Henk van de Goor's Bloggers@large

Last night a legacy of 17 years ended when Tonight Show host Jay Leno aired his last talk show. I have always been more of a Leno guy than a The Late Show with David Letterman, guy. I guess it is essentially a 'East coast' versus 'West coast' thing (or republican vs democrat). For a while both shows where on the Dutch TV, but then suddenly stopped. So I always tried to watch a couple of his shows whenever I was visiting my girlfriend in the US.

It will be interesting to see how Leno will keep up with his prime time show at 10pm (usually the time slot for big TV shows like 'Lost' and 'Heroes'). Also I am sceptic about Conan O'Brien filling Leno's shoes. I actually attended a show of O'Brien in 1996 in New York (couldn't get tickets for Letterman). That was kind of fun as we brought a pair of wooden shoes (clogs), and before the show started we called out to O'Brien and handed him over the clogs. When he looked at the clogs and came up with a real quick response: "Thanks for that. No wonder the Dutch always look so depressed" (as clogs look quite uncomfortable).

Anyway, I love Leno. And I'm sure that most men do, as he is a real 'petrolhead' slash 'car afficionado'. One of his crazy toys is a 'tank-car'. A huge hot rod looking car with a V12 tank engine in it (with turbo's!). And, to top things off; a superbike with a jet engine! Awesome!

Anyway, here are some memorable Leno videos. Go Leno! Go!



Ps: I'll be in Florida in August so I am sure to watch his new show at 10pm.

It's one of my favorite lines from The Devil's Advocate, when John Milton (played superbly by Al Pacino) explains his success to Kevin Lomax (Keanu Reeves): "Don't get too cocky my boy. No matter how good you are don't ever let them see you coming. That's the gaffe my friend. You gotta keep yourself small. Innocuous. Be the little guy. You know, the nerd... the leper... shit-kickin' surfer. Look at me. Underestimated from day one. You'd never think I was a master of the universe, now would ya?"

Well, that's what happend when 47 year old Susan Boyle performed on Britain's Got Talent and blew away the judges. They all looked at a homely middle-aged unemployed woman from West Lothian, Scotland that told the show presenters that she was single and living with her cat Pebbles. "I've never had a boyfriend," she said. "I've never even been kissed." She went on telling the judges that she'd wanted to be a professional singer, as good as musical star Elaine Page. And they all snickered a bit. People in the audience rolled their eyes when professional dickhead Simon Cowell asked her "and why hasn't it worked out so far Susan?" Susan's response was short and profound: "Iv'e never been given the chance before, but here's hoping it will change."

And how it changed. Susan opened her mouth and everyone dropped their jaws.

The audience cheered with amazement as her strong voice took over the theater. They even burst into a standing ovation. Judge Piers Morgan was so impressed he admitted; "That was the biggest surprise I have had in three years of the show. You said you wanted to be like Elaine Paige and everyone laughed at you. Well no one is laughing now." Another judge, Amanda Holden, was almost brought to tears by Boyle's performance. The only one not admitting his suprise (which was no surprise) was Simon Cowell who said; "I knew the minute you walked out on that stage that we were going to hear something extraordinary, and I was right." Dream on Simon!

In short, Susan Boyle became an overnight celebrity with appearances on on CBS's Early Show, ABC's Good Morning America, NBC's Today, and even on CNN's Larry King. Her video on YouTube has been viewed millions and millions of times and rumour has it she will be a guest on the Oprah Winfrey show.

I wonder if this is going to be just 15 minutes of fame, or if she is here to stay. Anyway, just have a look at her performance on Britain's Got Talent:

Susan Boyle Utube

After I posted my story about Adam Savage' obsessions, I came across this Google video of him attending the Last H.O.P.E. Hacker Conference (www.HOPE.net) which took place on July, 18-20 2008 at the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City. He basically tells the same story as before (almost verbatim), but what makes it more interesting, is the part where he is answering questions coming from the audience afterwards. If you already saw the other video I posted, just skip to 22:20 minutes, and see Adam answer some questions.

Interestingly, Savage retracted comments he made at another hackers conference where he said an episode exposing security flaws in credit card RFID technology was squelched by credit card company lawyers. In a new statement Adam said:

" If I went into the detail of exactly why this story didn't get filmed, it's so bizarre and convoluted that no one would believe me, but suffice to say...the decision not to continue on with the RFID story was made by our production company, Beyond Productions, and had nothing to do with Discovery, or their ad sales department."

I came across this cool video of "Mythbusters" co-host Adam Savage, in which he is telling - in detail - about a couple of his hobbies obesessions. I didn't know about it, but he would have shared at least one of these obsessions with the late Dutch writer, poet and TV-presenter Boudwijn Buch. I am talking about the Dodo bird. In the video below, Savage speaks about reconsructing the skeleton of a Dodo. As you might - or might not - know, there was no full (reconstructed) skeleton from a single Dodo around, until 2005 (they where reconstructed from different skeletons). Buch also had a weird obessesion with the Dodo and collected many books and other rarities about the extinct bird. Very fascinating stuff indeed.

Now, Savage also tells about another venture of his. The illusive quest to make a perfect replica of the infamous "Maltese Falcon" the object from the famous '41 film by the same name. Savage, who worked (among other jobs) as a prop designer before he joined the Mythbusters team, really is fascinating to look at when he rambles on about the great lengths he went through, to achive his goal.

I must say though; just by listening to him talk rambling on, I can come to only one conclusion: Savage is the poster boy for ADHD ;-)

So sit back, relax and enjoy the ride.

Adam Savage speaks about his obsessions:



(taken from http://www.the-eg.com/)

When I moved to my new home in October, I also got a so-called triple-play deal with my telecom provider UPC. So I got hi-speed Internet access (16mbps), VoIP telephony, and digital TV (on demand etc). Instead of just the standard TV-channels, I also got all the extra channels that go with it. Including SciFi Channel (Dutch version). And boy, did I get hooked.... All my favorite old and new Sci-Fi series are shown there.

But I must confess that the one TV-series that really got me drawn in, is the new Battlestar Galactica. I watched the late '70's early '80's version and always thought it was cool series. I wasn't that enthousiastic when I learned that there was a new version of the series (just like some other '80's series have been revived). I never saw one episode however, until recently when I started to watch SciFi Channel.

To my surprise the new Battlestar Galactica series is fast paced, has a great story-line and is just a joy to watch. I was also lucky that I stumbled right into the start of the first season, when I started watching it. My DVR has been taping every episode since then..

The only problem: I just saw the season 2 finale: "Lay down your Burdens part 2". And now I have to wait till season 3 starts! Sadly the Dutch Sci-Fi channel website has no information whatsoever on when it will pick up again!

What the frak!

I'm going through some major "BSG" withdrawal! Hopefully I can find the series on usenet or P2P.