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nullarysources: Chuck Norris wearing a sweater woven from the...

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 17:55:51 -0700

Chuck Norris wearing a sweater woven from the universe? Check. A woman with a giant gun leaning through an interdimensional portal? Check. The bust of a ninja with no skin, with a hand that can’t possibly be his brandishing a sai in front of him? Check and check.

And that tagline: “In a world of choices, for one man there is no choice….” Which world is this? Are there worlds without choices? The poster doesn’t appear to be depicting Earth, is ours one of those worlds? Is this subtle social commentary?

I guess this is as good a time as any to announce to you guys my new project, Nullary Sources. It’s a link blog I’m doing with my bestest buddy ‘Ili Butterfield — think of it like Chitwood & Hobbs but about current events, rad music, and amazing internet finds like the above (written by ‘Ili, natch).

I hope you guys like it — I’ve been having a blast. (I doubt I’ll be doing much more tumblring here, although I will definitely still be updating my regular blog, iamthewalr.us.)

The Confusatory: Contested

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 13:02:00 -0700

The Confusatory: Contested:

cbowns:

Long story short: Andy and I threw down our respective gloves after throwing back the third glass of whiskey, and came up with this: every Tuesday, we’ll spend 20 minutes of our respective shuttle rides to work writing something. It doesn’t matter what, but when those 20 minutes are up, you publish it.

Great post from Chris. Oh also, I’m in. (Although I don’t have to ride a shuttle. Suckas.)

baileygenine: gregrutter: Every mission to Mars Nerd...

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 12:35:13 -0700

baileygenine:

gregrutter:

Every mission to Mars

Nerd stuff.

I’ll bet there isn’t a tornado warning on Mars right now.

implodr: “What’s the matter, son? Too wasted to pick your age...

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 23:45:58 -0700

implodr:

“What’s the matter, son? Too wasted to pick your age off of one the colored balls on my pants?”

I sure am glad I’m not 37, 38, 42 or 43 years old.

pblair: implodr: petervidani: newyorker: This cartoon needs...

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 17:39:59 -0700

pblair:

implodr:

petervidani:

newyorker:

This cartoon needs a caption! Enter our caption contest.

“I can’t hear you very well. Could you sit a little closer?”

Chairman of the Bored.

“Christ, what an asshole.”

“I’m masturbating under this huge table and I don’t give a shit if you catch me.”

(Seriously though, The Monkeys You Ordered is one of my favorite tumblrs. Check it out.)

This is so much better than the album version. Listen to that...

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 09:45:57 -0700

This is so much better than the album version. Listen to that synth riff! Listen to that coda! On Summerteeth, they kind of back away from this song a bit — here, they’re really leaning into it.

Still can’t really process that we lost Jay Bennett to the jackals at the insurance companies. Godspeed, sir.

Felt Tip blog: Slow Company

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 08:13:54 -0700

Felt Tip blog: Slow Company:

felttip:

There’s the Fast Company magazine*. There’s the Slow Food movement. Let’s start a Slow Company movement. The idea is to take ideas such as the lean startup and organic growth and apply it to the companies we run. It’s not going to be a runaway success, but you have a better chance of actually making a dent in the world with your app and making people’s lives better even if not everybody knows who you are.

Lucius really nails it with this one.

Robert Reich: Safety on the Cheap

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 15:39:27 -0700

Robert Reich: Safety on the Cheap:

robertreich:

Can we please agree that in the real world corporations exist for one purpose, and one purpose only — to make as much money as possible, which means cutting costs as much as possible?

The New York Times reports that G.E. marketed the Mark 1 boiling water reactors, used in TEPCO’s Fukushima…

Read the whole thing. Seriously.

merlin: Dr.Katz - Ray Romano - Ep. 102...

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 18:26:15 -0800

merlin:

Dr.Katz - Ray Romano - Ep. 102 Pretzelkins

Ibid.

It’s interesting how similar this is to one of Ray’s standup routines:

Still though, classic. Love Dr. Katz and love Ray.

Great performance, great song, great album, great band —...

