Vitamin Hamilton

September 5, 2008 10:40 PM

Apparently, this kind of thing happens all the time in Hamilton, Ontario.
posted by philip-random (94 comments total)

Or Guelph, or Toronto, or...well, basically anywhere but Windsor, where an archaic bylaw allows vigilantes to shoot dancers with crossbows.
posted by Schlimmbesserung at 10:44 PM on September 5, 2008 [14 favorites]

All the time, and to such good music?!

Well, I do go to Canada all the time and the radio there (while sadly commercialized since my high school and university days there) is far better than here (the US).

Anyway, if this was the US, we'd likely see this interrupted with him getting tasered by a bunch of bulky, crew-cut-wearing security thugs.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 10:50 PM on September 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

What? Someone films a grocery store aisle and then greenscreens themselves dancing around the shoppers? Nice reflection effect, but the boundary pixels gave you away, especially when you danced next to other shoppers in black. Different video cameras produce visibly different images, and even the same video camera with different light levels, and they don't always mesh so well, even when run thru a nice video compositing program. Now you must dance in shame.
posted by Slap*Happy at 10:57 PM on September 5, 2008 [4 favorites]

I'm pretty sure this kind of thing really does happen all the time in LA.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 11:04 PM on September 5, 2008

They play Can in the grocery store? What a magical place!
posted by louche mustachio at 11:05 PM on September 5, 2008 [3 favorites]

Guy dancing to Astral Plane in none other than Hamilton, Ontario.

The video reminded me of this one, which I saw months ago, but had no idea that it was from the same place.

Weird.
posted by clearly at 11:12 PM on September 5, 2008

On closer inspection, it is from the same YouTube user: dipsetmuthafucka.

The guys got moves.
posted by clearly at 11:14 PM on September 5, 2008

What? Someone films a grocery store aisle and then greenscreens themselves dancing around the shoppers?

My irony metre isn't on, so my apologies if you are making a joke. But I'm pretty sure it's low budget enough that he's just dancing in the grocery store. Some people react; the rest do the proper Canadian thing and quietly ignore him.
posted by jb at 11:17 PM on September 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

I'm pretty sure this kind of thing really does happen all the time in LA.

And in 19th Century London.
posted by philip-random at 11:18 PM on September 5, 2008 [6 favorites]

clearly
posted by b1tr0t at 11:18 PM on September 5, 2008

b1tr0t
posted by clearly at 11:30 PM on September 5, 2008 [11 favorites]

The only people who react are the guys in the beginning, who are in on it. Serious, watch the shoes. Unless the thin, black rubber soles of his sneakers grow and shrink an eighth of an inch at a time at random... =front and back=... it's a greenscreen. Also watch his arms in relation to the shelves. Perspective is off. My old View Camera eye has me reaching for the yaw adjustment when I see that.

In this day and age, all it needs is a Mac Book Pro and some warez'd software to do this sort of thing. A bigger budget would have smoothed out the edges.
posted by Slap*Happy at 11:33 PM on September 5, 2008

Woah, can you believe it? Baked beans are only $1.09!
posted by subgear at 11:41 PM on September 5, 2008 [3 favorites]

dancing in the grocery store aisle is not just a good idea - it's the law.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 12:19 AM on September 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

Serious, watch the shoes. Unless the thin, black rubber soles of his sneakers grow and shrink an eighth of an inch at a time at random... =front and back=... it's a greenscreen.

Why are there always people on this site who simply refuse to believe anything?? Are you so afraid of being wrong that you have to maintain sceptical distance all the time? This I imagine, is a rather jaded, grey experience of the world

Would it be sooo unbelievable that a guy goes and dances in a supermarket?? Wouldn't that be considerably easier than doing all the greenscreen bollocks you are talking about?

/shackles
posted by leibniz at 12:26 AM on September 6, 2008 [3 favorites]

Slappy, check out everybody's reflections in the floor.

