2/29/08

friday fun facts II - Leap year


what the hell was I thinking...let's talk about Leap Years!

Leap year - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "A leap year (or intercalary year) is a year containing one or more extra days (or, in the case of lunisolar calendars, an extra month) in order to keep the calendar year synchronised with the astronomical or seasonal year. For example, in the Gregorian calender, February would have 29 days in a leap year instead of the usual 28. Because seasons and astronomical events do not repeat at an exact number of full days, a calendar which had the same number of days in each year would, over time, drift with respect to the event it was supposed to track. By occasionally inserting (or intercalating) an additional day or month into the year, the drift can be corrected. A year which is not a leap year is called a common year."

friday fun facts - prehistoric stuff quiz


Friday Brainteaser from Credo Reference (http://www.credoreference.com).

Prehistoric Times

What do you know about prehistoric times - the years before people recorded their history in writing? Test your knowledge of prehistory with these questions.

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Questions:
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1. Which 1993 film, based on a 1990 novel of the same name by Michael Crichton, was about chaos overtaking a theme park in which the main attractions are dinosaurs from the Jurassic period?

2. The Danish archaeologist Christian Jurgensen Thomsen divided the prehistoric past into three ages: the Stone Age, the Bronze Age and...what?

3. Some of the most famous prehistoric cave-paintings in the world are at Lascaux, which is in which country?

4. Which extinct reptile gets its name from two Greek words meaning "terrible lizard"?

5. What is the name of the prehistoric monument near Salisbury, England, which is the most imposing megalithic monument in existence?

6. Australopithecus is an extinct genus of the hominid family found in which continent: Africa, Australia or South America?

7. Were the prehistoric inhabitants of Britain called Jutes, Vandals or Celts?

8. What is the popular name for a prehistoric member of the cat family which had two long fangs and a wide-opening jaw structure that enabled it to kill its prey by stabbing and slashing at its throat?

9. Parts of the skull of the "Piltdown Man" found in East Sussex, England, in 1911 proved to be a hoax, as the jawbone was found to belong to...what?

10. What is the word for the scientific study of fossils?



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Answers:
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Find out the answers at http://corp.credoreference.com/quiz

#67 Standing Still at Concerts - Stuff White People Like


#67 Standing Still at Concerts � Stuff White People Like: "Music is very important to white people. It truly is the soundtrack to their lives, meaning that white people are constantly thinking about what songs would be on the soundtrack for the biopic. The problem is that most of the music that white people like isn’t really dance-friendly. More often the songs are about pain, or love, or breaking up with someone, or not being able to date someone, or death.

So when white people go to concerts at smaller venues, what to do they do? They stand still! This is an important part of white concert going as it enables you to focus on the music, and it will prevent drawing excess attention to you. Remember, at a concert everyone is watching you just waiting for you to try to start dancing. Then they will make fun of you.

The result is Belle and Sebastian concerts that essentially looks more like a disorganized line of people than a music event."

2/28/08

Melodica Festival @ Amsterdam Bar, Feb 23, 2008

(via dallasobserver.com)
"At its best, this past weekend's Melodica Festival was inspiring and, well, surprisingly engrossing. At its worst, it was inaccessible, self-indulgent and pretty boring."

2/27/08

iBand


(via gizmodo)
"Here's a video of a new band that uses iPhones and a Nintendo DS to play their music. Unluckily, they call themselves iBand. Luckily, they are not as bad as the name. And in any case, they show the great possibilities for having fun creating music with these devices. Giz fan Sebastian Wöber, one of the players, tells us how:

Since Electroplankton on the Nintendo DS we constantly think about implementing those sounds, and since the iPhone we like to play with PocketGuitar (played in the clip by Roland Dell'mour.) Now that iAno came out (played by Marina Dell'mour) we just had to try this out! As you said in your article: there has to be an iPhone band! It's the next step. And as we're devoted Giz readers we thought we'd give it a shot and sat down to improvise a little and pressed record on that digital camera.

Unfortunately we only have two iPhones, so we dug out that dusty Nintendo DS. But we want to take it further. There are some guys with iPod touches in our neighbourhood, so we'll gather them and add a drumset with the BeatPhone app and a guitar and lose the DS. So you can expect another song in the next weeks."

2/26/08

Bill Clinton in a pickup


Bill Clinton in a pickup
Originally uploaded by see emily play
is that (former) President Bill Clinton in the bed of a pickup truck in a parking lot in Fort Worth?

*rubbing eyes*

this election is getting weird.

Neil Gaiman's "Coraline" trailer and sneak peek

looks great!

2/19/08

snoozeday mix


the SXSW mix

Tapes 'n Tapes Hang Them All (mp3)
The Dodos Fools (mp3)
Oh No! Oh My! Walk in the Park (mp3)
The Russian Futurists Let's Get Ready to Crumble (mp3)

2/14/08

valentine's day mix


(via nightlife)
"The Cool Out crew -- Big J and Schwa, who play Mondays at the Cavern -- have put together an old-school Valentine's Day mix that's been making the rounds on MySpace."

