Lots of people today find themselves very distracted when trying to study. “Oh my God, I am soooo ADD,” is a common phrase heard anywhere from Clemons Library to Newcomb Hall to the operating table. College students in particular fall victim to distraction; often, we will attempt to focus on our studies, only to have the slightest interference ruin our trains of thou — oh, wow.
Avid Reader: What?
Austin: ... the most amazing bird just flew by my window. Do you ever wonder how birds fly? I wonder how birds fly. Birds always seem to fly. I bet it has to do with the feathers and aerodynamics — crap. I never learned about aerodynamics. I can’t believe I never learned about aerodynamics ... why am I a politics major? Maybe I should transfer ... again. But even if people think birds fly based on aerodynamics, can we ever really rule out black magic? People out there know black magic. I had this aunt —
Avid Reader: Austin ...
Austin: What?
Avid Reader: Focus.
Right. Anyway, without question the most popular form of distraction from and procrastination of one’s studies is YouTube, a land where anything from incredible feats of athleticism to a man jumping off his roof into an empty pool are available at the click of a button. During the next few installments, I will provide you with a comprehensive guide to navigating YouTube, in the form of a positively unanimous, undisputed list:
“The Positively Unanimous, Undisputed — Top-20 or 30 or so, Haven’t Really Decided Yet for varying reasons — YouTube Videos List ... Part One”
1. “Battle at Kruger” — Not funny, just incredible. A baby water buffalo is taken hostage by lions, which subsequently battle for the infant with a pack of alligators. Meanwhile, the baby water buffalo’s homies return to throw down, having called up a posse of their own. The clip is only enhanced by commentary from the British safari-goers who captured this 38 million-plus-view masterpiece on home video.
2. “Stripper Fail” — You think she’s just going to fall off the bookshelf from which she seductively (debatable) dangles. Then the bookshelf falls on her. Advantage bookshelf.
3. “Edwin Baptiste’s Catch” — Best football catch you will ever see.
4. “Janice It Hurts!” — A child slips in his seat and, dangling by his neck, nearly falls off a roller coaster. His mom/aunt/accompanying female guardian, Janice, riding next to him, finds this hilarious. We like Janice.
5. “Diet Coke + Mentos” — Remember that baking-soda-plus-vinegar “volcano” you made for your third-grade science fair? Great, so do we. Now put it in your mouth.
6. “Yatta” — A music video of six Japanese dudes dancing in fig-leaf loin cloths to a catchy tune, the words of which only a limited number of viewers understand. This lack of understanding is positively immaterial.
7. “Urban Ninja” — A guy jumps off a lot of buildings. Successfully. Upon further review, if you’re jumping off multiple buildings, they’d have to pretty much all be done successfully. If you jump off a building unsuccessfully, that kind of precludes the successful jumping-off of any subsequent buildings. Carry on.
8. “Redneck Amusement Park” — Remember that time you couldn’t afford to go to Six Flags, so you just hung from a rope attached to the end of a crane and had your drunk brother get into the crane and swing it around really, really fast until you eventually got flung off the crane into a pond?
9. “Blind kid trys to dive into a Pool and fails” — OK, so if this kid is actually blind, then this is cruel/illegal. Assuming, however, that no one would actually ever let a blind kid near a pool (while filming it), then this becomes just another good, old-fashioned “kid tries to jump into a pool ... and misses” piece of footage.
10. “Kobe jumps over a speeding car (Aston Martin)” — Whether this one is real or if it never actually happened is subject to some debate. If you cannot just appreciate a man jumping over a @!#$%^ moving car for what it is, then you suck and can no longer come to my birthday.
Tune in next column for the rest of the list.
Austin’s column runs biweekly Tuesdays. He can be reached at a.wiles@cavalierdaily.com.
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