Tapped

Tapped: "One thing the Bush administration says it can do with this meta-data is to start tapping your calls and listening in, without getting a warrant from anyone. Having listened in on your calls, the administration asserts that if it doesn't like what it hears, it has the authority to detain you indefinitely without trial or charges, torture you until you confess or implicate others, extradite you to a Third World country to be tortured, ship you to a secret prison facility in Eastern Europe, or all of the above. "

Google Trends

Google Trends: "Google Trends analyzes a portion of Google web searches to compute how many searches have been done for the terms you enter relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time. We then show you a graph with the results -- our search-volume graph."

The Googling of Google Fight!

Tribal trouble

Odd to get news of Tribe.net trouble from fuckedcompany. Guess that's just the way that the rss feed bounces. (and the fact that almost all of my tribe posting is pulled via rss feeds anymore).

Looks like 10 people got the boot. Which is pretty odd timing since they've just created yet another tribe tribe and two redesigned homepages.

Tags: tribe.net

White Fox News House

CNN.com: "Fox News is popular with at least one highly placed person in the White House. According to the Web site "The Smoking Gun," whenever Vice President Dick Cheney stays in a hotel room, he requests extra lights, copies of five newspapers and the television tuned to Fox."

Andy Borowitz: Fox News - White House Merger Complete: "The merger between Fox News and the White House can be summed up in one word: synergy," Mr. Snow said. "The two entities have been working in lockstep for five years now and this merger is a formal acknowledgment of that fact."

Securesingles.com

Heh, Securesingles.com allows you to send yourself sms to get out of bad dates. That's certainly worth a few clams ...

"Our Timed Release Notification system enables you to share folders about contacts with family members and/or friends should the need arise. Our photo and document storage allows you to create detailed contact profiles to share as a safety precaution (your timed-release messages will be sent ONLY if you do not cancel them prior to the scheduled delivery time)."

Brains!

The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy: Little Rock of Horror wherein Billy befriends an alien meteor that eats everybody's brain to the tune of 'BRAINS!' by Voltaire (which can be found on his CD Boo Hoo).

"Well, hello there, little boy, don't be shy,
Step right up; I'm a reasonable guy!
Don't be frightened by the look in my eye,
I'm just your average evil meteor from out of the sky."

Skelly Dance

JohnK has articles about rubber hose animation from 1928-1993.

Fun to see The Silly Symphony Skeleton Dance

In the The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: Hill Billy "Billy wants to learn how to juggle chickens, so he visits Uncle Chokey, the chicken juggler legend. Soon, the farm turns into that of a retro black-and-white cartoon."

When the black and white format overtakes Grim, he looks down at his altered bones and says in disgust, "Oh, great. There goes my whole design ethic!"

Then Grim goes on to do the the Skelly Dance!

delicious people

del.icio.us: it's made out of people: "You can add other del.icio.us users to your network either by visiting their del.icio.us pages or from the your network page itself. Once someone is in your network, you can keep track of their latest saved public bookmarks."

Much nicer than the subscribe/inbox model that was there before ...

Coolest Beers

Forbes.com: "As Harper and Oliver so pithily put it: “…many of these beers are marvels of technology and quality control that, when combined with successful mass marketing have allowed big American brewers to make beers with virtually no taste at all.”"

Saturdays In the Park!

SFist sez : "Yesterday, the Board of Supes approved by a 7-4 vote a measure to close off part of Kennedy Drive on Saturdays just as it is on Sundays. All eyes now turn to Gavin to see if he'll veto the measure. How or what will sway him nobody knows-- we're guessing it'll be whatever gets him another photo spread."

Yay! Death Monsters have to go away, far away, for to stay.

Top Chef

Sheesh, SFist has a huge write up on Bravo's Top Chef. And really, the SF cityscapes alone are worth watching the show.

"Lee Anne is distraught -- she's teamed with "the big thinker" (Lex (a.k.a. Stephen), naturally) and the "no thinker" (Miguel). Chef Tom says that the competition ain't called "top sous chef.""

PerlWar

PerlWar is inspired by the classic Corewar game. In this game, players pit snippets of Perl code (called 'agents') against each other in order to gain control of the vicious virtual battlefield known as... the Array.

