Gadgetory

it is Friday March 16 2012 it's four-four time on CNN TV I'm Jeff Bakalar and I'm Justin you and this is the show where we've bring in our ela ela just beats popping already hasn't even started yet ladies and gentlemen help us welcome to the fine program ela Morton how are you Ella has nothing to do with the fact that you're the first woman to graze are showing a long time yes nothing to do with that guy just stopped femaleness thing Oh siren was going crazy yes we're glad you can help us fill that void uh thanks for coming on oh yes I welcome your you're an ex-senator yes which is probably news to everyone from the US side of things you're in the australian i worked at cnet australia for about five years cool until the end of two thousand eight so tell us about that I mean what do you do like in the pre-show you're like oh I like being back in this back in the senior you know world I think because i joined seen it at some at what was probably my prime sure it's all downhill from here but that's it we have a lot to look forward to well it was my early twenties and you know things were fun and crazy and it was a really cool company right and so I have very fond memories of seen it but I worked there for about five years doing mostly audible audio and on camera stuff cool i made very very rare appearances on cnet TV in the US all right now there was a show that lasted for about three seconds called planet seen it I remember planet yes in which different countries different cnet's would file reports right and us in the UK tended to file these bizarre sort of um parodies like we did this one where it was a fake current affairs report about how Australia didn't have the iphone yet ok and how kids across the country had gone crazy and we're talking into their ipod touches yeah because it's just that that's really good it was on i don't think we submitted it and it was met with us a resounding silence yeah ah so people just don't get your heel i know they don't well that's okay I you know not everyone can understand that there's subtle intricacies apparent it's an acquired taste that's very few Americans are privileged we know that show run too many planets unit to come back I would like people don't realize that there are other cnet's in different countries yeah everywhere yeah and actually you're a good friend of someone else who you out frequently comes on the show ty pendlebury yeah I pendulum seen in Australia's well he's come on and talk to us a lot about I've learned a lot about Australia I am cheers by being him being I feel like I've been there but calling people bogans on Rob bears yeah terrifying by the way it is the empirical bears yeah HD no that's ribs I Steve house it's about I didn't say hey H is actually a it's almost like a class issue in Australia really yes so you're saying ties a bum well I say age and I found I really hate the sound of hate and you say zedge all right um unless I'm saying ZD night yes whoa why is it said XYZ just flows right off the tongue there nah mess around ah so and then after seeing it you sort of jumped around a little bit you're doing some stuff with what was right after seeing it uh I'll just saying that I moved here and then I didn't have a job for about several months the American dream yeah I was kind of terrified that my my decision was the wrong one but then I started working at rocketboom okay and hosting a show called rocketboom NYC right on and I was there for about two and a half years Wow right on so after rocketboom then you're at your current uh no in-between in-between right at the same time I was co writing a book sure um the record set of Book of World Records yes which we have right here Justin you thank you very much we actually talked about a story that involved record said earlier this week at South by Southwest Javier kobayashi there he set the record for I think the most uh sandwiches of grilled cheese in like sandwiches of cheese sandwiches of cheese eating out like I think was a candidate in one day I believe it's pretty nervous crazy so that you actually co-wrote this book or edited it I career I sit right on so what was that process like um because it sounds like I mean you know obviously you guys are like uh in in you know competition with those Guinness people right yes what is there like a big kid record-setter fight like um we see it as fulfilling different nature if Guinness was like the encyclopédie Encyclopedia Britannica then record setter is the Wikipedia I like yeah I like that analogy it's a bit more open sure labret of right it's very specific as various begins world record is always like highest jump but this is like stuff like most questions asked during a single drive-thru visit a highly competitive category yeah that's just time to look at candy cane to a sharp point that sounds like something like I think it's safe to say that record setter their records are more fun yes I think to put it simply that's true but it's not all just ridiculous stuff there are things in there that are incredibly difficult sure and uh like there was one that's most pies baked and delivered to a charity on thanksgiving wow really cool so now are correct me if I'm wrong people can sort of invent their own records and you guys sort of validate them yes as long as they're quantifiable and breakable right then they can be submitted to the site and I need evidence in the form of a video usually I had friends my buddy Evan claims that he had a record setter for most uh most boxes knocked down via human projectile that's that sounds like a records that a record i think it does not vary record setter ii and i think there was some sort of spanish television show yes that's real vida that yes that Trott that contacted him to try and addy thrown his record on their on their program well they've been having a fight with jimmy fallon because a lot of records