My family always had toaster ovens rather than pop-up toasters, which made it very easy and fun to make open-faced grilled cheese sandwiches. Now that I have a pop-up toaster and a George Foreman grill, I discovered that I can make closed-face grilled cheese sandwiches pretty easily.

I also have a plain old slot-loading toaster, which I used a fair amount. But I just love toast. If only the Foreman did eggs too...

@RJ

yeah, what I probably should have said was that the mean-spirited nature of your comment, as well as your deflection of Ben's calling you out on that, rubbed me the wrong way. You don't have to shoot down anybody who thinks these are cute/amusing by comparing them to stereotypical strawmen.

That said, I think they're a little tacky too. Just not tacky enough to merit your level of snark. But I'm down for a truce. After all, there are far worse things to get upset about.

@21 Steamo! I love it.

@RJ

shit! You mean some people don't buy things purely for their own aesthetic enjoyment, but to impress other people and define their own individuality? And that these people can be in their teens, or in college, and might even be overweight?

I guess the next time something amuses me because of the contrast between its medium and what it portrays, I should examine myself to determine what kind of slot this amusement categorizes me into. So I guess I'm a fat goth kid.

Morons like you are usually the first to go when the crack down comes.

Let's chill on the ad hominem, guys. Bundercup's playing devil's advocate.

Hunty: "a diminished sense of self-worth."

...aaaaand that's what the internet's for!

"pit latrines in a squatter village"

is it wrong for me to laugh at this no-pun-intended?

@#10: Please tell me you were making a Mary Worth reference...!

"I'm not sure why there is analysis beyond this point in the article."

Sometimes creative people receive inspiration from places completely unknown to them. An obvious examples would be George Harrison and that song he unintentionally ripped off.

But, more importantly, I've always been told not to take an artist's word on the meaning of his/her own art. It can be illuminating, but also potentially misleading, depending on whether or not the artist wants to hide his/her influences. If you wrote the lyrics to Iron Man, would you be more inclined say it was based directly on a comic book, or a "science fiction story" you dreamed up from current events? Which one would give you more credit/pride?

@#17: "So scientists tend to react sceptically to anything that seems intuitively plausible"

So would you say that they *intuitively* react sceptically to anything that seems intuitive?

@6 that's a great idea! You should patent it. No, seriously, I think you could be onto something.

If just saw that video out of context, I'd think it was midi with contact mics. It being real instruments makes it even more appealing. If I had a few thousand to drop (and space for a big table in my apartment) I'd be all over that.

Question: is there a way to mute the panels, so you could, say, have dinner without setting off tambourines?

"many times, CMD has found, the only edits that a station will make to a paid clip is to cut off the disclosure noting that the video was sponsored by a corporation."

wow...

@#8: Alvin Lucier's "I Am Sitting In A Room" too!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Sitting_in_a_Room

I had a traffic cop yell at me for talking on a phone while driving... yeesh.

@#9: thank you for that.

@#19: complete tangent: is that where "midouri" (tasty green melon liquor) comes from? If so, Japan is even more awesome than previously suspected.

@#9: If not for the obvious copyright infringement, I'd love to start a band called "Trent & the Radioheads".

Or a sitcom.

@#32: you beat me to it. Though I was gonna say that since they're pretty fucking closer to dinosaurs, crocs probably predate the rest of us by a while.

@#33: that mental image of a cookie waving at me is going to stay with me for the rest of the day

In elementary school, some boys got in trouble for talking about buying a "hooker" in D&D. Some of the girls heard them and complained about sexism and the like.

I don't remember how it ended, but the upshot was that the boys maintained that a "hooker" was some sort of hooked weapon and they were not trafficking in sex. The girls did not believe them but had no way of proving otherwise.

We (I did not participate) were all like, 12. Jeesh.

I expected the video to be bad... but not this bad

@#10: Achewood has been doing that for a while, but that's still a great idea

A great example of this thinking in practice is Nine Inch Nails' new album, released in a sliding scale of fan-dom:

* free download of high-quality mp3s of the 1st 1/4 of the album (9 tracks), including cover art, beautifully illustrated booklet pdf
* $5: digital download of the entire album in a variety of formats, plus the above.
* $10: entire album on 2 CDs plus all of the above
* $75: limited edition: all of the above plus multitracks for remixing. and Blue-Ray Disc of audio. And a ohoto booklet (the photos are nice, I saw the digital versions)
* $300: all of the above plus 4 Vinyl Discs, 2 Giclee prints, and signed by Trent. Limited to 2500 Copies.

It was announced last night and the $300 one already sold out. These 2500 "True Fans" have already made Trent $750,000 (is my math correct?). Each one was glad to pay it, and the rest of us get to enjoy it for free. Sweet!

@#4 Greek/Roman mythology FTW!

@14: agreed on the Steadman.

@6 "Wears thin pretty quick."

pun intended?

A friend of mine's parents let her and her brother choose their middle names when they were kids. So her middle name is "Buckaroo".

@8 That's what I was thinking. This could simply be a positive-PR spin for a forced resignation. If Fidel could keep a public profile while retaining no actual power, that would be preferable for a new regime.

I feel bad even saying this with Yoko's comment up there, but:

"I am regualarly asked if I was named after the Beatle, having always replied no. My mother named me after "John Lennon that wrote songs, painted, and baked bread with his son". She named me for the man, not the pop star."

She means John Lennon the man, who neglected his first son and beat and cheated on his first wife?

