Memorial video for Dad

On the night after Dad's passing, Anita (my sister), my aunt and uncle and I went through a ton of old photographs to use in the video that the funeral home would put together for the tribute that would play during visitation on the following night. Wilkerson Funeral did a very solid job in doing so and I wanted to share it on my blog.



I don't want to say which one, but there is one photo in here that seriously broke my heart to include. It was Dad's favorite photograph. It hung on the wall of his knife shop. Heck, it was the knife shop, the heart and soul of it. We knew we wanted it in the video, but it honestly hurt me to take it down on the morning before the visitation that night. It was like taking out the last lingering vestige of Dad's presence from his beloved shop.

Sometime soon, I'm going to have that photo framed and place it back where it belongs.

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Americans according to North Korea: "Buying guns to kill each other" and drinking coffee made from snow...

There is some question about whether or not this is real. Having watched numerous propaganda films made behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War, my gut tells me that it's legit. That, and because this video does have that "Dear Leader/all others are inferior" tone which is a hallmark of North Korea's regime.

It's allegedly a propaganda video made by the North Korean government depicting life of the downtrodden proles in the United States.  Here in America we drink coffee made from snow (which is said to be in "abundance"), there are few birds because the starving masses living in tents have caught and eaten nearly all of them, dead bodies are piled up all over the place, Potemkin-ish cities disguised to look like those of Eastern Europe, unsuccessful Republican candidates are reduced to scrounging in the garbage, and it's only because of aid from North Korea that we're able to survive at all.

This is one of the most hysterically funny "real" videos that I've ever seen!  I hope y'all aren't drinking anything that could get snorted onto your monitor as you watch it...


Tip o' the hat to the inimitably awesome Erik Yaple for finding this!

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GAME OF THRONES as a mid-Nineties TV series

What if Game of Thrones came out a decade and a half earlier, in 1995?  Back when the style of fantasy television was dictated by shows like Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess.  What would it have been like?

Very likely, something like this...


So if Sam Raimi had made Game of Thrones back in the day, who would Kevin Sorbo have played? My guess is Eddard Stark.  Maybe a shaven-headed Bruce Campbell as Varys, or at least Petyr Baelish.

And Lucy Lawless?  No doubt about it: Cersei.

Kudos to YouTube user "hunterlsanders" for such a great piece of work!

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iPad fun with Zoe and Wally (AKA the girlfriend's cats)

This evening Kristen and I were hanging out in one room of her apartment when we heard her cats Zoe and Wally meowing outside the door. I had an idea so I grabbed my iPad, turned on the camera and slid it partly outside under the door. The results? Hilarity!!

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Dude's BRILLIANT poem about why following Christ means rejecting religion

Wow.

Just... wow.

"So for religion, I hate it. In fact I literally resent it. Because when Jesus said 'It is finished', I believe He meant it."

I can think of any number of people who I would love to tie down and make them watch this video. This dude, well... he gets what it means to follow Christ.

Legalists, don't watch this if you hate squirming!

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Mom's memorial video from the funeral service

Three days ago we laid Mom's body to rest. I keep saying "Mom's body" because that wasn't Mom at all, not really. Everything that made Ruby Knight the wonderful, amazing and deeply beautiful woman that she was, God brought into His presence last Wednesday morning and out of that room at the hospice. All that we did two days later was to commit her earthly remains to the cemetery. It was as far as we are able to go in this world.

I am still recovering from it, although I'm sincerely shocked at how well I've been able to maintain myself through it all. Have there been tears? Absolutely. But... my girlfriend keeps telling me that I'm stronger than I was a year or so ago, when this would have completely devastated me. Probably to the point of needing severe medication. But this past week has seen me the furthest thing from that. Maybe the most composed in the face of tragedy that I've ever been. And I really don't know how that could come to be, except by the grace of God.

I am going to be writing a more fitting memorial to Mom on this blog in the next few days, as my thoughts are able to more clearly coalesce. But until then, thought I'd share this with all two of The Knight Shift's faithful readers. Wilkerson Funeral Service was extremely helpful to our family in this time of need, going above and beyond the call of a mortuary firm. But then, it's Wilkerson: I would have expected no less from such a fine, established company. I wish we could have had time to find more photos, but they did a terrific job in assembling the following video which played in the chapel during visitation. I just uploaded it to YouTube a short while ago, mostly so that family who couldn't make it to the funeral can get to view it. Thought I'd share it with this blog's readership as well...

