Ploafmaster General

I just read a fantastically interesting op-ed piece in the New York Times that explores the hypothetical possibility of California, among other states/regions of the US, splitting from the Union.

The reasons, implications, and related concepts are pretty fascinating both politically and economically. Worth a read.

I just found a website called indexed (yes, it's lowercase) that seems to have scans of index cards, each of which contains an info-graphic of some kind. There are x-y graphs, Venn diagrams and other such charts each illustrating a humorous concept.

My favorite so far?

Mugs is wound tighter than a 311 snare drum as he anticipates the decision of UDel's grad program.

Consequently, he's started venting his stress through highly amusing writing along with some poetry on his site.

Go read it now. Share in his stress with a good belly-laugh.

I just got a new pair of kicks in the mail today - the Alchemist Lux by Medium Design Group.

Very nice pair of shoes - the attention to detail is incredible, inside and out. You can actually find a better visual overview at Zappos, but I have to say that these look even better in person. From the deep brown leather accents to the high-contrast yellow stitching, these are excellent footwear.

Yes, I know this is out of place for me, seemingly, but ever since I went to Italy I never saw shoes the same way. Even the aging middle-class "every-man" wears cooler shoes than Americans do. Does this mean I need to wear cool shoes? Certainly not. But I've certainly come to like them - and not for vanity (I doubt the coolest of treads would bolster my social standing even if I wanted them to), rather a growing appreciation for the well designed.

Holy crap!!! Kenna is coming out with a new album! Go, quickly, to his MySpace page and check out the song, "Better Wise Up" - it's the super HOTNESS.

Q: If a nuclear war happened at Florida State (in the middle of the woods, on a mime), would anyone care?

A: Well, Mugs, that depends...would my sister-in-law still be there? If so, then yes, I and the rest of her family would care. If she'd already graduated and left, then no. Probably not...

Though I dare say it would be more entertaining if a mime, um, mimed the stages of nuclear war, in the woods, at FSU. Who wouldn't love to see a face-painted gentleman imitate the disintegrating human body? Or moreover the many stages of radiation sickness?

And speaking of sickness, as Ask Dan limps along on its last legs, be sure to post questions for next week in the comments section!

Today I decided that I wanted sushi for lunch. Now I've eaten sushi before, but only once, and at a dedicated sushi restaurant. Today I was at Ukrop's - the Richmond area super market chain.

I really wanted something with tuna, because I know I like that raw. I was hoping to try something with avocado since I'd only barely tasted some with a piece of Dave's sushi the first time I went down this road. There were only a few that had avocado, but every piece had it so I decided against it in case I didn't like it. As for the tuna...well...the closest I got was half tuna, half salmon. I grabbed my chopsticks and a little cup for my soy sauce, and went to pay and eat.

Halfway through, I realized...there was not enough soy sauce. There were no more packets when I grabbed my food, so I had to deal with the single, undersized packet I had. I pretty much ran out after about two thirds of my food. No big deal, I thought, and I plugged on.

A plain tuna roll is pretty freakin' bland without soy sauce.

For realz. I still want to have sushi again. In fact, I may grab some this evening. But wow, I'm gonna make sure I have plenty of soy sauce this time.

That's right...this sucker is post number THREE HUNDRED. Dang. I've been at this periodical writing thingy for around 2.5 years now, and I've found that I actually kinda like it. It's only fitting, then, that my 300th post has to do with music and The Web - a single entry which pretty well summarizes the general flavor of my past writings - a blog signature, if you will...

One of my staple reads is The Very Daily Weblog of Joshua Blankenship, and lemme tell ya - this guy practically oozes creativity. Ignoring the fact that his blog's structure borrows heavily from Kottke (to which he cops), this fella is a graphic designer, photographer, web designer, and musician. His latest post, in fact, is all about highlighting mind-blowing acoustic guitar players - something I've done from time to time on my own site. So rather than post a single embedded clip for each of the players Blankenship references, I figured I'd simply link to his post.

So go ahead and check out New School Acoustic Guitar Wizardry. Pay particular attention to Robert Taylor. Wow.

And stick around, you loyal 5 or 6 readers. I'm not going anywhere, and neither is this site. Even if I only add one new reader ever six months :-)

No, not the game series - an awesome delay/loop jockey with a mediocre voice but a great sense of timing:
[youtube [www.youtube.com/watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q02ompQhtY8&w=425&h=350])

Courtesy of McSweeney's:

A good source of vitamin E, which is otherwise hard to get into the diet. Especially if the "diet" is microwave dinners for one, seasoned with tears.

Woohoo!!! What a game! Turnovers galore, pouring rain, defense all over the place...and Peyton Manning finally gains a Super Bowl ring!

Time for bed now after an exciting party :-)

I just rated Little Miss Sunshine 3 of 5 stars on my Netflix account. The automated system suggested I would give 4.5 stars, and indeed, I anticipated the movie as something within the bounds of my ever more snobby taste.

Before I continue I have to say that the acting was excellent. From Steve Carell to Alan Arkin, the performances depicted characters, not merely the cast.

The rest of the movie, disappointingly, began to feel contrived about halfway in. Now if you haven't seen the film and want to judge for yourself, I suggest you stop reading, because I'm about to give away some details.

Still here? Okay.

