Dispatch from the Razor's Edge, the Blog of Michael Stephen Fuchs
2009.01.14 : Happy-Making Happy New Years Videos
    "'Who are you?' Pete said.
    He looked at us, seeming confused and frustrated. 'I'm Lieutenant Commander Jay Jacobson.'
    'What are you doing here?' I said.
    Jacobson went off: 'What am I doing here? I don't have a clue. I go to a hotel. Somebody picks me up. He drops me off on the side of the road. Another guy picks me up. He drives me for four hours and won't tell me a damn thing. Now I'm sitting here on these steps and some big fat guy just came and pissed over my shoulder!'
    The pisser was Charlie Beckwith [founder and initial commander of Delta Force] – just messing with Jacobson to amuse himself."
- LTG (Ret.) William G. "Jerry" Boykin (subsequent commander of Delta Force), Never Surrender

And so you're probably back at work now and probably really have some time to kill. And if you're like me you've probably got a bit of the New Years post-holiday blues and could use a cheer-me-up. And so here are some videos to watch.

The first you've probably already seen – "Where the Hell Is Matt?" was the Number One viral video of 2008. And but then on the other hand, I hadn't see it until very recently – and only then, come to think of it, because I was looking up what were the top viral videos of 2008. So maybe you haven't seen it. It was put together by a guy who got fed up with work and chucked it all and went travelling around the world until his money ran out and along the way filmed himself dancing, incomparably badly, in places all around the globe, frequently with people from all around the globe, and then put it all to music, and the result is, frankly, one of the most strangely affecting and heart-warming things around, and here it is:

And but because this had only been up about .05 seconds before the Tinfoil Hat Brigade began trotting out their conspiracy theories that the whole thing was faked, Matt did a presentation where he debunked himself, but actually serving up a fantastic piss-take of the sceptics – and at the same time, in the last couple of minutes, really nicely underscoring why the whole thing was so lovely in the first place, and here that is:

And he's right: Gaza is burning, and Wall Street is also burning, and we're all unemployed (okay, I'm unemployed, but if the papers are to be believed, then you probably will be soon), and the mullahs are industriously working toward that new and improved second Holocaust and all that . . . but, somehow, if people can dance really badly together, with Matt, in all kinds of places, all over the world, then somehow it just seems like we'll be okay anyway.

Here's a video entitled "My Dogs greeting me after returning from 14 months in Iraq". Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan, who added, "God bless and save all of those defending us abroad. And their dogs waiting for them patiently at home."

Here's a hedgehog eating a carrot – which if watching this doesn't make you smile, you should consider the very real possibility that you are a Cylon:

Here are a few failblog videos that have had me rolling in the aisles recently:







Finally, if, like many, you are celebrating the last days of the Bush administration, you'll appreciate this Evil State of the Union Remix:

Happy New Year and God bless.


  george w. bush     humour     interwebs     the military     video  
about
close photo of Michael Stephen Fuchs

Fuchs is the author of the novels The Manuscript and Pandora's Sisters, both published worldwide by Macmillan in hardback, paperback and all e-book formats (and in translation); the D-Boys series of high-tech, high-concept, spec-ops military adventure novels – D-Boys, Counter-Assault, and Close Quarters Battle (coming in 2016); and is co-author, with Glynn James, of the bestselling Arisen series of special-operations military ZA novels. The second nicest thing anyone has ever said about his work was: "Fuchs seems to operate on the narrative principle of 'when in doubt put in a firefight'." (Kirkus Reviews, more here.)

Fuchs was born in New York; schooled in Virginia (UVa); and later emigrated to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he lived through the dot-com boom. Subsequently he decamped for an extended period of tramping before finally rocking up in London, where he now makes his home. He does a lot of travel blogging, most recently of some very  long  walks around the British Isles. He's been writing and developing for the web since 1994 and shows no particularly hopeful signs of stopping.

You can reach him on .

THE MANUSCRIPT by Michael Stephen Fuchs
PANDORA'S SISTERS by Michael Stephen Fuchs
DON'T SHOOT ME IN THE ASS, AND OTHER STORIES by Michael Stephen Fuchs
D-BOYS by Michael Stephen Fuchs
COUNTER-ASSAULT by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book One - Fortress Britain, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Two - Mogadishu of the Dead, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN : Genesis, by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN Book Three - Three Parts Dead, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN Book Four - Maximum Violence, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN Book Five - EXODUS, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN Book Six - The Horizon, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Seven - Death of Empires, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Eight - Empire of the Dead by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN : NEMESIS by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Nine - Cataclysm by Michael Stephen Fuchs

ARISEN, Book Ten - The Flood by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Eleven - Deathmatch by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Twelve - Carnage by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Thirteen - The Siege by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Fourteen - Endgame by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN : Fickisms
ARISEN : Odyssey
ARISEN : Last Stand
ARISEN : Raiders, Volume 1 - The Collapse
ARISEN : Raiders, Volume 2 - Tribes
Black Squadron
ARISEN : Raiders, Volume 3 - Dead Men Walking
ARISEN : Raiders, Volume 4 - Duty
ARISEN : Raiders, Volume 5 - The Last Raid
ARISEN : Fickisms ][ – This Time, It's Personal
ARISEN : Operators, Volume I - The Fall of the Third Temple
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