The answer/solution for the last question is up, too. And thankfully, no math for this one.

#7 - July 25th, 2008

It was Monday morning when Shadow responded to a call at a local garage where a tragic accident had just occurred. One of the owners of the garage, Cam Overhead, had been crushed while working on a car. Apparently, the idling car accidentally went into gear and crushed him. The dead man's partner, Sam Sham, was the only witness to the accident. Scattered about the scene were tools, oil rags, and a puddle of dirty oil. "I had just finished my coffee and was checking out the stock listings in the morning newspaper when I heard a scream and a loud crash," explained Sam. "I ran out to the service area and found Cam pinned to the wall. I jumped in the car and backed it up, but I was too late. He was already dead." Shadow looked at Sham and said, "From what I've seen, that story is a lie!" Why?

AWEsome ...

"I thought it would kill the meme," said YouTube product manager Brian Glick. "But Rickrolls are actually up 19 percent since April."

For more on the whole phenomenon, see our Rickroll timeline. And if you're looking for eternal youth, click here.

The Doom Rickroll gun is by far the most fun mod thats ever made it into the game, a friend says he has a further mod that plays Chocolate Rain as secondary fire, I'll post that eventually if I can get a copy.

http://www.mediafire.com/?lxbmtbommex

Enjoy!

Crazy, butt good exposure for a longtime personal favorite artist... http://www.that1guy.com/

The two Butt Machine videos:

I hear "Butt Machine" is the "new RickRoll" (blog link)... it's also featured on the new The Weeds soundtrack (Showtime show).

~Dan - np: Zappa Plays Zappa

In any case, Weezer made themselves a music video, and it's probably my favorite music video from a musical act without a prominent member named Yankovic. There's at least one other, older music video I like, but mostly because I like to mock it sadistically.

There's nothing trainwreck-of-poor-taste about Pork and Beans. Something tells me that Weezer meant to include nearly every star of the Internet.

Glorious.

Be sure to check out another great video by the same group; I think you might like it. I'll leave the explanation to someone else.

Idle brainstorm: Find and download a representative sample of all of the videos shown or referenced in Pork and Beans, saving them to show one's students.

At the beginning of each class session, show one of these clips. Skip Cris Crocker and other those few other school inappropriate clips, and be sure to avoid telling the students what all of the clips have in common.

On the very last day of class, show the Pork and Beans music video.

Do this at the beginning of class, because everybody's heads will have exploded. You'll need time to clean up.

Code:

http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?
cht=p3
&chd=t:35,30,12,9,8,6
&chtt=Rick%20Astley%20Would%20Never
&chs=600x200
&chl=Give%20you%20up|Let%20you%20down|Run%20around%20and%20desert%20you|Make%20you%20cry|Say%20goodbye|Tell%20a%20lie%20and%20hurt%20you


Rick Roll using the Google Charts API.

Full Size Pie Chart

Writing/VO/Production: S. Kallao

I'm not sure what the inspiration was for this particular video, but I enjoy it to no end. I'm not sure what else to say, other than that I had no idea what rickrolling was until now.

In other news, I've discovered Twitter, and you can find me here.

I really need to formulate a good blog post one of these days. Makes me feel kind of useless, to have a blog and do so little with it. Although I wonder if anyone reads it at all. I just have to remind myself that I do this for me, not for other people.

P.S. Sorry for the rickroll.

• Adele---19: The second coming (and soberer?) version of Amy Winehouse?
• Alanis Morissette---Flavors of Entanglement: Alanis goes back to a harder sound with pounding rock and heavy electronic sounds topped off with appropriately placed curse words.
• Bangkok Five---We Love What Kills Us: Album of growling, manic rock with just enough of a dose of music sensibility to keep it cleverly all together---mucho potential to shine.
• Ben Sollee---Learning to Bend: Earnest and beautiful music that touches into folk, soul, blues and pop.
• Dr. John---City That Care Forgot: Big band blues rock with guest appearances by Eric Clapton, Willie Nelson, Ani DiFranco and Terence Blanchard.
• Emmylou Harris---All I Intended to Be: A little country, a little folk, a little adult contemporary pop ... .
• The Fratellis: Melodic indie rock from across the pond, this trio has been on the cusp of making it in the U.S. for awhile but haven't quite taken root. This sophomore album only strengthens their case.
• Jakob Dylan---Seeing Things: The Wallflowers' front man debuts his solo career with an offering of simply arranged, yet moving songs.
• Jennifer Hanson---Thankful: Pleasant country pop sung by a pretty lady.
• Jennifer Hudson---Spotlight: American Idol castoff turned Oscar winner drops a new R&B single. Despite the back beat, her voice adds a mature element that makes this stand out from the rest of the current radio teenage R&B and hip-hop fare.
• Lil' Wayne---Tha Carter III: Hip-hop album has reviewers tripping over themselves to proclaim Lil' Wayne as the world's best rapper.
• Martha Wainwright---I Know You're Married but I've Got Feelings Too: Martha sounds cheerier this time around ... then again, when your last album was titled "Bloody Mother F**king Asshole," I suppose just about anything seems brighter ... .
• Nelly---Body On Me: With the assistance of Akon and Ashanti, St. Louis' son releases a smooth single suited for summer. The song is also on Ashanti's "The Declaration" album and will be on Nelly's upcoming "Brass Knuckles" album.
• N.E.R.D.---Seeing Sounds: Per their usual, the N.E.R.D. trio mixes and matches crazy beats with what are often crazier lyrics and themes.
• Rick Astley---Portrait: The father of the Rick Roll gets a reissuing of his 2005 album, where there's no dance moves, just simple takes on classic songs.
• Sam Phillips---Don't Do Anything: Sam (Leslie) Phillips continues her musical soul searching and takes us along for the ride with master craftsmanship.
• Sloan---Parallel Play: Solid indie pop rock (more rock than pop than previous albums) from Canadian mainstays.
• Supergrass---Diamond Hoo Ha: Big, shiny indie pop rock.
• We are Scientists---Chick Lit: Indie rock single release in three versions (single mix, Danger TV remix and Matt Helders [Arctic Monkeys] remix).

