Hello and welcome, Bolt users!

Four things to say about this week: [IQ] [Education] [Shirt]. This all makes me miss our dear departed brother Bill Hicks even more. But to keep me sated, I found this mega-archive of unreleased BH stuff. You can really just replace one Bush with another in your mind.

In less (de)pressing news, my bud Lil Jon created a parodysalute to Russell Simmons’ Vote Or Die campaign (I mean seriously, is Paris Hilton in a shirt really going to sway anyone to vote? I mean other than voting her off the island of Manhattan, Survivor-stylee) called Crunk Or Die, hosted by my “friends” at my old gig, TVT Records.

Oh and in case you aint hurr, theres a new definition for Rock And Roll, and this creepy asian guy is it! Seriously, he’s got more skills than any 4 bands that play at rothko (Hi, Alex!)

In formerly-hot-people-falling apart news, we have the unfortunate inevitable beginnings of the sag of Joey Potter. Why oh why must people grow old!

Oh also, check out one-hit-wonder-but-actually-pretty-cool band Local H (who’s main claim to fame was getting the word ‘copacetic’ into a mainstream rock song)’s cover of Britney’s “Toxic” which proves once and for all that no matter whether your life is in the gutter and your body is falling apart and you’re giving blow jobs to your fiancee on your balcony, a good pop song is a good pop song.

And in case you haven’t seen it, here’s the Episode III trailer, which actually looks like it might not suck. (AOHell membership required). Of course its not as cool as the Grandaddy video which is like Polyphonic Spree on LSD, which is saying quite a bit. [thanks, fashionablylate!

Apropos of nothing, I’d like to close with a little anecdote. When I was working at TVT, my friend Tom and I used to share an office. We also both had Barry Manilow’s classic “Copa Cabana” on our respective computers. Come Fridays, we’d both be sitting hard at work or whatever and then with no warning one of us would start playing the song at maximum volume. And thats when we’d know that no more work was getting done.

Her name was Lola…she was a showgirl.

Poor lil’ Not-Jessica Simpson. Now the whole world will know that the one thing her and her sis have in common is neither of them can sing. Maybe she should start rappin instead. She can call herself Lil’ Not-Jessica and do a duet with this guy.

In other hack music news, you need to vote or apparently JesusScott Stapp will ejaculate all over you [via Screenhead]

Unless of course you’re in Ohio, where theres a law being fast tracked by Republicans legislators to have Republican non-partisan volunteers manning voting booths to ensure people there are white Republicans eligible to vote.

Anyone have those atari joystick connect-to-tv things? Turns out they’re making one for my old friend the commodore 64 [via Lockergnome]. Commodore.net says it’ll be out in October. Here’s hoping. Otherwise i might have to take my motorcycle powered by chainsaws through spaces that can’t exist [via core77] in an anti-advertising shirt pressed on the worlds coolest ironing board.

That’s all for now, I’m off to deposit $100K I got out of some junk mail

BTW R.I.P. John Peel.

Some of you more avid readers (er…both of you?) will notice that I’ve made some minor design revisions to the site. The feeds are now up in the corner and the date and entry titles have been switched around. I will continue to ‘clean up’ the design to optimize the user experience.
Thanks to CommunityMX and Kryogenix.org for their invaluable tools.

I don’t know why I haven’t linked to this before, but lowmorale have created the world’s most depressing video to go with my teen angst anthem, Radiohead’s “Creep” (Only available from iTMS in a Richard Cheese version. Way to stay cool, Thom.

Speaking of iTMS (Hi, Thuy-An!), from the why-isn’t-this-a-feature-already department, TunesTracker will poll the music store and let you know any time new music from your favorite artists has been added. So ummm, let’s get right on that mmkay? Alternately let me suggest the ability to create a custom RSS feed of selected artists that will send you anytime your selected artists are updated. Might help in the move toward killerapp status for RSS.
Recently I’ve developed a new fondness for design blogs, perhaps stemming from my ongoing project to empty my house of all the extra crap I have here just because I have the space (anyone need a scanner?). Some of the nicest stuff I’ve seen of late includes a jellyfish-inspired ceiling light, a half-cube light that looks like some sort of matter inverter error (search for ‘edge’) [via mocoloco] and what must be the coolest aquarium ever

From the yet-another-mashup-we-didnt-need department: Usher vs. Harold Faltermeyer (no relation) “Usher Foley” (a DJ Crook Air production) which everyone should feel free to listen to on their new Denon 16.1 A/V receiver. Cause, you know, 16.1 is the next 5.1. You could pay for it by chargeback-ing the electric company with your new electric car! (talk about a ROI)

Mad props to whomever comes up with a fun musical interpretation with Johnny Cash Reading The Bible.

Oh, and Jimmy Fallon: time to do a new photoshoot, dude. Really.

Woo. A whole bunch of randomness today.

First off, although I’m not in love with John Kerry, Duhbya has to be the worst public speaker in history. My grandma coulda done better, and she’s dead. Hey George, maybe you should look words like ’sovereignty’ up before using them, in case some reporter catches you on it and you end up sounding like an idiot. Well, at least it wasn’t a series of SNAFUs caught on tape and posted on the internet to be mocked for all eternity. Aaaand that’s all for politics, folks.

