YouTube Madness: Old Music Videos

This is the first installment of our YouTube Madness series in which a collection of similar YouTube videos will be viewed, briefly judged, and then the number of previous views will be recorded and checked again roughly twenty-four hours later to see how many views have accumulated.


1) Terror Squad - Lean Back ft. Fat Joe

As you can see, this video has been watched an astonishing 4.29 MILLION times.  That's a total of over twenty million minutes spent watching Fat Joe.  Jesus.  At this rate.....wait a minute it was released in 2009...Oh God...Oh sweet Jesus.  There have only been 1,051,200 minutes since 2009. That means that at any given time, there are about 19 people watching this music video.    All day.  All night. 

Prediction: This video had to be front-loaded with views, right?  Right?  700 VIEWS

One Day View Total: 6,390 Views

Reaction: WHAT theeeee..........

2) Celine Dion - It's All Coming Back To Me Now

I'm not going to give the same mathematical breakdown for this video, but you can do some estimating in your head and realize that it's still pretty fucked up.  Celine Dion used to be a legitimate force in the music world. 

Prediction: This is a timeless classic that aged well and women are always sad.  1,200 VIEWS

One Day View Total: 11,155 Views

Reaction: Wow I really underestimated these views.

3) Wreckx-N-Effect - Rumpshaker

Alright, now this is getting exciting.  A user-added video with a sexual-sounding name and a MASSIVE number of views.  This video keeps it real in ways that Celine Dion can only fantasize about.  Major props to the 3,830,070 people that took time out of their days to support this video.

Prediction: Wreckx-N-Effect be crazy, yo.  300 VIEWS

One Day View Total: 3,600 Views

Reaction: Seems about right, comparatively.

4) Creed - Higher (Video)

This video should speak directly into the hearts of the kind of dirt balls that made YouTube into the intolerant, hate-spewing dumpster fire that it has become.  Somehow, this video only has about 3.3M views...something has got to give.

Prediction: Creed was actually cool for a while...a long, sad time ago.  150 VIEWS

One Day View Total: 8,705 Views

Reaction: Garbage music for people that like garbage. (Joke assist to Graham Clark)

5) Bad Company - Bad Company

This isn't even a music video, but this song kicks so much ass that 2,788,105 of the biggest badasses decided to listen to the audio without any visual stimulation.  

Prediction: Should be more, but this video can't get more than 100 VIEWS.

One Day View Total: 4,920 Views

Reaction: Good work, everyone.

I'm really going to have to come up with a more scientific way to estimate these views for next week's topic: Fetish Videos

Eastern Musings

Shit, it's been a while people. I'll go ahead and apologize for our hiatus on behalf of McFarlanes everywhere. Our highly paid, all free-range staff have been too busy creating salacious content for the @foodbauer twitter feed to blog since late September. Fortunately for all of us, I completely OD'd on Bauer this past weekend and therefore have the strength to resist tweeting on his behalf long enough to post.

Before we get into the good stuff, here's something that rattled around my headparts today. I was listening to the infinite wisdom of Seth & JahJah (of UhhYeahDude podcasting fame) this morning and they were positing that only negativity can come from recording anything on the internet to be viewed for the rest of eternity. After thinking about it, I agree that future trouble/mockery is more likely to result than fame/fortune/riches from putting personal thoughts into the public view. Despite what we've now decided is clearly a bad idea, I'll forge ahead and share my least PC views on the world so they can be used against me in 20 years.

I recently did some vacationing to Asia with Alena and thought I would record some of the highlights for posterity's sake. Overall, it was incredible. I got to meet her extended family, see where her parents grew up, where she worked/studied, etc. Lots of good relationshippy jazz, but no one comes to the lukewarm waters of McFarBlog for feel good relationship stories!...do you? Our follower polls haven't been returned yet so we're not quite sure what drives the masses to our blog. Enough stalling, on to the good stuff.

