Monday, November 17, 2008 | by nathan

Weekly Reader - 17 November 2008

I Got My MTV

MTV has launched a website featuring basically every music video ever. Well, okay, not really, but it’s a whole lot of them. Now if they’d scrap all this "Hills" nonsense and just go back to playing these puppies 24-7, then I might consider watching their network again.

Ten Fascinating Final Pictures

I try not to make too big a deal on this website about my fascination with death, but this list of ten last photographs taken - both BY and OF people who faced mortality imminently thereafter (sometimes by mere seconds) - was too good not to share.

Where the Thunder Comes Dribbling Down the Plains - New York Times

A great, in-depth story about how the Seattle SuperSonics became the Oklahoma City Thunder. Despite the author’s suggestion that perhaps Tulsa (yeah right) would’ve made a more "natural" fit for the NBA, he does a great job of showing how our city rose to this challenge.

Proposition 8 Made Me Quit The Mormon Church

A fascinating and somewhat heartbreaking story about a women who lost her faith watching her co-congregants rally around Proposition 8.

Oxford University Podcasts

Ever want to attend a class at England’s Oxford University? Well, this is probably as close as you - or I - will ever get.

Monday, November 3, 2008 | by nathan

Weekly Reader - 3 November 2008

K.C. Clifford on "Austin Connection"

My buddy K.C. was featured on the Austin Connection podcast, where she talks about her career, her journey, and sings several new songs. If you’re one of several Okay City readers who live in Nashville and will be there Nov. 8, you should go see her at Ugly Mugs Coffee Shop; this will whet your appetite. You can also see and hear K.C. on the NewsOK web series "Static" at the NewsOK website here.

Christian Science Monitor To End Print Publication

I lament the coming end of print newspapers; the Christian Science Monitor, a producer of some of journalism’s best reporting, is leading a wave that, in the next ten years, will change the face of journalism.

DIY Lamborghini Countach

This dude built a Lamborghini Countach in his BASEMENT. So awesome. I want to do this.

ELECTION LINKS

Peter Beinart - Last of the Culture Warriors

"Palin’s brand is culture war, and in America today culture war no longer sells. The struggle that began in the 1960s — which put questions of racial, sexual and religious identity at the forefront of American politics — may be ending. Palin is the end of the line."

Greatest Political Ads of All Time

These are some of modern history’s greatest political ads; some you’ve seen, some you probably haven’t, but they’re all worth a look, especially if you’re thinking that this season’s nastiness is a new phenomenon.

Real McCain of Genius

An awesome goof on those stupid "Real Man of Genius" ads featuring John McCain and his many, many houses.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008 | by nathan

Weekly Reader: 28 October 2008

Ghosts of Halloween
Thinking of decorating your house for Halloween? It’s not too late! These people did it up RIGHT.

Geeky Pumpkins
Some of the geekiest carved (and programmed, and DIY-ed) pumpkins you’ve ever seen. I have an old Mac 512 that I want to paint orange and program to display a Jack-O-Lantern face; just gotta get it running.

World Is A Hustle - Unreleased Track by Lauryn Hill
If, like me, you thought The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill was one of the best albums, like, ever, you were probably as dismayed as I was to see her seemingly fall off the face of the earth. She’s been stealthily leaking tracks here and there over the last ten years, and this, the most recent, is AMAZING.

ELECTION LINKS

Palin As President
She’s a disaster of a candidate, but we haven’t heard the last of Sarah Palin. I predict she’ll make at least a bit of a comeback in 2012 in a bid to take on Obama for the top spot. Here’s what that might look like.

Barack Obama Supporter Buttons
These are some of the best campaign buttons I’ve ever seen. My personal favorite is 8-bit For Obama.

West Hollywood Considers Ban on Sarah Palin Drag Queens
"It’s not that we’re against dressing up as Sarah," said West Hollywood mayor, Mayor Jeffrey Prang. "It’s just so tacky. It’s just that it’s like impersonating Marilyn. There’s no challenge. Bangs, heavy rouge to build those high cheek bones and those awful glasses. Voila…you’re Sarah. We expect our residents to lead the way, not come up with something every drunk notary in Toledo will be wearing."

