There’s a surprising amount of good stuff happening in Washington D.C. this morning. With the Patriot Act taking a serious hit and the story breaking on Bush authorizing the NSA to spy on Americans, we might actually get to have a real debate on civil liberties and the “war on terrorism”.
NY Times - […]

My thoughts are with our brave sons and daughters fighting for freedom and justice in far-off lands. They’re fighting them over there, so we don’t have to fight them on our own rooftops and chimneys. We will sacrifice whatever we must to ensure that future generations will be safe from the evil scourge […]

During World War II, Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss), along with Chuck Jones, Mel Blanc, and a bunch of other giants from The Warner Brothers Animation Studios teamed up to produce animated propaganda films for American troops.
The Private SNAFU cartoons are sexy, jingoistic, and sometimes racist, but they’re also amazing examples of looney tooncraft […]

This gallery of vintage beer ads, with their unabashed manliness and love of cowboys and fishermen, makes me want to reach into the fridge and grab a cold one.
From the Victorian era to the Colt 45 soaked 1970s there’s a lot of fun stuff here, but where’s the Hamms bear? There’s an early look-alike […]

Virgin Galactic just announced that they’re building a new spaceport. Honda’s Asimo robot is now delivering coffee and running at 6km/hour in these cool, hypnotic, but strangely disturbing new videos.
Spaceport? Robot waiters? My 10 year old self is seriously freaking out right now. Can hovercars and replicants be too far behind?

One of my favorite things in life is when I rediscover a song after a few months and that song just keeps going round and round in my head. I know that can sometimes be a bad thing, but Of Montreal’s The Party’s Crashing Us is a like a little mantra in my head, […]

Conventional wisdom says that online communities are concerned with finding like-minded people and sharing your interests with them. It’s true, if I wanted to find Neon Genesis Evangelion fans, vintage arcade enthusiasts, or a discussion board about chronic fatigue syndrome, the internet is the first place I’d look. However, the coolest promise of […]

The trailer for Sophia Coppola’s upcoming Marie Antoinette is up and I am officially excited. The trailer is a simple montage of Antoinette and her fellow aristocrats having fun to the sounds of New Order’s “Age of Consent”.
I know I’m not alone in this, but after Lost in Translation, I’ll follow Ms. Coppola anywhere. […]

Composer and music professor Jason Freeman built a beautiful, little Java application that scans your iTunes library, grabs song samples and makes a personalized iTunes signature. I’ve been enjoying signatures from my favorite bloggers the past few days and finally have made one of my own. Thom Yorke and Ben Gibbard come […]

Aside from 4 depressing years working for a corporate behemoth who forced me to use a pc, I’ve been a staunch Apple loyalist. However, I’ve never managed to hang on to the Apple stickers that come in the box with a new machine. I could care less about the white logo stickers, they’re […]

I’ve never been a writer.
When I was younger, the process felt almost physically painful. My mental censor was too close to surface and it’s presence in the back of my mind was like fingernails raking my face. I would always start a journal or short story with a sense of optimism, but since […]

After reading Michael Heilemann’s post about RSS and the evils of excerpted feeds over at Binary Bonsai, I’ve changed my kitten killing ways and set WordPress to serve full posts for those of you using feed readers.
Mea culpa. I promise it was sheer laziness on my part and no kittens were killed in the […]

Today the smoking ban goes into effect and it’s been weird to observe all the little groups of people taking so much care to stand 25 feet away from from their workplaces, favorite cafés, and breakfast places.
I’ve come around and think that the law is nannyish and a ridiculous use of resources, but in the […]

Starting today, Comcast Digital Cable Subscribers in Washington State will be able to watch seven films from the 2003, 2004, and 2005 Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) for free thru On Demand.
Historically, I have no love for Comcast—they upped our rates AND removed a bunch of channels from our lineup the last time […]

It’s Jerry Time is a podcast (or whatever they’re calling them these days) detailing the little indignities of life in animated form.
Drawn! and Boing Boing have compared it to the work of Harvey Pekar (American Splendor) and that seems like a fair comparison. In any event, it’s good and you might want to check […]