I remember hearing Glossary back in 1998 when I worked with bassist Bingham Barnes. I gave Southern By The Grace of Location a spin and, at the tender age of 19, really didn\'t care for what I was hearing. Southern anything was just not up my alley. Fast forward many years to about the time of the release of Better Angels of Our Nature. I caught the band live and was blown away by the amount of rock now integrated into their sound; very much so right alongside their roots of Americana. I was surprisingly hooked and my interest continued with their latest, Feral Fire. Either I have broadened my musical horizons or the band has swung more into my preferred realm of music style or a bit of both. Whatever the situation, I fully endorse these guys and look forward to everything they involve themselves in.

So, with the release of their Lake Fever Session, I was quite curious to see how things turned out. They brought a solid rock set and I thank them for it. I never seem to tire of the harmonies of Joey and Kelly Kneiser; not to mention the energy from the rest of the band. I love watching a band play and being able to see just how much they enjoy playing together...

• Lonely Is A Town
• Bend with The Breeze
• Save Your Money For The Weekend
• The Sweet Forever

GraffYard is a nice combo of technology, street works and artistic preservation. Artist sweza documents various graffiti around Berlin; awaits the local government to clean up the pieces and then swoops in with his own wheat pasted OR code that can be scanned to see the previous works. It\'s a clever way to document the art and works as a nice bit of art on its own.

Via Courtney.

Please take a moment to read this article regarding suburban sprawl, housing market depressions and the need for public transportation to connect walkable urban neighborhoods; specifically through privately funded endeavors. Here\'s a great historical piece of insight:

In the early 20th century, every town of more than 5,000 people was served by streetcars, even though real household income was one-third what it is today. By 1920, metropolitan Los Angeles had the longest street-railway network in the world. Atlanta’s rail system was accessible to nearly all residents. Until 1950, our grandparents and great-grandparents did not need a car to get around, since they could rely upon various forms of rail transit. A hundred years ago, the average household spent only 5 percent of its income on transportation.

How did the country afford that extensive rail system? Real-estate developers, sometimes aided by electric utilities, not only built the systems but paid rent to the cities for the rights-of-way.

There are some obvious concerns for such an undertaking but the article does a good job of showing how it has worked in the past and how it could work currently with a little progressive forward movement.

Via Eli.

I will continue to believe that the best part about SNL are the Digital Shorts. For example, Great Day is a musical number about a coke head on a bender; complete with animated birds, demonic freakout and a constant cocaine moustache. Name another show on any major network that manages to cover subject matter like that. Ridiculous.

For other goodness, see also: Timecrowave, Preniva and Snipers.

Either my sources for weird videos are stepping up their game or I\'m just getting better at finding the sources - maybe both - but parring down videos this week to a digestable amount was not super easy. So much good stuff out there. Anyway, here is your playlist.

• Hand Washing Urinal Fail - the shock on the reporters face is completely awesome. I love that the man in question is obviously an American redneck.. it couldn\'t be any other way.
• Matt Berry Keyboard Commercial - weird but entirely enjoyable from my perspective. Thank you Honor Student.
• Worst Wedding DJ Ever - here\'s the deal. I don\'t want to believe this is real. The woman\'s reaction is nonexistent - which means this is either a regular occurrence or she was instructed not to react. I honestly hope this ends up being viral marketing; otherwise it\'s just a very sad slice of life.
• Show Me What You Got, Spectral Tarsier - it\'s the simplest videos that work the best for me.
• Kitten suckles air - the slow (and constant) zoom in makes this ridiculously great.
• Cat Gurgle - yea, that\'s right.. another cat video. The sound is hilarious, deal with it.
• Dan Aykroyd on Aliens - Paul points out that either Dan Aykroyd has gone completely bonkers or he\'s involved in some insanely clever Ghostbusters 3 promotion.
• Walk on Water Engineering - \"Liquid Mountaineering\" - obviously this is some viral marketing but they\'ve done a good job at taking something completely absurd and taking it completely seriously.

Bonus:

• Here We Go Magic - \"Collector\" - this album is so good and I\'m glad to see one of the finer tracks got itself a video.
• Dog Rides Turtle - that is all.

Have a great weekend!

This may not be of much interest to a lot of you but there\'s apparently a pretty respected theory out there from researcher Con Slobodchikoff that praire dogs have an unusually complex language. Meaning, they speak to each other in very specific unique chirps; sounds for \"dog\" and \"coyote\" are very different from each other - as are sounds for \"man\", \"man in a red jacket\" or \"man in a yellow jacket with a gun.\"

Now, I\'m not putting forth that the animals are speaking in human concepts but the research does show that they use nouns, modifiers and (amazingly) have a universally accepted language even amongst completely separate colonies.

If you\'re curious, please read this, this, watch this and then find out more. I think it\'s pretty fascinating myself...

Kate gave me the heads up on Outerland, a limited edition collection of photographs courtesy of Allison Davies. Her photos are simple but seem to capture a whole other world.. seriously, some of these shots are so saturated, desolate and alien looking that it\'s hard to believe they were found here. In other words, go check them out.. good stuff.

