Not Overrated

I had the fortune of seeing Barack Obama speak last night at North Carolina's most important building.  We got there almost two hours early, and several uninspiring people spoke for another hour,  but by 10:40 when Barack came on, it was all worth it.  I guess his public speaking skills have been well documented, but I'm here to tell you that everyone else is not wrong.  Furthermore, he said everything I wanted him to say.  From concerns about treatment of prisoners to funding for basic scientific research, I enjoyed what I heard.  He spoke about the Democratic primary stretching on to long, the ludicrousness of the questions he's received over his lack of a flag pin, McCain running for a third Bush term, our failing infrastructure, lobbyists, public education, environmental activism, and more.  And, he was spot on about every topic.  Anyway, here's a part of his speech:

Oh, and he played some basketball.

- Seth

Comedy Sketches

Boing boing posted a link to this list of the "The 50 greatest comedy sketches of all time" that was put out by IFC. It's not worth arguing over the order of their rankings or what was and was not included on the list at all. They put together one hell of a list. There are tons of classics on here (Dead Parrot, Land Shark, Who's On First?) and plenty that I had never seen before. I recommend tackling this list over a couple of days because there is a lot worth seeing.

Matt

Tab Benoit

This weekend my sister Cathi and her friend Robin came into town to visit and they took me to see a cajun blues musician named Tab Benoit.

I know nothing about the blues except what I've learned from The Blues Brothers which is to say I know nothing about the blues. Before he came on there was an opening act that seemed pretty good to me but boy was I wrong. I'm sure they were fine but even my ignorant ear could tell within the first 10 seconds of Tab Benoit's set that he was leaps and bounds better than they. I've never seen anyone wail on a guitar like that. The sounds he can force out should not be coming from a guitar at all. If you get a chance to listen to any of his music or, better yet, if you get a chance to see him live, jump on it. I can garantee you'll have a great time.

Seeing this show pointed out to me once again the fact that there is a lot of music in the world. Just when I think I have a pretty well rounded collection of music that I like I stumble across whole new artists, genres and worlds of music that are great. Alas, my collection may never be complete but I suppose it's better that way.

Matt

Solar Tsunami (No Shit!)

Did y'all see this?  Wild.

Link