Author: Buffet o' Blog

Laughing is good for you. So this blog is a buffet of randomness and humor. Most of the content here is original and thus exclusive to this site. I encourage everyone to participate in the comments section -- it makes it more fun for everyone.

Why would you say that?!?

couple standing in front of burning barnI was recently visiting the in-laws around Christmas, and the conversation took an unexpected turn.  One person was telling a story they heard on the local news about a couple who were burning trash outside their house but went inside, leaving the fire unattended, and their house caught on fire.  That’s a tragic story, but they learned some “common sense” the hard way.  Anyway, there’s no need to rant on that, since the moral of the story is quite obvious.

After that part of the story, an older country woman said, somewhat agitatedly, “Why were they burning trash outside?”  That piqued my curiosity, as I was eager to hear some further explanation of that statement.  I mean, where else would you burn trash?  (Before anyone rushes to the comments to lecture on why people shouldn’t burn trash, I agree, but some people don’t have trash pickup and live in areas where burning stuff is still allowed.)

I looked around, wondering who would answer her question.  I didn’t know what to say.  There was a short pause (which is rare in those parts), and then the conversation went to a completely different topic.  That was disappointing.  Did everyone else just ignore her?  I wanted to ask about it, but given the general atmosphere at the in-laws at the time, I didn’t want to stir anything up, so I left it alone.  Nonetheless, someone should’ve at least jokingly asked her where she thinks you should burn trash.  It was a missed opportunity.

famous car chase in shopping mall recreated

If you start with a car chase scene inside a shopping mall (which sounds awesome), and it features the Blues Brothers (which makes it definitely awesome), then recreate the original classic movie clip with stop-motion video using LEGO blocks, you have a YouTube video worth watching.

At the end of the video, they link to a side-by-side comparison of the original scene in the movie, so you can see how close they got to it.

An interesting trivia tidbit about the mall chase scene is that it was actually filmed inside a mall.  There was no CGI trickery going on — it was 1980, after all — and it wasn’t on some fake Hollywood set or made with miniatures.  They found a mall that was scheduled to be demolished, so they helped with the demolition on the inside.  🙂  Also interesting is that the other car chases were actually filmed in and around Chicago, Illinois.  It would’ve been neat to be around for that!

If you haven’t ever seen the Blues Brothers movie, I’m not sure what to say.  Wait, never mind, I know — you need to see it!  The Blues Brothers is one of the best movies of all time.  I’m not kidding.  It has a great story, great acting, awesome music, many car chases (including setting the world record for most car crashes in one scene), and many quotable lines.  It also features many famous actors and musicians: John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Carrie Fisher (who played Princess Leia in Star Wars, but wields a flamethrower and rocket launcher here), “the band”, John Candy, Frank Oz, Steven Spielberg, James Brown, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, and more.  (Let me add that the movie contains some explicit language, but if you can find the TV version it has all that edited out.)

Here’s an idea — someone should make a video game of the movie.  You’ve got music making, car chases, lots of military to evade — there’s potential here.  Sure, the storyline might have to be somewhat linear, but there are retelling games of Star Wars, Batman, Indiana Jones, Lord of the Rings, Marvel Super Heroes, etc. by LEGO.  It could be a lot of fun.  Someone should make this happen.  LEGO Blues Brothers would rock!  I would buy it.

when words aren’t enough…

When words aren’t enough…

Say it with bacon!  If only this would work with women… but in reality, it would likely result in disasterousness (which may not be an actual word, but it would be bad).  Ironically, this would impress guys.  A girl could give cooked bacon to a guy and he would think she must really like him.  (Who ever said men and women are the same?  Maybe someone should write a book similar to “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus” but include a chapter about food.  Men can relate to that, and would be more interested in reading the book.  Well, since most men don’t read, maybe it should come with bacon…)

Jetman, flying cars, the future

In the news recently was someone called Jetman, who built his own jetpack with four rockets on it.  Supposedly he can go 190 mph.  Here’s a video:

That would be awesome to have.  I wonder if we’ll ever have flying cars or something like that.  There are still companies working on it, and every few years there’s news that it’s almost ready.  I’m thinking it won’t happen until computers are controlling them.  That may seem kinda scary, but even more scary is bad drivers and drunk drivers in a flying car.  Crashes would be even more dangerous, causing much more collateral damage.

He uses a parachute to land, which might seem lame for a jetpack, but I bet landings would be really tricky to maneuver, as well as extremely dangerous.

FYI, computer-controlled cars are already on the road — just not available for purchase yet.  Google has been testing them in certain areas.  So far, with hundreds of thousands of miles, they appear safer than the average human driver.  I’m not sure how I feel about that.  I actually enjoy driving; however, if I’m able to do other stuff during road trips, like video games, reading, sleeping, etc., then that would be awesome.