Awesome stuff that exists/happened in Taiwan or Hong Kong:

• Damper Baby - Taipei 101 is the tallest building in the city & uses a 660 metric ton ball of steel (a "tuned damper) to counterweight the building from swaying in high winds and/or earthquakes. The damper hangs from the top of the building and is visible from the observatory decks. In order to assuage everyone's fear of a 660 metric ton ball of steelhanging above their heads, the Damper Babies were born. These cute little guys are symbolic of the comicification of everything, EVERYTHING. How do you sell more cake?? Shape it like a cartoon penis & call it "Gayke", that's how. CARTOON EVERYTHING.

• Mopeds Everywhere - It's like when I started playing MarioKart Wii before realizing that 4-wheeled cars are better than driving the 2-wheeled motos. I'm not saying that cars > motos in this case because stupid Bowser & Wario aren't going to throw their weight around & squash the Taiwanese. At every red light, the mopeds ooze to the front of the traffic and then unleash their 50cc madness when the light turns green. They fearlessly weave thru traffic and cram all sorts of cargo onto the scooters. Awesomeness.
• Language barrier + Ear fuzz = entire skull shave. I went to a barbershop because I needed my weekly trim. I had a friend explain what I needed in Mandarin & sat back for what I expected was going to be a 5 min shave. I ended up getting a shampoo, haircut, head massage, hot shave, EAR SHAVE & NOSE SHAVE. Honest to God, the razor touched my nostril divider. Now I'm not about to proclaim myself an authority on men's grooming, but that's unnecessary. (Ear Shaving documentation below)

• Taiwan National Palace Museum - A huge collection of national treasures inside a beautifully built series of buildings which house only 1% of the total collection. The other 99%? You guessed it, stored in temperature controlled vaults inside a mountain! Highlights include an olive pit carved into a boat (complete w/hinged doors), Jade cabbage and concentric circles carved out of ivory. Even a fully-shaved caveman like myself could appreciate these pieces.


• Cheesehead Gift - As a welcoming/98th birthday gift, I brought a cheesehead to Alena's grandfather. Evidently many asians are lactose intolerant so cheese does not play nearly as large of a role in their diet as it plays in the American diet, let alone the diet of a Wisconsinite. This explains so much about both our cultures...anyways I think he enjoyed it despite his confusion as to why you'd wear cheese on your head. iPad saved the day w/some photos of drunken Lambeau fans, because they make everything so much easier to understand.

• Hong Kong Harbour Lightshow - Evidently this happens every night at 8pm. We were lucky enough to catch it while crossing the harbour on a ferry, so we saw both sides equally well. Imagine 25 buildings of 40+ stories, all covered with lights which are somehow choreographed together for a 15 minute lightshow. Or just watch the below video.

• Gondola Ride & Buddha Village - After a beautiful 25 minute ride in a glass-bottom gondola to the top of a nearby mountain, we set out to see the world's largest seated Buddha statue near the Po Lin Monastery. Despite the permafog that hampers Hong Kong, the gondola rides offered beautiful views of the Lantau Island harbour. In order to get to the actual Buddha statue, you have to fight through a strategically located tourist village, complete with a Starbucks. (Snarky single-eyebrow raise). We eventually saw the big man & lit some incense, which was actually more powerful than I suspected.





Again, these are only a few highlights. The meals, markets & museums were incredible but probably not all that exciting to read about. The food & hospitality in Taiwan were exceptional. The Hong Kong mass transit system is genius and I could devote an entire blog post about my fondness for it. The size of the apartment buildings in Hong Kong was staggering. McDonald's soft-serve cones are the equivalent of $0.33 USD!! All in all, I definitely give both Taiwan & Hong Kong the McFarBlog stamp of approval.

Possible Jim Rome Spinoffs

Let's get right into these tweets:

Jim Rome is both the host and contestant in an analysis-heavy dating gameshow that allows him to showcase his rhetorical skills and his ability to answer live calls from viewers all while choosing the love of his life.

Watchability: 2/5
Plausibility: 3/5
Network: ESPN2/ABC
Timeslot: Primetime

Jim Rome is forced to confront his own mortality by managing a struggling crematorium during funeral season (probably not a real time of year).  He finds he needs to be tough but fair with his employees and he creates real and meaningful relationships with each of them.  The real fireworks come when he has to console the families of the deceased live on the air.

