Steve Jobs, 1955-2011

And that's really what it is, isn't it?

We're all sitting here, staring at our iPhones in disbelief. Finding comfort in one of the tens of thousands of songs on our iPod. Searching the internet to share in the mourning en masse on our MacBooks.

After we're done here, we'll edit some videos using Final Cut Pro. While we listen to a playlist we made on iTunes. When we get hungry later, we'll use an app on our iPhone to figure out a good place nearby to eat. When we get home, we'll iChat with our parents across the country and tell them what we've been up to. Hell, even one of our most popular videos took place in an Apple Store.

For so many of us who never even met the man, we can't imagine what our lives would have been like without him.

The real brilliance of Steve Jobs's vision is that he believed we all deserved to live the lives of our dreams, and he gave us as many tangible tools as possible to try and do just that. How many of us began vlogging because we were experimenting with our iSights? How many of us became interested in telling stories because of iMovie? How many of us now see the world refracted through Steve Jobs's lens?

We're not the first to post this video, but its message bears repeating, even on days when it isn't almost painfully poignant:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Thanks for believing in all of us, Steve. You have to have known that you made a difference.

(Image via Jonathan Mak)

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Looking for Grace or Molly? Well, I'm Maria.

(Stuff You're Looking For On This Blog)

You guys search for a lot of info about Daily Grace and Mememolly. And that's cool.

But I'm not Grace or Molly. Sorry. My name is Maria.

(Sorry. Not blonde.)

I am My Damn Channel's "Social Media Voice," which means I write My Damn Channel's Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and House Blog, among other things. Yes, it's my fault that the photoshop is bad and the jokes aren't funny and no one comments. So, if you haven't figured it out by now, I'm pretty good at my job.

What other kinds of things would you like to see here? What other things would you like to know? Tell me. Let's TweetTumblFaceBlogSquare together. Leave some comments. Talk to me on Tumblr and Twitter and Facebook and stuff. I posted a picture of myself with a light switch, for God's sake. If that doesn't scream "you can talk to me" I don't know what does.

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How To Be A Vlogger: Lesson One

So you want to know how to be a vlogger.

Daily Grace is pretty good at vlogging so you think we might know a thing or two about it, right?

Fine. We're going to tell you all of our secrets. But only one at a time.

Lesson One: Let everyone know this is your very first vlog and you're not sure what to say.

Like so:

As you can see in this "My First Vlog Supercut" (courtesy our sister blog, Slacktory), telling everyone it's your first time (what?) will make you seem humble and adorable. No one likes the rookie who hits a grand slam in his first at-bat! Well, everyone pretends they like him, but inside everyone is actually seething with jealousy. So, self-deprecation is totally the way to go! Also, you now have a built-in excuse for doing a terrible job. Also, I made a baseball analogy! Whoa.

Make sure you come back next Friday for Lesson Two...

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Can Chris Meloni Appear in a Wainy Days Episode, Please?

David Wain tweeted this tribute to Chris Meloni's Wet Hot American Summer character, "Gene From the Kitchen" this morning. And it made us think... why hasn't Chris Meloni appeared in an episode of Wainy Days yet? His Law & Order contract is up pretty soon... so we imagine he'll have a lot more time on his hands... so maybe...right? Right?!

And who else belongs in an episode of Wainy Days? Leave me a comment!

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5 Ways To Make Yourself More Popular

WAKE UP and be more popular! Don't be like James Franco.

So you're back in school and you're bored already? Here are 5 Ways To Make Yourself More Popular.

1. Find someone to haze. It's still early in the school year, right? Your professor is probably still learning names. If you're in a class where your instructor calls attendance, just start hazing people. "Steve Guttenberg?" "More like, Steve Not-So-Gutten-To-Be-Back-In-School! YOU'VE BEEN HAZED."

2. Talk about how much you love Justin Bieber. His voice still hasn't broken so girls still see him as an asexual non-threatening type of fantasy crush, right? Also he's just, like, sooooooo CUUUUUUUTE.

3. Tell them how much you love animals. Cats, especially. Who doesn't love a pussy...CAT. Pussycat. Jeez.

4. Show your new roomies that you know how to cook. You should probably start with the Faghetti'wich: fries and spaghetti on a sandwich...so, you know, all your basic college food groups. Later, when the local sandwich shop starts selling it you can get them to name it after you.

5. Make a video for your new classmates telling them how much you love them. And how pretty you think they all are. And how you would totally have babies with them if they would let you. Because that's not creepy at all.

