These are the mad political rantings of one Matthew McNeil, Liberal/Democratic radio host in Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN. The postings are mine, the thoughts are mine. Mostly about politics, but I will occasionally get into raising kids, cooking, gardening, the arts and my favorite sports. Bon Appetite!
Last night I went out to look at the pumpkin display at the Minnesota Zoo!
Great fun! So tonight I decided to embrace the October spirit!
Let's start off with the very underrated SNL Skit with Bill Hader as an exasperated Vincent Price trying to put together his annual Halloween Special. When Hader pitched the idea of a 1950s Vincent Price skit to Lorne Michaels, Michaels said, "Why now?" Whatever was Hader's justification, I'm glad he pitched it. Kristen Wiig, Jon Hamm, and Fred Armisen join Hader. Everyone in this is PERFECT! "Save your sassy asides for your windowless bars!"
Next up is Tom BetGeorge and his wild Halloween light show. I am actually doing the 2025 light show, because I didn't think this year's was as good as last year's.
Click on his account if you want to see the 2026 version.
Finally, tonight is a series of five ghost photos which seem to be more legit than fake. I know in this day and age, the amount of AI and edited pictures has ruined scary images, but these photos are older, on film, and many of them come with a pretty compelling case for what they might indeed be real. Nuke's Top 5 has the details.
That's it for this Friday. Have a safe and fun weekend.
Make sure you get your flu shots, COVID shots, and stay up to date on your vaccinations. Only a fool would think intentionally getting measles would be a good idea.
This week, we start with the scariest roadside attraction of all time! The Largest Ball of Twine!
Okay, there is not much to it (it's a huge ball of twine), but Patton Oswalt got obliterated drunk and did his own Drunk History on the Biggest Ball of Twine controversy (yes, there was a weird controversy)/
Next up is the first ten minutes of Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
What makes the best Marvel movies work is the commitment to the source material as much as possible. This opening is spectacular. It picks up in the wake of Spider-Man: No Way Home and fast-forwards four years, recapping his time on his own without his longtime friends.
They recreate so many classic Spider-Man comic book covers in this quick opening; it makes it so worth it for the long-time fans (guilty as charged).
And TV on the Radio's Wolf Like Me blasting in the background doesn't hurt either.
Finally tonight, a classic Mystery Science Theater 3000 short, from way back when, Mr. B Natural. You will have more questions than answers after this one.
Have a great weekend, everyone. Try to get out and enjoy the changing colors!
Make sure you stay up to date on all of your vaccinations, including your flu shot.
With it being October, let's look at some of the better scary movie scenes. I generally do not like slasher films or films based on gore for gore's sake. I do like films that build their suspense and fear without cheap tricks.
One of the best things Marvel Studios has done was Werewolf By Night, a one-shot based on their horror comic books of the 60s and 70s. This was released on the Disney streaming platform in 2022, back when the Marvel Universe was going down the path of creating some of the better horror comics (they did do Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, but the Blade reboot and the Black Knight movies never came about).
It's a simplistic story. Gael García Bernal is Jack Russell, a man who infiltrates a meeting of monster hunters to help save his friend, even though he himself has a dark secret, and he ends up encountering the stunning Laura Donnelly as Elsa Bloodstone.
I would highly recommend getting Disney Plus just to watch this gem. Here is a great scene.
Next up is my favorite horror film of all time, The Thing.
An alien shapeshifter crash-lands in Antarctica, gets woken up, and chaos ensues.
This long clip I will share is remarkable for one reason. This does not feature the alien creature at all. What it does feature is the crew realizing something bad is happening, realizing the Thing is loose and could be any one of them; they start to lose it, quickly turning on each other, and John Carpenter ends up creating the all-time "you can trust no one" scenario.
The last clip tonight is a quality clip from Jaws, where they see the shark for the first time.
Watch Robert Shaw's eyes when he sees the shark. They get big, and for a brief second, you can see his character Quint display something he usually never shows: fear. It could be the greatest moment of acting I've ever seen.
I know I have posted that scene before, but it is just such a good one.
Have a great weekend. Good luck if you are running in the Twin Cities Marathon!
Make sure you get your flu shot and stay up to date on all your vaccinations!
This week we start with one of those police body-cam videos, but I promise this is gold! If you are not familiar with Marisa Simonetti, she was a Minnesota candidate for Hennepin County Commissioner in 2024. Although the race was a non-partisan race, she was definitely running from the right side of the aisle. Her campaign came a bit unhinged when she was accused of throwing a tarantula at a woman renting the basement unit of the house she was living in, appearing to try to drive her off the property.
You read that right.
A few weeks ago, the Edina police released the body cam footage of what happened, and to say it's even crazier than you think is an understatement. Watch this whole thing and be stunned when you realize this woman still got 31% of the vote.
Marisa is currently serving a 90-day work-release sentence for the crimes associated with this incident, and apparently she is currently running for the US Senate in Minnesota. That's plucky spirit!
Next up this week is more delusion! I've made comments about how Green Bay Packers fans are over the top with their fandom. I think the only fandom that is more crazed than theirs is Caitlin Clark fans, but that fan base is sprinkled with MAGA racism, which makes them a class unto themselves.
Apparently, there are numerous live streams of Green Bay Packers games from Packers fans who just sit and comment on the game. It's great if you want to have some guy screaming positively when your team is winning, but it is a masterpiece of tragedy when the Packers fans are losing. And this year, the Packers are not a good team.
Various YouTube channels collect all of these negative reactions and put them together for you to enjoy. Take a few minutes and watch Packers fans' Greek tragedy: they take the first three steps in the 6 stages of grief (denial, anger, and bargaining), loop back to anger, and then skip to the 4th step (depression) and just stop.