This is a video of a guy dancing in a supermarket.
posted by longsleeves at 12:37 AM on September 6, 2008

Man, I'm in BC and I see this kind of thing all the time. Went shopping today, had to push my cart around two hip-hoppers, a mime, and a lost relic of the 60s who was flapping around the natural foods aisle. Greenscreen? I wish!
posted by CCBC at 12:46 AM on September 6, 2008 [11 favorites]

If this was done with a greenscreen, where's John McCain?
posted by wendell at 12:48 AM on September 6, 2008 [2 favorites]

Please, please. A one day moratorium on all things YouTube on MeFi. Am I the only one who is sick of this banal garbage?
posted by shockingbluamp at 12:57 AM on September 6, 2008 [4 favorites]

Banal garbage? I thought it was kind of cool.
posted by dunkadunc at 1:04 AM on September 6, 2008

More (but different) grocery antics
posted by marlys at 1:08 AM on September 6, 2008

Please, guys. Obviously this guy danced in front of a green screen, got two men and a child to look at the spot where he was supposed to be, used some fancy software to meticulously add his reflection to the floor; and did the same thing, with even more audience reaction and elaborate effects to blend him into the scene in a wide variety of other fake settings that he posted on his YouTube channel.

OR HE JUST WENT TO A FUCKING GROCERY STORE AND DANCED.

Slappy, what kind of sad world do you live in that this is so outrageous it has to be digitally faked?
posted by Roman Graves at 1:09 AM on September 6, 2008 [7 favorites]

for bonus points, i'd like to see him on the other side of the checkout dancing to this:

what have you got in that paper bag?
is it a dose of vitamin c?
ain't got no time for western medicine.
i am damo suzuki.
posted by UbuRoivas at 1:51 AM on September 6, 2008 [2 favorites]

As a guy who actually likes to dance, this is cool. However, buddy seems to be dancing to his own beat half the time. The moves bear little relation to the music or rhythm. My opinion. I still think it's cool but it'd be even cooler if he related his motion to the music a bit more.
posted by autodidact at 2:14 AM on September 6, 2008

Maybe the sync is a bit off when he lays in the non-diegetic sound...
posted by autodidact at 2:15 AM on September 6, 2008

The incredibly harsh lighting, gleaming floor, odd perspective, weird parallax, and short focal length all make the video seem composited.

But it's not composited. You don't do that when you upload a dance video every day for a year.
posted by blasdelf at 2:18 AM on September 6, 2008 [2 favorites]

This kind of thing happens all the time in Britain.
posted by pinkbuttonanus at 2:58 AM on September 6, 2008

He has long legs.
posted by asok at 3:16 AM on September 6, 2008

New Yorkers, note that outside of your city, the grocery stores have aisles big enough to dance in!
posted by Faze at 4:48 AM on September 6, 2008 [6 favorites]

I call #8 on the skeptics.
posted by nímwunnan at 5:22 AM on September 6, 2008

''That's a vitamin pill with legs.'' (great song and keeping in context of spontaneous busting out the moves, worth watching to see the soldiers dancing at 1:31)
posted by nickyskye at 6:01 AM on September 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

nimwunnan beat me to it.
posted by Navelgazer at 6:10 AM on September 6, 2008

I think this guy's dancing is wonderful, joyous, playful and very watchable. First thought, "Bet he's good in bed." Second thought, "That must have been so aggraving to shoppers it's surprising he wasn't conked in the noggin' with a well aimed can of Campbell's."

Among the other thoughts that followed was the recognition when I listen to music, wherever it is, I want to burst into dancing and wish I or other people didn't repress that joyous urge, an antidote to the #8 mindset.

non-diegetic sound

Learned a cool new word, diagetic. Thanks.
posted by nickyskye at 6:16 AM on September 6, 2008

Please, guys. Obviously this guy danced in front of a green screen, got two men and a child to look at the spot where he was supposed to be, used some fancy software to meticulously add his reflection to the floor; and did the same thing, with even more audience reaction and elaborate effects to blend him into the scene in a wide variety of other fake settings that he posted on his YouTube channel.

OR HE JUST WENT TO A FUCKING GROCERY STORE AND DANCED.

Slappy, what kind of sad world do you live in that this is so outrageous it has to be digitally faked?

