This is what I do rather than writing Sony Classical newsletters.

Since I am a geek, I am therefore required by law to be a fan of all things Groening (even going so far as to commandeer the name ‘Bongo’ to refer to a former coworker…long story.) It was very dissapointing to me when the frequently-cited-as-underrated Futurama finally got canned. By the way, is there like one exec at Fox who does the good shows while everyone else is focused on how many horrendous reality shows they can vomit up. I mean, the House premiere was actually very solid in a Chicago Hope-meets-Law+Order: SVU kind of way. But I digress. So when I saw that TBS was running a contest to give away original cels from both Futurama and what may be the funniest cartoon of all time, The Family Guy, I felt the need to share the wealth with my loyal reader(s).

I’d like to offer a suggestion to Microsoft’s marketing team in the form of ad copy: “Microsoft Flight Simulator: So easy to use, even a brain in a dish can fly it! [via paulmclanahan.com] This all just means that we’re one step closer to this:

That’s right. Krang is coming. All hail Krang.

If you haven’t seen it already, here’s the movie poster for Edward Scissorhands as Willy Wonka.

And now we come to the creepy politics section. I’d be the last person to claim that video games had any connection to violence… but for those who do, who tend to be vehemently pro-military, perhaps they should take a look at this video of air force fighters taking out a collection of Iraqi civilians in distinctly xBox-like fashion.

Online commentator Jim Meskauskas comments on what has become an increasingly distressing issue in the news lately. He calls it The Tyrrany of the Minority, where a small number (one that would previously go ignored) vocal opponents consider themselves “offended” by something now have the power to keep content from airing, or otherwise control the flow of whatever they might be “offended” by. One of the most terrifying prospects of this is the story reported in USA Today of a woman who went into a drug store to fill a perscription for birth control pills only to have the pharmacist refuse because they objected to birth control as a concept. This is insane. In-freakin-sane. I don’t have words to express the insanity of this. It’s crazy.

Oh well, I guess thats the new way of things in our lone star country run by god-jesus.

Whatever…as long as I dont miss the last 5 minutes of CSI because some world leader died.

Hello and welcome, Bolt users!

Four things to say about this week: [IQ] [Education] [Shirt]. This all makes me miss our dear departed brother Bill Hicks even more. But to keep me sated, I found this mega-archive of unreleased BH stuff. You can really just replace one Bush with another in your mind.

In less (de)pressing news, my bud Lil Jon created a parodysalute to Russell Simmons’ Vote Or Die campaign (I mean seriously, is Paris Hilton in a shirt really going to sway anyone to vote? I mean other than voting her off the island of Manhattan, Survivor-stylee) called Crunk Or Die, hosted by my “friends” at my old gig, TVT Records.

Oh and in case you aint hurr, theres a new definition for Rock And Roll, and this creepy asian guy is it! Seriously, he’s got more skills than any 4 bands that play at rothko (Hi, Alex!)

In formerly-hot-people-falling apart news, we have the unfortunate inevitable beginnings of the sag of Joey Potter. Why oh why must people grow old!

Oh also, check out one-hit-wonder-but-actually-pretty-cool band Local H (who’s main claim to fame was getting the word ‘copacetic’ into a mainstream rock song)’s cover of Britney’s “Toxic” which proves once and for all that no matter whether your life is in the gutter and your body is falling apart and you’re giving blow jobs to your fiancee on your balcony, a good pop song is a good pop song.

And in case you haven’t seen it, here’s the Episode III trailer, which actually looks like it might not suck. (AOHell membership required). Of course its not as cool as the Grandaddy video which is like Polyphonic Spree on LSD, which is saying quite a bit. [thanks, fashionablylate!

Apropos of nothing, I’d like to close with a little anecdote. When I was working at TVT, my friend Tom and I used to share an office. We also both had Barry Manilow’s classic “Copa Cabana” on our respective computers. Come Fridays, we’d both be sitting hard at work or whatever and then with no warning one of us would start playing the song at maximum volume. And thats when we’d know that no more work was getting done.

Her name was Lola…she was a showgirl.

Poor lil’ Not-Jessica Simpson. Now the whole world will know that the one thing her and her sis have in common is neither of them can sing. Maybe she should start rappin instead. She can call herself Lil’ Not-Jessica and do a duet with this guy.

In other hack music news, you need to vote or apparently JesusScott Stapp will ejaculate all over you [via Screenhead]

Unless of course you’re in Ohio, where theres a law being fast tracked by Republicans legislators to have Republican non-partisan volunteers manning voting booths to ensure people there are white Republicans eligible to vote.

