Hulu Hoop Champion

I will go on record and say that 30 Rock is the funniest show on television since Fox canceled Arrested Development. And if you aren't watching it, you should be locked up like some sort of horrible, foul beast with flatulence issues.

The third season kicked off last night. The premiere was hilarious. I have embedded the entire episode below for you to watch. Because I care about you. And I don't want to see you locked up like a fart monster. Enjoy:



The first two seasons are up over on Hulu - or as I refer to it "The greatest invention since beef jerky" - so go watch it. They also have all three seasons of Arrested Development if you missed out on the genius of that show.

And dude! With Hulu, you can subscribe to shows! I subscribe to The Daily Show and the Colbert Report which is awesome because we have just the rabbit ears. (We just got the HD converter box up and running, but still, we are kicking it old school up in here. The guy from AT&T knocked on the door and asked me how much we paid for cable and I told him we didn't have cable and he laughed, asked me if I was serious and then said, "How do you live?" to which I replied: "Like cavemen." True story.)

So, in closing, I would like to kiss whoever invented Hulu firmly on the lips because they are real American heroes like G.I. Joe or George Washington or Sherman Helmsley. I would also like to kiss everyone involved with 30 Rock because it is the best show ever and you really should be watching it if you're not.

The end.

Haiku Friday: the Cleve

Everybody smokes
In this Midwestern city.
A slow suicide.

Comic Book Heroes

This Is Excellent:



Also, This:



And finally, This:



All are by Alex Lukas and prints can be purchased here. Y'know, just in case you're wondering what to get me for Christmas. Only 58 shopping days left!

One More Thing...

On the ballot tonight, I voted for Frank Miller for Cuyahoga County Coroner.

For reals.

... And We're Back

Well, it's all over but the crying. We trekked down to the Cuyahoga County Board Of Elections tonight, kids in tow, stood in line and dropped our paper ballots in the locked boxes. Avoided those screwy Diebold machines, the insane lines and any sudden crazy weather. I'm feeling pretty good right now.

Now if I can just not completely lose my mind in the next week, we'll be doing just fine.

So, my vote is cast. Now it's your turn. If you are still on the fence (and especially if you're living in Nevada or Pennsylvania or Florida or Missouri or Virginia or Ohio) and missed Senator Obama's "Closing Argument" yesterday, please take a few minutes out from surfing the Facebookses or the Twitterses and the blogses and watch it (it's embedded below), do some non-objective research (like, say, this tax plan comparison from the Freakonomics guy), make an educated decision and then vote. And vote early. Cuz you never know.

Maybe you won't vote for my guy. Maybe you have very valid reasons for voting for the other guy that I - for all of my own biases, experiences and ideologies - just can't see. I just hope that those reasons for voting for the old guy and the woefully unprepared lady aren't something as ridiculous as something you read in a forwarded e-mail or something somebody told you or [heavens no!] some piece of half-digested nonsense you heard on Rush or Bill-O.

It's your choice, this voting thing. Make it wisely.

The Closing Argument:



Read the transcript here.

*******

Okay, so thus ends my career as a political blogger. Seriously people, you have no idea the degree to which this election has consumed my life. It's sick. Sick sick sick.

And now that I can begin to wean myself off of the teat of American political coverage over the next week or so, I find myself looking for other things to occupy my attention. For example, did you know there's this thing called "The Sky"? And it's blue! Blue! I never knew that! Cuh-razy.

I can't promise I'll be like SuperBlogger or anything now that this is wrapping up, but I will try. I'm just a man, after all. And if there's anything you think I should be blogging about, please drop me a line and I will do my best to oblige because I have this sick desire for approval because my father didn't hug me enough as a child. (J/K Pops! Please love me! Please!)

But I digest ...

Anyway, that's it. I'm gonna go watch Fringe and hope it isn't yet another "almost better than average" episode. You stay classy, Beloved Internets.

Whatever Floats Yr Vote

I'm going to go vote tonight. This will be the first election I've voted in where I'm actually voting for a candidate rather than against a candidate (which just so happened to be the illustrious GWB both times, a decision I'm feeling pretty good about right now).

