LOST's Excellent Adventure

LOST has jumped the shark. Desmond and Sayid are the Wyld Stallyns! Excellent! *Air guitar* I'd say Farady's new 'do makes for a good Rufus.

... I'm still watching it.

Scraping THOMAS

I thought my legislative opinion idea was pretty clever. Dani did not. She said it would be a waste of time and taxpayer dollars. I could use clarification on that waste of taxpayer dollars part. (I should add that I think this should all be electronic.) Unfortunately, I cannot disagree with her about the fact that the opinion would probably be relegated to an intern; all I can ask is for congressional peer pressure (hah!) to hold legislators to the expectation that they write their own opinions.

Dani suggested two alternatives: seek out legislators' newsletters (which I haven't yet done), and "dig around" to find transcripts of the floors' debates. For the latter option, I have found this gem. It updates once-a-day-ish to serve out the Daily Digest (=summary) of the Congressional Record. Who knew?

I used Page2RSS to setup this RSS feed for the page, since I couldn't find one. (It's the aughts people! What the hell?!) The results can be pretty cryptic, but at least I get notification whenever the site changes – that is, whenever Congress does something. If anyone can manage to scrape a better feed – or knows where to find one – please do let me know!

(I hope this is legal.)

I haven't discerned if the precise transcript of the floors' activities are available through THOMAS. That sure would be nice. Dani – maybe you can elaborate on your "digging" suggestion? Perhaps C-SPAN? Thanks for the suggestion to seek this out.

And another

This one is less impressive, but way more throw-back. It's old school in its simplicity and characters, too. SNESish.

NSIYNTBP

Not Safe If You Need To Be Productive. Tycho linked to Iron Dukes, and damn him for doing so.

Don't give me that "I'm an adult, I don't play games" cruft – click through and enjoy.

We $hall see

I really liked this. I know next to nothing of Lupe, but I have enjoyed the work of Kanye and Pharrell before. Maybe that means they're like Mos Def? Quality stuff all around.

Even beyond the music, that video is killer. I'm with the RCRD LBL author looking forward to more outlets for Va$htie.

[Thanks to Rory for passing that one along.]

I've been found out!

I absolutely hate Mario Party. From Tycho:

[Gabe] was trying to figure out why he likes Smash but not other pieces in the Nintendo oeuvre, specifically Mario Party, though he's troubled by the communist tendencies of Mario Kart as well - but Smash is nothing like those games. In the two titles I've just mentioned, a suite of "balance mechanisms" designed to promote fairness or randomize outcomes assert themselves. Enforced fairness has a way of feeling unfair to those who excel. If you're playing to have fun with your friends, these are all opportunities for joy. If you play videogames to express your dominion over others, they are impediments to your regime.

A moment of awareness and an admission of self

Heavy title for a post about a band. What I realized is that I will not acheive the persuasion of Dan or Lindsey. I just don't do that sort of thing. So I'll let SPIN.com do it for me Re: What Made Milwaukee Famous. I like this band. The song on that page is from the upcoming album, which I've never heard, but I really like the first album. The album I know and love is probably low brow and repetitive compared to the new one, but I like repetitions of good. And, once again, those captives in my car have asked about WMMF before – so I'm not totally crazy.

Though I'm not selling the band, I can tell a story. One that might even shake the very foundations of marriage. Might.

Kyle loves Katie Daryl. It was love at first television. Short story even shorter, since I lived with Kyle I ended up watching a bunch of HDNet's True Music. WMMF was on one of those episodes (note: she has her own theme music!) along with The Blue Van and Toby Lightman – both of which I like, though The Blue Van is a bit sloppy for my taste. I digress.

Katie Daryl is cool (and beloved) and WMMF makes good music. In searching for a "representative" song from Trying to Never Catch Up, I couldn't really find one. So maybe my repetitive comment is way off base. Paying no mind to that, I'll throw "Idecide" out there as a rep along with "Hopelist" as a demonstration of some breadth. The album has many great lyrics (due in part to sonorous and compelling delivery, but the words do indicate a keen, young wisdom) and "Hopelist" contains more than its fair share.

Enjoy.