talented young man who has the ability to go far, and change many lives.
This is one of his hits from 2009;
Then there's this little beauty from 2008:
So, whats the difference in his music to all others? He seems to be honest, he seems to know what he is talking about, he seems to be talking to the world as a whole - and that's where he got me.
Oh, and YouTube in it's brilliance guided me to also watch this video, which I also liked a lot;
Snooker is a funny old game. Unlike footballers or IronMen, you really don't need to be at the peak of fitness or cardiologically super. You just need to be able to use a stick to hit one ball against another.
Except, as with so many sports, an elegance and law of warfare has evolved in the sport.
If you don't know what 'Snooker' is, here are the basics:
A cue sport played on a baize covered table measuring 11 ft 81⁄2 in × 5 ft 10 in (3569 mm x 1778 mm), commonly referred to as 12 × 6 ft.
The game is played using a cue and 22 snooker balls: one white cue ball, 15 red balls worth one point each, and six balls of different colours: yellow (2 points), green (3), brown (4), blue (5), pink (6) and black (7).
The red balls are initially placed in a triangular formation, and the other coloured balls on marked positions on the table known as "spots".
The balls are then potted in order of points, one red, one colour, one red, another colour ball and so on.
Invented in India by British Army officers, it is popular in many of the English-speaking and Commonwealth countries, with top professional players attaining multi-million-pound career earnings from the game. The premier tournament in snooker is the World Championship, held annually in Sheffield, England.
The real beauty of the game can be seen here in this awesome video that had me clapping, gasping and smiling.
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