Ultimate Halloween Wheels?
Catch a look at John Farr's Skeleton Bike and imagine how cool it would be to ride that thing to a Halloween party tonight. Spooky!
(Via MetaFilter)
Catch a look at John Farr's Skeleton Bike and imagine how cool it would be to ride that thing to a Halloween party tonight. Spooky!
Are you ready for the science? This wacky YouTube clip shows a horde of well-directed, dancing hippies giving hairy life to the process of protein synthesis, all set to a jiggly soundtrack.
Stupidest costume idea: Osama bin Laden, complete with fake gun and hand grenades. Stupidest thing to do when the cops come to check you out: refusing to comply with officers' requests immediately. Talk about a Halloweenie ...
Bill from Reedley forwards a Norwegian news story that gives me one more reason not to go swimming in lakes. Ick.
Steve Milton might have a little too much time on his hands. The Oregon man put together the world's biggest ball made of rubber bands.
I've harped about Seattle's "metronatural" problem. Would you consider Starbucks a plus or a minus for Seattle? (Personally, I prefer Peet's coffee.)
That's right -- the terror kingpin's former mountain hideout is going to be transformed into a resort. "Tora Bora is 100 percent safe," says Afghan warlord-turned-governor Gul Agha Sherazi, who's pimping the idea in The Sun.
San Francisco State University prof Sara Hackenberg teaches the class, and the San Francisco Chronicle's best writer, Steve Rubenstein, captures the scene of the apparently horrific midterm exam.
The good folks at Festival Preview, in a post by Chris Ellis titled "All About Summerfest," turn in an informative little roundup that includes TDA in a long list of musical luminaries that play Milwaukee's Big Gig. Steely Dan, Willie Nelson, Wilco, Hank Williams Jr., John Mellencamp, Los Lobos, Those Darn Accordions ... now that's good company. Hope we end up playing Summerfest in 2007.
That's what EMI bigwig Alain Levy says, adding that "value-added" material included with discs is the only way to keep physical media alive.
Actually, this is no laughing matter: A Connecticut man was killed when some wiseguy threw a keg of beer into a bonfire. The explosion could be heard for miles, and several people were injured. That's one party trick to delete from your repertoire.
Just listen to Neal Mueller whine in The Washington Post about how his precious iPod didn't work on top of Mount Everest. I love Van Halen (original lineup, please), but 29,000 feet above sea level is no place to be listening to "Take Your Whiskey Home" unless you're chillin' in coach.
To which we reply: but of course.
Who doesn't like Seattle? Who doesn't think of the pearl of the Pacific Northwest as a fine place to visit, what with the Bumbershoot festival, the Space Needle, the flying fish at Pike's Place, and all that natural beauty, like the Puget Sound (and let's not even get into the "Seattle sound")?
What a great crowd last night at Mill Valley's "hub for public live arts." Possibly the best "beer, beer, beer!" audience shout-out in TDA history! (Bring it on, Milwaukee.) Thanks to everybody who came out to the show, and to Lucy and the whole Throck crew for taking such good care of us.
OK, so maybe that's "last TDA show of summer." And maybe it's not really summer anymore, either, but it sure feels like it here in the sunny Bay Area. See you tonight at 142 Throckmorton Theatre in Mill Valley -- our last show of the year, unless something pops up in a happy and rewarding fashion. Next stop: the studio to record another TDA epic.
"Accordion Player Wins Latin MTV Award," the headline says -- you don't see that every day. Congrats to the "accordion-toting" Julieta Venegas, who bagged the best singer award.
The Atlantis Casino Resort Spa in Reno, Nev., that is. And look who's playing: Jimmy Sturr and His Orchestra, Polka Power of California and Big Lou's Polka Casserole. The Sacramento Bee has all the info (as well as getting Big Lou's band's name wrong). No info yet on the Atlantis site ...
Wired News funnyman Lore Sjöberg is now a cat herder: He rounded up a bunch of YouTube video clips that show man's other best friend burning off a few bowls of Kitten Chow.
I always knew "Weird Al" Yankovic was cool, but I never thought the Village Voice would stoop to giving major play to an artist without a pierced navel, freaky tattoos and bizarre nocturnal habits. (Of course, maybe Al's got all that good stuff.) But Al's Straight Outta Lynwood CD/DVD busted out in the Billboard Top 10, so it's time he gets his due in the alternative press. Or something.
OK, so the headline ("Variety of Sounds Heard at International Accordion Festival") is lame. But the Houston Chronicle's article is intriguing as it paints a picture of the International Accordion Festival in San Antonio, Texas.
West Virginia man Ric Griffith is aiming for 3,000 orange orbs in his massive backyard pumpkin patch. How's that for an off-the-hook Halloween display?
TDA alumna (and novice storm chaser) Patty made the front page of The Maui News today after a photog snapped a picture of her stalking a dust devil on the Hawaiian island. Looks like one of those black clouds from Lost if you ask me ...
When did eMusic become so cool? While I wasn't looking, the site got all "social," letting users create Member Playlists of their favorite albums. It also added a feature called eMusic Dozens that gives lets rock critics like Chuck Eddy a chance to shout out their favorite artists.
A clear-headed reader wrote a letter to The Capital Times in Madison, Wis., calling for the squeezebox to be given its due in the Dairy State.
Looks like the Turner Hall in Monroe, Wis., is about to play host to a 30-piece button accordion band from Switzerland.
Ready for big accordion fun in the "biggest little city in the world"? It's time once again for the Eldorado Great Italian Festival. Word on the street is that we play at 11 a.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday. See you there!
The Smoking Gun does it again: The site's posted the entire 18-page document that describes, in impressive detail and lunatic language, the Stooges' wacky tour requirements.
We don't talk about architecture much 'round these parts, but when The New York Sun calls the new Bronx Museum of the Arts a "Bronx bombshell" and says the building looks like a squeezebox, it's time to fire up the Google image search.
It is a fair guess that, sooner or later, people will start referring to this new three-story structure as the Accordion Building. It unfurls along the Grand Concourse like the folds of that estimable instrument in a stunning mirage of shimmering aluminum. A little jagged and a little syncopated, the building suggests the lively, off-kilter rhythms associated with the Latino culture that now predominates in the borough.