Watchability: 5/5
Plausibility: 2/5
Network: A&E
Timeslot: 9-10pm

Jim Rome cooks each week for a family that is down on their luck.  His subpar cooking skills are made up for somehow by his presence and post-dinner life chat with the parents about getting their lives back on track.

Watchability: 3/5
Plausibility: 5/5
Network: ABC
Timeslot: Primetime

Jim Rome narrates a documentary about Women's Rights that spans from whenever Women's Rights started to the present.  He is incredibly cynical and disrespectful.  Women end up hating all men everywhere.  It quickly becomes a Lifetime daytime staple.

Watchability: 5/5
Plausibility: 1/5
Network: Lifetime
Timeslot: Early Afternoon (Lifetime equivalent of primetime)

Jim Rome is a dealer at the featured table during a World Series of Poker event.  He is forced to moderate both the conversation at the table as well as the phone calls of whoever watches poker on ESPN2.

Watchability: 1/5
Plausibility: 4/5
Network: ESPN2
Timeslot: All day, every day

Jim Rome and a couple other guys with huge biceps, no sleeves, and mustaches hang out in a shitty garage and drink beer while analyzing babes and muscle cars.
Despite the manly premise, Rome and his cohosts regularly approach the segments with slumber party levels of excitement and squealing.
Segments: Chugs & Jugs, Motorbabe Mayhem, Alone with Rome, Backseat Babes

Watchability: 5/5
Plausibility: 4/5
Network: SPEED
Timeslot: 10pm

Jim Rome's quest to become Burning Man's official mascot is chronicled in this three part mini-series.
Part I: Jim interviews Burning Man enthusiasts and learns about the culture.
Part II: Gets into character and starts ingratiating himself to the major Burning Man players.
Part III: Jim ends up naked and hallucinating somewhere in the American Southwest nowhere near Burning Man.  He claims that he finds "the real Burning Man, man."

Watchability: 5/5
Plausibility: 1/5
Network: Indie Film
Timeslot: Debuted at some weird film festival

Rome puts out a series of PSA's about sexual health.  Although the title suggests that these would be lighthearted, in reality they are very gritty and sexually explicit.  Rome warns against the dangers of double penetration and stresses the importance of safe words.  Eventually the PSA's become 30 second blocks of Rome regaling the viewers with his own sexual conquests and darkest childhood secrets.  He ends every PSA with his controversial and misleading tagline, "I'm Jim Rome.  Keep it casual, you guys."

Watchability: 5/5
Plausibility: 2/5
Network: Youtube
Timeslot: Millions of views

Jim Rome hosts a 15 minute behind-the-scenes sneak peak look at the summer blockbuster Real Steel.  Expect interviews with directors of photography and cheesy scenes where Rome is in a black jumpsuit with white balls feigning ignorance about computer graphics even though everyone has seen that exact process reenacted dozens of times.

Watchability: 5/5
Plausibility: 3/5
Network: Disney/Top half of the TVGuide channel
Timeslot: Every 45 minutes

Watch the Throne: The Official Review

Fresh threads and fresh beats.  Let's do this.

I haven't listened to something I would consider to be real rap music in a long time.  I'm going to take on the critically acclaimed "Watch the Throne" which appears to be a joint effort from Kanye & Jay Z.  Off to a good start; I enjoy both of these artists.

