Excellent think piece by my man George Saunders in the New Yorker, after the break.
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From Thanksgiving …

Wednesday morning. 6 AM. Kids are screaming before school. You’re in a hurry. Nothing will calm them down. What can you do, but give in to the Breakfast of Champions? (Shh…don’t tell his Mom!)

The Quoter :: Mitch Hedberg Random Quote Generator

Man I miss that guy!

Went to Jamil’s for Thanksgiving. He cooked two turkeys, the sweet potatoes were awesome, and everyone liked my rice pilaf, so I was happy. The kids had this awesome XBOX game where you get points by rockin’ out in a guitar duel. Awesome Dude! More pictures if you click on the pic. Enjoy!

From Thanksgiving …

Finally got around to joining the YouTube generation. Hey, somebody’s gotta earn back that 1.5 Billion Google paid. Anywhere, check out this vid of Coop from last night!

I was talking to KW today about how I saw a sneak preview of the new James Bond movie (which was really good, and Daniel Craig makes an excellent JB, and, according to my spouse, it quite easy on the eyes), and we got around to the concept of “hype.” Because I also saw BORAT recently (which was really good, too), and I was told by some work friends that it was being “hyped” as “the funniest comedy ever!”, and was this too much “hype”?

So basically anything that has ever been widely advertised (which, last I heard, is our primary method of communication in the modern world) is being “hyped”, presumably because all the advertisements use the most positive quote they can find. But what exactly are they supposed to use? Negative quotes? Long, reasoned arguments balancing the good and the bad with an an art object’s context in cultural history?

And these “hype” people always end up going “Man, it wasn’t as good as the hype” or “It’s not worth all the hype” as a way of putting things down, some things that, to my mind, are actually quite good. (Like, say, last year’s movie THE WEDDING CRASHERS, which became super popular). Which means they are basically saying “I feel cheated because I read and absorbed the large amounts of primarily positive advertising media that I am surrounded by, actually believed this information to be true, worked myself into a over-exciteable state of anticipation, and was led to an inevitable disappointment and am now disenchanted with the world that I myself created by my own gullibility.”

I hate that.

Which reminds me–just about everyone I’ve ever met who complains about “hype” are also the same people who, when you mention something that isn’t “hyped” (or just not hyped quite as much, since they can’t afford to blanket the media), such as an arthouse movie like “THE QUEEN”, or a music performer that isn’t Bono, or a writer that isn’t John Grisham, something that professional critics would consider to have “real” “quality”, (based on, oddly enough, long, reasoned arguments balancing the good and the bad with an art object’s context in cultural history), the “hype” hater will say “Huh–I’ve never heard of that” and move on to the next large-scale hype. End of story.

I hate that, too.

Friends say: “What music have you been listening to lately?” And all I can reply is that I have given up on music. Why? Because I am obsessed with Karl Pilkington, that’s why. That’s all I listen to, and that’s all I care about, and that’s practically all I think about.

Who he? Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, co-creators of the original THE OFFICE, started a Podcast in 2005 with themselves and their recording engineer Karl Pilkington. Gradually over the course of the first twelve half-hour episodes, the show became less and less about them, and more and more about Karl: his thoughts, his diaries, his philosophy, and his selections of Monkey News from around the world.

It is really difficult to describe the Karl Pilkington experience in any meaningful way in print. I have read articles describing him both an idiot and the funniest man in the world. I would lean towards the latter. If you’re into British comedy, you could call him an E.L. Wisty for the modern age. On a personal note, I think we have all felt a little like Karl, and we have all been in the position Karl has been in (being berated as an idiot by smarter people while we calmly wait for them to stop so we can continue our story). All I know is I have to stop writing this and get back into the car and listen to some more Karl.

You can download the Ricky Gervais podcasts on Itunes, or obtain them through other means. You can see an actual video interview with Karl here.