I've mentioned previously that I have a growing fondness for the Egg Punk genre. Microgenres can be a bit silly but there's something very refreshing about the combination of lo-fi production, high energy songs and fun lyrical delivery. This whole record from Steröid entitled Chainmail Commandos captures all those vibes quite nicely. This review summarizes it nicely:

As if the NEW YORK DOLLS, DIO, and PAT BENATAR started writing music inspired by the soundtrack and ran their vocals through an Alvin and the Chipmunks filter.

Pick it up on Bandcamp.

This video from They Are Gutting a Body of Water (aka TAGABOW) for "The Chase" absolutely floored me. It's so audacious that you can't even embed it - that's saying something!

The first minute + 11seconds is a nice build with one short screen that may gross you out. After that it's full-on WTF. It's hard to believe the footage is real but I don't see how it could not be (even in this age of AI). No one should do this. I am sure that discomfort and anxiety is what is tickling my brain so hard but it's insane that anyone would do this.

Great song, too.

I have mentioned the Chris Spargo YouTube channel previously but as we enter into the deadzone of December, it bears repeating. Spargo's channel is filled with insightful tidbits about the seemingly mundane. Why do UK Stop signs look like that? Why did this flushable product had to be reinvented? What are these weird stones?

Okay, that last one doesn't have a lot of answers but it's still compelling! His delivery is very British - often deadpan but still occasionally goofy and satirical. Always compelling and never too long (almost always under 20 minutes and often under 5). I'm a fan and suspect you will be too.

If you aren't on the mailing list for artist Stephen Powers, I suggest you join. It's not incredibly frequent but it's always insightful. His work is playful and unique - a combination of sign posting, comic drawings and graffiti.

In one of his recent broadcasts, he talks about how we're surrounded by bad news all the time but the only way to combat it is with hope. It sounds corny but he does a great job of framing it in a resilient way. This Einstein quote he pulls out is particularly nice:

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

The Stephen Powers newsletter primary purpose is not to instill you with hope - it's mostly to tell you about art shows and Powers journey through his creations - but it's a nice bonus to get a little boost of the good stuff every so often.

This trailer for Cassette Boy does a good job of showing off the indie games clever use of perspective. The description says: CASSETTE BOY is a multi-award-winning and nominated RPG based on puzzles inspired by the rules of quantum physics, where the world around us vanishes when it is out of sight.

Some obvious overlaps with Fez in terms of the aesthetic and the mechanic but with its own special twist. Would play. Looks great.

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Screenbound is another one doing some wild things with perspective. In the trailer you can see that it's a game about playing a 2D platformer game where your journey may be stifled or progressed by actions also taken in a 3D version of the same world. This looks very smart and also I am positive it would melt my brain.

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Toodee and Topdee has been out since 2021 but it's new to me! Yet another very clever bit of gameplay that involves 2D vs 3D shifting; tho this one is more akin to titling a gameboard. Absolutely delightful and apparently also on Switch.

When you hit play on this "All I Want For Christmas Is You" cover done in Wii Shop style you will have great skepticism. Surely this will be a funny gag for a few seconds and no more? Wrong! It's a bop start to finish.

If you want more of this, dive into a different YouTuber's channel - SilvaGunner's Wii Shop is a 55-song collection of "rips" from official Nintendo sources. Except they're not and they deliver the goods.

Daniel recently clued me in to Universal Sans; a highly customizable typeface complete with web interface to dial in your specifics. You set everything from the x-height to the ink trap style to the punctuation style to make it your own. There are certainly some limitations - you aren't drawing a typeface from scratch! - but it's a very nice way to make a unique look within some very respectable confines.

If nothing else, just go play around with the configuration options. It's surprisingly fun.

Regardless of your interest level in AI or Shopify or Shopify AI, I highly recommend you cruise over to this Shopify Editions, Winter 2026 minisite. The Renaissance inspired design is great but the site implementation is wild. The "burning paper" transition between sections is boggling my mind. The whole thing is boggling my mind and I haven't even read a single sentence on the page.

Tiny media computers are not a significantly new idea by any means but this Raspberry Pi 500+ really caught my eye. I'm sure I'm out of the loop on these things but it's the first time I've seen a full-on computer tucked inside a keyboard. Except of course for the Commodore 64 was which, essentially, a computer tucked inside a keyboard (and they're back!).

