Viral Video Wednesday ~ Fan Videos

Hello, and Happy Wednesday everybody! This week’s Viral Video Wednesday is all about the widely popular, sometimes bizarre, genre of fan videos. You don’t have a hit song until the chipmunks sing it, a fat man in a too-tight-to-keep-your-secrets leotard prances to it and Saturday Night Live has parodied it.

The first time I heard, or at least noticed Beyonce’s song “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” was watching the related videos on the “ADHD ballet students” on my THAT Brought You HERE?!? post. I sat, open-mouthed and stunned at the thought of two teenage guys willingly embarrassing themselves for the world on YouTube, and watched as Alex and Jeremy showed off their complete knowledge of the video’s choreography. As I watched it, I knew I wanted to post their vid in a VVW, and went to find a few more to go with it. What I found made me laugh… some were a bit frightening, even.

So, I give you “Single Ladies,” may you laugh and enjoy them as much as I did!

Before you watch the fan vids, you have to see where they all got their ideas. I had a little trouble finding a vid with that’s embedding enabled, but I managed 🙂

So here is Alex Wong and Jeremy Cox showing off their Beyonce-ness, the video that inspired this weeks VVW topic. Shake it guys!

The next “Single Lady,” Shane Mercado, was invited to appear on Bonnie Hunt’s talk show after Hunt caught his video on YouTube.

And the next little “single lady”, Arianna, was also the recipient of national attention when her video was featured on the cable show, E! News.

Arianna was also on the Tyra Banks show with the next, slightly disturbing, “Single Lady”, cubbyradio2.

With all these Single Ladies, you KNOW that Washington has to sit up and take notice. The public likes fan vids, and the People’s President has added his moves and voice as our final Single Lady.

So what’s your fav fan vid? Are there any fan vids of your favorite song? And bizarre fan vids you’ve come across? Link them in the comments or, better yet, blog a VVW and comment back with the URL 🙂

Next week’s Viral Video Wednesday topic: Kids Say the Darnedest Things!

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Why You Shouldn’t Eat Your Boogers – Factoid #6

MMMmmm… the smell of new shoes is one of those things that rank right up there with glue, gas and permanent markers! And nothing in this world can make or break your day like the fit of a pair of shoes. Too tight, and you’re as cross as a bear. Too loose and you feel like a clown escapee from Ringling Bros. But a nice pair of shoes that fit just right can boost your confidence and energy level into overdrive and make you feel invincible!

But how do you get that perfect fit? My mom always smashed my big toe with her thumb and told me to wiggle it to see if I had room, but how ’bout this….

I sit true that X-rays were once carried out in shoes shops?

It is ironic that X-rays can both cause cancer and be used to treat it. Nowadays, with the use of very small doses of radiation to produce high-quality X-ray images, the risk of cancer after properly supervised X-ray examinations is extremely small.

Between the 1930s and 1950s, a device called the shoe-fitting fluoroscope was a common fixture in shoe shops. It was a unit that usually consisted of a vertical wooden cabinet with an opening near the bottom into which the feet were placed. When you looked through the viewing holes on the top of the cabinet you would see a fluorescent image of the bones of the feet and the outline of the shoes. When the feet were in the shoe-fitting fluoroscope, the customer was effectively standing on top of an X-ray tube. The fluoroscope helped to measure shoe size and tested the fit of a new pair of shoes. When it was realized that X-rays could be harmful, the use of the fluoroscope declined.

The fluoroscope was widely used by doctors to view inside the body. X-rays were also used to shrink infected tonsils, and thousands of children received this treatment. Decades later, it was realized that this treatment could cause thyroid cancer.

“Um, Mr. Bundy? Should I have a sixth toe suddenly start growing after my last shoe fitting?”

Yeah, I think I’ll stick to my mom’s way….

This post is part of the Boogers and Book Bucks Giveaway. Don’t forget to enter at the original post for your official entry. Comments here count as a bonus entry 😀

Why You Shouldn’t Eat Your Boogers – Factoid #5

Alright… no bugs, parasites or cannibalism today… Today’s factoid is something straight out of science fiction.

Can a head live without a body?

In 1988, the U.S. government granted a patent for a device that would keep a severed head alive after being surgically removed from the body. The device has never been used, so it is uncertain how effective it would be. However, the creator of the device has been contacted by a number of people who want to know how soon the operation will be available and how much it will cost. Some of these people are dying or paralyzed, and many of them say that they would welcome the operation, if it meant that their minds would remain clear and they could still think, see, read, remember, talk, and listen.

The proposed procedure would involve attaching the decapitated head to a device essentially consisting of a series of plastic tubes. These tubes would be connected to the bottom of the head and neck and would provide oxygen and fluids, as well as maintaining blood circulation, to keep the head alive.

In 1973, an American brain surgeon called Dr. Robert White carried out the world’s first head transplant, using two monkeys. He decapitated both animals and successfully managed to stitch the head of one monkey onto the body of the other. The “hybrid” monkey regained consciousness, opened its eyes, and tried to bite a surgeon who put a finger in its mouth. It also ate, and it could follow people around the room with its eyes. However, the monkey was paralyzed from the neck down because its spinal cord had been severed, and it was impossible for the surgeons to reconnect the numerous nerves necessary for it to regain any bodily movement. The monkey survived for about seven days after the transplant.

White claimed that this surgery could benefit parapalegics, who may die as a result of the long-term medical complications that often accompany extensice paralysis. He believed that if these people were to receive new bodies, donated by patiens who were brain dead but otherwise physically healthy, it would give them a new chance of life, even though they would remain parapalegic.