You've got it backwards. The guy obviously danced in the store, in empty aisles (I've shopped at Fontinos in Hamilton; that's far more traffic than I've ever seen), THEN edited in the people with shopping carts that he filmed in front of McCain's green screen in St. Paul, just last week.

Clearly.
posted by beelzbubba at 6:18 AM on September 6, 2008

He does seem to have access to a green screen.
posted by dotComrade at 6:25 AM on September 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

IANAVideoEditor but at the beginning of the video, a woman walks in front of the dancer and you can see mr. dancer thru her shopping cart. To do that in a composite shot (with your basic video editing software), you either video the woman in front of a green screen and add her to the static shot or you hand create a matte, frame-by-frame, around the each little hole in the cart to allow the dancer to be seen behind something in the static shot.

I'm guessing it's not a composite shot.
posted by sexymofo at 6:29 AM on September 6, 2008 [2 favorites]

The volleying with Mr. Slap Happy there really takes me back. You see, in the olden days on the Internet, we had these things called trolls...
posted by CheeseburgerBrown at 6:31 AM on September 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

Yeah, this is obviously 'shoppedfilmed in front of a green screen and composited - I can tell by the pixels.

Also, the moon landings were faked - obviously, because there IS no moon - and 9/11 was an inside job.
posted by kcds at 6:36 AM on September 6, 2008

That green screen was obviously green screened in.
posted by brevator at 6:36 AM on September 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

There's all kinds of great rhythms coming out of Hamilton, Ontario.

This was fun, and so are the guy's other videos. Thanks!
posted by chihiro at 6:59 AM on September 6, 2008

Slap*Happy was being sarcastic, I can tell by the letters.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 7:03 AM on September 6, 2008

It's nice that there's dancing and video-making going on in Hamilton... cos since the North American steel market is in decline, there's precious little else for people to be doing there.

(speaking as former resident)

Also, Hamilton is still quite livable, if you can find work, and Fortino's was always a decent store.
posted by Artful Codger at 7:06 AM on September 6, 2008

How come we don't get this in Toronto supermarkets, damn it? I remember his Astral Plane one, too, and wondered if it was the same guy when I started watching this one (thanks for the confirmation, clearly).

And this is how the year ended (music and good stuff starts at 30 seconds ...).

Oh -- and thanks for that link, nickyskye. I didn't know that Betty Hutton was the original performer of Blow a Fuse, which Bjork covered as It's Oh So Quiet. Wow. (And here's Hutton's obit post from last year. Damn, missed that completely.)
posted by maudlin at 7:09 AM on September 6, 2008

That guy is under the impression that he's a much better dancer than he actually is.
posted by penduluum at 7:11 AM on September 6, 2008

the condensed version of his (then half-) year in dancing. Also, thanks to that guy, I found this, my introduction to the Remains. Fun times!
posted by chrominance at 7:20 AM on September 6, 2008

Oh, and why are people so primed to assume things are green-screened, 'shopped or otherwise faked? I found this a while back (and posted about it here), and the insistence that this art was faked still astounds me.
posted by maudlin at 7:24 AM on September 6, 2008

It's totally fucking animated, people.
posted by Astro Zombie at 7:24 AM on September 6, 2008

Around here, every six months or so the supermarkets get their floors hot waxed. Now this is not your normal Mop n' Glow type of waxing I'm talking about, but machines the size of a small Zamboni laying down and polishing fleshly melted solid wax on each and every aisle. Wonderfully smooth surface and great for dancing.
posted by BlueMetal at 7:26 AM on September 6, 2008

It's not composited. You don't do that when you upload a dance video every day for a year.

Especially not when you are so tiny. (Watch video from around 0:55 to the end).
posted by ManInSuit at 7:55 AM on September 6, 2008

I don't think that this was composited. I agree that it would be a silly thing to do, considering how easy the alternative would be. I also agree that getting this level of quality would be fairly difficult.