Good luck! Let us know if any of these things actually work to increase your popularity because then we will need to transfer to your school immediately.

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How To Be An Intern

(Intern Josh, wondering forlornly how he ended up here)

EDITOR'S NOTE: It's Josh's last day as an intern for My Damn Channel! I asked him to write up a post telling you what it was like for him this summer!


Coming into My Damn Channel as an intern I thought all I was gonna learn was how to file papers and fill out reports. Boy was I wrong! Friday will be my last day and I still haven't correctly filled out a single report. My boss is always saying that it drives him crazy how long it's taking me to get the hang of the office duties, but I can tell he's just joking. How I treasure that agonized look he gets trying so hard to hold back laughter.

What I learned though was way more valuable than any college education. I would say it was worth about $230,000, a couple hundred more than four years' tuition at Wesleyan. What I learned was the value of making the effort to gain the respect of your peers.

Before I ever set foot into that office, I had my work cut out for me. My future co-workers had already started gossiping that I only got the internship because of my family connections. After failing for three years to strike any gold, my great-great-grandfather started My Damn Channel during the California Gold Rush as a burlesque show designed to entertain entrepreneurs who had given up on trying to find gold and started companies catered to the needs of the gold miners. Grandpa Schmulie Meisel. I can't believe that was such a popular name back then — Grandpa.

My first day at work the guy sharing my cubicle got mad at me for unplugging his computer. "What do you need a blender for?!" he irrationally snarled. "How else are you gonna make computer smoothies silly? By hand?!" I chucked his computer into my oversized blender. He must've thought I was awfully spoiled, not making my computer smoothies by hand. I really had an uphill battle ahead of me if I wanted to gain anyone's respect.

A couple of days in I got the courage to pitch a show idea to the head of development. It was a parody of "Friends" called "Friends." He looked at me like I was an idiot. "You just handed me a bunch of "Friends" scripts. I think I know now why the printer's out of ink. Look, why don't you hold off for a bit before you make any more pitches." Apparently my scripts had gone right over his head. And "Friends" was a pretty accessible show. The guy I shared my cubicle was a rube, our head of development was dense as a neutron star, and my boss was an incorrigible prankster. My situation was less than ideal to say the least.

Halfway through the summer things had only gotten worse. I was miserable. My only friend was the janitor, and he was a Roomba! I'd cry myself to sleep every night, and when I wasn't feeling that sad I would get my butler to cry me to sleep. My job was a major disappointment. It wasn't at all like that show "The Office." We had TWO guys named Dwight, and the prettiest girl wasn't dating the most handsome guy (me), but instead this guy Jim who's so inexperienced with women that when I asked him to share some girlie stories he just laughed.

All I could do was trudge along until my five weeks were up, filing away papers wherever I could cram them (I may not get the job done pretty, but I'm damn fast). And just when I had given up on ever gaining a single ounce of respect from any My Damn Channel employee, a stroke of luck bolted me right in the face.

I'll always remember it like it was yesterday, even though it was only yesterday today. Jim's girlfriend (I think her name was Xamela) told him he needed to go somewhere to sign some forms. She couldn't give him a ride because she was busy. He asked if anyone else could take him, and I shot out of my chair like I was sitting on a lit match (which for the one of the first times I wasn't). Jim didn't see me at first; his eyes scanned the room for someone to drive him but everyone pretended to be hard at work because they were too lazy to take him. Finally he saw me and said "Fine let's go Josh." And fine it was. Everyone looked up at Jim and smiled at him. Their smiles seemed to say, "I'm really happy for you that you get to go on a fun/crazy/cool ride with Josh." But the smiles had a little menace behind them that signified jealousy.

When I got back my boss laughed with mirth, patted me on the back, and said, "Good job sonny." All I ever wanted was for my boss to think of me as a son, but life isn't easy. I had to put in my time to get what I wanted — let's just say I don't think I could've earned the luxury of being treated by my boss like his own flesh and blood if I hadn't given Jim that ride. And now, in these last couple of months before my summer ends and I have to go back to hitting the books trying to eventually earn my GED, I can look back at my time at My Damn Channel atop my pool float, computer smoothie in hand, and know that that one lesson I learned was well worth all my trifles. Plus it helped that I was making more than the rest of the office combined.


Thanks, Josh, er, Sonny! We will miss you! We know it will be tough going back to Stanford to get a world-class education, but it's better you than us!

