Baby Butlers is so my iPhone ringtone now.

Free Bird!

UPDATE: The ringtone snipr.com/b174x-DOHNHX

Loved how you deconstructed Gladwell, I'm of the same opinion.

Oh my. You mentioned something that I can relate to. I'm currently reading 'Blink' by Malcolm Gladwell. It's all about snap judgements, first impressions and intuition. It was a snap judgement to buy it and my first impression is that his photograph on the inside cover looks nothing at all like I imagined he would.

This isn't an attack on him though. I'm not a big fan of fiction because I can just sit in a chair and make up a fiction story in my head including as many shy girls with big glasses and seltzer machines as I want. Gladwell writes about stuff that is real but could just as easily be made up and I would absolutely not know the difference.

Did you know Greg Gillis was born in 1981? This was the perfect time for a mashup musician to be born because music existed both before AND more importantly, AFTER his birth. In addition, he was the first person ever to get a beta copy of Adobe Audition. That beta copy put him well ahead of other mashup artists. Its highly unlikely that any other aspiring mashup artist using other software would even begin to reach 5,000 hours of mashups... much less than the 10,000 that Gillis had already reached to make him an Outlier.

Will someone please make Malcolm Gladwell madlibs? Its just too easy.

Soda machine! Soda machine! Demo! (OK, I'll shut up now and never post about this again).

Freebird! In my land, that translates to, "fuck you"! A local colloquialism.

Teenagers yelling; because that's their core competency. I love it. Check out Joplin's Gladiolus Rag. It's my fave. (particularly Joshua Rifkin's version recorded in the 70s)

Freebird! you are insane.

It WOULD be nice if one could be scholarly and funny at the same time.

There's some TED talk about Malcolm Gladwell trying to make the perfect spaghetti sauce, but he couldn't find the right apron or something.

Let's just say I have to hold my breath everytime I walk by the spaghetti sauces in the grocery store.

Mike Doughty of Soul Coughing has been leading the charge to change the call for "Freebird" over to "It's Raining Men." WSJ did a piece on it a few years back.

When I lived in Tallahassee, yelling "Free Bird" would cause the band to actually play it. Talk about learning the hard way...

Zombie Kubrick is lookn' pretty fly.

I missed three Fugazi shows on three separate occasions because I was making out with a skank in the parking lot (if you made out with me in a parking lot and are reading this, I'm not referring to you). So, yeah. Good advice there.

Anyone else notice the haunting similarity to Elvis on the first (poster) frame of the video?

I've worn the shirt, but only because it wasn't a well-known band, there were multiple bands playing, and I wanted it to be clear why/for whom I was there.

A rule I adhere to strictly is not listening to the band I'm going to see before or after the show.

What is your stance on encore cheering?

Malcolm Gladwell is only 9000 hours away from an idea for his first real book. He spent the first 1000 hours writing about his idea development.

I hope you weren't yelling out 'Freebird' when you were shooshed at the Low concert.

Tell ya what I'd get a kick out of?
If on the non-most days, viewers/fans of 'Merlin - Most Days' could fill in with a video of their own! :P

More most days videos. The tribe has spoken.

Obviously, not at the expense of more productive things, but the videos give me several laughs each day. My friend on the Foodrants youtube channel (hat tip: Joe Bennett) is not producing anything, so I'm jonesing for a lunch time laugh everyday- good medicine in this economy. I learn a lot about productivity amidst the snarky comments on your videos as well.

The podcast at 43 folders was great!
Thanks Merlin!

Hehe I think most of the Gladwell jokes were in reference to Outliers, which I just finished reading. His books are definitely engaging and good for brain stretching, but they are pretty comical after you step back and look at them, and definitely shouldn't be taken at face value. They're the modern day version of the "What If?" comics.

I'm sure you understand attention and the lack thereof well enough to forgive me for sort of half listening to this while it sat behind Mail behind Photoshop behind iCal behind iTunes. You got me back anyway by screaming "Freebirrrr!", causing me to jump back to see the last frame and spray nose-beer all over my laptop. Must be Friday afternoon.