My favorite part of this story is that the McCain campaign actually commented on it, calling it an "Anti-American Attempt to Squash the Republican Vote." Because drag queens are always such swing voters.

Monday, October 20, 2008 | by nathan

Weekly Reader: 20 October 2008

Mixtape Jones Report: The New Suck

My buddy David explains this better than I ever could:
"I am pretty much bewildered by the popularity of most of the current musical trends, and I don’t anticipate this changing. One in particular, though, is especially horrible, and that’s the musical idiom occupied by such artists as Nickelback, Daughtry and Hinder."
He gets it totally right.

The Flying Car Gets Real

"The team at Terrafugia is about to fulfill the fantasy of every driver pilot: a consumer vehicle that can take to the highways and the skies. All they have to do is finish the first one."

Life in the Womb

A series of National Geographic photos of animals in the womb. Not for the faint of heart but utterly FASCINATING.

ELECTION LINKS

Why Rosanne Cash Would Be A Better VP Than Sarah Palin

One of my favorite songwriters blogs at The Nation as to why she’s more qualified than Sarah Palin:
1. Focus on the Family
"I am the mother of five children, just like Governor Palin. I have known the demands of managing a full-time career and motherhood at the same time. I have juggled a breast pump and a BlackBerry, and I know when to put the BlackBerry down. (To be perfectly honest, I did once send a text to the baby and tried to nurse my bass player. You learn from your mistakes.)"

Make-Believe Maverick

Rolling Stone has always had excellent political coverage, and this stunning expose of John McCain’s military and academic record should give anyone pause as to his ability to lead this country. A long read, but a worthwhile one.

Andrew Callahan’s Impending Excommunication

Andrew Callahan believes that his Mormon (!) faith tells him that Proposition 8 is wrong. Now, he’s being excommunicated for those beliefs.

Monday, October 13, 2008 | by nathan

Weekly Reader: 13 October 2008

I think from now until Election Day, I’m going to have to divide Weekly Reader into two sections: Election Links and Non-Election-Related Links. Let’s start off with the good news: The Non-Election-Related Links:

The Working Closet Pool at Flickr

Many thanks to Whoorl, who created this wonderful pool where you can submit photos of what you’re wearing to work every day. I haven’t checked extensively, but I might be the only male in the entire group. Still, I don’t care. Also, just to encourage your participation, here’s what I wore to work on Friday:

The Domesticated Shithead Gets Letters

Let me just tell you how happy I was to welcome Patrick Hughes back to the world of blogdom. This entry, a response to a letter someone wrote him about what he thinks about the supposed return of 90s culture into the mainstream (something that’s news to me), here’s what he had to say:

"If I were to overcome my resistance to talking about culture in neat little 10-year nubbins and assign some sort of distinction to "the ’90s," it’d probably be as the period in which enthusiastic fans of pop culture, the types who can’t settle for the top 40 or get too thrilled about the latest Hollywood blockbuster, gave up drugs, fucking and generally being awesome to endlessly argue about arbitrary classifications and parse meaningless data like a bunch of pussy-ass nerd bean counters. From this perspective, "the ’90s" really have never left."

The Parallel Film Guide

"The Parallel Universe Film Guide, a sort-of comprehensive database of movies bearing uncanny likenesses to classics and not-so-classics cataloged by IMDB. We’re stunned to find new favorites like 1972’s The Lovablest Mafia Family in the World, the 1985 culture clash Suddenly Amish, the award-winning drama My Wild Irish Invalid and the unfinished silent classic The Night Jerker among many others, all neatly cross-referenced by star, director and even memorable quotes. If you can browse the PUFG and manage to get any more work done today, then you’re just not paying attention." - defamer.com

A site you can easily get lost in for hours.

Now, for the politically minded, the undecided, the very decided, and people who still wonder if Sarah Palin thought maybe Jesus rode around on a dinosaur…

ELECTION LINKS

Rednecks for Obama

You might think this site’s a joke, but it’s really, really not, and thank God, too, because here I’d started to give up on rednecks altogether. And as someone who’s only about a generation from redneckery himself (and pretty proud of it sometimes), it’s good to see my people coming through, even just a little bit.

