Hanson!

So the way my day was going, I wasn't going to get to Starry Night this year. After my shift ended on Star, I had to do some computer work so three of our stations would continue airing things right at midnight.

When I finally left and managed to get to the Botanical Gardens, all I heard was the final note of the final Hanson song when I opened my car door. But I did at least get to meet Hanson after that.

They're all nice. We talked briefly about previous trips they've made to Buffalo. Apparently, Zac has never seen Niagara Falls because he wouldn't get out of the bus when they went there. He was too engrossed in video games. And Isaac says it's just very wet.

Taylor is down-to-earth and a really cool guy. Had they not been getting ready to go in the limo, I would have loved to talk to him more about their music and also Tinted Windows, a supergroup he's a part of (Kind Of A Girl is an incredible song that was wrongly overlooked by radio). If I ever do a radio interview with them, he's the one I'll request to talk to.

Rob did get to talk to all of them shortly before I got backstage. See that here.

There's also video of Taylor driving around the Gardens in a golf cart after the show. Isaac decided to stay back when he found out Taylor would be driving (he stayed with Michelle Branch by the limo. See that here.

And get this, the group helped pack some of the stuff in the limo! They didn't have someone do it all for them. That's the kind of artist you want to support. So go buy their recent CD "Shout It Out".

For the record, from the first time I heard MMMBop, I've always thought Hanson was a great pop group. My favorites are Where's The Love, Penny & Me, and now Give A Little. And in case you're wondering, the version of MMMBop I usually play on Star is the Dust Brothers Mix from the 1997 CD single (it's got a slightly different sound than the album version). Either that or the album version is preferable to the radio version, which fades out before the end.

For Harry Potter fans...

If you're a Harry Potter fan, this is a website you'll definitely want to visit. Especially as the excitement builds for the upcoming final chapter in the Harry Potter series.

The website is called Pottermore. J.K. Rowling just announced it last week.

It'll be a forum to celebrate the book series (and the movies too). It'll also eventually be the only place to get all seven of the books digitally (the site is free, but the e-books obviously won't be).

The site fully launches in October. But if you submit your e-mail address now, you might be chosen to get access early and kind of be a guinea pig for when it fully goes up.

Here's the announcement of the site...



For the record, I've never been a big fan of the Harry Potter series. Book one was ok. But book two kind of bored me. So much so that I stopped reading it halfway through (something that almost never happens).

It didn't help that around the same time, there was another similar series that came out called "The Lost Years Of Merlin" by T.A. Barron. That series I loved. There's a lot of similarities to the Harry Potter series, but for some reason this one was more for me.

It was originally just five books, but has since grown to twelve. Here's the website for that.

Breakdancing gorilla...

It's a commercial for the Calgary Zoo.

Of course the video has been edited. But I'm convinced the gorilla really did do this on its own - just not exactly as we see it here. It is clever though...



And yes, I know, this is the second link I've mentioned on-air in the last few minutes. And I've got another one I'm getting ready to talk about too. The timing with the songs I'm playing just happens to be perfect for all this. I mean really, what better time is there to talk about breakdancing than when playing an 80's song?

OMG Is This Taylor Swift?

Back in 2006, a guy created an e-mail address that started with TSwift.

Flash forward to now - a world where the media is kind of obsessed with Taylor Swift.

He still has that address and he's getting bombarded with e-mails from people thinking he's Taylor Swift. So one of his friends (or maybe it's really just him) created a website to post a bunch of the messages that come in to that e-mail.

Some are just usual questions and people excited about talking to one of their favorite stars. Then there's the crazy people and the really weird pictures.

Here's the website...

OMG Is This Taylor Swift?

And even though we're nowhere near Christmas, here's one of my favorite videos about being completely Taylor Swift obsessed...

Deep Fried Cherry Kool-Aid!!!

I should have gone to the San Diego County Fair this year. This year, deep fried Kool-Aid debuted there.

It's basically just a giant ball of deep fried dough with cherry Kool-Aid. But that sounds like heaven to me. Had I gone, I would have bounced back and forth only between that booth and the spin rides.

Here's a report on this from Good Morning America...

Shania, Weird Al & Britney...

Love it, love it, love it. All at once, there's three incredible videos.

The Shania Twain one is by far my favorite. It's been way too long since she's had a new song out.

Weird Al's parody is good as always. And Britney's song was a surprise to me. The video is even funny. I wasn't expecting that. She's finally gone back to steadily being good again.

Each video will probably have a short commercial before it. The days of just watching things on YouTube commercial free are gone thanks to Vevo. But so many videos are now available to see free in perfect quality, I guess it's a good trade off.