It\'s been about two weeks now since Nashville was hit with their 500-year flood and we\'re recovering at a good pace. There\'s a long way to go but it\'s good to keep moving forward, even if it is slowly. Now that the dust has settled a little bit it\'s easier to get some perspective on just how nuts it is to get such a huge amount of rainfall in such a short span. Example, this security footage of a local Pep Boys flooding. Many people had seen the building from the outside but to get an glimpse at how fast that water rushes in and could easily overtake any individual is a scary thought.

I\'ve been enjoying this quick, lo-fi, EP from mutual benefit; an outfit out of Austin, TX. It\'s laid back, atmospheric but still engaging enough to keep you with it. Perfect for a warm summer night. And the EP is free, so why not nab it?

Related: also familiarize yourself with Burywood\'s There Exists An Abstraction Ladder. Both courtesy of Kassette Klub.

A lot of the time, a real nerdy bit of insight can be way over my head but that doesn\'t mean I don\'t appreciate it (or the attempt to properly wrap my brain around it).

• Bandcamp Tech Blog - apparently the Bandcamp guys run a tech blog that gives musings and ponderances on Expression Evaluators and valid CRC checks.. you know, regular every day thoughts that we all think about in our freetime. This ups my Bandcamp crush by about 100 degrees..
• Virtual DOM Events - no longer need to be tied down to Mouse Over, Out, Down and Up - there are any number of combos you can have (mouseRest, remainBlurred, etc). There are a lot of other great JS examples on that site but the Virtual DOM is the most appealing to the nerd sensations.

With LOST drawing to a close, there\'s no sense in keeping all that silly memorabilia around so they are auctioning it off this summer. Want an Apollo candy bar, some legit Dharma Food (and drink) or maybe Karl\'s brainwashing glasses? Well, you will have your chance at an ambiguous time and location in \"Summer 2010.\" Of course, depending on how the finale goes.. you may not ever want to think about the show ever again once it\'s all over.

House Galleries can be a bit of a weird thing. Going to see an art show amongst someones belongings sort of puts a weird context on the experience but it looks like Catalyst Gallery is doing it right - devoting space to the exhibits and willing to change it up entirely depending on the show. I\'m loving the Vintage Lounge.. I know that vibe is getting done a whole lot these days but I\'m far from tired of it.

The folks over at Current have given their site a major overhaul; new look and easier to browse information. The server seems super snappy as well. I\'ve always loved the concept of CurrentTV and, hopefully, an effective site can help them take things to the next level.

Photographer Wade Griffith just relaunched his photography portfolio site with a wealth of items to browse through. The \"Roadside Attractions\" set is right up my alley, as is a good chunk of the photos from the \"Personal Work.\" Give it a spin, there\'s something in there that you\'ll enjoy.

It appears that Will Arnett has scored himself a new comedy on FOX next season... with Keri Russell. Not exactly a pairing I would have thought of but maybe it will work. Hopefully Arnett was able to reprise his role on the new David Cross BBC comedy but, regardless, looks like we\'ll be seeing more of him next season. According to this post David Wain, Ken Marino and Paul Rudd will be writing a new comedy to be produced by Judd Apatow and starring Jennifer Anniston. Again, sort of a weird pairing of talent but if anyone can make a weirdly awesome movie that will work despite it\'s setup, it is those guys. IFC has posted a huge list of upcoming indie movies set to hit theaters this summer. Granted, unless you live in a large metro area you may not actually be able to see them all but it\'s always good to be abreast of whats out there that might be worth tracking down.

Up There is a documentary short about the dying art of hand painted advertising. It focuses mainly on a group of current painters trying to hold on to the craft while they are commissioned by Stella Artois to create works for the film itself. The film is available to view in its entirety and well worth it.. as it is mostly a piece about the people than it is the art.

Courtney originally gave me the heads up on the performance art of Marina Abramovic and her current performance at the MOMA The Artist is Present but I was befuddled by the whole thing. The concept is that she sits silently at a table and allows patrons of the museum to sit across from her, staring in silence. Many people stay with her for hours on end, often breaking into tears.

Then I read through this article and browsed a huge chunk of the Flickr set and it clicked.. a little bit. For the most part, I don\'t think the intensity of the experience could be captured via anything other than actually sitting down and feeling it first hand but the Flickr set does a decent job of giving a glimpse of people pondering the set. Even if I never really \"get\" it, I\'m happy to be fascinated by the whole idea of it for a little bit.

Jeremy reminded me that it might be time to spend a little QT with the work of Cody Hoyt. The work is an onslaught of goings on but an enjoyable onslaught with lots of little faded details to unearth if you really comb through it all. The man seems to have a penchant for hiding intestines and skulls very subtle-y in his pieces.. an action I wholeheartedly approve of!

I really shouldn\'t find this Bear Sleeping Bag as amusing as I do but I can\'t help myself; the goofy teeth in the mouth opening are worth a hearty chuckle or two.

It appears that Square is now up and running with mobile apps for iPhone and Android. If you aren\'t familiar with the business concept, take a moment to watch this video or this commercial to decipher that it\'s a way to take credit card via mobile app and a nifty headphone jack plugin that reads the card number.

While I doubt this is all that appealing to the vast majority of people I can see it being a huge boon to smaller artier types like poster creators or anyone in a band. They could certainly benefit from the compactness and convenience of it all.