@18 made me laugh.

the whole point of the article is that the services people are, and increasingly will be willing to pay for, are not distribution, since it can and will happen for free, but "generatives" which will become more valuable than simply "free": such as "immediacy", "personalization". Read the article, it's not that long.

The reason DRM feels so counterintuitive, according to this logic, is because it violates the "accessibility" generative: it essentially means you're paying more to do less with something, when you could have paid nothing to have more options.

Not to get all technical, but one big difference between this and My Fighting Technique is that this is a lot more character-driven, whereas MFTIU is more of a Op-Ed/Gag-based strip. The main similarity seems to be that it is clip-art based, and that it is based around one particular topic, such that it may appeal to more than just a webcomic audience.

Um, hm. Didn't mean to sound like a know-it-all right there.

Writing webcomics online isn't exactly the same as being paid to write movies and screenplays. For one thing, one's online... oh, I see.

i wonder if you could combine it with Mancala to create some sort of weird rhythmic Mancala-type game. One of the distinctive things to begin with is the sounds the beans/marbles make when the players put them down, so why not add to that?

I think it would be cool!

I wonder, does it work simply be detecting an obstruction of light, or is it something specific in the properties of the ball bearing (their shininess, maybe)? Maybe you could just use your fingers to block off the beats - that would be pretty cool, and leave open the possibility of some awesome hand gymnastics!

Think Daft Hands, but they're also controlling the beat...?

I mistakenly read the headline as "Cat owners are pirates if they distribute pictures of their own cats".

Damn.

yeah, i love that phrase too

"growing"? I suppose if you could call Limp Bizkit an "ensemble"...

re: Nazis vs. the rest of the Axis:

What distinguished the Nazis from every other aggressive country that starts wars and takes over territories is the full-scale genocide they took part in. This is why people consider them evil.

To put it in context, however, many Americans had no problem with their racist politics, and eugenics didn't become a dirty word until Germany lost the war. Germany wasn't considered evil in America because of its racism, but simply because of the propaganda and xenophobia, much of it left over from WWI, against Germans. Allied soldiers fighting to free the Jews is as anachronistic as Union soldiers in the American Civil War fighting to end slavery. In both cases, it was pretty much "to defend my homeland"... which was also why the majority of the Axis probably fought. And the draft.

Outside of people whom it directly affected, people pretty much forgot about the Holocaust until Israel's trial of Adolf Eichmann in the 60s. Only then did the Nazis become evil for the reason we consider them evil today.

(incidentally, also one of the reasons I object to people labeling Bush, or any other American politician, a Nazi: he may employ fascist tactics, but they are not put to genocidal ends. The Iraq War may be corrupt, ill-managed, ill-conceived, and completely wrong, but it is not genocide carried out with racist policies.)

So the question becomes: is it possible to distinguish between "war effort" - what every country does to gear up for war, including building factories, drafting soldiers, research, and propaganda - and genocide? What made the Nazis so evil was how seamlessly genocide and racism were integrated with the war effort.

regarding compression, it's logarithmic (I think?) rather than additive, so it makes it sound even worse when you apply compression beyond what the engineer intended.

@5 "How long before someone mods a bluetooth headset into one of these?"

hahaha, a wireless transmitter BOLTED TO THE TABLE

@6 "meat bags"

was it that Star Trek:TNG with the silicone creatures that referred to the crew as "ugly bags of mostly water"?

@25
"If you have a good point, make it at any cost."

Sweet! I'll call Timothy McVeigh!

i love the concept of restricting yourself with requirements, like that you have to use all top 25 songs or something. It forces you to be more creative... as someone who actually listens to top 40 on a regular basis, I'm proud to say I recognized every sample there, and it was very impressive the way they were woven together.

Now, I want to hear a mashup of the top 25 for each genre: Country, Rock, R&B, etc.

@22 - you're my hero.

The easiest way to memorize it is to just record yourself singing/saying it, then reverse it and memorize how it sounds reversed. I still can say my name backwards from playing with my tape deck years ago.

@6: This doesn't help democracy any more than spamming the FCC to censor Janet Jackson's Superbowl broadcast. It gave a dozen angry parents in the Midwest the power to make networks never show anything possibly controversal again.

or did I misunderstand what your thingy does?

My favorite from Paris was the "Texas Pizza Bagel" or something of that ilk. I mean, Bagels come from America, and Texas is in America, right?

I think the manipulative/drama and "behind the scenes" aspect is part of what makes it a reality show. A reality show is, as Zan said, a game show with one group of contestants for the season, but it also includes the aspect of having the contestants living together and getting on each others' nerves. Hence the element of human drama. A game show PLUS the drama of people living together.

Although "reality show" has definitely become a catchphrase that could mean just about anything unscripted.

My guess to the reality part would be that they all live in a house together, or at least there is focus on their interpersonal relationships... preferably on how much they get on each others' nerves. They will probably be judged by a panel of judges, and one will be eliminated each week.

And if there's no conflict, one will be edited in for maximum drama!

@21: "It all sounds pretty spooky to me though."

"spooky" as in "spooky action at a distance"? I think that's what Einstein called quantum physics.

actually, they must have changed it since then. Now it merely says:

"You are probably looking for
www.LEGO.com – the official website
for LEGO bricks and toys – you are
now being redirected

If you have not been redirected
please click here"

and the "click here" redirects to lego.com too.

So the big stars are leaving record labels for Starbucks and Livenation. Is this progress?

on the subject of movie icons playing guitar hero:

http://www.dieselsweeties.com/shirts/halloween/

from Diesel Sweeties, excellent web(and now print!)comic.