(not going to link to the songs because I assume the links will be dead in a few days)

Track 1: "No Church in the Wild" (feat. Frank Ocean)
As if two artists weren't enough, let's clown-car this bitch by cramming three full grown men into a four minute song.  Kanye just ordered me to never fuck anybody without telling him.  Thank God for Twitter because I can't be calling him all the time.  Because I have sex.  All the time.  But what's a king to a god?  And what's a god to a non-believer?  So many questions but no answers on this stinker.
Rating: 0/1

Track 2: Lift Off (feat. Beyonce)
I wasn't listening very closely, but Jay Z just said something about making his dick soft and then Beyonce (his wife??) kept singing inspirationally about takin' it to the moon.
Rating: 0/1

Whatttttttttt

Track 3: "Niggas in Paris"
Will Blogger even allow me to post this now?
Rating: 1/1

Track 4: "Otis" (feat. Otis Redding)
Jay Z rapped about drug dealing the entire time.
Rating: 0/1

Track 5: "Gotta Have It"
I can't take it seriously when Jay Z talks about strong arming women and "mummy wrapping" children.
Rating: 1/1

This is probably what he means.

Track 6: "New Day"
The obligatory song that shows that the rappers are actually self-aware...
Rating: 1/1

Track 7: "That's My Bitch"
...immediately followed by this song.  Good job, guys.
Rating: 1/1

Track 8: "Welcome to the Jungle"
Was actually hoping this would be a cover or a cameo.  Forgettable track even though the beat was very solid.
Rating: 0/1

It's about time somebody tried this again

Track 9: "Who Gon Stop Me"
The whole album should be like this.
Rating: 1/1

Track 10: "Murder to Excellence"
Kanye rhymes "black guys" with "black guys" in what I'll refer to as the real black-on-black crime in this song.
Rating: 0/1

Track 11: "Made in America" (feat. Frank Ocean)
WHO THE HELL IS FRANK OCEAN?
Rating: 0/1

Frank Ocean = Singing Donald Glover

Track 12: "Why I Love You" (feat Mr. Hudson)
I almost didn't listen to this track because of the title and Mr. Hudson.
Rating: 1/1

Mr. Hudson

Takeaways:  Not what I thought it would be but still a solid album.  No Pitbull.  So that's good.
Final Score: 6/12 (Two thumbs up)

He's about to yell at them in auto-tune

Heatpocalypse 2011

We are all in the midst of the infamous Heat Wave of 2011.   Do you hear that constant buzz in the background?  No, no, it isn't a swarm of locusts coming to end this heat plague with a more bearable punishment; it is the collective voice of idiots citing the last week's temperature as irrefutable evidence of global warming.  

Big props to Amy for surviving this long in the heat as she dealt with it in Chicago, during her drive, and now again on the coast.  Stay strong!  Only a few more days until you get to bask in the glory of A/C and enjoy the rocky beaches of Long Island Sound.  Gatsby was full of shit; the Long Island Sound is not a great body of water to live by and probably poses major health risks if exposed for prolonged periods of time.  I now hesitate to think of him as 'great'.  

Anyway, back to the point of this article.  What?  I haven't stated what the point is yet?  Very astute, reader.  

Bill's Top 5 Ways to Beat the Heat:

1. Ice - Ice may be the most coveted substance on the East Coast right now so stockpile as much ice as you can find.  Put it in your drinks, put it in your hands, rub it on your fat dog, barter with it, eat it raw, but whatever you do: DON'T LET IT MELT!
2. Drink Water - When your ice melts (and it will), I recommend drinking it.  The human body sweats out up to 42 gallons of fluid a day in this kind of heat so stay hydrated!
3. Blender Drinks - Water is for babies and the elderly.  Benjamin Button joke.  Take your ice, rum, fruit, juice and today's secret ingredient and put them all in a blender.  Hit the 'Liquify' button and watch your blender turn that terrible mixture of food into a delicious summer drink.
4. Beach - I know I was ragging on Long Island Sound earlier, but that was mainly to fit in a Great Gatsby joke.  The beach is a great place to spend the hottest days of summer because heat = bikinis.  
5. Stay indoors - Don't go to the beach, you idiot.  It's hot, sandy, and the water is gross around here.  What was that Gatsby guy talking about, am I right?  Just kick back, crank the A/C, and watch episodes of Wilfred on OnDemand.  Seriously, you all should watch that show.  Dog humor at its best.

Well that's all the ambition I have for now.  Stay cool, you guys!

 Bill

What this...blogging concept?

