The band OK Go is getting quite a reputation as video artists. (And when was the last time you could say that about anyone? Back in the Peter Gabriel “Sledgehammer” days?)

Here’s their latest — a clever update of Rube Goldberg. The song isn’t much, but the video is astonishing. Note this: It’s all one long shot. Clever — and impressive!

On Tuesday night, I’ll be eating for a good cause.

No, this isn’t one of those disgusting eating competitions (which make me want to throw up). Quite the opposite. A friend of mine who owns an eatery here in Burbank is celebrating the restaurant’s 10th anniversary by donating the night’s proceeds to the local YMCA’s healthy families campaign.

The restaurant is Picanha Churrascaria. It’s a Brazilian barbecue, and it’s terrific. There’s a reason why, when  friends come to town, they ask me, “Can we go to Picanha?”  Here’s info on the event. Thirty-five bucks gets you a fantastic dinner, and helps the local YMCA spread healthy lifestyles to local families.

Hope to see you there. (And it looks like I’m the emcee of this thing.)

In which a doppelganger of Mr. Herzog reveals the chaos underlying a children’s classic.

Hey, look! Jerry Brown is actually running for governor. Now it’s fair game for him to actually ask me for support. Plus, he made the announcement while there’s still snow on the Sierras.

I have to say, I like the message in his announcement video very much. And I look forward to the specifics.

A sassy gay friend.

The simplification movement has given us advice like this:

The Problem

E-mail takes too long to respond to, resulting in continuous inbox overflow for those who receive a lot of it.

The Solution

Treat all email responses like SMS text messages, using a set number of letters per response. Since it’s too hard to count letters, we count sentences instead.

two.sentenc.es is a personal policy that all email responses regardless of recipient or subject will be two sentences or less. It’s that simple.

That’s potentially great. It’s also potentially disastrous. English, like most languages, requires nuance. If your email message is regarding something more elaborate than, say, “Good. See you there,” it’s not  done well in two sentences. Moreover, writing well while writing short is difficult — in many cases, it would take you more time to answer shorter.

I also can’t help pointing out that this bit of communications advice commits an error:  They mean to say “two sentences or fewer,” not “less.” If you’re going to be brief, at least be right.

My friend Doug Hackney digs through the finances of retiring Congressmen and finds that it wasn’t just AIG and Goldman Sachs who got enriched by the government.

How Twitter is starting to scare the pants off everyone who does customer service — to your benefit.

Maybe there’s a reason they’re called killer whales.

In honor of your 55th birthday, here’s a loving tribute from another cultural icon.