Finally, tonight, Lewis Black, the comedian and Daily Show Contributor, had some very nice things to say about Minnesota when he came through on tour earlier this year. It took the form of a letter he read about Minnesota Winters.
That's it for this week. Have a wonderful weekend.
On Wednesday, I got both my COVID and my Flu shots. Only fools think that vaccines are dangerous to the average person. Get vaccinated. Stay alive, stay healthy!
This week we had a very nice reminder of what we lost. Stephen Colbert won the Emmys for his now-cancelled show, The Late Show. It was great to see him win, and it was great to see him so happy. Retirement from the late-night talk show game seems to be doing him well.
He talked about it with another great late-night host, Jimmy Kimmel, who had Colbert on to talk about his wins, retirement, the shield, and whether he'll shave off his beard (spoiler alert!).
Also tonight, let me introduce you to one of the best accounts I've ever seen on YouTube, Farming While Beige. These videos feature Chris Newman and are about various things, including his farming group, Blackbird Farms/Co-op (a really interesting story).
He is also hilarious! "What is it now?"
Here is a cooking video going wrong.
Here is one where the cooking goes right.
Not only does he cover cooking, but he is also interacting with a lot of people about farming, educating people who come to believe industry lies and misinformation.
I particularly thought this video was great, especially when he breaks down all the help most farmers get, and how some of them don't even need the help.
That's it for this week. Have a great weekend.
Please make sure to stay up to date on all of your vaccinations.
Today marks the 25th Anniversary of 9/11. I was home that morning. We had just purchased our house 3 months earlier and were getting it ready for our first child, born in October. I heard the radio morning show talking about how a plane had hit the World Trade Center, but not in an urgent news tone, but rather in a "weird, wacky news to start your day" capacity. It all changed when the second tower was hit.
I ran downstairs to watch the news and will never forget a visibly shaken NBC News reporter at the Pentagon telling people the entire Pentagon just shook, and he had to evacuate. I remember asking myself if anywhere was safe at that moment.
2,977 people died that morning.
The next night my wife and I were sitting on our porch, noticing how quiet the skies were as all the country's flights were grounded. Living in a major city, you get used to the sound of planes flying over. That evening, the silence was deafening.
We did change as a country that day, in a lot of ways, and a lot of them weren't positive changes.
I'm going to post the full Naudet Brothers documentary on 9/11. These were the two French filmmakers following around a rookie firefighter, and what ended up happening to them that day will be the film that encapsulates what that day was like, not only the gut punch of being attacked in such a vicious way, but also focusing on the bravery and heroics of the people on the ground in New York City that morning.
Never forget.
Please make sure you stay up to date on all of your vaccinations.
Hi all! I hope you have a great Labor Day Weekend!
As good as the latest Spider-Man movie is (and it was pretty good), and as much as I am looking forward to the next Avengers movie, Doomsday (which looks AMAZING), the best comic book adaptation in TV or in movies today is Lanterns on HBO.
For those who are not familiar with the DC comic, Green Lantern is a superhero who is part of an intergalactic police force corps (quite literally the Green Lantern Corps) whose job is to keep the universe safe. Their green power rings, powered by a Green Lantern (1950s comic book logic!), allow the wearer to create powerful green light manifestations.
What makes the comic book good is not the power, but the people who wield it. Hal Jordan is the main Green Lantern, the one which is most familiar to us older comic book fans, but there have been more modern embraced versions of the characters; Guy Gardener (a hyper aggressive, short tempered Green Lantern featured in the latest Superman movie), and John Stewart (the first African American Green Lantern) who is the Green Lantern in most of the modern cartoon versions of the Justice League.
James Gunn, who has done great work with comic book adaptations, understands the basic rule of making a great comic book movie: Stay true to the comic books! His Guardians of the Galaxy movies and the latest Superman movie show he gets that.
He has absolutely outdone himself with Lanterns. The show features an aging Hal Jordan (a perfectly cast Kyle Chandler) training a new Green Lantern in John Stewart (an equally perfectly cast Aaron Pierre), as they stumble upon a mystery in rural Nebraska, the location Hal got his ring way back when. Also, Nathan Fillion shows up as the Guy Gardner Lantern featured in the Superman movie.
This is really good, not the nightmare that was the Ryan Reynolds Green Lantern movie from a few years ago. If you like a good story, good acting, and comic book fun, I highly recommend it. Considering it is incredibly popular, I'm not alone.
Let's start with Hal Jordan Lantern, interrogating a suspect he thinks is an alien.
Here is a great bit of acting as a clearly annoyed Hal Jordan (annoyed because of the mystery on his hands, but also annoyed to have to be babysitting John Stewart) who finds out what exactly Stewart (annoyed that he seems to be getting jerked around by Jordan) went through to retrieve the recharging lantern, and mentions an alien species that concerns Hal.
And why not a little of Guy Gardner too, from the Superman Movie last year, stopping a military invasion of another country (with help from Hawkgirl and Metamorpho).
Finally tonight, something completely different.
Minneapolis is home to the only waterfall on the Mississippi River, St. Anthony Falls. The waterfall is stabilized. It had to be because the waterfall itself, through natural erosion, was slowly killing itself, and humans tried to harvest the power of the waterfall. Their greed nearly caused the complete collapse of the Falls in 1869.
The Army Corps of Engineers eventually built a wall underneath the falls to save it in 1876...and that's the last thing we know about the wall. We know it's still there, but we are not too sure about the condition of the wall, and no one seems to want to take ownership of the wall - not the Feds, state, county, or city.