There are some really strange video out there that demonstrate the mind-bending ability the brain has to survive. One video shows a dog’s head revived and responding to stimulus. The monkey vid’s on out there, as well, but the one I saw on YouTube had one of those “scream scenes” in it so be careful.

When I read this segment, my mind immediately went to Sarah Jessica Parker’s head on the body of her character’s pet chihauhau in Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks! (great movie if you haven’t seen it)

This post is part of the Boogers and Book Bucks Giveaway. Don’t forget to enter at the original post for your official entry. Comments here count as a bonus entry 😀

Why You Shouldn’t Eat Your Boogers -Factoid #2

When Ol’ Blue Eyes sang, ” Ive got you under my skin”, I am sure he was NOT talking about this:

However, this little critter is the subject of today’s factoid.

Do bugs live in eyelashes?

Most people don’t like the idea that bugs can live on their skin and hair. However, the truth is that many bugs do, and they live with us in harmony, most of the time. By the time we reach late adulthood, most of us have wiggly, microscopic, wormlike mites called demodex mites living in the roots of our eyelashes. If you pull out one of your eyelashes and examine it under a strong magnifying glass, or better, a microscope, there is a good chance you will see one of these tiny mites clinging to the base of the lash. They can also live in our skin pores and the hair follicles on our face, such as the eyebrows.

These mites are cigar shaped, a third of a millimeter (a tiny fraction of an inch) long, and have eight stubby little legs situated at the front of their long, so they waddle along fairly slowly. When one of these mites reaches a hair, it burrows headfirst down into the follicle. Their bodies are layered with scales, which help to anchor them into the follicle, and their needlelike mouths eat dead skin and oil that is produced by the skin. Fortunately, although the mites eat, they don’t actually poo in the follicles.

An individual female can lay a number of eggs in a single follicle. When mature, the mites leave the follicle, mate, and find a new follicle into which they lay their eggs. Each mite can live for several weeks, and mites can be transferred between humans if two people’s hair, eyebrows, or the sebacceous glands on their noses come into close contact.

Mites living on our eyelashes are usually quite harmless, and most people are totally unaware of the little squatters living in their hair follicles. However, if too many accumulate in a single hair follicle, they can cause itching, certain skin disorders, or an eyelash to fall out. As many as twenty-five eyelash mites have been found huddled together in a single follicle! There are some great pictures of these mites in a variety of poses on the Internet.

Okay, now I’m itching like crazy!

This post is part of the Boogers and Book Bucks Giveaway. Don’t forget to enter at the original post for your official entry. Comments here count as a bonus entry 😀

Viral Video – Burger King Bath

Would you like fries with your shake? A soda with your cheeseburger? Some TOE JAM on your Caesar Salad? Say WHAT?!?

As I was watching the 11 o’clock news last night… and again this morning…. and, AGAIN a few minutes ago (other than the Olympics, this seems to be the hottest news going), I was exposed to a sight even I, weird as I am, would have never thought of.

When you retire, some places give you a gold watch (didn’t make the baddie in SPEED happy, he used his to blow up the bus), others give you a clock and a party (my mom got that when she retired from Delco), and some lucky few get a hefty check as a way of saying, “Thanks for all you’ve done” (or, don’t let the door hit’ya where the good Lord split’ya!). I guess the thing to do when leaving Burger King is to take a bath in the sink.

It seems “Mr. Unstable”, as he calls himself, had been thinking about bathing in the dish sink for two months before taking the plunge. Apparently, the stunt was part of his birthday celebration.. some people have cake and presents, others get drunk, but only a select few get a spa treatment in a restaurant sink! I wonder if that “sanitizer” is a good exfoliate…

Scrubbing himself with utensils, he continues his bath even after a manager is informed. The manager simply shook her head and continued counting the cash. When Burger King corporate found out, all those involved, or uninvolved as in the case of the manager, were fired, all the utensils were thrown out, and the sink was sanitized… twice. As an added precaution, all remaining employees were retrained in safe food handling. I can just here the new training video: Always wash your hands whenever you touch your face, and NEVER take a bath in the utility sink.

Okay, HONESTLY, after I’m done laughing like a hyena, this video is disgusting. But not in the way you think, they’ve sanitized everything and my BK is safe. What makes this video disgusting is that someone thought to film the stunt, the manager thought little to nothing of it (would she have been just as indifferent if he was spitting on the sandwiches. a far more likely occurrence), and that we live in a day and age this stupid prank is a national news article that trumps wars, starvation and human suffering. Yeah, it’s weird. Yeah, it’s gross… I wouldn’t wash my dishes in the bathtub. But is it more shocking than the child molesting police officer (local news, here) or what’s happening between Georgia and Russia.

Another thing that makes this gross is: If this hadn’t been video-ed and posted on MySpace, the health inspector and Burger King would have never found out. Everything would have gone on as normal. Yuck! And I’m sure they used those utensils and sink the next morning… They didn’t throw them out and double-bleach the sink until AFTER the video was shown to the corporate and civil authorities.

Eastwood Mailman made the point that this shouldn’t be a shock; these are the very people we trust to make our food in a healthy and sanitary way. And I have to agree with him. I worked in fast food, like most teens, and I KNOW things that happened. That patty that fell on the floor is only dirty if someone sees, or those fries can be redipped to count as the “fresh fries” you asked for, and I KNOW not everyone washes their hands on backline after wiping a booger off their nose… not to mention, GAWD KNOWS where that booger landed!

Man, Weezer should have waited a little bit longer!  So… Who wants a Whopper for supper?