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Clickity-clack...bring it on back! (Link roundup for 8/10 & 11/06)

• So, you say you need a great way to fuck with one of your vacationing co-workers, but covering their cubicle in foil is just so passé? Well, I'm sure Mike's coworkers would have a couple of clever suggestions for you...



• While this is probably one of the most heinously laid-out sites I've ever seen, it's also a veritable comedy goldmine (providing you're willing to put the work in.) I'm thinking about trying my hand at some of those OSHA signs after consuming gallons of coffee and letting my caffeine-riddled id take charge...



• I can't decide which is worse in terms of journalistic integrity, grabbing your ankles, shitting out whatever press release Tony Snow just jammed up there, splashing it with colorful 3-D graphics, and tagging it as "news"...or saying "fuck it!" and just making it up? It's obvious that the only way this can be settled as a Thunderdome-style cage match featuring Jayson Blaire vs. Bill O'Reilly*. Shit, I'm going to get on the phone with pay-per-view about this right now! If this idea catches on, I may make a million by 35 after all...



• PS3 vs. Wii? Think differently. I know which one I'll be picking up!



• 5 albums in heavy rotation this week:
  -Firewater: Psychopharmacology
  -Shapes and Sizes: s/t
  -Islands: Return to the Sea
  -Tapes 'N Tapes: The Loon
  -Teenage Fanclub: Bandwagonesque
  

*I actually checked the Faux News site to try and find the name of an actual reporter, but I'm pretty sure they don't actually hire them any more. It looks like what they're doing now is just grabbing other people's stories off Knight-Ridder and Reuters and having one of their 10,000 "Commentators" shout about it in highly arguementative tones. Additionally, going to their site also let to some information that reminded me why I stopped paying attention to the news in the first place (and why I rarely, if ever, talk about it any more.) Apparently, not only has the Terror-Threat-Level-ometer been raised from Burt to Ernie but, due to some Die Hard 3-esque "liquid-bomb" BS, you can no longer carry-on suntan lotion, toothpaste, or even fucking bottled drinks on planes! So now, the list of verboten items has been extended to such WMDs as nail clippers, knitting needles, and the most dangerous element known to man...water. Fuck trying to smuggle uranium, I know I sure feel safer now that the friendly skies are free of the deadly H20!

When reached for comment, every single fucking passenger from every single fucking interview from every single fucking news outlet could be quoted as saying, "Sure, it's a pain in the ass, but what are you gonna do?" Personally? Since we're gonna get fucked in the ass either way, why not just tell DHS and the FAA to go to hell, and get an IT?

Webnotes and such for August 7, 2006...and stuff.

• Wait...intelligent discourse revolving around Sony's entrance into the whole next-gen console wars that doesn't completely break down into wild fanboy speculation and rabid name calling?! Yeah, I didn't believe it either...



• No more words and/or guitar? Sigh...Here's a link to the full MP3 version of Sleater-Kinney's last DC show ever. Thanks, Matt...and yeah, I cried a little too. (Incidentally, I still have some amazing pictures somewhere that I shot of a 9:30 SK show from, I wanna say, The Hot Rock tour. I really should try and dig those out...)



• In honor of next week's 2nd Season premiere of Showtime's Weeds, I decided to see what their official site had to offer. Turns out, there's a slew of (*shudder* there's that word again!) Podcasts up there, featuring the cast and creators. I've yet to listen to them but I assume they should be at least as informative/interesting as the commentary tracks on the Season 1 DVDs. At the very least, there's probably no screaming babies or idiot stoners in the recording studio this time around...



• Though Sunday's ads have told me otherwise, I prefer to hold to the belief that Capcom's Xbox 360 ode to the lighter side of the zombie holocaust Dead Rising, is actually going to ship on its ship date (which happens to be tomorrow.) After playing the demo last night, I absolutely need to get my hands on that game as soon as humanly possible.
  
  While most of the game seems to be focused on squishing, bludgeoning, decapitating, and coming up with other new and clever ways to help shuffle the walking dead off this (im)mortal coil, I personally am far more interested in the whole photojournalistic aspect of the game. See, your character in the game is a photographer who gets choppered into an undead-infested shopping mall in the hopes of scoring himself the scoop of a lifetime. Since you're there first and foremost to get some amazing pictures, I'm curious to see how they plan on handling that part of the gameplay.
  
  Sure, I'm prepared to risk my (virtual) neck to capture that perfect "holy-Jesus-I-know-I'm-about-to-get-my-fucking-face-bitten-off-but-I'll-be-damned-if-that's-not-a-great-fucking-shot!" shot, but the real question remains: can I do anything with these pictures once they're taken? In the demo version, I noticed that you can save individual shots to an "album" of sorts, but honestly, that's just not enough. With any luck, Capcom will take a note from the 360 version of Burnout: Revenge and let you upload them to some kind of server and share them with your friends. If not, I think I might just have to figure out a way to do it my damn self, because there's just too much potential situational comedy in this whole premise to just let it go to waste.

