When Chad showed me this video for the Goldfish song, "We Come Together" I had little idea what was in store for me. The 8-bit onslaught is phenomenal. Director Mike Scott did a phenomenal job (seriously, watch the Making Of, he nailed it). The video is chock full of so many references it's hard to catch them all but that's part of the fun of re-watching it.

Idan Friedman has a great series up on his Flickr entitled Ordinary People and Disposable Objects in which he creates an embossed portrait of a friend or stranger in a piece of cheap aluminium. It's an odd, yet simple, concept and the results are quite nice!

via Public School.

The official trailer for the Conan O'Brien documentary that captures his time post-NBC and pre-TBS has hit the Internets. Conan O'Brien Can't Stop looks exactly what you'd hope it to be - a road movie with loads of self-deprecating humor, some tiny insights into Conan's mentality at the time and a load of performance footage (including the Third Man Records gig). It looks to be set for a wider release on June 24th.. fingers crossed my local cineplex shows it.

• Paul F. Thompkins on The AV Club - great interview on why this comical man is considered "old-timey" and how he's appeared on so many shows.
• Louis CK's unique experiment in television - I find the whole Louie show to be hysterical and fascinating in how he puts it all together. Big fan.
• The Hangover Cast Interview - obviously the Zach Galifianakis stuff is the most interesting.. particularly the anecdote about January Jones that has been making the rounds:

  That’s really funny because, if I remember correctly, she and I were very rude to each other. It was crazy. I was at a party — I’d never met her — and she was like, “Come sit down.” So I sit at her table and talk for 10 minutes, and she goes, “I think it’s time for you to leave now.” So I say, “January, you are an actress in a show and everybody’s going to forget about you in a few years, so f*cking be nice,” and I got up and left. And she thinks that’s funny?

Technically it's been since February for a compilation of songs curated entirely by me. The Everything mix was, by and large, the work of Mac. So, I am happy to present a, slightly belated by myself, new mix. A Collection of Useless Thoughts is just that - a compilation of stuff I've been listening to as of late. I made an effort not to top load it with the rock songs this go around so it starts a little more mellow than usual. I hope you enjoy.

Big thanks to Jeremy for the Henry Wolfe (aka: slightly matured version of Dent May), Danny Jelinek for the Los Walkers and anyone else that always gives me the heads up on great songs. Oh, and that Kindercastle album will be released this Friday.. I'm super stoked on it so you will continue to hear about it ad nauseam.

[ Single MP3 | Single M4A | Individual MP3 ZIP ]

1. We Are Trees - Girlfriend
2. TV Girl - If You Want It
3. Mean Lady - Far Away
4. Los Walkers - Una Vez Al Ao (Once A Year)
5. Ghost Baby - Spaced Out
6. Paul McCartney - Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey
7. Eureka Gold - Beckon To Me Feather Tune
8. COOLRUNNINGS - Thunderbirds
9. Jim Guthrie - The Prettiest Remix
10. The Clutters - Under Suspicion
11. Those Darlins - Be Your Bro
12. Alex Turner - Stuck On The Puzzle
13. Danger Beacher - Apache
14. Kindercastle - D's All Round
15. Henry Wolfe - Someone Else

For those of you that come here because of some familiarity with Whiskerino or Moustache May you are, undoubtedly, familiar with the undertakings of mOtke Dapp and Paul Armstrong (wiseacre). They, along with many other talented folk, have a film production company called Fighting with Forks. They've done a number of quality short films and are taking on a new full-length this summer called The Many Monsters of Sadness (you can watch a teaser here).

Long story short, they need some help to reach their production goal and have started a Kickstarter Campaign to, hopefully, get them there. They are a quality crew of folks and, assuming you have a few extra dollars, it'd be great if you could help them out.

The short film "A Life Through Signatures" was created in 48-hours for the Cannes Young Lions film festival. It is one of those little treats that seems aimless at first and then, once you get it, it's incredibly clever. Given that it's an entire one minute in length, I can't imagine why you wouldn't be watching it already.

Kudos to the Netflix team that improved the recommendation engine because yesterday the site conjured up a suggestion for the now-defunct BBC3 program Pulling. The two series were written by Sharon Horgan and Dennis Kelly - the former of which you may remember from The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret.

The setup of the show is a familiar setup - likable lead thrown into chaotic roommate scenario but it's an enjoyable journey. Lots of ridiculous characters, derelict behavior and plenty of absurdity (probably NSFW viewing and/or family viewing). I consider myself a fan.

Watch it on Netflix.

Been working on a few personal projects lately and came across a few fairly nerdy tools worth investigating a bit more:

• Bootstrap - "a pack of mixins and variables to be used in conjunction with LESS; a CSS preprocessor." Basically, this is the ability to use variables through your CSS documents, making global changes a lot easier. As long as it is server-side, this seems like a fantastically good idea.
• YUI Scrollview - a Yahoo Developer JS plugin that enables easy touch scrolling within a defined space. What I like about this more than anything else that does the same thing is that it works across browsers much more fluidly. A lot of mobile dev tools are aimed at specific browsers only (i.e. Webkit) and fail to work in other environments; which is a real bummer. I've yet to implement this but I've got a good feeling.
• Corgi Walk Cycle - not so much a nerd tool but something you should consider sneaking into your next site somehow. via Jed via Will.

