total eclipse flow chart

via buzzfeed, the most brilliant chart i think i've ever seen. please please please sell a t-shirt.

lemonade movie

i recently lost my job in advertising. but i was so miserable that, despite the fact that i'm bringing in zero money, i'm happier than i've ever been. i have some exciting new prospects for projects that i actually WANT to work on, and i feel as though my vision looking forward is clearer than ever.

that's why i was excited when a friend pointed me to this trailer. notice that not a single person missed their former life. i think showing up at a job 5 days a week (or 6 or 7) is almost the easy way out. when you have to look around and find possibilities and opportunities for yourself, that's when the really good stuff starts happening.

i'm actually going to contact the writer and see if there is a way to get involved. in any case, please enjoy.

highway2healthcare

i don't click on banner ads very often. but how do you not click on a healthcare take on appetite for destruction? i certainly don't know.

turns out this is a clever effort by the AFL-CIO to gain support for reform, even a public option. you got me to sign up, fellas. nice work.

silhouette masterpiece theatre

my friend directed me to this awesome website. enjoy.

happy birthday, lincoln penny.

fascinating, great trivia about the lincoln penny.

the fiery furnaces' new album

it sounds like some silly avant-garde concept at first, but the fiery furnaces' plan for a silent album is fairly brilliant.

"Since bands can no longer sell audio, FF decline to provide it"

instead, they're basically going to present sheet music for fans and tribute bands to interpret, perform, and record. in this way, they're making their new album completely interpretive, interactive, and viral. ummm.... sounds damn smart to me.

i think it's going to be an interesting experiment. and at the end of the day, every indie band is gonna say, why didn't we think of that?

gawker stole ian shapira's story.

i loved this article in today's washington post.

at first glance, it seems like another "how will newspapers survive in the internet age" sort of story. but i think the point made is valid:

Current law basically allows the Gawkers of the world to appropriate others' work, repurpose it and sell ads against it with no payment to or legal recourse for the company that paid me while I sat through two hours of a generational seminar.

Marburger compared my article and the Gawker posting and concluded: "This is what in our opinion is a huge contributor to the demise of those who are originating news reports. If you don't change the law to stop this, originators of news reports cannot survive."

i don't pick up near the traffic a site like gawker does. at least not yet. but i like to think there is a responsibilty on the part of the blogosphere to give credit where credit is due. but i also think it's interesting how newspapers and aggregators both need each other in order to survive, yet the former is faltering financially while the latter is cleaning up. a good read and thought-starter, for sure.

if you fight for freedom wherever there's trouble...

... then you need this t-shirt.

shiantology

holy. crap.

and i really mean that.

the website shiantology.com has created religious imagery around the one and only leboeuf. two things i hate put together somehow make something i love. now they're inviting you to submit your own. have fun.

united we serve

the latest in president obama's web savvy, united we serve offers an easy way for citizens to get involved in their local communities.

new rule

bill maher did a great segment ending his show last night. if you missed it on HBO, it's written up in the huffington post.

subtle butt

i bag on orange county a lot. mostly because it sucks.

but one good thing has come out of the OC: subtle butt.

this little patch supposedly neutralizes fart odor. the video pretty much says it all better than i ever could.

style your garage

i really love this idea, mostly because i love anything that could potentially upset an HOA.

slow cow

finally, a new drink that isn't supposed to make us EXTREME.

on the contrary, slow cow invites us to relax and take it easy.

on a personal note, may i just say i'm a little disturbed that i heard about this via my ad agency? they're usually so out of touch, that... now i just don't know what to think about myself.

miami airport

a proposal was made to introduce slots to the miami international airport, in an effort to increase revenue.

but a florida law (which was written in an effort to keep slots at racetracks), states that slot machines can only reside in places where the ponies race.

the answer? bring ponies to the airport as well.

hey, why the hell not.

dave barry had an amusing chat about this very topic with NPR's robert siegel.

two recent post articles about sarah palin

i'm kind of in love with this op-ed written by barbara boxer and john kerry, refuting a palin op-ed about energy. i hate that anyone has to take her seriously, but i like how the senators subtly mention her ties to oil companies, and state how scare tactics used in the past to stymie environmental legislation have no basis.

the other article i'm digging is the results of a post-abc news poll. while palin still has her GOP following, she's clearly losing ground, and for that i am thankful. more people don't think she's a strong leader, or clearly understands complex national policies. my favorite excerpt is as follows:

Rick Buila, 38, of Sharonville, Ohio, who works in finance and voted for the McCain-Palin ticket in November, said his opinion of the governor has changed. "I don't think that she is cut out to be on the national stage," he said. "I look at her education and her background and the way she carries herself and her [resignation] speech, and when you have someone who's out there saying 'You betcha' about 50 times, I don't think that's the person we want to have negotiating with other countries."

amen.

the complexities of sustainable food

i came across this article today, even though it was published in february. it talks about the complexities of our food system, and why labels like "organic" and "local" aren't enough to address the problems we face.

Real sustainability... is defined not by a food system's capacity to ensure happy workers or organic lima beans, but by whether the food system can sustain itself—that is, keep going, indefinitely, in a world of finite resources. A truly sustainable food system is inherently resilient—more capable of self-correction and self-revitalization than its industrial rival. Unfortunately, in the real world of farming, ideas like "resilience" must compete with realities like "costs" and "profits," and producers and consumers alike gravitate toward simpler standards—even if those standards don't represent truly sustainable practices. Worries Kirschenmann, "We've come to see sustainability as some kind of fixed prescription—if you just do these 10 things, you will be sustainable, and you won't need to worry about it anymore."

while the article never offered up a grand solution, it is interesting to think about what how inadequate some of our sustainable parameters are. it also does a good job tying in the economic side of the equation, including demand for unsustainable meat and dairy products, and the habits we've formed because of relatively cheap food. the idea that a consumer push strategy will never be enough certainly rings true - which means we need to do more to encourage our government to address this problem.
in any case, it's a good read, especially before i head out to the grocery store.

my one-woman campaign to save sbarro.

buzzfeed also lists 14 things that the recession will help us lose. but it made me think of the one thing i truly hope weathers the economic storm, and that is sbarro. last june, slumping mall sales attributed to the pizza chain's $5.7 million loss.

now, look: i'm not going to defend sbarro's shitty pizza, though i did live on the stuff all through college. but i do NOT want to live in a world where i can't have their garlic knots, baked ziti and spaghetti any time i get suckered into a mall! i don't know what they put in those spaghetti noodles, but it is my weakness. my kryptonite. my salvation.

please, everyone. join my campaign. i promise you a world without sbarro is a sad, tragic world indeed.

in the year 2000... in the year TWO THOUSAND!

buzzfeed feeds us a 1985 issue of ebony, where they predict what stars will look like in 2000.

in ebony's defense, it's not like anyone could have predicted what would actually happen. that might be more frightening than what actually happened.

[ much respect, michael, but cmon ]

palin's resignation speech: the good version.

vanity fair takes a stab at making sarah palin sound cohesive. nice try, guys. notice not a single thing was stetted.