Tag Archives: Jimmy Fallon

Amusing Monday: Blake Shelton partakes of sushi with Jimmy Fallon

Country music star Blake Shelton thought his cup of sake tasted like “Easter egg coloring,” but he kept on asking for more of the rice wine at the Japanese sushi restaurant he was visiting.

“Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon convinced Blake to go with him to the restaurant, because Blake had never tried sushi. With cameras rolling, Jimmy demonstrated the finer points of eating the various offerings, but at times Blake seemed to have the upper hand.

Blake’s enjoyment of the experience appears somewhat mixed, as you can see in the first video, but the situation was amusing.

The second video describes a practical joke that the Japanese people have allegedly been pulling on Australians, although they are not the only people in the world to have fallen for this long-running practical joke. I was unable to locate the original producer of the video, but it has been posted numerous times the past few years. I’ve posted the earliest version I could find.

The Japanese people apparently can find amusement in some of their own cultural traditions. Numerous videos called “The Japanese Tradition” were created by the comedy duo of Jin Katagirl and Kentaro Kobayashi, who call themselves the Rahmens. In their short videos, they make light of customs from chopsticks to games. Someone named Frank Prins collected a bunch of these videos and posted them on his YouTube channel.

I’ve posted one of videos with English subtitles called “The Japanese Tradition — Sushi,” which covers the entire experience at a Sushi bar. Another amusing version of this video comes with an English voice narrating the piece. The narrator writes on YouTube that he re-edited the video and tweaked the humor to make it more appealing to a Western audience.

“The Japanese culture is something I have absolutely fallen in love with, and I intend no disrespect by any of the jokes used in the video,” states the unidentified narrator. The reviews were mixed about whether it was appropriate to alter the original.

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Amusing Monday: Waste to water provides a drink for Jimmy Fallon

Jimmy Fallon and Bill Gates together make an interesting combination. One is about finding new ways to solve serious world problems, while the other is looking for new ways to surprise and delight people.

Bill gates recently challenged Jimmy Fallon to the “ultimate taste test” involving two glasses of water. Jimmy would try to tell the difference between bottled water and sewage effluent from an innovative treatment plant built in Sedro Woolley, south of Bellingham. As you’ll see from the video, there was a bit of trickery involved.

In his blog, “Gates Notes,” Bill Gates describes the Omniprocessor, designed by Janicki Bioenergy of Washington state. A video on that page (shown here) demonstrates how the processor works, with an ending in which Gates drinks water that had been in the form of human feces just minutes before.

Gates makes the most of this humorous but deadly serious issue, knowing that one of the greatest health threats in the developing world is contaminated drinking water — and that a machine could help solve the problem.

The Omniprocessor burns dried human waste as fuel to dry more waste as it comes into the plant, providing an endless supply of fuel that can be burned at a very high temperature, thus controlling air emissions. The drying process produces steam, which can run a generator for electricity. The water vapor is cooled and goes through a final filter to produce clean drinking water.

I’ve read many articles written about the Omniprocessor over the past month, but Mark Stayton of the Skagit Valley Herald wrote the most informative piece I’ve seen.

A working prototype is scheduled to be fabricated this spring in Dakar, Senegal, West Africa, and go into use soon after. Graphics and photos are available on the Omniprocessor home page.

I’ll be interested to see how this entire operation works in practice. Not much is said about getting the waste to the machine. Apparently, some locations have trucks that pump out latrines and then dump the untreated waste someplace else, risking contamination to groundwater or surface water. Transportation of the waste/fuel might be less of an issue in cities with inadequate sewage-treatment plants, but I don’t know how efficient trucks would be in rural areas, where roads are often a problem.

Anyway, I will try to keep you informed about the Omniprocessor and similar technology in the months to come.

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Amusing Monday: Pranks and games for April Fool’s

With April Fool’s Day coming up tomorrow, I’ve decided the theme for this week’s “Amusing Monday” should be games, tricks and pranks.

Let’s start with late-night TV host Jimmy Fallon, who has been playing a game called “Water War” with various celebrities, something he started even before he took over “The Tonight Show” earlier this year. The game plays like the traditional card game “War” with a bonus: The winner of each hand gets to throw a glass of water on his or her opponent.

The first video player on this page features a game of “Water War” between Jimmy Fallon and Lindsay Lohan, in which you will notice that Lindsay gets the upper hand. Other celebrities engaging in “Water War” include:

Another late-night TV host, Jimmy Kimmel, invited illusionist David Blaine on his show to demonstrate what he can do with water and fire. It seems Blaine was pretty thirsty before he started the trick. But you’ll need to watch the entire video on Kimmel’s YouTube channel to see what the magician can do with water and a flammable liquid.

I was quite amused by the practical joke played by a 10-year-old girl on her father. She had him totally convinced that the roof was leaking, but the cause of the dripping was a harmless rag placed in a heater vent. Check out the second video on this page for the full prank.

Another practical joke, which was designed to drench the target of the prank, failed when the guy outsmarted the pranksters. See how he did it by watching the video on Vid Addict.

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