Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee is showing the electorate he’s pretty hip for a guy who doesn’t believe in evolution. His latest commercial plays off the popular “Chuck Norris Facts” internet phenomenon:

Okay, not the funniest thing he could have done. (Some Mike Huckabee Facts might have been better, but he gets points for trying.) Still, politics is a competitive game and he’s not the only candidate who knows how to turn internet trends into crafty marketing. Here are some other things we can expect to see as election time closes in.

Starting next month, voters will get a good laugh and Barack Obama will get some much-needed internet-cred with this new website: www.OBAMA4PREZ.com

Soon after, Hillary Clinton will add LOLCATS technology to her her campaign posters:

But it will be Rudy Guiliani who will capture the internet zeitgeist with 1Rudy1Cup:

(This post was made possible by a generous humor grant from the Matthew Tobey Foundation.)

Awesome Video Of The Day

Pen Spinning!

I’m not usually into internet videos of people getting hurt, but this one transcends the run-of-the-mill, poor-bastard-gets-hit-by-a-bus genre.

He starts off solid. Cocky even, like he’s some sort of Bruce Lee of pen flipping. He adjust the camera, starts doing some of his awesome moves, then BOOM - the light explodes. He freaks out, and that’s satisfying enough, but it gets better. So much better.

I feel bad laughing at the guy but someone needed to put him in his place, and that someone turned out to be an electrical current. Sure, he may have been seriously injured, but you know what? If I got electrocuted and made a noise like that, I wouldn’t be mad if everyone laughed. Provided I still possessed the necessary motor skills, I might even laugh along. If I’m already on the ground convulsing, SOMEONE might as well get a chuckle out of it.

If you agree with the above statements, congratulations: You’ve just rationalized laughing at someone else’s misfortunes!

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Awesome Video Of The Day

The Athiest’s Nightmare

Being Christian must be hard. You’ve gotta sit in front of a fake lake with Kirk Cameron all day and talk about how bananas prove the existence of God. Then the cameraman starts chuckling, and you’re like “CUT! What’s so funny, Steve?” but that just makes him laugh even harder and eventually he has to go outside to get some air. Then the key grip starts laughing and the gaffer is turning red in the face and then they both have to leave. Eventually it’s just you and Kirk, sitting all alone in the bible warehouse in front of the fake lake backdrop. You still don’t know what was so funny, but by then it’s getting late and you have to go to church.

All that hassle and headache, and all because Christians aren’t allowed to make dick jokes. Instead they have to prattle on and on about soda cans and bananas while becoming an ACTUAL, LIVING DICK JOKE THEMSELVES. How ironic.

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Awesome Video Of The Day

The Anti-Gym

I’m not sure why a gym with a commercial like this would call itself the “Anti-Gym.” I always thought gyms were SUPPOSED to convince people that nobody will love them if they’re fat. What makes this one so special? I mean, I understand that it probably isn’t standard practice for a personal trainer to burst into your home, break your refrigerator and smear a plateful of chocolate cake all over your favorite purple shirt, but does that really make this an “Anti-Gym”? Sounds like a “Regular Gym” that’s staffed by sociopaths.

According to its website, The Anti-Gym is “Denver’s only health and vanity lifestyle boutique,” which is slightly more impressive than being the #1 sushi bar in Fargo, North Dakota. They consider themselves “a revolutionary alternative to ineffective and obsolete health clubs, personal trainers, and crash diets.” Finally there’s a gym that will verbally abuse me until I’m so full of self-loathing that I need to either get on the treadmill or blow my brains out! Someone came up with a system that ACTUALLY WORKS!

Say what you will about this commercial, but you have to admit it: When it comes to using a foghorn for comedic effect, this pretty much sets the gold standard.

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If you check out the CRACKED forums, you’ll notice a lot of heated debate about “Sin,” the proprietor of the defunct tv-links domain, having his site shut down and being sued for copyright infringement. In case you hadn’t guessed or are pretending not to be an accomplice, tv-links used to post links to thousands of hours of up-to-date TV shows and movies, all for your viewing pleasure (and a tidy advertising profit).

First of all, if you don’t want to look suspicious, don’t name yourself Sin. It can only refer to a base act of human corruption or the world-devouring monster from Final Fantasy X, and neither association is going to help your public image much.

Secondly, as that forums thread proves, there is a lot of controversy among Internet citizens about the ethics of the case, all of it centered around complex metaphors that don’t hold much water. The debate goes something like this:

From these arguments, only two reasonable conclusions can be drawn:

1. The new season of Heroes is as addictive as crack cocaine.
2. Gang members are missing out on the huge profit-making potential of “guy you pay to tell you where to find a drug dealer.”

As neither are very helpful, I’m going to try my best to put this whole thing in perspective. Shocking revelation after the jump.

