1 minute read # Wednesday Dec 14, 2011Graffiti happens at the intersection of ambition and incompetence: people want to make their mark on the world, but have no other way to do it than literally making a mark on the world.
How to describe Metafilter to a novice?
Well, say there's a video with a guy doing high speed rapping about pancakes: Metafilter is great place to discuss….the spatula.
Metafilter user not_that_epiphanius explains exactly why I love Metafilter
1 minute read # Sunday Dec 11, 2011On the one hand, this is incredibly sad news - the end of an era. But on the other hand, I'm excited to see what he can do with "smaller games".
# Thursday Dec 8, 2011Her mother read her mail
And her Dad was a Policeman
Which I must say worried me
But some things have just got to be
So we passed very fast like ships in the night
Or cars in a contraflow system
-- Billy Bragg, From a Vauxhall Velox
Not only is this a perfect simile, it's goddamned ballsy to drop a term like "contraflow system" into a pop song.
1 minute read # Wednesday Dec 7, 2011If you're as baffled by the whole Lana Del Rey as I am, this is a good place to start. I just wish the author had expanded it a bit more - five lengthy paragraphs about the ways in which people are hating her, barely a mention of why.
# Wednesday Dec 7, 2011
“I have dreams of a rose, and a long flight of stairs. Incidentally, who is this Damien you speak of?”
If I could have one wish, it would be that Blatty got the chance to assemble his original cut of Legion, the way he envisioned it before studio meddling turned it into The Exorcist III. Despite the final versions flaws, it’s still one of my favorite movies.
It might be a hot mess, but Exorcist III is still one of the most terrifically creepy movies I've ever seen. It gets under your skin and stays there. There are scenes -- single shots, even -- that still manage to give me shivers when I think of them. It's criminally underrated/overlooked as a horror film.
This is a much better cover than the nonsense they ended up going with.
1 minute read # Wednesday Dec 7, 2011As a follow-up to the previous post, Bitch magazine asks if having the woman play the predatory role in the song makes it less date-rapey.
I'm going with "no". This song is inherently sketchy, no matter what way you spin it.
# Wednesday Dec 7, 2011
Dean Martin: Total mutt.
Although, you just know he boned both of those girls. And probably that girl in the background too.
Yes, I've started listening to Christmas songs. And this weekend I fully intend to watch Scrooged and maybe Elf. And there's nothing anyone can do to stop me.
1 minute read # Tuesday Dec 6, 2011Saying that 3D movies are the future of cinema is like saying that Magic Eye books were the future of literature.
Why 3D movies need to die - The Oatmeal
1 minute read # Tuesday Dec 6, 2011
As an Irishman, I just want to say thank fuck for Romania.
1 minute read # Friday Dec 2, 2011
1 minute read
# Thursday Dec 1, 2011
Leonardo di Caprio as Jay Gatsby.
Jeez, Leo's starting to look old.
1 minute read # Wednesday Nov 30, 2011It's encouraging to see a profile of the director of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus in The New Yorker.
# Wednesday Nov 30, 2011
Indiana Jones and the Secret of the Unicorn (by Avanaut)
1 minute read # Monday Nov 28, 2011
1 minute read # Sunday Nov 27, 2011BOOK IGLOO. NEED.
OMG WANT!
Thus at the next cocktail hour, I reached for the bottle of Poland's finest in my freezer. (Of course I keep vodka in the freezer. As Jack Donaghy would say, "What am I, a farmer?") Staring at the frosty bottle, however, caused flashbacks to Unpleasant Speculums I Have Known. Instead, I rooted around in a kitchen cupboard for some cheap (but warm) vodka left over from a party. There it was, in a jug. Not even my kids would sneak sips of this stuff. And I didn't think that that particular area of my body would be especially fussy about brands.
Skeptical of the story going around the internet about teenagers using booze-soaked tampons to get drunk, HuffPo writer Danielle Crittenden decides to try it for herself.
1 minute read # Saturday Nov 26, 2011Along with his other show, Hardcore History, Dan Carlin's Common Sense is one of my favourite podcasts right now. In the latest episode, "The Very Velvet Fist", he gives one of the best takes on the whole "Occupy" movement, especially given the whole UC Davis debacle last weekend.
Seriously, I hope everyone listens to this.
# Friday Nov 25, 2011
(via The Daily What)
1 minute read # Friday Nov 25, 2011
(via awesomepeoplehangingouttogether)
1 minute read # Friday Nov 25, 2011Link: Less Human Than Human: The Design Philosophy of Apple | The Awl
Two things here.
First, this is just awful. The Awl usually has a fairly high standard for its articles, but this is a hot mess. When it isn't rambling to the point of incoherency, it's just plain wrong. For example, the first line of the second paragraph, where the author launches into the actual thesis:
The widespread admiration for Apple’s design ethos is in two parts: one functional, the other aesthetic.
Wrong already. Stephen Fry put it eloquently
Only dullards crippled into cretinism by a fear of being thought pretentious could be so dumb as to believe that there is a distinction between design and use, between form and function, between style and substance
(Although I don't think anyone who feels like dropping a bit of irrelevant trivia about John Ruskin into an article about Apple's design philosophy can legitimately invoke the 'fear of being thought pretentious' defence.)
Secondly, I don't know if this is happening to anyone else, but I'm getting this thing where a flash ad for the Chevy Volt is actually hijacking my entire browser session, reloading the entire article in an iframe on the Chevy site. This completely breaks Instapaper and means you can't send someone the URL without giving the Chevy site an extra hit. Earlier this week, Brent Simmons wrote a terrific article about how certain publications have become almost hostile towards their readers with the amount of intrusive ads on their pages. It's genuinely disappointing to see The Awl going down the same road.
2 minute read # Thursday Nov 24, 2011