I was fine with the travails of the Hoover clan as they drove on from New Mexico to California, Until Arkin's character died in Arizona. It's not so much the death that bugged me - rather, the family decides to plug on to Redondo Beach and sneak the body of Grandpa out the window of the hospital. And put him in the back of the Microbus. And drive his corpse through the desert to Cali-for-ni-a so they won't miss little Olive's beauty pageant. Did anyone else yell, "WTF?!?!" when that transpired? Am I the only one? I understand this is a movie, but it's a movie with a script that takes place in the generally realistic present day world. Nothing up to this point prepared me for the dysfunctional family to turn suddenly and morbidly crazy. Nobody else in the traveling party put up much of a real fight against driving the remains of a family member through the desert just to make it to a beauty pageant.

Add to this a cop who doesn't notice a dead body wrapped in a sheet in the back of the VW, a painful personal discovery for the older son Duane (because everybody on this Microbus of life has to suffer somehow), and the family dance on stage at the pageant, and you have a recipe for...well, it's a recipe. And that's the point. This film felt like it contained several elements of recent popular "Indie" film in America. Character driven story. Off-kilter humor. Non-mainstream sound track. Greater focus on cinematography. Heck, even I was delighted to hear not one, but TWO Sufjan Stevens songs in the film (well, one was during the end credits).

The wonderful acting, the characters, the film making - none of this, regrettably, can make up for the slightly cheated feeling I'm still experiencing as a result of the story and it's palpably artificial plot constructs.

Here's hoping that Gondry's Science of Sleep leaves me better satisfied.

I love American Football - I have since I was a toddler, and I love it more today at 25. Never before, however, have I been so amped about the upcoming Super Bowl as I am this year. For the past two weeks, I've been reading articles, analysis, predictions, statistics, etc. in anticipation of the big game.

We have the Indianapolis Colts playing the Chicago Bears, and there are so many interesting side stories surrounding each team that I won't go into them. All I can do at this point is continue to wait in giddy anticipation until 6:25 tomorrow evening, when whoever wins the coin toss will decide, "kickin' or stickin'."

Alrighty...two weeks in a row and the ol' question pool is dry as a bone. This is Ask Dan's last chance before I take it out back and shoot it...

Post any questions in the comments section, or at least a preemptive eulogy for our quickly fading feature.

Awesome blend of Daft Punk's "Around the World" with some mighty old-school dance footage:
[youtube [www.youtube.com/watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=339ixMtHrVk&w=425&h=350])

I just got Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots by the Flaming Lips yesterday. Wow. I freakin' love it.

It turns out I'd heard quite a few of the songs with reasonable frequency such as "Are You a Hypnotist," "In the Morning of the Magicians," and "Flight Test." Having listened through the album several times, though, I'm really starting to groove to some of the other tracks - "One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21" for instance.

The album in its entirety is spacey and musically cohesive. The vocals are a little on the weak side, but only if taken in isolation. As part of the rich audio landscape present on this disc, they are contributing - no, vital to the overall mood.

More exciting to me are the actual compositions. Catchy rhythm parts coupled with wonderful melodies and themes support the surrealistic vocals and production.

Here is an album I can see growing on me further with time. Big props to my buddy Joel for indtroducing me to this album way back when.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Beer! I finally started enjoying beer a few years ago, and since then I've always enjoyed trying out new ales and lagers at such fine establishments as Capital Ale House, and well, anywhere in Prague :-)

Though much of what's on Wikipedia is of dubious accuracy, I found their entry on beer to be exceptionally informative. Containing links to more info, as well as a thorough categorization or brew types, the entry was an easy entry point into further beer nerdery.

My boss sent this hilarious picture around:

Google Video just go a whole lot cooler by doing something I was eager to see after Google bought YouTube...

You see, I love YouTube, but I HATE their search capabilities. Google, on the other hand, lets you search by phrase and other excellent modifiers. Google Video now includes YouTube videos in the search results.

Thanks, Google, for making my work day THAT MUCH MORE unproductive by making it even easier to find those wacky video clips I crave so much :-)

To all my dog food gangstas:


This delightfully succinct card can help you avoid direct vocal confrontation, and comes to you courtesy of the folks at Orange32.

Ford Motor Company today reported that it lost a record breaking...

TWELVE POINT SEVEN.

BILLION.

DOLLARS.

All this in the course of a year. That's like losing the complete domestic economic output of Jamaica. So lets see...in 2006 Ford loses $12.7 Billion. In 2005, GM lost $10.6 Billion. This year, Toyota is almost unanimously expected to take the No. 1 auto maker spot in the world.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls.

Dang, there really is some cool music coming out of Japan these days. An article in Slate Magazine explains how to sample some of the Asian hotness through iTunes, and after checking some out myself, I agree: it's a real shame that certain elements of the music bidness prevent simple international music distribution - especially in this digital age!

Alright Nintendo, when are you going to open up the floodgates and start shipping more Wii units? I've got a serious craving for some new Legend of Zelda action!

Aight, this is totally nerdy, but even Mugs can get into this one.

Just noticed an announcement on my site's WordPress dashboard that they've upgraded to version 2.1, and fittingly named the juicy new joint after the finest Jazz vocalist ever to push air through vocal cords, Ella Fitzgerald.

Peep the link to see the new features, and perhaps a few of you (Patrick, Chris, Mugs) will understand why this bears mentioning.

Now if only Dreamhost (my hosting company) would update their one-click upgrades so I could do the do here at work :-)

Tonight marks the return of new episodes of Heroes!

I'm totally stoked to see what happens, and what new heroes are discovered.

Woot!