SONDER

This one is from: 

http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com 

This is nice:

Sometimes I come across things on the internet that are interesting and good.  Here's a few:  

Leonard Knight passed away recently.  He was a  person that I only met twice - but one that stuck with me.  He's got a fantastic story, and got a lot of attention toward the end of his life, but he was a super humble guy living in a trailer out by the Salton Sea.  

I first visited Salvation Mountain when my friend Martin told me we were going camping during Spring Break in college.  I must have been in a rut or something, because when we hit the road, I felt better.  We stopped for date shakes then made it to Niland, turned at the turnoff with all the plastic cups stuck in the chain link (that was part of the directions at the time), and found our way to Leonard.  

We took him 10 gallons of paint (the discount stuff from Home Depot) - and he was beyond gracious.  He gave us a tour that's almost word for word the one below in the clip.  

When I taught high school, I told my students about him.  During the summer, a carload of them went to see Leonard.  That was one of the highlights of teaching: introducing people to Leonard, and the possibility that people like Leonard are out there. 

TACO BELL NACHO CHALLENGE

Okay, this one is much different than the others.  From time to time I spend a couple hours on Taco Bell's Facebook page, reading through the comments.  I'm fascinated by it.  Why a person feels an urge to reach out to a major conglomerate and just profess love, or frustration, or anything.   That's the whole basis of SomeonePostedOn.com.  

But this video, which some guy made and posted to Taco Bell's Facebook page, is different.  It stands out.

On one hand, it just seems to be a guy trying to make a video that will go viral, get him a Taco Bell contract - and propel him to be the Jared of TB.  On the other hand, it's disgusting.  It's just a guy eating three buckets of nachos: chicken, beef, and steak.  The guy even acknowledges that it's disgusting at the end of the video when he references the mess he's made.  

You could watch it without sound - with classical music playing and imagine the video is some critique of western civilization and our indulgences and indecencies.  You could watch it while eating Taco Bell and agree with the guy's enthusiasm.  

What I like is the amount of preparation and excitement he has.  He placed the camera in a way where there's a green screen behind him.  His cups are red and blue.  Between these and the unnatural yellow of the nachos he's covering a lot of the basic colors.  

He gives an introduction, even imitating Jesse from Breaking Bad.  It's not clear if there's an accomplice behind the video camera, or if it's just him alone on a Sunday Afternoon.  

He gorges for a while, then gives a wrap up.  That's his sales pitch, even talking about how good they are.  I think the next 40 minutes would be really interesting to watch as this guy just ate enough fast food to feed the Bucket family from Willy Wonka for about a week.  

Click and watch if you want.  I'm not suggesting you watch the whole thing - but the intro is interesting in learning about human beings and the motivations of people probably a little bit different than you.  Most of the video is just a guy jamming him fingers covered with goo into his mouth, occasionally taking a drink of water or making a silly face for the camera.   

In the end, I suppose this video is just really interesting juxtaposed with the SONDER definition above.  This guy in the video has a whole life of his own.  He has dreams and hopes, family and friends, things he's afraid of, and a certain way that he thinks he fits into the universe.  So God bless him, even if his video was disgusting.  But that's okay.  The fact that he loves XXL nachos more than most people seem to love anything is wonderful.  It makes me wonder what I love as much as he does.  He's the one that the made the video.  He's the one that drove to Taco Bell and ordered three of these things, I'm sure picking up a few weird glances as he did.  And his parents probably gave him weird looks, and maybe a sibling said something derogatory.  But he took the time to set up everything, to make sure you could hear him just right, and that the lighting looked good.  I'm sure he rehearsed what he was going to say.  He practiced his Jesse line.  Once it was over, he added all the timer effects in an editing program.  This took a whole day.  The earth rotated while he did this.  Good work, Kevin Ross.  In a weird way, this video can be pretty inspiring.  Even if it's still disgusting.

Kevin Ross and his XXL Nacho Challenge.

Mr. W

This is probably my favorite commercial/advertisement.  It's like a wonderful short film.  Just looking at the guy and watching him do what he does, saying what he's saying.  Good stuff.

This one is interesting.  I've always thought the notion of "People watching" had two distinct outcomes: To further distance oneself from "the others," or to make one realize the similarities that we all share.  

How great it is to realize that sometimes I'm the idiot staring off into space while in the checkout line, or I'm the weirdo walking through the park.  If only the other person knew what I'd been dealing with, or why I was wearing that particular shirt - then they'd understand.  

I'm also always fascinated with how it's completely okay to stare and study pets and animals, but that eye contact makes people into creeps.  Studying people is so interesting/useful.  But we're taught to not do that.  So instead we need to hide cameras like in the video below - which, I suppose, can be much creepier in the end.

By BLU

These two are pretty amazing.