This is a bit of a concern. If the wall fails, eventually the waterfall itself will fail, turning into rapids and placing the water intake for the drinking water of Minneapolis above the water line.
Noles Explores and Explains has the details about the history and the problem underneath the river in Minneapolis.
That does it for this week.
Once again, enjoy your Labor Day weekend. All hail the worker! I hope you can afford to grill something and have the beverage of your choice.
Please make sure you stay up to date on all your vaccinations.
This week we lost two absolute legends, so the Link will pay tribute to them both.
Dolly Parton was a freaking Ray of Sunshine. She was one of those people who always made everyone else feel better. Her passing due to cancer was a brutal loss.
Her music was fantastic, but I want to post tonight about her acting. 9 to 5 was a great movie, and lost on most people born after 1980 is that the film acts as a time capsule. Office environments in the 1970's were not worker-friendly and hyper-misogynistic. Women were entering the workforce, but they had to work harder and get paid less, usually keeping the company afloat in the process.
The concept of women not only finding their way into the office, but changing the dynamic for what was the beginning of a worker-friendly job experience is perfectly captured in 9 to 5.
Here are two clips from the movie featuring a pitch-perfect Dolly, with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, and also a wonderfully smarmy Dabney Coleman.
Here Dolly is with David Letterman doing a classic Top 10 list. She is so wonderful!
Tim Curry also passed away. The craziest fact about him was that he, Ian McKellen, and Jane Seymour were the original Broadway cast for Amadeus. Curry said it was his favorite theater performance he'd ever done.
Clue was such a good movie, and Tim Curry held that epic cast together. There are three endings they shot for the movie; this is the 3rd one.
Warning: this does explain the murders in the movie (well, at least one of the three endings), so viewers be warned!
Finally tonight, we have Tim Curry as the demon Darkness in Legend, a weird fantasy/adventure movie featuring a miscast Tom Cruise, but Tim Curry (and Mia Sara) were pitch perfect as Lord of the Rings movie characters 16 years before the first of those movies came out.
Watch the heavily makeup-ed Curry create an absolutely amazing character/villain.
That's it for this week! Have a great weekend, everyone!
Make sure to stay up to date on all of your vaccinations!
Hi all! I am up for a laugh this Friday. How about you?
I think Josh Johnson is a special comedian. There are a lot of guys out there who are funny and know how to deliver a joke, but Johnson is different. His style and delivery are so unique and enjoyable. It reminds me of the times I would see the best comedians for the first time. There is just something that clicks, and you can't stop watching and laughing. You know when you watch Josh Johnson, he's going to be one of the biggest comedians on the planet.
He's already pretty high up there. This last weekend he was in Minneapolis...AND I MISSED HIM! Damn kids needing to be taken back to college in Madison! The good news is he posts a lot of clips from his shows, and they are hilarious.
This is a long clip, 47 minutes of one of his shows at the Orpheum in Minneapolis. I highly recommend the part on Trump and the plane switcharoo! The payoff on that one is spectacular!
Also tonight is the return of Epic Rap Battles of History. When this is good, it is very funny (I highly recommend the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles vs. the Fathers of the Renaissance and the Star Wars Vs. Harry Potter).
This week, a very solid matchup between Tom Cruise and Evil Knievel! Enjoy! (Warning: some adult language!)
That's it for this Friday!
Enjoy your weekend, and please make sure to stay up to date on all of your vaccinations!
It's been a brutal week. I'm exhausted. I need a smile.
This week is all about laughs.
I've often featured ZeFrank on the Friday Link. The first time I ever saw one of his videos was at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, where they made the point that art does include comedy. This week he has a great piece on how flowers trick flies into getting their pollen.
I will warn you this is a little more adult than usual, but it's pure gold.
Also tonight is a whole bunch of Mystery Science Theater 3000! Here is a compilation, a full NINE HOURS of quality movie riffing. All of these are good, but I highly suggest the third film, Time of the Apes!
That's it for this week. Have a great weekend and make sure you stay up to date on all of your vaccinations!
Big Brother is indeed watching. A lot of people are bothered by the collection of our day-to-day activities and by them being shared with the Feds, law enforcement, and databases (and likely AI companies).
To give you a prepper course on this, here is John Oliver and Last Week Tonight's recent segment on Police surveillance.
Here is why this is becoming a HUGE problem. It doesn't matter that your local law enforcement might limit access to Federal authorities and others to the information collected on these surveillance devices. The truth is, apparently, local police and county sheriffs can get access to this content and then share it with the Feds.
I live in a city which has said it restricted access to the Flock cameras around our town, but a recent news article from the Star Tribune (https://www.startribune.com/twin-cities-suburbs-license-plate-cameras-immigration/601873543) tells that even though your community might limit access, other police agencies were accessing your town's cameras and handing that information over to ICE. Grant County, Indiana, Raleigh, North Carolina police, and the Mille Lacs, Minnesota County sheriff felt it was their job to show those weak law enforcement agencies how it's done, and spied on us, handing our information over to ICE.
If anyone wants to file a class action lawsuit, I want in.
It's no surprise that the vandalism of Flock cameras (specifically) is on the rise. Who are the people responsible? Well, here is a concerned citizen with a breakdown of how exactly the criminal element is getting away with the crime...
Darn, you horrible criminals! Darn Darn Darn! Anyhoo...
Finally tonight, Max Miller is back with Tasting History! This time he is tackling the B-rations and specific recipes involving B-rations, from WWII. The thing that is hard to understand is how it is today, Trump can't get the troops out in the Middle East a good meal when this was how they used to do it.