1. The day started with a proud "Hey, Girlfriend!" from my cool, black friend at work. Ohio: believe the stereotypes.
2. I tried to pay special attention to the music played in the store. It's mind-boggling. "Take my breath away," and then "Blackbird."
3. and than I was rickrolled.
4. Someone bought The Idiot's Guide to Nascar. Seriously.
5. In a fit of boredom, I decided the five most attractive things about a man have to be: ability and willingness to grow a full beard, unbridled passion for something (anything), a German accent, hip bones, and book-lust. sexual.
6. I saw a woman with the smallest face of all time. correction. smallest head of all time. minimal space between facial landmarks and head-horizon when looking at her from straight on. tiny head, tiny voice. hilarity. but it's probably really inappropriate - kind of a "your team," but since no one was there. it was just inappropriate.
7. I realized that I'm attracted to (but don't have a crush on) an 18-year-old bag boy, who looks like Ethan Hawke with acne. He has a name that was some Ohioan's idea of hip and unique, but is actually just a verb. he's not planning on going to college. and he hunts for fun. and yet.
8. In my last 20 minutes, Hipster sighting! It's the same one I've been seeing around. Tight(ish) jeans, green hoodie, debatably terrible/hot shoulder-length blonde hair, fully beard. I mean. There's no guarantee that he's actually as hip as I'd like to believe, but his only purchases as far as I could tell were box-wine and cigarettes. classy.

too bad my job isn't more like this

If you don't know what a "Rickroll" is you can learn more at Wikipedia.

So now you get it. Rickrolling is a prank  involving the music video for the 1987 Rick Astley song "Never Gonna Give You Up" . It's a classic bait and switch: a person provides a weblink they claim is relevant to the topic at hand, but the link actually takes the user to the Astley video. A person who falls for the prank is said to have been "Rickroll'd". People have taken Rickrolling to the next level by playing pranks in public. These pranks normally involve playing the Rick Astley song in a public place (normally causing a disruption). However, the video above takes it to a new level. An Eastern Washington women's basketball game was the victim of this massive-orchestrated Rickroll.

It's funny, but everytime I get Rickrolled I laugh. I don't know if it is the obsurdity of the music video (come on - a denim shirt with jeans) or the simple surprise of it. We've played some good pranks at ThinkCash, but no Rickroll yet . . .

People got 'pied' in every imaginable location, and it could happen to anyone - although there was usually an element of "Enough of your crap! You know what you need? This!!" At which point a pie, ideally well filled with loads of whipped cream was plunged hard in the direction of someone's well washed face.

If you would like a refresher course as to just how it's done, take a look at this clip. It's called "Bill Gates loves Pie". You can probably imagine why...

If you'd like to get a look at a few more innocent victims, take a look at this new post by PopCrunch called 10 Memorable Pies to the Face - this is one of the old school viral tactics that can't hurt by being seen just one more time.

One common place that the viral phenomena is seen is in marketing ads obviously, including those very personal advertisements, the business card.

Here is an entire post filled with these unique business cards called 42 Awesome Business Card Designs. There are definitely some great ideas here for anyone that would like their business card to go viral.

Without a doubt, one of the bigger viral effects lately just has to be the "Rickroll". The funny cult joke, usually done as a prank, took on some pretty epic proportions when it got mashed up with the Olympic torch procession or a college basketball game. That however, is the really interesting aspect of the viral phenomenon. Why does it just keep on going and going? Because people haven't got tired of seeing it yet, or because everyone hasn't had a chance to see "Rickroll" up-close at least once in their life.

For those of you who would like just a little bit more, check out this new post from OMGlists called The 7 Most Epic Rickrolls Ever! It has already been around for awhile now, but it may be that Rickroll is just gathering steam. Think what would happen if Rick Astley were to make a comeback and go back out on tour.

Remember, always look on the viral side of life!

Obviously, the first thing to do this was Potter Puppet Pals, made by Neil Cicierega (who inexplicably broke the "one hit wonder" rule of the internet by making Mysterious Ticking Noise and The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny) which, just like it sounds, is Harry Potter... made with puppets. It's a great parody too, exaggerating Ron's idiocy, Dumbledore's lunacy, and Snape's state of continual depression, but the defining factor is that it's done with puppets.

A lot of people already know about that though (and yes, I know there's a new PPP video out, but that one is still my favorite), but I just recently found another parody, making fun of Nickelodeon's Avatar:

It's slightly weaker than PPP, but has a lot of potential, especially with the promise of more to come. But what I find really interesting is that now Harry Potter isn't the only popular culture icon to be parodied with puppets, and what would be even more interesting is if this is the start of a trend of puppet-themed parodies. What about puppet versions of Lost? Pirates of the Carribean? There Will Be Blood?!?!

At any rate, anything's better than RickRolling.

I got bored and decided to do this.