As Britney descends into total swamp trashdom, it appears she’s decided to get rid of her place just down the block from my old employers. Here’s some pics of the fancy pad she’s giving up. [Via curbed.com]

From the NSFW-but-not-quite-gratuitous-porn department, we have what must surely be a photoshoot from an upcoming Apple ad campaign. Perhaps she could use some of these iEverything-inspired butt plugs in her next one, just to really drive the point home. Hi mom!

In new music news, I’d like to echo allmusic.com’s sentiment regarding the new Dana Owens a.k.a. Queen Latifah record, in that the worst thing about it is it makes you sad that this is her first record where she sings all the way through. A versatile talent, this woman is. Except for the abomination that Taxi looks like. What were you thinking, Jimmy..What were you thinking.

If you’re a music journalist enlisted to review the new Interpol (I’m not a huge fan but people seem to like them), there’s a helpful article of 101 things to compare them to other than Joy Division. Get it? Cause people said they sounded like Joy Division before. And even though they do, people are sick of hearing that comparison. So, funny. heh.

From the “It’s 1 in the morning and I dont want to think of any other clever From The Desk Of lines” department, three random bits of information before I go enjoy my new stereo. The should-be-up-in-the-porn-paragraph-but-really-not-porn service Rasterbator will take jpgs and … well .. rasterize ‘em so you can print ‘em out real big. But really I just liked the name.

Distributor of all that is cool in the electronica world K7 has decided to put “Not Copy Protected” labels on all of their CDs. Kinda speaks for itself that they have this.

and we have this:

Okay so maybe it was only two things.

G’nite gracie.

Anyone who knows me know that I’m a bit of a computer nerd aficionado. I’ve been usin the damn things pretty much since I could walk (which should explain my posture).

For me, the golden age of video games was the mid 80s, before designers could rely on flashy graphics and actually had to think about things like gameplay and replay value. I used to have a Commodore 64 which had hundreds and hundreds of games.

This sentiment is shared apparently by people other than me, as remakes.org keeps track of people recreating and/or updating classic video games for our more wired times.

Some of my favorite games that have new versions include: Kung-Fu Master, Pitfall II, the classic Bruce Lee, Choplifter (for Mac), Phoenix (reborn as Space Birdz), The original (i.e. before they were Super) Mario Brothers, ultimate platform game Jumpman, and HERO clone HELD by the interestingly named Elite Pigs.

Stuff I’m still looking for: Staff of Karnath, Ultimate Wizard, Wizard of Wor, Pooyan. Holla back at a playa if you gots da hookzup.

- In “everything old is new” music news, the 80s are back! (’Had they ever really gone away?” i hear all you scene kids respond with…yes…yes they had). Hip-O/Uni are finally releasing the “new” album Everybody Loves A Happy Ending by Tears for Fears, which had been idling in record label merger hell since Arista got shuffled in to BMG proper. I’ve had this record on my iPod for awhile now and I must say its a classic. Baroque pop melodies along with the classic TFF shuffle.

- We’re putting out the new Duran Duran record, which I must say is pretty sweet. If you don’t believe me, check out their new video.

- My favorite new stupid geek gadget and time waster of the week (with an acronym like MFNSGGATWOTW, you know I’m gonna be using it all the time) is Toogle. It takes your query, runs it through google and then does some mumbo jumbo with ASCII art and…well, just try it. [Update: Apparently its not just me, and the site's down for a bit]

- With everything else in the world apparently all taken care of (though Bea Arthur might disagree…Hi Bea!), city governments decide that now is the time to crack down on goths. Makes me wanna go back to school for some good ol’ fashioned HISSIN’!

- In movie news, whoda thunk the DJ from In Living Color wouldve put togehter such a fine-looking performance as Ray Charles in the upcoming biopic.- But, as long as more women are using sex toys and you can charge your cellphone at Union Square, the world can’t be all bad, right?

Finally, a note to John Kerry. Say something..

Thank you.

Can RSS Save Email Marketing … My opinion: most certainly, but its better done in tandem with email. Theres some things that just do better with a graphical layout format, and RSS is not very good at summarizing things just yet.

Email vs. RSS: Pros and Cons from MSDN. Pretty simply laid out, actually.

For those of us with RSI thumbs, a lil secret people don’t want you to know about is that you can quite easily Text Message from AIM Shhhhhhh…

This is what happens when you ask a bunch of geeks where they met their SOs…its actually kinda sweet. Anyone wanna hook me up with a free match.com subscription? I’m so lonely *sniffle*.

Fall Behind Me by The Donnas

One of the only bands makin pure AC/DC-stylee Rock N Roll anymore. And it’s produced by our own Butch Walker (Hi Butch!)

People who vote without educating themselves on the candidates are scary, no matter who they are blindly voting for… but between Bush’s continued non-support of rebuilding new york, his abysmal education policies that ‘leave behind’ all but the wealthiest districts, and force teachers to educate toward aptitude tests dictated by the state rather than truly educating children to think for themselves, to his backward closed minded and currently unconstitutional proposal to exclude a signifant proportion of people from being able to express their love for each other, to his constant reposturing about the mistakes made in Iraq, a war that lacked actual cause that was never shared with the American people, and that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks (where’s Osama Bin Laden), and his cabinet’s ridiculous infringements on civil liberties.

I’d rather take my chances with someone who’s educational policies are not so test-oriented and who admits that the government shanghaied us in the Iraq war for their own gains than have four more years of this almost police state.

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

I am, as always, open to educated counter-arguments

j