This weeks playlist could be entertaining.. or it could fall flat on its face. There's only one way to find out! Dive right in.

• Diet Coke + Mentos Fail - wait for it... wait for it...
• Just a Cat Doing Cat Stuff - yea, there may be a preroll ad but it's worth it. Totally worth it. Proof that editing is everything.
• Russian Bus Pass - maybe this is super old but, seriously, why does no one react? At all?!
• Conversations with Bert: Andy Samberg - while it's an official Sesame Street piece it has an odder vibe to it than a sketch educating the youth.
• Planking Craze - how is this not an Onion News Network piece? How / Why is this real? No matter how ridiculous the Internet can be, remember that real life is equally as stupid.
• Dressing Up the Cats - that's right! Two cat videos featuring silly songs.. except this one features uncomfortable cats in marriage outfits.
• Baby Phone Curse Hack - obviously some NSFW language here but I love that someone figured this out.

BONUS

• Mr. Ghetto - "New Orleans Bounce" - highly inappropriate and probably not even something I should post at all but imagining this being filmed is so hysterically absurd that I can't resist. Perfect touring partners for Big Freedia.
• Breakfast Interrupted - super slow motion (1000 fps) breakfast spread being elevated and demolished. Approved.
• Amputee Patrick shows off Bionic Hand - not exactly a thrilling or exciting video per the usual content but the fact that this exists at this level of articulation should blow your mind.

Have a great weekend!

The internet is no stranger to sweater fascination so it is not at all surprising that the Cosby Sweater Project has been making the rounds as of late. It's a perfectly simple concept - document the various patterns worn by Cosby family members. There is no shortage of content to pull from and, oddly, it's a pretty entertaining browse.

The work of Adam Hill, aka Velcro Suit, runs a wide gamut of styles. His poster archive goes from old world illustration manipulation to contemporary original illustration to clever infographic and back again. And if that weren't enough, all of his other portfolio entries show off his ability to embrace variety as well. Comparing My Home Is My Castle to The Sleepers & Coal to Fountain Counsulting proves he's got more than one trick up his sleeve.

via Courtney.

Dolan shared this phenomenal article from Drawar that ponders Should Web Design be a Poster or a Book? The writeup is well thought out, critical without being harsh and absolutely a key element to consider before tackling any future project. It is, in my experience, more likely that your site should be a poster rather than a book... mostly.

Absolutely loving the typographic works of Jeff Rogers. His official site has a load of examples of his handdrawn stylings but I'm super compelled by his Flickr stream. I mean, if you don't love this we may need to have a chat about the proper things to appreciate in life. There's a lot to take in but take the time to peruse it, you're certain to find something impressive and inspiring.

I am a big fan of Matt Berry, both for his various acting roles and his musical output. Witchazel, the Summer Sun EP and Opium are all quality listens as far as I'm concerned. So, with that in mind, I was quite pleased to see that there is an official video for "Take My Hand" - featuring an elderly man and his new robot pal. It's fairly absurd but I'd expect nothing less for anything Berry related.

There are few "political" debates that I care to watch online but whenever Jon Stewart decides to appear on The O'Reilly Factor it's always an entertaining time. Crooks and Liars has a great rundown on his latest appearance in which they discuss the latest, ridiculous, kerfuffle over Common being invited to the White House. It is as entertaining as ever and, thankfully, quite a bit less chaotic than it has been in the past.

Unfortunately I don't know a heck of a lot about Jim Woodring. What I do know is that his official site is a bit of a mess but still chalk full of gems like this or this. He's best known for his character Frank (seen above with Pushpaw and Pupshaw) and, apparently, experienced a whole lot of hallucinations as a youth that has led him to draw out his trippy visions for the rest of his life. Note to self: learn more and procure copies of Frank Vol 1 and Frank Vol 2.

via Chalkdog.

Given that this happened an entire week ago I can only assume everyone has already seen it but just in case you haven't - please take some time to read through this amazing tale of Sean Power having his laptop stolen and then retrieving it through the power of Prey Software; which actually enabled him to see the thief real time and rally the Twitterverse to get the machine back.

The Lost Type Co-Op is a new type repository with a slight twist on the regular pricing scheme. They offer a number of high quality typefaces but have adopted the Pay What You Want scheme if you're interested in procuring the files - including if you want to pay Zero dollars (which I don't recommend, c'mon - $5 minimum, right?). 100% of the proceeds goes to the designer of the typeface and Lost Type acts as the curator for the offerings. You know it's good because it's coming from Lost Type.

A lot of typeface prices get to ragingly high amounts. I'm all for paying for quality but this new setup allows me to rest easy knowing that the money goes directly to the persons responsible for the typography; hopefully inspiring them to keep making more.

Recall how I told you about Nathanial Whitcomb and his motion collages? Well, turns out the Monster Rally entry was part of a larger mixtape of similar collages - Slow Motion is said mix. Eleven different musicians, elven different collage artists and, consequently, eleven different music videos. They're all similarly paced (slowly) but they make for great ambient viewing and a quality soundtrack as well.