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I know some of you must be tired of all this Dave Letterman business and I believe the man himself might be tired of it too but I’ll leave you with one more accolade about him. The above clip comes from Conan O’Brien, during his monologue. Conan’s show starts about 30 minutes before Dave’s and he is nice enough to implore people to switch over to Dave’s last show once it starts.

Conan took over Dave’s show in 1993, when he left for CBS. He had some massive shoes to fill and for a while, it wasn’t looking so good. I’ll leave it to Conan to describe how Dave helped him out.

Tonight, talk-show host David Letterman will do his last show and retire after a long and legendary career. I will miss his style of comedy, his humour, and the great joy he gave me as a viewer. He entertained me for decades and I am thankful for that.

In 1982, he start hosting Late Night with David Letterman, on the heels of an ill-conceived morning show, which did not fit his unique style of comedy. I was far too young to watch Dave regularly back then but it was definitely his Late Night show that revealed to me, that this oddly funny man, David Letterman existed. It was his anniversary shows that really caught my attention and made me a big fan of his comedy. By the time I was in junior high, I would try my best to stay up late on Friday nights to watch him and sometimes tape his shows on the weekdays to view the next day after school.

Growing up, David Letterman, to me, had the most entertaining late-night talk show bar none. He was the best of the bunch. I say that knowing full well that Johnny Carson was still around at that time. Lest you think, I didn’t appreciate Carson, I certainly did. I used to watch a syndicated show that used to be on in the early evenings called Carson’s Comedy Classics. This show featured clips from The Tonight Show from about 1962 to 1982, which gave me a wide exposure to Carson’s best moments.

As funny and classy Carson was at 11:30pm, there was just something magical going on at 12:30am (then eventually 12:35am) with Dave’s show. His show was unorthodox, wacky, zany and often full of this weird energy that made you want to see what would happen next. Dave was fearless about doing stuff to get a laugh. He didn’t feel constrained with the traditional audience and studio set up. He frequently brought the cameras outside the studio, into the halls, down on the street, and in other locations. To me, he perfected the concept of the remote bit, leaving the studio in search of laughs. In this regard, he was especially brave, sometimes engaging with people he knew would draw sharp reactions but knowing full well it was worth it for the laughs. His attempt to deliver a gift basket to General Electric (at the time, new owners of NBC), remains a classic remote in the history of late night television.

It was this daring and “damn the torpedoes” attitude to comedy that made me a fan of David Letterman. He also adopted this attitude to other portions of his show, like when he interviewed celebrity guests. I get the feeling Dave wasn’t initially very comfortable or fond of doing interviews. In this day age, talk show hosts, for the most part, coddle their celebrity guests and throw them softball questions. Dave wasn’t like that back then. His interviews with Madonna, Shirley MacLaine, and Cher made headlines. I think it took a while for Dave to get used to all the parts of being a late-night talk show host. He famously used to wear white wrestling shoes, white athletic socks, khaki pants and a blazer as his hosting “outfit”. As soon as the show was over and the credits started rolling, he would often get up, take off the blazer, and toss it aside.

As the late 80s and early 90s rolled around, I was hooked on Dave’s show, as many were too. He had tremendous popularity amongst college students in America. For me, I was still in junior high and he made my summers tolerable. Summer vacations back then were very boring for me. I didn’t have a summer job, didn’t go to camp, and the Internet was still many years away. Often, the only thing I could look forward to each night was Dave’s show at 12:30am. What would happen on the show this night? What would the Top Ten List be? Was it time for another Stupid Pet Tricks? Would we see Chris Elliot? Would he strap another camera on the back of a monkey? Would a letter from Viewer Mail be from Vancouver? He kept me entertained when I desperately needed it.

In a just world, Dave would have gotten The Tonight Show, as Johnny Carson wished it to be. Alas, the world is not just and television executives can be some of the dumbest people on the planet. So, it came to pass that a big-chinned bastard got The Tonight Show instead and Dave moved to CBS, where he could finally have an 11:30pm time slot. I don’t blame Dave for moving, it was really the only option he had. He will have spent over two decades at CBS, the longest show he’s ever had. At The Late Show with David Letterman, Dave eventually got less unorthodox, a little bit less wacky, and perhaps got a bit more mature. The khaki pants, wrestling shoes, and white sports socks went away, replaced with a real suit and shoes and socks that you might even see a businessman wear. He didn’t stop being funny though. It was at CBS that Dave gave us the likes of Rupert Jee, Mujibur and Sirajul, Alan Kalter, and many other new bits. In the two decades at CBS, he became the elder statesman of late night comedy. Many of the new and younger players in the late night world, respect and to some degree worship Dave. As Dave’s retirement grew closer, the likes of Jimmy Kimmel and Conan O’Brien have paid tribute to him.

Though I’m sure Dave would have liked only his comedy to make the headlines, he was in the news for other things several times in his career. In early 2000, he had emergency heart bypass surgery. In 2005, law enforcement authorities discovered a plan to kidnap Dave’s son, Harry, and his nanny and hold them for ransom for $5 million. Lastly, Dave was also a victim of an extortion attempt from a jilted boyfriend. A boyfriend of one of some female staffers he revealed to have slept with. The extortion attempted forced Letterman to admit to his dalliances.

Despite these setbacks, he survived them all. As a testament to his popularity and people’s respect for his career, the last few weeks of his show have been cavalcade of high-profile guests to bid him a proper goodbye. From comedians, A-list actors, and to two separate US Presidents the accolades for Dave have been plenty. I was lucky enough to see Dave in person at a taping of his show in 2007. It was a life-long dream and I will treasure that experience for the rest of my life.