Polaroid Abandons Instant Photography - The Lede - Breaking News - New York Times Blog

Polaroid Abandons Instant Photography - The Lede - Breaking News - New York Times Blog: "Polaroid is getting out of the Polaroid business. The company, which stopped making instant cameras for consumers a year ago and for commercial use a year before that, said today that as soon as it had enough instant film manufactured to last it through 2009, it would stop making that, too."
Polaroidcharmnecklace
Stock up here.

happy valentines day.

fire

2/8/08

waiting for my man as contemporary ballet

wow.


(via Neatorama)
"Amelia is a 2002 dance film by Edouard Lock - the dance routine is astoudingly fast. It is simply a technical tour de force. The dancers are from Montreal dance company La La La Human Steps, the music is composed of Lou Reed lyrics with music by David Lang (a major contributor to the score for Requiem for a Dream) and the wooden stage was created just for this piece. The award-winning movie is available from Opus Arte."

dying for The Kills new album

the kills get...dancy?

2/5/08

future of the left is not mclusky



(via Music for Robots)
Future of the Left - Suddenly it's a Folk Song.
"...This song is about listening to Future of the Left and wishing it was McLusky.

See, when McLusky broke up a lot of us were super bummed out, right? McLusky were the type of band that seemed to perfect on paper -- when you talked about them it almost seemed made up - like they were only a myth. So when two of the three members reform with a new band, how can we not get excited and listen? I mean, it's only the drummer missing -- how different can it be?

Well, it's kind of different. I think maybe they lost a little tiny bit of their bite with age, but in weird ways. They're still angry and still have over-long titles filled with hate and puns. But it's not supposed to be McLusky. It's supposed to be Future of the Left, and they have this manifesto here. It harkens back to late-90s local punk outfits, with bratty vocals and clean production.

And you know what? It's fucking awesome. I love this song. I listen to it all the time. It took me a while to get the record, but once I got over the whole it's-never-gonna-be-mclusky thing, it really started to sound great to me. So fuck it. Let's dance. The new album, Curses, came out a week or two ago, and it's a real hootenanny. I definitely recommend it."

Who are American musicians supporting on Super Tuesday?



Who are American musicians supporting on Super Tuesday? [Guardian]
Presidential Election '08: Pete Wentz Backs Barack Obama [Spin]

REPUBLICANS
Mike Huckabee: Ted Nugent

John McCain: Burt Bacharach

Ron Paul: Krist Novoselic, Arlo Guthrie

Mitt Romney: Pat Boone, Donny Osmond, Marie Osmond

DEMOCRATS
Hillary Clinton: Madonna, Carly Simon, Tony Bennett, Jon Bon Jovi, Melissa Etheridge, Carole King, Janet Jackson, Quincy Jones, 50 Cent, Mya, Timbaland, Barbra Streisand, Merle Haggard

Barack Obama: Babyface, the Goo Goo Dolls, Macy Gray, Ne-Yo, Will Smith, Usher, Stevie Wonder, Harry Connick Jr., Pete Wentz, Win Butler, will.i.am/the Black Eyed Peas, the Grateful Dead, Jeff Tweedy, Conor Oberst, Joanna Newsom, the Cool Kids, Stephan Jenkins, OK Go, Shudder to Think, Dave Matthews, Pearl Jam

2/3/08

New Happy Bullets Video

so great, and a top finalist at SXSW. awesome!
The Happy Bullets - The Vice and Virtue Ministry

Obscenely Unseen 2008

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DSC01932
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DSC02051
Originally uploaded by see emily play
just a few months after this showcase's debut, Team Obscene brought the rock again yesterday with a great line-up and some cool art over at Hal Samples' Space. shout out to Mikey and Kate and friends - well did.

2/2/08

TODAY - Obscenely Unseen Part Deux

The Tah Dahs/Blackheart Society/Record Hop/Bridges and Blinking Lights/Laura Palmer/Holy Diver/Street Hassle/The Grass Fight/Robert Jones (Space Studio): A line up of, uh, mixed quality. Record Hop is the absolute standout here, although Street Hassle has a few pretty good tracks as well. Some art will also be on display, and refreshments will be provided. Doors @ 2p, show starts @ 3p.

2/1/08

Googlism - Dallas


Googlism

"Googlism.com will find out what Google.com thinks of you, your friends or anything!"

this is really pretty surreal.

Googlism for: dallas
dallas is changing its name to young
dallas is just a click away
dallas is enjoying default's success
dallas is expected today
dallas is closed to the public
dallas is comfy
dallas is the better of two bad teams
dallas is located in irving
dallas is approximately 1
dallas is landlocked by the suburbs it has spawned
dallas is changing
dallas is not
dallas is better than houston
dallas is astounding and can serve as a blueprint not just for connecticut but for almost any place in the country

all ur wknd r belong to uz

The Horrors - Crawdaddy Simone (mp3)
The High Water Marks - The Leaves (mp3)
The Billionaires - Eighties Movies (mp3)
Why? - Close to Me (Cure cover) (mp3)
The Kills - URA Fever (video)

windy skies


windy skies
Originally uploaded by see emily play
on the flight to ATL.

you can take the girl out of Texas, but you can never take the Texas out of the girl.