yes I've been set on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon yes and this random TV show in Spain just decided to take on all of the records that Jimmy found Brett and they just like hey yeah like and I'm so glad you brought that up cuz i reminded me my buddy Evan said apparently in the what's the name of the show game ultra otra movida right ultram Evita apparently there's a sign in the background of one of the videos that says fu Jimmy Fallon it is like they have a lot of respect for Jimmy and it it's an affectionate thing but it is kind of jarring to see that like in fig you like after you Jimmy yeah yeah it's like we love you so much go F yourself very odd anyway it's at one of those records I would love what we do what you should do longest period of total silence set on a recorded podcast just stop talking just deliver 24 hours silent bad guys any like that listeners yeah enjoy that what do you get do you know what there are a lot of records that involves throwing pieces of technology okay that's like farthest distance to throw a printer mmm any of print I'm not gonna lie i've seen some printer chuckers before yeah we're looking at the king right here yeah I'm the printer editor and then after we just trash all them so that's perfect it'll be like the shotput you'll have to like do some sort of like spiral delay and then launch it into some sort of like apparatus sick dude try to organized all right I'm writing that down i'm sure the vendors would love c ya too dude I i don't care if I'm canon my printer is the one that got chucked about that I've got to the specs yeah damn straight most aerodynamic printer out there that's what you're going for um awesome so you I mean you've been all over the place and that's you've had a very cool career so far I have and yeah the projects I'm working on right now is amazing it's teaching me so much stuff about the world yes so tell us about so so it's for a publication called atlas Obscura that's right Alex curious started out as a website by two guys Joshua Foer and Dylan Thoris and it's this website about the world's most wondrous places sure so I'm currently writing the book version which is awesome yeah when is that gonna come out because I'm here to get my hands on 2013 that's fine that's in the future that's fine it's gonna be 500 pages oh it's huge alright pictures uh yet lots of pictures nice yeah and I can read it yes psych I love that let's obscure by the way I read all kinds of dogs just like they're sure like forgotten New York for example but atlas obscura is really cool i used it to find this place called dead horse Bay oh yeah that's like kind of on the southern tip of Brooklyn right by Coney Island it's on the way to this beach and basically it's this place where they used to have horse mills when they returned horse hooves into like glue and things like that yeah the the that's what HBO is a lucky yeah exactly but then like after they would uh you know grind up these horses is kind of disgusting yes the bones would wash up onto the surface of this beach right next to the factory and if you go there you can still find little like inches of bones and then also all kinds of like debris and bottles and old shoes and stuff for sure it's kind of cool and I found that on that lets obscure a while ago a really useful website on day trip yeah date first date you want a dead horse man oh dear it reminds me of like ever hear of like the weird brand like weird New Jersey that when I was growing up injured I mean I feel like it started when I was in high school but I never missed one of those quarterly issues it was always so strange and everything was in our backyard it was like oh check out this slaughterhouse and check out all these wacky places in New Jersey uh so yeah if you're into that sort of stuff this is totally in the same vein atlas Obscura yeah have you been a lot of the places on it's great you know what that's number one question people ask me because I'm writing about these places all our world and unfortunately I haven't I'm I'm blessed in that I have these good resources that the people that I work with have been to all these places so I wrote to them and I read books and I spend a lot of time at the library but I'm letting some insane things like it so you you were sort of professing this in the in the pre-show tell us some sort of wacky stuff that you're uncovering well I'm so many good dinner party stories these days um I'm on the Europe chapter at the moment okay and we have a lot of historical stuff that we put into the places as well so there's a museum in Budapest in Hungary called Semmelweis museum okay and it's named after this doctor who was around in the 1840s who worked at a maternity ward and he noticed that all the mothers tended to die after giving birth and he didn't know why and then he observed that the doctors who were delivering the babies had just come from the morgue where they had been conducting autopsies and so he proposed this wacky theory this strange revolutionary idea that people that the doctors ought to wash their hands oh my god after dealing with the corpses and before delivering babies and the medical community was outraged oh is that what are you crazy because it for germ theory and before I chair and everyone like what there's there's obviously nothing wrong with the way we've been doing you know Oh God and in some one row that's intend their junk yeah Wow Lisa and he was sort of ostracized from the medical community assurance he went a bit crazy and was writing these letters to them and ended up in an asylum where he died within two weeks of septicemia which is the very disease that he was trying to prevent oh sweet irony meet irony Wow well your hands wash your tennis and don't that this is a short ones I thought you might appreciate it sure back in the 18th century when there was no medical