Home Office: Best of Dig This

Weird videos, offensive photos, and lots of motorcycles.

Steve Bass

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The holidays are seemingly over, yet I'm not sure that anyone (read: moi) really wants to get back to work. My sense is there's no reason to fight it, so if you have a deadline you're not dreaming of making, or are just feeling lazy, spend some time diving into lots of new--and a few old--"Dig This" selections.

Before I start, a few readers wrote and asked if I could give them a clue what they'd be heading for when clicking on a SnipURL. "The issue," one person said, "is that I'm on dial-up and want to know if I'm about to download a 4MB video." That makes perfect sense; I'll start putting a short preview in brackets at the end of the blurb.

BTW, if you have trouble playing any of the video clips, read "Recalcitrant Videos" and "Dry Video Streams," both from my "50 Fixes for the Biggest PC Annoyances."

Okay, enough stalling. Here are some new "Dig This" items plus a few of my old favorites.

Quick Tip: If you're reading the HTML version of this newsletter, or reading it on our Web site, you may want to save the videos and play them later. That's easy enough: Right-click on the file name and choose Save Target As to download it to your PC.

Silly Commercials

You might not always remember the name of the product, but you'll certainly LOL when you watch these brilliantly creative commercials.

I can easily spend an hour in front of the tube with a bag of salty potato chips and a cold ale. Too bad this guy's not going to have a chance to do that. [1.4MB video]

I don't watch enough football to have seen all the seemingly dozens of funny Budweiser ads. Here's one of the better ones. [1MB video]

AOL CDs, Sexist Mice, and RIAA Arrests

I know somebody (probably a spouse) has accused you of having too much time on your hands. Maybe you do, but my guess is not as much as the people who created these funny images. BTW, they're all small JPEGs.

If your kids have any illegal music on their computers, you'd better delete the files before the RIAA comes after them.

Granted this is about the most sexist mouse I've seen, but it probably makes sense for at least one person you know.

You're probably wondering what to do with that old '486 you're storing in the closet. Wonder no more: Here's the perfect way to get more use out of it.

This is definitely nothing I want on my tombstone.

I'm guessing you have a couple of promotional CD-ROMs from AOL around the office. Instead of throwing them out, put them to good use.

Word is, a Silicon Valley dot.gone.bust firm has gone into a new business, one that helps you make the computing transition into the afterlife.

Rumor has it Microsoft is planning to buy Google. I hope it doesn't happen, primarily because I don't want to look at this every time I do a Google search.

You've heard about California's new governor. But I'll bet you haven't seen the state's new seal.

Start Your Engines

You'll laugh, you'll cry--and you'll miss plenty of deadlines if you spend time viewing these great home-grown videos.

When you're tooling down the highway, you really, really have to keep alert, especially when the car next to you has two steering wheels. [3MB video]

It's pretty clear that just because some people are licensed to drive a motorcycle, they shouldn't be trusted doing wheelies. [0.5MB video]

Repeat after me: "Always check your equipment before heading off to the races." [2MB video--no sound]

It's been a decade since I've seen the famous "Bandini Mountain" commercial, the one with a guy skiing down a large mountain of, ummm, fertilizer. In this updated home video, he's riding a motorcycle. [0.5MB video]

With all these motorcycle videos, it's only fitting that you watch this safety message promoting the use of helmets. [386KB]