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Star Wars cello battle!

I am actually genuinely surprised that my good friend Brian (aka Darth Larry) had nothing to do with this, since he's a bigger Star Wars geek than even I am and also an accomplished cello player!

Here's the video that has musicians and saga fans alike everywhere talking today...

Thanks to Geoff Gentry for being the first among many to pass this along :-)

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Look! VIDEO of me frying those Thanksgiving turkeys!

When I first posted about this Thanksgiving's deep-fried turkey earlier this evening, I forgot to mention that for this past holiday's music to fry to, I chose to use Steve Jablonsky's soundtrack for Gears of War 3. Should have made a note of that earlier 'cuz hey, that kind of thing is important to my personal ritual of deep-frying turkey. Kristen and my friends that I was frying for all thought that it was a terrific score and perfect for the occasion :-)

Well, a short while ago Kristen surprised me with this video that she put together of me preparing the turkey in the kitchen and then putting it into the oil... which turned out to be the most dangerous bird that I have yet to fry!! No seriously: a tiny bit of hot oil jumped up and hit me in the face. It startled me for a second or two but there was no burn (thankfully!). Still, it was a sobering reminder that this is dangerous and it takes considerable forethought and a bit of lunacy to attempt :-P

Okay well without further ado, here is my girlfriend Kristen's video that she shot and edited together!

Once again, great job Kristen!! I especially loved the end credits (including that lil' jab at PETA :-)

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Benny Hinn is a Dark Lord of the Sith!

Good friend Deborah Taylor (who was previously known as Deborah Wilson :-) and her husband Dennie found this uproariously funny video and I just had to share it with y'all...

Y'know, Benny Hinn is known for pulling off mind tricks. And didn't he once claim he could keep people from dying, just like Darth Plagueis was reputed to be capable of? Maybe there's something to this....

I'm only wondering what should Hinn's Sith title be. "Darth Pantene" perhaps?

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Little girl turns to the Dark Side at Disneyland

This video made my day! While at Disneyland with her family Sariah Gallego got picked to jump on the stage of the Jedi Training Academy feature. But this was one girl who wasn't satisfied with being a mere Padawan learner! No, she wanted something... more. She wanted to follow her passion. Even if that meant turning to the Dark Side of the Force.

And so in front of everybody including no less a person than Mace Windu, Sariah swore allegiance to Darth Vader and became his Sith apprentice! Behold the video...

Don't know what else to say but... you go girl!! :-)

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BEING BIPOLAR: Video Log 8: Depressive Episode #2, "Stop Thinking About Nothing"

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How J.J. Abrams' STAR TREK should have ended

Those wonderfully demented folks at How It Should Have Ended have struck again! This time the target is last year's stellar smash hit Star Trek, which was directed by J.J. Abrams and used every lens flare plug-in on the market.

Here's how Star Trek should have ended...

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Charlie Chaplin stars in THE MATRIX

It could use some piano accompaniment. And the cards need some serious cleaning-up of translation. But those aside, this is still very clever: The Matrix as an old-timey silent movie featuring Charlie Chaplin!

That "dojo" scene is especially Chaplin-esque :-)

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Wanna see my appearance on THE JAY LENO SHOW?

Well, it was just "that Star Wars school board campaign commercial"... but at least I can now honestly brag about having made Jay Leno and a studio audience laugh on national television! :-)

I put the clip of The Jay Leno Show featuring my commercial (along with a few others from around the country) during this past Thursday night's broadcast on YouTube.  Click here to behold Yours Truly's visual effects and Melody Hallman Daniel's awesome voice-over entertaining the entire country in prime-time!

However I don't know how long it'll be up on YouTube, 'cuz as soon as I posted it the system told me that NBC Universal had already flagged it for possible infringement... which I'm thinking is just an automated response to the keywords I attached to the video.  But even so, after EVERYTHING that I've gone through in the past few years pertaining to copyright law (yeah I'm looking at you Sumner Redstone) there's no way I would have put this on YouTube had it not met the criteria of Fair Use.  So hopefully, this is just something minor that will be resolved quickly.  And hey, I'm giving free advertising for Jay Leno's show :-)

EDIT 8:24 p.m. EST: The infamous NBC lawyers must have let up, or something. Here's the embedded video!