way of determining whether people had actually died or if they were just in a coma or something oh wow yeah they hold these methods to determine whether people were dead or not okay and one of them was that they would administer tobacco smoke enemas mmm using a sort of bellows gives new meaning to blowing smoke up your eyes exactly besides the the Thames River in London they used to have like these boxes filled with the the means for tobacco smoke enema so it was like break glass if death is suspected and jam fellers you weren't dead before someone did that I'm ya doing that would probably kill them yeah any-any revivals where purely coincidental I'm sure yeah sure wow that is super wacky Wow uh I have to ask this question from TY you told me to bring it up another creepy story from this universe it's something about eggs oh okay I I need to read up on the details of this because it's in Asia and I haven't gone to the age of chapter yet but Ron can you speak a little to it there is something called I believe it's in China and it's called little boy eggs and basically eggs that are marinated in children's urine what wait us and then sold and people consume them for their health mmm that's a baby get like this frothy bubbling super boys urine it's only boys I think it's only boys I think it might be a fertility thing I interesting is that saved like I people drink their inner that's true bear grylls does it all the time yeah he's the man yeah I've heard of the thousand-year-old egg or the right ten century your old egg um that's like vinegar though I think yeah you're anything might have been the origin of it a lot of potentially this is very very upsetting yeah wow that's so wacky I think that was our most popular shed people just people of there any drinking stories very much the click and there it's just one of those it's it's a timeless the timeless story oh here it is for the ages all right well let's take a break and digest some of that more with Ella Morton right after this on the 404 I'm just I thought I was gonna be hungry today no that turns out not so much we'll be right back this is the for only for mr effers the show where we all sing songs Sesame Street's quite a musical place everyone's always singing and dancing just do you get into the singing and dancing boy you meal of that yummy meal of it only place where where you can walk down the street and you feel like singing song you know and you go music the music start where it come from it's magic it is don't be nice ah wow this is some moose you've got going there oh my goodness is that the world family friends and feet from above making my choices and live in love come on oh okay cookie cookie start with c c is for cookie that good enough for me yeah that not entirely true ok give me meet me always eat cookies hydrant I'm nom nom nom nom nom nom you use this boy style welcome back to the 404 Ella Morton on the show today you can follow her on twitter at ella Morton please do that yeah you would like that wouldn't you I would love it we just watch a video a sort of a montage of you got to interview a lot of the puppets from from Sesame Street Muppets I will you just Jim Henson I know I know I'm gonna get my ass kicked by some Muppets uh so what was that like this that looks like it was a lot of fun it was pretty much the greatest work day ever yes we had been contacting Sesame Street for a long time because I really wanted to go there it's the Studios in Queens right here in New York and we've really wanted to go there and interview them but we thought well it's probably not going to happen sure but then it was their 40th anniversary and they decided to invite people in so we got to go and basically tore the set sources so i sat in big birds nests oh I got inside Oscars rubbish bin Norgaard yeah that's sick and we went to Hooper's store we sat on the stoop and I interviewed cookie monster and elmo right it's so cool let's watch a clip from the the cookie monster interview because it's hilarious we just showed a montage but here's a ella and uh and Cookie Monster it's hilarious let's check it out style well young niggas sole you use this voice it's kind of like a bit of um nom nom nom nom nom let me see when me cooking me I'm numb me do do that yes yes know what you're talking about a lot of people are using this omnomnomnomnom when they talk about wanting something that's delicious I don't know me me me um num num no no yes from you the actual I'm num num num down yes why me not get royalties on this because you're my attorney on that this this distinctive cookie eating it's pretty good that's so the video is unbelievable will link to in our show notes today I just I can't stress enough how awesome it they I feel like the older you get the funnier those Muppets are yeah well it works on so many layers like for sure key monsters been on colbert right and you know he talks about like political issues Kermit was on the other night talking about the Republican race right it's amazing yeah and but even though I knew that there was a human person operating cookie monster and elmo right I still just talk to them up it right it wasn't as making eyes yeah it's because it there's something that's so compelling assure yeah I wanted to also ask you about the workshop to her that you took you were kind of talking about it in the pre-show but I just went to the jim henson exhibit up at the Museum of moving image and it kind of showed some of the workshop pieces like a lot of the googly eyes and the felt material they would use but were you able to walk around and kind of see the puppet builders you know what they actually have a policy where visitors aren't allowed to see Muppets unless they are being operated they don't want to destroy the illusion sure because they get a lot of children coming to the set that would traumatize again and I don't see like you know