del.icio.us Links

Daily load of links from del.icio.us

» Buddy Rich on the Muppet Show 
» Muppet Show DVD season sets planned for 2005 
» Pedro’s house is for sale For the Napoleon Dynamite fan who has everything
» Wired News: Need a Building? Just Add Water To erect the structure, all you have to do is add water to the bag and inflate it with air.
» Internet Explorer 7.0 Details Begin to Leak New features include PNG support (!), tabbed browsing, a built-in news aggregator and (of course) security enhancements.
» The Believer – The Passion of the Morrissey "…a slender man in heavy 1950s style eye-glasses, floral shirt, white jeans and pompadour hairdo is energetically hurling a bunch of gangly blooms into the audience whilst singing something about spending warm summer days indoors…"
» NASA World Wind World Wind lets you zoom from satellite altitude into any place on Earth.

Apropos

The other night, while working out on the treadmill at the YMCA, the perfect song came on my iPod. Picturing all of us furiously working out as these lyrics echoed through my headphones brought a smile to my face.

Talkin’ Bout The Smiling Deathporn Immortality Blues (everyone wants to live forever)
The Flaming Lips (Hit To Death In The Future Head)

Imagination, that’s the way that it seems
Man can only live in his dreams
Oh, it seems so hard.
If I’ve lived a thousand times before
And if I’m gonna live a million more
Always brings me down

Everyone wants to live forever
Thinkin’ that it’d be a lot better
Everyone wants to live for ever, whoah

The feeling in my head starts heading south
It seems it stops the fever from shootin’ out of my mouth
Life gushing all around

Everyone wants to live forever
Thinkin’ that it’d be a lot better
Everyone wants to live forever, whoah oh oo ohhh

Social Security Stories

The Democracy for America web site has a cool little feature that lets you search for Social Security stories in your area. It’s a good way to show how well Social Security works, how many people have benefited from it and why it should be saved, not dismantled. This is a story I found near me:

Priscilla from Atlanta, GA wrote:

I retired recently. I received a small payout from my employer which I rolled over to an IRA. I made several adjustments to my 401K and IRA plans, too. I started saving for my retirement as soon as I could, but the amount was cut in half during the stock market crash of 2000, never really recovering. But the real story here is that of all the accounts I had to deal with, Social Security was the only one that worked smoothly. I had to prod and cajole investment banks to carry out my wishes. I never really felt I could trust them to do what they were supposed to do. My Social Security payments come like clockwork, and there were no mistakes. I am very grateful that our government saw fit to provide some income, however modest, for us when we no longer work full time. It allows us to maintain a dignified standard of living without burdoning our children, and in my case to do free-lance work in a field I love.

del.icio.us Links

Daily load of links from del.icio.us

» Airbag – Figures Arturo Rodriguez, one half of the deisign team over at satisfied Halfass Hosting customers Twinsparc, wins a design contest. Congrats, Arturo!
» Ocean’s 420 The actors they love the marijuana (the photos for this article are hilarious)

iDeal iPod Shuffle

Last night as I was driving home from work I was not in a very good mood. My day was draining and nothing much good had happened. Every single song that came up on my iPod on the drive home sucked. I must have hit skip 100 times. It was very annoying.

Living your life with the constant accompaniment of all of your music is a cool thing. I almost exclusively listen to my iPod on shuffle and it’s a great way to listen to your collection. I miss the days of sitting in front of my stereo with some headphones, of course, and I really need to start listening to some records all the way through as they were intended. But, for your daily commute it doesn’t get much better than the randomness of an iPod on shuffle.

Well, my iPod must have sensed that it didn’t do a very good job on last night’s commute home. So, this morning I was treated to the best sequence of music my iPod has ever spit out. My ride to work was a joy (and yes my commute is so long that I could listen to all of these songs on the way in this morning).

Thanks iPod!

» Totally Wired – The Fall (Palace of Swords Reversed)
» Can’t You Hear Me Knocking – The Rolling Stones (Sticky Fingers)
» Isis (Live) – Bob Dylan and the Rolling Thunder Revue (Bob Dylan Live 1975)
» Song 2 – Blur (Blur)
» And Your Bird Can Sing – The Beatles (Revolver)
» Los Angeles – Frank Black (Frank Black)
» Neverending Math Equation – Modest Mouse (Building Nothing Out Of Something)
** a 2fer! **
» Float On – Modest Mouse (Good News For People Who Love Bad News)
» Debris Slide – Pavement (Westing (By Musket and Sextant))
» Don’t Lie to Me – Big Star (#1 Record/Radio City )
» Obstacle 1 – Interpol (Turn On the Bright Lights)
» Apologies to Insect Live – British Sea Power (The Decline of British Sea Power)
» When They First Saw The Floating World – Macha (Macha)

TV Challenge

The wife and I were watching some TeeVee last night when she challenged me to find something good to watch that wasn’t a) reality tv or b) a home improvement show. I know that technically a home improvement show is reality tv, but the home improvement format has been around long before Survivor® and it’s ilk reared their demon heads, so we consider it a distinct tv flavor.

We had just finished watching the Amazing Race and had enjoyed that show, so don’t think that we consider reality tv unwatchable. The wife just wanted to challenge me. I proceeded to click around looking for a good show to watch. I clicked and I clicked, but every single show I landed on fit into the above 2 categories. Every single one. It was hilarious. There is nothing on television these days except reality tv or home improvement shows.

I quickly gave up. I landed on the following show and we watched the whole damn thing (please help us).

Dog the Bounty Hunter