As we noted recently, Tim Pawlenty’s videographer made a bad career move switching to Rick Perry, because you expect Perry videos to look like they were directed by Michael Bay. Although now that Deranger Rick is trailing Newt – Newt! – in the polls, we might get some entertainment yet out of their misplaced bombast.

But the Ambitious Young Editor’s work is quickly being eclipsed by the comic genius behind Herman Cain!’s videos, which, following the instant classic of Thank Me for Smoking, are receiving renewed critical attention.

So we present for your viewing pleasure Not Without My Chicken!, a delightful romp that leaves us wondering whether the Herman Cain! campaign is less Andy Kaufman, and more The Producers. Because with material like this, surely the last thing they expect is to win.

[via Mother Jones]

We know from Drum Circles.

For several years, in a number of capacities, we were involved with the Oregon Country Fair, a three-day summer crafts and music event that (during our time) drew 30,000 visitors to the woods outside Eugene.

Founded in 1969, it was already a multigenerational hippiefest by the time we messed around in the late ’80s. Over time, we worked security, helped in the front office, even played trumpet in the Fighting Instruments of Karma Marching Band/Orchestra, which, after two daily parades featuring “Teddy Bears Picnic”, would sit in as the house band for the juggling Flying Karamazov Brothers.

It was very, very, very fun. Especially the night we dropped acid and kept the camp awake singing Gilligan’s Island.

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Public-service comics usually don’t fare well, mainly because the Message tends to undermine the Fun. But when the Centers for Disease Control tackles an outbreak of the Undead, it’s a match made in Zombie Apocalypse — you do have an emergency kit, don’t you?

Plus, this:

“I’m pretty sure Mrs. Clements was trying to attack her own cat, and she just nearly got me!”

Our only quibble is the cop-out ending, where the CDC enjoys a happier fate than it does in The Walking Dead.

Centers for Disease Control’s Zombie Comic Teaches General Emergency Preparedness [Comics Alliance]

When last we left Harold Camping — well, before the stroke — he had rescheduled Armageddon for October 21, because, y’know, eschatological math is hard.

But that’s his story, and he’s sticking to it. Sort of.

The Oakland minister’s latest prediction of the end of the world — which he’s set for Friday — is couched among words like “probably” and “maybe,” a far cry from the carved-in-stone certitude he projected onto his infamous May 21 forecast.

“I do believe we’re getting very near the very end,” Camping, 90, said during a podcast recorded earlier this month and posted on his Family Radio website. “Oct. 21, that’s coming very shortly, that looks like it will be, at this point, it will be the final end of everything.”

Anyway, if you have nothing better to do on your latest Last Day on Earth, you can always put Gir on infinite loop.

Harold Camping, rapture prophet, hedges new bet [SF Chronicle]

It’s no Rocket Man. But then, nothing is.

[via @pourmecoffee]

We didn’t intend on running another Siri video, but we lost our evening to Other People’s Deadlines, and by the time it was over, it was all we could do to find some quickie filler.

Then again, this makes as much sense as anything we would have said about the Republican debate.

[via Know Your Meme]

Back before Steve Jobs returned to Apple, the company introduced a Magical Gadget that promised to change the way you live.

It, um, didn’t work out.

This time around, instead of handwriting recognition, Apple promised voice recognition — and not just simple commands, but contextual understanding of requests.

It’s the kind of thing that could have gone terribly, terribly wrong.

Or it could become a cultural event.

We don’t have the new iPhone – we’re still on contract with the old one – and we don’t have an emotional stake in Apple products, other than the pleasure of using them. But our introduction to computers involved punchtape and a teletypewriter. Ours may not be the life of someone who lived through the Wright Brothers and the Moon Landing, but we’re starting to understand the feeling.

[via Daring Fireball]