Not that there aren't things I'm voting against in this election, because if you're even sort of paying attention, there's plenty do vote against.

Things like pounding the Fear Button repeatedly as you talk about your opposition's tangential relationships with "a worshed up old terrorist", or exhume the moldering corpse of Joseph McCarthy and call your opponent an out-and-out Socialist even though your running mate expressed similar sentiments regarding the relative fairness of a tax plan that supposes that those with more can afford to give more, way back in 2000, you know, back when he had a soul.

I'm voting against race baiting, mean-spiritedness and this notion that there are more "real", "pro-American" citizens and places in this country. I'm voting against small-thinking and divisiveness and a country where you are on your own, unless you're a banker. I'm voting against no-bid government contracts and "preemptive strikes" and a chest-thumping foreign policy that only makes us less safe and diminishes our standing in the world. I'm voting against privatizing Social Security, health care and education.

But that's only half the story.

More importantly, I'm voting for something in this election. I'm voting for equality, for hope, for sacrifice and for steadiness in a time of incredible instability. I'm voting for an America where we look out for each other and work our damndest to eliminate ignorance, poverty and dependence on foreign energy. I'm voting for cleaner air, cleaner water and a healthier future. I'm voting for more jobs, more prosperity and more competitiveness in the world. I'm voting for a fresh set of eyes that will hopefully change the way things get done in Washington and in the world.

I'm voting for a candidate who asks me to sacrifice for my fellow citizens, to sacrifice for my country. I'm voting for better schools, better factories and better communities. I'm voting for green jobs and purple states and the red, white and blue that promises us all that if we work hard and help others, we can succeed in this, the greatest democracy in the world.

I'm voting for hope. I'm voting for change.

What A VP Does

This Is Excellent:

POW! - Long Haired Girl

When People Think Of Sweden I Think They Have the Wrong Idea

This Is Excellent:



Thobias Fäldt has a really wonky site but some really stunning photography. And he's from Sweden, which basically means I'm already sold on him. I am such a sucker for Sweden.

Another Mix

This one's another Ping-Pong mix with the Chris Haley. It's titled The Man Who Would Be Ping. Here's the artwork:



And here's the download link. If you haven't got our previous collaborations, The Ping Of Pong or it's sequel, Return Of the Ping, you can get them here and here, respectively. Enjoy it, rockerzzz.

Absolutely No Idea

This Is Excellent:



I have no idea what this site is about (it looks like some sort of drink), but dang! It's adorable, isn't it?

Halloweenhead

Halloween is a week away. which means that ghosts, monsters and devils will come around, looking for free candy. Dang socialists. Anyway, I made a mix in honor of All Hallows Eve.



Features songs from Gnarls Barkley, of Montreal, the Ramones, Suicide, the Misfits, and others. It's some ghoulish business. Download it here. Happy haunting, kiddies.

That Sound You Hear Is Me Freaking Out

This Is Excellent:



Via my cousin, Ben. All I can say is "Damn."

You Ampersand I

This is excellent:



Covers to Arts & industry magazine by Hans Schleger. Via Delicious Industries. Love the color, love the overprinting, love the background pattern and that is one sexy ampersand.

I'm A Pretty Big Deal Around Here

I and my firm are in the Print magazine Regional Design Annual. I am now officially famous. The outlined ones are projects I worked on. The highlighted numbers are my firms' projects.

So basically what I'm trying to say is that I'm pretty much the most famous person I know.

( click for teh bigness )

TIE: Paul Pope's Battling Boy

This Is Excellent:



A page from Paul Pope's upcoming graphic novel for First Second Books titled (wait for it...) Battling Boy. If you haven't read a Paul Pope comic, you really, really should. I'd recommend starting with his issue of Solo or the recently re-released Heavy Liquid, which is sort of like a William Gibson book on drugs. Which is a very excellent thing.

POW! - Columnar

TIE Fighter

I'm introducing a new element to the blog today called This Is Excellent, or, TIE for short. It's basically a way for me to flag stuff I think is awesome. I wondered if I should start a new blog for something like this, but I figured this was a way to have this blog updated regularly since my whole "This blog is gonna be about Important stuff" episode a while back. So, this excellent stuff is gonna get dumped over here. Hopefully you'll enjoy it.

