• Musicotherpia - incredible toon shading, thick white outlines and top notch creature design and movement. Watch this.. now.
• Oh Diamond, Diamond, thou little knowest the mischief thou hast done! - I can't even begin to explain the bizarre, and vaguely disturbing, nature of the end of this video. The first three quarters of it are quite time but the last portion really makes up for lost time. You'll see what I mean - very weird.
• Animator vs. Animation - I feel like this is an Internet classic that I've seen many times over but never gets less amusing to re-visit. Or maybe that's because I spend a majority of my day in the Flash app.

• Paint Chip Card Holders - snag some free paint samples from Home Depot, do a few measurements, a little cutting and folding and viola - card holder.
• Hole Punched - UK graphics communications student takes the art of Halftone to a whole new level.. with a hole punch. It's been done before but that doesn't make it less impressive.
• Display Wall aka "Fractured Fairy Tales" - an incredible arrangement of boxes and storage crammed into a single mish mash unit. No text could do this proper credit - you just have to see it. Link via Travis.

• jEditable - plugin for jQuery that makes in place editing super simple. It's actually not that hard in the first place but this takes out some of the woeful production side of it and still leaves it robust and configurable.
• Ajax File Upload - it's rather ghetto that uploading inline must be done with an iframe but this plugin makes the pain of the process a little easier. I've not used it first hand yet but the documentation makes it look pretty simple.
• 10 jQuery Essentials - a nice list of available plugins that may be worth taking a look at. I think that Interface does some great stuff but seems to crash several versions of Safari so you may need to look elsewhere for your sortable needs. Mostly I was into the Autocomplete script... opens up some nice "Spotlight" like capabilities.

• The Ten - the writing crew responsible for The State, Reno 911, The Baxter, Wet Hot American Summer, etc. make a movie of ten vignettes based loosely on the Ten Commandments. As always, they did a great job of presenting the absurd with a straight face. For some reason this feels like one of those movies that is much funnier to talk about afterwards than it is to actually watch. I'd give it a solid B in terms of viewing but the after thought of most of the scenarios gets an A+. (trailer)
• This Is England tells the tale of a very young boy who finds comradery with a group of local skinheads and eventually gets tangled up with a hot headed Nationalist carrying around some deep issues. It's a pretty intense film but the kid is dead on believable and carries the film. The ending is a bit cheesy but not so much to sour the entire experience. (trailer)
• THX 1138 - the first feature-length film from action figure mogul George Lucas. While the version I viewed was Lucas' re-worked "Directors Cut" I have to say, I was pretty impressed. The cinematography was clean, well composed and sometimes even stark - not terms I typically think of when I think of the Star Wars franchise. The story fell right along with the likes of 1984, Bladerunner, The Island or any film with a dystopian view of the future. Parts of it were a bit arty with the sound design being intentionally unclear but it actually worked. I was shocked.(trailer)
• Indie Sex: Part 4 - the last part of the Indie Sex series deals with Sexual Extremes but it's not as over the top as one would think. Their take on how alternative sexual lifestyles are treated in films is interesting in that it's either really scary or completely comical - rarely ever presented as wholesome or natural to accept your own personal sexual desires. Overall I'd say the series is completely worth watching - hopefully it will make it to DVD some day.

• "Jared Micah and Hats" is a terrible band name. No two ways about it, it evokes soft frat rock (Dave Matthews, John Mayer, etc) and it's completely unlike what the band actually sounds like
• The album, T.C.H.T.O.B. will be released on September 11th
• Based out of Nashville / Murfreesboro area - unlike just about any music I've heard come from this area.
• An insane grab bag of instrumentation: xylophones, a variety of horns, guitar, drums, handclap craziness, ambient voice rants, music boxes, piano, occasionally jarring holding tones, fevered vocals, etc. etc.
• The style is hard to nail down in a quick bullet list but it's an album that can be enjoyed on a track-by-track basis or as an entire conceptual piece
• It should be noted that I'm highly enjoying the record - it's a grower but it's got its root in me and growing.

» Jared Micah and Hats - Giddy Up

» Jared Micah and Hats - Mr. Lightbulb Mounts The Unicorn

» Jared Micah and Hats - Precious Needs A Spoon In Her Mouth

· Possibly looking at 150 - 300 participants
· Would like to give "equal" face time to anyone involved. Letting veterans rule the site doesn't leave room for great new comers.
· Want things to work smoothly and quickly - spending 6 hours on the site should be optional, not mandatory for your daily participation.

Do you feel "official" artist websites are a necessity these days with myspace and virb serving all of the relevant content for a super fan to even a first time listener? Often times I seem to be getting redirected from a bands official site to myspace. Friends of mine who do a lot of cd packaging have told me they are adding myspace links in the liner notes alongside the official sites.

I know I have done my share of artist websites and recently a band manager asked me what the big new thing was on the web. I thought about it for a minute and responded saying unless you have something really unique to offer that I thought that a myspace page will more than likely serve all your needs and more than likely keep a wider audience in the know about your band with probably more frequently updated content.

· "Burn My Shadow" CD Single (with b-sides)
· Night's Temper EP - double 7" with amazing packaging.. signed.
· "Burn My Shadow" 7" with "Mistress" b-side
· "Burn My Shadow" 12" single with b-side remix
· Surrender Sounds 12"

“My gut feeling, and it’s nothing more than that,” he says, “is that there’s a 20 percent chance we’re living in a computer simulation.”

What is the Jones Award?

All too often I discover things that receive much less attention, celebration, or recognition than they truly deserve. The Jones Award was created with the duty of bringing these under appreciated things to light.

Bat For Lashes has some interesting stuff on her disc that may be worthy of inclusion.

Mary Timony has a new album entitled The Shapes We Make that I've been enjoying.

Lily Allen has been worthy of some attention for awhile now.. so maybe that's not "new"?

Stars new album is great and while it's not a completely lady-centric project I'd say that Amy Millan makes it worthy of mention.

Pixel Pirate II: Attack of the Astro Elvis Video Clone is an hour long narrative remix video constructed from samples pirated from over 300 film and music sources. It contains no original audio or video footage. Think of it as a sci-fi / biblical epic / action movie with a subplot of troubled romance. It stars Elvis Presley, Moses, The Hulk, Monkey, Batman & Robin, Michael Jackson and The Ghostbusters.

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As the 21st Century began, human evolution was at a turning point. Natural selection, the process by which the strongest, the smartest, the fastest reproduced in greater numbers than the rest. A process which had once favored the noblest traits of man now began to favor different traits... Evolution does not necessarily reward intelligence. With no natural predators to thin the herd it began to reward those who reproduced the most and left the intelligent to become an endangered species.

A New Zealand couple is looking to call their newborn son Superman -- but only because their chosen name of 4Real has been rejected by the government registry.

Pat and Sheena Wheaton say they will get around the decision by the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages by officially naming their son Superman but referring to him as 4Real, the New Zealand Herald newspaper has reported.