Joss Whedon

Joss Sez: "And what of me? My short-lived series Firefly was the basis for the epic action film Serenity (now available on DVD! I have little or no shame), and the future will see even more incarnations of this visionary work, as it returns to TV as Serenity: The Firefly Years, then back to film as Firefly: Serenity's Sequel, back to TV as SereniFly, and finally end as the direct-to-eyeglasses series Choose a Damn Name Already. I promise it'll be as heartwarming and exciting as the original Serenity, now available on DVD. (Explain again this thing you call shame....)"

Amy at TVbloggin' sez: "Dear Joss --- Please come back to TV! We miss ya.

This was the obsession that started it all for me, and I will always feel that the television universe is not complete without a show from the Whedonverse included in the Prime Time TV listings."

Funny, the DVR suddenly started spitting out old Buffy's and I just can't seem to avert my eyes ...

Who Wants To Be A Superhero?

Who Wants To Be A Superhero?: "The SCI FI Channel, Nash Entertainment, and legendary comic-book creator Stan Lee will produce a six-episode, one-hour weekly competition reality series that will challenge a lucky few to create their very own superhero. The winner of this six-week competition will walk away with their superhero immortalized in a new comic book created by Stan Lee himself. It gets better: The winning character will also appear in an original SCI FI Channel movie!"

Caught the end of one. Weird. Dunno if they're just going to expire off the the dvr before I get to them ...

TVGuide Blogs

TVGuide: "Over 65 entertainment blogs are now live on the site, featuring expert reporting and commentary from writers and editors from both TV Guide magazine and TVguide.com. Every user can create his or her own blog about entertainment using TVGuide.com's simple blogging tools."

HBO also busted out some Blogs

Tag: tv

LiveJournal Ads

news: Introducing a new account level: "The Sponsored account level is an option for users who want access to premium features but would rather have advertising on their journal and Friends page and in the LiveJournal site than purchase a Paid account."

Read on (or flame-on as the case may be) at LJ Ads or LJ biz

Tag: livejournal

Beer And Movies At The Red Vic!

SFist: "The Board of Supervisors has agreed to allow beer and wine to be served at the Red Vic movie theatre. "

The Independent has a good run of silly movies but you have to have a couple of drinks. (Darn!)

Star Trek!

G4 breaks out a whole set of Star Trek: The Original Series. Check out the action figure promos, the karaoke one cracks me up.

Jive Magazine sez "G4's four on-air promotional spots use stop-motion animation to bring Star Trek action figures to life in contemporary urban settings: a coffeehouse, a swimming pool, a karaoke bar, and Spock's "crib." In "Karaoke," the first of the spots to air on YouTube, Spock performs Bobby Brown's "My Prerogative" -- complete with Vulcan salute -- to an enthusiastic, jumping crowd that includes Kirk, Scotty, Bones, Uhura, Sulu and Chekov. The characters are voiced by comedic actors, including Craig Kilborn as Captain Kirk, and Charlie Murphy of "Chappelle's Show" as Mr. Spock."

USGS Latest Earthquakes: Feeds & Data

USGS has real-time earthquake maps for Google Earth! As well as rss feeds that contain basic information (date, location, and magnitude) about each earthquake and a link to a detailed report.

My feed reader does the happy earthquake dance!

San Francisco Rising

San Francisco Rising

1906 Earthquake Centennial

SFgate: The Great Quake

Memorial at Lotta's Fountain, Market and Kearny Streets
Tuesday, April 18, 4:30 a.m. – 5:30 a.m.

Golden Hydrant Painting Celebration, 20th and Church Streets, Dolores Park
Tuesday, April 18, 7:00 a.m.

The Golden Fire Hydrant at Twentieth and Church was painted gold and returned to service, where it remains. Each April 18, it receives a fresh coat of golden paint. To this day, nobody knows where the water came from."

Muni is offering Free Service on All Lines 3am Tuesday, April 18, through 3am Wednesday, April 19, 2006. They'll even open the Metro subway at 3:00am!

Da Slickster has asked that any "places of worship" and fire departments to ring their bells in a citywide cacophony ensured to wake up just about everyone in the city at 5:14 am tomorrow morning.