However, I do want to point out that that Slap*Happy never claimed disbelief for the premise as evidence for his opinion. I can't even tell if he's serious, but his claim seems based on specific artifacts in the video that he cites as evidence for editing. I don't see what he's claiming here, but he never calls the fact that a guy is dancing in a supermarket "unbelievable". If you're going to jump on his case (or bite at a troll's bait), at least do it like blasdelf and sexymofo, who are countering his claim on its own terms.
posted by ErWenn at 8:32 AM on September 6, 2008

SIGH

*waits for Big Pharma to invent a dance supplement*
posted by everichon at 8:39 AM on September 6, 2008

This is just ridiculous. Everybody in Toronto knows Hamilton doesn't exist. Parents just use it scare children. Mind you the last time I was in Hogtown and looked at the CN Tower I thought the perspective was off and declared it a fake.
posted by srboisvert at 9:09 AM on September 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

i like this and this and this
posted by pyramid termite at 9:18 AM on September 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

I'm pretty sure this kind of thing really does happen all the time in LA.

Only in Westwood.

If this really does happen all the time in Ontario, what happens in Regina? I'll have to consult with some people.
posted by giraffe at 9:20 AM on September 6, 2008

Hell yeah, Hamilton represent!!
posted by the dief at 9:22 AM on September 6, 2008

Batman grocery shopping
posted by growli at 9:29 AM on September 6, 2008

It saddens me that there are people who can't tell this is green-screened.

It disgusts me that there are people who think there is something wrong with calling that out.

Let me guess - you also don't like science because it destroys the mystery of the universe. You think it is cute when a six year old still believes in Santa Claus. You think Creationism deserves consideration in science classrooms. You watch Ghost Hunters and wear magnets as jewelry. I bet you even buy Monster cables.
posted by 0xdeadc0de at 9:33 AM on September 6, 2008

If you like this kind of thing (and really, who doesn't?) check out the original dancing-in-random-places guy: DaveyDanceBlog. My personal favorite.
posted by saraswati at 10:03 AM on September 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

This is ridiculous, and I'm assuming the comment above this is sarcasm but--

it could be fake. Don't think so, but COULD be composited. But "green screened??" People stand in FRONT of a green screen. They usually cut off the person's feet to hide that they're standing on a different surface. Not only do we see this guy's feet, people walk in front of and around him! At least get the terminology straight.

Of course the music must have been added later, that's why he doesn't really dance TO the music, but I'm convinced he did actually go to the store and dance.
posted by drjimmy11 at 10:05 AM on September 6, 2008

(the comment two above me that is, by 0xdeadc0de)
posted by drjimmy11 at 10:05 AM on September 6, 2008

I feel like I've seen dozens of this guy's videos. He's a minor celebrity for these things--the first ones I saw, he was dancing in a small record store. All these videos are on youtube, as someone mentioned above. The guy simply likes to dance, and is not embarrassed to do it in public. There is no green screen, it is not composited. People are clearly walking around him, you can see his reflection on the floor, and his feet look no different than anyone else's. It's just a guy dancing in a supermarket. And people are reacting just as I would--go about your business, and don't make eye contact with the crazy dancing guy.
posted by Hoopo at 10:30 AM on September 6, 2008

My cousin works at that Fortino's.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:32 AM on September 6, 2008

I'm amazed at the effectiveness of such a simple troll on Metafilter. It's like being on slashdot ten years ago.
posted by CaseyB at 10:52 AM on September 6, 2008

Second thought, "That must have been so aggraving to shoppers it's surprising he wasn't conked in the noggin' with a well aimed can of Campbell's."

That's really sad. Why would you think that?

It's a guy enjoying the simple pleasure of dancing. He's careful to get out of everyone's way, and is bothering no one. How is that offensive? Even on the uptight asshole that-guy-is-different-and-therefore-bad scale, it's pretty mild.

I like to think I would have boogied with him a bit if I walked by him while shopping, but I probably would have just smirked and kept walking with my fellow Canadians.
posted by CaseyB at 11:05 AM on September 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

"That must have been so aggraving to shoppers it's surprising he wasn't conked in the noggin' with a well aimed can of Campbell's."

We're Canadian. The most aggressive response would have been quiet mutterings about writing a strongly-worded letter to the manager.

I didn't know that Betty Hutton was the original performer of Blow a Fuse , which Bjork covered as It's Oh So Quiet.

