Archive → January, 2009
Animaniacs: Acquaintances
Animaniacs episode 93. In a parody of the long running hit TV show “Friends,” the Warner siblings meet and try to befriend six Friend-like character knock-offs.
Natalie Portmans audition for some movie we never heard of
Microsoft Awkward Advertising Win
“Everyone Has A Song Inside” and Microsoft will help you bring it out. or something. This cringe-tastic infomercial has gone viral and gotten a ton of buzz, which is what advertising is supposed to do, so mission accomplished in that department. However, there are many factors in this video that tip off the viewer that the awkward awfulness of the video was NOT intentional.
We start out in a kitchen where a man thinks aloud on his inability to come up with a jingle for a kick ass product that we wished existed when he hears his daughter singing at her Apple Macbook (wtf?). This prompts him to sing back for some reason and learn how awesome Microsoft Research’s (cuz regular Microsoft doesn’t come out with new things ever) new program is.
You can download the demo at http://research.microsoft.com/songsmith/
Clearly its awesomeness cannot be denied when you see such improvements as below when only the vocals of a pre-existing song is fed into Songsmith:
*sigh. if only the Beatles had Microsoft!
‘White Wedding’ by Billy Idol:
‘Eye of the Tiger’ by Survivor:
Okay, one more:
Mmmm chicken nuggets…
Mechanically separated meat, also known as mechanically recovered/reclaimed meat, is a paste-like meat product produced by forcing beef, pork or chicken bones, with attached edible meat, under high pressure through a sieve or similar device to separate the bone from the edible meat tissue. Mechanically separated meat has been used in certain meat and meat products since the late 1960s. This product can be contrasted with meat extracted by advanced meat recovery systems.
Questions arose in the 1980s as to the safety of mechanically separated meat. In 1982, a report published by U.S. Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) on mechanically separated meat said it was safe and established a standard of identity for the food product. Some restrictions were made on how much can be used and the type of products in which it can be used. These restrictions were based on concerns for limited intake of certain components in MSM like calcium. Mechanically separated meat must be labeled as “mechanically separated” beef, pork, chicken, or turkey in the ingredients statement. Hot dogs can contain no more than 20 percent mechanically separated beef or pork. The USDA’s final rule became effective November 4, 1996.