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Incompetency does that.
That's it for this week!
Please be safe and make sure your family is vaccinated! Stay up to date on your vaccinations!
I don't want you sick, dead, or buried under a lifetime of medical debt.
I love baseball, and being a Twins fan, the last few seasons have been BRUTAL. It all came to a head last year when the ownership sold off most of the team for pebbles and twigs, and the fans were left to wonder what the heck we had to look forward to.
This year has been...fine. We're a .500 team in a league that is best described as bland. There have been a few moments of enjoyment, but the Twins' season has been more of a feeling of eventual elimination.
But yesterday something amazing happened. For the first 26 outs of the Twins game versus the Kansas City Royals, the Twins looked atrocious: no fight, no spunk, no hope. Heading into the final inning, the Twins trailed the Royals 3-0
Then with two outs in the bottom of the 9th inning, something amazing happened.
I'll come back to sports in a second, but I also want to feature a great little video from Simon Whistler's Sideproject Channel. With the popularity of the Odyssey lately, no surprise that a lot of history shows/podcasts are featuring a look at ancient Greek myths.
In this video, Simon talks about a few ancient myths that ended up being true in the end.
Finally tonight, I go back to sports and relive a great moment in the Minnesota Vikings' recent history. The Vikings started their training camp this week, and as we wonder if we will recover from the milquetoast last season of JJ McCarthy, there is one game in recent memory that I can't get out of my head.
No, it is not the Colts game where they came back from 33-0, but rather an even better game, and outright boxing match with more twists and turns than you can imagine. The 2022 Week 10 matchup between the Vikings and the Buffalo Bills. That catch by Jefferson was insane, and the fumble recovery in the end zone was magic.
It's nice to remember when the team wasn't letting me down. The NFL makes you watch this on YouTube. Please click the link!
That's it for this week!
Have a great weekend and make sure to stay up to date on your vaccinations.
I do not want you sick, dead, or in medical debt for the rest of your life.
This year I've had two exceptional music experiences. Last Thursday I was in Chicago for the Rush 50 Something tour, and it did not disappoint. As a fan of the band, I never thought I'd ever hear them play again, since Neil Peart passed away. Then Paul McCartney (who I saw play last October) encouraged Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson to get back at it. They found an amazing drummer in Anika Nilles, and they went back on the road.
It'd be like tasting your mom's cooking again after being away for a decade.
Here was Freewill from Thursday night in Chicago.
I think I also talked about going to see Lady Gaga earlier this year. That was also an incredible show, which came across more like a half concert/half Broadway show!
Here she is singing Applause!
As a 57-year-old man, now that my kids are all off at college, I'm rediscovering the joy of going to see big live concerts again. Pick a show and enjoy!
Also tonight, they released the trailer for Avengers: Doomsday, and it looks AWESOME!
If the trailer is not enough for you, then let your real Marvel geek out and let New Rockstars break down the trailer frame by frame to give you every clue, Easter egg, and theory they have about the upcoming film.
These guys are nothing but thorough!
That's it for this week!
Please stay safe and make sure you get vaccinated for everything.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is trying to make you sick. I want you to be safe.
Back in late April, I had a Friday Link which included Tasting History's Max Miller listing off the worst historical recipes he's ever recreated (edible leather??? Hard pass!). Realizing there is always a day for the night, he has now put out the best-tasting recipes he recreated, and I will admit I am surprised by his top favorite.
I have made two of these myself, Coronation Chicken and Irish Stew, and they were both fantastic.
The other video this week is from Last Week Tonight. A few weeks back, they took on the crisis of feral hogs, and it is a crisis. Feral hogs are running amok in the US, and most states are having to deal with them. In Texas, they are out of control, and considering how fast they breed, this is becoming a major environmental disaster.
And they are smart too. If one gets away from a trap, it will not only learn to stay away from that trap, but it will teach the other hogs to avoid that area too.
That's it for this week.
Please stay up to date on all of your vaccinations and have a nice feral hog-free weekend.
I have an eclectic group for tonight's Friday Link.
I grew up in the video game age. I still remember exactly where the video arcades were in the area malls I grew up around. I was a Galaga guy, getting up to level 30 once.
I remember when Dragon's Lair came on the scene. They would have a TV on top of the video game so everyone could see the action being played out. When this game showed up, kids were 10 deep watching people throw their money away.
I say "throw their money away" for two reasons. Dragon's Lair was the first video game to cost 50 cents to play. And Dragon's Lair was insanely hard to learn. Most of us did not have the money to try to play for an hour. I think the best result I ever saw was a guy playing for five minutes.
BazookaBills on their YouTube channel to put out a complete run of the game. I remember how hard the river and the Black Knight level were. I also remember the risque nature of Princess Daphne. Was she the template for the modern AI girlfriend?
Forty-three years after it came out, I finally see someone win it.
Earlier this year, I went to Yellowstone, and as cool as that place is, it is also terrifying. It's a massive volcano, and when it does go, it will cause utter devastation.
For a play-by-play of what will happen to the entire planet (spoiler alert: I hope you like starvation), So, What If... has a rundown of what will likely be the end of most of us.
Finally tonight, I am still enjoying Trump-free recognition of the 250th Anniversary of this country. Antiques Roadshow has a great episode of pure Americana, which will spark a little bit of your patriotic pride (Did I mention, no Trump!).
That's it for this week!
Have a wonderful and safe weekend and make sure to stay up to date on all your vaccinations!