I had no idea it was a cover. Wow.

It saddens me that there are people who can't tell this is green-screened.

See here:

IANAVideoEditor but at the beginning of the video, a woman walks in front of the dancer and you can see mr. dancer thru her shopping cart. To do that in a composite shot (with your basic video editing software), you either video the woman in front of a green screen and add her to the static shot or you hand create a matte, frame-by-frame, around the each little hole in the cart to allow the dancer to be seen behind something in the static shot.

The shopping cart is at about 0:20, btw.

Occam:

Simple answer: he danced in a freakin' supermarket and added music later

Complex: he spent an insane amount of time editing a shot made with a low-def camera to make it look like he danced there, not to mention carefully working out the choreography so as not to intersect anyone, not to mention the difficulty of standing in a supermarket with a video camera filming nothing for a few minutes, or the reflection in the floor, or the item he puts back on the shelf, or the camera being shaken (and him with it) right before Shopping Cart Lady.

Shall I go on?

It disgusts me that there are people who think there is something wrong with calling that out.

There's nothing wrong with calling it out... if it's correct. Seeing as it's not, well..

Let me guess - you also don't like science because it destroys the mystery of the universe. You think it is cute when a six year old still believes in Santa Claus. You think Creationism deserves consideration in science classrooms. You watch Ghost Hunters and wear magnets as jewelry. I bet you even buy Monster cables.

Oh looky, strawmen! I needed some fuel...

BARBECUE! GET YOUR PIPING HOT TROLL BARBECUE RIGHT HERE!
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 11:24 AM on September 6, 2008

(I've shopped at Fontinos in Hamilton; that's far more traffic than I've ever seen)

That's not my experience, especially at the Mall Road & Dundurn locations, at any hour they're pretty busy. I heart Fortino's, mostly for their roast chickens and Carlo (at Mall Rd) who makes the best $2.50 latte ever.

there's precious little else for people to be doing there.

(speaking as former resident)

As a former resident who spends as many weekends and days off in Hamilton as I can (typing at you from The Hammer right now), I respectfully disagree. There's lots of fun music & food festivals throughout the summer, there's incredible nature walking @ Princess Point & other conservation areas (there's 2662 acres of parkland at 310 locations, 1356 acres of natural areas at 32 locations, and 137 kilometres of trails), there's the RBG, there's a vibrant live theatre (pro & community) and music scene (esp jazz), you can spend the day hiking, biking, sailing, and fishing at the Harbourfront park, canoeing, rowing or swimming at Christie Lake or 50 Point. You can skateboard at Beasley Park and there's a bunch of inline skating trails too. The Art Gallery of Hamilton has wonderful exhibits every year, excellent lectures & teas, and is incredibly affordable, there are 14 museums that cover everything from castles, to football, to warplanes. I could really go on forever, and provide links but then I'd be heading into FPP territory and I refuse to go there, lol. It's just so silly to say or assume that there's nothing to do in a 162 year old city that has aprox. 692,911 residents.
posted by zarah at 11:34 AM on September 6, 2008

Yeah, but apart from the parks, the hiking trails, the biking, rowing, canoeing, fishing, swimming, skateboarding, sailing, live theatre and music (especially jazz), art galleries and museums, what did the Romans ever do for Hamilton?
posted by Brockles at 11:40 AM on September 6, 2008

Uhm, hehe, yah...

I was gonna just point out all the reasons why that video is real, but got sidetracked by a pet peeve of mine - I generally ignore it when Torontonians say stupid stuff about Hamilton (which isn't even my hometown, T.O. is) because they seem to need the ego boost it gives them, but it really aggravates when a Hamiltonian (former or otherwise) does.
posted by zarah at 11:53 AM on September 6, 2008

You know what I love about this video? The baggy snowjackets and loose-jeans-tucked-into-snowboots that all Ontario moms go grocery shopping in in the dead of winter. This guy dances while everyone else trudges. Hurray for winter!
posted by bicyclefish at 12:10 PM on September 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

"That must have been so aggraving to shoppers it's surprising he wasn't conked in the noggin' with a well aimed can of Campbell's."