some ping-pong ball eyes unless afternoon across what about a lifeless Elmo kid right ya know for sure I feel like they they really do protect that cast they yeah you know and like you said it was so tough to even get access you know they really they're sort of like almost disney-esque when it comes to that but it's such when you're there it's such a good environment sure all the puppeteers have been working there for such a long time it is like they have this little close-knit family right we got to watch an episode being filmed that's cool and everyone's just so laid back that's really awesome I want to live there yeah I mean what could be wrong what could be bad about that that's pretty awesome um so we talked all about Ella in your career and you don't have to come back by the way this is always a lot of fun okay we I'm not gonna beat around the bush any longer there's something I want to talk about that we have to bring up you know just because I feel like we'd be doing our show and in just its anna jarvis everyone in the chat room sit down so i'm looking at my notes here and part of your career includes the occupation maybe still does of being a burlesque dancer is that yes that your are you still doing that yes I'm where are you doing under a different name of course and uh I I'm not gonna give out the name because people can find it they said hoddan yeah if they really wanted to unearth it I think it would be yes unearthed table but it's definitely it's something that I kept secret I get hurt for a long time because I felt like I don't know I mean I when I was on rocketboom especially i thought well i don't know if i want pictures out there on the internet and you know i'm doing a show that's meant to be family friendly and um when I talk to my boss about it though he said oh I don't care go for it have fun sweet yeah but I do still I I maintains it a separate you do identities that seems really cool how is that tough to balance on the end especially on the internet being an internet personality definitely um I'm getting less concerned about it I don't think people maybe care as much as I thought they did right well you know if we would imagine the Internet is a very progressive sort of environment and people can do whatever the hell I want that's pretty awesome are you doing that for a while then um I've been I started out doing Go Go which is um it's when you dance before the main burlesque acts sure maybe remember like in the 60s the girls in the cages yeah sure yes they had like Goldie Hawn was painted with peace signs rotary absolutely yes it's just basically good guy okay so go go proceeds burlesque it's it's generally used as a warm-up to the manor it's like the farm team I thought that is like oh like uh not major leagues like the the one below that it's like an opening act hey any sports analogy is lost on me yeah me too like the opening band The Oprah okay and pearl if Burrell s is the headliner gogo is supporting okay it tends to be done during the break between acts so what does that involve specifically um dancing sometimes on ba sometimes on a stage and people come up and put em on each others in your shimmy belt in your shimmy bill yeah but it's worth it to note that there is a belt though right I mean burlesque isn't always necessarily nude there's no a lot of cost well in New York burlesque you're in the allowed to strip down to pasties and a g-string okay Wow according to law it's actually illegal if you're in a place that serves alcohol to show show your nipples yeah wait a minute I know a lot of places that are breaking the law it depends it depends on license if it's a theater then technically it's art yeah right I got you so that's the that's the discrepancy yeah that's the difference is that someone's banging the Georgian swung open like 15 people to smile into the road okay we're not done with the dog so I'm more as a curiosity to sort of thing so if you're if you're dancing in a burlesque house where is that guy tends to be but I mean there are some specialized venues like the slipper room yeah okay yeah I've heard of that in there yeah you've been there I'm not gonna lie i've been to my fair share of burlesque shows there are a lot of fun to go we're sure groups are friends i think slipper rooms like on orchard and stanton oh yeah very specific cool and I think um like I never realized how much humor is involved yeah for sure I'm DIY and creates a video really it's like an improv a sort of situation too isn't it it's very it's the reminds me of roller derby in that it's very um people tend to produce their own shows they make their own costumes they come up with a bunch of stuff by themselves it's not like you're just buying something off a rack right right marionette it's a lot of creativity involved there's a lot of humor and parody sure the word burlesque actually means like making fun of something right I get a parody of something same so that's so how long have you been doing this um it actually began because I started writing for a burlesque magazine back in Sydney well okay is that popular in Australia burlesque is yeah yeah um and I'd always been there's kind of a crossover in the burlesque community between like the pin-up aesthetic and fifties fashion jerseys and rockabilly so I was always always interested in that and because you do have that sort of like style going on for sure yeah no absolutely it's awesome um so uh so you still so now we were talking about the the difference between burlesque and perhaps we'll retirement for like I like almost like a strip clubs worth yeah people ask that all the time and a lot of Bella stances like some get really offended at the idea of being compared to stripper course some say well by definition I am a stripper huh um but there's an empowerment aspect to it oh yeah yeah well like when with burlesque performers it's sort of like