connecting*the*dots

Democracy — the best damn video player you’ll find anywhere — is on the verge of hitting their 1.0 release and has some new swag for sale. They pay their brilliant team via donations so they don’t have to curtail their vision to the whims of bottom-line driven VC, so support them today by ordering a t-shirt or this dope sticker (above).

Haunting.

(via The Wooster Collective)

Electric Six, Gay Bar.

not too strange, originally uploaded by * tathei *.

Slinkachu is having a lot of fun with this art project, as he leaves each of these scenes on the streets of London for people to stumble across, trample, steal, etc.

His work reminds me of my father’s mini-sculptures, but with the additional fun memories of playing with die-cast action figures as a child in the great expanses of my backyard.

So much fun.

(Fabrizio Costantini for The New York Times)

Iraq’s Shadow Widens Sunni-Shiite Split in U.S.

[…] “Escalating tensions between Sunnis and Shiites across the Middle East are rippling through some American Muslim communities, and have been blamed for events including vandalism and student confrontations. Political splits between those for and against the American invasion of Iraq fuel some of the animosity, but it is also a fight among Muslims about who represents Islam.” […]

Thanks, Chris & Tara.

I’m changing up the format this week to introduce a song that might be buried in the subconsciousness of many of you out there; I know it was for me.

The backstory:

In 1969, Mister Rogers appeared before the United States Senate Subcommittee on Communications. His goal was to support funding for PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, in response to significant proposed cuts. In about five minutes of testimony, Rogers spoke of the need for social and emotional education that public television provided. He passionately argued that alternative television programming like his Neighborhood helped encourage children to become happy and productive citizens, sometimes opposing less positive messages in media and in popular culture. He even recited the lyrics to one of his songs:

What do you do with the mad that you feel?
When you feel so mad you could bite?
When the whole wide world seems oh so wrong
And nothing you do seems very right
What do you do?
Do you punch a bag?
Do you pound some clay or some dough?
Do you round up friends for a game of tag?
Or see how fast you can go?
It’s great to be able to stop
When you’ve planned the thing that’s wrong
And be able to do something else instead
And think this song
I can stop when I want to
Can stop when I wish
Can stop, stop, stop anytime
And what a good feeling to feel like this
And know that the feeling is really mine
Know that there’s something deep inside
That helps us become what we can
For a girl can someday be a lady
And a boy can be someday a man

The chairman of the subcommittee, John O. Pastore, was not previously familiar with Rogers’ work, and was sometimes described as gruff and impatient. However, he reported that the testimony had given him goosebumps, and declared, “Looks like you just earned the $20 million.” The subsequent congressional appropriation, for 1971, increased PBS funding from $9 million to $22 million.

(via neatorama)

Thank you, Michael Wesch.

(via BoingBoing)

Alan is a good friend of the family — a former colleague of my father at Kean University and a fellow NYC multimedia head from back in the day.

He’s also quite the eccentric.

This can only get more interesting.

Bostonians can sleep safely now that Jack Bauer is on the job.

YTMND rocks.

The Super Bowl — another year, another reminder that I’ll never see my Jets on this stage in my lifetime. Oh, well. At least we can eat and drink like it’s Thanksgiving and watch Peyton Manning get hit a bunch of times!

Prediction #1

We will not see a Super Bowl ad as iconic as this Mean Joe Greene Coke classic:

(Man, watching that brought me back to feeling like the little kid I was in 1979)

Nor will we experience anything close to as revolutionary as this gem from Apple:

(Damn goosebumps!)

Prediction #2

In less than 18 hours, we’ll be stuck watching the equivalent of this K-Fed advertising crap:

Prediction #3

Final Score: Colts 26, Bears 23

• Manning manages the game with his usual efficiency
• The Bear’s defense bends, but doesn’t break, causing timely punts and red-zone FG attempts
• Adam Vinatieri kicks four field goals, Robbie Gould hits two
• Manning connects on one long touchdown pass to either Harrison or Wayne
• Mark Anderson busts through the Colt’s O-line for a safety, after the Bears pin the Colts deep
• Joseph Addai runs in one score, after a long, sustained drive
• Rex Grossman hits Bernard Berrian for a late TD and converts a two-point attempt to pull within a FG
• Peyton Manning and Joseph Addai manage to grind out enough first downs to send the Bears home losers

MVP: Peyton Manning

I’m really torn about rooting for Peyton Manning.

On one hand, I want Manning to win so the media will finally stop generating noise about his inability to win the big game. That meme is driving me insane. Another reason is Tony Dungy, who’s a class act and after the nightmare he and his family went through last year, no one deserves a championship ring more.

On the other hand, I’ll never forgive Manning for staying in school his senior year and making the Jets draft Keyshawn “Just Give Me The Damn Ball!” Johnson.

The invite!

I almost forgot.

If you’re in Greensboro and know me in the slightest, feel free to stop on by for the game. I’ll provide the 50″ LCD wide-screen, you bring food and beer for yourself… and me. ;)

And if I don’t see you later today, have a super Sunday!

For more on the Aqua Teen Hunger Force Terrorist “hoax” go to BoingBoing.

R.I.P.

Kate W., a reader from from St. Louis, MO, sent me this great find the other day. She took the picture last summer while on a trip to London.

Thanks, Kate!

Andy just put together a very compelling, personal account of his experience to DC and back last weekend.

Check it out.