Kind of short and sweet as we are in the holiday weekend! I hope everyone in the US has a wonderful Independence Day. Remember, this country is far more than a bloviated, narcissistic, serial abuser and pedophile.
If you've never seen The Play That Goes Wrong, it was a theater production from 2012, originally from London, that eventually made its way to Broadway, where an ill-equipped theater company puts on a murder mystery. As advertised, everything goes wrong. Here are the first 10 minutes of the production, done for the BBC in 2015.
The creators and cast did a special for the BBC in 2016, an hour-long production called Peter Pan Goes Wrong. It ramps up the chaos quite a bit more. More than a few unexpected twists. It's fun.
Howdy All! This week we dive into the question of who exactly was Jack the Ripper.
The question of who murdered women in Whitechapel, London in 1888 has been the source for a lot of debate for the century and a half since the murders, and frankly we still don't have any concrete evidence of who was behind the slaughters.
As time has rolled on, and as criminology has gotten sharper, many people have looked into the past to try to find the answer. Most of the speculation is still a wild swing in the dark, but the YouTube channel Answers with Joe, featuring Joe Scott decided to look into the question.
One spoiler I will get out of the way. At the beginning of this episode, Joe does make it seem like there is a definitive answer to who the killer was, and although his logic is good, it still is not definitive.
Sometimes the best way to look at an old problem is through a set of new eyes. I am a HUGE fan of the podcast The Rest is History. The two hosts Dominic and Tom are so good at unraveling historical stories.
But they are not a True Crime podcast. They only look at the history and the facts, drawing conclusions from what we know.
When they started this series on Jack the Ripper, they point out they're focusing on the historical facts and impact of the Ripper mythos, but in this last episode of the series they did, they take some time to sift through the facts and make a deduction on who exactly the killer was...
And I think they might have figured it out.
Here is the 5th part of their Jack the Ripper series. I encourage you to watch the entire series, but it is 5 hours long. This is the episode where they put forward their thoughts on who the killer could be.
That's it for this week!
Have a great weekend everyone.
Please make sure you stay up to date on all of your vaccinations!
I have not done my favorite SNL skits from the past year, so here we go.
Disclaimer as always: These are just my opinion, and by all means, feel free to completely disagree with me!
#10 - Passing Notes. I do like it when the cast breaks, and no one gets the cast breaking more than Ryan Gosling. It also helps that one of the best cast members for breaking, Ashley Padilla, makes the skit better with her attempts to get control back while clearly unable to control herself.
SNL did set this up by changing all the notes from rehersal.
Gosling and Padilla will make another showing on this list.
#9 - The Gentlemen's Code. Connor Storrie had a gem with this riff on Victorian manlihood. As always, Keenan steals the spotlight!
#8 - K Pop Demon Hunters. I thought the best miusical moment of the season was when Bad Bunny himself hosted and they had a fun skit featuring the singers from the movie. That skit ended up finishing really strong!
#7 - ICE Meeting Cold Open. Pete Davidson returns to play Tom Homan having to come into Minneapolis and try to fix the ICE nightmare that unfolded in Minnesota. The line 'we invaded Minnesota to distract from the Epstein Files but had to release the Epstein Files to get Minneapolis off the front page' is one of the most honest statements about the Trump Administration.
#6 - Weekend Update: Tucker Carlson. Hands down the best impression on the show this year was Jeremy Culhane's Tucker Carlson.
#5 - Mom Confession. The most relatable skit of the year, as a family member comes to realize that her vote for Trump might have been a mistake, but doesn't want to give the rest of her family the satisfaction they desire from admitting she was wrong.
#4 - Hormuz Jeff. Will Ferrell was perfect as the only guy willing to run the Strait of Hormuz!
#3 - NYC Mayoral Debate. Miles Teller is one of the best hosts they've had recently and his return featured a great skit about a debate in the insanely disfunctional Mayors race in NYC. Keenan once again is outstanding at the debate moderator.
#2 - MAHAspital! A filmed bit from when Harry Styles was host, mocking the insanity of RFK Jr.'s health care advice.
#1 - Cyclops. Ryan Gosling manages to get not only Ashley Padilla, but also Veronika Slowikowska to break as three clueless Cylopsi (?) must answer a riddle. Not as good as the Beavis and Butthead sketch from last season, but close.
That's it for this week.
Please make sure to stay up to date on all of your vaccinations!
One year ago on Sunday, Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband were assassinated in their home, and MN Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were shot, all by the same deranged man.
Speaker Hortman was a really good leader. And an absolutely wonderful person.
I'm very sad about this anniversary. I'll make sure to light a candle for them this weekend.
For this Friday Link, I want it to be about making you smile in tough times.
I do enjoy Conan O'Brien's Podcast, 'Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend.' He has a really good rapport with certain guests, like Patton Oswalt, and here is a great bit of them talking about all the flaws of old Hollywood.
While looking at this clip, I was recommended a classic bit from Conan where he, Colbert, and Stewart have an all-out brawl over who can take credit for creating Mike Huckabee. It's a great watch, but how about Huckabee in possibly the last time he was at all pleasant to watch or hear!
Finally tonight, Hot Ones always has some of the best reactions. Jennifer Lawrence and Shaq are always all-time gold. Here are 100 quality reactions to Hot Ones!
That's it for tonight. Have a nice weekend, and light a candle for Melissa and Mark this weekend.
Please stay up to date on all of your vaccinations.
We start with sad news as Anthony Head passed away. The recognizable actor died of complications from pneumonia. He didn't do the most movies or television, but what he did was stunningly memorable.
Most recently, people remember him as the bad guy Rupert in the all-time classic TV Show Ted Lasso. A great actor makes a great villain, and Head knew how to play this role perfectly.