So anyway, today's TIE comes from Portland-based designer Christopher David Ryan, aka Atmostheory. It's this poster titled "Solar System":



This Is Excellent.

Don't Tell Me Now

Yeah, I know. It's been a little quiet around here lately as far as real live content goes. But the fact is that things have been crazy and busy and up in the air and a little overwhelming, but now - now things are looking up.

So, anyway, I have a little time right now and thought I'd share some of my vast knowledge of knowledgeable things with you. Because you deserve it and also because I really need to think/talk about something besides politics. So, anyway, here goes:

* We (the spousal "we") watched Iron Man the other night. I had seen it in theaters. Candace hadn't seen it. Iron Man, for those of you who are not familiar, is a completely awesome movie that will rock your brains out and you should really go see it now. Go Redbox it. It'll be the best dollar you ever spent. It's a big, bright, fun, superhero movie, every bit as good as The Dark Knight, only it is, overall, better-written and acted. Yes. I said it. You know it's true. Search your heart. You know it to be true.

* And speaking of which, we (the familial "we") watched The Empire Strikes Back over the weekend. We'd tried watching it with Sadie a while back, when we introduced A New Hope to her, but I don't think she really "got" it. This time it stuck. Now it's been a while since I watched it, but I must say this: That movie is sooooo good. It's like probably the best movie ever. Anyone who disagrees, feel free to meet me by the bike rack after school. I will knock you down and steal your lunch money for speaking such blasphemy. And then Lando will swoop down out of the clouds and kick you in the stomach while simultaneously seducing your girlfriend with lines like "Truly you belong here with us among the clouds."

* And while I'm talking about Lando, I really wanted to start some Lando fan fiction after watching Empire. Is that nuts? Seriously, why are there no good Lando Calrissian Expanded Universe stories besides those Lando Calrissian Adventures books? I mean, The Mindharp Of Sharu? Are you kidding me with this? Sounds like a rejected Star Trek episode, doesn't it? I may have to have Candace chain me down soon or else Lando Calrissian In: Death Kiss! just might get written and I'm pretty sure I told somebody somewhere that they could kill me if I ever wrote any fan fiction. Which is also why I can never go to a high school reunion. I should probably keep a list of who I've told to kill me if I did something, huh?

* David Byrne recently got interviewed by the Onion AV Club about art, Imelda Marcos and his new collaboration with undisputed genius/patron saint of Awesome, Brian Eno. Read it here.

* Did you see Bill Murray on Letterman?Dude's amazing. Just in case, here's part 1 and here's part 2.

* Has anybody listened to Under the Leaves or Ripp Offf yet? And if so, what did you think?

* The Cinematheque at the Cleveland Institute of Art (aka: "CIA") is screening the Flaming Lips' much-anticipated Christmas On Mars next month. This is awesome news.

* I have an irrational and deep-seated hatred for the musical stylings of Michael McDonald and Bob Seeger. Am I alone here?

* Also, I hate that model show. What's it called again? America's Next Top Skeleton or something?

* And those Air Wick commercials, on man, I hate those things! With like the caterpillar or the geckos or the caterpillar who is married to the gecko and they have these hideous half-caterpillar, half-gecko children or whatever. Do you know which ones I mean? Man, those drive me insane.

* But you know what I love? Those creme-filled, chocolate dipped, chocolate cake things whose name is also a euphemism for male genitalia. Those things are incredibly awesome.

* Also, I love my family. I really do. They're like the best thing ever. No. Wait. They are the best thing ever. Literally.

Anyway, so there you go. And I didn't even bring up politics once. I'm proud of myself. What's been swirling around your mind? Wanna share it with the class

Quote For the Day

"More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly."

Woody Allen
My Speech to the Graduates

POW! - Skybluesky

The City's Ripped

So here's a bonus mix for you. It's titled Ripp Offf and it will most likely cause severe eardrum damage if listened to at extreme volumes. Which is highly recommended.



Includes songs from Iggy Pop, the Cramps, White Denim, Swell Maps and T. Rex. It is muchomachorock&roll and will give your chest hairs chest hairs, be you male or female. Fists will be pumped whilst listening to this. You have been warned.

