The Faint + Viral Marketing + Indie Label Cash! Friday Flash Fun. Addictive in a musically-manipulative way.
Drop Kick the Faint -- a Flash gadget-as-marketing ploy from the fine folks at
Saddle Creek, no doubt flush with cash from their homeboys
Bright Eyes' recent success (and critical fellating).
A band takes the piss out of themselves, we get to kick them across a parking lot in flyover country and -- huzzah! -- hear cuts from their new record over and over again. Win-win-win? This is what happens when indie labels get cash and a
Flash designer with a sense of humor, I guess.
posted by chandy72
on Feb 4, 2005 -
27 comments
"11. Wilco — A Ghost is Born: Wilco is a band for people who think they are intellectuals about music, the Wilco man is always unhappy so his songs start very quietly in order that people don't wake up with a start. It is all for nothing because halfway through someone will play a guitar solo with a chairleg."
Shelley Winters, of
Scary-Go-Round, reviews the Top 20 albums of the year as picked by John Allison (the creator of Scary-Go-Round).
(Oh, and the rest of the archive is worth a gander too, as is John Allison's previous strip Bobbins.)
posted by Johnny Assay
on Dec 31, 2004 -
25 comments
Bad Candy: Despite the lack of new candy reviews Bad Candy remains one of those sites you can go back to time after time. Side-splitting hours within.
"None of this prepared us for the taste, of course.
My Love is a time-release candy; it doesn't taste unbearable until it has firmly entrenched itself in your mouth. Then, all at once, My Love issues forth its vinegary bitterness, wilting tongue and lips alike with its thick, saucy, Drano-like quality."
(this site was
mentioned once in passing on the blue, but deserves a post of it's own)
posted by soulhuntre
on Sep 30, 2004 -
14 comments
The evidence is compelling: John Kerry responds to George Bush's GOP acceptance speech with the following opening remarks: "I'll tell you what happened tonight that will be remembered. The Boston Red Sox moved to within 2.5 games of the New York Yankees."
At the time of Kerry's speech, however, the Red Sox had not moved up in the standings. While they won that night, so did the Yankees, and the Sox remained 3.5 games back.
And John Kerry accuses Bush of misleading the American people?
posted by loquax
on Sep 29, 2004 -
45 comments
Grind. Endless drudgery. Too much in your in-tray, not enough in your out-tray. You put your headphones on, but it doesn't really help. You want a distraction - just for a moment or two. "A happy employee is a productive employee" you justify to yourself, although you're not convinced. Then it happens. A 24 carat nugget of plain text escapism lands in your in-box. You're an alt-tab, double-click away from sheer bliss.
DNRC;
A.Word.A.Day;
FlipFlopFlyin Newsletter;
The Plain Text Gazette; and the previously mentioned
Snowmail and
Newsnight Newsletters, which take a less formal but equally sharp look at the day's news, with anecdotes and observations thrown in. What other quality plain text mail lists are around?
posted by nthdegx
on Sep 29, 2004 -
6 comments
Supermodel Personals. "Nervous short girl into fantasy novels and The Simpsons seeks quiet, sensitive guy to while away the hours with me in my library of cocaine."
(NSFW)
posted by PrinceValium
on Apr 28, 2004 -
24 comments
The MIT Gallery of Hacks. Good-natured creative
pranks by MIT students. The pinnacle was possibly 1999's
Great Droid, with the Great Dome made to resemble R2D2's head to mark the release of some film or other at the time. In the spirit of the tradition, students left detailed instructions for the safe removal of the decoration.
posted by nthdegx
on Jan 4, 2004 -
12 comments
Coyotus Interruptus? New Scientists readers were asked to come up with new and necessary scientific words and their (amusing) definitions. These are the results.
posted by biffa
on Dec 19, 2003 -
8 comments
The BBC is asking visitors of its news site to
vote from a shortlist of the ten most embarrassing political moments. Visitors can watch a
short film [real media] which shows all ten nominated moments (forgive the home-video moments style background muzak). There's some variety here: Tony Blair and Neil Kinnock in moments exhibiting a baffling degree of misguidedness, George W Bush and Kenneth Clarke in tight spots (figuratively and literally), while Charles Kennedy and John Prescott probably coming out of their situations looking better than they did beforehand. For me the most cringe-inducing clip is that of John Redwood, the then newly appointed Secretary of State for Wales, attempting to mime the Welsh national anthem. Genuinely difficult to watch.