Fuck Off Sarah Palin

A wonderful CafePress store where you can tell the VPILF exactly how you feel about her. The best part? All proceeds are donated to Planned Parenthood in Sarah Palin’s name.

Fighting for Equal Pay

Michelle Obama blogs about equal pay for women and why supporting Barack Obama is so important for women.

Bill Ayers And What Isn’t Being Talked About

Tish makes a wonderful bunch of points about the current faux-kerfluffle about Bill Ayers and why it’s not what John McCain and Sarah Palin want you to think it is.

Monday, October 6, 2008 | by nathan

Weekly Reader: 6 October 2008

Slideshow: The Obamas’ Greatest PDA Moments

Agree with him or not, Barack Obama is clearly a man who knows he hit the jackpot when he married his wife. Their public displays of affection are cute and sincere, the first such displays that I can remember that aren’t creepy at best (Al and Tipper making out on stage, or that lovely word with which John McCain referred to his trophy wife?) Also worth noting is this article on why their relationship is an ancillary reason to vote for him.

Carbon Rally!

"…a place where many people could discover and commit to small, positive actions over time. People on the site can propose great ideas for reducing carbon dioxide emissions, and the community would choose the best ideas to pursue as a team. We’d track the collective impacts, and show the power of many people getting the job done together."

The True Price of SMS Messaging

These guys do the math and compare the cost of downloading huge files via your ISP versus downloading relatively-small text messages from your SMS service. This will make your eyes pop out of your head.

A Collection of Ads

A Russian site featuring some of the most creative advertising campaigns in recent history. If anyone knows where to get a Post-It pad that looks like a hand, let me know.

A Remarkable Photo from Tornado Country

For those of you who are afraid of tornadoes and wonder how anyone could possibly live somewhere where these things are common, this might not be the link for you.

Pipe Cleaner Dance!

Make the little guy dance! Dance, little guy, dance!

Monday, September 29, 2008 | by nathan

Weekly Reader: 29 September 2008

FIRST, A META NOTE FOR WHICH I APOLOGIZE:

So, I’ve decided to try something new. I really, really like my Weekly Links. Like, really, really like them, mostly because I consider them an extension of part of the reason why this website exists. See, when I started this blog, like all the other bloggers who are blogging their blogs, I was having all these feelings, and creative urges, and I wanted to write on the internet, dammit. Then I learned how to take good photographs, and then it turned into a whole thing. But ANOTHER part of the reason I love having this site is that I can share things that I love with the world - hence the "Currently Listening" and "Currently Reading" widgets on either side of us. I have a folder in my bookmarks of wonderful things on the web that people send me - hilarious or touching or crazy stuff - and it’s so deep that probably 75% of it will never make it into my sidebar. So, in an effort to force it down your throat, and also to force myself to do this every Monday, I’m changing its name to Weekly Reader (in honor of one of my favorite things from elementary school), and starting a category to make it easier on myself to keep all this collected and to make sure you see some of this wonderful material. If you find something on the web that I should bring to everyone’s attention, please send it to me, especially if it’s something embarrassing about Sarah Palin. And now, without further ado:

29 September 2008

HuffPo: Top 10 Reasons Why Sarah Palin Will Cancel the Debate

Number 10: Suspicious Russian tourists spotted across the Bering strait in Dezhnevo

20 Baby Products You Absolutely Need

"Raising a baby is a tough gig. "Experts" declare at every turn that the wrong decisions on nutrition, napping or enrichment will render your child emotionally barren, homeless, sexually deviant and, worst of all, short. It’s no wonder child rearing products are such a huge industry. Here are 20 products perfect for developing little tykes … into adults who want to murder their parents."

Old Creepy Ads

A delightful collection of actual advertisements that, um, defy explanation. Remember: Thorazine for control of senile agitation. "Give me a calmative!"

Bzzzpeek!

A wonderful (albeit flash-based) website that shows you how animals sound in other languages. As you might expect, cows in Germany sound super-gay, but susprisingly, in South Korea they sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher.

Ripples!

