Dial-up averse audiovisual files

I used to have an Internet-Challenged Computer. (Thanks for that phrasing, Spruce!) Namely, I had a dial-up connection. Because of that, I got in the habit of uploading fun or interesting, or both, audiovisual files here, albeit slowly, for you to download... when you want... where you want. Insofar as humor or intellectual content, your mileage may vary. Enjoy.

By the way, and no offense meant, please don’t take this page as an invite to send me large electronic files by email without prior notice. Thanks.

Animals Updated: 11/14/08
Commercials Updated: 1/31/08
Miscellaneous Updated: 8/30/08
Office
Politics Updated: 8/30/08
Videos (YouTube and the like) Updated: 8/30/08

Animals

Funny pictures of cats. (Link to website: I Can Has Cheezburger?.) 8/30/08
Global warming. Size: 0.5 MB. File type: WMV. Date received: 12/8/07. Quicktime .MOV version (0.69 MB): click here.
Good Night Sweetheart. Size: 3.2 MB. File type: WMV. Date received: 8/7/08. 8/8/08
New Mouse. Size: 0.73 MB. File type: WMV. Date received: 8/24/05.
Obsessive flushing (Link goes to Google Video.) Size: 3.26 MB. File type: WMV. Date received: 1/12/07.
Jennifer and Jim kept getting huge water bills. They knew beyond a doubt that the bills weren’t representative of their actual usage, and no matter how they tried to conserve, the high bills continued. Although they could see nothing wrong, they had everything checked for leaks or problems: first the water meter, then outdoor pipes, indoor pipes, underground pipes, faucets, toilets, washer, ice maker, etc.—all to no avail. One day Jim was sick and stayed home in bed, but kept hearing water running downstairs. He finally tore himself from his sickbed to investigate, and stumbled onto the cause of such high water bills. Apparently this was happening all day long when they were not at home. Knowing that few would believe him, he taped a segment of the “problem” for posterity. [LSG: Circaea and Edre, for the first three or so months after we got them, liked to watch the toilet water spin around, too.]
Squirrel obstacle course. Size: 2.3 MB. File type: WMV. Date received: 11/12/08. 11/14/08
Treadmill Kitten. Size: 3.95 MB. File type: WMV. Date received: 6/22/08. 6/22/08
Wake up. Size: 4.24 MB. File type: WMV. Date received: 10/23/07.
This is Edre and me in the morning... up to the snapping-the-ear part, and Edre rarely meows.

Commercials

See also visit4info for “Funny TV Ads, Adverts, TV Commercials” and, in Spanish, www.Publi.TV.

Blondes and the LA County Fair. (Company: Los Angeles County Fair 2004, Pomona/Los Angeles, CA.) Size: 2.57 MB. File type: MPG. Date received: 10/14/05.
Honda’s new Accord. (Company: Honda-UK. Legitmate commercial. Creative director: Kim Papworth.) Size: 4.13 MB. File type: SWF. Date received: 5/19/03.
Some background info that came by email is here. For more info, read “Cog” at www.Snopes.com, “Cog (television commercial)” at Wikipedia, and “Honda Accord TV ad.”
How Men Screw up Romance. (Company: Hahn Beer.) Size: 2.2 MB. File type: MPG. Date received: 2/22/05.
Ice scraping. (Company: Statoil.) Size: 0.54 MB. File type: WMV. Date received: 1/8/05.
Language for Life. (Company: Berlitz.) Size: 2.58 MB. File type: MPG. Date received: 2/12/06.
Make My Logo Bigger Cream. (Link to website.)
New baby. (Company: Fuji.) Size: 1.5 MB. File type: MPG. Date received: 5/9/07.
Sports drink. Size: 1.8 MB. File type: WMV. Date received: 1/28/08.
Squeaky wheel (gets the customer service [LSG’s addition to the title]). (Company: Caltex Australia Limited.) Size: 1.43 MB. File type: ASF. Date received: 11/28/05.
Toyota cars. (Ad from Spain. Company: Toyota.) Size: 1.69 MB. File type: WMV. Date received: 2/23/06.
Why Kids Move Out. (Company: Ikea.) Size: 2.76 MB. File type: MPG. Date received: 1/20/05.
Writes Rosiedoggie: “I’m not sure why Ikea has such risque advertisements! I think this is for Europe, but it certainly is an attention-getter.”

