Sunday, February 28, 2010

vacations, glory holes, zodiac killers, and such

(please play in order)

and now for a recap...

AP Wacky News: Love Hurts... again (digital dumping)

LONDON (Reuters) – Digital dumping is on the rise, according to a survey, with growing numbers of people preferring to use email and social networking Web sites to break up with their partners.

Over one third of 2,000 people polled (34 percent) said they had ended a relationship by email, 13 percent had changed their status on Facebook without telling their partners and six percent had released the news unilaterally on Twitter.

By contrast, only two percent had broken up via a mobile phone text.

The rest had split up the old-fashioned way by face-to-face conversation (38 percent) and by telephone (eight percent).

"Digital Dumping will soon take over when it comes to ending a relationship," said Sean Wood, Marketing Manager for DateTheUk dating service for whom the survey was carried out.

"It's often easier, quicker and avoids any misunderstandings."

(Editing by Paul Casciato)

Thursday, February 25, 2010

The Trap, The Mine, Sauna Baby Where's the Man?

So these are some videos David did, the last of which was with Tedd. They're pretty tight.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

The Last Persecution of Glenn Beck


The following is the current list of advertisers who have pulled their ads or otherwise taken steps to ensure that their ads do not run on the Glenn Beck Program:

  • AT&T
  • Aegon
  • Airware Inc. (maker of Brez anti-snoring aids)
  • Allergan (maker of Restasis)
  • Ally Bank (unit of GMAC Financial Services)
  • AmMed Direct
  • Ancestry.com
  • Applebee's
  • Ashley Furniture
  • Bank of America
  • Best Buy
  • Binder & Binder
  • Blaine Labs Inc. (maker of Dr. Blaine's brand skin treatment products)
  • Broadview Security (Brink's Home Security)
  • CVS
  • Campbell Soup Company
  • Capital One
  • Citrix Online
  • Clorox
  • ConAgra (maker of Healthy Choice brand foods)
  • Concord Music Group
  • Diageo
  • DirecTV
  • Discover
  • Ditech
  • Eggland’s Best
  • The Elations Company (maker of Elations nutritional supplement)
  • Equifax
  • Eulactol USA (producer of Flexitol)
  • Experian (FreeCreditReport.com)
  • Farmers Insurance Group
  • GEICO
  • General Mills
  • GetARoom.com
  • HSBC
  • Hoffmann-La Roche (maker of BONIVA)
  • Humana
  • ICAN Benefit Group Insurance
  • Infiniti
  • Jelmar (manufacturer of CLR All-Purpose Cleaner)
  • Johnson & Johnson
  • Jordan McKenna Debt Counseling Network
  • Kraft
  • Lawyers.com
  • Lowe's
  • Luxottica Retail (retail parent of LensCrafters and Pearle Vision)
  • Men's Wearhouse
  • Mercedes-Benz
  • Metropolitan Talent Management
  • NutriSystem
  • Overture Films
  • Procter & Gamble
  • Progressive Insurance
  • RadioShack
  • Re-Bath
  • Regions Financial Corporation
  • SAM (Store and Move)
  • SC Johnson (makers of Ziploc, Off!, Pledge, and other products)
  • Sanofi-Aventis (maker of Ambien)
  • Sargento Cheese
  • Scarguard
  • Schiff Nutrition (maker of Tiger's Milk and Fi-Bar)
  • Seoul Metropolitan Government
  • Simplex Healthcare (creator of the Diabetes Care Club)
  • Sprint
  • State Farm Insurance
  • Subaru
  • The Dannon Company
  • Toyota-Lexus
  • Travelers Insurance
  • Travelocity
  • The UPS Store
  • United States Postal Service
  • Verizon Wireless
  • Vonage
  • Waitrose (British supermarket chain)
  • Wal-Mart
  • Woodland Power Products, Inc.
  • Wyeth Consumer Healthcare
  • ooVoo

Thursday, February 18, 2010

iMussolini

'iMussolini' iPhone App Rules Italian App Store With Iron Fist

Well certainly there's not no explanation, in fact I feel kind of bad for posting this without even a concise contextual summary of contemporary and historical Italy, etc., as if the article merely represented the chaos of our technological era... in fact this post, and the article I've linked to are probably better representations of that kind of fragmentation, confusion and fear... I think maybe we should think of it as more of a parallel to our own country, how people long for the comforting sounds of an idiotic fascist when times get tough but they do not at the time themselves have an idiotic fascist in power... am I right?