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 15:45:00 -0800

Great performance, great song, great album, great band — but one thing has always mystified me about this song.

Just watching the miles flying by
You are not my typewriter¹
But you could be my demon
moving forward through the flaming doors

I.. I don’t even… Anyway, ignore that and focus on the chorus: You have to learn how to die / If you wanna wanna be alive.

I always hear this as You are not my tie fighter, which doesn’t help. ↩

incorrigiblerobot: Won’t you insure my home, Bill Bailey? Won’t...

Sat, 05 Mar 2011 12:22:29 -0800

incorrigiblerobot:

Won’t you insure my home, Bill Bailey?

Won’t you insure my home?

Oh Bill Bailey. Why can’t I quit you.

matttrent: Goodnight Dune Yes, it’s what you think. Yes, it’s...

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 23:12:10 -0800

matttrent:

Goodnight Dune

Yes, it’s what you think. Yes, it’s amazing.

cbowns: I love pictures for sad children. This is what every...

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 13:40:29 -0800

cbowns:

I love pictures for sad children. This is what every single Monday feels like.

This is what I feel like right now.

merlin: This song does subsequently rock. Guided by Voices -...

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 23:36:09 -0800

merlin:

This song does subsequently rock.

Guided by Voices - “Over the Neptune/Mesh Gear Fox/Circus World” (To Trigger a Synapse boot; rel. late 90s; rec. early 90s)

This is one of those KFG posts. You know the kind.

If you’re all “meh” about GbV (±99.9%)? Well, you know. You’ll still be all meh. But.

If (like me, Scoots, Jas-Per, and maybe 4 other people), you’re all “GEE-BEE-VEE! GEE-BEE-VEE! GEE-BEE-VEE!” (±0.1%)? You will freak to hear this.

From the To Trigger a Synapse bootleg (and via the must-[subscribe/listen] “Wilfully Obscure” blog), arrives this lovely demo¹ of three songs from Guided by Voices’s outstanding 1992 pre-breakthrough album, Propeller.²

Starts with, appropriately enough, “Over the Neptune”—the very tune that serves as the source of the titular Guided by Voices chant. Which chant I’ve personally shouted to Budweisery hoarseness at the glorious half-dozen shows I was ever able to catch.

Gold. And, for what it’s worth, it’s now become clearer that my all-consuming GbV renaissances appear to be settling into an entirely manageable quarterly schedule. It’s like menses for drunks.³

Long Live Rockathon

And, yes. The idea that Bob made “demos” that are even more fidelity-impaired than his actual records is hilarious and awesome. ↩

Fellow Zero Point One Percenters: do yourselves a favor and check out some of the ridiculous number of one-off covers that Pete and the guys made for Propeller. Wow. Lots more at The Propeller Gallery. ↩

“Thiz iz a song from th’ Budweisery Hoarsness record—it’s called, ‘Menses for Drunks!’ One-Two-Three-FOH! [kick]” ↩

Count me among that 0.1%. (Though don’t let me take up a complete slot: someone can squeeze in next to me if it’s crowded; there are only four left after all.)

I first picked up Propeller (probably?) around the same time I got into Pavement back in 2008.¹ I went on from there to Vampire on Titus, Bee Thousand & Alien Lanes — all great albums but I personally count Propeller as my favorite. It’s the opening and titular chant; the “Back to Saturn X Report” medley; the wistful Tobin Sprout–penned “Fourteen Cheerleader Coldfront”; the balls-to-the-wall rock and roll of “Exit Flagger”. All of these are things found on later albums (Bee Thousand is probably the runner up in my pantheon) in addition to GbV’s trademark unpretentiousness and humility (at least to a lo-fi asthete like myself) but the latter pair is somehow more on Propeller. It’s rawer, lo-fi–er, in your face–er. Or maybe I’m just nuts.

Oh, I was lucky² enough to see the GbV “Classic” lineup at the Warfield earlier this year and it was an absolute treat.

