Tag: seinfeld

tech

An Advertisement About Nothing

Posted on

To my amusement and delight, one of my favorite comedians Mr. Jerry Seinfeld has filmed a number of Microsoft ads with Mr. Microsoft himself Bill Gates which are perfectly Seinfeldian. The first takes place at the mall where Jerry spots Bill buying shoes. The second takes place at a residential home where Bill and Jerry have moved in with a random “normal” family.
As PC World writes, the ads are “all just stuff to make you react. Whether you chuckle, guffaw, scoff or spew, you’re doing something — and that’s ultimately the point of the ads about nothing.”
They are funny to watch and almost like a traffic accident – though I may not want to look, I simply cannot not look. Plus, seeing Bill do “the robot” is quite enjoyable, though English striker Peter Crouch does the robot much, much better.
Over time, the ads are supposed to get more and more “specific” about Microsoft products and service. When that happens, who knows if I will feel the same way about Jerry shilling for MSFT. For now, I will just simply enjoy Jerry swapping George Costanza’s companionship with yet another major icon’s as he goes through the banal moments of life.
First he hung with Superman. Now he’s hanging with the richest man in the world. Sounds pretty fun to me.

Shoe Circus:


New Family:

television

Battle at Kruger!

Posted on

When I see the word “Kruger” at first I think of Mr. Kruger who was one of George’s bosses on “Seinfeld.” You know, he’s the guy who gave away George’s prefereed “T-Bone” nickname and instead dubbed him “Koko the Monkey.” This instance of Kruger however stands for Kruger National Park in South Africa, a park where David Budzinski happened to be on a safari and where he caught on film a water buffalo calf / group of lions / two crocodiles / water buffalo herd battle royale the likes of which I, and many others, have never seen.

I first learned of this YouTube phenomenon in the NYT of all places – I know, right? Go figure. So far, the clip has racked up over 30 million page views. It has its own web site now and Nat Geo has filmed an entire special about it due to how a herd returns en masse to try and save a little calf’s life.
It’s a pretty intense 8 min – I actually found myself gasping at the video at the exact same time as when those who were there in person gasped – pretty wild (no pun intended) stuff indeed.
At the end of the video you hear someone say “You could sell that video!” and as the Times reports Budzinski tried but National Geographic and Animal Planet were not interested. It was only after the battle became one of the most popular videos in YouTube’s history did the buyers come calling. This Sunday at 9 p.m. Eastern time, it will devote an hour to a documentary deconstructing the drama. Pretty neat stuff. It just goes to show that the media walls keep falling.