By Taryn Hartman
Legal News
You’re seeing my face reappear up there and you’re thinking to yourself, “The Blogosphere returns! It’s a Christmas miracle!” (Either that or “Oh no, she’s back. Like the Terminator.”)
Well, not really. More my needing something to do during the first week of an already-feeling-too-long two and a half weeks back in my pink childhood bedroom that doesn’t involve drinking heavily. But, dear friends, as my holiday gift to you, I bring good news of great links to some of the seasonally-themed time-wasters I’ve been cruising online.
The first is robertisbothered.com, which is where Late Night host Jimmy Fallon posts videos of himself impersonating actor Robert Pattinson, who plays the lead vampire in the “Twilight” film series. The premise is that he’s always irate about something; a new one went up last week in which he’s bothered by Christmas shopping. While it filled the gaping void left in my life by no new “Robert is Bothered” videos since the World Cup in July, it’s not quite as strong as its predecessors, which are also readily available on the site. I laugh so hard at those that I actually lose weight, so be mindful if you’re drinking egg nog while surfing; nobody wants that mess coming out their nose.
Along the same lines, this week, Fallon (who does a fabulous job on that show, for those of us who are regularly still humming along between 12:30 and 1:30 EST. Not that I would know about that from personal experience or anything) also brought back his Twitter hashtag game, in which he gives his followers a hashtag (a term marked by an # symbol, as in #hashtag) and invites them to submit their best tweets using said tag. Using the # symbol turns whatever comes after it into a link; clicking on it will pull up all the tweets that use that tag and you can search through them. Last week’s was #hohohellno, as in “Set of 300 Xmas lights. One bulb goes out and the whole thing’s unusable? #hohohellno.” Fallon reads his favorites on air; my hilarious friend @cateroosevelt and I collaborated on one last week that was not included, much to my dismay. Check out video of last week’s top tweets at http://bit.ly/feezmA.
On that note, how many of you are on The Twitters these days, anyway? Tweet me @tarynha and let me know.
Finally, and this has nothing to do with anything except pure hilarity, he’s been giving away a Christmas sweater to an audience member each night for the 12 days leading up to Christmas. Check it out along with other holiday-themed stuff at http://bit.ly/eGS9I3.
I’m not just a Jimmy slapee/trying to get a job on that show (Fallon: call me!); as I’ve cruised around latenightwithjimmyfallon.com I’ve found a ton of click-worthy material, and it’s because the show has made a concentrated effort to bridge what happens every night on the air for an hour with what people are doing at their desks during their usual waking and working hours. Wired did a story on this a year and a half ago (http://bit.ly/1h0Nha), and I’d argue that the online content has only gotten stronger since then, with Robert is Bothered and the close-to-real-time integration with Twitter being just two of any number of examples. That, and he’s got The Roots as his house band. You don’t go wrong with that one.
Thanks for letting me parachute in here one more time! Best wishes to all of you and yours this season and into 2011; may it be everyone’s best year yet.