LEXX

LEXX IS ON HULU

Technology: What kind of future do we want?

Slow Messenger is an instant messaging device that delivers messages exceptionally slowly. Built into the device is a messaging technology that unfolds its content based on an interface that borrows from the traditions of long-form letter writing, hand-carried mail sent through the post. The instant messaging device connects digital information channels —� such as the Internets — to physical information channels — such as streets, hands and the friction of human contact. [...]

In this “digitally networked era” communications mechanics are designed to take advantage of the efficiencies of electronic networks. In this way, contact is perpetual and ubiquitous, often resulting in nearly meaningless communiques and dispatches. By “slowing down” the instantaneous message, the device saves time by allowing one to avoid inane drivel and focus on a meaningful connection to one special person.

Now, this is what I'm talkin' about!

Animal Collective & Danny Perez
Transverse Temporal Gyrus


One of the things that you notice almost immediately in the jungle are the birds; so many different sounds coming from so many different directions. Are they communicating to each other? What are they saying? Does each variation serve a purpose? Why are there repetitions? Is there a pattern or is that just your imagination? If you don’t know the first thing about bird songs, these questions can rack a brain for days. The jungle seems louder than most New York apartments but its symbiosis makes it subtler if not more pleasing to foreign ears. The longer you sit awake in bed listening at night, the more you hear. It brings to mind Jane Goodall hanging out with chimpanzees in Tanzania and how she noticed them reacting to distant or inaudible sounds that at first she couldn’t hear, but as her ears adapted to the environment after months she began to hear them too.

But as the environments around us change quickly, as people encroach more and more on land where only select symbioses occur, we wonder how this will change the sounds around us and how this alters the way we hear things and react to them. As New Yorkers we are all familiar with the everyday noise around us—the car alarms, the subway trains braking, the music in bars—so familiar that sometimes we drown them out. But then do we not realize how these sounds are affecting us? How they make us feel or act? With this in mind we wanted to create an environment where people could take some time to listen to other kinds of sounds and get away from those familiar sounds of the city. Keeping in mind the birds of the jungle, we’ve created an array of sounds with Animal Collective's music that is seemingly random...or is it? We invite you to come take some time out and sit with us. As time passes it is our hope that you will wonder if you are hearing songs or patterns or maybe simply hearing more. The visual work of Danny Perez has been incorporated to turn the environment of an empty museum into a more mysterious hideaway. The core elements and colors are worked into the piece in order to unite this room of sound with the inside of your brain. We hope you enjoy.

Thanks for joining us.
—Animal Collective, February 8, 2010

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

I can see everything, and nothing...

There is so much going one here. I'll never understand it all, but I'm still posting it.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

TWO TV'S!?!?!?!

Where do we go from here...? I remember when you were one of the cool kids if your dad stuck one of those 9" TV/VCR combos in the back of the family car. Now this? I mean why even put windows in the damn thing? Who'sever gonna look outside again? Goodbye Crackerjacks, coloring books, and Rafi tapes. We might as well nuke the entire surface of the planet.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Friday, February 12, 2010

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

A heads up

Just letting everybody know that The Prisoner is now available streaming online in its entirety for free. Check it out!

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Padgett Powell

I found out about this guy through my boss, who is his cousin, but he might be one of the best literary minds of our time. His new book, The Interrogative Mood: A Novel? consists entirely of non-sequitor questions to the reader. Here's why I think it's relevant to our discussion-- the opening quote, from Walt Whitman:

Do you take it I would astonish?
Does the daylight astonish? or the early redstart
       twittering through the woods?
Do I astonish more than they?


