Inspiration is only a click away!

Patton Oswalt has a comedy routine about how, when he feels overwhelmed by the demands put on him by the entertainment industry, he looks no further than Death Bed: The Bed That East People.

He has a point, because this week, two PBS Documentary DVDs are coming out that have convinced me that I am in the wrong business.

They are both released under the “The Pursuit of Excellence” banner, which leads us to ponder the very meaning of the word “excellence.”

First off, we have The Pursuit of Excellence: Ferrets, where we learn that pursuing excellence makes you like a weasel. We also learn that advertising mock-ups of the DVD box force perspective that makes it look like the words “The Pursuit of Excellence” are not aligned with the bottom of the box.



Then we have the video that makes me want to be a filmmaker because I COULD DO BETTER.

I am referring to, of course, The Pursuit of Excellence: Synchronized Swimming! The exclamation point is mine, but, seriously, how can you type that without screaming punctuation?



Here we see some woman with her hair in a Native American dream catcher, rising out of the water to the adoration of her cheering fans. Unfortunately, she must have synchronized with the wrong tidal flow because she is not facing her audience at all. Instead she faces the vast, open ocean, desperately looking for something excellent to synchronize with.

Does she merit her own PBS documentary about how excellently she synchronized with her swimming ability? Apparently so.

I'm in the wrong business.