Here is the iconic darts scene with Ted.
And of course, we can't forget where most of us saw Anthony, his most iconic role, as Giles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. There is an observation someone made once about acting: the more ridiculous the premise of the plot, the better the actor you need to make the story believable. Tennages fighting vampires and yet the show hummed along. Sarah Michelle Gellar was awesome, but Anthony Head was the anchor that made that show work.
And we can't forget the coffee ads! His first big break was the Taster Choice ads, and people forget how popular these ads were. I remember him getting A LOT of press about these ads.
Finally, tonight Jordan Klepper from The Daily Show went to New Orleans to talk to people about the 250th anniversary of the country, and how to celebrate it in a time of vicious divide.
That's it for this week. Have a wonderful weekend, and please make sure to stay up to date on all of your vaccinations!
One of the best F-U's of all time was what Stephen Colbert did right after his Late Night show ended with record ratings. He flipped off CBS in the best way possible. He returned to Monroe, Michigan Community Access Television and put forward a new episode of 'Only in Monroe.'
As he describes at the beginning of this video, he originally did a fill in stint for the public access show in 2015, right after he started The Late Show. His return was unexpected and damn near perfect.
CBS initially tried to stop the reposting of this show, but after the wild popularity of the one hour bit, which includes some top notch celebrities, they finally gave up.
Colbert is already deeply missed.
Since that video is an hour long, I'll only post one other video, another top notch education video wrapped in a ton of comedy. It's Ze Frank and True Facts, this time focusing on the extraordinary building ability of bees. Suck it, Nerd!
That's it for this week.
Have a great weekend.
Please make sure to stay up to date on all of your vaccinations!
Hi all! Happy Memorial Day! I hope you have a nice weekend.
Memorial Day is a day to remember the sacrifice of those who have died in battle. When it comes to remembering those we've lost, World War I stands out as a particularly brutal conflict. I've talked about it in the past, how one day the world wasn't fighting, and almost immediately, there was fighting in every corner of the globe.
It's not like the US Civil War and World War II didn't also produce brutal fighting, but the intensity and the proximity of World War I were the definition of brutal.
This video from Battle Guide will highlight what I am talking about: 4 years of constant bombardment and shooting over ONE FIELD! The insanity of war comes to light when you realize that so many people died trying to win one piece of land, a piece of land that was basically a medium-sized park in your neighborhood. This was ONE spot on the Western Front.
The survivors made remembrance important after World War I because no one could forget what had happened.
I know I featured some from the Revolutionary War a few weeks back, but this video came across my timeline, and it's a pretty good overview of the battle for American Independence. It also talks about how that war was not just a war in the colonies, but a global conflict, which Britain horribly mismanaged.
This is from Kings and Generals.
Finally, tonight is a military story dear to me. Minnesota saved the Union in 1863 at Gettysburg. The 1st Minnesota holds the distinction of being the military unit with the highest casualty rate that still existed after the battle. Horribly outnumbered, they held the line and saved the day.
And no, you can NEVER get back the flags they captured that day.
I tear up every time I hear this story. I am so in awe of what those men did that day. Facing certain death, they didn't blink. I'm proud of the bravery Minnesota showed that day. There is a reason Minnesota has the 2nd biggest memorial at Gettysburg, after Pennsylvania.
Seeing what real sacrifice is, it sickens me that any Minnesotan sides with the South or the Southern cause today.
Remember this Monday.
Please make sure you stay up to date on your vaccinations and have a nice weekend.
This upcoming week will be the last of Stephen Colbert's The Late Show.
Colbert is an insane talent, a man who is an all-time funny man. Late-night hosts are all pretty good, but Colbert understood the gig better than anyone else, and (as someone who has interviewed people my entire career), he's the best interviewer to ever sit in a late-night chair.
He did a lovely little piece with The Hollywood Reporter where other Late Night hosts asked him questions about his show. It's a good watch.
Recently, Colbert got to visit with President Obama again, and they had a rematch of their waste paper basket basketball challenge in the replica Oval Office at the new Obama Presidential Center. Dear Lord I miss Presidents who actually cared for their country.
Here is one of my favorite recurring buts from Colbert, Alter Egos! Twenty-one minutes of them!!!
I loved Colbert's Community Calendar. It was perfect comedy, and the original one he did with Nick Offerman (two weeks in a row with Nick!) was my favorite.
Recently, Offerman revisited Community Calendar. Pop the Balloon Speed Dating? Who the F came up with that idea?!?
...(sigh)...
From the bottom of my heart, CBS can go F- itself. I will never watch your network again, including NFL games. I'll listen to them on the radio instead.
That's it for this week.
Please make sure you stay up to date on your vaccinations.
This week, we start to get ready for the 250th Anniversary of the United States.
We are not exactly at a high point in American history right now. Trump is a biblical villain, Batman nemesis, pedophile, and deranged, physically unwell, psychopathic narcissist willing to bomb a country and tank our economy to keep the Epstein Files hidden. This country has never been under a greater threat.
But this modern nightmare aside (and that's a big ask), America is an imperfect but insanely cool place. It really is. That's why it's so hard to see a man desecrate this country as deeply as Trump has.
American history is far more complex than the Schoolhouse Rock version of events. To give you a look at how it all started, let's let Ken Burns talk about the Battle of Yorktown and the end of British rule, from his wildly entertaining The American Revolution.
Americans should be proud of what happened back then, but it is still right to acknowledge the disgrace of slavery, the insane mistreatment of the Native Americans, and the flawed nature this country has embraced at times. We are a country at its best when we take pride in what we've done, realize the mistakes we've made, and commit ourselves to making it better.