Bold mine, but see what I mean? I think the whole point is embracing and making literary the bite-sized and hyper-interactive textual elements that pervade our culture. Only he's mocking it, too: he doesn't really care about your answers.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

AP Wacky News: An End to an Era (how Fox News is winning)


WASHINGTON – The Republican state senator who shook the political landscape from Massachusetts to California this week descended on Capitol Hill to a celebrity's welcome Thursday as he to introduced himself to a Congress he says has lost its way.

Sen.-elect Scott Brown acknowledged that winning the seat held since 1962 by the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy in Tuesday's special election upset presented unique challenges.

"I'm stepping into shoes that are very, very big," Brown said during a meeting in Kennedy's former offices.

Brown made other gestures of humility and substance during visits with Senate veterans and leaders.

"This is the best place in the world when it comes to solving problems," Brown said, "but we've sort of lost our way."

Washington greeted the Cosmopolitan centerfold, followed through the complex by a camera-clicking mob, more like movie idol Brad Pitt — who created a major fuss at the Capitol in March — than Jimmy Stewart's Mr. Smith who went to Washington.

Brown said he was overwhelmed. Inciting a particularly dense swarm after one meeting, he expressed hope "no one trips" in the frenzy.

Republican leaders are hoping the same thing about Brown, largely unknown outside Massachusetts until he began surging past Democrat Martha Coakley to capture the Senate seat held by Kennedys all but a few months since 1953.

Welcoming Brown first was Sen. John McCain, the GOP presidential nominee in 2008 whose independent streak has often riled other Republicans.

Brown, who campaigned emphasizing his independence from either party, recalled that McCain was one of the first people "in this very office, to look me in the eye and say, 'Well, you're a longshot, but I'm with you.'"

Brown's victory shook President Barack Obama's Democratic Party to its core, breaking its 60-vote Senate majority, jeopardizing health care reform and sending a shudder through even the most well-funded Democratic incumbents up for re-election in November.

"Every state is now in play," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., a campaign chairwoman and one of the Senate's most prolific fundraisers who was suddenly, since Tuesday, considered by some a little more vulnerable for re-election next fall.

As the senator-elect behind all the uncertainty got the feel of his new workplace, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made official more difficult news for Democrats: The Senate-passed health care overhaul did not have support from the 218 House members it needed to become law.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell found a pithy way to describe the place Brown holds in the clubby Senate even before being sworn in. He recalled that on the campaign trail, Brown sometimes signed autographs, "41" — the GOP's 41st vote against the Democrats' health care bill, the magic number required to kill it or anything else on Obama's agenda in Congress.

"I will always think of him as 41," McConnell said.

Despite the unpleasantness Brown presented them, Democrats greeted him politely.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the two had found at least one thing in common: They both have children who are college athletes.

But those closest to Kennedy were warmer. They included Kennedy's son Patrick, a representative from Rhode Island, and Sen. John Kerry, the Democrat with whom Brown will steer legislation affecting Massachusetts.

"Scott very successfully managed to tap into anger and impatience that's very, very real. So it's a good lesson," Kerry said. "I hope Republicans on the other side of the aisle hear it as well."

Later in Kennedy's former office, Paul Kirk, the former Democratic Party chairman who was appointed interim senator after Kennedy's death in August, said Brown had made it clear that he would be an independent voice.

"I heard him loud and clear," Kirk said. "He's going to be his own man."

AP Wacky News: An End to an Advertisment (how Fox News is winning)

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Weatherproof Garment Co said on Monday it will take down a Times Square billboard of U.S. President Barack Obama wearing one of its coats, agreeing to a White House request even though the company said it had legal grounds for using his image in its advertisement.

The privately held New York company said it made its decision after speaking with White House lawyers last week.

The ad, which shows the president during a visit to the Great Wall of China, went up without Obama's permission, clashing with a White House policy disallowing use of the president's image or likeness for commercial purposes.

"We made the commitment to the White House, and we are going to take it down even though it's a very gray area and we were advised by a lot of people to leave it up," company President Freddie Stollmack told Reuters.

"In this case, discretion is the better part of valor," he said. "We don't want to alienate the White House and win the battle and lose the war."

The ad won't come down immediately. Stollmack said a new advertisement had to be created first.

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Cynthia Osterman)

Wednesday, February 3, 2010