Miscellaneous

Alabama Ditch Surfing Size: 6.08 MB. File type: WMV. Date received: 6/20/08 8/30/08
2007 Playboy Calendar. Size: 1.0 MB. File type: PPS. Date received: 11/30/06.
Sheesh, what did you think this was?!? The 2003 Hooters calendar is here and the 2006 Hooters version is here, in case you want to keep abreast of these things. And, yes, these items should be in a different category on this page.
Alabama Ditch Surfing. Size: 6.0 MB. File type: WMV. Date received: 6/20/08. 6/22/08
Babysitter. Size: 1.02 MB. File type: MPG. Date received: 11/19/05.
Biking in San Francisco. Warning: Body art; moderately adult pictures! Size: 3.1 MB. File type: ZIP of JPGs (pictures). Date received: 2/12/07.
Coke and Mentos. (Link to website: Eeppybird.com.)
From the website: “The Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments: What happens when you combine 200 liters of Diet Coke and over 500 Mentos mints? It’s amazing and completely insane.”
“Dragnet” spoof. This snippet features Johnny Carson and Jack Webb. The comment in the accompanying communication containing this clip claims, “Only Carson could conceive this consummate comedic caper skit!” Size: 2.14 MB. File type: WMV. Date received: 5/13/05.
This might be a bootleg (as in copyrighted) video, in which case I apologize to the estate of Johnny Carson, and I will certainly remove this if his estate requests it.
DUI test (Scottish). (Produced by The Comedy Unit for BBC Scotland.) Size: 0.92 MB. File type: WMV. Date received: 1/25/05.
Italian timekeeping. Size: 1.8 MB. File type: WMV. Date received: 3/13/06.
Wrote the sender of this: “You don’t have to understand Italian to get the joke...but in case you have a hard time following what’s happening: a person drives by wanting the time...then back to check the watch and find out how the person in the field can tell time by grabbing his donkey.”

In October 2007, "GusB" wrote me this: “I sent a link to your page with the Italian timekeeper video to a friend in Italy...here's his answer (with more information about the accent than I would have thought possible): ‘Very, very funny! The Italian timekeeping was shown as a commercial on TV some years ago. It reflects the typical kind of humour of the middle of Italy, the actor (Gigi Proietti - a well known entertainer) speaks with an accent from Ciociaria, an area between Umbria and Lazio.’”
Juggler. Size: 0.59 MB. File type: GIF. Date received: 11/6/06.
Lightning striking an airplane. Size: 0.4 MB. File type: GIF (animated). Date received: 8/19/05.
According to the accompanying email, this is a lightning strike on a plane from Nippon Airlines in Osaka, Japan. This first link is a video of the strike in “normal” time. Click here for the same video in slow motion. (File size: 0.4 MB. File type: GIF (animated). Last, click here for a still photo showing the initiation of the bolt. Notice the ground and air bolt feeder strike at the same time.
Maestro French horns. Size: 2.83 MB. File type: WMV. Date received: 1/9/06.
Clever. Anybody know who this performer is so I can give him the credit he deserves?
Obituary: Dolores Aguilar. (Link to website: www.Snopes.com.) 8/30/08
“Claim: Family member runs caustic obituary about deceased parent.”
Phone Call From Long Island. Size: 4.34 MB. File type: WMV. Date received: 8/6/07.
The email said “this routine is at least 40 years old.” Yep, that's about right. The video is Hebrew subtitles of the audio.
Planets and stars Size: .233 MB. File type: PPT. Date received: 1/8/07.
This isn’t humor. It’s just an excellent presentation of the relative sizes of planets and stars. I could not find any more information about the supposed author, Ignacio J. March Mifsut, either on the ’net or from the friend at The Nature Conservancy who sent me this file.
Psychiatric Hotline.Size: 0.19 MB. File type: MP3. Date received: 11/14/05. Here’s the printed version.
Talk show hosts—Latino v. US. Size: 0.1 MB. File type: ZIP of JPGs (pictures). Date received: 2/12/07.
Telemarketer Nightmare. Size: 0.84 MB. File type: WMA. Date received: 10/18/06.

Office

My new office...due to budget cuts. Author: Unknown. Size: 1.4 MB. File type: ZIP of JPGs (pictures). Date received: 10/04/06.
Office Interior Decoration. Size: 0.74 MB. File type: ZIP of six JPG files. Date received: 7/29/05.