Keanu Reeves' "Ode To Happiness"...

Anyone who heard me mention this on-air probably thought I was being facetious when I called Keanu Reeves "one of our generation's most talented actors". But I wasn't.

He's been in a ton of giant movies and is in three that I consider a favorite (both Bill & Ted movies and The Lake House). For someone like me who typically hasn't liked too many movies in the past, that must mean he's a really good actor. And he's co-starred with Sandra Bullock a couple times, so that's a big plus.

Keanu has now moved into the realm of writer. His book "Ode To Happiness" is available now. It's like a picture book (think "Harold & The Purple Crayon" or "Goodnight Moon") but for adults. Aside from the text being a little sad, it sounds like it's mostly G-rated.

To give you an example of what the book is like, here's two of the lines from it...

"I draw a hot sorrow bath in my despair room" and "I wash my hair with regret shampoo after cleaning myself with pain soap".

The book is illustrated by Alexandra Grant and is available now for about $38. Here's the link to buy it.



This book has gone so well that Keanu is apparently already planning his next book. He describes it as Haikus Of Hope, so keep watching for that one soon.

FreeStyle canoeing...

The fact that this is a sport is shocking enough. But then to add to my surprise, there's actually an audience for it!

Portions of both videos were featured on The Colbert Report the other night.

The first is an interpretive canoe routine done to Chris DeBurgh's 80's classic The Lady In Red. And the athlete is Marc Ornstein, who's from right down the road in Honeoye Falls (a suburb of Rochester)! His website explains more about the sport.

The second video is the one I mentioned on-air, the Phantom Of The Opera routine.

The Green Lantern...

All of a sudden, there's a bunch of great movies that's been out.

The Green Lantern is the next one I'm psyched about. It opened this weekend and I'm planning on seeing it sometime this week.

This is another movie where you want to stay through the end credits. I've been told there's an extra scene about two minutes into the credits that teases who the villain will be in the sequel.

Apparently, the studio is already convinced the movie's going to be a success. We'll see when the box office results come out tomorrow.

Cell phone saves a Black Eyed Peas concert...

I don't know how this doesn't happen more often.

Will.I.Am of the Black Eyed Peas forgot the words to one of the group's songs the other day. Lucky for him, he had his cell phone on him. He pulled up the song lyrics on it, then continued singing.

Unfortunately for him, there's video of this. And of course it made it's way to YouTube. But it seems like he had fun with this, so I'm sure he's ok with the video going around. He's only human after all and he handled it great!

In the video, he pulls out his phone at 0:30, sings his first verse at 1:10, then misses a line at 1:36...

Hanging by skin - this is so disgusting...

Hot air ballooning seems like it would be fun. But not the way this guy did it.

A guy in Seattle went up in a hot air balloon. But he wasn't in the balloon - he was hanging under it. By his skin!!!

Yuk. If you actually want to see this (which I couldn't resist and had to watch), here you go...

They need a sitcom!

Rita and Frank are this week's latest YouTube sensations.

They're posing in front of their computer trying to take a picture for Frank's 84th birthday. They wait and wait for the camera click - but it never comes.

And it never will. Because what they don't realize is they've got it set to video and it's taping this entire ordeal (complete with Frank holding his birthday cake).

My first thought when I saw this: these two are the most perfect sitcom parents ever. If they don't end up on one of those, at the very least I'm sure we'll be seeing them on talk shows soon...

Life from a Hula-Hoop's POV...

It could be a good life or it could be a terrifying life depending on who's doing the Hula-Hooping.

If you get motion sickness at all, this video will do you in, so be ready.

The camera was mounted to the inside of a Hula-Hoop. The view is not what I expected, but it makes sense now that I see it...

Another awesome elephant...

Elephants are quickly becoming the animal stars of 2011.

Tai (the elephant that played Rosie in Water For Elephants) almost overshadowed the actual actors in the movie.

And now comes an elephant who's name is unknown. The elephant is part of the Picadilly Circus and was scheduled to perform in Joplin, Missouri when the tornado struck. As a result, the circus didn't happen. But the performers (including the elephant) stayed around anyways and helped with the clean-up...

Bigfoot on video!

There was a Bigfoot sighting in Spokane, Washington! And it's on video (which is grainy of course as all Bigfoot footage must be).

Here's the article about it and here's the video itself...



Some random person who was taking a hike in the woods that day has to find it hysterical that they're being mistaken for Bigfoot. Or maybe embarrassed over it lol.

Now if Wildboy swung by following "Bigfoot", then I'd have to wonder if maybe there's something to this after all...