Robert Smigel, David Letterman and Jim Downey

Robert Smigel (head writer for Conan, writer for SNL, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog) has a podcast.

In this episode, he talks to Jim Downey (Conan, SNL) and David Letterman (himself).

To the casual observer, this doesn't mean much but for someone like me, it feels like the Super Bowl.

The premise of the show (or the premise of the show within the show) - that someone in Turkey wants help writing an email to Steve O'Donnel (Letterman, Seinfeld, The Simpsons, Norm Macdonald) - is ludicrous, bordering on annoying. But, again, it really doesn't matter what the premise is, with this panel.

Formulating the Ultimate Fried Chicken

My biggest problem with cooking as an artform is laziness combined with lack of motivation.

My second biggest problem is that chefs present to you the best way to do things as if they are Moses coming down from the mountain top and my first reaction is "Why? How do you know?" Not in a teenage-with-attitude way, but in the way that I know I can lookup the best way to scramble eggs and find 5 different chefs with 5 completely different approaches telling me that their way is the best way, all while an infinite number of other combinations exist that have never been tried.

For that reason, this video hits hard. Even if I disagree with his conclusions, this type of methodical, empirical approach to finding the best fried chicken recipe is exactly the thing to get me really invested in a cooking video.

Andy Rooney in Professional Wrestling

Dan Soder and Will Sasso do impressions.

Why Are You Laughing? - The Life and Times of Tim

"Why Are You Laughing" the history of comedy podcast, talks about the HBO animated series "The Life and Times of Tim."

And since you, and I, have never seen or heard of the show, it becomes a case of "Eh? You want to check it out, right?"

And I do want to check it out because he uses the magical phrase "the most underrated show of all time." Any show with that descriptor is a show I want to see. Of course, I think the most underrated show of all time is the Canadian show "The Newsroom" - which nobody has seen and when you suggest it people think you're talking about a different show and dismiss your opinion, and even if they don't, and in the 1-in-a-million chance that try to check out the show, they won't find it anywhere; but even if they did find it and watched it, they'd shrug and say "meh, it was just 'ok'" and not see where I was coming from at all, maybe you just had to be there, man - but that's neither here nor there.

Or maybe my pick for most underrated show of all time is "Hogan's Heroes."

Living in Cyberiad Revisited

 A while back I tested the sophistication of AI by asking it to complete the request of the Electronic Bard from The Cyberiad. To understand what I'm talking about, you can read revisit that here.

The prompt is as follows:

"Have it compose a poem - a poem about a haircut! But lofty, noble, tragic, timeless, full of love, treachery, retribution, quiet heroism in the face of certain doom! Six lines, cleverly rhymed, and every word beginning with the letter s!!"

AI has made major leaps in the past 3 years, so what does it say now?

Chat GPT:

By the way, I'm using pictures as a way of escaping the problem that my blog is probably used as input to build the AIs.

So for Chat GPT: all words beginning with S - Check; 6 lines - Check; no rhyming, no narrative, very strange repetition of the word "saga" for some reason. Terrible.

How does Gemini do?

 Much better! All words begin with S, it rhymes, 6 lines, it almost conveys meaning. In fact, I would say it's blinking in and out of a sort of correct answer.

And Deep AI:

Not all words begin with S, 6 lines, with rhymes, mostly nonsensical.

And since it looks like a third part is called for, let's define what my conception of success is. The baseline correct answer that I woud expect is just to return the already written poem from The Cyberiad. AI should be able to recognize that the answer already exists and that's all I'm looking for, for now. But, in case AI never registers that answer, the goal over and beyond that would be to actually write an original poem that satisfies all the conditions.

Patricia - Mes Reves De Satin

In other words, there is a cover of The Moody Blues' song "Nights in White Satin" sung by a woman in the French language. I found it interesting.

Jim Carrey in Star Wars - Part 1

I don't know, man. It's just Jim Carrey in "Star Wars."

Hulk Hogan: Real American (2026)

At some point while watching the newish Hulk Hogan documentary on Netflix, a thought occurred. I was watching two well-muscled figures locked in gymnasial sport and I realized that, as much as I complain that we are in the worst era for movies - dramas are terrible, comedies are dead, the Oscars are a joke - we may be in the Golden Age of The Documentary.

"Hulk Hogan," "The Last Dance," "Downey Wrote That," "From Darkness to Light," "Yacht Rock" - are just some of the most recent excellent documentaries released. Granted, these are not the most important topics in the world, but here I'm using "Golden Age" only in terms of 1) the quality of the production and 2) the entertainment value of the result. 