David Letterman, I wish you a wonderful and long retirement. Thank you for the laughs and for taking late-night comedy to places no one had ever seen before.

On Friday, before the start of the long weekend, my team at work, including myself, packed up all our stuff into plastic totes. There was a move scheduled as we try to get everyone on to one floor. Previously, we had team members spread across two floors. Logistically, it’s better to have everyone on the team on the same floor.

I’m now a veteran of the “EA move”. A company comes in after hours to move everyone’s stuff to your new desk. All you need to do is pack all your stuff into as many plastic totes as you need. Anything that can’t fit into a tote will be moved individually. Everything needs to be labelled though with your name and the location of your new desk.

The external company that comes in and moves everyone’s belongings must have a system for doing this efficiently. For all the moves, I’ve done, I’ve never been around to see how they do it. This particular move involves three separate teams, in our case, we’re kicking out another whole team to make room for our guys.

Anyways, when I get to work tomorrow morning I’ll be at a new desk. This new location is better than my old desk. I’m very close to a window, though not directly next to one. My previous desk was so far away from a window, it was sometimes difficult to see what the weather was outside. My new desk is a little more private too as the last one allowed everyone walking by to see all my computer monitors. Well, here’s to my new home until next February!

This clip doesn’t really need a lot of explanation.

In our latest tribute to David Letterman, we go back to August of 1985. In the above clip, Dave is miffed that his 3rd anniversary show saw little promotional power compared to a special version of The Today Show, both shows of course on NBC. During the taping of a prime-time episode of The Today Show, Dave uses a bullhorn to heckle the hosts from a window, high above. Back then, the hosts were Bryant Gumbel and Jane Pauley. Though both hosts were somewhat bewildered at the interruption (they were conducting an interview at the time), Gumbel was furious at Letterman after he discovered who was behind the outburst.

The media has always mentioned this was the start of a feud between Gumbel and Letterman but I’ve always viewed it as a very one-sided deal, with mainly Gumbel mad at Dave. As this was many years ago, there is no animosity between the two now, as evidenced by this interview.

This wasn’t the first celebrity that Letterman got riled up and it certainly wasn’t the last. Dave was especially brave and daring in the 80s. Finally, if you’re curious as to what the interruption looked like on The Today Show end, click here.

Every year I hope that summer will come early in Vancouver, blessing us with warm temperatures and sunny, blue skies in May. That rarely happens though and this year is no different. Sure, the temperatures are mild right now, so I don’t have any complaints there. The daytime highs hover in the high teens and flirt with the 20s. The sun, however, has yet to make a consistent appearance. I think there was one day last weekend where it was somewhat sunny. It’s been cloudy ever since. It’s will be cloudy tomorrow and the next day with a good chance of showers on both days.

I imagine sometime in June, the sun will come out and stay out but for now, we deal with mild, gray days.

We continue our tribute to David Letterman with another clip from his NBC days at Late Night With David Letterman. Back in the 80s, Letterman was quite fond of getting into suits with odd things adorned on them. His most famous stunt probably involves his suit of velcro, which was shown many times on all his highlight shows.

In the clip above, Dave get into a suit festooned with dozens of dry sponges. He is weighed on a scale before lowered into a huge tank of water. Once sufficiently dunked, he is weighed again to see how much water he has absorbed into the suit. The results may surprise you.

If you enjoyed this clip, just go to YouTube and search for “David Letterman suits” and you’ll find the other times he did this.

I often write on this blog that I immediately lose weight once I stop working (either by choice or through layoffs) and I tend to gain weight once I start employment again. I’ve attributed this to the amount of sleep I get. When I don’t work, I sleep more and for reasons unknown to me at the time, I ate less just because I felt hungrier less. When I work, I get less sleep and I always seem to crave food more.

I just weighed myself this evening and I’m eight pounds heavier compared to when I started this job. I’m obviously eating more. Why? I finally did more research tonight and it comes down to two hormones in your body: leptin and ghrelin. Leptin levels in your body tell your brain if you have enough energy at the moment. The more you sleep the higher levels of leptin are in your body. Higher levels of leptin prevents your brain from telling you that need fuel and to store energy as fat. It is essentially the hormone that tells your body you are satiated.

Ghrelin is the other side to leptin. It can be thought of as the hunger hormone. Ghrelin levels decrease as you sleep because you need less energy when sleeping compared to being awake. The longer you sleep, the less of this hormone is in your body.

Being sleep deprived causes you to have lower levels of leptin and higher levels of ghrelin. Your body thus thinks you need more fuel (you are not satiated) and that you’re hungry more. It also tells your body to start storing more energy as fat. It all makes sense now.

I wish more people would learn that you can lose weight just by sleeping more. Well, now that I know for sure why I’m gaining weight, I should get some more sleep!

For those of you who are curious about what I’m working on while at EA, this story fills in a few details. There is vegetation and the undead involved. The big reveal will happen in June at E3 in Los Angeles.

Continuing with our tribute to David Letterman, the above clip is taken from the 10th anniversary show of Late Night with David Letterman. It was this show that made Letterman famous and where he produced his best (in my opinion) and quirkiest bits of comedy. It was on this show where Letterman was at his edgiest and pushed the boundary of what one might see on a late night talk show.

The rest of this special prime time show can be viewed here.