July 27, 2009
Fountains of Wayne Hotline
"Slather the holy hell out of the thing with a semi-ironic Beach Boys vocal pad." What if, every time you got stuck writing your next big power-pop hit, you could just call the Fountains of Wayne hotline to get you over the hump? Country singer Robbie Fulks imagines it, and records it, resulting in the best Fountains of Wayne song Fountains of Wayne never wrote. Meanwhile, the original Fountains of Wayne is no more. (No, not the band.)
Yes we can do ads.
With the vote on Health Care Reform pushed back to september, Ad campaigns are revving up, both for and against. The DNC has given the 13 million e-mails Obama collected during his campaign to Organizing For America. And our old friends Harry and Louise are back. [more inside]
How to cook like your grandmother
Barbecued Ribs, Roast Beef, French Toast, Twice Baked Potatoes, Macaroni and Cheese, French Onion Soup, Rye Bread, Corned Beef, Brownies. [more inside]
CONGRATULATIONS on your EFFORT
RUN! is a single-button flash game. Hold A to run, and let it go to slow down. There are three difficulty settings and five levels. The music, design and sfx are off-putting. You will probably either hate it or play it for about 3 hours, and then hate it. [more inside]
where it's 1973 forever
That's it. I am moving my all my money to Oakwood! The tiny town north of Houston has just three employees and not a single computer. It has no voice mail and no ATMs. This is the smallest bank in the USA. Still going strong.
"Files Vanished, Young Chinese Lose the Future."
Imagine you're living in China, trying to work your way out of the family date farming business (which garners approximately $450 annually). You do all the right things. You apply for (and receive) Communist Party membership. You study literally to the point of collapse, and despite coming from coal-town origins, you score high on your gao kao ("high test," more-or-less the only thing that matters in getting into a Chinese university). Your already-poor family goes deep into debt to send you to college, and you even manage to come out with a degree. Classic rise-up-by-your-own-bootstraps tale, right? However, finally, when you go to apply for a job—your state-sanctioned educational, occupational, and political records are inexplicably, awfully gone. What has happened to that plain manila folder (!) that serves as your only legitimate, official history in Chinese society? Probably stolen and sold so a party official's child can get everything you worked so hard for. And then, of course, your family is detained by party officials when your parents demand to know where the hell your life went. Of course. [more inside]
I am the genie of the lamp. I provide you three wishes. All of which contain horrible, ironic consequences!
Volcano: An Inquiry into the Life and Death of Malcolm Lowry
Volcano: An Inquiry into the Life and Death of Malcolm Lowry. A feature-length documentary focusing on Malcolm Lowry, author of the novel Under the Volcano. [more inside]
Glamour Guts
Glamour Guts. "A light-hearted lesson about living glamourously with a not-so-glamourous medical condition.". From the Short Film Face Off Awards, 2009.
How Ariana can pay her bloggers
How the Huffington Post can pay its bloggers, by a Huffington Post blogger.
Philately Will Get You Nowhere
Even as Snail Mail fades away, people still collect Stamps. Some are valuable. Others are just **stupid**. (You could say the "inverted jenny" is both.)
**this link is the reason for the post
**this link is the reason for the post
In a nest, an egg, / small, white, empty. And somewhere, / a hawk, belly full.
7x20 is a twitter zine, publishing 140-characters-or-fewer short stories and poems. [via mefi projects]
CSI: The truth isn't nearly as entertaining.
CSI Myths: The Shaky Science Behind Forensics Forensic science was not developed by scientists. It was mostly created by cops, who were guided by little more than common sense. And as hundreds of criminal cases begin to unravel, many established forensic practices are coming under fire.
Technology and Innovation
Ashoka Tech Blog A blog about women, social entreprenourship and technology (especially in the developing world). Includes such gems as the Peepoo bag.
My Other Car is a Guide Dog
We're familiar with blindsight, and seen a blind man navigate a cluttered hallway (wmv file). A blind man with a loaded rifle seems slightly scarier. But if you see the blind guy driving a 2010 Ford Mustang, it's probably best to yield.
Yesterday's Energy of Tomorrow...and more
Peak Oil, 1925. In 2000, 20% of new buildings will be solar equipped. By the late 1990s, 90% of the world's energy will be nuclear-generated. These and other erroneous projections are being collected as part of the Forecast Project on the website Inventing Green: The Lost History of Alternative Energy in America.
Tell her I'm happy, tell her I'm gay, tell her I wouldn't have it any other way.
Jackie Shane could rock the Sapphire Club. He was part of the Toronto Sound of the sixties, and made his mark not only for his soulful voice, but also for his flamboyent, gender ambiguous appearance (video). His song Any Other Way went to Number Two on the Canadian Billboard chart in 1963, and was his biggest hit. While his discography was short and he has faded into obscurity, he has been recognized by the queer community and music bloggers as a trail-blazing performer. In My Tenement, Comin Down, You Are My Sunshine, Stand Up Strait and Tall, Don't Play That Song.
Merce Cunningham has Died
Smart? Tossers.
The latest craze among yobs in Amsterdam seems to be Smart tossing. Jeremy Clarkson would undoubtedly approve, were he not busy urging Britain to invade France.
"Ja som aquí"
A daily photoblog of the mediterranean island of Mallorca.
Checking the tags is a good way to trawl the archive.
food; history; customs and traditions; art
food; history; customs and traditions; art
the foreign exchange student
The foreign exchange student "Some years ago we had a foreign exchange student come to live with us. We found it very difficult to pronounce his name correctly, but he didn’t mind. He told us just to call him 'Eric'." A short story in pictures by Shaun Tan. Previously.
END OF LINE.
There's a new Tron movie coming out, and it promises to be kind of rad. In other news, the trailer seems to mash-up perfectly with Michael Jackson's Beat It. [more inside]
...your true anti-Semite, like your true Holocaust denier, is doomed to a kind of Dante-esque hell of living among Jewish things, Jewish books, Jewish artifacts.
Bradley R. Smith and Mark Weber are at the center of the U.S. Holocaust-revisionism movement. Now they’re feuding with each other. A sensitive and interesting investigative report by Mark Oppenheimer. Via the Daily Dish.
I'm good at that, I must be good at this too....
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