The Binary Circumstance

There are a growing number of “Hitler Finds Out” videos popping up on YouTube and other sites. They are based on footage from the German movie “Der Untergang” / Downfall (2004). People add subtitles to the same segment of the film creating their own story out of it. The original movie is in German.

I wrote the subtitles for Hitler Finds Out His Dog is Pregnant.

The director of the movie, Oliver Hirschbiegel, has gone on record about the clips. “Someone sends me the links every time there’s a new one. I think I’ve seen about 145 of them… Many times the lines are so funny, I laugh out loud, and I’m laughing about the scene that I staged myself! You couldn’t get a better compliment as a director.”

Susan Boyle, the 47-year-old unemployed spinster from Scotland who stunned audiences around the world with her spectacular singing of “I Dreamed a Dream” on Britain’s Got Talent 2009, sang “Cry Me A River” on a charity CD that was released in 1999.

Somebody on YouTube put that track to still images taken from her audition for Britain’s Got Talent.

She not only is a great singer, she picks the right songs. How could it have taken more than 10 years for people to figure this out?

I love the story of US Airways Flight 1549 because the superb performance of the crew, passengers and air traffic controllers stands in such stark contrast to the incompetence and fraud of the various businesses and governments that have done so much damage to the world’s economy and to millions of lives around the globe.

While the crew has maintained they were just doing the jobs they were trained to do, it shows how “just doing our jobs” can turn a potential tragedy into a triumph.

Check out this amazing CGI reconstruction of the flight which includes the actual conversation between Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger and ATC at LaGuardia. It just gives me chills.

Thanks to CascadeFlyers.org for passing this link along.

Check out this funny and infectiously joyful video on YouTube of Seattle resident Matt Harding dancing his way around the world.

He’s made several other similar videos of himself dancing alone in far away places but in this one, which is already one of the most popular videos on YouTube, he has a lot of company.

For more info, check out WheretheHellisMatt.com.