Uh. . .Say Cheese?

Recently, I was lamenting the fact that I don't write descriptions on the back of my photos anymore. All of the pictures I've taken in the last few years are still on my hard drive and have names like "DSCF2816.jpg" and "IMG_1868.JPG." It'd be too complicated (not to mention repetitive) to rename all of the pictures with labels like "Mikey and Me at the Zoo" and "Me Pushing Mikey into the Tiger Pen" and "Zoo Prison - Interior."

However, I'm realizing now that I may have to take on that tedious task of labeling my pictures, because of a website I was introduced to by, alert reader, Jessica. Black and WTF (WTF, of course, stands for "Why The Face?" because the people in the pictures are making funny faces, right? RIGHT??) is a website full of old black and white photos with little to no description. Some of these photographs are completely random and need explanation, yet they have none - which is kind of sad.

But FEAR NOT! I, The Former 786, being the generous and giving person that I am, will do my best do give some sort of explanation and/or caption to the following sampler platter of photographs from that site:

3D television was actually invented a lot earlier than you might think.

"Hey Boo-Boo! Get a picture of this, will ya? Cheeeeeeese!"

The Miss America Pageant: It's what's inside that counts.

"These chastity masks are sure to keep the boys away from our lips, Darlene!"

Goodbye Earl!

Guess what her favorite Simon & Garfunkel song is!

The mosquitoes get a little out of control, come summertime in Georgia.

Drama clubs are the same no matter what age you live in.

Stop me if you've heard this one, so an elephant walks into a bar. . .

Greg's worst fears had come true: his parents were coming trick-or-treating with him.

"I want to be. . .A LUMBERJACK!"

Links of sausage doubled as life preservers during The Great Depression.

"Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooal!"  "Rowr?"

"Jim, I think it's time you got that growth checked out. . ."

Even though she was bedridden, Samantha was still forced to practice the piano.

Uh. . .I got nothin.

I was shocked to find out that advertisers in the 20s actually encouraged children to befriend chickens!

"Do be careful with this bicycle, Mr. Bond. It can ride on land and water."

Alfred E. Newman's oppressive aunts were a big influence on him.

"Ya, Mein Fuhrer! Meine pants are kaput und I found a kitty!

Moral of the Story: Label your photographs or someone else will.

Have a great week, faithful readers!

Which One Sticks Worse?

It's time to vote.

Listen to each one of these songs and then let me know which one is the catchiest. And by "catchiest," I mean "the one that gets stuck in your head for the next few days."

The first one is an internet sensation, getting over 23 million hits in a little over a week. That's right, you know it, you have a love-hate relationship with it, it's so bad it's good, it's Friday, by Rebecca Black!



Chilling. For those of you who don't know the back story, this mind-numbing song and eye-gouging video were made by the Ark Music Factory. The Ark Music Factory is a company in California where parents can pay big bucks for the AMF to write an original song and create a music video for their child. This was the result. So, in short don't blame lil' Rebecca - it's not her fault.

Secondly, we have an interesting mix of fantasy and techno.  This one was originally shown to me by, alert reader, Mitch and it has a simple message to tell you: They're taking the hobbits to Isengard.



In case you missed it, they're taking the hobbits to Isengard. This clever song uses the Howard Shore score from Lord of the Rings and makes it sound like a dance club soccer album. And who knew that Will Turner had such a good sense of rhythm?

So now it is time to cast your vote. Which one of these is now stuck in your head, and will be until you listen to your scrubbing song? What's a scrubbing song, you ask? It's a song that will help clean any song out of your head without getting stuck itself. Something like "Now We Are Free" by Lisa Gerrard or "Car Wash" by Rose Royce.

I'm now going to listen to both of those songs on an endless loop for a few hours. Planning and writing this post almost destroyed my sanity.

All Hail Internet Animals!

Animals rule the internet. Don't believe me? Go to Google right now and type "Animals" in the search box and hit enter. Now click on "Images." What do you see? That's right, nothing but animals.

This highly scientific experiment aside, no matter what you search for in Google (cat, lolcat, keyboard cat, etc.) you're going to find pictures of animals. And not just any animals, either. Cute animals. The internet used to be a place where people traded information and data was stored. Now, it's full of baby tigers, bear cubs, piglets and miniature horses all with little captions imagining what the animals would say if they could talk.

But that wasn't enough!

A British sketch comedy series called Walk on the Wild Side takes stock footage of wild animals and dubs voices over the video, with hilarious results. Instead of captions, the animals are now actually talking - take a look.



This video was originally brought to my attention by, alert readers, Ryan and Rosa Lee, but it was brought to the forefront of my mind once again by, alert reader, Brad. It was just as funny the second time as it was the first time.

However, I don't think the boys over at the BBC anticipated what kind of consequences this could have. People already freak out over the cute animals they find on the web. Now that these animals are talking, imagine what they could say. . .what they could tell you to do.

You couldn't resist a cute little kitten asking you to click on a simple little ad, right? And what if an adorable puppy politely told you to go to a particular website, could you say no? Now, imagine a charming, petite bunny rabbit telling you to buy something you don't need, a sweet little baby monkey persuading you to try drugs, or an irresistible baby seal commanding you to destroy all humans? Could you resist? I hope so.

Let us pray they never use Fennec foxes for evil - or heaven help us all.

Amazing Ocular Deception!

Move over, fireworks! There's a new form of mass public entertainment in town! And trust me, faithful readers, this is gonna blow your mind.




This video, sent in by, alert reader, Jessica, was originally filmed in Kharkov, Ukraine in August of 2010. This eye-popping illusion was part of their Independence Day celebrations. Why they celebrated the 4th of July in August I'll never know, but it occurred to me that this kind of entertainment could easily replace the traditional fireworks show.

Think about it. The average fireworks display requires pyrotechnic experts, supervising firemen, ideal weather conditions, Neil Diamond songs and loads of gunpowder. A 3D projection show requires a laptop, a projector and speakers. Oh, and a building of course. This kind of show also negates the need for audience members to duck or dodge falling firework debris.

This type of 3D projection is becoming more and more popular around the world, which begs the question, can we even trust our own eyes anymore? It used to be that CGI was only limited to movies and low-budget Syfy channel productions about shark/alligator hybrids. Our brains would normally dismiss these monsters, explosions and special effects because they were on a screen. But now you could see this kind of stuff as you're walking down the street. That's a scary thought. The line between reality and fiction is getting more blurred each day. We can't even trust our five (or six) senses anymore.

Admit it, there were moments of that video that you forgot the building really wasn't moving. Don't lie.

You know where liars go.