Politics

Become a Republican. (Link to website: www.becomerepublican.com.) Size: 0.34 MB. File type: SWF. Date received: 11/17/05.
Bob Hope movie line. Size: 1.1 MB. File type: WMV. Date received: 8/30/05.
I still find Bob Hope funny—despite this movie line and Bob Hope’s politics. Watch Hope’s face and timing. He’s a perfect straight man, giving absolutely no clue to what he’ll be saying.
Hu’s on First. Size: 3.2 MB. File type: WMV. Date received: 3/21/08.
“I’m Voting Republican.” (Link to website: www.imvotingrepublican.com.) 8/30/08
Outsourcing. Size: 4.1 MB. File type: WMV. Date received: 4/15/07.
Where is this from? Who are the comedians? Obviously, I’m not watching enough television.
Pizza Palace. (Link to website: www.ACLU.org.) Size: .34 MB. File type: SWF. Date last accessed: 1/23/05.
A humorous view of a serious topic. From the website: “The government and corporations are aggressively collecting information about your personal life and your habits. They want to track your purchases, your medical records, and even your relationships.”
“Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait.” 6/16/08
From the website: “Running the Numbers looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on.”
Seismic surveys. (From: 10News, Melbourne, Australia.) Size: 1.92 MB. File type: WMV. Date received: 12/2/05.

Videos (YouTube and the like)

The Back-of-the-Envelope Design Contest: We asked readers to sketch their own visions for the George W. Bush Library.” From The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 7, 2008.
“Bullshit Is Most Important Issue for 2008 Voters.” By The Onion.Time: 2:28.
While there, see the other videos from The Onion.
“Caricatures of the Candidates” From The Washington Post. (Scroll down the page a little bit.)
The political artist John Kascht describes “the inspiration behind his caricatures” of the major candidates in the 2008 primary elections for president. Seven videos, four to five minutes each. Interesting process; interesting analysis.
“Cat in fishbowl.” Time: 00:28.
“The Dog, the Cat, and the Rat .” Time: 01:28.
This is a video of a homeless guy in Santa Barbara and his pets. You can see these guys every week working State St. for donations.

     The animals as you can see are pretty well fed and I can attest to how mellow they are. They are, a family.

     The man who owns them rigged a harness up for his cat so she wouldn't have to walk so much (like the dog and himself). At some juncture the rat came along and as no one wanted to eat anyone else, the rat started riding with the cat and often, on the cat!

     The dog will stand all day and let you talk to him and admire his altruistic, we are one personality for a few chin scratches.

     The Mayor of Santa Barbara filmed this clip and sent it out as a Christmas card.
“Chinese Food on Christmas.” Time: 3:33.
“Crow & Kitten.” Time: 7:29. 6/16/08
“Eurofighter Drag Race.” Time: 05:11.
See also “Top Gear,” which this might very well be from. See details in “Top Gear” entry further on.
“Every Breath You Take.” (Parody: Follies Student Comedy Revue, from the Columbia Business School. Topic: Economics.) Time: 04:02.
“George Carlin—Religion is bullshit.” Time: 13:13. 7/10/08
“The Hawaii Chair.” (From “The Ellen Degeneres Show.”) Time: Several minutes.
“How to marshall a jet.” Time: 5:57. 8/11/08
Jennifer Grey singing Klezmer and dancing. Time: 03:10.
“Manishewitzville.” Time: 04:11.
“The Meaning of American Pie.” Time: 08:45.
“Middle Ages Tech Support.” Time: 02:25.
“Mozart Bottles” Time: 0:41.
Wayne wrote: “As you know, I’m a Mozart afficianado, but this is a little excessive even for me.”
“Obi Wan Kenobi buys a used car.” Time: 02:44.
“Rob Paravonian’s Pachelbel Rant at Penn State.” Time: 05:14.
8/30/08 See also this compilation from Salon.com: “Pachelbel's Canon -- sixth century Korean style”
“Remember Song,” by Tom Rush. Time: 03:13.
“A Tuesday Moment of Zen” (cat and vacuum cleaner). Time: 01:18.
“Top Gear.”
This is a BBC show. The videos, especially in the “stunts” category, are informative and hilarious (if you like dry British humor). Here are some ways to find those videos. Click on “Watch videos” in the left column. Or in the upper right, click on “Classic Clips,” or below that, click on “Popular clips.” In each case, there'll be a video player popup. Alternatively, click here and then click on“Watch videos” in the left column

In the video player popup, you should see a bunch of tabs: Big Races, Stunts, Challenges, Head to Head, Star Laps, Shootout, Supercars, Mucking About.
Will It Blend—iPhone.
This is how advertising should work. Brilliant. The other videos in this series are equally funny.
“The Wind.” Time: 02:03. Brilliant!
“Women In Art.” Time: 02:52.