We'll see how long it lasts though :-P

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Willy Wonka's Tunnel of Hell... reversed!

Kinda makes you wonder what Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory would have been like had David Lynch made it...

THAT's gonna leave a mental scar! :-P

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Darn you Steve Jobs!

Catch me anywhere out and about, and chances are I've got my iPod classic hanging on my belt. It's the first iPod I've ever owned, the model that came out two years ago with the 80 gigabyte hard drive. And yesterday was the annual press event where Apple rolls out the newest iPod models. I was expecting to not update to anything new until sometime next year, when I figured that flash storage will finally catch up to the capacity I demand that's currently only on hard drive. And that might happen then, since the latest iPod touch now maxes out at 64 gigs of flash memory (I'd way love to see at least that much on an iPod classic design).

Then I saw the 5th generation of iPod nano.

And I am now lusting for one terribly.

FM radio (with Live Pause - sorta like audio DVR - and iTunes Tagging). Built-in voice recording capability. And... a video camera with 376 x 240 resolution.

I could literally not run out of neat ideas to try with this gimmick. All of them legal, of course!

(I can see it now: some pervert using an iPod nano to discreetly "look up" the skirts of unsuspecting ladies. Or even more likely: a certain cult that this blog has been monitoring and chronicling for awhile now that is already ambushing and hurting innocent people with hidden video cameras.)

The 16 GB iPod nano is going for only $179. Not a bad deal at all! So I'll probably be heading to that new Apple Store in Greensboro sometime soon: second visit ever, but first with a purchase in mind.

Darn you Steve Jobs!! I was going to wait until next year to get a new iPod! And you had to make go and make it too better already! :-)

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THE BALLAD OF G.I. JOE

Thanks to Phillip Arthur for finding this. And I have not seen the new G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra movie but I have heard that "The Ballad of G.I. Joe" is gads better than that... film. Here it is, starring a lot of famous faces!

And in case you're wondering who's who, here's the cast list:

Laz Alonso as Doc, Alexis Bledel as Lady Jaye, Billy Crudup as Zartan, Zach Galifianakis as Snow Job, Tony Hale as Dr. Mindbender, Frankie Kang as Storm Shadow, Geoff Mann as Buzzer, Andreas Owald as Snake Eyes, Daniel Strange as Torch, Kevin Umbricht as Ripper, Vinnie Jones as Destro, Joey Kern as Tomax, Joey Kern as Xamot, Chuck Liddell as Gung Ho, Julianne Moore as Scarlett, Henry Rollins as Duke, Alan Tudyk as Shipwreck, Olivia Wilde as The Baroness, Jamin Fite as Cobra Commander, Sgt. Slaughter as Himself

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Classic SESAME STREET: Bert and Ernie's appliance war!

Dang, it's been a long time since this blog has seen any vintage Sesame Street sketches! Here's one that just got hosted on the official Sesame Street YouTube channel. From the very first season: Bert and Ernie do battle with dueling appliances!

This show certainly was darker and more violent in its early days. I doubt we'd ever see a sketch like this produced circa 2009.

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Rough-cut final scene of THERE WILL BE BLOOD

Flicking through channels this evening and happened upon There Will Be Blood. I watched this movie for the first time last month and personally I think it's one of the finest movies in many years. And right now I'm DVRing it in high-def. Boo-yah!

Anyway, when I first wrote about it my good friend Lee Shelton let me know that there was a rough version of There Will Be Blood's brutal ending floating around on YouTube. Here it is...

And by the way, CONGRATULATIONS to Lee and his wife on the new addition to their family: baby Olivia, who they adopted in China! Here's wishing them all the best :-)

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HyperMind's video for the Monsterpocalypse contest makes the Top Ten!

Two weeks ago I let y'all know about a promotional video that I worked on for HyperMind, that groovy game store in Burlington. The video was for HyperMind's big Monsterpocalypse day this coming Saturday, and was also an entry in that game's Monsterpocapalooza mega-event going on this summer.

Well, the votes have been tallied and our lil' video has made it into the Top Ten! There wound up being about 22 entries altogether. We are very thankful to be in one of the top spots, and we wish to thank everyone who voted for us!

Here it is again if you haven't seen it yet...

Again, thank you to all who watched and rated our video. The final winner will be announced on July 31st... and we'll be keeping our fingers crossed 'til then! :-)

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