Daily View, 9/21: TOP

How the hell is September almost gone already? Sigh.

• Have a random question? Like whether or not Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder are related? Sure, call 311.


• Wow, now THAT is a HUGE laptop!!!


• Poor, poor Sting


• A replica of an iron molecule AND a hotel?? One word: awesome.


• "The Knitted English garden project has been painstakingly completed by more than 300 contributors, including a group of gay men knitting in Brighton, and a 12-year-old boy in Sussex, who spent six months making the pond and waterfall."


• Er, wow. If you like breasts, apparently this mousepad is for you.


• I got all excited when ColdHardFlash put up their list of the Top 10 Most Influential Online Flash Shorts... only to find myself in a strange world of juvenile crap (and not even good juvenile crap). Of the ten (and, oh yes, I watched them all), only a few were bearable: 1) even when it involves urine the animation of Adam Phillips is always just plain awesome, 2) The End of the World I think I'd seen before, 3) Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me is a fascinating exercise in how to rip off the bunny animation from Disney's Robin Hood, and 4) Odd Todd is kinda funny if you've ever been unemployed. But seriously... these are the top 10?? I'm flabbergasted.


• Kottke's got a great running entry on the Top places to eat well for cheap in NYC (my vote was for kaiten-zushi at East)


• Wow. Stylus Magazine votes for their Top 100 music videos of all time, complete with accompanying YouTube videos. One of my all-times faves (Take On Me, by A-ha) is appropriately in the top five, that great Daft Punk Michel Gondry video sneaks in at #9, and Mark Romanek, one of my favorite directors, rightfully has not one but two spots in the top ten (and also holds #11). Rock on.


• Corporate Goth. I love it.


• Wow, the Inkies tell me that Richard Branson is pledging $3 billion dollars to fight climate change. Why hasn't anyone with vast amounts of cash assassinated the dumbfuck in the Oval Office yet, eh? Honestly, that's what I really don't get. Not that it would directly solve the global warming problem, but it feels like it'd be a step in the right direction. Sigh... does this mean that the CIA is now reading this blog??


• Hey, cool—the dance of the Ghosts sequence from Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray's rare 1968 film Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne. "Ray combined live action, shadow puppets and Indian percussion instruments to create the mesmerizing sequence."

Listening to:
Damn, busted. I've been listening to It's the Time to Disco from Kal Ho Naa Ho (shut up, it's just Bollywood, not like it's a dangerous obsession or anything) on repeat this entire time. Oh, and by now I've learned the lyrics and everything. And if THAT doesn't cinch the fact that I am a poor candidate for a music blog, I don't know what else will.

Wait, speaking of music, though... I just have to bitch about Josh Groban. I was in Rite-Aid today (yes, I left the house, and it's not even Tuesday!), and the whole time %)!*#%&)#*%& Josh Groban was telling me in his smooth baritone that I Am Loved. Clearly he's got another barely-veiled religous reference easy listening hit on his hands (the last one being the bombastic "You Raise Me Up"—come on, I know you can take it secularly, but everyone knows he's pandering to the Jesus crowd. Who'dya think is lifting him up, mmm?) What a fucking tool. He's got a fine voice and he uses it for evil. Eeeee-vil. Sigh.