Links for 11.7.09: Surly beer, mushroom pants and God’s jail
*Art: The Manshroom – for your walls. And loins. I don’t know why I said that. [eat me daily]
*The Law: Oklahoma is starting a prison for Christians that will be run by Christians. [harper's]
*Drinks: The company that makes Angostura Bitters almost went under due to the recession, which would have kicked off a martini and old fashioned crisis the likes of which the world has never known.
*Video: Watch all of this season’s one-liners from Mad Men’s Roger Sterling. [vulture]
*Beer: Read this interview with the couple behind Surly Brewing. “The turning point probably was in June 2007, when Beer Advocate magazine named Surly the number-one brewery in the United States.” [heavy table]
*Music: Learn about songs that retell works of literature via Wikipedia. Let’s not forget that The Decemberists’ “On the Bus Mall” is based on “My Own Private Idaho.” (I don’t know where that came from either.) [neatorama]
*Charts: This movie narrative chart of “Lord of the Rings” from xkcd is like Andrew Quo nerdness X3. I prefer nerdness to nerdiness in this case. Not sure why. Go forth and conquer.
*Today’s links: There are no words.
Links for 11.5.09: America is bread shoes, beer and Guitar Hero
*Twitter: One prediction about Twitter’s new list functionality – “Once it’s understood that you don’t have to be following someone to add them to a list people will begin to adjust who they are following to those they actually know and interact with moving news and site feeds, or celebs and joke accounts over to lists.”
*Speakers: The Wall of Sound is a ginormous speaker, and I don’t care WHAT your definition of ginormous is. (I have run into this ambiguity before.) [coudal]
*Music: Instrumentube allows you to play different instruments on YouTube by adjusting where you are on the timeline. It’s hard to make it sound good.
*Fashion: Bread shoes. You have no idea how often I accidentally step on mayonnaise. (Often.) [buzzfeed]
*BONUS: More footwear. Converse rain boots. For playing basketball in the rain. With no pants on. (I made up that last part.)
*Geography: Can you identify what these maps are all about? Hint: It’s the world. [harper's]
*Evocative imagery: Look at these pictures of old people playing Guitar Hero. Oh, so Urlesque! (Also, the name Eliot Glazer reminds me of Eliot Spitzer. I feel sorry about that.)
*Poetry: This is a recording taken from a wax cylinder of Walt Whitman reciting from his poem, America. I’m not even kidding. Or selling Levi’s!
*ZOMG!: The brewmaster from Bell’s will be in St. Paul, at the Happy Gnome, on November 10! [heavy table]
*Today’s grade: F-
Video: Eclectic Method does Phish’s 99 Albums
Video: The Hamilton Mixtape
Lin-Manuel Miranda does a poetry jam thing at the White House on Alexander Hamilton – founding father, creator of the U.S. treasury, killer of Aaron Burr, inveterate schemer and man of notably diminutive stature.
[fallows]
Video: Last Call at the Uptown
The Uptown Bar closed a couple of days ago. The Current took the time to put together a short documentary of people talking about their memories of the bar.
I have dozens of pint glasses from the place, and accidentally innumerable free glasses behind.
I lived at 33rd and Fremont – just a few blocks away – for five years, and I hit the Uptown often. Back in the smoking era, the place reeked. The food was uniform and uniformly bad. The bloody marys, however, were excellent. It makes me feel old to see the place go.
Links for 11.1.09: Tape ties, rats, and matches
*Fashion: Whoa. Sonic Fabric Neckties. Ties made from 50% polyester thread and 50% cassette tape. That you can listen to. WHAT? [ohgizmo]
*Language: All Sorts has a collection of collective nouns, including “a fixie of hipsters,” which I could have sworn was an old neologism.
*Books: Who are the 10 best rats in literature? I agree with the Orwell and Camus, of course, but no rats of NIMH? Also, there was a dead rat in the basement of our building the other day. I didn’t go look at it. [shorties]
*Games: You can now play Rock Band on your iPhone. You could also technically create a robot to play Rock Band on your iPhone. Like this guy did. Not very sporting. [neural]
*Consumerism: Matches are everywhere. “In remote rural communities, where television, radio or even street names are almost non-existent, relaying information is a pressing issue. Matchboxes may contain the solution.” [marginal revolution]
*Booze: They make whisky flavored condoms. I’m drinking an old-fashioned right now! Actually, those two things have nothing to do with each other. At all. [buzzfeed]
*Things: If you’re marvelously pithy, you can enter this Significant Objects contest, wherein you need to right a story of a thing in 6 words or fewer.
*Twitter: Read these four things.
*Today’s grade: F.
Links for 10.27.09: Chinese, cupcakes, beer, gourds
*Look: Chris Ware in the New Yorker. There are iPhones.
*Alert: Some Taco Bells serve cupcakes. I would like mine filled with hot sauce. Please. (That’s not a euphemism.) [harper's]
*Green: Check out this vinyl that’s been bent, pounded, shaped and reused.
*The future: Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, says that in 5 years, the web will be dominated by Chinese-language content. Get this: I don’t even speak Chinese. Also, ICANN has approved non-Latin characters for domain names.
*Food: Anthony Bourdain is doing some animated web-only short video bullshit that isn’t even about food. Also, it looks like there could be zombies. Or their close brethren.
*Beer: I cannot agree with this list of the 25 best beers in America, but I can drink them. With vigor.
*Gaming: Watch this dude play Guitar Hero without a guitar. You will note that I sometimes also play Guitar Hero without a guitar, but that my score is always zero. Always. [waxy]
*Local: Guides to eating in Minneapolis from Zagat and Treehugger. [ht]
*Fall: It’s decorative gourd season. [spin city]
*Today’s links: F.
Video Grocery Store Musical
If these guys did this around me, I would not look around in confusion, but simply put my head down, walk fast, and keep walking until I was home behind locked doors or dead. That is not a judgement, but a simple statement of fact.
Video: One-man band
I wrote some super-crazy / stupid / entirely boring fiction piece about a one-man band once, but I can’t remember if it ever got published. I will go look it up now. Watch this:
