Archive for 2010

Double Rainbow Guy: Here’s what it means [VIDEO]

Tuesday, July 13, 2010 by:Humberto Martinez
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When I first heard the “Double Rainbow Guy” yell out “WHAT DOES THIS MEAN??” while in tears, I almost cried from laughter myself.

The sheer joy and appreciation that Paul Vasquez, YouTube user “hungrybear9562″, shows for the rainbows outside his Yosemite, Calif. home inevitably puts smiles on the faces of anyone who watches. Despite being posted back in January, the video didn’t get traction until recently, when it picked up millions of clicks within days and even made headlines.

For me, it meant some excellent conversation on July 4 while waiting for another, man-made light show. It’s just something you have to watch yourself to understand, if you haven’t already:

Yes, the dude seems like he is high out of his mind, though he told Good Morning America over the weekend that he was running on “pure rainbow power.” But you can’t help but laugh and smile at his appreciation for seeing the atmospheric phenomenon.

I mean, double rainbows are a once in a lifetime thing, right? Not so.

According to Accuweather.com, the double rainbows are actually pretty common, under the right conditions:

While a primary rainbow is visible when light is reflected once off the back of a raindrop, a secondary and usually dimmer rainbow is spotted when light is reflected twice in a more complicated pattern.

The colors of the second rainbow are inverted, with blue on the outside and red moved to the inside. The second bow appears dimmer or cloudier because much more light is released from two reflections, and both bows cover a larger portion of the sky.

It is rare and unlikely, but three or even four rainbows can be seen on occasion, but only if they are reflected off of the earthly objects.

Their meteorologists say that if you catch sight of one in the morning or evening when the sun is low, with conditions just right, you might even see a triple or quadruple rainbow. Somebody hire the Double Rainbow Guy and make it happen, please.

Also check out this sick auto-tune remix that makes Double Rainbow Guy sound like a cross between Owl City’s Adam Young and Chris Brown.

Here’s Vasquez talking to the folks of Good Morning America:

h/t The Sci Guy

Harvey Pekar: He was just drawn that way

Monday, July 12, 2010 by:Dwight Silverman
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Obit Harvey Pekar

Associated Press

Harvey Pekar.

Harvey Pekar, a comic book author whose titles chronicled a life of everyday humor and frustration, was found dead early this morning at his home in Cleveland, according to Cleveland.com. He was 70.

Even if you weren’t familiar with his American Splendor comic books – graphic novels, really – if you were aware of pop culture in the 1980s, the you knew about Pekar. He was a frequent, irascible guest Late Night with David Letterman on NBC. His life was later the subject of an award-winning film, American Splendor.

From the Cleveland.com obit:

“American Splendor” carried the subtitle, “From Off the Streets of Cleveland,” and just like Superman, the other comic book hero born in Cleveland, Pekar wore something of a disguise. He never stepped into a phone booth to change, but underneath his persona of aggravated, disaffected file clerk, he was an erudite book and jazz critic, and a writer of short stories that many observers compared to Chekhov, despite their comic-book form.

Unlike the superheroes who ordinarily inhabit the pages of comic books, Pekar could not leap tall buildings in a single bound, nor move faster than a speeding bullet. Yet his comics suggested a different sort of heroism: The working-class, everyman heroics of simply making it through another day, with soul — if not dignity — intact.

Pekar began writing American Splendor in the early 1970s. He befriended counterculture cartoonist R. Crumb, who did the illustrations for the earliest issues of the books.

Pekar’s quirky personality, along with the edgy humor in the comic books, drew the attention of Letterman, who made Pekar a frequent guest in the late 1980s. Their exchanges were often contentious, but made for great television.

American Splendor was made into a 2003 film starring Paul Giamatti as Pekar. It won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival that year, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay.

World Cup 2010: Paul the Octopus lands a kung fu kick

Monday, July 12, 2010 by:Vlae Kershner
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A moment from the World Cup final to remember? Maybe there was nothing quite as crazy as the infamous Zidane head-butt on Materazzi in 2006, but the kung fu kick the Netherlands’ Nigel De Jong landed on the chest of Spain’s Xabi Alonso came close.

One blogger likened it to the famous kick that Charlie Murphy put on Rick James. Only this one was real.

Otherwise, outside of Barcelona, the South African cup will be remembered for a couple things. One is those infernal vuvuzelas, a beautiful word for an ugly sound.

Long saddled with announcers who know little about the game, American fans got a treat in witty British commentator  Martin Tyler. I nearly fell over when, late in a scoreless final, he said “It’s even getting late for the Spanish,” a reference to the infamous dinner hour in Madrid. But fear not–a tasty morsel of a goal showed up just before the midnight hour arrived, just like the tapas.

Paul the Octopus made himself such a national hero in Spain that recipes for paella will have to be changed. (Getty Images)

Speaking of tapa ingredients, the hero of the cup was really Paul the Octopus, who called all seven of Germany’s matches correctly and then also musseled in on the final, giving him one correct prediction for every leg. His aquarium keepers in Germany on Monday presented him with a replica World Cup, but also say the seer sucker will be retiring, to groans from bettors everywhere.

It seems incredible that people would take the predictions of a mollusk seriously. I mean, what does someone who lives in a tank know about soccer? Now if it were water polo…

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