It's well made, it's interesting and it's clever. Particularly the backlit keys. The reviews aren't too shabby. I've no clue how this would fit into my life at all but I appreciate that it exists.

Larissa Maestro is absurdly talented. They are a multi-instrumentalist that has played with a very long list of musicians you have definitely heard of. They're a composer, arranger, Star Trek enthusiast. Oh, and they perform in a 90's tribute band called My So-Called Band. That's nowhere near the full list of achievements but it's enough context to tell you that Maestro has a deep well of talent.

"Rotation" is their latest release - a piece written for a quartet that was inspired by the tornados that ravaged parts of Nashville. This visualizer is an excellent pairing to the music but, truly, all you need to do is listen. It's 7 and a half minutes and quite sublime. You can pick up the track over on Bandcamp.

I am a Blank Check podcast listener. Thus, I am also aware of Conner Ratliff; as he is a regular guest on the show. I am only vaguely familiar with The George Lucas Talk Show - the long running talk show in which Ratliff plays Lucas. I know it exists but I've never heard a moment of it.

Regardless, when I encountered the trailer for I’m “George Lucas”: A Connor Ratliff Story, I was intrigued. His appearances on Blank Check are always amusing and his friendship with the hosts feels like a legitimate endorsement to me. That said, a behind-the-scenes movie about a comedian I don't know a ton about performing a talk show I've never watched seems like it might not be that engaging. But there's a quote from Ratliff about 1:40 into this 2 minute trailer that really hit me (emphasis mine):

"Why am I doing this? Why do I care if a bunch of strangers like a thing I do? If I do a show and 10 people see it and they love it, is that as good as doing a show that a million people see?"

As someone that has a long running but small record label, a newish podcast, an ancient blog and many other projects - this hits home for me. Also, as someone that works in tech where everyone is obsessed with scale = success, this hits home doubley.

I may not know Ratliff or his story but there's something familiar about that creative journey that speaks to me. Maybe it will to you as well. The film is streaming and available direct.

YouTube has decided that I need to hear an album of Mega Man jazz and YouTube is correct, I did need to hear it. From the stage select screen all the way through the end credits, Mr Flayk has redone every song with " a smoother, laid-back twist." Truth be told, aside from "Guts Man" there isn't much "laid back" about this! It's a high energy, jazzy outburst most of the time and that's not a complaint!

Give it a whirl.

If my count is to be trusted, Twinkling City is the sixth holiday release from Lawndry. You'd be forgiven for thinking that if a band has released six holiday EPs that they are exclusively a holiday band but Lawndry is just prolific! The band constantly fuses organic and electronic approaches to songwriting. That notion persists through their non-holiday and holiday music alike. Twinkling City has a full-on blast of dance music with "Santa's at Berghain," a melancholy piano bop about forgetting to buy presents with "Empty-Handed Man," and an unfurling, literally twinkling, piece about being a little shit coming home from college in "Humbug Comes Home." And that's not all the songs - just a little taste.

They are songs that are created in earnest but not afraid to be a little amusing and delightful. One might say they are downright merry. Highly recommend the deep dive.

These songs are streaming on Apple, Spotify, etc but I'm only linking you to Bandcamp because this is a band you should support. Merry Christmas, every one.

I searched Giphy for Weird Santa and ended up with this Weird Satan. I'll take it! Turns out this is from a 1959 film called Santa Claus vs. the Devil that was also on MST3K. It all makes sense.