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Awesome Video Of The Day

The Techno Viking

Remember in history class when they tried to teach you about the impact World War II had on Germany? That was a total waste of time. Watch three minutes of The Techno Viking in action and you’ll learn way more than you ever could in an entire semester of book-readin’. For example, I now know that if you’re German it makes sense that…

I can understand the entourage part, I guess. If you lived in a city where a Techno Viking ran the party-street, wouldn’t you want to be a part of his crew? Ideally the guy handing him bottles of water while he’s dancing? A Techno Viking needs to be properly hydrated. If there has to be a terrifying, ecstasy-fueled Techno Viking running the streets, you might as well try to be the guy that brings him water. Think long-term.

It’s videos like this that remind me how glad I am to live in America. The next time I pass one of the gangbangers that run my block, I’ll be sure to thank them. “Hey, bro. Thanks for not being a Techno Viking,” I’ll say. They’ll like that.

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If you’re into gaming news (and I am, in a big way), you’ve probably heard a lot of talk about the recent decision by Bungie to separate from its parent company Microsoft. Bungie, for those with lives, are the makers of Halo, the third installment of which might as well have been subtitled “you guys, please buy some Xbox 360’s already. Seriously, they’re just sitting on the shelves over here. Bill Gates is crying.”

Not that that strategy didn’t work, you consumer sheep. In fact, the first-day sales records set by Halo 3 are comparable to a major movie premiere, Harry Potter book release, or the change in Gates’ couch. Scratch that; he probably has some sort of laser couch that incinerates denominations less than thousand-dollar bills.

But even Bill Gates’ purported laser couch couldn’t generate the kind of raving, uninformed buzz that subsumed gaming forums in the weeks leading up to Bungie’s departure. Everyone who’s ever touched a Commodore 64 had their rabid opinion, the majority being that the whole thing was a hoax. Most of the responses to the guy who originally broke the story are along the lines of “you are a moron who deserves to have his life crushed out of him by an industrial press.”

The fact that all of those people were wrong isn’t especially surprising, but the resultant wave of forums posts along the lines of “no, sir, it is you who should be mercilessly killed, for I was correct” is a textbook example of how the net cheapens our very lives. Which, you know, is always good for a laugh.

So in the midst of all of this talk about nothing, what really happened? Bungie did leave Microsoft. Why? They’re not saying, although some folks have got some seemingly informed theories about the whole thing. I naturally have my own ideas:

In the end, the most likely answer is that it was purely a business decision, and will allow Bungie some bargaining leverage when it comes time to split up profits form Halo 9. Even Bungie’s franchise director has said that in the foreseeable future, “day-to-day life won’t change much.” Translation: more Halo, more Microsoft soft drink tie-ins, and a hell of a lot more idiots using the internet to spout off about shit they know nothing about.

God, I love the circus.

First of all, it’s not even a hundred dollars, it’s $188. That’s like Carl’s, Jr. charging eight fifty for their six-dollar burger. But price gouging aside, The One Laptop Per Child Project hopes their new low-power XO computers will provide the fundamental foundation of knowledge developing nations need to launch themselves into the lower middle class.

To do this, the company has developed a Linux-based, nearly wordless OS that runs on durable, cheap laptop-like devices. Between Nov. 12^th and 26^th , the company is having a “Buy One, Give One” sale during which you can buy one of these glorified Speak n’ Spells for the aforementioned 188 clams, and thereby earn the opportunity to purchase another one to donate to a needy child. Hey, remember the days when giving away money was free?

Some financial heavy hitters have already stepped up to the plate, including world’s richest person Carlos Slim Helú, who plans to buy 25,000 XO computers and hurl them from a stealth fighter jet as he flies over Nigeria. Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the project, hopes generosity like this will trigger others to support the movement and bring a torch of knowledge to the poorer areas of the world.

No, Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the project, that’s not what’s going to happen. What’s going to happen—after our forums are overwhelmed with messages written in that click language—is thousands of Ethiopian children are going to discover Google image search. And, if the scamps are anything like me, there’s only going to be about a two month lag time between typing “boobs” into Google and posting goatse all over your friends’ desktops while they’re sleeping.

Now, I’m not begrudging the starving children of the world pornography; God no. I’m just saying if we’re going to give it to them, let’s do it right. The XO computer has a wi-fi connection, which is a plus, but it’s also powered by a crank. That’s going to tie up your masturbating hand, and no one wants that. At the very least, we’re looking at a massive wave of carpal tunnel from all the kids cranking their computers continuously to avoid interrupting their download of Ass Factory 9: Assignment Ass.

So I say, let’s just cut out the technological middle man and send over some magazines and tapes. Hell, it’s not like we need them anymore. We’ve got the Internet.