We fully intend to continue stalking following you and your writing as @artsypriest and as a writer for The Stanford Chaparral.

PS: If any of you, dear readers, for some strange, maddening reason, would like to be an intern for My Damn Channel, please send an email to info@MyDamnChannel.com, and be sure to include links to your blog, Twitter and Tumblr accounts, or any other writing samples you might have! In the immortal words of the Jersey Shore kids in Italy, "Arrivederci, summer!"

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Intern Appreciation Day!

Posted in Interns, Maria, My Damn Channel with tags My Damn Channel HQ, interns, internships, Adam Zeelens, Katie Needle, empty nest syndrome on 8/12/2011 12:45:29 PM by Maria

It happens all the time. The birds leave the nest. The cubs leave the cave. The horses leave the stable. Who knows if all of those euphemisms are correct? We're just happy we know what the word "euphemism" means.

But today's the end of summer internships for a couple of the good ones: Adam and Katie.

Adam helped us write pithy one-liners and articles for a blog that we might never be able to share with you at the rate we're going.

Katie dutifully sent t-shirts and pens to about five people over the summer, just like we asked her to.

We're not sure if they learned anything useful during their time with us, but we're pretty happy to share burritos and taco salads with them on their last day.  Nothing quite says, "thank you," like the gift of Mexican cuisine.

So here's to you, sweet summer interns! May your returns to your respective schools and future ventures be as awesome as this past summer, but with a lot less heatpocalypse type stuff.

Maybe our very own Dan Wilburn-- himself a former Professional My Damn Channel Intern-- said it best in his tribute to them on Twitter:

But they were also the BEST kind of mediocre. (And actually, they were awesome all the way through.  Not mediocre. Take it back, Dan Wilburn, take it back.)

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A Conversation About Childrens Hospital, Kind Of.

Posted in Childrens Hospital, Maria, Twitter with tags Childrens Hospital, Adult Swim, Rob Huebel, Steve Agee, Remember That Movie "Innerspace?" Anyone? on 8/10/2011 2:58:50 PM by Maria

So today we were all:



And then Steve Agee was all, like, "Yeah! Totally! Retweet (and some other irrelevant stuff)!"



And finally, Rob Huebel was all, like, "Me, too, guys!"



And so then you watched it:

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Hall Pass Pass

Posted in Matt Warren with tags jason sudeikis, hall pass, owen wilson, david wain, wainy days, snl on 3/4/2011 7:38:22 AM by Matt Warren

The new Farrelley Bros. comedy Hall Pass was the #1 movie in the country last week, and much of the credit can be placed on the broad, heartland-handsome shoulders of co-star Jason Sudeikis.  Not surprising, as the man’s talents are legion: one-time Blue Man Group wannabe, dater of Hollywood starlets, George Wendt’s nephew, etc.  And don’t sleep on SNL, where he portrays a wide variety of characters ranging from the pathetic to the nettlesome, including one-half of both Jon Bovi, the world’s worst Bon Jovi tribute band, and the titular “Two A-Holes.”

But by far, Sudeikis’s most daunting role to date has been as none other than our very own David Wain, wherein attacks the role of My Damn Channel’s favorite lovelorn man-child with the kind of method intensity not seen since Ben Kingsley cinched up his cloth diaper to play mankind’s other great savior, Mahatma Ghandi.  Maybe this Believer article was the key to his research.  Then again, maybe there’s a little David Wain in all of us (gross).

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Subway, USC, and My Damn Channel

Posted in Subway with tags subway, fresh artists, jeff and ravi, do whatever, usc, press on 3/2/2011 8:09:10 AM by Dubs

Hey! We're hosting the winners of the Subway Fresh Artists contest in conjuntion with USC. Check out 3 episodes from each winning team. Odds are you'll see/hear these names again since not a year has passed since 1973 without a USC alumnus or alumna being nominated for an Academy Award. Pretty ballin', right?

Do Whatever – A scripted comedy series from Andy Landan, Giles Andrew, and Alice Mathias featuring an overworked junior lawyer who convinces his computer genius friend to quit his job and start a business with him doing jobs that nobody else wants to do.

Jeff and Ravi Fail History – A scripted buddy comedy sci-fi series from R.J. Daniel Hanna,  F. Brian Scolfield and Ian Ward following a jovial slacker and his astrophysicist roommate as they stumble their way from the dawn of man to a post-apocalyptic future in a sputtering time machine.

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