you're sharing an experience with the audio right and it's a jerk that you share as I don't want to speak for all strip clubs always do but it just it the few times I've ever been to a strip club it just seems like there's a very big separation between audience and performer and I mean I wouldn't know i've ever been to us know your you want anyway i don't read about it all you've seen on TV writing know you're a hundred percent right absolutely it's uh it's a much less uh I for and correct me if I'm wrong in describing it this way birla seems to be a much more humanized experience right yeah as opposed to the client customer yes situation at a strip establishment and audiences that burlesque shows tend to be more depends on the venue but a lot of them are like fifty percent women yeah for sure do you still get some creepy older dude in the back just kind of lurking around staring leering guy that happen at once in a while sometimes yeah I would hmm but the thing is it's it's such a it's such a scene like the same people tend to come out to shows that that wouldn't be tolerated it would that person would feel very out of place right for sure I think if they were looking to get their jollies they wouldn't come to a burlesque show because it's not that kind of experience right you know what you're getting yeah they're which is awesome what uh have you ever been to one in like Vegas I went to forty deuce when I was at CES oh nice okay I went I oh that's it's all coming back to me yeah I remember hanging out with Tywin dan he's like hey I'm going to see my friend out of burlesque show that was probably me and I'm like okay I just saw just let that go it was it was like Jake me with just like all right bro see you later yeah didn't didn't process that information well that's really cool um that's that's that's awesome is there a type of music that you prefer to dance to i went to this one that was I think was based on the Sex Pistols I was called god save the queen it was so cool but I'd like that different dancers either choose like the 60s route or like a rockabilly type music is with a funk yeah there's classic Berlusconi's neo-burlesque and near can be any kind of music like you can dance to like rap or R&B yeah I I love there's a song by The Black Keys called psychotic girl yeah I love dancing to that all right there might peek at the moment I Spotify yeah google the information all right that's really cool very very awesome Oh almost I don't think I've ever talked about specifically this on any publicly I'm glad we could be the first to sort of deliver that good enough there is no no no how did it go it is fine i knows i think we did a great job shredding around that you know will you talked about it on your podcast I think ideas ago but I serve talks about it in theory though okay okay tell can you tell us more about that sure that's called ellipses right ellipses yeah sure I started this when I was in between after the record that a book came out and when I was about to do atlas oh and I just I used to write a blog called sprinkle of ginger hmm and it talked about creativity and writing and procrastinating and being redheaded yeah well then I think it was a mistake to tie my blog into my heck yeah I died of talk a bit um I because I right so much for my job I kind of get home I don't want to write anymore but I'm happy to talk to people and interview people hmm so I started this podcast called ellipses and i called it ellipses because what's a tie into my name Ella the deeper meaning is there which is that you know ellipsis is of course the three dots okay and it sort of means like a something that is acknowledged but not said okay right implied yeah sure so I like to take things that people think and bring them out into the open and talk about them nice so I've I've done 10 episodes so far and I've interviewed writers comedians burlesque performer my friend alejandro who used to be a comic book editor at marvel oh wow that's awesome so it's a pretty diverse mix and we talked about you know frustrations of working in creative field sure and that sort of thing I I think it's funny ish and embroidery cool very cool and you said you you don't necessarily stick to cert a schedule with the lipstick but well this is where in failing i initially to be weekly but I quickly realized that that was perhaps over-ambitious right and I knees get a better microphone yeah I want one of these yeah please don't work out well you know I wanted this well that's very cool Rick where can people check out ellipses that is that ellipsis so ll IP sis podcast com sweet all right we'll go check that out and you're a personal website you want to plug that real quick before we have to get out of here yeah sure I may as well go through the whole gamut yeah let's do it Twitter yeah twitter twitter will lead you everywhere everywhere else twitter.com / l emotion excellent Oh check it out there's a little screenshot of that add her Ella it's been so much fun you have to come back I would love to get this was fantastic I'm loving being back at the bosom of Cena there you go we need more alma mater this do we do we're keeping it real uh thanks again to Ella please give us a call 866 404 cnet it's going to do it for us today if you want to email us the 404 @ sina sina sina com friday it's friday i had the l a-- on the brain i'm still thinking about this whole dancing situation yeah well do more research on that yeah I don't know this is excited about that though we'll be back monday next week we do have some guests lined up we'll tell you about that on Monday it's gonna be a lot of fun and once again huge awesome thanks alla morte yeah thank you she will be back and we will chew on Monday we'll see you then I'm Jeff Bakalar time Justin you it's the 404 high-tech lowbrow have a great weekend we'll see you bright and early Monday at noon bye bye