This gets at what is pissing me off about this 250th anniversary. Trump is trying to make it all about himself. It's a disgrace. When the US Men's Hockey Team won gold at the Olympics, it should have been a unifying moment, but Trump and FBI Director Kash Patel made it clear that the celebration was only for MAGA-aligned jackasses.
Trump is doing the same thing with EVERYTHING for this upcoming celebration. To hear how bad it's getting, Nick Offerman went on the Daily Show to talk about it.
I have a National Park pass. It's freaking disturbing. It's like getting a parks pass with a rotting butternut squash as the featured image; it's grotesque, upsetting to sane people, and has no connection to the National Park system.
Maybe what we need to get through this celebration is a reflection of what America at its best can be. Thank you, Chris Evans, for your great version of Captain America. The Winter Soldier is one of the best Marvel movies and one of the best spy movies. The elevator escape scene is amazing, and what we need to get out of this national orange quagmire.
That's it for this week. I pray things are better in two months.
Please make sure you stay up to date on your vaccinations.
This week, we start with a little video that shows us how far we've fallen in leadership in the USA. I don't have to tell anyone that Trump is an absolute failure at leadership. The reason is simple. He's an Nth degree narcissist, and he only cares about his self-gratification. He is the absolute worst human being to have in charge in this country.
What I think a lot of people miss is how far we've fallen. Last week, King Charles of England came for a visit. There was the usual pomp and circumstance that comes with a major world leader visiting Washington DC, and Trump, multiple times, embarrassed us.
But after the DC schedule, the King went on to be a bit of a tourist (with a purpose). This is video coverage of King Charles visiting Shenandoah National Park.
I don't think anyone would ever call King Charles the most dynamic personality, but what he does with this visit is show us what exactly we've lost in this country: civility. The King seems genuinely interested in everything and everyone, as he enjoys the beautiful park. And Shenandoah pulls out all the stops with a bald eagle, a chance for the King to meet with Native Americans (reminder, they are part of a sovereign nation), and even gets a lovely plaque.
I miss leaders who did stuff like this. I miss when life was normal.
Next up, it's planting season in America! I am plotting out my gardens, and I came across this video where the average gardener can get some really good advice from the Amish. Some of these hacks are fringe, and some of them are not really new, but I will actually use a few of them (planting tomatoes sideways, planting other plants to lure away bugs naturally).
And finally tonight, what is all this talk about Uranium! With the Iran War going on, there is a question about Iran having uranium for nuclear weapons, but as Neil deGrasse Tyson breaks down, there are more uses for uranium than nuclear weapons. And there are different uses for different levels of enriched uranium.
That's it for this week! Have a great weekend, everyone!
Make sure to stay up to date on your vaccinations!
Hi all! I have not done a cooking-heavy edition of the Link lately, so let me start with one of my favorite YouTubers, Max Miller.
I love history, and I also love cooking, so my love for historic cooking (like Max's channel, Tasting History) shouldn't be a surprise. Seeing how people ate in the past, whether in ancient times, 500 years ago, or even in the 1950s and 60s, is fascinating to me. Max Miller is the gold standard at trying to make these recipes the best he can. To give you a taste of one of his more traditional episodes, here is his latest on Welsh Rabbit! (sidenote- there is no rabbit in Welsh Rabbit. It's actually vegetarian)
Historical cooking is a real mixed bag, and while the Welsh Rabbit was delicious, some of his other recipes were not so tasty. I am actually shocked it doesn't happen more often with his results, especially when you look back at the real old recipes. Food was really odd back then.
In this next video, Max lists off the worst-tasting recipes he has tackled, and when I saw this video pop up, I immediately knew what had to be #1, and I was right. I'll leave it a surprise for you, but the keyword is 'chewy!'
Last one tonight is the return of our favourite Canadian amateur chef, Jamie, the ANTI-CHEF!
He goes back to his roots and tackles a Julia Child recipe for a giant stuffed beef roll, and the final product looks so freaking amazing! Seriously, I think I could eat at least half of the thing.
That's it for this week! Have a great weekend, everyone!
Make sure you stay up to date on all of your vaccinations!
I miss baseball that's played for the fun of the game. Don't get me wrong, I do love baseball overall, but the Major Leagues are a very serious place. What I am talking about is the absurdity that baseball, particularly amateur/exhibition baseball, can be.
I miss the old St. Paul Saints games (TRAIN!)! I remember when their emcee for the night (a beloved Eric Webster) had all the field hands run onto the field and dance, twist, hop, blubber, and cavort for three minutes. Afterwards, Eric said into the mic, "Ladies and Gentlemen, my dream from last night! Just as I remember it!"
Sure, there is a baseball game, but fun is the main goal.
The Savannah Bananas baseball club has taken this to the nth degree, becoming the Harlem Globetrotters of baseball. Their games are sold out almost immediately, and they have an annual tour that gets better attendance than most of the MLB games.
Let's start off with the walk-up songs for the Savannah Bananas! The guy doing flips at #7 is pretty good!
They do play baseball, but it's different. They allow trick plays. Check out the best from last year.
The Savannah Bananas have to play a game, which means other teams, and their most common foil is The Party Animals. They themselves are pretty spectacular. Here are some of their best moments. A Slip and Slide for home runs would be awesome!
Another of the teams in the league is The Firefighters. Here are some of their highlights. The Version of 'It's Raining Men' where they have men jumping off a ladder is 10 out of 10!