Firstly thanks to the most tech savvy brother for creating a forum for us to store our madness for public discussion. Many blogs have started or spread revolutionary uprisings, some blogs have launched the author to fame or fortune, other blogs have brought humor into otherwise monotonous days. Whether the authors intended these outcomes when launching the blog is unknown but they have proved to be very powerful with the right mind at the wheel. This blog is starting as nothing more than an experiment of a few siblings exploring more of the interwebs. When we happen to spawn revolutions, accumulate millions of followers or get our jokes ctrl + V'd all over the Internet...twas not our original intent. Here goes nothing...

I am currently living in Canada, interning at a management consulting firm for the summer. The work is legitimately interesting, the people are very smart, the pay is fantastic but the hours are shit. By shit, I mean leave the house at 7 am, return at 11pm. Shit. That is an 80 hour, 5 day work week. There are clearly downsides to this schedule so I will cover the limited upsides. There are two that I can see, I welcome any I may have overlooked.

1) Free Food - If we work past 8pm we are allowed to bill our dinner to the client. Great policy, 100% behind it...I am going to be so fat. So far the menu has consisted largely of sushi, some noodle joints, Greek food, Nepalese, filthy pizza, Korean, etc. If you know a consultant who is not completely overweight, you can safely assume one or more of the following things:

1. Said consultant works for a firm that does not hold this policy - they should upgrade
   
2. Said consultant does not work past 8pm - wtf mate?
   
3. Said consultant works out like an absolute animal to stay in shape - you should fear him / her
   

2) I am never home. Normally this would be a bad thing, but my living situation for the summer is probably the worst thing that has happened to me in the last year. I lead a very rough life. The place is in a very safe, suburban area of Toronto and is close enough to the subway line that I cannot complain too much. However it has significant downsides - The mud room / kitchen / entryway / living room / den have been conveniently combined into a single room (the 'MRKELRD'). There is a washing machine, a bar (with an obligatory snake carved into the top), a nice leather chair and a stove within 3 feet of each other. I can look past the cramped quarters as my dorm room at school was about 300 square feet. However (there is always a catch): the roommate has awful hygiene. The level of filth is not improving as I only have a few weeks here and am not investing any time/capital to make improvements. Being away from home due to long hours on the job have actually become a blessing and I recommend any future interns to adopt a similar strategy for your summer. Having recognized the two upsides to my internship, we will now discuss an experiment I am now accidentally conducting. (next slide please)

The experiment is a product of my shit hours and the roommate's love of composting. He left for a week of vacation and did not empty the composting bin, which I always neglect because he manages it. After roughly 3 weeks of rotting fruit and vegetables sitting idly, I noticed there were fruit flies EVERYWHERE and made the mistake of opening the lid. Holy shit. Biblical swarms of fruit flies cruising the aforementioned MRKELRD. Being ever-curious, I watched them to see if there were habits I could exploit in order to slaughter them. They appear to have the mental acuity of warthogs and were completely random. Figuring I could exploit their tendency to land on anything, I went straight to the google machine and discovered that "fly paper" is actually useful for catching flies. Makes sense eh? Another site recommended using vinegar. Unfortunately both of these required me to go out of my way to stop the swarm. Knowing that my bedroom has an airtight seal from the MRKELRD and the flies seemed to prefer the kitchen to the bathroom, my domain was safe for the time being meaning drastic measures (ie. walking to the store and spending canadian monopoly money) could be delayed. I decided to be a naturalist and see how many flies the spider who lives near the sink could snag. As it turns out, he is a rock star. He has been slaying these flies for about a week now, repaying his life-debt to me for not squashing him. It is truly symbiosis at its finest and an argument in favor of those saps who never kill anything.

That felt pretty good for a first hack at blogging, I will study up on some of my favs and try again next week.

YouTube Reward for Reading This Far: DJ kittens

Blog Time!

Hey guys,

Finally got this bitch rolling.  Hope you guys had a great 4th.  I'm working on giving everyone access and sprucing the place up a little bit.

Let's make this the best blog on the internet!