No, I was not a cool enough 5 year old to pick up a copy of Propeller on cassette when it came out. ↩
I mean that literally: I found out about the show the day of and managed to get amazing seats in the front row of the balcony. ↩

"Many foods are naturally radioactive, and bananas are particularly so, due to the radioactive..."

Fri, 17 Dec 2010 13:33:19 -0800

“Many foods are naturally radioactive, and bananas are particularly so, due to the radioactive potassium-40 they contain. The banana equivalent dose is the radiation exposure received by eating a single banana. Radiation leaks from nuclear plants are often measured in extraordinarily small units (the picocurie, a millionth of a millionth of a curie, is typical). By comparing the exposure from these events to a banana equivalent dose, a more intuitive assessment of the actual risk can sometimes be obtained.”

- I urgently appeal to you to read about the Banana equivalent dose (via biorhythmist)

Bananas are tingly in my tummy.

biorhythmist: alisonagosti: This is my favorite Peter Atencio...

Mon, 13 Dec 2010 09:59:51 -0800

biorhythmist:

alisonagosti:

This is my favorite Peter Atencio thing.

Perfect.

"Commissioner Bud Selig’s plan to expand baseball’s playoffs to 10 teams gained a sense of..."

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 23:40:14 -0800

“Commissioner Bud Selig’s plan to expand baseball’s playoffs to 10 teams gained a sense of inevitability after little to no opposition emerged during meetings this week with owners and general managers.”

- Little to no opposition emerges to commissioner Bud Selig’s plan to expand playoffs to 10 teams - ESPN (via @Mike_FTW)

Aaaaaand I’m done with baseball.

Seriously. What a joke.

(via incorrigiblerobot)

I really hope the Players Union blocks this. Bad for fans, bad for players — the season is already so long as it is and with this they’ll be playing well into November with one of two consequences: either already fatigued players are forced to deal with longer games and risk injury or the regular season is shortened which screws players — not to mention fans — out of additional games.¹

The argument that other sports have more playoffs is bullshit. Look at the NBA, where something like 26 of the 24 teams make it into the playoffs — that shit is boring. The one and only reason to add more playoff games is: greed; attracting Nielsen phantoms to consume the ads on your national TV broadcast is just about as far from giving a shit about the fans as you can get.

Unlike John though, I’m not done with Baseball — I’m an A’s fan: I feel his pain, to an extent — I will keep flogging myself. Because what else is there? College football, where players are starting to fake injuries? No thanks. I guess I could start watching hockey.

A friend’s family has season tickets to a minor league team in the area and they know a player who has been up & down between AAA and the bigs a few times. I know that players like that are paid on a per-game basis and the pay difference is pretty staggering. ↩

"Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative..."

Wed, 03 Nov 2010 19:41:04 -0700

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

- Ira Glass (via Rabbit Write’s interview on Gala Darling)

My hero.

(via baileygenine)

This is my cue to get off my ass. Maybe it’s yours too.

Helpless, helpless, helpless Helpless, helpless,...

Tue, 05 Oct 2010 00:40:00 -0700

Helpless, helpless, helpless
Helpless, helpless, helpless.

Sure, Neil Young looks like a coke fiend, but he’s a coke fiend with a heart of gold. Yuk yuk.

Worldview Distorted, Mission Accomplished

Mon, 04 Oct 2010 15:41:00 -0700

patrickthomson:

Me: What’s on your mind?
Nathan: Your link to that David Foster Wallace speech.
Nathan: Stop posting things that mess with my worldview!

I assume here that Patrick is referring to DFW’s Keynon College commencement address. I highly recommend reading it, especially if you’re new to his work — it was a nice toe-in-the-water when I read it. Here’s my favorite bit, from nearish to the end:

But most days, if you’re aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line. Maybe she’s not usually like this. Maybe she’s been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer. Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicle department, who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. Of course, none of this is likely, but it’s also not impossible. It just depends what you want to consider. If you’re automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won’t consider possibilities that aren’t annoying and miserable. But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.

The speech was also published (posthumously) in book form.¹

Unknown to me if this is in accordance with his wishes, so grain-of-salt and all that. ↩