I so want this team in my town. Major League Baseball shouldn't become this, but they sure as heck could learn a lot from the Savannah Bananas about making their games a lot more fun.
That's it for this week. Have a good weekend.
Please stay up to date on all of your vaccinations!
I'm exhausted! I was up late last night (on a school night - WHAAAA???) at the Lady Gaga concert in St. Paul, and I've been barely functioning all day. It's going to be bedtime for me soon, but I need a Friday Link we all can enjoy!
Taking a page from last week's Ben-Hur scene, why not look at some classic movie scenes I just absolutely love!
Let's start with the final match from the underrated movie, Searching for Boby Fischer. This is one of those movies where if I find it somewhere, I can't stop watching it. It's a great movie about the world of competition, but it's also a great movie about mentors and about family.
Next up, the best baseball movie ever, The Natural. I know I've posted this scene before, but it is so dang good, and with Robert Redford passing away, it feels appropriate to revisit this scene again.
And finally tonight, the final battle scenes from Avengers: Endgame. Talk about near-perfect, this ending was everything every comic book fan ever wanted in a comic book movie. Cap uses Thor's hammer to take on Thanos. PERFECTION!
Have a great weekend, everyone.
Make sure to stay up to date on all of your vaccinations!
Hi all! Happy Friday! Let's start this week off with a bang!
I am a Christian (my disclaimer), but you do or don't do whatever it is you do or don't want to do! This is Easter weekend, and I wanted to share some clips that are associated with the holiday, but aren't too Christian-heavy-handed.
The first clip this week is an absolute gem. Ben -Hur was from the era of absolute epic movies. Yes, it gets really Christiany at the end, and Charlton Heston's gun worship is its own discussion, but the movie itself has a lot of wonderful all-time classic movie scenes, and the story of a betrayed man clawing himself back from condemnation (a Hollywood trope) has never been done better than when Ben-Hur returns to confront Messala. This leads to one of the most iconic scenes in all of movie history, the chariot race scene.
I can't even imagine watching this in 1959 on a mega-wide screen. The work this one scene took is astounding, and the race builds and builds to absolute perfection. I do recommend the original Ben-Hur movie, if you are so inclined.
Next up is a quick video from The Peanuts 'It's The Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown.' In my mind, it's not the holiday unless Snoopy is dancing with bunnies.
Finally, this week, Eggs! RiffTrax has an absolute head scratcher of a short to enjoy, Courtesy a Good Eggsample! This is just about eggs. I am not sure why it exists, but RiffTrax does it justice!
Have a great weekend, everyone! If you are celebrating, Happy Easter!
And make sure to stay up to date on all of your vaccinations!
This week, I start off with something I posted years ago, but it came back up in my suggested file, and I couldn't resist posting it again. These are 2 of the Cinematic trailers for 'Star Wars: The Old Republic' video games from 16 years ago.
They still hold up pretty well today, and frankly, these trailers leave me wanting to watch a lot more.
The thing I don't understand is how the studios that put these insanely good trailers missed delivering this level of on-the-edge-of-your-seat goodness for the last two Star Wars Films, The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker. Don't get me wrong, I do like both of those movies, and I REALLY loved The Force Awakens (and Luke's storyline in 8 was so damn good), but Star Wars movies 8 and 9 just missed with a lot of the secondary plots.
I also LOVE how they de-aged the technology in this timeline before the Star Wars movies we know.
Can you imagine if the creative team behind these trailers had been handed the last two movies? You would've come out of the theater exhausted!
Staying with the movie world, the book Cold Storage (by David Koepp) was an incredibly scary book, with a villain as scary and relentless as the Terminator robots, and it finally got made into a movie. The unfortunate part was that the movie was somewhat discarded with its release, and is now off to some streaming service.
As a fan of the book, this clip follows the story pretty cleanly. It's from early in the movie. It does get a little scary and icky, so watch out!
I will watch Cold Storage when it does eventually stream.
Finally, tonight, how did the moon get to be the moon?
The current theory is that a large planetoid hit Earth in its early forming stage and the resulting crash led to the smaller planet breaking up, half absorbed by Earth, and the other half forming the Moon.
This is presented as the answer to how the moon was formed, but I was surprised when Howtown put this video out and pointed out a lot of problems with that theory.
That's it for this week!
Have a great weekend and make sure you stay up to date on all of your vaccinations!
Howdy everyone, and welcome to the first day of Spring! After a blizzard last weekend, we are hitting 78 degrees tomorrow. Horribly wrong, but I am not complaining. MELT!
Let's start off with a video that just makes me laugh. It's stupid and well done. It will make you smile. Here is the RV scene from Anchorman 2.
I usually don't post movie trailers unless it's the funny ones from Screen Junkies, but this week I am making an exception.
The next Spider-Man, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, looks amazing. They are copying a lot of the iconic covers in the promo, and the freaking Punisher finally shows up with Spidey.
I also want to feature the Dune Part 3 trailer. They have absolutely done that book right with this trilogy, and I will be at the movie theater the day it comes out to see the conclusion. When the extended cut gets released, my guess is that it will be 10 hours long.
Our last video tonight comes from Dr. Emily Zarka and Monstrum. I haven't featured her in awhile and this video is pretty good.
To preface the video, do you remember this:
These are what's called the Phoenix Lights. In 1997, A LOT of people saw them as they flew over a major metro area, and an insane amount of video footage of the lights exists. I've thought about that sighting over the years.
Now it seems like a similar sighting happened in 1951, then called the Lubbock Lights. Emily has more on that.
That's all for this week.
Have a great weekend. And please make sure you stay up to date on all of your vaccinations!