A piece of web and QuickTime genius: a long video of people getting punched in slow-motion. Keep bookmarked to watch at work.

20 Greatest Sci-Fi TV Shows of All Time

Spoiler Alert: Lost is NOT number one. Worst. List. Ever.

Monday, September 22, 2008 | by nathan

Weekly Reader: 22 September 2008

22 September 2008

The Short - But Eventful - Life of Ike

Photos from the Boston Globe of the hurricane that ravaged the Gulf Coast, brought an early autumn to Oklahoma, and cost my friend in OHIO a car. O HI O. Some seriously amazing photos, though.

Azariah Southworth is Gay: So What?

"Why is this story a big deal? I mean, it’s just another Christian guy associated with music admitting that he’s gay. Like we haven’t met hundreds of Baptist and Pentecostal music ministers over the years who qualified, but who had managed to marry a portly woman who resembled the gay guy’s mom long enough to get ordained, squeeze out some kids, and then have an affair with the tenor in the Gaither Vocal Band knock-off group after the church potluck."

Solar-Powered Lawnmower

This is a freaking awesome rig-up, though I’m left wondering why this person didn’t just get a manual, 1950’s-style rotating blade lawnmower. 

People in the 1930’s Hated Their Dogs

No matter the decade, if you have to go to these lengths to take your dog with you on vacation, you’re officially a cat person. 

The Volkswagen Scirocco is Back!

Family Guy gags aside, they’re reintroducing the Volkswagon Scirocco (in Europe only) and it looks pretty great. Now bring it to the States!

Monday, September 8, 2008 | by nathan

Weekly Reader: 8 September 2008

8 September 2008

100 Things You Should Eat Before You Die

By my count, I’ve had exactly 51 of these things, though some of them, like "Whole Insects" and "Big Mac Meal" are off the table, as far as I’m concerned, forever. How many have you tried?

Pleo

Okay, so, when I was a kid, we had Legos and G.I. Joes but most of the time, we just played out in the yard, with sticks and rocks and dirt, and our imaginations. Now, the kids have Pleo, a lifelike dinosaur that can learn and, by all appearances, love more perfectly than human beings can. Which is why the possibility of me ever having children just went down a whole lot.

The Itch

This story at the New Yorker really hit home with me. Ever since I had my scalp sliced open by a broken window in 2002, the top of my head itches almost constantly, and at times, it’s everything I can do not to scratch it in much the same way the woman in this story did: until it comes right open. A long read, but an absolutely fascinating one.

The Douchiest Phone Message In History

I’m 90% certain I went to college with this guy.

Telemegaphone Dale

"Telemegaphone Dale stands seven metres tall on top of the Bergskletten mountain overlooking the idyllic Dalsfjord in Western Norway. When you dial the Telemegaphone’s phone number the sound of your voice is projected out across the fjord, the valley and the village of Dale below."

Monday, September 1, 2008 | by nathan

Weekly Reader: 1 September 2008

1 September 2008

In honor of the Republican National Convention, all of this week’s links pertain to John McCain and Sarah Palin.

LOL John McCain

"Thinkin hard … 2 remembr mah housez"

Things Younger Than John McCain (re-post)

"Sarah Palin’s Mom and Dad are younger than John McCain. Sigh, there’s always that moment of awkwardness at the dawn of a new relationship when one of the partners realizes that the other is older than their parents…"

The Epitome of Tokenism

"if Palin’s résumé is limited, to put it politely, she possesses the only two qualities that McCain now seems to consider essential: She is a right-wing religious ideologue with female gender characteristics. Suddenly that is all anyone needs to qualify as a potential commander in chief of the world’s most powerful military."

What McCain and Bush Were Doing The Day Katrina Struck

Turns out, they were having a party for John McCain’s 69th Birthday. (photo from the White House official website).

Where Sarah Palin Got Most of Her Governing Experience To Date

This is a photo of the town hall where Sarah Palin was mayor from 1996-2002. It makes perfect sense that the next stop on her journey should be the Naval Observatory. "It’s a lot like being a community organizer, only you have real responsibilities." Like what? Taking people’s water bill checks at the drive-up window?