Lol, can't spell aggravating. That's what I get for commenting before coffee.

That's really sad. Why would you think that?

Guess it's because he's not honoring the simple function of adult grocery shopping and turned it into a venue/stage for him playing around and being filmed while doing it, a performance art piece that's not convenient for the people making serious decisions, like should they buy chicken noodle or split pea. That and one person is taking up half the aisle filming and the dancer, Mike, is taking up the other half of the aisle, in what is obviously a busy market.

Maybe the grumpy, old fart, part of my brain took over a second, after the he's hawt thought part. But it was just a passing thought. The hawt part and that's looks fun and joyous endured longer.
posted by nickyskye at 12:42 PM on September 6, 2008

Best argument in favour of the alleged TROLLS out there. Their actions put me in touch with this for which I shall be forever thankful. And to think it could not have happened were it not for beautiful Hamilton, Ontario.
posted by philip-random at 12:49 PM on September 6, 2008

Well, I'm curious now, too. The perspective does look a little funny when he moves closer to and further away from the camera... So I emailed him. I'll let you all know if he responds.
posted by BeerFilter at 12:54 PM on September 6, 2008

I shop at that Fortino's once a week or so. I've never seen someone dancing in the aisles, though. So, obviously greenscreened.

Another argument for greenscreening is that everyone knows that the crazy Hamilton random dancers do so to supremely loud techno at 2AM on Friday morning in the parking lot outside my downtown condo, not in the grocery stores I frequent. Fake.
posted by Cyrie at 1:39 PM on September 6, 2008

I think what more accurately happens every day around the world is this:

awkward hipster fanboi awkwardly dances in his head to the awkward hipster drivel playing in his iPod.

I would ignore him too, but only to avoid making eye contact with someone who thinks that both his skills and music warrant my attention.
posted by TomMelee at 1:51 PM on September 6, 2008

Oh man, Tom, that's a depressing reaction to Mike's project. I would say that when it comes to Ontarians not stopping to watch, it's less ignoring a person and more just going about your own business and letting others go about theirs. Live and let dance, as it were.
posted by zarah at 2:47 PM on September 6, 2008

A couple thoughts:

First, this wasn't necessarily the only three and a half minutes he spent dancing. It's possible that the first six times he tried it people interrupted him, bumped him, danced with him, or whatever, and he took the take that had the least reaction.

Second, while certainly anything can be composited these days, I'd find it easier to believe that he got a whole bunch of his friends to pretend to shop in a closed grocery store and mostly ignore him than that he took the trouble to do a composite with the aforementioned shopping cart and people going around the place where he isn't and a studio with a slick enough floor to do his little slide and so forth.
posted by lore at 2:56 PM on September 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

Who cares if he green screened or not. It looks real enough and it's only meant to entertain anyway.

I likes it, I likes it a lots.
posted by P.o.B. at 3:02 PM on September 6, 2008

Can I just say how proud I am that it took all the way until TomMelee's comment for the hipster hate to start in this thread.
posted by brevator at 3:08 PM on September 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

Your favorite hipster dance video sucks.

Hmph.
posted by Samizdata at 3:21 PM on September 6, 2008

79 comments and not one of you wondered if that was a can of okra he picked up
posted by neustile at 3:49 PM on September 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

Wow, grocery store aisles are really wide in Canada.
posted by endquote at 4:49 PM on September 6, 2008

I like how schlimbesserung immediately thought of Guelph. People do all kinds of stuff like this around here. There's even a university-sponsored flash mob club that periodically chases people around and films it.
posted by tehloki at 5:06 PM on September 6, 2008

I did my undergrad at Guelph, tehloki. It's a festival of silly.

I was definitely at the flash-mob pillow fight. Also a few of the more creative protests. Heck, there was even that time a guy crashed my ZOO*1500 class in a gorilla suit and did a Brass Monkey dance routine. In any other town, he'd be hauled out by cops. In Guelph? There was a question about him on the course final.
posted by Schlimmbesserung at 5:59 PM on September 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

@Brevator

Call it a lame attempt at pseudo-serious sarcasm. I don't hate on hipsters, I was being over the top.