A case of "that book learnin'"

I don't know how it happened, but I seem to have caught a case of Litmania recently. That is, I've been reading a lot. And not just comics like usual (though I'll debate, or possibly even go so far as to fight anyone questioning the legitimacy of the graphic novel as a viable literary and/or artistic medium.) In the past 2 weeks, I finished Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation and Steven Johnson's Everything Bad is Good for You and am currently slogging through the last 60 pages of Greg Palast's incredibly dense The Best Democracy Money Can Buy as well as MTX's Dr. Frank's clever first novel, King Dork.

My goal is to keep 1 fiction and 1 non-fiction title going at a time. Next up on the non-fiction block is either Bloodsworth or Bowling Alone, two titles I picked up last week based on recommendations (and, in the case of the former, seeing an absolutely heartbreaking CSPAN rerun of an in-store appearance of Kirk Bloodsworth, the titular character and first US death row inmate to be exonerated based on DNA evidence.) As for the fiction, well...I don't really have any. Maybe someone could recommend some that are actually worth spending the time on since I'm drawing a complete blank. I like Elmore Leonard if that helps at all...

Incidentally, this whole thing also begs the question, do Audiobooks count as reading? I mean, sure, the whole concept of "reading" implies that your eyes are physically moving back and forth across the page, but theoretically you are engaging just as much of your mind by listening to them as you are by reading their printed counterparts, right? Just because you happen to be using a different input medium to transfer that information, shouldn't devalue the information itself. Plus, in the case that the author themself is also wearing the hat of the narrator, a unique layer of perspective is added to the experience while still simultaneously engaging your imagination. I know that they probably don't hold the same amount of street-cred (or whatever the literary equivalent of street-cred is,) as actual books do, since I'm not a pretentious fuck who goes out of his way to make sure you know just how well read I am, I'm gonna count them in tandem with the books...so take that nobody!

Other things that are awesome today...(with links!)

• A new LOST podcast from last week's San Diego ComiCon! Lots of new info...plus the mystery code "VIX7ZXT97." Where does it go? Hansoexposed.com? What does it do? Hmmm...



• Fall comes early! The second season of Prison Break starts up on August 21st and one of my favorite character-actors William Fichtner is going to be joining the already stellar cast! Information courtesy of...Myspace?!
  
  
• Ever wonder what 5 albums your favorite musicians would want to be stuck with for the rest of their lives, were they stranded on a desert island? (I think Hurley's advice there would be "Dude, bring some extra batteries") Well... wonder no more. See how your choices match up...



• Not desert island, mind you, but these are the top 5 albums I've been rocking the hell out of this week (in no particular order:)
  
  1. Tapes 'N Tapes: The Loon
  2. Queens of the Stone Age: Lullabies to Paralyze
  3. Finks: More Songs About Robots and Black Things
  4. Clem Snide: The Ghost of Fashion
  5. Maritime: We, The Vehicles



• The 33 1/3 book series. When Monica and I were at a party at Last Gasp Press in San Francisco, I stumbled across a couple of these in their warehouse. They're basically just little books that are supposed to accompany your favorite albums, but they've got so many amazing ones out there already, I think I just may become obsessed. All I know is I'm going to put up the first round of orders for Paul's Boutique, Daydream Nation, Dolittle, and In the Aeroplane Over the Sea as soon as the last shit I ordered from Amazon comes in.



• Touch and Go's 25th anniversary megashow! Pegboy, Man...Or Astroman?, Big Black, and Three Mile fucking Pilot!!! After missing Lollapalooza this weekend, I need to make this happen...



• One word, Superchunk. NC, here we come!



• Two awesome (and extensive) pieces of info from gaming site Gamasutra:
  
  1. Telltale Games is finally making a sequel to Sam & Max: Hit the Road, probably my favorite computer game ever (Lucasarts has been repeatedly shitting on the license for the past 10 years, constantly shelving it to make room for more and more lousy Star Wars games.) There's 2 interviews up with members of the Telltale staff here and here. Great stuff in there if you're interested...and if you are, I'd recommend going to the Telltale site and reading the brilliantly original Sam & Max webcomics they've got up there. 21st century storytelling infused with vintage Steve Purcell humor. God Steve, we're sure glad to have you back!
  
  2. Two audiocast interviews (yeah, I've got an iPod too...fuck, I've got three...that still doesn't mean I can stomach the word "Podcast") with John Baez of The Behemoth, the company that completely blew my mind with the spectacularly simple Alien Hominid. A good listen if you're interested in breaking into the gaming industry or if you want any inside info on AH...or the upcoming Xbox Live Arcade exclusive Castle Crashers, which I know you all do...



• Finally, I am totally addicted to the all too sweet "Islands Gone Bad" by this new Canadian band Shapes and Sizes. I'm so fucking buying this album this weekend...
  

Well, I guess that's it for today. Hopefully you'll all find something on here that tickles your fancy...or your grundle...or whatever it is that's in dire need of a ticklin'...

Random nothing

Words I like today:

exculpatory
Scrimshaw.

Words that make me want to kill today:

Memecurve
Memecloud.