Anyone have those atari joystick connect-to-tv things? Turns out they’re making one for my old friend the commodore 64 [via Lockergnome]. Commodore.net says it’ll be out in October. Here’s hoping. Otherwise i might have to take my motorcycle powered by chainsaws through spaces that can’t exist [via core77] in an anti-advertising shirt pressed on the worlds coolest ironing board.

That’s all for now, I’m off to deposit $100K I got out of some junk mail

BTW R.I.P. John Peel.

Some of you more avid readers (er…both of you?) will notice that I’ve made some minor design revisions to the site. The feeds are now up in the corner and the date and entry titles have been switched around. I will continue to ‘clean up’ the design to optimize the user experience.
Thanks to CommunityMX and Kryogenix.org for their invaluable tools.

I don’t know why I haven’t linked to this before, but lowmorale have created the world’s most depressing video to go with my teen angst anthem, Radiohead’s “Creep” (Only available from iTMS in a Richard Cheese version. Way to stay cool, Thom.

Speaking of iTMS (Hi, Thuy-An!), from the why-isn’t-this-a-feature-already department, TunesTracker will poll the music store and let you know any time new music from your favorite artists has been added. So ummm, let’s get right on that mmkay? Alternately let me suggest the ability to create a custom RSS feed of selected artists that will send you anytime your selected artists are updated. Might help in the move toward killerapp status for RSS.
Recently I’ve developed a new fondness for design blogs, perhaps stemming from my ongoing project to empty my house of all the extra crap I have here just because I have the space (anyone need a scanner?). Some of the nicest stuff I’ve seen of late includes a jellyfish-inspired ceiling light, a half-cube light that looks like some sort of matter inverter error (search for ‘edge’) [via mocoloco] and what must be the coolest aquarium ever

From the yet-another-mashup-we-didnt-need department: Usher vs. Harold Faltermeyer (no relation) “Usher Foley” (a DJ Crook Air production) which everyone should feel free to listen to on their new Denon 16.1 A/V receiver. Cause, you know, 16.1 is the next 5.1. You could pay for it by chargeback-ing the electric company with your new electric car! (talk about a ROI)

Mad props to whomever comes up with a fun musical interpretation with Johnny Cash Reading The Bible.

Oh, and Jimmy Fallon: time to do a new photoshoot, dude. Really.

Woo. A whole bunch of randomness today.

First off, although I’m not in love with John Kerry, Duhbya has to be the worst public speaker in history. My grandma coulda done better, and she’s dead. Hey George, maybe you should look words like ’sovereignty’ up before using them, in case some reporter catches you on it and you end up sounding like an idiot. Well, at least it wasn’t a series of SNAFUs caught on tape and posted on the internet to be mocked for all eternity. Aaaand that’s all for politics, folks.

As Britney descends into total swamp trashdom, it appears she’s decided to get rid of her place just down the block from my old employers. Here’s some pics of the fancy pad she’s giving up. [Via curbed.com]

From the NSFW-but-not-quite-gratuitous-porn department, we have what must surely be a photoshoot from an upcoming Apple ad campaign. Perhaps she could use some of these iEverything-inspired butt plugs in her next one, just to really drive the point home. Hi mom!

In new music news, I’d like to echo allmusic.com’s sentiment regarding the new Dana Owens a.k.a. Queen Latifah record, in that the worst thing about it is it makes you sad that this is her first record where she sings all the way through. A versatile talent, this woman is. Except for the abomination that Taxi looks like. What were you thinking, Jimmy..What were you thinking.

If you’re a music journalist enlisted to review the new Interpol (I’m not a huge fan but people seem to like them), there’s a helpful article of 101 things to compare them to other than Joy Division. Get it? Cause people said they sounded like Joy Division before. And even though they do, people are sick of hearing that comparison. So, funny. heh.

From the “It’s 1 in the morning and I dont want to think of any other clever From The Desk Of lines” department, three random bits of information before I go enjoy my new stereo. The should-be-up-in-the-porn-paragraph-but-really-not-porn service Rasterbator will take jpgs and … well .. rasterize ‘em so you can print ‘em out real big. But really I just liked the name.

Distributor of all that is cool in the electronica world K7 has decided to put “Not Copy Protected” labels on all of their CDs. Kinda speaks for itself that they have this.

and we have this:

Okay so maybe it was only two things.

G’nite gracie.