• Mr. Microphone, 1978 - at your next Christmas party, just set the dial on your FM radio and go nuts with Mr. Microphone. Please watch the whole thing, the examples are truly ridiculous. Also, if you're a musician, bring this back.
• Episode I Podrace but I made all the sounds with my human mouth - really rides the line of stupid and impressive.
• N-E-S-T-L-E-S - do you remember this extremely dramatic NESTLE commercial? I did not but now I can't get that song outta my head. 1986 advertising bop.
• Faith No More - Sweet Dreams - apparently Mike Patton felt the same in 1991; opening this show in Rio with the same jingle.
• American High: Chip Short - starts off with a solid premise and continues to deliver.
• Meels - Willow Song - it's a Hee-Haw tribute and features a racoon puppet playing the harmonica. It's also not jokey at all. Yea, I'm putting it in Friday Videos.
• when the DJ is feeling that Sonic R sunshine - a particularly strange one. Sonic running through a landscape set to House music. But if you stick with it, the game extrudes, warps and projects itself in a way that I've literally never seen before. The explanation is nice but the TLDR is, the effects are very clever!
• seth meyers & andy samberg being besties for 17 minutes straight - yes, I'm in Quaid Army and, yes, I watched all of this with no distractions loving every moment of it.

I'm having a sale for a bunch of quality YK Records releases. It started as a Cyber Monday deal but I'm extending it through the end of the year. I'm taking $5 off select vinyl and $2 off CDs and cassettes. Not a steep discount but I truly price these things as close to the margin as I can - so this is significant!

Note that the discount is applied at checkout. I'm too much of a Shopify novice to figure out how to get the discounted prices to display where people expect the discounted prices to display :facepalm:.

You can snag the latest from Chris Crofton, Jessica Breanne, Alex Caress, Dave Paulson, The Privates, Annie Wiliams and Matt & The Watt Gives. AND you can get some more archival releases from Forget Cassettes and Trash Man. I'm biased but it's a lot of good stuff.

Check it out.

Remember in 2011 when there was a Kickstarter to build a Robocop statue in Detroit? And it was successful!? Well, fourteen years later - it's a real statue.

That's it! That's the post. There's a 10-foot bronze Robocop in Eastern Market in Detroit. It looks great.

When you're online every day, you see a lot of things. I do my best to consume small amounts, not drink from the firehose. But this GIF of Roger Sterling puking with and without hidden crew members is one of those things I'm utterly delighted exists.

If you missed it, HBO released 4K restorations of Mad Men. Except they didn't really watch it for quality control and let some scenes slip through with visible crew members. Honestly, I thought this image was AI when I saw it. Surely HBO and Mad Men and AMC and Matthew Weiner's people wouldn't be so sloppy? And the comments on that Bluesky post are very.. very funny. It's fake, right?

This Todd Vaziri breakdown on the 4K Mad Men Debacle shows it is decidedly not fake. They just messed up. It's not the only example of where they messed up, nor is it the only show that's ever done such a thing. But it's the latest and that comparison GIF is an absolute treasure upon the world.

HT to Mac for steering me toward's Dan Epstein's Music To Watch Christmas Elves By (2025 Edition) - a lengthy repository of Christmas music of the muzak variety. Of course my favorite K-Mart Christmas 1974 is in there but there's a trove of instrumental, orchestra and delightfully soothing options in there as well. Make sure you listen to at least one of the S.S. Kresge Background Music Records - holiday perfection.

I tend to agree with the general sentiment of this Noah Smith piece - I love AI. Why doesn't everyone? It's a great article about the ills of technology, the general trepidation towards anything new and the specific trepidation towards AI. It's a hopeful piece about the potential of what AI can do. A mindful piece debunking many false claims. And a bit of an eyeroll towards those that decry it entirely.

That said, I do not agree with the article entirely. I agree AI has so much potential and I'm excited by the prospects. I even count myself among the rare minority that Smith does. However, I think the complaints about how artists and creators were ripped off training AI models is entirely valid; tho I am not sure what action could be taken now to reconcile it. I also believe that all of the negativity around AI can lead to positive change. No lawmaker is going to get involved if no one is complaining. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. In other words, people should feel emboldened to point out the pitfalls of AI because it should only lead to improvements (theoretically).

At the end of the day, it's not really a black or white issue. Being entirely anti-AI and being entirely pro-AI are not sensible stances to take. It's a big grey zone and you can perhaps lean slightly to one side. Regardless, it's a good read.

John Paul Bullock has been compiling a monthly playlist throughout 2025 of "50 Great Songs Released or Reissued" for the given month. The November playlist is here on YouTube (and Apple and Spotify). It's always a refreshing mixture of styles and genres. Make sure you're following him on IG subscribed to Major Label Debut - the podcast for which he is a producer. Goodness abound.