However, you don't think he's trying...just a little...too hard? I mean, now not only can you *act* like you feel out of place, but you can greenscreen yourself into a scene (or do it for real, whatevs) specifically to look out of place.

"Look at me, I'm so trendy" is the new "Look at me, I'm so goth" is the new "Look at me, I'm so punk." "My antifashion is the new fashion." And whatnot.

I say that having been the "Punk's not dead!" kid in 1996.
posted by TomMelee at 6:08 PM on September 6, 2008

I don't know if it's fake or real, but if I see somebody doing something weird in the store, I often go around them and done make eye contact. It is definitely something that could happen here in Expensive Oreganoland, and the person isn't going to get taken down, at least not in 3 minutes, if you choose the right stores.
posted by Listener at 9:41 PM on September 6, 2008

This struck me as being greenscreened, at first, but the reflections in the floor convince me that it's real. Also, skinny jeans on skinny legs are hawt!
posted by exquisite_deluxe at 10:22 PM on September 6, 2008

I did my undergrad at Guelph, tehloki. It's a festival of silly.

Me too. We were the ones that caused all campus drinking restrictions by falling down stairs and dying. Good times.
posted by srboisvert at 5:21 AM on September 7, 2008

Clearly we need to have a Hamilton meetup at this grocery store, and invite this fellow to dance for us.
posted by Popular Ethics at 8:17 AM on September 7, 2008 [1 favorite]

(me) > ...there's precious little else for people to be doing there.(speaking as former resident)

zarah > As a former resident who spends as many weekends and days off in Hamilton as I can (typing at you from The Hammer right now), I respectfully disagree. [followed by big FPP-worthy list]

My apologies for a poorly-worded comment. I meant to imply that there was a lack of employment opportunities in Hamilton, not that there was nothing fun to do.

I share your opinion that there's lots to see and do in Hamilton. In my 8 years there I visited most of the parks, climbed the escarpment staircases, hung out at the Festival of Friends and hit the Winona Peach Festival, learned to windsurf at Confederation Park and Binbrook Conservation Area, scarfed hotdogs at Easterbrooks, fish & chips at Hutches, ice-cream at Stoney Creek Dairy. I had my own cycle-route around Burlington Bay ("Tour de Hamilton") .

To top off my Hamilton cred, I met my wife at Dundas Little Theatre and we got married at the Scottish Rite. :-)
posted by Artful Codger at 11:02 AM on September 7, 2008

It does happen all the time in Hamilton, that's what Fortinos is all about!
posted by phirleh at 11:08 AM on September 7, 2008

I meant to imply that there was a lack of employment opportunities in Hamilton, not that there was nothing fun to do

Oh yah, can't argue with you there too much. My god-parents (the reason why I'm in Hamilton so much) commute to Burlington and Toronto for work, and so do a lot of their friends. You're best off starting a career there if you're educated/work in health care, sciences, construction, or finances, sectors that have seen 30% to 80% growth since the mid 90's. Hamilton has a very low unemployment rate, so something is working for them & I think some very good things will come from their first economic summit that was held this May.

To top off my Hamilton cred, I met my wife at Dundas Little Theatre and we got married at the Scottish Rite. :-)

You've got much better Hammer cred than I do! ;)
posted by zarah at 12:20 PM on September 7, 2008

Ok, sorry it took so long for me to post again. Had a little storm over the weekend...

So I emailed the gentleman dancing, and here was his reply:

Hey,

Please check out my 439 other videos just to make sure?

www.youtube.com/dipsetmuthafucka

It's bizarre that people would think that I used a green screen, you can see people react to me! Anyway, I'm for real.

Thanks for asking! SET THEM PEOPLE STRAIGHT!
Mike.

That satisfies my curiosity. I hope it settles the matter for the rest of you.
posted by BeerFilter at 7:53 AM on September 8, 2008 [1 favorite]

The last thing I expected was one of my favorite Can songs. The dancing was just icing on the cake. Nice one.
posted by Betty Tyranny at 12:48 PM on September 8, 2008

Thanks for introducing me to Can.
posted by SNACKeR at 3:42 PM on September 24, 2008 [1 favorite]