posted by nthdegx
on Dec 5, 2003 -
31 comments
Framley Museum. 'The museum was founded in 1882 when objects of local interest began to gather in the field where the museum now stands, due to the natural action of the wind and rain. '
'In 1886, visionary Whoft philanthropist, Manimal MacCorkindale proposed building some walls around the objects, forming Framley's first museum.
A door fitted in 1932 cemented the museum's popularity.'
Courtesy of the mighty
Framley Examiner.
posted by plep
on Dec 3, 2003 -
9 comments
Pick your poison:
highbrow (virtual tour of 10 Downing Street), or
lowbrow (virtual tour of the White House).
Hint: one of these is funny.
posted by taz
on Oct 25, 2003 -
10 comments
The 24 Hour Hitch. Howell Parry, a student at Manchester in the early 90s, undertook three fund-raising 24-Hr Hitchhikes with the aim of getting as far as possible. Parry kept logs of his
second and
third trips (the first hadn't been too successful, getting only as far as London). Nomadic Simes, a wandering web designer, presents
hitchhiking tips. See also history's hitchhiking
record holders.
posted by nthdegx
on Sep 28, 2003 -
6 comments
"My symbiotic relationship with squirrels is rather complex and multi-leveled, but I think I can sum it up in two main points: 1. I give them food; 2. They like food" says Jon, at his
World o' Squirrels. Some people think squirrels are
cute, others think there is
more to them, while others still deem them
ruthless killers.
posted by nthdegx
on Sep 25, 2003 -
29 comments
Nerd Gym (43 pages o' flash) is about 80% hackneyed obvious jokes, but there's some gems here and there. Which is dissapointing, because I don't get enough of the "Cleaning the Spitten Coffee off of the Monitor" workout. It also has very little to do with driving a tricycle drunk or throwing a javelin limpwristed against the Alpha Betas.
posted by Stan Chin
on Sep 4, 2003 -
7 comments
Russia Makes It Funny: Communist Party organ
Pravda ["Truth"] updates its play for the
weird news niche with a skewed take on the blogging aesthetic, with links to Romanesko
New World Disorder.
A lot of people like going to saunas. A sauna used to be associated with cold beer and a company of friends. Now the situation has changed a bit: going to a sauna implies some sort of sexual activities and even perversion sometimes. Steam, beer and friends have been pushed into the background. Since people love mixing business with pleasure, let us try to find out, to which extent the sauna entertainment is good, and to which extent it is bad.
posted by hairyeyeball
on Mar 21, 2003 -
5 comments
America and England: Separated By Humor? "This laughter gulf between two otherwise co-dependent cultures should not be thought surprising. The two most fundamental aspects of comedy are observation and speech rhythms and these are necessarily subject to local variation. The point has often been made that British jokes derive most often from class and puns, while US humour is rooted in gags." While talk show host Ruby Wax
claims "If your language consists of little more than guttural grunts and cherry pie, you can't be blamed for not getting it." Is it any wonder her
little show tanked so fast?
posted by owillis
on Feb 25, 2003 -
45 comments
Meaningless and funny. I think the web is totally lacking in good writing that is totally irrelevant, funny, and doesn't try to preach. Why does everyone have to take a stance in order to be popular? Irritus is completely immaterial and cracks me up. It's perfect friday material.
posted by Denial of Service
on Jan 24, 2003 -
5 comments
Oxford's guide to collective terms for animals is a useful and fascinating although all-too-brief resource. Collective terms for birds are some of my favourites: an unkindness of ravens; a murmuration of starlings; a richness of martens. Bees and sheep seem to have a lot of collective terms. I can't imagine why. Altogether, though, I found one of the terms for for ferrets to be the pick of the bunch.
posted by nthdegx
on Jan 13, 2003 -
34 comments
