The day in posts: 08/28/2004

August 28, 2004

Shutting Down NYC for one day in protest of the RNC.

Shutting Down NYC for one day in protest of the RNC. A couple of guys from New York propose to protest the Republican National Convention by trying to get every New Yorker to call in sick for one day -- 9/1 -- one day before Bush's acceptance speech.

CNN article link

While I'm doubtful about the chance for success, it's always good to creativity with dissent.
posted by superchicken at 11:44 PM PST - 66 comments

Literature

The insolent art of Michel Houellebecq. "There are certain books—sardonic and acutely pessimistic—that systematically affront all our current habits of living, and treat our presumptions of mind as the delusions of the cretinous." Julian Barnes' 2003 review in The New Yorker.
posted by semmi at 9:59 PM PST - 4 comments

The Protest Song Ain't Dead

All Songs Considered offers a sample of new tunes for the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election. "In this election year it seemed a good idea to put out a call for music about politics. What we wanted was satire; what we got were earnest and passionate songs that mostly bashed the incumbent president." There's also "a sample of the songs used to pump up crowds at political rallies" by both sides.
posted by mmahaffie at 7:06 PM PST - 9 comments

Odd Collections

Odd Collections: plastic bags, X-rays, fish posters, air-sickness bags, uggly Fozzies, impaled garden gnomes, owls and bananas.
posted by grumblebee at 4:41 PM PST - 4 comments

Cultural Entomology

The Gold-Digging Ant-Lions of India is but one tale about insects and culture. Although, The Cultural Entomology Digest seems to have been out of circulation for a decade, you can still read about Japanese Crests based on Butterflies, Chinese Cricket Culture and hints of a Greek Cricket culture, Beetles as Religious Symbols or the Insects of MC Escher.
posted by vacapinta at 3:49 PM PST - 8 comments

Electroluminescent thingers

Rachel Wingfield does all sorts of cool stuff with electroluminescent technology. I want some.
posted by majcher at 2:47 PM PST - 2 comments

It's no velociraptor, but...

I *heart* Bea Arthur:

Bea Arthur sparked a security scare at Logan Airport in Boston this week when she tried to board a Cape Air flight with a pocketknife in her handbag. The "Golden Girls" star, now 81, was flagged by a Transportation Security Administration agent, who discovered the knife - a strict no-no following 9/11. "She started yelling that it wasn't hers and said 'The terrorists put it there,' " a fellow passenger said. "She kept yelling about the 'terrorists, the terrorists, the terrorists.' " After the blade was confiscated, Arthur took a keyring from her bag and told the agent it belonged to the "terrorists," before throwing it at them. As she boarded the plane, she told the TSA employees, "We're all doomed."

Kuro5hin offers a novel proposition: Bea for President!
posted by Vidiot at 12:12 PM PST - 58 comments

Powerpoint Foghat

The Essential Foghat Timeline. Is it any wonder that Foghat is so hard to keep track of? (Found here). There were two versions of Foghat touring from 1990 to 1993. Roger Earl was touring with his version of Foghat (originally called the Kneetremblers) from 1986 to 1993 and Dave toured with Lonesome Dave's Foghat from 1990 to 1993...
posted by inksyndicate at 11:42 AM PST - 3 comments

Masterpiece Theatre?

Sometimes beautiful games just get screwed in the sequels... But thanks to obsessive fans, it doesn't have to be that way anymore!
D1X and D2X are OpenGL/SDL updates of (in my opinion) the best first-person-shooters of all time.
Xenocide, still in progress, and UFO2000 are overhauls of the classic X-COM, UFO Defense.
And finally, Anacreon Reconstructed is a graphical update of Anacreon: Reconstruction, an amazing old ASCII game about inter-galactic empire building.
Know any other good Indie overhauls of classic games?
posted by kaibutsu at 11:33 AM PST - 19 comments

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