Thursday, August 28, 2008

old skool boosh



for those who don't know about the mighty boosh, you need to get involved. these guys are basically the future of british comedy. read: weird and highly amusing. continuing in the bizarro tradition of the goon show, fry and laurie, monty python etc. the mighty boosh guys have a show that's basically a bit of magic, a hefty dose of rock 'n' roll, and totally strangeness. bbc 7 is taking it back to where it all began, the radio show that started it all. you can listen again after the show airs on tuesday (ie wednesday and after) via realplayer. or be sneaky and find some vids on youtube, like this one, about nanageddon. brilliant.

Friday, August 15, 2008

the battling playlists of obama and mccain



here's an easy (and incredibly stupid) way for a music geek to choose a president. who has the cooler music taste?

obama and mccain have both shared their top ten tunes with blender (yes, blender, who are known for their amazing in depth political commentary), and i have to say, though obama's is the cooler of the two by far, i'm leaning towards mccain's slightly unhip list, with its inclusion of merle haggard and abba. here are the lists in full:

Barack Obama's Top Ten:

Fugees - 'Ready Or Not'
Marvin Gaye - 'What's Going On'
Bruce Springsteen - 'I'm On Fire'
The Rolling Stones - 'Gimme Shelter'
Nina Simone - 'Sinnerman'
Kanye West - 'Touch The Sky'
Frank Sinatra - 'You'd Be So Easy To Love'
Aretha Franklin - 'Think'
U2 - 'City of Blinding Lights'
Will-I-am - 'Yes We Can'

John McCain's top ten:

ABBA - 'Dancing Queen'
Roy Orbison - 'Blue Bayou'
ABBA - 'Take A Chance On Me'
Merle Haggard - 'If We Make It Through December'
Dooley Wilson - 'As Time Goes By'
The Beach Boys - 'Good Vibrations'
Louis Armstrong - 'What A Wonderful World'
Frank Sinatra - 'I've Got You Under My Skin'
Neil Diamond - 'Sweet Caroline'
The Platters - 'Smoke Gets In Your Eyes'

i love that mccain has not one, but two abba tracks. absolutely brilliant. this is surely a man who is not afraid to be himself, even if it goes against his tough, army man reputation. nice to have a surprise or two like that. obama's is pretty much what i expected, and will probably be more in favor with what my hubbie likes, though, yeah, i love all those tracks, who am i kidding? but if mccain had added a dolly party track, i would have been seriously torn.

atlanta's rockers are hot



to be perfectly honest with you, i wasn't massively familiar with all the acts on this poll. but i'll tell you who i am familiar with - the lovely lads of y-o-u, judi chicago and death on two wheels, all featured artists with southeast performer. show your love for your favorite lad by voting for atlanta's hottest rocker at metromix.

damn you warner brothers! give me my harry potter!



i'm in a bit of a foul mood today. not only is the whole journalism industry in the pits, but i've just discovered that the latest harry potter flick, half blood prince, will not be released this november as previously announced. the movie's release has been postponed until bloody july!!!

now, if there had been problems in production that would have been one thing. but that's not the issue. oh no, no problems there. warner brothers just feels that the movie will make more money if it's a big summer blockbuster.

warner brothers: you are a big pile of poo. i hate you.

btw that pic is the german cover for half blood prince. cool eh?

Friday, August 8, 2008

wondering what i want for my birthday?



just in case you were, or if you're wondering what i dig...

so lets see what this has going for it:
1. it's a hat. hat's are awesome.
2. not only is it a hat, it's a beret. beret's are awesome.
3. it's got sequins. sequins are sparkley and therefore awesome.

conclusion: awesome.

to shop: bloomingdales

regator launches and the internet rejoices!



ok i'm so lazy i'm just going to nick this whole press release.

Regator aims to make it fun and easy to find the best blog content from nearly 500 topics, no matter how tech savvy you are—or aren’t. Regator combines editorial selectivity, semantic algorithms, and user input to create a powerful, yet simple experience aimed at getting mainstream web users exposed to great blogs. Unlike many existing blog aggregators, Regator has a distinctive Ajax-based interface that improves usability and speed.

What’s Regator?

A website that finds the best blogs on the web and categorizes them to make it easy to find what you need—and fun to find things you never knew you wanted.

Aren’t there already a million blog directories?

No, not a million, but quite a few.

How is Regator different?

Its blogs are hand-selected by real human beings, who choose them based on their good writing, original content, frequent updates, and relevance. But Regator’s editors don’t handle everything (there’s only so much caffeine a person can take). Our users’ actions create top rated, most viewed, and most commented pages. And complex algorithms create the aptly titled What’s Hot List, which keeps you up to date on what the blogosphere’s writing about at any moment.

That sounds complicated. Is it?

Regator is easy enough for your mum to use (nothing against your mum—we’re sure she’s really smart).

If my mum could use it, doesn’t that mean it’s too basic for the tech-savvy youngsters?

Definitely not. Regator is as advanced as you want it to be. Your mum (who we’ll stop talking about now) can show up and start browsing blog posts about her favorite topics within seconds. You, on the other hand, might upload your blog subscriptions to use it as a feed reader, create audio playlists, organize your favorite posts and blogs, watch videos, check out the What’s Hot list to see what’s popular right now, or share posts with your friends on Twitter, Facebook, or email. Go crazy.

Who’s behind Regator?

There are three humans and one very charming gator behind the site. Co-founders Scott Lockhart, CEO; Chris Turner, CTO; and Kimberly Turner, editorial director. They live in Atlanta, Georgia.

Who does what?

Scott is our business expert. Chris works magic with programming. Kimberly is the resident blog rejecter/accepter, writer, and editor.

Regator looks fairly slick. Which corporate behemoth funded it?

Regator is—so far—entirely self-funded. Every penny has come from its three founders and even Reg, our adorable mascot, was drawn in-house.

Why is Regator necessary?

Because there were too many blog directories trying to focus on quantity, technology, and newsfeeds, and none giving a mainstream audience a solid set of tools to find quality blog posts about things that interest them.

Why is it called Regator anyway?

Because it’s a blog aggREGATOR. Clever, huh?


scott, chris and kimberly are super-awesome friends of ours and have been working their collective asses off on this project for what seems like forever (we miss them!) but it seems to be well worth the effort. check out regator today!

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

shop local: save wordsmiths



this is gonna sound pretty hypercritical, because i'm basically spending no "outside budget" money for a while. but for all those who love a good book and do buy them, or have a nice bit of expendable income, or think indie is the way to go, please stop by decatur's wordsmiths book store and do a bit of shopping.

full bloom - flowers and fruit and veggies, oh my!

though our garden hasn't been tended to quite as much as it should have these past weeks (ok, months. damn you, crazy georgia summer!), it still seems to be yielding some lovely prizes. case in point, this lovely little watermelon.



it may not be huge, but i think with this variety you gotta pick early, as we've already had a couple of others "burst" (for lack of a better word), probably due to the heat and lack of water. this little beauty is sitting in the fridge, waiting for dinner tonight.

we've also has some great luck with this new bell-like plant, which will grown rather large and be a medium sized shrub when it's done. we just planted it early this spring, and i forget the name, but we're pretty pleased with its first blooms:




lovely, right? we have another one next to the driveway which is also blooming, but it's not as big as we never could quite water it as much and the soil isn't as good as in the front garden. still, they're both doing quite well, and if only the weather would cool down a bit i could actually work on tidying up the madness and putting some more stuff in.