Download it here and leave a comment when you do so. Peace.

Things I Dreamed About Last Night

* I left my back door unlocked and open all night long.
* Gene Wilder was standing by my opened back door.
* He was helping the old guy downstairs move out.
* I was debating the VP debates with a guy from church.
* He was wearing a t-shirt, which is weird because I have never seen him "dressed down", just in church clothes.
* Actually, a good chunk of my dreams were about debating political stuff. Seriously. My logic was irrefutable.

Quote For the Day

Read this on the train on my ride/walk home today. I love me some Harry Reid:

"Ever since the ascendancy of Ronald Reagan in 1980, it has been popular and easy for candidates to run against Washington and the very institutions they are seeking to lead. For these titans of public service, these profiles in courage, the more viciously you can tear our government down, the better. An entire generation of politicians had learned that cynical lesson so well that in 2000 we elected a President for whom this government-is-the-enemy notion was an article of faith. Well, during his presidency this simple-minded political credo has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Their logic has been circular: A) Government can't do anything right, so, B) elect us, and we'll prove it to you.

"This political strategy has been a disastrous success.

"The problem with this approach, of course, is that it attempts to obscure the fact that the American government is the greatest force for good in the history of mankind. No amount of cheap political demagoguery will change that fact. But when you so degrade the institutions of our government, you play a very dangerous game, because when you have the power of the presidency, you can make it thus. When you say, over and over, that government is the problem, it becomes the problem. So much so that when you are in charge of it, you don't know how to run it. And you have such contempt for its functions that you appoint partisan hacks to run lifesaving agencies, which is what President Bush did when he appointed Michael Brown to run FEMA, and Brown was then revealed as incompetent in the critical days after Hurricane Katrina wiped out much of the central Gulf Coast in late August 2005.

"I am as much a believer in the genius of the American free-enterprise system as anyone, but it was not the market that built the Interstate Highway System, sent a man to the moon, or conceived of Social Security, the greatest social program since the fishes and the loaves. It was not the market that saved the planet in two world wars or dammed mighty rivers to electrify Appalachia and the West. Those things, and so many others, were brought to you by the genius of the American government. And what is the American government but an expression of the will of the the American people? The Republicans sometimes talk about our government as if it's some kind of alien landing craft, come to impose an alien order. This, of course, is paranoid nonsense. It is this kind of thinking that ought to be considered alien. Because when we've got elected officials in Washington so blinded by ideology that they cannot abide the thought of government helping someone - like, for instance, insuring an uninsured child - then something is terribly wrong. And when at the same time you've got right-wing activists given carte blanche in the halls of power, such as Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, whose favorite saying is that he wants to shrink the government to a sufficient size so that it might be drowned in a bathtub, then you've got a recipe for disaster. A recipe for a diminished America. You begin to do serious harm to the very idea of American greatness."

From The Good Fight: From Searchlight to Washington
By Harry Reid with Mark Warren
Pp. 66-68

More Mysticalness!

We're back with another round of Ask Ghost Rider, where we reach into the ether and pluck answers to readers "Yes" or "No" questions.

Ben asks: If a brazillion people were to simultaneously and spontaneously combust leaving only pure carbon, would you use your super strength to compress that stuff and make a diamond pendant out of them?



And his follow-up question: Then would you wear that diamond pendant on your lapel to all of your social functions, exclaiming "I made this pendant out of a brazillion people. They combusted. I smooshed the carbon into this perty little diamond. And if you think it's cubic zirconium, I'll have to cut your face."?



Keep the questions coming! GR just loves this stuff.

POW! - Brickbat

Dead Leaves & the Dirty Ground

So, it's official: summer is gone and fall is here. Soon the trees will turn and their leaves will drop. Sweaters will make their way out of the dark corners of your closet. Soup is sounding better and better for dinner. There's a crunch under your feet when you walk down the sidewalk. This month's mix is made for that kind of stuff. It's music to drop your foliage to. It's called Under the Leaves. Here's the cover:



You can download it here. And when you download it, please leave a comment here. I'm just curious to know who's downloading these. Thanks.