My life was ruined by a You Tube video.

Here is a short video essay about people who should suppress the urge to film themselves, even if it seems like a good idea at the time. Some new finds and old favorites included.



And some old faves:

Trout U Merchandise Now in!

Bozeman is known world-wide for its fantastic fly fishing opportunities and strong fishing culture. As such, Montana State University takes the cake as the place to go to school if you love fishing.

The MSU Bookstore is the exclusive vendor of Trout U merchandise including hats, t shirts, pint glasses, and decals. Find your Trout U merchandise by clicking here. We are still awaiting the delivery of our T-Shirts, but I guarantee it will be worth the wait. We will have shirts for kids too! May I personally recommend the camel colored cap. It was picked out by your oh-so-fashionable blog author and would look quite sharp with those Carhartts that I know you wear all day, every day.

Here's a special blog-only sneak peak at the new Trout U mascot. He needs a name by the way, so submit one in a comment if you have any ideas:

Prepare to Fall Down Laughing

This is pretty indescribable, and, it's not in English but don't worry about that part.

You've got to see this

What if humans could do this? It would be easy to hide on campus and avoid awkward conversations. Shout out to Myles Keating for finding this video.

Friday (creepy) Fun

I graduated college a short 3 years ago, and as such, many of my former classmates are working at desk jobs and spending free time exploring all that the internet has to offer. This latest finding comes from a former high school classmate, let's call her Lisa*, who works in a small town in Washington. She and her sister Jackie* were recently exploring the Cheetos website, and Lisa warned me minutes ago that she was going to send me something and that I should "trust her". Minutes later, my cell phone rang from an "unavailable" caller, and I was greeted by a disturbing voice that knew my name and said some sinister things to me. Good thing I knew she was sending me something, or I would have dialed the cops on my office phone.

What I didn't know, is that that disturbing voice was the voice of Chester the Cheetah and Lisa was using something called the Voice Modulator on the Cheetos website. After exploring the rest of the website, I discovered all the other creepy applications, widgets and games you can download to your computer and play with. You can dress a Cheeto up like a porn star, generate sick day sounds, a la Ferris Bueller, for illnesses such as Ebola and Sudden Onset Canadianism (though the Ebola sounds are pretty disgusting, just a warning), or participate in all sorts of other odd activities. It's entertaining, just make sure you are in a well-lit environment when you do it. The front page of the website resembles something out of the movie The Ring.

If you are less than 5 years out of college, you have my permission to play with this website as long as you want and avoid working. If you are beyond that, you should get back to work. You probably have people depending on your paycheck.

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Now Available on Twitter

... whatever that means. Apparently a lot of other people are clueless as well:



Regardless, if you are savvy about Twitter and want to give me some tips and/or follow the Bookstore on Twitter, look me up! Now off I go to tweet... whatever that means.

Case of the Mondays? Here's the Cure:

If you have some spare interneting (yes, I made up a verb) time on your hands today, trying monkeying around with the Fantastic Contraption. It's described as a "fun online physics game". It may sound nerdy, but you are about to get addicted. Sorry.

Find it here: www.fantasticcontraption.com

Not intrigued yet? Here's a screen shot. I mean, just LOOK at that thing.

Save Danforth Park!

Join the Students for Danforth Park in their efforts to save a restore Danforth Park on the MSU Campus by purchasing a Save Danforth Park button at the MSU Bookstore for $2. All proceeds go to restoration of the park. Here's a little history:

- Danforth Park, formerly known as the Iris Gardens, was built in 1930 by the Associate Society of Women of MSU during economic hardship.
- Each female member donated $.50. Each male student paid $1.00 to fund the park. Shortly after, other groups on campus bought inot the vision and gave financial support. Thus, the park was created!

As the campus grew, the park became neglected and forgotten. The Students for Danforth Park want to revive this space as a tribute to those students who gave so much, as well as expand and integrate the park into campus life as a place to study, relax, enjoy beauty and nature and recreate. The group would like to change the name of the park back to the Iris Garden.

For more information on Project Iris Garden, visit www.projectirisgarden.com and find them on Facebook by clicking here.

If you would like to help with the project or donate money, email projectirisgarden@gmail.com

Thursday You Tubin'

Looking for a little Thursday pick-me-up? Check out these fun You Tube finds:

I don't know if this video used special effects or not, and I don't really care.


Here we go, from sheep to cars. Please note, there are no special effects used in this video.


If that wasn't enough cars for you, here:

Read These Books

A Lion Called Christian by Anthony Bourke and John Rendall

First, watch the YouTube video:



In 2008, an extraordinary two-minute film clip appeared on YouTube and immediately became an international phenomenon. It captures the moving reunion of two young men and their pet lion, Christian, after they had left him in Africa with Born Free's George Adamson to introduce him inot his rightful home in the wild.

A Lion Called Christian tells the remarkable story of how Anthony "Ace" Bourke and John Rendall, visitors to London from Australia in 1969, bought the boisterous lion cub in the pet department of Harrods. For several months, the three of them shared a flat above a furniture shop on London's King's Road, where the charismatic and intelligent Christian quickly became a local celebrity, cruising the streets in the back of a Bentley, popping in for lunch at a local restaurant, even posing for a fashion advertisement. But the lion cub was growing up--fast--and soon even the walled church garden where he went fore exercise wasn't large enough for him. How could Ace and John avoid having to send Christian to a zoo for the rest of his life? A coincidental meeting with English actors Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers, stars of the hit film Born Free, led to Christian being flown to Kenya and placed under the expert care of "the father of lions," George Adamson. Incredibly, when Ace and John returned to Kenya to see Christian a year later, they received a loving welcome from their lion, who was by then fully integrated into Africa and a life with other lions.

Originally published in 1971, and now fully revised and updated with more than fifty photographs of Christian from cuddly cub in London to magnificent lion in Africa, A Lion Called Christian is a touching and uplifting true story oif an indelible human-animal bond. It is destined to become one of the great classics of animal literature.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the littel girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.

Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tonge, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonethless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the liines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women--mothers, daugthers, caregivers, friends--view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't.