To get the full effect of WFMU's comprehensive roundup of Elvira-style TV horror movie hosts, try moving your head back and forth, towards and away from your monitor, while Joe Flaherty says "Looook at all the text on the web page! Isn't it SCARY, kids?" in a terrible Bela Lugosi impression.
Come to think of it, there's probably a Firefox extension to do this for you...
Extreme Instability is a photo gallery of one man's obession--nature at its worst.
[via MeFi]
For some people, a journey as long and daunting as a drive from Tennessee to Las Vegas ought to be done in a reliable, comfortable, high tech late model sedan--something with full climate control, plush seats, loads of legroom and a full DVD/GPS navigation & entertainment system with more transistors in it than the Starship Enterprise. However, for the Baron of Bias-plies, the Wallah of Whitewalls, Corky Coker--who runs a tire company that repops every form of obsolete rubber from Model T-era skidless pneumatic whatchamacallums to hot rod-approved pie crust cheater slicks--your old man's Accord won't do. No, he's making the journey in style, in a freshly built '32 Ford roadster, complete with supercharged flathead V8. And in a rare (and welcome) concession to the bugaboo of modernity, he's blogging it on his Blackberry. Go and read it, folks, at least you'll learn what "raining pitchforks and hammerhandles" means.
[via The Jalopy Journal]
So, a coupla weeks ago I signed up for an account on Six Apart's new blog community thingamy, Vox. Thus far, I've written exactly one test post. Impressed with the feature set I was, but unlazy enough to migrate all 146 of my posts here I wasn't. (Note: for maximum effect, the previous sentence should be read in a terrible Yoda impression.) Today, I find out Blogger's new beta, with some of the same features, finally relaxed the velvet ropes enough to let trash like me in, so the plan is to pit the two services against each other on a barren desert planet and see which one figures out how to build a rudimentary cannon. Why I expect anyone except me to care, I dunno, but there it is.
Quebec acoustic guitarist Erik Mongrain combines tapping and slap harmonics to unique, hypnotic effect. The last acoustic player to blow me away like this was probably Kaki King, and I think I'm feeling Mongrain's compositional sense a little more. Might be the next Leo Kottke.
[via WFMU's Beware of the Blog]
UPDATE! There's a good MeFi thread on Erik Mongrain right now, with some links to other fantastic guitarists as well.
Tommy Emmanuel's "Day Tripper/Lady Madonna" lesson
Mark Wilson's "New Horizons"
Ever wonder what'd happen if you shoehorn a twin-turboed, nitrous-injected 572 cubic inch Chevy big block into a semi-teensy British compact? This guy did. And he claims it's the world's quickest and fastest street car.
Read more here. (Warning, headache-inducing red page background--try and make yourself colourblind or something before clicking.)
[via jalopnik]
Fantastic gallery of '50s "Googie" signage and architecture--the flashy, futuristic style scientists say will adorn the amazing bowling alleys and drive-in restaurants of Tomorrow.
[via this MeFi thread, with even more tailfin-era goodness.]
Iggy Pop's tour rider is kind of like "This Is Spinal Tap" if, instead of being a movie, it was a contract specifying the musical gear, food and refreshments required by the band, and instead of being fictional, it was 100% real. Sample quote:
We need one (1) monitor man who speaks good English and is not afraid of death.
(Only joking... or am I?)
Also, he needs to know a little bit about monitors. This may seem obvious, but believe me...
(For example, in Santiago de Compostela, in Galicia in Northern Spain, they appear to think--if they just ignore riders like this, then supply a fat, bearded hippy with a digital monitor desk (doh!) who doesn't know shit about eq-ing, and monitor wedges that would be better suited to wedging doors open, and a load of stage managers and PA geezers and promoters reps who shout a lot--that this is the same as providing what a band actually needs in order to do a gig to the best of their ability. And that if they deny that their gear is no good, it will suddenly, mysteriously become good.
I'd just like to say that the next time the Stooges get booked for their festival, I'm going to turn up with some pickled eggs, a small blue vibrator with a jelly dolphin balanced on the shaft, a set of dog-eared encyclopedias with the volume E-G missing, and a screwdriver that's been accidentally dropped in the toilet.
And then, when they say, "That's not the Stooges"
I'm going to say, "Yes it is!"
And then they'll say, "No it isn't!"
And I'm going to say, "Yes it is!!!"
See how they like it, fuckers.
Ask Metafilter thread: What is the appeal of Steve Wozniak?
Surprisingly humble response from... drum roll please... Woz himself. (Who joined just to respond, I might add.)
(Sadly, I suppose this means Adam Savage is no longer MeFi's official alpha nerd.)