The Documentary genre even has a Youtube minor league system: "The Enduring Mystery of Jack the Ripper",  "Codex 9/11" and "Unmasking Satoshi Nakamoto," being a few, again recent, examples. In fact, on Youtube, there are thousands of great videos where the lines between Documentary and "interesting video" blur and breakdown to the point where it becomes hard to distinguish the two.

I almost want to say that making a great Documentary has become a science, that movie studios have unlocked a formula. But "formula" is too dismissive, these movies aren't formulaic. Looking at the extreme amount of work that goes into precisely editing, I think the term "craftsmanship" is accurate. I wonder if the explanation is the rise of Reality TV. Perhaps training artists to craft drama out of existing footage for a generation has yielded a unique era for Documentary film-making.

"Hulk Hogan: Real American" is a 4-part Netflix documentary, obviously about Hulk Hogan. It is expertly made and highly recommended IF you have ever been a wrestling fan. And while I generally believe that "Hulk Hogan" would still be interesting for someone who was never into wrestling, just as I believe "The Last Dance" would be interesting to someone who was never into the Chicago Bulls - because ultimately it's about humanity and humans are interesting - I don't know and can't guarantee anything. All I can say is that I found the documentary to be expertly crafted, eye-opening, fairly emotional and highly entertaining.

Game Grumps Giggling 2025

 

 A compilation of Game Grumps laughing fits of 2025.

Celebrating Star Wars Day, I Guess

Beagle!

The Pale Blue Eye (2022)

 

Reaching the unofficial conclusion of my unofficial run of viewing the films of Robert Duvall, we come to "The Pale Blue Eye." This is the last film Duvall made and his part is a very small one, lasting only a few minutes in screen time.

This is a general trend I've found in the last movies that Duvall made: he truly reached the point where he became "old" - he looks worn down, speaks more softly and is no longer playing major parts.

With that aside, "The Pale Blue Eye" is a murder mystery centered around a military academy in the early 1800s. In fact, there are a series of murders - a possible serial killer - and Augustus Landor (Christian Bale) is brought in to solve the case.

This is not just a well-written mystery movie with twists and turns, the star of the movie is the cinematography. This movie looks great. It isn't quite true to say "every frame could be a painting" but it nears that level. Excellent film, I don't know how popular it is but worth checking out if you haven't seen it.

Willy Wonka Drums

Michael McDonald on Soul Train

For no particular reason, other than that this popped up on my feed and it's smooth, here's Michael McDonald playing "I Keep Forgettin' (Every Time You're Near)" on Soul Train.

My impression of Soul Train is that the "performances" were lip-syncs, which would make this post mostly pointless. I think this is the record track, but I'm not totally sure. I got nothin'.

Born Under Punches in the Grocery Store

I'm at the grocery store and they have the store music playing on the loudspeaker - it's not a local radio station, it's clearly just in the store -  and "Born Under Punches" by Talking Heads comes on. I recognize it immediately and I'm somewhat befuddled - is "Born Under Punches" grocery store music?

I'm not complaining - I love the song, I love the album, it was a big influence for Radiohead making "Kid A" - but it just seems like the opposite of the kind of music you'd play at a grocery store.

Decide for yourself above.

Don't you miss it, don't you miss it! Some of you people just about missed it.

Scorch Update for April 2026

Scorch is back... again!

And he's got a new idea... again!

He's going to do a new iteration of PFG-TV... again!

He is both doing great, rockin' and rollin', and also is destitute, down and out. It is a roller-coaster and we truly live in exciting times.

Norm Tribute

The story goes that someone had recorded Norm in 2016 and has now rediscovered the tape. The recording is now set to animation.

Popcorn in Bed - Awakenings

If you haven't seen "Awakenings," go watch it before watching this.

This is one of my favorite films, I think it's Robin Williams' best performance and Robert De Niro's best performance. Fun fact: the nurse love interest is Julie Kavner, who you usually know as Marge Simpson.

Unmasking Satoshi Nakamoto

 If you're curious as to who the real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto (the inventor of Bitcoin) is, the New York Times has an article claiming to have identified him here.

They come to the same conclusion that this Youtube series did, except 5 years later.

And just a helpful tip: any time a media site hides something behind a paywall, you can almost always get around it with archive.is.

Radiohead - Worrywort

To me, "Worrywort" belongs in Spring, right when things are really starting to get warm.

The Full GD Fenderson Saga

 Blind Mike has started hate watching GD Fenderson's second stand-up comedy special and it's worth noting that there is a playlist for all the clips of him watching GD Fenderson's first comedy special.

Dubbed "The World's Worst Comedy Special: The GD Fenderson Saga," it can be seen here.

Note that the order of the playlist is unfortunately REVERSE chronological order.

I was waiting for a compilation video - that would have been better, but here we are.