My annual "soundtrack project" continues with 2010's version. I seem to have regressed a bit to my earlier alternative & rap days.

1. Beck: “Orphans”
2. New Order: “Fine Time”
3. The Smiths: “Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before”
4. The Beatles: “What You're Doing”
5. The Kinks: “Victoria”
6. The Winstons: “Amen Brother”
7. Beastie Boys: “Super Disco Breakin’”
8. Mantronix: “Electronic Energy Of...”
9. People Under The Stairs: “Plunken' Em”
10. Mos Def: “Quiet Dog”
11. Hieroglyphics: “Let It Roll”
12. Bob James: “Take Me To The Mardi Gras”
13. They Might Be Giants: “I’m Impressed”
14. Vampire Weekend: “Cousins”
15. Art Brut: “Alcoholics Unanimous”
16. Wire: “Read & Burn”
17. Bad Religion: “Modern Man”
18. Minutemen: “Search”
19. The Ramonetures: “She’s the One”
20. Man Or Astro-man?: “Maximum Radiation Level”
21. Rush: “Vital Signs”
22. Neko Case: “I Wish I Was the Moon”

Apparently, the super-rich are highest on the Republican's priority list, even higher than the 9/11 first responders they claim to love so much. "Since when does the Republican party make 9/11 first responders stand over in the corner with the gays and Mexicans?"



Can it be more obvious that Republican's core principle = money? (And if it's not, they're sure going about things the wrong way.)

SNL is hit or miss (OK, lots of misses) but the "human parking cone" was one of the funniest things I've heard in a while.

Roger Ebert has a pretty active Twitter account with often interesting links. However, I noticed that links to his personal Sun Times blog sometimes have ugly or bizarre URLs. This one was especially bad, with the page being not-quite-HTML-code for four nonbreaking spaces (emphasis mine, obviously):

blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/strange-3/nbsp-nbsp-nbsp-nbsp-my.html

I wasn't sure what point I was going to make with this, other than it's bad SEO practice to have poorly-named URLs ... not to mention it's almost impossible to tell anybody that link short of of copying and pasting. So let me switch gears to what's actually on that page:

It's an interview with a hand model — and she's pretty cocky about them (almost comically so) — whose hands have never seen the light of day for 15 years. She doesn't do anything with her hands — no cooking, cleaning, sports, gardening ... not even opening windows — and she wears gloves everywhere she goes. It kind of blew my mind; check it out at Ebert's ugly-URL page.

And of course, that interview only reminds me of George Costanza's similar modeling career.

Finally, a politician that doesn't sound like a clueless idiot in the pockets of corporations. Not surprisingly, he's an Independent. For all our sakes, I really hope his colleagues listen to him.

Many of my Republican colleagues tell me, "Oh, I'm so concerned about our record-breaking deficit... But wait a minute, it's very important that we give over a 10 year period $700 billion in tax breaks to the top 2%." We're concerned about the debt, we're concerned about the deficit. But we are more concerned that millionaires, people who earn at least a million dollars a year or more, get on average $100,000 a year in tax breaks.

Whether you're Democrat, Republican, independent, or not interested in politics, watch this:

The best new feature in the new iOS 4.2 update has to be Airplay. I don't have Apple TV (so I can't stream video) but we do have an Airport Express hooked up to our receiver. It was (and is) great for playing iTunes through the house, but with Airplay we can now play almost any audio app through our "good" speakers, including Pandora, Public Radio, and Concert Vault. Concert Vault in particular has a pretty substantial library of live recordings (I haven't really explored it before today) and tonight my baking soundtrack was some live Clash from 1981.

Also, this seems to be changing our thinking of what a remote control could (or should) be. Perhaps the future of TV & entertainment center remotes will just be your iPad/iPhone or something similar, and less like the button-crazy remotes of today (like Sony's controller for Google TV).

No opposition to expanded playoff plan (ESPN)

So baseball wants to add two more wild-card teams to the playoffs?

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... "Eight is a very fair number but so is 10."

Well, by that logic maybe 12 is also fair. Hell, why not 14? Let's just take a page from NHL's playbook and put about half of all teams in the playoffs. (I'm just not comfortable seeing hockey in June...or baseball in November.)

Baseball's season is long enough. After 162 games, if a team isn't one of the top 4 in the league, then sorry: see you next year. I wouldn't have been comfortable if the 2010 Red Sox made the playoffs (which, under this new system, they would have) — a third-place team has no business making a run for the World Series, even if it is "my" team.

Years and years (and years) ago my brother & friend used to make fun of trials riders and their stupid little hopping around "tricks." Today, trials rider Danny MacAskill is easily one of the best riders I've ever seen.

There's a new video of him, and not only does it feature some of the most amazing bike control you'll ever witness (the dude will rockwalk drop-in off of anything!) but it's beautifully shot and edited.

Dear politicians: please stop being idiots and get something done. (Yeah, I know it's wishful thinking...)

I Believe I Can Fly (NY Times)

"98 climate scientists out of 100 will tell you that man's continued carbon emissions pose the risk of disruptive climate change this century. Two out of 100 will tell you it doesn't. And "conservatives" today tell you to bet on the two. If the climate-deniers are right — but we combat climate change anyway — we'll have slightly higher energy prices but cleaner air, more renewable energy, a stronger dollar, more innovative industries and enemies with less money. If the deniers are wrong and we do nothing, your kids will meet the sudden stop at the end."

The Washington Post compared Democratic and Republican tax plans. I don't think any of my friends are in that bottom group, but if they were then I guess I could see why they'd support the Republican plan.